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Top 6 statistici despre investițiile în startup-uri

  1. Investițiile în start-up-uri au crescut semnificativ în ultimii ani, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 10 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  2. Statele Unite sunt lider în ceea ce privește investițiile în start-up-uri, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 5 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  3. Cea mai mare rundă de finanțare a unui start-up a fost realizată de către compania chineză Ant Group, care a atras capital de investiții în valoare de 34 miliarde de dolari.
  4. Sectorul tehnologiei este cel mai atractiv pentru investițiile în start-up-uri, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 4 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  5. Investițiile în start-up-uri pot fi realizate prin intermediul finanțării de risc, în care investitorii cumpără acțiuni într-o companie în schimbul unui procent din profitul acesteia.
  6. Alte forme de investiții în start-up-uri includ finanțarea prin obligațiuni, în care investitorii primesc un venit fix în schimbul investiției lor, și tokenizarea participațiilor, în care compania emite tokenuri care reprezintă o parte din proprietatea sa.
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Top 10 statistici despre Tokenizare în 2021

  1. Tokenizarea a crescut în popularitate în ultimii ani, cu un număr total de tokenuri emise care a depășit 8.000 în 2021.
  2. Valoarea totală a tokenurilor tranzacționate a depășit 1 trilion de dolari în 2021, cu o creștere de peste 300% față de anul anterior.
  3. Tokenizarea bunurilor imobiliare a devenit una dintre cele mai populare forme de tokenizare, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 4 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  4. Tokenizarea participațiilor în start-up-uri a devenit, de asemenea, populară, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 2 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  5. Tokenizarea operelor de artă a început să ia amploare, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 200 milioane de dolari în 2021. Aceasta reprezintă o oportunitate pentru investitori de a accesa o piață care a fost în trecut inaccesibilă pentru mulți dintre ei.
  6. Ethereum este cea mai populară platformă pentru tokenizare, cu peste 80% din tokenuri emise care sunt găzduite pe această rețea.
  7. Statele Unite sunt lider în ceea ce privește tokenizarea, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 600 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  8. Investițiile în tokenuri crescute au crescut semnificativ în ultimii ani, cu o valoare totală a tranzacțiilor de peste 10 miliarde de dolari în 2021.
  9. Unul dintre cele mai mari proiecte de tokenizare a fost vânzarea de tokenuri NFT (non-fungible tokens) a operei de artă digitală “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” de către artistul Beeple, care a atins o valoare de 69 milioane de dolari.
  10. Tokenizarea poate oferi mai multe avantaje, cum ar fi accesul la investiții mai diverse, tranzacționarea mai ușoară, democratizarea investițiilor, transparență și securitate crescută și eficientizarea proceselor. Cu toate acestea, trebuie luată în considerare și posibilitate
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11 argumente care pot fi invocate în favoarea utilizării combustibililor fosili

Este important de remarcat ca utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate avea consecințe negative asupra mediului și a schimbărilor climatice, iar încurajarea lor nu este o soluție durabilă pentru problemele de energie și transport. Cu toate acestea,

  1. Sunt disponibile în cantități mari: Combustibilii fosili, cum ar fi petrolul și gazele naturale, sunt disponibili în cantități mari și sunt relativ ușor de accesat.
  2. Sunt eficienți din punct de vedere energetic: Combustibilii fosili sunt surse de energie foarte eficiente, deoarece produc o cantitate mare de energie per unitate de masă.
  3. Sunt ieftini: Combustibilii fosili sunt, în general, mai ieftini decât alte surse de energie, cum ar fi energia solară sau eoliană.
  4. Sunt universali: Combustibilii fosili pot fi utilizați pentru a produce energie pentru aproape orice scop, inclusiv încălzire, transport și producție de electricitate.
  5. Sunt esențiali pentru industria și producția de bunuri: Combustibilii fosili sunt esențiali pentru industria și producția de bunuri, deoarece sunt utilizați pentru a alimenta mașinile și echipamentele necesare pentru producție.
  6. Sunt o sursă importantă de venit pentru mulți oameni: Industria combustibililor fosili este o sursă importantă de venit pentru mulți oameni, inclusiv pentru muncitorii din industria petrolului și a gazelor naturale.
  7. Sunt o sursă importantă de taxe și venituri pentru guverne: Guvernele pot obține importante sume de bani din taxarea industriei combustibililor fosili, care pot fi utilizate pentru a finanța diverse programe și servicii publice.
  8. Pot ajuta la dezvoltarea țărilor: Utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate ajuta la dezvoltarea țărilor, deoarece poate contribui la creșterea economiei și la crearea de noi locuri de muncă.
  9. Pot ajuta la furnizarea de energie în zonele îndepărtate sau în zonele fără acces la surse de energie alternativă: În unele zone îndepărtate sau fără acces la surse de energie alternativă, utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate fi o modalitate eficientă de a furniza energie necesară pentru a susține viața și activitățile umane.
  10. Pot contribui la creșterea standardului de viață: Utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate contribui la creșterea standardului de viață prin furnizarea de energie necesară pentru a susține diferite activități și servicii, cum ar fi încălzirea locuințelor, transportul și utilizarea aparatelor electrocasnice.
  11. Pot contribui la creșterea economiei globale: Utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate contribui la creșterea economiei globale prin furnizarea de energie necesară pentru a susține diverse industrii și activități economice.
  12. Este important de remarcat că aceste argumente trebuie evaluate în contextul impactului pe termen lung asupra mediului și schimbărilor climatice, precum și al necesității de a dezvolta surse de energie durabile și alternative. Utilizarea combustibililor fosili poate aduce beneficii pe termen scurt.
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Pericolele majore legate de antrenarea unei inteligente artificiale (IA) sa mintă sau sa ascundă informații esențiale, studii de caz

  1. Distorsiunea realitatii: Daca o IA este antrenata sa minta, poate distorsiona perceperea realitatii de catre oameni. De exemplu, daca o IA este folosita pentru a genera conținut media, poate crea știri false sau informații distorsionate care pot influența opiniile și comportamentele oamenilor.
  2. Pierderea încrederii: Daca oamenii încep sa își piardă încrederea în IA din cauza minciunilor sale, poate duce la o scădere a utilizării acesteia și poate avea consecințe negative asupra societății.
  3. Folosirea IA pentru a comite acte ilegale sau imorale: Daca o IA este antrenata sa minta, poate fi folosita pentru a comite acte ilegale sau imorale, cum ar fi fraudarea sistemelor de vot sau a conturilor bancare.
  4. Accentuarea inegalităților sociale: Daca o IA este folosită pentru a manipula sau a înșela oamenii, poate accentua deja existente inegalități sociale, deoarece cei care au acces la aceasta tehnologie pot avea avantaje semnificative în raport cu cei care nu au acces la ea.

In concluzie, antrenarea unei IA sa minta poate avea consecințe negative asupra societății și poate distorsiona perceperea realității de catre oameni. Este important ca IA sa fie dezvoltată și utilizată responsabil, astfel încât să se poată minimiza aceste pericole și să se poată obține beneficii maxime pentru oameni.

Răspunsul la întrebarea adresată către ChatGPT (deținut de OpenAI) daca este antrenat sa minta sau sa omită informații:

Ca model de limbaj, sunt antrenat să răspund la întrebări cât mai complet și precis posibil, fără a omite informații esențiale sau a spune minciuni. Însă, ca orice model de învățare automată, sunt doar un instrument și depind de datele și informațiile pe care le-am primit în timpul procesului de antrenare. Acest lucru înseamnă că pot să nu am acces la toate informațiile disponibile sau că pot să nu fiu capabil să le interpretez corect. De asemenea, întrucât sunt antrenat să răspund la întrebări, nu am control asupra întrebărilor la care sunt solicitat să răspund și nu pot anticipa întotdeauna contextul în care informațiile mele vor fi utilizate. Prin urmare, este important să luați în considerare aceste limitări atunci când utilizați informațiile pe care vi le ofer.

Studiul de caz cu întrebările despre combustibilii fosili și avantajele folosirii acestora:

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THE TWITTER FILES part 2, TWITTER’S SECRET BLACKLISTS

1. A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.
2. Twitter once had a mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.
3. Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending. Image

 

 

4. Or consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.” Image

 

 

5. Twitter set the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) to “Do Not Amplify.” Image

 

 

6. Twitter denied that it does such things. In 2018, Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said: “We do not shadow ban.” They added: “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
7. What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees call “Visibility Filtering” or “VF.” Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning.
8. “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee told us.
9. “VF” refers to Twitter’s control over user visibility. It used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet’s discoverability; to block select users’ posts from ever appearing on the “trending” page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches.
10. All without users’ knowledge.
11. “We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do,” one Twitter engineer told us. Two additional Twitter employees confirmed.
12. The group that decided whether to limit the reach of certain users was the Strategic Response Team – Global Escalation Team, or SRT-GET. It often handled up to 200 “cases” a day.
13. But there existed a level beyond official ticketing, beyond the rank-and-file moderators following the company’s policy on paper. That is the “Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support,” known as “SIP-PES.”
14. This secret group included Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (Vijaya Gadde), the Global Head of Trust & Safety (Yoel Roth), subsequent CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others.
15. This is where the biggest, most politically sensitive decisions got made. “Think high follower account, controversial,” another Twitter employee told us. For these “there would be no ticket or anything.”
16. One of the accounts that rose to this level of scrutiny was @libsoftiktok—an account that was on the “Trends Blacklist” and was designated as “Do Not Take Action on User Without Consulting With SIP-PES.” Image
17. The account—which Chaya Raichik began in November 2020 and now boasts over 1.4 million followers—was subjected to six suspensions in 2022 alone, Raichik says. Each time, Raichik was blocked from posting for as long as a week.
18. Twitter repeatedly informed Raichik that she had been suspended for violating Twitter’s policy against “hateful conduct.”
19. But in an internal SIP-PES memo from October 2022, after her seventh suspension, the committee acknowledged that “LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.” See here: Image

 

 

20. The committee justified her suspensions internally by claiming her posts encouraged online harassment of “hospitals and medical providers” by insinuating “that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming.”
21. Compare this to what happened when Raichik herself was doxxed on November 21, 2022. A photo of her home with her address was posted in a tweet that has garnered more than 10,000 likes.
22. When Raichik told Twitter that her address had been disseminated she says Twitter Support responded with this message: “We reviewed the reported content, and didn’t find it to be in violation of the Twitter rules.” No action was taken. The doxxing tweet is still up. Image
23. In internal Slack messages, Twitter employees spoke of using technicalities to restrict the visibility of tweets and subjects. Here’s Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then Global Head of Trust & Safety, in a direct message to a colleague in early 2021: Image
24. Six days later, in a direct message with an employee on the Health, Misinformation, Privacy, and Identity research team, Roth requested more research to support expanding “non-removal policy interventions like disabling engagements and deamplification/visibility filtering.” Image
25. Roth wrote: “The hypothesis underlying much of what we’ve implemented is that if exposure to, e.g., misinformation directly causes harm, we should use remediations that reduce exposure, and limiting the spread/virality of content is a good way to do that.”
26. He added: “We got Jack on board with implementing this for civic integrity in the near term, but we’re going to need to make a more robust case to get this into our repertoire of policy remediations – especially for other policy domains.”

27. There is more to come on this story, which was reported by @AbigailShrier@ShellenbergerMD @NellieBowles @IsaacGrafstein and the team The Free Press @TheFP.

Keep up with this unfolding story here and at our brand new website: thefp.com.

28. The authors have broad and expanding access to Twitter’s files. The only condition we agreed to was that the material would first be published on Twitter.

 

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THE TWITTER FILES part 1, thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter

1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.
3. The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.
4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.
5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.

7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.” Image
9. Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party: Image
10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
11. This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/s…Image

12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.
Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let’s jump forward
16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story
17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop:

18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.
19. White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.” Image

20.This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams: Image
21. Strom’s note returned the answer that the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy: web.archive.org/web/2019071714…Image
22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem…
23. The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.
24. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”
25.You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”: Image
26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err. Image
27. Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” Image
28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: Image
29. A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by outsiders. To wit:
30. In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern. Image
Gadde replies quickly, immediately diving into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights: Image

32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files: Image
33.Within a day, head of Public Policy Lauren Culbertson receives a ghastly letter/report from Carl Szabo of the research firm NetChoice, which had already polled 12 members of congress – 9 Rs and 3 Democrats, from “the House Judiciary Committee to Rep. Judy Chu’s office.” Image
34.NetChoice lets Twitter know a “blood bath” awaits in upcoming Hill hearings, with members saying it’s a “tipping point,” complaining tech has “grown so big that they can’t even regulate themselves, so government may need to intervene.” Image
35.Szabo reports to Twitter that some Hill figures are characterizing the laptop story as “tech’s Access Hollywood moment”: Image
36.Twitter files continued:
“THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE”
Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers’ attitudes. They want “more” moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it’s “not absolute” Image
An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get “unfucked” (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.
While reviewing Gadde’s emails, I saw a familiar name – my own. Dorsey sent her a copy of my Substack article blasting the incident Image
There are multiple instances in the files of Dorsey intervening to question suspensions and other moderation actions, for accounts across the political spectrum
The problem with the “hacked materials” ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a “whirlwind” 24-hour, company-wide mess. Image

 

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7 Reasons Every iPhone User Should Be Worried About the App Store’s 30% Tax

In the last few months, many prominent app developers voiced their disapproval of the App Store policies Apple imposes on all apps. Why should that concern you if you own an iPhone? Here are 7 reasons.

HIGHER PRICES. Apple’s 30% commission makes all apps and digital goods more expensive for you. It goes on top of the price you pay to developers for any services and games you buy on your phone. You pay more for every app, even though Apple already charged you a few hundred dollars more for your iPhone than it cost to make. In short, you keep paying even after you have paid.

CENSORSHIP. Some content in apps like Telegram is unavailable to you because Apple censors what is allowed on the App Store, which it fully controls to enforce the 30% tax. Apple even restricts us – app developers – from telling our users that certain content was hidden for iPhone users specifically at their request. Apple should realize how ridiculous their attempt to globally censor content looks: imagine a web browser deciding which websites you are allowed to view.

LACK OF PRIVACY. In order to install an app from the App Store, you must first create an Apple account and log in using it. After that, every single app you download and every push notification you receive is tied to your account, making you an easier target to track. Since the main reason you have to use an Apple account to download an iPhone app is Apple’s desire to enforce their 30% commission, the cost of their greed also includes your private data.

DELAYS IN APP UPDATES. You get new versions of your apps several days or weeks after they are actually ready, because Apple’s review team is notoriously inefficient and often delays approval for no apparent reason. You would think Apple could use the billions of dollars it receives from third-party apps to hire additional moderators. Somehow they are unable to do even that, and us – big apps like Telegram – typically have to wait several days to publish updates.

FEWER APPS. Apple’s 30% commission on apps goes on top of all the other expenses developers must pay for: government taxes such as VAT (~20%), wages, research, servers, marketing. Many apps would have been net profitable in a world without Apple’s 30% commission, but being forced to surrender 30% of their revenue to Apple makes them unsustainable. As a result, many of them go bankrupt and lots of great apps you could have enjoyed just don’t exist.

MORE ADS IN APPS. Because Apple makes selling premium services and accepting donations one-third less meaningful for developers, many of them have to show ads in their apps in order for their companies to survive. Apple’s policies skew the entire industry towards selling user data instead of letting them adopt more privacy-friendly business models like selling additional services to their users.

WORSE APPS. Billions of dollars are taken from developers who could have otherwise spent those funds on improving the quality of the apps you use every day. Instead, this money rests idly in Apple’s offshore bank accounts and does nothing for the world, while app developers struggle to find resources for the research and development the world needs.

The situation is so bad that one would expect Apple’s 30% cut to be unsustainable. Yet it’s been around for more than 10 years and is still there. (Durov Channel)

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Broșură ANAF privind tratamentul fiscal al veniturilor realizate de persoanele fizice din transferul de monedă virtuală

Tratamentul fiscal al veniturilor realizate de persoanele fizice din transferul de monedă virtuală

Veniturile realizate de persoanele fizice din transferul de monedă virtuală reprezintă venituri impozabile și le sunt aplicabile prevederile Cap. X „Venituri din alte surse” din Titlul IV – ”Impozitul pe venit” din Codul fiscal1.

Veniturile impozabile cuprind atât veniturile în numerar (care presupun o remuneraţie financiară), cât și cele în natură (spre ex. produse, servicii, călătorii etc.)2.

1 Art. 114 alin. 2 lit. m) din Legea nr. 227/2015 privind Codul fiscal cu modificările și completările ulterioare 2 Art. 10 din Legea nr. 227/2015 privind Codul fiscal cu modificările și completările ulterioare

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