Investing in people first with Contrary and AtoB

It’s been tough to raise funds in the last few years for most sectors, and most VCs will tell you that a startup needs to have a killer product-market fit before getting that check. But Eric Tarczynski of Contrary Capital believes in investing in people over businesses, and the wisdom to this approach has been…

Published

4 years ago

March 22, 2023

CYBER TECH TV

AtoB actually started out as something akin to Uber for buses, but due to the strength of the founding team, the company was able to quickly pivot and become a platform that’s more like Stripe for transportation. It’s an integrated financial platform that’s based around the core product of a fuel card for truckers. Since founding in September 2019, AtoB has scaled to a network of 25,000 businesses and 100,000 truck drivers in the U.S. To give you an idea of how huge this potential market is, Harshita Arora, co-founder of the company, says she thinks AtoB has captured around 5% of the market share in the U.S. and can already project for $100 million in revenue.

Arora herself actually presents as the perfect example of why VCs might want to find the gems of the world and let them do their thing. Born and raised in India, the now 21-year-old founder dropped out of school when she was 14 for more challenging pursuits. At 16, she founded the Crypto Price Tracker, which became an App Store hit and was acquired by Redwood City Ventures in 2018. In a startup world that has been defined by the so-called Boy Genius (AKA a hoodie-clad MIT dropout at whom VCs have historically thrown billions of dollars), Arora represents the future of investing in the next generation of Girl Geniuses.

We hosted Arora and Tarczynski on TechCrunch Live to discuss why VCs should invest in people over businesses, red and green flags of founding teams, AtoB’s journey of building a product based on trucker pain points and more.

People & Blogs

Would you try this reading challenge? #TEDTalks

Published

10 hours ago

September 29, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

Ann Morgan considered herself well read — until she discovered the “massive blindspot” on her bookshelf. Amid a multitude of English and American authors, there were very few books from beyond the English-speaking world. So she set an ambitious goal: to read one book from every country in the world over the course of a year. Now she’s urging other Anglophiles to read translated works so that publishers will work harder to bring foreign literary gems back to their shores.

CNET

OpenAI Dev Day 2026: Everything Announced in 15 Minutes

OpenAI’s annual Dev Day 2026 introduced dots, which are AI agents within ChatGPT that can execute tasks on your behalf and even answer phone calls and text messages. CEO Sam Altman also introduced a faster and more powerful model called GPT-6.1 Sol for professional coding and work applications. Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com: OpenAI’s…

Published

10 hours ago

September 29, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com:
OpenAI’s Latest Personal AI Agents Have a Cute Name and Never Stop Working

Timecode Chapters:
0:00 Introduction & Codex Updates
0:22 Introducing AI Agents: Dots
1:18 How Dots Delegate & Automate Work
1:37 ChatGPT Space: Team & Agent Collaboration
3:06 Live Demo: Dots in Action
4:15 Hands-Free Catchup & Voice Features
4:53 Live Demo: Working inside ChatGPT Space
6:04 Integrating Dots into Slack & Workflows
7:56 Specialist Dots & Enterprise Availability
8:52 Launching GPT 6.1 Soul & UltraFast Speed
10:14 Decisions API & Luna Model
10:55 Codex in the Cloud & 3D Interactive World Demo
12:23 Refreshed Codex CLI & Real-time App Building
13:38 Autonomous Browser Control & Robotics Demo
13:51 OpenAI Marketplace Launch & Wrap-up

Video Credits:
Host: OpenAI
Scripted by: OpenAI
Producer: OpenAI & Jonathan Gomez
Camera: OpenAI
Video Editor: Jonathan Gomez
Thumbnail Designer: Tharon Green

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#openai #samaltman #ai #artificialintelligence #superintelligence #chatgpt #aiagents #aiagent #dots

Entertainment

Biomedical Scientist Schools AI On Probiotics

AI slop is littering your feed and spreading misinformation, so WIRED’s here to set the record straight. Join Biomedical Scientist Andrea Love as we fact check the internet, pseudoscience edition. #Pseudoscience #Science #AI Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►► Download the WIRED app: Listen to the Uncanny Valley podcast ►► Want more WIRED?…

Published

11 hours ago

September 29, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

AI slop is littering your feed and spreading misinformation, so WIRED’s here to set the record straight. Join Biomedical Scientist Andrea Love as we fact check the internet, pseudoscience edition.

#Pseudoscience #Science #AI

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