Sam Altman’s next startup eyes using sound waves to read your brain
TL;DR
Sam Altman is launching Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup, with Mikhail Shapiro as a key leader. The company aims to use sound waves for brain reading and plans to raise hundreds of millions from investors like OpenAI.
This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
Sam Altman has tapped Mikhail Shapiro, an award-winning biomolecular engineer, to join the Merge Labs brain-computer interface startup he's set to announce soon with co-founder Alex Blania.
While Shapiro's official title is unclear, sources say he will be part of Merge's founding team and has been positioned as a key leader in talks with investors. Those talks are ongoing, but Merge expects to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from OpenAI and others, as The Financial Times earlier reported.
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