👨‍🚀 4 hot AI tools to try out

Hello AInauts,

Welcome to the latest issue of your favorite newsletter! Ready for a journey of discovery? We've brought you a treasure chest full of experiments, and every second paragraph has a "Try it now" button. Motto: Learning by doing!

And for dessert, there's the Soham Parekh scandal straight out of the Valley - sorry, Mumbai. This story is wild and tops every Netflix series ... So, that's what we have in store for you today:

• 🪄 4 new practical tips to try out immediately

• 🧑‍💻 Soham Parekh scandal: developer tricks Silicon Valley

Here we go!

🪄 Practical tips to try out: ChatGPT Projects, Veo-3, Runway Gen-4 Images & Claude Artifacts Remix

Today we take a look at four exciting updates that you probably haven't used yet: the new ChatGPT Projects features for better organization, the impressive image generation of Runway Gen-4, how to create videos with Google Veo-3 for free and the clever Claude Artifacts, with which you can create your own small apps in no time.

ChatGPT Projects: Organized work, private and business separated

Anyone who uses ChatGPT for both private and business purposes will be familiar with the problem: the context get mixed up, and the "custom instructions" are often not suitable for both contexts. Until now, using two separate, paid accounts was an obvious but expensive solution.

Pro tip: With ChatGPT Projects, you can create different tasks or areas of your life as separate projects - such as "Private" and "Business". Another reason why a Plus subscription is worthwhile!

Since each project has its own specific "instructions", you have an elegant solution to optimally serve both worlds with just one paid account.

In addition, ChatGPT Projects has also received some exciting feature upgrades:

• With Deep Research, you have a multi-level research function that links project context with public web sources and intelligently combines this information with current internet sources.

• The Voice Mode in Projects finally makes hands-free brainstorming possible.

• The improved memory function references past conversations within a project for focused, informed responses.

• The limitation: Projects cannot be shared, only individual chats.

• And as far as data protection is concerned: For team accounts (from 25$/user/month), data is not used for model training by default - for private Plus accounts (20$/month) it is, unless you deactivate "Improve the model for everyone" in the settings.

Runway Gen-4: photorealistic images via app or API

Runway Gen-4 has made a name for itself in the video sector. But it can also do images! The results are not only really good, but also accessible via an API, which enables completely new use cases.

You can test Gen-4 directly at Runway for free. Alternatively, Replicate offers use from 5 cents per generated image (without subscription, see screenshot). There you will also find examples including prompts for inspiration. And for those who want to delve go deeper, there is comprehensive documentation on GitHub.

Since up to 3 reference images can be used simultaneously, you have precise control over faces, products, locations, etc.

This finally makes brand-compliant product placements scalable: product visualization in different scenes, consistent product presentation with different lighting, virtual try-on via photo upload, consistent model, etc. A/B testing of product visualizations becomes easy and fun!

Google Veo 3: You can use it for free with this trick

Veo 3 is Google's latest video model that builds up to 12-second clips, including sound from your prompts! But it comes at a price... If you don't want to pay the expensive $250 per month Ultra plan, you can use it for free thanks to Perplexity.ai.

Here's how it works:

1. Go to X.com and create a new post.

2. Follow @AskPerplexity and tag the Perplexity bot.

3. Write your prompt for the video you want to create.

4. Be patient - or try again later, with a different account 😎

Pro tips: You can find lots of examples via the X.com search. You can also upload an image and have it animated ("Create video of this image") or have someone say something specific ("Make this person say: ...") - more tips here.

Claude Artifacts: Forking cool apps made easy

Do you have an idea for a small, useful app but don't have the time or desire to develop it vibe-code? Then you should definitely take a look at Claude's Artifacts. The new remix feature is the quickest way to "fork" an existing application and adapt it to your own needs.

There are lots of cool examples on the Claude Artifacts inspiration page. It's free to use, you just need a free account with Claude.

How about an e-mail content generator, for example? With a click on "Remix" you can change it as you like - we have Germanized and improved the existing Artifact, see here. With one prompt, you can get an English version - just give it a try!

There are many practical applications for Claude Artifacts: MVP development without coding skills, marketing tools and landing pages, customer demo prototypes, internal tools for teamwork, ...

Pro tips: The prompt "Make it better" or "Make it 10x better" works surprisingly well for iterative improvements. Always start with the basic structure first, then add details.

And use the community artifacts as inspiration instead of starting from scratch - or this Google search together with your keyword.

🧑‍💻 The Soham Parekh scandal: How an Indian developer tricked Silicon Valley

A single software developer from Mumbai "worked" for several start-ups at the same time, earning 30,000-40,000 dollars a month.

This made him probably the most talked about person in Silicon Valley since the Theranos debacle. Except that his "machine" didn't analyze blood, but collected laptops and scored interviews (... with or without the Cluely app?). We're definitely looking forward to the Netflix documentary about it.

How did he manage it? Let's dive into this exciting story!

The story of a Silicon Valley scandal

On July 2, Playground AI founder Suhail Doshi published a warning on X: Parekh had deliberately deceived him and other founders, was working for several start-ups at the same time and was systematically lying. The tweet went viral. And 22 million views (!) later, Soham Parekh was the new main character of the Valley Tech bubble.

The story is like a start-up fairytale in reverse: a smart but unscrupulous dev. Friendly, technically competent, impressive in interviews, but virtually never available. He ghosted meetings and let deadlines pass without code commits.

The list of affected companies (at least 19, according to sohamtracker.com) reads like a Who's Who of the start-up scene: Playground AI, Mixpanel, Antimetal, Lindy, Dynamo AI, Union AI, Synthesia. They've all been fooled.

How Parekh defrauded Silicon Valley startups

Parekh juggled between several full-time positions for over three years without the companies knowing about each other. His methods were sophisticated and brazen:

• Fake master's from Georgia Tech, made-up credentials

• USA as alleged place of residence, although he was based in Mumbai

• Clever IP spoofing and excuse ping-pong when contradictions were exposed

• Convincing top 1% candidate performance in interviews

He said he was "not proud" of the whole thing, but "had no choice" (his full interview here).

Financial pressure, a toxic work environment and "140-hour weeks" had forced him to start at several US start-ups at the same time. Even his own X account now seems like a meta-commentary: calm but observant.

Legally, the case is in a gray area. Although Parekh has obviously breached contracts and defrauded employers, criminal prosecution is unlikely.

He has also already found a new job! Darwin Studios, an AI video startup, believes in his skills and hired him as a founding engineer. Soham promised: "That's the only thing I'm going to focus on now."

Our take: AI makes it possible, and this is just the beginning...

Some celebrated it, others were less enthusiastic: "It's like dating four girlfriends at once and claiming it's 'efficient time management'", wrote one outraged Twitter user.

This case also shows a growing phenomenon in the world of work: you don't just have a "side hustle", you are "overemployed" with several (virtual) full-time jobs. The r/overemployed subreddit already has 500,000 members. Some make annual incomes of over 500,000 dollars with mouse jigglers, KVM switches and AI tools!

He acted like a classic startup. Scaled quickly, hacked the system and then crashed spectacularly. It wasn't a lack of skills that blew up, but too much optimization and a viral tweet.

The fact is: AI makes it possible to manage multiple jobs more efficiently than it used to be possible to manage a single job! What seems like a scam today could be normal tomorrow…

We made it! But no need to be sad. The AInauts will be back soon, with new stuff for you.

Reto & Fabian from the AInauts

P.S.: Follow us on social media - it motivates us to keep going 😁!
X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Insta, YouTube, TikTok

Your feedback is essential for us. We read EVERY comment and feedback, just respond to this email. Tell us what was (not) good and what is interesting for YOU.