LA Tech Week is almost here, and pre-events are already popping up! Catch a fireside chat with Silicon Beach OGs Mike Jones (Science) and Dan Negari (.XYZ) as they discuss reviving Santa Monica, the original Silicon Beach city. Can't wait to hear their plans!

The demodayLA September series was pure awesome! 20 investors, 14 startups, and over 100 attendees packed BLANKSPACES in Venice Beach. Seriously, people are still buzzing about it on social! Read on …

Plenty to unpack here, keep reading!

OpenAI is hosting their highly anticipated DevDay on October 6, 2025, bringing together over 1,500 developers from around the world. The event will kick off with a livestreamed opening keynote, offering insights into the latest advancements and updates.

Attendees will also get hands-on experience building with OpenAI’s newest models and tools, designed to empower developers and spark innovation. For more detail, go to OpenAI - HERE

Okay, so YouTube, right? It's basically the entertainment king, seriously shaping what we all watch and create. When they dropped mid-video ad breaks, guess what? Videos suddenly got longer to fit 'em in! And when they hinted podcasters should do video, everyone jumped on board. It's wild how much influence they have, isn't it?

Now, in its next major move, YouTube seems poised to push its creators toward livestreaming. The company is not only making livestreaming more accessible but also finding new ways to incentivize creators, suggesting that this could become a larger focus of the platform. For creators, this means adapting their strategies once again to align with YouTube's evolving priorities and tools.

demodayLA September series just happened. With 20 investors (OpenSky, Sunstone Invesments, Netcapital, Uplist Ventures, Gumshoe Ventures, more) in the house gawking over 14 startups pitching to over 100 attendees at BLANKSPACES in Venice Beach was pure awesome. Might have gone viral, we still see people chatting about it on social.

The demodayLA September series was pure awesome! 20 investors, 14 startups, and over 100 attendees packed BLANKSPACES in Venice Beach. Seriously, people are still buzzing about it on social!

Meet the 14 startups who pitched on stage - HERE

See you all on NOVEMBER 20!

Hold up, coffee lovers! Starbucks is making some pretty big moves, planning to cut a whopping 900 corporate jobs and close some of its stores across the U.S. and Canada. This all comes as the coffee giant gets closer to the one-year mark of its major turnaround plan. You know, the kind of plan that makes big companies rethink everything to bounce back even stronger!

So, what's the deal with store closures? The company expects its total store count to shrink by about 1%, which could mean roughly 200 locations might be brewing their last lattes. Think about it, that's a noticeable number for a brand as huge as Starbucks! But don't fret too much, because after this trim, the chain isn't just going to sit back. They're actually planning to seriously invest in opening new, fresh stores and giving over 1,000 existing locations a snazzy makeover. It’s all about strategizing for the future, even if it means some tough decisions now.

If you think only brand-name schools like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and USC are helping birth some of the next big companies, think again. Turns out the Cal State University system is nurturing a range of promising young startups. Founders in biotech, CPG, fintech, robotics, and of course AI pitched at CSU Demo Day during day 2 of Long Beach Tech Week on Wednesday. 

We also had a blast meeting computer science students from Cal State Northridge, aerospace engineering students from Cal State Long Beach and university leaders (and gems!) like David Ochi of CSU Dominguez Hills.

One company to watch from CSU Demo Day group: AI video-editing tool Eleven Percent, which is already partnered with Adobe and quickly growing paid subscriptions among pro video editors.

Okay, so get this: Neon, which is currently blowing up as the No. 2 social app on the Apple App Store, has a super interesting (and maybe a little wild?) business model. They're literally paying users to record their phone calls – yes, you heard that right, your actual conversations!

And then, they take all that juicy, recorded data and sell it off to various AI firms. It's definitely a head-scratcher and a whole new level of "sharing is caring" in the digital age, don't you think? - Techcrunch

WeeklyHap is a weekly newsletter published by Schmoozd, focusing on events, people, and things around Los Angeles, sometimes beyond. We partner with StartupCoil, demodayLA, DigitalLA, AI LA, among other organizations, on events. If you participated in any of these events, it is probable that you will receive this email.