It was an easy choice for me. I'm not a pure academic person. I've done entrepreneurship before, worked at large tech firms, and hold CFA and PMP certifications. I love challenges. When I joined Z.ai, I saw fascinating challenges that I had a chance to conquer: product development, partnership building, commercialization, and establishing a global brand. The opportunity to build something from the ground up on a global scale was too compelling to pass up. The original hypothesis behind GLM was that the dichotomy between autoencoding (BERT-style) and autoregressive (GPT-style) models was a false choice. We believed a unified framework could capture the best of both worlds: strong bidirectional understanding and powerful generation capabilities. Back then, the landscape was fragmented. You had to choose between models good at understanding versus models good at generation. GLM's autoregressive blank infilling objective was designed to bridge that gap. This DNA still influences our models today. We continue to prioritize versatility and multi-task capability rather than optimizing for a single benchmark or use case....

With the impact artificial intelligence is having on how companies operate, the environment for how MIT students are learning entrepreneurship and choosing to create new ventures is seeing rapid changes as well. To address how these student startups are being built, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship undertook a months-long series of discussions with key stakeholders to help shape a new direction for delta v, MIT's capstone entrepreneurship accelerator for student founders. Two of Boston's most successful tech entrepreneurs have stepped forward to fund this growth of new MIT ventures through a combined $6 million gift that supports the delta v accelerator run out of the Trust Center. Ed Hallen MBA '12 and Andrew Bialecki, co-founders of Boston-based customer relationship management firm Klaviyo, are providing the donation to support the next wave of innovation-driven entrepreneurship taking place at MIT. 'In the early days of Klaviyo, we learned almost everything by building, testing assumptions, making mistakes, and figuring things out as we went,' Hallen says. 'MIT delta v creates that same learning-by-doing environment for students, while surrounding them with mentorship and resources that help founders build with clarity and momentum. We've seen the difference delta v can make for founders, and we're excited to help the Trust Center extend that opportunity to the next generation of students.'...

To hear some Silicon Valley insiders tell it, California is on the verge of economic suicide. This November, Californians will likely vote on a ballot initiative that would levy a one-off tax on the wealth of about 200 of the state's richest residents. Garry Tan, the CEO of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, posted on X that the measure would 'kill and eat the golden goose of technology startups in California.' Investors and tech executives are threatening to leave the state. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been angling for a centrist presidential pivot, has vowed to 'do what I have to do' to stop the initiative. Many progressives, however, see the billionaire tax as a long-overdue effort to finally force the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share. Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, calls it a 'model that should be emulated throughout the country.' In their telling, hyperbolic claims about the death of innovation and entrepreneurship in California are a smoke screen for the fact that billionaires simply don't want to pay higher taxes....

Beyond the headlines about generative AI, what do leaders really need to know' In this insightful video, AI experts Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean explain why most AI investments aren't paying off yet ' and what leading companies are doing differently. AI investment continues to fuel the U.S. economy, but many expect it to slow down dramatically in 2026. Agentic AI was the hot topic of 2025, but it remains an expensive early-stage experiment that's not quite ready for mainstream use. What does this mean for leaders looking to guide their teams' Get a better sense of how to guide your organization's AI efforts with expert advice from Davenport and Bean. For a deeper look at these trends, read their full article, 'Five Trends in AI and Data Science for 2026.' Thomas H. Davenport is the President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management and faculty director of the Metropoulos Institute for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Babson College, and a fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. His latest book is The New Science of Customer Relationships: Delivering the One-to-One Promise With AI (Wiley, 2025)....