On February 17, 2024, Nat Friedman posted an X: "Thanks to Elon Musk's significant donation of $2,084,000, the second phase of the Vesuvius Challenge is now fully funded. Thank you Elon Musk and his team for their support! We will make every effort to effectively resolve the remaining technical issues. Other generous donations we receive will be used to accelerate our large-scale scanning efforts. We should finally be able to exchange at an exchange rate of about one dollar: a word of the restored ancient texts".
Recently, Nat Friedman has been involved in a number of innovative projects. One such project is the Vesuvius Challenge, which he co-launched with Brent Seales and Daniel Gross, which aims to decipher the Herculaneum papyrus scrolls. These ancient texts were charred when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. By utilizing computer vision, machine learning, and competitions, participants try to read the text without directly unfolding the scroll. In 2023, the challenge awarded more than $1 million for a major breakthrough in reading these ancient texts, marking a historic moment in the acquisition of classical knowledge preserved from volcanic eruptions.
In addition to his work on ancient texts, Nat Friedman co-led a $19 million Series A funding round for Elevenlabs. Elevenlabs, a sound generation platform that specializes in creating synthesized sounds, has been recognized for its innovative approach to generating lifelike sounds and its potential impact on a variety of industries, including publishing, gaming, and entertainment. The investment is intended to further develop Elevenlabs' research in the field of sound AI and expand the application of its products in different market verticals.
The biography of Nat Friedman is as follows:
*Internet. Nat Friedman is a well-known American entrepreneur and software engineer, perhaps best known as the former CEO of GitHub. Prior to GitHub, Friedman had a long-term presence in the software and open source communities. He co-founded Ximian with Miguel de ICAZA, a company focused on providing commercial support and development for Linux, which was later acquired by Novell. At Novell, they continue to push for open source projects, including the Mono project, which is designed to allow developers to run on Linux. The platform for .NET applications.
Later, Friedman and De Iaza co-founded Xamarin, a software company focused on providing developers with cross-platform mobile app development tools, which was eventually acquired by Microsoft in 2016. Following the acquisition, Friedman joined Microsoft, where he eventually became CEO of GitHub, the world's leading software development platform and open source community, as part of Microsoft's acquisition in 2018.
At GitHub, Friedman has led a number of important initiatives and product launches that have helped drive the platform's growth and development. He is widely recognized for his contributions to advancing the open source and software development community. Although Friedman left his position as CEO of GitHub in 2020, his influence in the tech world continues.