Day: August 27, 2025

Today, global media company TIME announced TIME Africa, a new regional editorial expansion in collaboration with Global Venture Partners (GVP).

TIME Africa will launch as a digital and live events platform, bringing TIME’s trusted journalism and  convening power to audiences across the continent. The digital launch of TIME Africa is slated for Q3 2025 at africa.time.com.

“TIME has provided trusted journalism and thoughtful perspectives to readers around the world for over a century. With the launch of TIME Africa, we are continuing our commitment to reach new audiences, further our presence and coverage of the continent’s leaders, visionaries, and changemakers, and shine a spotlight on the stories that matter most. We are pleased to collaborate with Global Venture Partners to bring this platform to the continent,” said Jessica Sibley, Chief Executive Officer of TIME.

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“TIME is one of the most respected and recognized brands in the world, and we are proud that GVP was selected as the trusted partner for the brand’s Africa expansion,” said Josh Wilson, Managing Director of Global Venture Partners. “Africa is going through massive transformation across business, culture, and society, and now more than ever it is critical that the continent has a dedicated platform within TIME to spotlight its growth and impact on the world stage.”

TIME Africa will be available in English and French and will be distributed to the following territories: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 

The announcement of TIME Africa arrives during a period of dynamic growth and innovation for TIME. Today, the brand reaches more than 120 million people worldwide across all platforms, representing its largest, most global, and most diverse audience in history. TIME’s in-depth reporting has consistently shaped global conversations and elevated stories from across the African continent—including the TIME100 Impact Awards Africa, hosted in Rwanda and honoring visionaries such as Danai Gurira, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Fred Swaniker; annual recognitions in the TIME100, TIME100 Next, TIME100 Philanthropy, TIME100 Climate lists; interviews with leaders including Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was included on the 2025 TIME100 Health; TIME’s World’s Greatest Places, which regularly spotlights remarkable destinations across the continent. TIME’s coverage has also addressed pressing issues such as climate justice, with covers like “The Climate Issue” featuring activist Vanessa Nakate, who was also named as a recipient of the 2023 TIME Earth Awards. 

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• A Scale AI product exec likened AI firms to content studios, not software companies.
• AI firms invest heavily in short-lived projects, similar to Hollywood studios, he said.
• Scale AI builds AI solutions using models from OpenAI and other frontier labs.

One exec is comparing the business model of companies like OpenAI and Meta AI to Marvel Studios.

On an episode of the “a16z Podcast” published on Tuesday, Scale AI’s head of product for enterprise applications, Ben Scharfstein, said his most controversial opinion on AI is that AI foundational companies are more like content studios than software companies.

“My hottest take is I think the right way to think about foundation labs is that they’re like movie studios,” he said. “What I mean by that is they invest a ton of money in blockbusters that have a relatively short time span to pay them back.”

Scharfstein heads Scale AI’s enterprise applications business, which builds and deploys generative AI solutions for other companies. Scale AI, which received a $14.3 billion investment from Meta in June, is better known for its data annotation business, which helps Big Tech clients like Google and Meta improve their AI chatbots.

The exec compared large language model companies to Hollywood studio Marvel, famous for its blockbuster superhero movie franchises.

“Marvel, you’re investing in ‘The Avengers’ and you invest a billion dollars in it and then it maybe pays you back over the next 18 months,” he said. “It’s pretty irrelevant after that.”

Much like “The Avengers,” companies like OpenAI are also building franchises with GPTs that are built off the previous models, he said.

“It’s just very similar. You’re able to turn that franchise maybe into a video game and then maybe it is more like software,” he said. “But actually right now the model companies look more like a content studio than they do like a software company.”

Scale AI builds its custom generative AI solutions using models including OpenAI’s GPT-4, Cohere’s Command, and Meta’s Llama 2, according to its website. In June, OpenAI said it hit $10 billion in annual recurring revenue, less than three years after launching its popular ChatGPT chatbot.

ScaleAI also relies on these frontier labs and has worked with nearly every LLM company, including Meta, OpenAI, and Google’s DeepMind for its AI training business, according to an internal client dashboard Business Insider reviewed.

Last month, Scale AI reduced its 1,400-person workforce by 14% in cuts that affected 200 employees in its generative AI division.

In an internal email viewed by Business Insider, interim CEO Jason Droege said Scale AI ramped up capacity “too quickly over the past year” on GenAI, leaving other divisions, like its public sector units, “under-resourced.”

ScaleAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The levy could be a sharp blow to half of India’s exports to the U.S. and force affected merchants to diversify to other markets, such as Latin America and the Middle East.