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Monzo co-founder Jonas Templestein has commenced a new journey with a fresh startup seeking to put software developers out of business.
With fundraising efforts underway and drawing support from OpenAI and Index Ventures amongst others, Nustom wants to take full advantage of artificial intelligence (AI), in return for low or no-code web development. The company has launched its website, is recruiting and has set out its vision, stating within the next decade “the majority of software will be made by people with no technical background, collaborating with an AI.”
It is presenting an end-to-end SaaS offering for “those who want software made, but don’t have experience building or running it.”
The new direction for Templestein, comes at a time when Monzo is thriving. He is joined by co-founder Oliver Beattie, formerly Monzo’s VP of architecture.
Founded in 2015, the digital bank now boasts more than nine million customers and has reached a stage where it is profitable.
The company is said to be on the cusp of selling an additional stake to one of Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds, on the back of securing a £4 billion valuation last month. The top-up to the recent funding round is expected to bring in an additional $50 million from the Singaporean entity, in exchange for the issue of new shares.
Does this mean Nustom won’t be working with software developers?
Not quite, not yet anyway.
Despite the lofty ambitions of the startup, the company will “have human engineers guarantee the quality of the software until our AI agents are reliable enough to do it without assistance.”
Maria Campbell has become the third executive at Nustom, taking up the position of COO. She joins her former colleagues and Monzo alumni, having also worked at GoCardless and banking-as-a-service fintech Griffin.
The founding team at Nustom is completed with two engineers.
Fred Jonsson is another with a background at Monzo, whilst Eugenio Marchiori is the only individual not to have such a link. He is a PhD computer scientist with over ten years of experience at Google.
Image credit: Monzo
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DraftKings has confirmed executive changes at the company with Jason Park taking up the newly created position of Chief Transformation Officer to lead strategic initiatives for additional growth, including a targeted acquisition of Jackpocket.
Park’s existing role as Chief Financial Officer will be filled by Alan Ellingson, who is elevated from his current position as Senior Vice President of Finance and Analytics. 
The changes will take place as of 1 May 2024, with the rationale explained by Jason Robins, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of DraftKings.
“I have asked Jason Park to take on a new role at DraftKings to address and capture large efficiency opportunities that I expect will generate significant incremental profitability over the coming years,” he said.
“Jason’s unique skill set, based on his accomplishments over the last five years as our Chief Financial Officer and 11 years as a private equity Operating Partner, will allow us to further improve how we operate. In addition, I’m confident he will unlock the benefits of our proposed acquisition of Jackpocket following its closing to strengthen DraftKings’ position in U.S. online gaming.”
Robins indicated the company is set to move with the times to exploit transformational artificial intelligence (AI) applications which have the potential to deliver a long-term advantage for betting platforms.
He continued, “I am very excited to elevate Alan Ellingson to Chief Financial Officer and have him continue to lead the Company on the very clear path that we have laid out. Alan has been with DraftKings for more than four years, has extensive experience across our finance and analytics teams, and most importantly, deeply understands our core value drivers and focus on maximizing shareholder value.”
Further expansion for DraftKings
Last week, DraftKings announced the launch of its online sportsbook in North Carolina, the 27th US state in which it now operates.
The company detailed the latest expansion for the gambling platform, as the arrival of online and mobile DraftKings betting in North Carolina follows on from an agreement earlier this year with NASCAR, which opened up its initial foray into digital sports entertainment and gaming in the state. 
 
Image credit: DraftKings
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The Starfield devs at Bethesda continue to stay true to their word of releasing regular, large patches for the game and it is already in much better shape than when it launched last Fall.
A huge amount of fixes to the base game have been made and if you want to read the full Patch Notes you can do so on the Starfield Blog, but we will be picking out some of the cool bits we like the look of most here.
The patch also includes additional features to things such as Photo mode, which now allows you to pose characters in your screenshots, opening the possibility for some seriously funny meme action.
Other quality-of-life tweaks such as simply being able to open doors while you have the Scanner open should really have been a thing from the off, but then, we guess you would not have appreciated it as much as you will now.
Digipicks have also been altered because, of how we love the way Digipicks worked. Thankfully now they allow you to Undo without the penalty cost of a digipick during the Security mini-game. Now, if we could just get rid of the mini-game altogether with a slider in the menu. Maybe next time.
Latest Starfield Patch major features

PHOTOMODE: Added the ability to set Expressions and Poses on player and companions in Photomode.
SCANNER: You can now open doors and harvest with the scanner opened.
Setting course on an inactive quest will now make it the active quest.
Added support for adjusting FOV when using 3rd Person Ship view.
Added an Anisotropic filtering quality slider (PC).
Removed the digipick cost for using Undo during the Security mini-game.
Added an autosave when fast traveling from a planet’s surface to orbit.
Updated the Ship UI to perform more smoothly at higher framerates.

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A new study that looks into the influence of artificial intelligence in the workplace has shown negative results, indicating a decline in quality of life while the use of AI rises.
The U.K.-based Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) has looked into the link between worker wellbeing and technology exposure, with almost 5,000 people who are representative of the working population being analyzed.
Results have shown that “quality of life negatively correlated with frequency of interaction with newer workplace technologies such as wearables, robotics, AI and ML software.”
The team goes on to say in their published report that “this is consistent with research that connects such technologies to exacerbated feelings of disempowerment, increased sense of insecurity, task intensification and stress and loss of meaning, as well as anxiety and poorer overall health.”
Not all technologies have a negative impact though, with some actually helping with employee wellbeing.
“Results showed that digital information and communication technologies correlated with improved quality of life, whereas newer and more advanced technologies were correlated with reduced wellbeing.”
So computers and messaging tools have been proven within this research to bring more freedom and flexibility to workers, but the use of smart devices or AI isn’t as well received.
Use of AI in the workplace
One of the main focuses of businesses appears to be around the productivity of their employees, with the use of artificial intelligence being implemented to handle repetitive tasks or speed up processes.
Some are even opting to replace workers with AI completely, including the likes of tech giant IBM. Back in 2023, the CEO publicly announced plans to replace nearly 8,000 jobs with technology.
At the time, he noted that back-office functions, specifically in the human resources sector, would be the first to face these changes.
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