Asana introduces Timeline, lays groundwork for AI-based monitoring as the “team brain” for productivity

▤ Summary

When workflow management platform Asana announced a $75 million round of funding in January led by former Vice President Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, the startup didn’t give much of an indication of what it planned to do with the money, or what it was that won over investors to a new $900 million valuation (a figure we’ve now confirmed with the company).Some that Rosenstein has let me see in preview include the ability for people to have conversations about specific projects — think messaging channels but less dynamic and more contained.Rosenstein may have to his credit the creation of the “like” button and other iconic parts of the world’s biggest social network, but he has in more recent times become a very outspoken critic of the distracting effects of services like Facebook’s.Some have even clubbed together to form a new organization called the Center for Humane Technology , whose motto is “Reversing the digital attention crisis and realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.” Rosenstein is an advisor, although when I tried to raise the issue of the backlash that has hit Facebook on multiple fronts, he responded pretty flatly, “It’s not something I want to talk about right now.” (That’s what keeping focussed is all about, I guess.)Slack, the wildly popular workplace chat platform that interconnects users with each other and just about every enterprise and business app, is notable for producing “a gazillion notifications”, in Rosenstein’s words, leading to distraction from actually getting things done.

▦ Linked Companies

Asana, Inc.

$500M to $1B