AI platform shifts how major financial firms do business: ‘Like having a really capable intern’

 George Sivulka — the 27-year-old founder and CEO of AI platform Hebbia — is supplying artificial intelligence to those with more information than time, and millions, if not billions, on the line.

Since starting the company in 2020, his client list has grown to include BlackRock, KKR, the U.S. Air Force, Centerview Partners, MetLife, Gunderson Dettmer, Oak Hill and TowerBrook, among others.

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George Sivulka is the 27-year-old Stanford grad behind Hebbia, an AI startup helping the world’s most powerful institutions — from BlackRock to the U.S. Air Force — work smarter and faster.EMMY PARK

“The CEOs that get to the [top of these firms] know that innovation could either [elevate] their companies to even bigger levels or completely disrupt their market position,” Sivulka told NYNext. “And so, we’re partnering at the board level for massive transformational projects … really help[ing] them think through how they’re going to [embrace] change.”

While popular AI applications such as ChatGPT are largely transactional — a user issues a prompt, the model responds and then the conversation ends — Hebbia’s models are tailor-made, persistent, process-oriented and evolve through repeated use.

Agents — autonomous AI programs trained to mirror how a firm works — can execute customized workflows, asynchronously, non-stop.

An analyst at a private equity firm could instruct their agent to analyze a target company’s filings, build comps, generate a valuation model in Excel and prepare a draft investor memo — all within a single query loop. 

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Hebbia lets firms build custom AI agents that mirror their internal workflows, enabling analysts, lawyers, and other workers to automate complex, multi-step tasks with precision and scale.Courtesy of Hebbia

But the analyst isn’t being replaced, they’re being freed up from repetitive work so they can “focus on more interesting, investigative or curious tasks,” Sivulka told NYNext. “It’s almost like having a really capable intern.”

Sivulka initially planned to pursue a career in academia, not business.

He spent nearly a decade at Stanford, earning his undergraduate and master’s degrees before enrolling in a fully funded PhD program. Over the years, he saw innumerable peers leave for white-collar jobs and come back disillusioned.

They had secured high-paying, high-powered gigs, yet they spent their days copying data into slides or skimming dense filings for small insights.

“Some of the smartest people in the world were doing some of the stupidest tasks,” Sivulka said.

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Major firms on Wall Street and in legal services trust Hebbia because it’s built for high-stakes, high-security environments. Sivulka offers enterprise-grade accuracy and a degree of customization that generic AI tools can’t match.Courtesy of Hebbia

So he dropped out, moved into a closet in East Palo Alto, and started working on what would become Hebbia. Each morning he would wake up, code for 16 hours and cold-call prospective clients.

This was back before the world had heard of ChatGPT, when AI was still a murky and misunderstood term. Most investors didn’t bite at his ideas for intelligence tools, but eventually, a few did: Peter Thiel, Mike Volpi at Index, and later, Andreessen Horowitz growth partner Alex Immerman.

Sivulka ultimately decided to base Hebbia in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood to get away from the pervasive “groupthink” of the Bay Area.

He relishes being near to those he and his growing team are making tools for.

“We’re in New York [because] there’s nothing like actually being able to understand user pain, to be on the floor with our customers,” he said.

Just as Zoom made offices location-agnostic, Sivulka thinks AI will make companies compositionally agnostic. The new normal won’t just be in-person or remote, “You’ll have hybrid teams of AI agents and humans.”

He notes that in recent decades, despite software services and cloud platforms, productivity per employee hasn’t changed much. He believes AI has the power to finally move the needle, dramatically changing how companies work.

“AI is actually delivering hours and hours of time savings,” he said. “We’re seeing tangible results.”

https://nypost.com/2025/06/13/business/hebbias-founder-is-helping-blackrock-kkr-and-the-air-force-embrace-ai/

Border Patrol union chief says they’re in it ‘for the long haul’ as anti-ICE riots rage in LA

 Dedicated Border Patrol agents deployed to Los Angeles to quell the anti-ICE riots are in it “for the long haul,” with their union head saying they’re reinvigorated and ready to crack down under President Trump.

“We are not going to leave until the job is done,” National Border Patrol Council President Paul Perez told The Post this week.

“And that means making sure that Los Angeles is safe and secure and not chaotic and lawless like it’s been in the past.”

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National Border Patrol Council President Paul Perez has vowed his agents won’t leave Los Angeles “until the job is done.”Getty Images

Border Patrol agents, including from specialized units such as Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), have been sent in from Arizona to restore order in LA as rioters descended onto the streets, sources told The Post.

It’s unclear how many agents were deployed.

But they’re armed and ready with “pepperball launchers” and “chemical munitions” to deter the rioters, said Perez.

“Our agents are trained in riot control, it’s something that every agent gets trained on,” said Perez.

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Rioters assaulted federal agents, including those from Customs and Border Protection, with rocks and bricks over the weekend.Barbara Davidson/NYPost

“Our guys are mainly there in a support role to assist ICE and all the other federal partners because we have that specific training.”

Rioters assaulted federal agents, including those from Customs and Border Protection, with rocks and bricks over the weekend as the anti-ICE protests took a violent turn in the City of Angels.

Riots broke out after ICE began raiding illegal immigrant work hubs like Home Depot parking lots across the city.

Some of the demonstrators attempted to block federal agents from making arrests of illegal migrants while looters broke into local shops.

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It’s unclear how many Border Patrol agents were deployed to Los Angeles.Barbara Davidson/NYPost

President Trump later deployed 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to control the situation.

But as some border agents are in LA, they’re not done with their mission of securing the frontlines with Mexico even as illegal crossings have dipped to record lows.

While the mission to achieve “operational control” of the southern border is not yet complete, agents are nearing that goal, said Perez.

And border agents are ready to hit the lofty objective with morale through the roof under Trump.

“I believe we’re getting there really, really quick. Under President Trump’s term, we’ll definitely hit that,” said Perez.

“What happened to us under the Biden administration was the lowest of the low,” Perez said.

“And when President Trump came into office, this is the highest it’s ever been as far as morale, so we’re really enjoying working for President Trump.”

https://nypost.com/2025/06/13/us-news/border-patrol-union-chief-says-theyre-in-it-for-the-long-haul-as-anti-ice-riots-rage-in-la/

Cuomo won't apologize for ‘disastrous’ COVID nursing home policy faced with grieving son at debate

 Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s much-criticized record on nursing homes in the coronavirus pandemic became a flashpoint during Thursday’s mayoral debate – and he still refused to apologize.

The still-controversial issue arose after Cuomo admitted Thursday that he not only saw a controversial report on nursing home COVID-19 deaths while he was governor, but may have had a hand in doctoring the document.

City Comptroller Lander pounced on the issue by inviting Peter Arbeeny, whose father died from COVID-19 shortly after a rehab stint at a local nursing home, as a guest.

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Mayoral candidate and former governor Andrew Cuomo refused to apologize for his COVID-19 nursing home policy when faced with a grieving son at the NYC Democratic mayoral debate.Matthew McDermott

“Andrew, this is Peter Arbeeny,” Lander said to cheers from the crowd. 

“His father Norman died because of your disastrous order to send people with COVID into nursing homes. Then, as you admitted this week, you hid the real death toll and lied to families about it for five years,” Lander continued.

“So tonight, will you finally apologize to Peter and other grieving New Yorkers?” he said, pausing for applause.

“Or will you just keep gaslighting them, with more blather about what a great job you claim you did?”

Cuomo tried to dodge by dinging Lander as supposedly being an inauthentic New Yorker.

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Cuomo’s much-criticized March 25, 2020, COVID-19 policy required nursing homes to admit infected patients recovering from the bug who were discharged from hospitals.Spectrum News NY1

“Maybe where you come from in St. Louis facts don’t matter, but here they do,” Cuomo said. 

He then apologized to Arbeeny, but pointedly didn’t offer a mea culpa for anything else.

“Mr. Arbeeny lost a father,” Cuomo said.

“I am very, very sorry for that.”

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Peter Arbeeny was introduced at the debate by Brad Lander, as he lost his father from the coronavirus, the city comptroller and mayoral candidate called out Cuomo for his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.Spectrum News NY1
Cuomo noted Arbeeny sued the state in a case and contended legal papers in the case found no COVID-positive person was sent from a hospital to a nursing home.

“So, it is factually impossible, Brad,” he said, sarcastically emphasizing his opponent’s name, “that he got COVID, OK, from someone coming from a hospital.” 

Arbeeny’s brother Daniel led a class-action federal lawsuit against Cuomo, which was dismissed by a Brooklyn federal judge.

https://nypost.com/2025/06/12/us-news/cuomo-refuses-to-apologize-for-disastrous-covid-nursing-home-policy-when-faced-with-grieving-son-at-debate/

GOP governors are leading the charge against antisemitism — and for civil rights

 The heartless execution of a young couple outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum. The terrorist who used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to injure elderly pro-Israel rally-goers in Boulder, Colo. The arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor.

These headlines, and many others in recent weeks, brought home a growing threat we governors have been tracking with great alarm: A new generation of Americans has been conditioned to hate Jews with an intense bigotry experienced by no other minority group.

It’s time for leaders of conscience to draw a bright line, translating rhetoric into robust action to protect all members of the Jewish community from the scourge of antisemitism.

How did we arrive at today’s disturbing reality — where our nation’s small Jewish population endures 68% of all religion-based hate crimes?

Jews have long been a convenient scapegoat for extremists of all stripes, but today antisemitism has become an elite phenomenon, erupting with particular vehemence on college and university campuses.

Antisemitic incidents across the United States spiked by over 600% since September 2023, a recent Combat Antisemitism Movement study found, with most of the increase coming on college campuses.

Students are not born bigoted. Someone is teaching them to hate.

Indeed, some teachers have exploited their privileged positions at the front of the classroom to propagandize and manipulate the impressionable young minds in their care.

Meanwhile, many school administrators have lacked the intellectual and moral clarity to forcefully counter the antisemitism spilling out into the quad and amplified on social media.

College officials who set aside “safe spaces” and promoted narrow campus speech codes to prevent “micro-aggressions” and “triggers” hypocritically dropped those standards when Jewish students found themselves blocked from classrooms and libraries (or, as at Cooper Union College, trapped within one as a mob raged outside).

Bigotry that would have been instantly and rightly crushed had it targeted other minorities was instead condoned — and even sometimes celebrated.

Let us be clear: No student should face threats in the classroom or on campus, nor feel targeted because of their religion or heritage.

All bigotry, religious, ethnic, racial or otherwise, is wrong, absolutely un-American, and cannot be tolerated.

As governors, we are responsible for the safety of our constituents, especially students in our schools.

To fight the rising tide of hatred, we have all signed executive orders and legislation in recent months to combat antisemitism.

Our directives require public schools to tackle antisemitism in the same manner as any other form of discrimination prohibited by state or federal law.

To help confused school officials, we require student codes of conduct to clearly define antisemitism via the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance standard, and mandate protections guaranteed under Title VI of the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma now designate a Title VI coordinator to monitor, review and investigate antisemitic complaints and incidents of discrimination in public K–12 and post-secondary schools.

Similarly, Virginia established a cross-government and stakeholder work group to carry out these same responsibilities. The group submits an annual report clearly documenting any antisemitic incidents in the state, ensuring that those affected can pursue the justice they deserve.

Currently, we are each creating or strengthening statewide oversight mechanisms to ensure all reported antisemitic incidents are investigated and remedied. Accountability reassures victims that their complaints will be met with a vigorous response.

We are also incorporating and deepening education on antisemitism and Jewish-American history into our K-12 and higher ed classes — desperately needed, as surveys indicate declining knowledge about the Holocaust among American students.

We have come to see the struggle against antisemitism as a pillar of American civil rights.

Just as racial reactionaries once disingenuously invoked “states’ rights” and “majority rule” to impede progress, leftists today cynically and disingenuously invoke “free speech” to justify the deliberate intimidation of Jewish students — a disturbing echo of attempts to drive black students from campuses even after the law compelled desegregation.

We believe in free speech, but the First Amendment does not protect acts of violence or threats of physical harm.

Yet standing up to bigotry takes courage. Too many school leaders — and state leaders, too — have become paralyzed by the politicization of antisemitism across our society.

We, however, are proud to champion this fight, the civil rights movement of our time, and we call upon governors and state legislators across the country to join us.

Taking firm action against antisemitism can unite all citizens of good will in a righteous effort to restore the American promise for a new generation.

Bill Lee, Sarah Sanders, Kevin Stitt and Glenn Youngkin are the Republican governors of Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Virginia.

https://nypost.com/2025/06/12/opinion/how-our-red-states-are-leading-the-charge-vs-antisemitism/