There is “reasonable evidence” to conclude that Tesla and its officers, including CEO Elon Musk, knew its vehicles had defective Autopilot systems but still allowed the cars to be driven in areas “not safe for that technology,” a Florida judge found. The ruling last week from Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, means the family of a man who died in a collision while his … [Read more...]
Crezco aims to make integrating bill payments easier
Integrating with a payment API is something most — if not all — business-to-consumer platforms are forced to do at some point. It’s practically unavoidable if they wish to take credit card payments. The trouble is, for platforms dealing in bills and invoices, not just one-off charges, few payment APIs have all the features necessary to accommodate their workflows. That’s why Ralph Rogge founded … [Read more...]
Stability AI gets into the video-generating game
AI startups that aren’t OpenAI are plugging away this week, it’d seem — sticking to their product roadmaps even as coverage of the chaos at OpenAI dominates the airwaves. See: Stability AI, which this afternoon announced Stable Video Diffusion, an AI model that generates videos by animating existing images. Based on Stability’s existing Stable Diffusion text-to-image model, Stable Video … [Read more...]
Kinterra Capital’s debut $565M fund to support mining for battery metals
Kinterra Capital, a Canadian private equity firm, has closed its $565 million debut fund dedicated to securing critical mineral assets for battery development. The influx of private capital comes amid increasing government incentives into the sourcing and production of battery materials in North America. Kinterra’s oversubscribed round will target asset-level investments in North America, Western … [Read more...]
What does a Harry Potter fanfic have to do with OpenAI?
Have you ever puked and had diarrhea at the same time? I have, and when it happened, I was listening to a fan-made audiobook version of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), a fan fiction written by Eliezer Yudkowsky. No, the dual-ended bodily horror was not incited by the fanfic, but the two experiences are inextricable in my mind. I was shocked to discover years later that the … [Read more...]
Tiger Global chieftain Scott Shleifer transitions to advisory role after wild ride
Firm made rapid-fire investments in startups for years, driving up valuations in some cases, but returns were impacted when the market abruptly shifted Connie Loizos @Cookie / 10 hours Tiger Global Management is going through a major management change. Per a message from founder Chase Coleman sent this afternoon to investors of … [Read more...]
Yup hacks together a cross-posting app for X, Threads, Bluesky and others
Decentralized social networking may be the future, but in the meantime, there are a lot of Twitter alternatives to keep up with. A new app called Yup aims to help by offering a single place to read feeds, follow friends across services, and cross-post to a range of social apps, including Twitter/X itself, as well as Bluesky, Farcaster, Lens, and Threads — although the latter comes with a big … [Read more...]
Where OpenAI goes from here is anyone’s guess
OpenAI went from hot startup to hot mess in a New York minute last week. By now you know the story: The board fired CEO Sam Altman, his president and co-founder Greg Brockman followed him out the door and his former employees are in full on revolt. For now, at least, it looks like Altman and Brockman have landed at Microsoft, and many of their former OpenAI employees could soon be following suit. … [Read more...]
Greg Brockman is still announcing OpenAI products for some reason
Ex-OpenAI president Greg Brockman — who, as far as we’re aware, isn’t currently employed at OpenAI in any capacity — is posting updates about OpenAI products on X, including one today about ChatGPT’s voice narration feature being made available to all ChatGPT users. Perhaps Brockman’s simply expressing pride in his colleagues’ work. Perhaps the job offer from Microsoft fell through. Perhaps … [Read more...]
Founders: Pay attention to what happened with OpenAI’s board
This weekend, a soft, rumbling feeling reached a loud consensus: Why the heck was OpenAI structured that way? In very dumb words, its nonprofit arm had complete control over the for-profit holding company, giving it the ability to oust Sam Altman as CEO without even a day’s head-ups to the well-known Silicon Valley executive or any of the organization’s investors. More technically, as explained … [Read more...]
Will the OpenAI chaos boost open-source models?
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our mid-week show, where we sit down with a key topic and dive deep into it. Unsurprisingly, we’re discussing the recent turmoil in the AI market today. OpenAI has kept the journalistic corps … [Read more...]
Owning the earscape market with Lisa Bubbers and Anna Harman from Studs
Welcome back to Found, where we get to the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Lisa Bubbers and Anna Harman, the co-founders of the ear piercing company Studs. The duo spoke to us about: What fundraising for a brick-and-mortar company was like. How they build a new market, tapping consumers who are too old for Claire’s but might not want to go into a tattoo … [Read more...]
OpenAI’s board may be coming around to Sam Altman returning
OpenAI’s board of directors is reportedly in talks with Sam Altman, ex-Y Combinator president and an OpenAI co-founder, to return to OpenAI as CEO as soon as this week. That’s according to Bloomberg, which in a brief this morning — citing sources close to the matter — said that discussions are happening between Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, one current member of the OpenAI board, and Altman — and … [Read more...]
TC+ Roundup: AI folks fall into one of two camps
Good morning! When it comes to news, the week of Thanksgiving is usually slower than molasses. But with the OpenAI drama — ousted founder; upset employees; etc. etc. — continuing to deliver exciting headlines on the company’s uncertain future, this week is anything but. Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members.Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year … [Read more...]
China’s EV upstart Li Auto hunts for chip talent in Singapore
Li Auto, a electric vehicle maker adored by young Chinese families, is stepping up its endeavors to build in-house automotive chips and has gone abroad to seek talent for the course. The eight-year-old company is currently hiring five positions in Singapore to develop silicon carbide (SiC) power modules, an electrical component that uses SiC semiconductors in switching, according to the firm’s … [Read more...]
Tech CEO Austin Russell’s bid to buy Forbes fails
Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell’s bid to buy Forbes Global Media Holdings has ended. Integrated Whale Media Investments, the Hong Kong-based parent company of Forbes, terminated the agreement with Russell after he failed to secure enough investors to close the deal. Bloomberg was the first to report the news, citing an internal memo by Forbes Chief Executive Officer Mike Federle. “The … [Read more...]
eBay to gain $2.2B from sales of its shares in classified biz Adevinta
eBay is unloading its remaining shares in the online classified business Adevinta to private equity firms Permira and Blackstone for $2.2 billion in cash and 20% equity, it said. Adevinta had originally acquired eBay’s own classified business back in 2020, leaving eBay with $2.2 billion in cash and 540 million Adevinta shares. While the new deal still needs to go through regulatory approval, … [Read more...]
Anthropic’s Claude 2.1 release shows the competition isn’t rubbernecking the OpenAI disaster
The OpenAI train wreck may be playing out in slow motion before our eyes, but the company’s competition isn’t sitting around gawking. Anthropic just released Claude 2.1, an improvement on its flagship large language model that keeps it competitive with the GPT series — and now has the useful added feature of “being developed by a company not actively at war with itself.” This new update to Claude … [Read more...]
OpenAI mess exposes the dangers of vendor lock-in for startups
If you looked at OpenAI prior to Friday afternoon, it had everything an enterprise buyer (and, for that matter, an investor) could possibly want in a startup: an absolutely killer product in ChatGPT, a rock star CEO and huge potential future revenue. It looked as stable as any startup could possibly be — until it wasn’t. While the situation remains fluid, it appears that CEO Sam Altman is prepared … [Read more...]
Spotify says its upcoming royalty model changes will generate $1B for artists over five years
Spotify’s upcoming royalty model changes will generate $1 billion in five years for new and popular artists, the streaming service announced on Tuesday. As previously reported, Spotify is changing its royalty system to direct more money to popular artists and record labels, while raising the minimum payment threshold for music streaming on the platform and tackling streaming fraud. The … [Read more...]
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