Category: info1

Looks like Meta isn’t done poaching talent from OpenAI. Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that Meta had hired influential OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal, and according to The Wall Street Journal, it also hired three other researchers from the company. Now The Information is reporting four more Meta hires from OpenAI: Researchers Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu,…

An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators. The letter argues that authors’ work has been “stolen” by AI companies: “Rather than paying…

A federal proposal that would ban states and local governments from regulating AI for 10 years could soon be signed into law, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other lawmakers work to secure its inclusion into a GOP megabill ahead of a key July 4 deadline.  Those in favor – including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anduril’s…

If you’re a founder looking to grow your startup, chances are you’re wrestling with more than just product or capital. Talent, scale, and smart execution are the real battlegrounds. That’s exactly what TechCrunch All Stage 2025 is built to address on July 15 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. Rob Biederman, managing partner at Asymmetric Capital…

Silicon Valley has opined on the promise of generative AI to forge new career paths and economic opportunities – like the newly coveted solo unicorn startup. Banks and analysts have touted AI’s potential to boost GDP. But those gains are unlikely to be distributed equally in the face of what many expect to be widespread…

Halogen Ventures closed a $30 million Fund III to invest in early-stage startups building in the “future of family,” as reported first by Fortune.  The firm was founded in 2015 by Jesse Draper, the daughter of famed venture capitalist Tim Draper. She explained to Fortune that the fund will focus on the physical and financial…

Henrik Werdelin has spent the last 15 years helping entrepreneurs build big brands like Barkbox through his startup studio Prehype. Now, with his new, New York-based venture Audos, he’s betting that AI can help him scale that process from “tens” of startups a year to “hundreds of thousands” of aspiring business owners. The timing certainly…

Tucked between two massive buildings in the hills of the Nevada desert, 805 retired EV batteries lie in neat formation, each one wrapped in nondescript white tarps — and hiding in plain sight.  A passerby might not realize this unassuming array is the largest microgrid in North America, that it’s powering a 2,000 GPU modular…

When Cluely, a startup claiming to be building a product that helps people “cheat” on everything, announced that it raised a $15 million Series A financing from Andreessen Horowitz, some people on X criticized the VC firm for backing the controversial company. After all, Cluely isn’t just offering a product that may have questionable uses,…

Uber founder Travis Kalanick is looking for ways to buy the U.S. arm of Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai, according to The New York Times. Kalanick is reportedly working with investors to finance an acquisition, and Uber may even help make the transaction happen, the Times reports. Pony.ai went public last year and had a…