Tag: Week in Review newsletter

Hey, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter covering the past week (or so) in tech industry happenings. This week marked OpenAI’s first-ever dev conference, where the Microsoft-backed AI startup announced a host of new products. But that was far from the only item of note.

In this edition of WiR, we spotlight Brian’s review of the 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Air and M3 iMac 24-inch; Mozilla betting on a decentralized social networking future; Ford shuttering a company that was building an app for plumbers, electricians and other trades; and Tim Cook’s thoughts on generative AI. Also on the agenda is WeWork officially filing for bankruptcy, Bumble getting a new CEO, and the spectacular failure of EV startup Arrival.

It’s a lot to get through, as always — so we won’t delay. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven’t already done so.

Most read

OpenAI throws a dev day: OpenAI hosted its first-ever developer conference on Monday, and the company had a lot to talk about. Some of the more notable items announced were tools to create custom “GPTs” (i.e., domain-specific chatbots), new text-to-speech models, an API for the text-to-image model DALL-E 3, and an improved version of OpenAI’s flagship model, GPT-4, called GPT-4 Turbo.

Mac attack: Brian reviewed Apple’s new 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro and the M3 iMac 24-inch. He found the iMac to be lacking and not necessarily worth the upgrade from the 2021 model, excepting the M3 chip, which brings “impressive” performance gains over the already-powerful M1. As for the M3 Max MacBook Pro, Brian reports that, at $2,500 (plus some pricey add-ons), it successfully splits the difference between the Mac Studio and MacBook Air.

Mozilla bets on a decentralized future: Sarah spoke with Mozilla senior director of content Carolyn O’Hara, who outlined Mozilla’s strategy where it concerns the “fediverse” — a collection of decentralized social networking applications, like Mastodon, that communicate with one another over the ActivityPub protocol. The idea, O’Hara said, is to rethink social networking from the ground up.

Ford shutters SaaS app for field work: Ford has shut down VIIZR, a software-as-a-service company that, along with Salesforce, built an app to help tradespeople like plumbers, locksmiths and electricians to schedule field appointments, send invoices and manage customers, Kirsten reports. VIIZR, which was announced in December 2021, was a separate company majority owned by Ford, with Salesforce as a minority investor.

Apple bets on generative AI: Apple CEO Tim Cook pushed back against the notion that the company was behind in AI on Apple’s Q4 earnings call with investors, as he highlighted technology developments that Apple had made recently that “would not be possible without AI.” Cook also said that Apple was working on generative AI technologies, lending credence to reports suggesting the company is on track to spend $1 billion per year on developing generative AI products.

WeWork goes bust: As predicted, flexible office-space firm WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing over $18.6 billion of debt in a remarkable collapse for the once high-flying startup co-founded by Adam Neumann and bankrolled by SoftBank, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

Slack’s loss, Bumble’s gain: Dating app Bumble announced a doozy this week: It’s replacing founder CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd with Slack CEO Lidiane Jones. Jones only started as CEO at Slack last year, stepping in for another founder CEO, Stewart Butterfield. Ron and Sarah write that — while Bumble now has a clear line of succession — the move leaves Slack in a bit of a pickle.

Arrival fails to deliver: Arrival set out eight years ago to make electric vehicle production “radically more efficient.” So far, its plan to forgo the gigafactory for local microfactories has proved anything but, writes Harri — thanks to missed production targets, low cash reserves, layoffs and a pivot.

Audio

It’s winter, it ain’t getting warmer (at least here in NYC), and I’d argue that there’s no better place to be than snuggled up indoors with a podcast for company. If you’re in need of material, TechCrunch has a few that should definitely be on your radar.

This week on Equity, the crew dove deep into the encouraging signs from the fintech startup market, starting with Klarna’s Q3 results. From there, they looked at buy now, pay later consumer behavior and fintech fundraising results with a 2021 flavor.

Meanwhile, Found featured Nasrat Khalid of Aseel, which started as an e-commerce company making it possible for local artisans in Afghanistan to sell to customers across the world. It has evolved into working in humanitarian aid, delivering emergency food supplies to people in need in Afghanistan and Turkey.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

Another superconductor disappointment: Tim writes that a new, supposedly room-temperature superconducting material isn’t what the scientific community hoped it would be. With the Nature-published paper detailing the material facing retraction, the odds of researchers discovering a room-temperature superconductor are looking even longer.

Klarna inches toward an IPO: Mary Ann and Alex write that Swedish fintech Klarna is taking steps toward an eventual IPO. The company has initiated a process for a legal entity restructuring to set up a holding company in the U.K. as an important early step in its plans for an initial public offering, a Klarna spokesperson tells TechCrunch+.

The unicorn’s legacy isn’t over: It’s been 10 years since Cowboy Ventures’ founder Aileen Lee coined an incredibly catchy nickname for what were very rare startups at the time: Unicorns. TechCrunch+ spoke with Lee about how she feels about the term 10 years later, now that her venture firm is also a decade old.

Hey, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering the past week in happenings around the tech sphere. Winter’s finally arrived, judging by the NYC weather outside my window — and a winter of a sort might be descending on the tech industry, too, as it unfortunately turns out.

This edition of WiR covers tech layoffs coming back with a vengeance, internet access in Gaza collapsing, everything announced during Apple’s Halloween event and CCleaner’s customer database getting hacked. Also on the roster is WeWork filing for bankruptcy, Anthropic raising $2 billion from Google, Costco selling surveillance equipment and X’s (i.e., Twitter’s) valuation plummeting by 56%.

It’s a lot to get through, so let’s jump to it. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven’t already done so.

Most read

Layoffs are back: For his column this week, Haje writes that, despite signs of economic recovery and predictions of avoiding a recession, tech companies continue to lay off employees. Experts suggest that while the macroeconomics are improving, the recovery process remains slow — leading many companies to brace for what they anticipate will be a long period of sluggishness.

Gaza internet collapses: As the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, infrastructure is crumbling in Gaza. Last Friday, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Palestinian internet service and telecommunications providers NetStream and Paltel had collapsed, resulting in a “total or near-total” internet blackout in the region.

Apple event recap: In lighter news, Apple announced a slew of new products during its Halloween event this week, including an updated MacBook Pro, iMac and the M3, its latest in-house chip family. Among other items of note, Apple did away with the Touch Bar on the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and upgraded the iMac’s screen with a 4.5K retina display and a six-speaker system supporting both Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio.

CCleaner hacked: The maker of the popular desktop optimization app CCleaner has confirmed that hackers stole a trove of personal information, including names and contact information, about its paying customers following a data breach in May. In an email sent to customers, Gen Digital, the multinational software company that owns CCleaner, said that the hackers exploited a vulnerability in the widely used MOVEit file transfer tool.

WeWork bankruptcy imminent: WeWork is on the verge of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey, according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. If WeWork does indeed file, it shouldn’t come as a shock to close followers of the flexible workspace provider, Mary Ann writes — WeWork warned in August in its second-quarter earnings that “substantial doubt exists about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

Anthropic raises billions more: Google has reportedly invested $2 billion in Anthropic, the AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI execs, according to The Wall Street Journal. The deal comes shortly after Amazon committed to as much as $4 billion in Anthropic. As Devin reports, this is just the latest in a developing proxy war between rival tech giants with a limited number of AI champions to back.

Costco keeps selling spy cameras: Two U.S. lawmakers this week asked retail giant Costco why it continues to sell surveillance equipment made by Lorex — despite warnings of cybersecurity risks and links to human rights abuses. The bipartisan letter dated October 31, sent by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ, 4th) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), said Costco’s continued sale of Lorex products is “all the more puzzling” given several of its retail rivals have long discontinued selling the technology.

X’s valuation nosedives: X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is valuing itself at $19 billion, per internal documents obtained by Fortune. When Elon Musk bought the company one year ago this week, he paid about $44 billion — or $54.20 per share — for the microblogging platform. Amanda notes that the internal valuation marks about a 56% decrease in X’s value over the last 12 months, which needless to say doesn’t look too good.

Audio

There’s few better companions as the cold weather encroaches than a podcast — preferably one accompanied by a hot beverage. To round out your playlist, consider TechCrunch’s stable of quality programming.

Equity this week featured Marisa Warren, the co-founder and managing partner at Aliavia Ventures, which invests in startups based in the U.S. and Australia that have at least one female founder and helps their portfolio companies tackle new markets.

On Found, the crew spoke with Abhi Ramesh, the CEO and founder of Misfits Market, a grocery startup that sells surplus and unwanted produce directly to consumers who don’t mind funny-looking foods. They talked about how Ramesh started the company in his apartment, handling every aspect from personally buying the unwanted produce from the farms to storing the food to packaging and shipping — all while running the website and trying to fundraise.

And Chain Reaction recapped the end of the trial for Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, who’s facing seven charges related to fraud and money laundering.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

“Unicorns” come full circle: Alex writes about how, roughly ten years ago, Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee penned a column for TechCrunch that brought the term “unicorn” into the world. Lee’s column helped the world categorize startups in a new way — but it was also a sign of the times to come.

Making wind power cheaper: Tim reports on AirLoom, a startup that aims to halve the cost of wind power with a novel turbine design that’s vertically oriented as opposed to horizontal.

A sports accelerator: Ron covers Comcast’s relatively new sports-startup-focused accelerator, the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator, which finds startups that might bring innovation to Comcast’s sports league partners while giving the young firms access to Comcast’s media resources — and the sports leagues themselves.

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that highlights notable tech industry happenings over the past few days. Life moves pretty fast, as a young Matthew Broderick once said — we empathize. Fortunately, there’s WiR to get you caught up to speed.

In this edition of WiR, we cover a hacker leaking millions of 23andMe customer records, X’s crackdown on porn, Meta’s Ray-Ban sunglasses and Marc Andreessen’s tone-deaf manifesto. Also on the agenda is the IRS’ upcoming free direct tax filing service, Web Summit’s fight with Israel supporters, FTX execs blowing through billions of dollars and Disney’s Hotstar reaching new heights.

It’s a lot to get through, so let’s not dillydally. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven’t already done so.

Most read

Hackers leak more 23andMe records: The same hacker who leaked a trove of user data stolen from the genetic testing company 23andMe two weeks ago has now published millions of new records on the dark web, Lorenzo reports. A 23andMe spokesperson tells TechCrunch that the company was made aware of the new leak this week and is “reviewing the data to determine if it is legitimate.”

Meta’s new smart glasses: Brian reviewed Meta’s new Ray-Ban sunglasses, which maintain a slim and light design while rendering their predecessor obsolete with Facebook and Instagram livestreaming. The verdict? One can see the future of head-worn computing in the $299 sunglasses, Brian writes, which sport a mic and virtual assistant in addition to livestreaming features — but it’s going to be a while before we get there.

X cracks down on porn: When X, formerly Twitter, launched paid subscription verification, some sex workers hoped that it would help them advertise to new clients. But paying for the service didn’t protect them from X’s crackdown on explicit content, which has come as a particularly hard blow for sex workers on X — who have few options to promote themselves elsewhere — as the social network’s traffic reportedly declines, Morgan writes.

Andreessen misses the point: Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen posted a manifesto on the a16z website this week, calling for “techno-optimism” in a frenzied, 5,000-word blog post that somehow manages to re-invent Reaganomics, propose the colonization of outer space and unironically answer a question with the phrase “QED.” In this post, TechCrunch issued a rebuttal of sorts to the more tone-deaf points.

Free, gov-sponsored tax filing comes to the U.S.: The IRS will test a free tax filing service in 2024 for a subset of lucky taxpayers in as many as 13 states, the agency announced earlier this week. Direct File, as the service is called, is a shot across the bows of TurboTax, H&R Block and other paid tax prep services, whose owners have resisted free and simple tax filing for decades.

Web Summit suffers for its founder’s politics: Web Summit, the Big Tech conference brand that runs events in several cities and whose 70,000 person flagship event in Lisbon is taking place next month, is running into a wall — of outrage. Ingrid writes that founders, investors and others from the tech community in Israel have gone ballistic over comments made by the founder and figurehead of Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave, related to the fighting underway across Israel and Gaza — specifically his criticism of Israel’s retaliatory actions.

FTX founders burned through billions: Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives spent $8 billion worth of customer funds on real estate, venture capital investments, campaign donations, endorsement deals and even a sports stadium, according to testimony from former senior FTX executive Nishad Singh. Singh’s testimony, which kicked off the third week of Bankman-Fried’s trial, provides fresh details of exactly where that money went.

Hotstar sets a global streaming record: A high-profile cricket match between neighbors India and Pakistan delivered a much-needed break for Disney’s Hotstar this past week, writes Manish, which has lost over 20 million subscribers in the past three quarters and whose executives are anticipated to soon intensify the hunt to find a buyer for its India operations. On Saturday, Hotstar drew 35 million concurrent viewers to the cricket match, surpassing the recent record of 32 million viewers set by Viacom18’s JioCinema.

Audio

Short a podcast for the morning commute? Look no further than TechCrunch’s lineup, which has plenty on tap from which to choose.

On Equity, Gené Teare from Crunchbase and Crunchbase News joined to discuss what we should think about the Q3 2023 venture capital market as a whole and which startups are seeing the most — and the least — capital. Teare is a well-known analyst of the global venture capital market and was instrumental to Crunchbase’s early life and remains one of its more tenured staffers.

Found featured a conversation with Hilary Mason from Hidden Door, an AI-driven narrative game engine. This mini-episode, which was recorded in person at TechCrunch Disrupt, demystifies how generative AI is changing online gaming, the process of building a team of creatives and what fundraising is like in the gaming space.

And Chain Reaction hosted Katherine Dowling, the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Bitwise Asset Management, a crypto asset manager known for creating the world’s largest crypto index fund. Katherine previously worked in compliance at True Capital Management and Luminate Capital Partners and, before that, as the assistant U.S. attorney.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

Is now the time to raise again?: Rebecca writes about how some early-stage founders are optimistic about raising VC capital again — but not all of them, drawing on data from a January Ventures survey of pre-seed and seed-stage founders.

A fair price for Loom: Last week, when Atlassian announced its intent to acquire video messaging app Loom for $975 million, it would have been easy to think that the former unicorn was undervalued. But comparing 2021 valuations to the reality of 2023 really isn’t a fair way of looking at the recent deal, Alex and Ron write.

Plaid inches toward an IPO: News that startup Plaid hired a CFO has kicked off a round of “When will it go public?” chatter. The answer is not soon, something that we can infer from the fact that it only just hired a CFO. Still, hiring C-suite financial talent is a known step on the well-trod path from private startup to public company, reports Alex.