TechCrunch Industry News

If becoming a corporate spy sounds exciting, let this newest affidavit from confessed Rippling spy Keith O’Brien serve as a warning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Baiju Bhatt is building something the space industry has largely dismissed, and it might be more groundbreaking than anyone realizes. When Baiju Bhatt stepped away from his role as Chief Creative Officer at Robinhood last year, only those close to him could have predicted his next move: launching a space company built around tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frederik Hjelm, CEO of shared micromobility startup Voi, said he sees a path to acquiring the scooter and bike operations of Bolt, the European mobility super-app best known for ride-hailing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Across hundreds of thousands of years of human existence, an impossible question has befuddled our species: why is the baby crying?! Sam Altman, who is both the father of a three-month-old and CEO of OpenAI, hopped on OpenAI’s new podcast today to talk about how his company is impacting his experience with fatherhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta’s new superintelligence team with top-tier AI researchers from competing labs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The contract could put the model maker in competition with the OpenAI services that Microsoft wants to sell to the DoD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The digital health startup says it secured the fresh capital to update its valuation and finance acquisitions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify's Daniel Ek just led a €600 million investment in Helsing, a four-year-old, Munich-based defense tech company that is now valued at €12 billion, according to the Financial Times. The deal makes it one of Europe's most valuable privately held companies; it also highlights Europe's scramble to build its own military muscle as the world grows messier and the U.S. turns inward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patreon is bumping its take fee from creators from 8% to 10%, but only for new signups; ChatGPT seems to have pushed some users towards delusional or conspiratorial thinking, according to a recent feature in The New York Times; Meta’s massive investment in Scale AI may be giving some of the startup’s biggest customers pause. Reuters reports that Google had planned to pay Scale AI $200 million this year but is now planning to cut ties with the startup and is having conversations with its competitors; Pornainen recently turned on a 100 MWh thermal battery filled with ground up soapstone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instagram users report that their accounts were banned even though they had not violated the company's terms of service or other policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It sounds like the start of a 21st century horror film: Your browser history has been public all along, and you had no idea. That’s basically what it feels like right now on the new standalone Meta AI app, where swathes of people are publishing their ostensibly private conversations with the chatbot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon and Talen revised an existing deal to buy power from the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new analysis done by ride-hailing aggregator Obi shows Waymos cost more especially on shorter trips. They also have longer wait times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Warp can't automate long-haul trucking or short-range delivery, so it's working on what it can potentially change: the workflows inside its warehouses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Lemony AI device can run large language models, AI agents and automated workflows locally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a new essay published Tuesday called “The Gentle Singularity,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared his latest vision for how AI will change the human experience over the next 15 years. The essay is a classic example of Altman’s futurism: hyping up the promise of AGI — and arguing that his company is quite close. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mistral released Magistral, its first family of reasoning models. Like other reasoning models — e.g. OpenAI's o3 and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro — Magistral works through problems step-by-step for improved consistency and reliability across topics such as math and physics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Italian government claims that accepting Paragon’s help would have compromised national security and classified information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PayPal is partnering with hotel payment provider Selfbook to let users search for and book hotels within the PayPal app. The company said that it will let users pay through PayPal at checkout and offer exclusive discounts to users within the app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Several Waymo robotaxis and Lime e-scooters were set ablaze this weekend as unrest in downtown Los Angeles continued. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Walmart and Wing are expanding their partnership and rolling out drone delivery to dozens of more stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonfire's mission is to build social software where people get to make the decisions, not big tech platform makers like Meta or Google. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reddit is suing Anthropic for allegedly using the site’s data to train AI models without a proper licensing agreement, according to a complaint filed in a Northern California court on Wednesday. Reddit claims in the complaint that Anthropic’s unauthorized use of the site’s data for commercial purposes was unlawful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s becoming a little easier to build sophisticated robotics projects at home. AI dev platform Hugging Face released earlier this week an open AI model for robotics called SmolVLA. Trained on “compatibly licensed,” community-shared datasets, SmolVLA outperforms much larger models for robotics in both virtual and real-world environments, Hugging Face claims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reddit announced a new feature that will offer its users more privacy when it comes to what’s shared on their user profiles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic has given its AI a blog. A week ago, Anthropic quietly launched Claude Explains, a new page on its website that’s generated mostly by the company’s AI model family, Claude. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A healthcare giant with dozens of facilities across Ohio is still recovering after shutting down nearly all its operations following a ransomware attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TikTok announced on Tuesday that it’s officially launching TikTok for Artists, a new music insights platform that is designed to help artists build their careers. The official launch comes two months after TikTok was spotted testing the platform in select countries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elad Gil started betting on AI before most of the world took notice. By the time investors began grasping the implications of ChatGPT, Gil had already written seed checks to startups like Perplexity, Character.AI, and Harvey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Generative AI comes in many forms. Increasingly, though, it’s marketed the same way: with human names and personas that make it feel less like code and more like a co-worker. A growing number of startups are anthropomorphizing AI to build trust fast — and soften its threat to human jobs. It’s dehumanizing, and it’s accelerating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s newest AI model, an updated version of the company’s R1 reasoning model, achieves impressive scores on benchmarks for coding, math, and general knowledge, nearly surpassing OpenAI’s flagship o3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If the Senate were to pass it with those repeals in tact, it could have a devastating impact on Tesla’s energy division. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Volteras has raised $11.1 million to expand its connected car offerings to automakers and companies that want to interact with EVs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Kevin Malone from “The Office” once said, “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” For Julia LeStage and Lisa Le, the creators of a new dating app called LoveJack, finding love online doesn’t have to feel like filling out a mountain of paperwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Atomic Canyon raised $7 million in a seed round to expand its document search AI for nuclear power plants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After the market closes on Wednesday, Nvidia will report earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2026, which ended on April 27. While many in the industry are likely eager to hear how the recent whiplash surrounding U.S. chip export controls will impact Nvidia’s international chip business and future guidance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gridcare raised $13.3 million for its data platform that finds underutilized capacity on the electrical grid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In April, Tesla sold 7,261 vehicles in the European Union, European Free Trade Association, and U.K., a 49% year-over-year decline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nielsen’s latest report serves as another wake-up call that YouTube is rapidly gaining ground in the TV landscape. On Tuesday, Nielsen released its April 2025 “Media Distributor Gauge” report, which showed that YouTube has achieved a significant milestone: it has maintained the largest share of TV viewing for three consecutive months, now accounting for 12.4% ; WhatsApp is officially available on iPad, Meta announced on Tuesday. The new iPad app allows you to make video and audio calls with up to 32 people, share your screen, and use both front and back cameras. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The newly signed Take It Down Act makes it illegal to publish nonconsensual explicit images – real or AI-generated – and gives platforms just 48 hours to comply with a victim’s takedown request or face liability. While widely praised as a long-overdue win for victims, experts warn its vague language, lax standards for verifying claims, and tight compliance window could pave the way for overreach, censorship of legitimate content, and even surveillance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Teddy Warner, 19, has always been interested in robotics. His family was in the industry, and he says he “grew up” working in a machinist shop while in high school. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes today’s AI models hallucinate, or make things up and present them as if they’re true, at a lower rate than humans do, he said during a press briefing at Anthropic’s first developer event, Code with Claude, in San Francisco on Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The elusive hacking group Careto was never publicly linked to a specific government, but TechCrunch has learned researchers concluded privately that the Spanish government was behind the group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Famed Apple product designer Jony Ive will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI, the result on an usual deal announced on Wednesday. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive have been working on an AI device that will move consumers beyond screens for roughly two years, according to The Wall Street Journal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify says its ability to direct its customers to external payment links in its iOS app has already had a positive impact on sales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he “made a lot of mistakes with Google Glass” during an onstage interview at Google I/O 2025 on Tuesday. Brin was a surprise addition to an interview with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis conducted by Big Technology Podcast’s Alex Kantrowitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three years ago, as the pandemic caused chaos for companies big and small, Colgate-Palmolive’s chief supply chain officer Luciano Sieber orchestrated a “logistics blitz.” The result gave Sieber a better understanding of how Colgate-Palmolive moves its products around the world. But it stuck Sieber with another problem: too much data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

South Loop Ventures, a Houston-based venture firm, announced a $21 million Fund I, with Rice Management Company and Chevron Technology Ventures serving as anchor investors. The firm, which launched in 2022, focuses on seed and pre-seed companies, with $400,000 as the average check size Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SparkCharge raised $15.5 million in equity and secured a $15 million loan to expand its fleet charging operations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MIT says that due to concerns about the “integrity” of a high-profile paper on the effects of artificial intelligence on the productivity of a materials science lab, the paper should be “withdrawn from public discourse.” The paper in question, “Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation,” was written by a doctoral student Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices