Some Tesla Supercharger jobs get a jolt

Plus: Amazon CodeWhisperer changes its name and Arc gets a Windows version

View this email online in your browser By Christine Hall Tuesday, April 30, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch PM, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package. Today, Tesla does some more job cutting, Sam's Club gets techy with it and we have a big batch of venture rounds. Also, the European Commission is called out for its plans to detect child sexual abuse material. Let's dive in! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Tesla makes more job cuts: The electric vehicle maker made a surprise move today and laid off people from its charging team. The move comes as other top automakers have jumped on the Tesla Supercharger bandwagon. Read More Sam's Club introduces exit technology: Instead of handing over your receipt on your way out the door, Sam's Club is putting technology to work to make sure you are walking out with only what you purchased. This checkout technology is now deployed at over 120 clubs across the U.S. Read More Did you iPhone alarm go off today?: If not, you aren't alone. Apple is working on a fix after receiving complaints that iPhone alarms were ringing silently. Perhaps Apple thought you needed more rest. Read More Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: cundra / Getty Images Amazon CodeWhisperer gets a new name: CodeWhisperer is now Q Developer. It helps with some of the tasks developers do in the course of their daily work, like debugging and upgrading apps, troubleshooting, and performing security scans — much like CodeWhisperer did. Read More EU's CSAM-scanning legislation: Some folks want the European Commission to more fully disclose its dealings with private technology companies and other stakeholders, in relation to a controversial piece of tech policy that could see a law mandate the scanning of European Union citizens' private messages in a bid to detect child sexual abuse material. Read More Spotify is going all in on developer tools: Paul Sawers writes, "Spotify is leaning even further into this play with the launch of a new suite of products and services designed to make Backstage the de facto developer portal platform for the software development industry." Read More Original content gets its moment on Instagram: Now you don't have to have thousands of followers for someone to find your original content on Instagram. The Meta-owned social media platform is updating its algorithm to give all creators equal footing. Read More Arc, Windows version: Over 1 million people have been on the waitlist for The Browser Company to make a Windows version of the Arc web browser. Today, you don't have to wait for any longer. In fact, you don't even have to be on the waitlist. It's all yours. Read More Notable Capital's Hans Tung on why founders need to play the long game: Mary Ann Azevedo speaks with Tung about everything from down rounds (it's okay to have one) to the investing landscape ("AI is an outlier") to investment pace (everyone has to wait). Read More Money, money, money Beehiiv attracts $33 million to make its newsletter publishing platform more sticky. Read More "Wallet-as-a-service" startup Ansa raises $14 million with female investors leading the way. Read More A pair of Airbnb alums grab $5 million to bring intelligence and automation to data protection. Read More SafeBase, now with $33 million, taps AI to automate software security reviews. Read More Shinkei is leveraging $6 million in new capital so its humane, quality-preserving fish-harvesting tech can upend the seafood industry. Read More Seam raises $5 million to make customer data accessible to every business user. Read More Around the web Image Credits: Getty Images/Patra Kongsirimongkolchai / EyeEm Walmart makes a premium brand: Walmart is always one-upping, and it's done it again with the introduction of a private label food brand called bettergoods. There's a twist, though, and it's not just another box of macaroni and cheese, but a plant-based version. And an oat milk ice cream. The Wall Street Journal and Barron's have some takes. #Sorrynotsorry: Is Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang difficult to work for? His staff tells Fortune, "Yes." Heck, even Huang says "Yes." I guess that's one way to agree on the way to run a business. Read More Coca-Cola's crisp, refreshing first quarter: Reuters reports that the beverage giant's bets on pricey drinks have paid off. Read More A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now TechCrunch Minute OpenAI's media deal rush continues with FT deal: However, the Financial Times-OpenAI tie-up tells us a bit more than that one media company will soon have a few more duckets in its pockets. No, it's yet another OpenAI deal that will see the Microsoft-backed AI shop further cement its ability to ingest training material without legal risk, and start to pay some of the providers of said material for their work. All good, right? Hit play and let's chat!  Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. 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An inside look at Techstars’ horrible year

TechCrunch spoke with over 30 people to find out just what happened at Techstars last year

View this email online in your browser By Alex Wilhelm Tuesday, April 30, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning we have an investigative look at how Techstars has worked to revamp itself, notes on a couple cool startups tackling niche sectors, why everyone should sign up for 2FA, a new consumer-tech VC fund, and, yes, more startups from France. Let's dive in! — Alex TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch 1. Inside Techstars' annus horribilis: Techstars has worked hard lately to centralize its operations and shutter some programs in order to survive a venture market downturn — it's not been easy. Now, a TechCrunch investigation reveals how this well-known accelerator hit a rough patch of a year while working to set a new course for its future. Read More 2. Consumer tech is not dead yet: Intuition, a new venture firm out of Paris, has a new €15 million fund aimed at consumer tech, and we think it's a great idea. Sure, every other headline from the tech industry today seems to be about how AI can be used for businesses, but that makes now the perfect time for a counter-narrative bet, right? Read More 3. Europe has (even more) thoughts about Meta: What is it this time? Election-related matters! More specifically, the EU is worried that Meta may not be moderating political ads enough or properly under the rules of the Digital Markets Act. The bloc is taking a look. I've lost track of the number of legal contests between United States' based companies and the EU, but it's quite a lot. Read More A MESSAGE FROM INCOGNI Stop Robocalls, Spam Emails, Stalkers, Frauds, and More Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. And who's buying it? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves. Try Incogni—not only does it delete your personal data from the web, but it also removes your info from sites used for stalking. Sign Up Now Morning Must Reads Image Credits: Patrick Sison / AP Multi-factor authentication matters: The hackers behind the painful and expensive breach at Change Healthcare apparently used stolen credentials that were not protected by multi-factor authentication. The result of that oversight? Massive operational issues and huge costs to a massive company that handled nearly half of all U.S. citizens' data. We'll be talking about this one for some time. Read More Chowdeck's food-delivery business is booming: Nigerian startup Chowdeck, which recently raised a $2.5 million seed round, is trying to prove that food delivery is a massive growth opportunity in its home market. With GMV rising from ₦1 billion  ($830,000) in October 2023 to ₦2.4 billion ($2 million) this March, the startup is growing fast. Now the question will be how long it can keep that sort of growth going without burning too much cash. Read More Niche carbon counting: Tracking carbon usage is no small feat. That's why there's an industry of companies in the market today that help others with their carbon accounting. One startup, Carbonfact, is betting that by selecting and going deep on a single industry, it can do better than its rivals. The French startup recently raised $15 million to help the fashion industry become greener. Read More Going after leaked, deepfaked content: Ceartas has raised $4.5 million for its AI-infused tech service that scans "digital platforms to identify and eliminate unauthorized content, including deepfakes." The idea for the company came after one of its founders' personal video was posted to an adult website without his consent or knowledge. It's becoming easier by the day to deepfake images and videos, so Ceartas could have a lot of business on its hands. Read More The government is here to help: The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology has spun up a generative AI division that will work on deepfake detection, and "encourage the development of software to spot the source of fake or misleading AI-generated information." We probably need this, but who expects the government to move as quickly as the technology in question? Read More New iPads: Apple may show off a new iPad Pro, iPad Air, Apple Pencil and a keyboard case in its May 7 event, so make sure you tune in to our coverage of all of the cool gadgets right here. Bookmark that link! Voters worry social media companies are too powerful: For politics, at least. Per a new survey, some "78% of American adults say social media companies have too much influence on politics." That's 6% more than the last election cycle, and includes the vast majority of both sides of the U.S. political divide. Read More Bumble shakes up app: Dating app Bumble wants to make it easier for women to reach out to potential matches. Given that the service is built around the idea of women making the first move, that direction makes sense. Bumble's stock has seen its value erode in the public markets since its IPO back in 2021. Read More neuroClues wants to use your eyes to diagnose your brain: French-Belgian medtech startup neuroClues is building eye-tracking tech that uses AI to watch how a patient's eyes move. The goal here is to diagnose neurodegenerative conditions. neuroClues is starting with a focus on Parkinson's. Read More Around the Web Fines for sharing mobile customers' location data: The Verge reports that the FCC has compiled around $200 million worth of fines for major telcos for "allegedly illegally sharing customers' location data without their consent." The U.S. could use stricter data privacy laws, yeah? Read More Empty buckets can leak lots: Software engineer Maciej Pocwierz has an illuminating post on how a private storage bucket that they set up on AWS wound up getting hit with a bunch of queries. The reason for the mishap is interesting, but the economics of the situation are downright fascinating. Worth reading! Read More Some media is insanely valuable: Rights to broadcast the NBA's events are worth billions every year. NBCUniversal may pay $2.5 billion per year to air a "package" of NBA games, the WSJ reports. That's a lot of cheddar, and it underscores just how valuable rights to air sports events are even in the Internet age. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: A2RL Who would win: Self-driving cars or F1 driver? I'm kidding. This flat out rules. There are many autonomous-driving race leagues out there, and Tim Stevens took a look at the recent Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League event for TechCrunch. Former F1 driver Daniil Kvyat easily beat the robot cars on the track, but I wonder if we're going to see more of this sort of thing? Read More Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy