Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Welcome to TC PM! Today we dive into Amazon's attempt at beating Shein and Temu; we learn about the latest Tesla Cybertruck recall; and we listen to Mark Zuckerberg's ode to his wife. Onward!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Amazon

🤔 Amazon can sell crap discounted items, too: In response to the growing popularity of retailers like Shein and Temu that sell discounted mass-produced items from China, Amazon launched a storefront with the same goal, Amazon Haul. Hmmm. Read more

🚫 Six recalls is a lot: Select Tesla Cybertrucks are getting recalled for having a faulty drive inverter. If a Cybertruck recall sounds familiar, that's because it's the sixth time Tesla has had to recall Cybertrucks since they were released just one year ago. Read more

📞 API acquisition: Telecom company Nokia announced that it was acquiring Rapid, an API marketplace formerly known as RapidAPI. Nokia will incorporate Rapid's tech into its platform for 5G operators. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Leland

💼 Cash for coaching: Leland, an app that matches people with coaches to reach a specific goal like applying for college, just raised $12 million in Series A funding. The company, which was founded in 2021, has facilitated 50,000 coaching sessions in the last 12 months. Read more

🇮🇳 IPOs in India: While the IPO market still remains dormant here in the U.S., the same can't be said about India. Swiggy's recent successful IPO has Dutch investor Prosus looking to list portfolio fintech company PayU in 2025. Read more

🎙️ AI agents: AI agents appear to be everywhere, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff thinks this trend will continue. He appeared on the Equity podcast this week to talk about AI and his goal of deploying 1 billion AI agents via the company's Agentforce within one year. Listen here

👕 Hot Topic hacked: The clothing retailer was hit by a data breach that has affected 57 million customers. Someone who goes by the alias "Satanic" has claimed responsibility for the October 19 breach, which is delightfully on the nose. Read more

😓 Headcount reduction: Chipmaker AMD has laid off 4% of its workforce, or an estimated 1,000 employees. This news comes after AMD's mixed Q3 results as the company has struggled to compete with chipmakers like Nvidia. Read more

🎧 More talk: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is still talking about the company's alleged proposal to create a "super premium" tier that would give users more control and high-quality streaming. The only thing that could get me to pay more for Spotify, however, would be for it to bring back its old (good) algorithms. Read more

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Around the web

♾️ Infinite scroll: YouTube has been testing a new feature that has full-length videos in a TikTok-esc infinite feed with a new video starting as soon as one ends. The Verge noodles on what that feature could mean for creators. Read more

🤨 Musk's meddling: In recent weeks, some of Facebook's most viral posts have been AI-generated images of Elon Musk that make him look like a philanthropist. 404 Media dives into the trend and where these posts are coming from. Read more

Before you go

Image Credits: Album art for Mark Zuckerberg's cover of "Get Low" with T-Pain

😳 To the window, to the wall: Mark Zuckerberg's campaign to be crowned chief "wife guy" continues to get weirder. The latest: Zuckerberg collaborated with T-Pain to cover 2002 rap hit "Get Low" for his wife, because it's the song that was on when they met. This is an interesting choice, considering how the song goes. Read on if you dare