Friday, May 23, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! Today we have the details on a once buzzy proptech startup that has gone dark; we look into an X spat between a House representative and an AI model; and we learn that Pocket already has interest from potential buyers. Have a great weekend!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Landa

🏡 Too good to be true: Landa emerged from stealth in August 2022 with a pledge to make any U.S. adult a real estate investor starting with just $5. That went about as well as you'd expect. Now Landa's investment portal is shut down, and users haven't been paid dividends in months.

🥊 AI fight club: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene does not like how xAI's Grok model is describing her on X. Grok questioned Greene's beliefs as a Christian, and Greene lashed out — yes, to an AI model — and said the platform spreads fake news and propaganda.

📌 Are message boards better? Instant messaging and social media platform Discord is gearing up to go public. Before it does that, it wants to solve some problems first. For one, some Discord users get overwhelmed by streams of consistent messaging, and the company is considering message boards or AI summaries.

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Grace Cary / Getty Images

🎙️ A little AI here, a little AI there: Today's episode of Equity dives into OpenAI's decision to buy device startup, io. The hosts also unpack the announcements from Google I/O — including the return of Google Glass — and drama at Luminar.

🚙 Not going down without a fight: The Senate voted yesterday to overturn a waiver that allowed California to set stricter air pollution standards for vehicles. Now California is preparing to sue the federal government to get that right back.

👖 Digg digs it: Digg, the link aggregator that was recently revived, is interested in potentially buying Pocket, the read-it-later mobile app that Mozilla is shutting down later this year. By "interested," we mean Digg chairman Kevin Rose tweeted his company would be "happy to take it over."

🙃 CEOs against safety: Apple CEO Tim Cook allegedly called Texas governor Greg Abbott to change or veto a potential bill in Texas meant to keep children and minors safe. This bill would require minors' App Store accounts to be linked to their parents'. Apple is calling it a privacy risk.

🤩 Kesha is a founder now: Pop singer Kesha is launching an app called Smash, which is meant to connect and protect music creators. This seems like a natural next step for Kesha, who announced last year she was building an eponymous record label.

Around the web

✍️ What's the point? Romance readers caught a leftover AI prompt in the novel "Darkhollow Academy: Year 2," which, naturally, implies the author used AI to write the book. I naively thought writers got into writing because they are passionate about it.

⛏️ Crypto bust: Crypto mining was supposed to help renew mining towns like Campton, Kentucky, but it didn't work out that way. Now the town has its sights set on another renewal: AI data centers. But not many of the locals are convinced.