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Received yesterday — 25 April 2025TechCrunch

Startups Weekly: Tech IPOs and deals proceed, but price matters

25 April 2025 at 17:04
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week confirmed that deals can still happen in a troubled world, but price considerations and adjustments are now part of the picture. Most interesting startup stories […]

An OpenAI researcher who worked on GPT-4.5 had their green card denied

25 April 2025 at 16:15
Kai Chen, a Canadian AI researcher working at OpenAI who’s lived in the U.S. for 12 years, was denied a green card, according to Noam Brown, a leading research scientist at the company. In a post on X, Brown said that Chen learned of the decision Friday and must soon leave the country. “It’s deeply […]

Google’s AI search numbers are growing, and that’s by design

25 April 2025 at 14:34
Google started testing AI-summarized results in Google Search, AI Overviews, two years ago, and continues to expand the feature to new regions and languages. By the company’s estimation, it’s been a big success. AI Overviews is now used by more than 1.5 billion users monthly across over 100 countries. AI Overviews compiles results from around […]

Roelof Botha, the head of Sequoia Capital, is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

25 April 2025 at 14:30
We’re thrilled to announce that Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital and one of the most influential figures in the venture capital world, will join us live onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 at Moscone West in San Francisco, which will take place from October 27 to 29. As part of our ongoing mission […]

Last day to boost your brand and host a Side Event at TechCrunch Sessions: AI

25 April 2025 at 14:00
This is your last chance to put your brand at the center of the AI conversation during TechCrunch Sessions: AI Week — with applications to host a Side Event closing tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. From June 1-7, TechCrunch is curating a dynamic weeklong series of Side Events leading up to and following the main […]

Prince Harry meets, funds youth groups advocating for social media and AI safety

25 April 2025 at 14:00
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, walked into the sunlit hotel conference room in Brooklyn on Thursday to meet with a dozen youth leaders working in tech safety, policy, and innovation. The young adults chatted away at black circular tables, many unaware of his presence until he plopped down at a table and started talking with […]

Chinese AI startup Manus reportedly gets funding from Benchmark at $500M valuation

25 April 2025 at 13:30
Chinese startup Manus AI, which works on building tools related to AI agents, has picked up $75 million in a funding round led by Benchmark at a roughly $500 million valuation, according to Bloomberg. The company will use the money to expand to new markets, including the U.S., Japan, and the Middle East, Bloomberg noted, […]

TechCrunch StrictlyVC in Athens in May will feature a special guest: the Greece prime minister

25 April 2025 at 05:00
We’re thrilled to announce that Greece prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be joining us at our upcoming StrictlyVC event in Athens, co-hosted with Endeavor, on Thursday night, May 8, at the stunning Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. For those who might not be familiar with his background, Mitsotakis brings a fascinating blend of experiences to […]

Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla

25 April 2025 at 04:11
A new American electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto has made its debut, and it’s about as anti-Tesla as it gets. It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even painted. It can also transform from a two-seater pickup to […]

Faraday Future founder named co-CEO three years after being sidelined by internal probe

25 April 2025 at 02:20
Troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future’s board of directors has appointed founder Jia Yueting as the company’s co-CEO, three years after he was sidelined following an internal probe into allegations of fraud — a probe that led to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that remains ongoing. Jia will serve alongside current CEO […]

Wait, how did a decentralized service like Bluesky go down?

25 April 2025 at 00:28
It turns out that decentralized social networks can go down, too. On Thursday evening, the decentralized social network Bluesky experienced a significant outage, leaving users unable to load the app on both the web and mobile devices for roughly an hour. According to a message on Bluesky’s status page, the company was aware of the […]

Anthropic CEO wants to open the black box of AI models by 2027

24 April 2025 at 23:28
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay Thursday highlighting how little researchers understand about the inner workings of the world’s leading AI models. To address that, Amodei set an ambitious goal for Anthropic to reliably detect most AI model problems by 2027. Amodei acknowledges the challenge ahead. In “The Urgency of Interpretability,” the CEO says Anthropic has […]

How do you define cheating in the age of AI?

24 April 2025 at 22:23
This AI startup raised $5.3 million to help people “cheat on everything.” But in the age of AI, how do you define cheating? Columbia University recently suspended student Roy Lee for building a tool to help people cheat on engineering interviews. He’s been making waves on X after posting a long thread detailing the saga and […]

OpenAI rolls out a ‘lightweight’ version of its ChatGPT deep research tool

24 April 2025 at 22:21
OpenAI is bringing a new “lightweight” version of its ChatGPT deep research tool, which scours the web to compile research reports on a topic, to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users, the company announced Thursday. The new lightweight deep research, which will also come to free ChatGPT users starting today, is powered by a version […]

Intel reverses course, opts not to spin out Intel Capital

24 April 2025 at 21:33
Semiconductor giant Intel won’t spin out its venture arm, Intel Capital, after all. During Intel’s Q1 earnings call Thursday, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company has reversed its decision to spin out its 34-year-old venture arm. Instead, Intel Capital will remain internal and continue to invest with Intel’s interests in mind. “We have made […]

Intel mandates four days in the office

24 April 2025 at 21:26
Intel says that it’ll require employees to work from the office four days a week, a shift from the company’s current policy. CEO Lip-Bu Tan made the announcement during Intel’s Q1 2025 earnings call on Thursday. Previously, Intel allowed staff to work from home two days a week, but Tan said that adherence to the […]
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Netflix aims to be a trillion-dollar company, says co-CEO

23 April 2025 at 19:09
At Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit on Wednesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he believes Netflix’s long-term goal to achieve a $1 trillion market capitalization is possible if the streaming giant continues to perform well.  Sarandos said, “In the previous five years, we’ve doubled our revenue, we grew profits 10 times, and we grew our […]
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