CodeCanyon

For years, weekend bike rides have been sacred escapes for me. Every pedal stroke helps melt away the stressors that piled up throughout the week, and I’ve collected a few gadgets that make these rides better. However, I’ve learned the hard way that bringing along too much gear takes away from the ride itself, forcing you to manage a network of pings and battery levels instead of just riding the damn bike. Enter Ray-Ban Meta: smart glasses that made my weekend rides simpler and a bit more fun. Instead of wearing sunglasses, a pair of headphones, and fumbling around with my phone to take photos throughout the ride, I now have one device that helps with everything. Ray-Ban Meta under the helmet.Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been a surprise hit with more folks than just me — Meta says it has sold millions of these devices, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said sales have tripled in the last year. Several Reddit threads and YouTube videos suggest that lots of folks are wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses while biking. Meta has caught on as well — it’s reportedly building a next generation of AI smart glasses with Oakley, specifically built for athletes. Cruisin’ with Ray-Ban Metas I never expected to use my Ray-Ban Metas on the bike. But a few months ago, I decided to try them out. Now, I wear these glasses on bike rides more than anywhere else. Meta got just enough things right with these smart glasses to convince me there’s something here. It’s almost a joy to use, and with a few upgrades, it could get there. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW A key selling point of Ray-Ban Meta is that they’re just a solid pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses — mine are the Wayfarer style with transition lenses and a clear plastic body. I found these work well for bike rides, protecting my eyes from the sun, dirt, and pollen. They sit comfortably under a bike helmet — but maybe not perfectly. (More on that later.) The killer feature of Meta’s smart glasses is the camera that sits above your right and left eyes. The glasses allow me to grab photos and videos of things I see on my rides just by pressing a button on the top right corner of the frames, instead of fumbling with my phone — something that feels slightly cumbersome and dangerous on the bike. Blue Heron Lake shot on Ray-Ban Meta. Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunchWhile riding through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco last weekend, I used the Ray-Ban Meta glasses to snap photos of the beautiful Blue Heron Lake, the shrub-covered dunes where the park meets the Pacific Ocean, and the tree-covered track that sits at the park’s entrance. Is the camera amazing? No. But it’s pretty good, and I end up capturing moments I simply never would have if I weren’t wearing the glasses. For that reason, I don’t see the camera as a replacement for my phone’s camera, but rather a way to capture more photos and videos altogether. Went biking through the pan handle with Ray Ban Meta last weekend pic.twitter.com/6WLKmSAHQi — Max Zeff (@ZeffMax) May 8, 2025 The feature I use the most: the open-ear speakers in the arms of the glasses, which allow me to listen to podcasts and music without blocking the noise of people, bikers, and cars around me. Meta was far from the first company to put speakers in glasses — Bose has had a solid pair for years. But Meta’s take on open-ear speakers is surprisingly good. I’ve been impressed by the audio quality and how little I miss traditional headphones on these rides. I’ve found myself chatting with Meta’s AI assistant a bit on my weekend rides. I recently asked it questions about the nature I was seeing throughout the park — such as “Hey, Meta, look and tell me what kind of tree this is?” — as well as the origins of the historic buildings I saw. I typically use bike rides as a way to unplug from the world, so it seemed counterintuitive to talk with an AI chatbot during the rides. However, I found these short queries stoked my curiosity about the world around me without sucking me into a rabbit hole of content and notifications, which is what usually happens when I use my phone. And, again, the greatest thing about these features is they all come in one device. That means fewer things to charge, less clutter in my biking gear box, and fewer devices to manage along my ride. Potholes While the Ray-Ban Meta glasses look great for walking around, they clearly weren’t designed with biking in mind. Oftentimes, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses fall down my nose during a bumpy ride. When I’m bent over on the bike and looking up to see what’s ahead of me, the thick frames block my view. (Most sunglasses for cyclists have thin frames and nose pads to solve these problems.) There are some limitations around how the Ray-Ban Meta glasses work with other apps, which is a problem. While I love taking photos and pausing music with the glasses, for anything else, my phone has to come out of my pocket. For example, Ray-Ban Meta has a Spotify integration, but I had a hard time getting the AI assistant to play specific playlists. Sometimes, the glasses played nothing when I asked for a playlist or played the wrong playlist altogether. I’d love to see these integrations improved — and expanded to include more biking-specific integrations with apps like Strava or Garmin. Ray-Ban Meta also doesn’t work super well with the rest of my iPhone, which is likely due to Apple’s restrictive policies. I’d love to be able to fire off texts or easily navigate through Apple Maps with my Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but features like that may not be available until Apple releases its own smart glasses. Meta AI could still be improved That leaves Meta’s AI assistant. The AI feature is often touted as the main selling point of these glasses, but I often found it lacking. Meta’s voice AI is not as impressive as other voice AI products from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google. Its AI voices feel more robotic, and I find its answers are less reliable. I tested the recently launched Ray-Ban Meta’s live video AI sessions, which were first unveiled at last year’s Meta Connect conference. The feature streams live video and audio from Ray-Ban Meta into an AI model in the cloud, aiming to create a more seamless way to interact with your AI assistant and letting it “see” what you see. In reality, it was a hallucinated hot mess. I asked Ray-Ban Meta to identify some of the interesting cars I was biking past near my apartment. The glasses described a modern Ford Bronco as a vintage Volkswagen Beetle, even though the two look nothing alike. Later, the glasses confidently told me that a 1980s BMW was a Honda Civic. Closer, but still very different cars. During the live AI session, I asked the AI to help identify some plants and trees. The AI told me a eucalyptus tree was an oak tree. When I said, “No, I think that’s a eucalyptus tree,” the AI responded, “Oh yeah, you’re right.” Experiences like that make me question why I’m talking to AI at all. Google DeepMind and OpenAI are also working on multimodal AI sessions like the one that Meta offers with its smart glasses. But for now, the experiences seem far from finished. I really want to see an improved version of AI smart glasses that I can take on bike rides. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are one of the most convincing AI devices I’ve seen yet, and I could see how wearing them on a ride would be a joy after a few key upgrades.

It’s already been a tumultuous year for the U.S. semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry plays a sizable role in the “AI race” that the U.S. seems determined to win, which is why this context is worth paying attention to: from Intel’s appointment of Lip-Bu Tan — who wasted no time getting to work trying to revitalize the legacy company — to CEO, to Joe Biden proposing sweeping new AI chip export rules on his way out of office that may or may not actually stick. Here’s a look at what’s happened since the beginning of the year. May A last-minute reversal May 7: Just a week before the “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion” was set to go into place, the Trump administration plans on taking a different path. According to multiple media outlets, including Axios and Bloomberg, the administration won’t enforce the restrictions when they were supposed to start on May 15 and is instead working on its own framework. April Anthropic doubles down on its support of chip export restrictions April 30: Anthropic doubled down on its support for restricting U.S.-made chip exports, including some tweaks to the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, like imposing further restrictions on Tier 2 countries and dedicating resources to enforcement. An Nvidia spokesperson shot back, saying, “American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in ‘baby bumps’ or ‘alongside live lobsters.’” Planned layoffs at Intel April 22: Ahead of its Q1 earnings call, Intel said it was planning to lay off more than 21,000 employees. The layoffs were meant to streamline management, something CEO Lip-Bu Tan has long said Intel needed to do, and help rebuild the company’s engineering focus. The Trump administration further restricts chip exports April 15: Nvidia’s H20 AI chip got hit with an export licensing requirement, the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The company added it expects $5.5 billion in charges related to this new requirement in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year. The H20 is the most advanced AI chip Nvidia can still export to China in some form or fashion. TSMC and Intel reported similar expenses the same week. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Nvidia appears to talk its way out of further chip exports April 9: Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang was spotted attending dinner at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to reports. At the time, NPR reported Huang may have been able to spare Nvidia’s H20 AI chips from export restrictions upon agreeing to invest in AI data centers in the U.S. An alleged agreement between Intel and TSMC April 3: Intel and TSMC allegedly reached a tentative agreement to launch a joint chipmaking venture. This joint venture would operate Intel’s chipmaking facilities, and TSMC would have a 20% stake in the new venture. Both companies declined to comment or confirm. If this deal doesn’t come to fruition, this is likely a decent preview of potential deals in this industry to come. Intel spins off non-core assets, announces new initiative April 1: CEO Lip-Bu Tan got to work right away. Just weeks after he joined Intel, the company announced that it was going to spin off non-core assets so it could focus. He also said the company would launch new products including custom semiconductors for customers. March Intel names a new CEO March 12: Intel announced that industry veteran, and former board member, Lip-Bu Tan would return to the company as CEO on March 18. At the time of his appointment, Tan said he Intel would be an “engineering-focused company” under his leadership. February Intel’s Ohio chip plant gets delayed again February 28: Intel was supposed to start operating its first chip fabrication plant in Ohio this year. Instead, the company slowed down construction on the plant for the second time in February. Now, the $28 billion semiconductor project won’t wrap up construction until 2030 and may not even open until 2031. Senators call for more chip export restrictions February 3: U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo), wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Nominee-Designate Howard Lutnick urging the Trump administration to further restrict AI chip exports. The letter specifically referred to Nvidia’s H20 AI chips, which were used in the training of DeepSeek’s R1 “reasoning” model. January DeepSeek releases its open “reasoning” model January 27: Chinese AI startup DeepSeek caused quite the stir in Silicon Valley when it released the open version of its R1 “reasoning” model. While this isn’t semiconductor news specifically, the sheer alarm in the AI and semiconductor industries DeepSeek’s release caused continues to have ripple effects on the chip industry. Joe Biden’s executive order on chip exports January 13: With just a week left in office, former President Joe Biden proposed sweeping new export restrictions on U.S.-made AI chips. This order created a three-tier structure that determined how many U.S. chips can be exported to each country. Under this proposal, Tier 1 countries faced no restrictions; Tier 2 countries had a chip purchase limit for the first time; and Tier 3 countries got additional restrictions. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei weighs in on chip export restrictions January 6: Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei co-wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal endorsing existing AI chip export controls and pointing to them as a reason why China’s AI market was behind the U.S.’. He also called on incoming president Donald Trump to impose further restrictions and to close loopholes that have allowed AI companies in China to still get their hands on these chips.

Whitney Wolfe Herd returned in March to lead Bumble, the dating app she founded and took public, following the unexpected departure of CEO Lidiane Jones. Now, in a New York Times interview, Wolfe Herd opens up about what happened. “I had no intentions of coming back,” Wolfe Herd says. Her post-Bumble life initially brought existential questions about her identity, eventually giving way to daily meditation and board calls from the sidelines. That changed when Jones reached out to confess she was overwhelmed. Shortly after that conversation, Jones resigned. Wolfe Herd dismisses speculation of conflict between them. “I think the world wants people – particularly when it’s a woman to a woman – they want there to be some riff. There’s no riff,” she emphasizes. Wolfe Herd recognized her own burnout reflected in Jones’s exhaustion. “I felt like I was looking in a mirror. I felt like I was looking at myself a year prior… [Jones] herself had made some of the same mistakes I had made, which was working that extra hour, putting in that extra trip.” Herd, who announced Friday on Instagram that she’s expecting her third child, addresses the company’s struggles in her Times interview. With Bumble this week reporting first-quarter earnings that fell 7.7% year-over-year, she say that, “Bumble needs me back. It’s an extension of me to some degree, and watching it fall from its peak has been very hard.”

We’re thrilled to announce that Ellen Chisa, partner at Boldstart Ventures, will be joining us at TechCrunch All Stage 2025 for an energizing conversation about investing in enterprise startups from day one. She’s one of the standout voices shaping this year’s lineup of founders, funders, and operators gathering July 15 in Boston’s SoWa Power Station, and you won’t want to miss what she brings to the table. All Stage is where startup builders get real answers to real questions — from how to raise your next round to how to manage founder burnout. Whether you’re scaling your team, fixing your financial model, or just figuring out your next move, All Stage is built to give you the tactical playbook and trusted community you need to grow faster and smarter. Tickets are on sale now. We’re also still offering Early Bird pricing for TechCrunch All Stage, with founder passes discounted $210, investor passes at a $200 discount, and students getting a chance to attend for just $99. Check out the best option for you and your team right here! What Ellen’s unique expertise brings to TechCrunch All Stage If you don’t already know Ellen Chisa, she’s the kind of investor early-stage founders dream of having in their corner. At Boldstart Ventures, Ellen backs enterprise software companies before most VCs are even paying attention — and she brings deep product and technical empathy to the table. Before joining Boldstart, she co-founded Darklang, a programming language and cloud infrastructure platform built to help developers ship faster. That experience, combined with her product leadership roles at Kickstarter and Lola Travel, makes her uniquely fluent in the realities of building and scaling software from zero to one. Ellen holds a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Olin College and an MBA from Harvard Business School, which adds even more firepower to her founder-first approach. She’s as comfortable talking about infrastructure as she is discussing long-term company-building — and that makes her a go-to voice for early-stage founders navigating complex technical bets. At TechCrunch All Stage, Ellen will share insights on what investors are really looking for in the earliest stages of enterprise software, how founders can position themselves for conviction-level backing, and the common traps to avoid when building in a noisy, fast-changing landscape. Her perspective is especially valuable for first-time founders and technical teams transitioning into startup life. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Get your front row seat to real startup stories She’ll be joined by other top minds in tech and venture, including operators, engineers, and investors who’ve built billion-dollar companies and want to help you do the same. TechCrunch All Stage 2025 expects to draw hundreds of ambitious startup leaders looking for clarity, capital, and connection — and the conversations happening on- and offstage will shape the next generation of great companies. Ellen Chisa’s session is a must-see for anyone building the future of enterprise tech. Don’t miss your chance to learn from her and others charting the course of modern startups. Buy your ticket now and get your seat at TechCrunch All Stage, where the real startup playbooks get revealed.

On Tuesday, WhatsApp scored a major victory against NSO Group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware maker to pay more than $167 million in damages to the Meta-owned company. The ruling concluded a legal battle spanning more than five years, which started in October 2019 when WhatsApp accused NSO Group of hacking more than 1,400 of its users by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the chat app’s audio-calling functionality. The verdict came after a week-long jury trial that featured several testimonies, including NSO Group’s CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp employees who responded and investigated the incident. Even before the trial began, the case had unearthed several revelations, including that NSO Group had cut off 10 of its government customers for abusing its Pegasus spyware, the locations of 1,223 of the victims of the spyware campaign, and the names of three of the spyware maker’s customers: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan. TechCrunch read the transcripts of the trial’s hearings and is highlighting the most interesting facts and revelations that came out. We will update this post as we learn more from the cache of more than 1,000 pages. Testimony described how the WhatsApp attack worked The zero-click attack, which means the spyware required no interaction from the target, “worked by placing a fake WhatsApp phone call to the target,” as WhatsApp’s lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial. The lawyer explained that NSO Group had built what it called the “WhatsApp Installation Server,” a special machine designed to send malicious messages across WhatsApp’s infrastructure mimicking real messages. “Once received, those messages would trigger the user’s phone to reach out to a third server and download the Pegasus spyware. The only thing they needed to make this happen was the phone number,” said Perez. NSO Group’s research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli testified that “any zero-click solution whatsoever is a significant milestone for Pegasus.” NSO Group confirms it targeted an American phone number as a test for the FBI Contact Us Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. For years, NSO Group has claimed that its spyware cannot be used against American phone numbers, meaning any cell number that starts with the +1 country code. In 2022, The New York Times first reported that the company did “attack” a U.S. phone but it was part of a test for the FBI. NSO Group’s lawyer Joe Akrotirianakis confirmed this, saying the “single exception” to Pegasus not being able to target +1 numbers “was a specially configured version of Pegasus to be used in demonstration to potential U.S. government customers.” The FBI reportedly chose not to deploy Pegasus following its test. How NSO Group’s government customers use Pegasus NSO’s CEO Shohat explained that Pegasus’ user interface for its government customers does not provide an option to choose which hacking method or technique to use against the targets they are interested in, “because customers don’t care which vector they use, as long as they get the intelligence they need.” In other words, it’s the Pegasus system in the backend that picks out which hacking technology, known as an exploit, to use each time the spyware targets an individual. NSO Group’s headquarters shares the same building as Apple In a funny coincidence, NSO Group’s headquarters in Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv in Israel, is in the same building as Apple, whose iPhone customers are also frequently targeted by NSO’s Pegasus spyware. Shohat said NSO occupies the top five floors and Apple occupies the remainder of the 14-floor building. The fact that NSO Group’s headquarters are openly advertised is somewhat interesting on its own. Other companies that develop spyware or zero-days like the Barcelona-based Variston, which shuttered in February, was located in a co-working space while claiming on its official website to be located somewhere else. NSO Group admitted that it kept targeting WhatsApp users after the lawsuit was filed Following the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed its lawsuit against NSO Group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenge, the spyware maker kept targeting the chat app’s users, according to NSO Group’s research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli. Gazneli said that “Erised,” the codename for one of the versions of the WhatsApp zero-click vector, was in use from late-2019 up to May 2020. The other versions were called “Eden” and “Heaven,” and the three were collectively known as “Hummingbird.”

Being a founder often feels like you’re building the plane midflight. You’re juggling fundraising, product-market fit, marketing strategy, hiring — while quietly wondering if you’re even doing it right. TechCrunch AllStage 2025, which is happening on July 15 at the SoWa Power Station in Boston, is built to answer those questions. Whether you’re pitching VCs, recruiting a killer team, or trying to make sense of your startup’s finances (and your own), All Stage offers actionable insights from people who’ve lived it. Expect main-stage conversations, deep-dive workshops, and tactical networking designed to help you scale with confidence. One of the voices you’ll want to hear from is Jason Kraus, founder of Prepare 4 VC and one of the most committed startup ecosystem builders out there. We’re also still offering Early Bird pricing for TechCrunch All Stage, with founder passes discounted $210, investor passes available at a $200 discount, and students getting a chance to attend for just $99. Check out the best option for you and your team right here! Why is Kraus speaking at All Stage? Because he’s made a career out of helping founders break through. Kraus launched his first company in college, and he’s never looked back. Through Prepare 4 VC, he’s worked with thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs across the globe, helping them sharpen their pitch, validate their market, and get investor-ready. He’s also a partner at the EQx Fund and Equity Venture Partners, where he helps founders explore new, often overlooked funding pathways. But Kraus’ impact goes beyond capital strategy. He’s the engine behind founder communities like Startup Grind Boston, Startup Weekend, and the Startup Oasis Network, and he built the Breakthrough Program, a 10-week journey that helps founders get past execution bottlenecks and build real traction. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW In short: Kraus knows how to turn early-stage chaos into momentum. His book “Venture Forward” captures hard-won lessons from the startup trenches, and his approach is always founder-first. At TechCrunch All Stage, get clarity, connection, and a competitive edge Kraus’ session at All Stage will give you a tactical playbook for navigating early-stage challenges. Whether you’re figuring out your positioning, trying to impress investors, or just need help getting out of your own head — this is a conversation you’ll want a seat for. Join us in Boston on July 15 TechCrunch All Stage is where ambitious founders go to find direction, community, and game-changing insight. Early Bird tickets won’t last forever, though, and they’re moving quickly. Buy your ticket here and lock in your spot to hear from Kraus and other top startup minds today!

Manus AI is one of the hottest AI agent startups around, recently raising $75 million at a half-billion dollar valuation in a round led by Benchmark. But two unnamed sources told Semafor that the investment is now under review by the U.S. Treasury Department over its compliance with 2023 restrictions on investing in Chinese companies. Benchmark’s lawyers cleared the investment because Manus isn’t technically developing its own AI models, but is instead a “wrapper” around existing ones, Semafor reported. Those lawyers also concluded Manus is not China-based since it’s incorporated in the Cayman Islands. (That’s a common structure used by Chinese companies, like Alibaba, to access foreign capital.) Benchmark has attracted criticism for its Manus investment from Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov, who posted on X “wow, actions have consequences”? wow, actions have consequences? im hearing about this for the first time https://t.co/lTIcRByz5w — delian (@zebulgar) May 9, 2025 Benchmark, Manus, and Treasury didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Google I/O, Google’s biggest developer conference of the year, is nearly upon us. Scheduled for May 20 to 21 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, I/O will showcase product announcements from across Google’s portfolio. Expect plenty of news relating to Android, Chrome, Google Search, YouTube, and — of course — Google’s AI-powered chatbot, Gemini. Here’s what to expect. Gemini and AI Image Credits:Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty ImagesAI is the tech du jour, and Google, like its rivals, has been investing heavily in it. A shoo-in for I/O is a new addition (or several) to Google’s flagship Gemini family of AI models. Leaks over the past few weeks suggest that an updated Gemini Ultra model is on the way, Gemini Ultra being Google’s top-of-the-line Gemini offering. With this upgraded Gemini Ultra may come a pricier Gemini subscription. Google offers a single premium tier, Gemini Advanced ($20 per month), to unlock additional capabilities in its Gemini chatbot, which is powered by the company’s Gemini models. But Google may soon launch two new plans, Premium Plus and Premium Pro. It’s not yet clear what benefits might be attached and how these plans might be priced relative to Gemini Advanced. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Google will almost certainly talk about Astra, its wide-ranging effort to build AI apps and “agents” for real-time, multimodal understanding. Also probably on the agenda is Project Mariner, Google’s AI “agents” that can navigate and take action across the web on a user’s behalf. Folks on X spotted references to “Computer Use” in the code for Google’s AI Studio developer platform, which could well pertain to Mariner. Android 16 Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesImage Credits:Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty ImagesFor the first time this year, Google is hosting a separate event dedicated to Android updates: The Android Show. It’ll take place on Tuesday, roughly a week ahead of I/O. The latest version of Android, Android 16, will be the focus. Android 16 is expected to bring with it improved notifications and an entirely new design language, Material 3 Expressive. In a leaked blog post, Google describes Material 3 Expressive as a top-to-bottom overhaul, with greater responsiveness and “action elements” that pop. Android 16 is mostly a quality-of-life update, judging by reports. It’ll introduce support for Auracast, which should make it easier to switch between Bluetooth devices. Also in tow are lock screen widgets and a range of new accessibility features. Google may also spotlight capabilities in the latest versions of Android XR, its mixed reality operating system, and Wear OS, the company’s software for wearables. Everything else Going by the official I/O schedule, Google will have plenty to discuss following The Android Show and I/O keynote addresses. The schedule lists sessions dedicated to Chrome and Google Cloud, Google Play (the Android app store), Android development tools, and Gemma, Google’s collection of “open” AI models. Last year, Google unveiled a few AI-themed surprises at I/O, including a set of models fine-tuned for education applications called LearnLM. An upgrade to Google’s viral podcast-generating NotebookLM could be one such surprise. Leaked code reveals a “Video Overviews” tool that presumably would create video summaries, most likely leveraging Google’s Veo 2 video-generating model.

For millions of movie enthusiasts in the ’90s, Moviefone’s 777-FILM number was the go-to source for obtaining showtimes. Now, under new ownership, Moviefone is trying to make a comeback. On Friday, as part of its 35th anniversary celebration, Moviefone announced the relaunch of its mobile app and a new nationally syndicated broadcast TV series. Set to launch in private beta this month, the new app is designed to enhance the current web experience, allowing mobile users to search for showtimes and tickets for the latest releases, discover trending movies and TV shows, as well as access Moviefone’s original video content, including celebrity interviews, behind-the-scenes content, reviews, and more. The public app launch is set for this summer. Moviefone TV, meanwhile, is the company’s effort to grow the original media offering of its business by bringing its entertainment content to different TV stations across the U.S. After first debuting in 1989, Moviefone later became a popular online ticket seller and movie information brand before websites like MovieTickets.com and Fandango.com even existed. It went through a few acquisitions, getting snapped up by AOL in 1999, and much later, the original parent company of MoviePass, Helios and Matheson Analytics, which went bankrupt in 2020. That’s when Cleveland O’Neal, TV producer and the creator of daytime entertainment show “Made in Hollywood,” stepped in to lead a revival. The forthcoming app signals that Moviefone is attempting to stay relevant as it caters to a new generation of digital-first movie lovers. As 80% of Moviefone’s audience is aged between 18-44, the company says this calls for the development of an app to compete effectively in the market. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW The company’s weekly TV series airs this fall, but it hasn’t yet shared which stations it’ll be available on. (That will depend on the market.) There is a possibility that the show could be broadcast on the same networks as “Made in Hollywood,” which has a deal with CBS. Given the continued declining popularity of traditional television, though, Moviefone TV also plans to launch on undisclosed streaming platforms and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services. Notably, it also plans to bring on social media influencers to appear on the show to draw in younger viewers. It’s uncertain if this will truly mark Moviefone’s comeback, but it will be interesting to see how the company approaches it. The resurgence of moviegoing in theaters post-pandemic suggests that people may be nostalgic enough to check out its relaunched app.

The U.S. Department of Labor has dropped its investigation into Scale AI’s compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a source directly familiar with the matter. The FLSA is a federal law that regulates misclassification of employees as independent contractors and unpaid wages. TechCrunch first reported that Scale was the subject of such an investigation in March. Upwork and Hireart, two of Scale AI’s HR partners that were also being investigated for FLSA compliance per Inc. magazine, are also no longer being investigated by the DOL, they each confirmed to TechCrunch. Scale AI, which was valued last year at $13.8 billion, depends on an army of workers it categorizes as contractors to do critical AI work, like labeling images for Big Tech. However, Scale has been sued by ex-workers alleging they were underpaid and misclassified as contractors instead of employees, denying them access to benefits like sick leave. It’s not clear exactly why the DOL dropped the probe. San Francisco-based Scale AI declined to comment, while the DOL didn’t respond to a request for comment. There’s several possible reasons, though. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW A recent move from the DOL hints at a friendlier approach to classifying workers as contractors, with the agency announcing on May 1 that it was no longer enforcing, at least for now, a Biden-era rule which made this more difficult. Scale AI is also seeking favor with the Trump administration. Its CEO Alexandr Wang attended Trump’s inauguration (like many other tech CEOs) and has published a letter urging Trump to “win the AI war.” Meanwhile, Scale AI’s former managing director Michael Kratsios was confirmed in March as the new director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. The position involves advising the President on science and tech issues, and has no oversight over the DOL. Kratsios didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fortnite maker Epic Games and Spotify are testing Apple’s new App Store policies by submitting apps for review that would have previously never been allowed. On Friday, both companies submitted new versions of their respective apps to Apple’s App Review. For Epic Games, it would mean the return of Fortnite to the App Store. Apple removed the game in 2020 and terminated Epic’s account after the company challenged the App Store rules by adding support for direct payments in Fortnite, ahead of filing its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Spotify, meanwhile, hopes to allow its users to buy individual audiobooks directly and allow Premium subscribers to buy “top up” hours for audiobook listening. (These hours can be purchased when subscribers go over the 15 free hours they receive each month.) The streamer’s latest update comes on the heels of Apple’s approval this week of the Amazon Kindle app, which added a “Buy Book” button for the first time. It also follows the approval Spotify received last week, which let U.S. users access pricing information for its subscription plans inside its streaming app, among other things. In time, more apps will likely join Epic Games and Spotify to take advantage of the new App Store policies. For tech companies like Epic and Spotify, the App Store policy change the judge required in the lawsuit is about boosting their bottom lines, but for smaller developers, it could impact their ability to exist at all, as it permits new business models to thrive. The updated App Store policies were rolled out last week after Apple lost a major legal battle in the antitrust case filed by Epic Games, when a federal judge ruled that Apple had not followed the court’s orders around in-app purchases. Though Apple largely won that lawsuit, the judge directed the tech giant to be more competitive when it comes to payment processing. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Instead of allowing developers to link out to their website to offer consumers another way to pay for things like virtual goods or subscriptions, Apple had been requiring developers to apply for that permission. If granted, developers then also had to format how the links appeared in their apps to Apple’s liking, which included the use of “scare screens” to warn consumers of the dangers of purchases made outside Apple’s walls. Most importantly, Apple was continuing to charge a hefty commission on those web sales of 27%, down from 30% before the changes. None of that was what the judge had in mind, so it forced Apple to drop its anticompetitive barriers and allow developers to link to web purchase options without any additional hoops to jump through, and without commissions. Epic Games just scored a major win against Apple

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Remember last week when Aurora met a major milestone — just squeaking by under its own deadline — and launched a driverless self-driving truck service? Welp, this week Aurora made headlines again, but for a surprising change in leadership. Co-founder Sterling Anderson, who has been chief product officer, is resigning from his position and the board. No real word on what prompted his resignation, beyond some comments he made during the company’s Q1 earnings call. “Leaving Aurora is one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made, especially given the exciting stage Aurora is at,” he said. “This is precisely what gave me the confidence that now is the right time.” He didn’t say exactly where he was going, either, except that it will be an “exciting external opportunity in a senior leadership role at an iconic global company.” I’ll let you all place your bets. Aurora is pressing on without Anderson. The company announced during its earnings call that it will start sending its self-driving trucks out at night and during adverse weather conditions like rain or heavy wind by the second half of 2025. The company also plans to expand its driverless trucking route beyond Dallas to Houston, and into El Paso and Phoenix. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at [email protected], or Rebecca Bellan at [email protected]. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Deals! Image Credits:Bryce DurbinIt’s not every day a public company reverses course and goes private. But then again, these aren’t normal times. Especially for any company caught up in the U.S.-China trade war. Take Zeekr, for instance. One year ago, the Chinese EV company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. Now, parent company Geely Auto wants to take Zeekr private in response to the Trump administration’s idea to kick Chinese companies off American stock exchanges. Other deals that got my attention … Bosch Ventures has a new $270 million fund that will continue its tradition of investing in deep tech startups. Managing director Ingo Ramesohl told TechCrunch the plan is to put more of its money into North American startups. Investors who previously backed Indian Uber rival BluSmart have proposed a plan to inject another $30 million into the struggling cab-hailing startup, which abruptly halted operations last month. But there’s a catch. Breathe, a battery software startup, raised $21 million in a Series B round led by Kinnevik Online AB, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Lowercarbon Capital and Volvo Cars Tech Fund participated. DoorDash announced two major acquisitions as it expands into Europe. The company agreed to buy its U.K. rival Deliveroo for about £2.9 billion (around $3.87 billion) and separately said it is buying SevenRooms — which provides CRM, marketing, and operations software to help restaurants, hotels, and public venues with reservations and guest management — for $1.2 billion in cash. Meanwhile, Uber was busy this week, acquiring companies and investing in them. Uber increased its investment into Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide by $100 million as part of an expanded partnership deal to bring the service to another 15 cities over the next five years. In a separate deal, Uber also acquired an 85% controlling stake in Trendyol Go, the online meal and grocery delivery business based in Istanbul, for about $700 million in cash. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce DurbinAutonomous vehicles Here’s a personnel switch I didn’t expect. Mo Elshenawy, the former president and CTO of now-shuttered self-driving car company Cruise, was just named the chief technology officer at telehealth and wellness company Hims & Hers. I spoke to Hims & Hers co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum, and he said he specifically focused on the AV industry to find the next CTO. Here’s why. Nuro has started testing its AV tech on the Las Vegas Strip. I recently sat down with co-founder and president Dave Ferguson. Stay tuned for an update on why the company shifted its business model. Tesla‘s “Robotaxi” and “Cybercab” trademarks have hit a few roadblocks. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied Tesla’s attempt to trademark the term “Robotaxi” in reference to its vehicles because it’s too generic. Meanwhile, applications from Tesla for the trademark on the term “Cybercab” were halted because of companies pursuing similar “Cyber” trademarks. Uber locked up partnerships with three Chinese autonomous vehicle companies — Pony AI, Momenta, and WeRide — in a bid to gobble up robotaxi market share in the Middle East and Europe. Footnote: These deals are not to operate in China. Waymo announced it has a new 239,000-square-foot factory in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa through a deal with Magna to build more than 2,000 autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. That obviously got a lot of attention. But I was most interested in finally learning the size of Waymo’s existing commercial fleet, which is now 1,500. Wayve is making the rounds on the high-profile executive set. You might remember the video of Bill Gates in one of Wayve’s autonomous test vehicles. Now it’s Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson’s turn. P.S. Branson is a Wayve investor. BTW, Fortune Brainstorm held its AI conference in London, and Wayve CEO and co-founder Alex Kendall was there. He had some interesting comments about the company’s end-to-end approach and Tesla’s Elon Musk. Zoox paused its driverless testing program for more than a week and issued a voluntary recall of its software following a crash in Las Vegas. Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries The Cadillac Celestiq EV — yep, that monster — is here, and contributor Emme Hall has thoughts after spending a day behind the wheel. It’s earnings season, and the U.S.-China trade war is starting to leave a scratch on the paint of automakers everywhere. And, well, I don’t think we’ll be able to buff it out. Ford and General Motors pulled their guidance for the year, citing economic uncertainty related to Trump’s tariffs. Meanwhile, Rivian said it will likely deliver fewer vehicles this year (40,000 to 46,000 EVs) than previously forecasted due to tariffs and other regulatory changes. Reminder: The company was already tracking for its third straight year with no volume growth before the guidance cut. There was some good news for Rivian, though: It generated gross profit (yeah I know, gross profit isn’t exactly my fave, either). But this met a contractual milestone that unlocked about $1 billion in funding from Volkswagen Group as part of a joint venture with the German automaker. Ford is raising the price of the all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUV and the Maverick pickup by as much as $2,000 due to the import taxes Trump is placing on vehicles made in Mexico. Lucid Motors has been working through some quality “hiccups” in the early stages of delivering its long-awaited electric Gravity SUV. Mitsubishi Motors is in talks with Foxconn to source an electric car model the Japanese automaker plans to sell in Australia and New Zealand in the latter half of 2026. Tesla sales continue to slump across Europe despite an April EV sales swell. Future of flight Joby Aviation seems to be settling on 2026 for its first commercial passenger service, according to its first-quarter earnings report. The electric vertical takeoff and landing startup-turned-SPAC was targeting 2025, then was stating “early 2026.” Now it’s just 2026, which suggests it might not be early next year.

For the first time, the FDA has just approved a device that lets people screen for cervical cancer from home. Known as the Teal Wand, from the company Teal Health, the prescription device lets patients self-collect samples and mail them to a lab to receive the same testing as would be done at a doctor’s office. Teal Health announced a $10 million seed extension round in January, bringing its total funding amount to $23 million, TechCrunch covered at the time. Investors in the round included Serena Ventures, Chelsea Clinton, Emerson Collective, and Forerunner. The device seeks to tap into the fact that getting screened for cervical cancer, also known as getting a pap smear, can be quite intimidating for many people. “Cervical cancer screenings are the most important and often the entry point to a woman’s health relationship,” Egan, co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch in January. “More than 1 in 4 women are currently behind on this life-saving screening.” Cervical cancer used to be one of the most common cancers for women, but more screening and prevention have helped decrease this, per the American Cancer Society. The Wand Kit will include the collection device and virtual access to medical providers who will review the lab results with the patient. Kits become available in June, starting in California.

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain. But where did DeepSeek come from, and how did it rise to international fame so quickly? DeepSeek’s trader origins DeepSeek is backed by High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese quantitative hedge fund that uses AI to inform its trading decisions. AI enthusiast Liang Wenfeng co-founded High-Flyer in 2015. Wenfeng, who reportedly began dabbling in trading while a student at Zhejiang University, launched High-Flyer Capital Management as a hedge fund in 2019 focused on developing and deploying AI algorithms. In 2023, High-Flyer started DeepSeek as a lab dedicated to researching AI tools separate from its financial business. With High-Flyer as one of its investors, the lab spun off into its own company, also called DeepSeek. From day one, DeepSeek built its own data center clusters for model training. But like other AI companies in China, DeepSeek has been affected by U.S. export bans on hardware. To train one of its more recent models, the company was forced to use Nvidia H800 chips, a less-powerful version of a chip, the H100, available to U.S. companies. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW DeepSeek’s technical team is said to skew young. The company reportedly aggressively recruits doctorate AI researchers from top Chinese universities. DeepSeek also hires people without any computer science background to help its tech better understand a wide range of subjects, per The New York Times. DeepSeek’s strong models DeepSeek unveiled its first set of models — DeepSeek Coder, DeepSeek LLM, and DeepSeek Chat — in November 2023. But it wasn’t until last spring, when the startup released its next-gen DeepSeek-V2 family of models, that the AI industry started to take notice. DeepSeek-V2, a general-purpose text- and image-analyzing system, performed well in various AI benchmarks — and was far cheaper to run than comparable models at the time. It forced DeepSeek’s domestic competition, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to cut the usage prices for some of their models, and make others completely free. DeepSeek-V3, launched in December 2024, only added to DeepSeek’s notoriety. According to DeepSeek’s internal benchmark testing, DeepSeek V3 outperforms both downloadable, openly available models like Meta’s Llama and “closed” models that can only be accessed through an API, like OpenAI’s GPT-4o. Equally impressive is DeepSeek’s R1 “reasoning” model. Released in January, DeepSeek claims R1 performs as well as OpenAI’s o1 model on key benchmarks. Being a reasoning model, R1 effectively fact-checks itself, which helps it to avoid some of the pitfalls that normally trip up models. Reasoning models take a little longer — usually seconds to minutes longer — to arrive at solutions compared to a typical non-reasoning model. The upside is that they tend to be more reliable in domains such as physics, science, and math. There is a downside to R1, DeepSeek V3, and DeepSeek’s other models, however. Being Chinese-developed AI, they’re subject to benchmarking by China’s internet regulator to ensure that its responses “embody core socialist values.” In DeepSeek’s chatbot app, for example, R1 won’t answer questions about Tiananmen Square or Taiwan’s autonomy. In March, DeepSeek surpassed 16.5 million visits. “[F]or March, DeepSeek is in second place, despite seeing traffic drop 25% from where it was in February, based on daily visits,” David Carr, editor at Similarweb, told TechCrunch. It still pales in comparison to ChatGPT, which surged past 500 million weekly active users in March. A disruptive approach If DeepSeek has a business model, it’s not clear what that model is, exactly. The company prices its products and services well below market value — and gives others away for free. It’s also not taking investor money, despite a ton of VC interest. The way DeepSeek tells it, efficiency breakthroughs have enabled it to maintain extreme cost competitiveness. Some experts dispute the figures the company has supplied, however. Whatever the case may be, developers have taken to DeepSeek’s models, which aren’t open source as the phrase is commonly understood but are available under permissive licenses that allow for commercial use. According to Clem Delangue, the CEO of Hugging Face, one of the platforms hosting DeepSeek’s models, developers on Hugging Face have created over 500 “derivative” models of R1 that have racked up 2.5 million downloads combined. DeepSeek’s success against larger and more established rivals has been described as “upending AI” and “over-hyped.” The company’s success was at least in part responsible for causing Nvidia’s stock price to drop by 18% in January, and for eliciting a public response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In March, U.S. Commerce department bureaus told staffers that DeepSeek will be banned on their government devices, according to Reuters. Microsoft announced that DeepSeek is available on its Azure AI Foundry service, Microsoft’s platform that brings together AI services for enterprises under a single banner. When asked about DeepSeek’s impact on Meta’s AI spending during its first-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said spending on AI infrastructure will continue to be a “strategic advantage” for Meta. In March, OpenAI called DeepSeek “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from DeepSeek. During Nvidia’s fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang emphasized DeepSeek’s “excellent innovation,” saying that it and other “reasoning” models are great for Nvidia because they need so much more compute. At the same time, some companies are banning DeepSeek, and so are entire countries and governments, including South Korea. New York state also banned DeepSeek from being used on government devices. In May, Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith said in a Senate hearing that Microsoft employees aren’t allowed to use DeepSeek due to data security and propaganda concerns. As for what DeepSeek’s future might hold, it’s not clear. Improved models are a given. But the U.S. government appears to be growing wary of what it perceives as harmful foreign influence. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. will likely ban DeepSeek on government devices. This story was originally published January 28, 2025, and will be updated regularly.

SoundCloud appears to have quietly changed its terms of use to allow the company to train AI on audio that users upload to its platform. As spotted by tech ethicist Ed-Newton Rex, the latest version of SoundCloud’s terms include a provision giving the platform permission to use uploaded content to “inform, train, [or] develop” AI. “You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services,” read the terms, which were last updated February 7. SoundCloud seems to claim the right to train on people's uploaded music in their terms. I think they have major questions to answer over this. I checked the wayback machine – it seems to have been added to their terms on 12th Feb 2024. I'm a SoundCloud user and I can't see any… pic.twitter.com/NIk7TP7K3C — Ed Newton-Rex (@ednewtonrex) May 9, 2025 The terms have a carve out for content under “separate agreements” with third-party rightsholders, such as record labels. SoundCloud has a number of licensing agreements with indie labels as well as major music publishers, including Universal Music and Warner Music Group. TechCrunch wasn’t able to find an explicit opt-out option in the platform’s settings menu on the web. SoundCloud didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. SoundCloud, like many large creator platforms, is increasingly embracing AI. Last year, SoundCloud partnered with nearly a dozen vendors to bring AI-powered tools for remixing, generating vocals, and creating custom samples to its platform. In a blog post last fall, SoundCloud said that these partners would receive access to content ID solutions to “ensure rights holders [sic] receive proper credit and compensation,” and it pledged to “uphold ethical and transparent AI practices that respect creators’ rights.” Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW A number of content hosting and social media platforms have changed their policies in recent months to allow for first- and third-party AI training. In October, Elon Musk’s X updated its privacy policy to let outside companies train AI on user posts. Last September, LinkedIn amended its terms to allow it to scrape user data for training. And in December, YouTube began letting third parties train AI on user clips. Many of these moves have prompted backlash from users who argue that AI training policies should be opt-in as opposed to opt-out, and who argue that they should be credited and paid for their contributions to AI training data sets.

A joint international law enforcement action shut down two services accused of providing a botnet of hacked internet-connected devices, including routers, to cybercriminals. U.S. prosecutors also indicted four people accused of hacking into the devices and running the botnet. On Wednesday, the websites of Anyproxy and 5Socks were replaced with notices stating they had been seized by the FBI as part of a law enforcement operation called “Operation Moonlander.” The notice said the law enforcement action was carried out by the FBI, the Dutch National Police (Politie), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma, and the U.S. Department of Justice. Then on Friday, U.S. prosecutors announced the dismantling of the botnet and the indictment of three Russians: Alexey Viktorovich Chertkov, Kirill Vladimirovich Morozov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shishkin; and Dmitriy Rubtsov, a Kazakhstan national. The four are accused of profiting from running Anyproxy and 5Socks under the pretense of offering legitimate proxy services, but which prosecutors say were built on hacked routers. Chertkov, Morozov, Rubtsoyv, and Shishkin, who all reside outside of the United States, targeted older-models of wireless internet routers that had known vulnerabilities, compromising “thousands” of such devices, according to the now-unsealed indictment. When in control of those routers, the four individuals then sold access to the botnet on Anyproxy and 5Socks, services that have been active since 2004, according to their websites and the charging authorities. Residential proxy networks are not illegal on their own; these offerings are often used to provide customers with IP addresses for accessing geoblocked content or bypassing government censorship. Anyproxy and 5Socks, however, allegedly built their network of proxies — some of them made of residential IP addresses — by infecting thousands of vulnerable internet-connected devices and effectively turning them into a botnet used by cybercriminals, according to the Department of Justice. “In this way, the botnet subscribers’ internet traffic appeared to come from the IP addresses assigned to the compromised devices rather than the IP addresses assigned to the devices that the subscribers were actually using to conduct their online activity,” read the indictment. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW “Conspirators acting through 5Socks publicly marketed the Anyproxy botnet as a residential proxy service on social media and online discussion forums, including cybercriminal forums,” the indictment added. “Such residential proxy services are particularly useful to criminal hackers to provide anonymity when committing cybercrimes; residential‐as opposed to commercial‐IP addresses are generally assumed by internet security services as much more likely to be legitimate traffic.” According to the DOJ’s press release, the four are believed to have made more than $46 million from selling access to the botnet. The FBI, DOJ, and the Dutch National Police did not respond to requests for comment. Ryan English, a researcher at Black Lotus Labs, told TechCrunch ahead of the domain seizures that the two services were used for several types of abuse, including password spraying, launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and ad fraud. On Friday, Black Lotus Labs, a team of researchers housed within cybersecurity firm Lumen, published a report saying they helped the authorities track the proxy networks. As Black Lotus explained in its report, the botnet was “designed to offer anonymity for malicious actors online.” English told TechCrunch that he and his colleagues are confident that Anyproxy and 5Socks are “the same pool of proxies run by the same operators, just under a different name,” and that “the bulk of the botnet were routers, all kinds of end-of-life make and models.” According to the report and based on Lumen’s global network visibility, the botnet had “an average of about 1,000 weekly active proxies in over 80 countries.” Spur, a company that tracks proxy services on the internet, also worked on the operation. Spur’s co-founder Riley Kilmer told TechCrunch that while 5Socks is one of the smaller criminal networks the company tracks, the network had “gained in popularity for financial fraud.”

HR tech startup Rippling has raised a $450 million Series G round at a $16.8 billion valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. It is also conducting a $200 million tender offer to give current and former employees some liquidity. The equity raise marks a big jump in valuation from a year ago. In April 2024, Rippling was valued at $13.4 billion when it raised a $200 million Series F round led by Coatue and a $590 million tender offer, with $200 million available for employees. (The other $390 million was available for seed and other investors.) The latest financing, which Bloomberg reported was in the works last month, includes participation from a group of new and existing investors. New backers include Sands Capital, GIC, Goldman Sachs Growth, and Baillie Gifford. Existing investors such as Elad Gil, Y Combinator, and others also participated. Rippling is one of Y Combinator’s many breakout success stories. It graduated from the winter 2017 cohort and YC apparently became a client of Rippling’s earlier this year. In a new case study, YC also touted Rippling’s offering as the HR “tool of choice” for “all of the accelerator’s founders. (Rippling even now has a special “Founder Mode” offer of discounted services for YC-funded companies.) Interestingly, Rippling CEO and co-founder Parker Conrad earlier this week shared more information about his company’s new Startup Stack, which appears to be a push to work with earlier-stage companies. In a LinkedIn post, the company said it already works with over 15,000 startups, including Cursor (Anysphere), Clay, and Sierra. The company appears to aggressively market the new stack, offering startups “six months of Rippling free.” The increase in marketing and capital raise come amidst a lawsuit Rippling has filed against rival Deel for allegedly hiring an employee to spy on its internal trade secrets. Deel is also a Y Combinator grad (winter 2019) and filed a countersuit against Rippling in April, denying those allegations and making a few of its own. With this latest capital injection, Rippling has now raised $1.85 billion. It has over 20,000 customers and more than 4,000 employees. Other investors include Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks Capital, and Founders Fund. The company recently reached $570 million in annualized revenue, according to sources who spoke to The Information. Founded in 2016, Rippling has evolved its offering over time and now has two dozen products, including payroll and benefits, SSO and identity management, bill pay, and corporate cards. The new capital will help it accelerate its expansion into new markets, “enhance” existing products, and support the development of new products. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW

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 was busy for startups: While there were no IPOs of note, there were other exits and even unusual liquidity events, as well as a significant number of funding rounds of various sizes and stages. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:Tim Robberts / Getty ImagesThis week brought us M&As from serial buyers, an exit option that may be reassuring for founders still struggling with customer retention and funding headwinds. Scooped up: San Jose, California-based startup Mainstreet.com became the latest fintech to get acquired by workforce management company Employer.com, which is now valued at just north of $700 million. Short on cash: Despite recently hitting a key development milestone, General Fusion laid off at least 25% of its employees, with CEO Greg Twinney explaining that the Canadian fusion power company was running out of money. By Datadog: Datadog bought Eppo, a feature-flagging and experimentation platform that will now operate under the brand “Eppo by Datadog.” This comes shortly after it acquired AI-powered observability startup Metaplane. Retention issues: 11x co-founder Hasan Sukkar stepped down as CEO and was replaced by CTO Prabhav Jain. The AI startup came under scrutiny earlier this year for showing logos of companies that were not active customers, amid claims it was struggling with customer retention. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Build or invest: Carta acquired SimpleClosure, a startup branding itself as “the TurboTax of shutting down.” The equity management startup previously discontinued a similar offering, called Carta Conclusions. Small world: Two months after buying Moveworks, ServiceNow acquired Data.World, which had raised more than $130 million in venture financing for its cloud-native data catalog and data governance platform. With conditions: A group of investors is considering injecting another $30 million into ailing Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart — as long as co-founder Anmol Singh Jaggi agrees to resign. Liquidity: Sales automation startup Clay took the unusual step of allowing employees with at least one year of tenure to sell shares to existing backer Sequoia. The operation values the company at $1.5 billion. Most interesting VC and funding news this week Image Credits:Steve Jennings / Getty ImagesRounds this week confirmed that AI isn’t the only thing that can attract VCs: The promise of a longer, healthier life — both for people and for batteries — can, too. No limit: NewLimit, the longevity startup founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, raised a $130 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins to develop age-reversing therapies. Qonto rival: Finom, a neobank serving SMBs in several European countries, raised approximately $105 million from General Catalyst to boost its growth. Boosted by defense: Orca AI, whose autonomous navigation platform for shipping has defense applications, raised a $72.5 million Series A, bringing its total funding to over $111 million. Scanning: Ox Security, which scans for vulnerabilities in code, secured a $60 million Series B led by DTCP that it will use for growth and expansion. Crafty: Recraft, whose stealth image model beat OpenAI’s DALL-E and Midjourney on a popular benchmark last year, raised a $30 million Series B led by Accel. Bye, business cards: Australian startup Blinq raised a $25 million Series A to make business cards obsolete and replace them with digital alternatives with CRM integrations. Wisdom truth: WisdomAI, an AI startup hoping to help avoid hallucinations when delivering business insights, raised $23 million in an unusually large seed round. More power: Breathe Battery Technologies, whose software helps optimize and predict battery performance, raised a $21 million Series B led by Kinnevik Online AB. Coding context: Unblocked, a company behind an AI-powered assistant that answers contextual questions about lines of code, raised a $20 million Series A from B Capital and Radical Ventures. Positive energy: Bosch Ventures, the venture arm of Bosch, will keep on investing in deep tech through its new $270 million fund, but with increased focus on North American startups. Last but not least Image Credits:Costas Baltas/Anadolu / Getty ImagesAs Athens-based VC firm Marathon Venture Capital closed its newest fund with approximately $84 million in capital commitments, TechCrunch caught up with partner Panos Papadopoulos to discuss how Greek startups are serving global markets, and more.

Microsoft Build, Microsoft’s biggest event of the year, is on the horizon. It’s scheduled to start May 19 at the Seattle Convention Center, and it’ll run through May 22. The keynote address featuring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CTO Kevin Scott will take place May 19 at 9:05 a.m. PT. That’ll be followed by a deep dive with executives Charles Lamanna (CVP of business and industry Copilot) and Scott Guthrie (EVP of cloud and AI) on May 20 at 9 a.m. PT. Both presentations will be streamed live online for free. As for what to expect from Build, in particular the keynote, Microsoft will surely talk about its Copilot family of AI-powered products. The company is aggressively integrating AI into its software and services, aiming to make it a major revenue driver. Suggesting that it’s eager to boost its AI profits sooner rather than later, Microsoft recently bundled Copilot into its Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans and increased the price by 30%. In recent weeks, Microsoft has added “deep research” tools to Copilot and enabled Copilot to browse the web and perform actions on a user’s behalf. It has also reportedly ramped up internal R&D efforts to compete with OpenAI, its increasingly tenuous partner, by developing its own powerful AI models to power Copilot. Copilot is currently dependent on OpenAI models.

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies. As businesses continue to embrace AI and automation, this tracker serves as a reminder of the human impact of layoffs — and what could be at stake with increased innovation. Below you’ll find a comprehensive list of all the known tech layoffs that have occurred in 2025, which will be updated regularly. If you have a tip on a layoff, contact us here. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can contact us here. May 2025 April 2025: More than 23,400 employees laid off — see all April 2025 tech layoffs March 2025: 8,834 employees laid off — see all March 2025 tech layoffs February 2025: 16,234 employees laid off — see all February 2025 tech layoffs January 2025: 2,403 employees laid off — see all January 2025 tech layoffs May Match Is reducing its workforce by 13% as part of a reorganization that aims to reduce costs, shore up margins, and streamline its organizational structure. CrowdStrike Is laying off 5% of its global workforce, or around 500 people. The company said the layoffs were part of “a strategic plan (the ‘Plan’) to evolve its operations to yield greater efficiencies as the Company continues to scale its business with focus and discipline to meet its goal of $10 billion in ending [Annual Recurring Revenue]” in its 8-K filing. General Fusion Has cut roughly 25% of its current workforce. The Vancouver-based company, which is developing a technology to generate fusion energy, has raised $440 million from investors, including Jeff Bezos, Temasek, and BDC Capital. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Deep Instinct Reduced its headcount by 20 employees, accounting for 10% of its total workforce. In April 2023, the Israeli cybersecurity startup had previously laid off a similar number of employees during a round of layoffs. Beam Has shut down its operations months after announcing major expansion plans, per Sifted. The British climate startup has let go of approximately 200 employees, according to a LinkedIn post by James Reynolds, the head of talent. April NetApp Is reportedly eliminating 700 jobs, affecting 6% of its total workforce, as it reorganizes for its operational efficiency. The company, based in San Francisco, provides data storage, cloud services, and CloudOps solutions for businesses. Electronic Arts Is reportedly letting go of approximately 300 to 400 employees, including around 100 at Respawn Entertainment, to focus on its “long-term strategic priorities,” according to Bloomberg. Expedia Is laying off around 3% of its employees as part of its restructuring. The job cuts will mainly affect midlevel positions in the product and technology teams. The latest round of layoffs comes after the company let go of hundreds of employees from its marketing team globally in early March. Cars24 Has reduced its workforce by about 200 employees in its product and technology divisions as part of a restructuring measure. The India-based e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles provides a range of services like buying and selling pre-owned cars, financing, insurance, driver-on-demand, and more. In 2023, the SoftBank-backed startup raised $450 million at a valuation of $3.3 billion. Meta Is letting go of over 100 employees in its Reality Labs division, which manages virtual reality and wearable technology, according to The Verge. The job cuts affect employees developing VR experiences for Meta’s Quest headsets and staff working on hardware operations to streamline similar work between the two teams. Intel Announced its plan to lay off more than 21,000 employees, or roughly 20% of its workforce, in April. The move comes ahead of Intel’s Q1 earnings call helmed by recently appointed CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over from longtime chief Pat Gelsinger last year. GM Is laying off 200 people at its Factory Zero in Detroit and Hamtramck facility in Michigan, which produces GM’s electric vehicles. The cuts come amid the EV slowdown and is not caused by tariffs, according to a report. Zopper Has reportedly let go of around 100 employees since the start of 2025. Earlier this week, about 50 employees from the tech and product teams were let go in the latest round of job cuts. The India-based insurtech startup has raised a total of $125 million to date. Turo Will reduce its workforce by 150 positions following its decision not to proceed with its IPO, per Bloomberg. The San Francisco-based car rental startup, which had about 1,000 staff in 2024, said the layoffs will bolster its long-term growth plans during economic uncertainty. GupShup Laid off roughly 200 employees to improve efficiency and profitability. It’s the startup’s second round of layoffs in five months, following the job cuts of around 300 employees in December. The conversational AI company, backed by Tiger Global and Fidelity, was last valued at $1.4 billion in 2021. The startup is based in San Francisco and operates in India. Forto Has reportedly eliminated 200 jobs, affecting around one-third of its employees. The German logistics startup reduced a significant number of sales staff. Wicresoft Will stop its operations in China, affecting around 2,000 employees. The move came after Microsoft decided to end outsourcing after-sales support to Wicresoft amid increasing trade tensions. Wicresoft, Microsoft’s first joint venture in China, was founded in 2022 and operates in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. It has over 10,000 employees. Five9 Plans to cut 123 jobs, affecting about 4% of its workforce, according to a report by MarketWatch. The software company prioritizes key strategic areas like artificial intelligence for profitable growth. Google Has laid off hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices division, which covers Android, Pixel phones, the Chrome browser, and more, according to The Information. Microsoft Is contemplating additional layoffs that could happen by May, Business Insider reported, citing anonymous sources. The company is said to be discussing reducing the number of middle managers and non-coders in a bid to increase the ratio of programmers to product managers. Automattic The WordPress.com developer is laying off 16% of its workforce across departments. Before the layoffs, the company’s website showed it had 1,744 employees, so more than 270 staff may have been laid off. Canva Has let go of 10 to 12 technical writers approximately nine months after telling its employees to use generative AI tools wherever possible. The company, which had around 5,500 staff in 2024, was valued at $26 billion after a secondary stock sale in 2024. March Northvolt Has laid off 2,800 employees, affecting 62% of its total staff. The layoffs come weeks after the embattled Swedish battery maker filed for bankruptcy. Block Let go of 931 employees, around 8% of its workforce, as part of a reorganization, according to an internal email seen by TechCrunch. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of the fintech company, wrote in the email that the layoffs were not for financial reasons or to replace workers with AI. Brightcove Has laid off 198 employees, who make up about two-thirds of its U.S. workforce, per a media report. The layoff comes a month after the company was acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italian app developer, for $233 million. Brightcove had 600 employees worldwide, with 300 in the U.S., as of December 2023. Acxiom Has reportedly laid off 130 employees, or 3.5% of its total workforce of 3,700 people. Acxiom is owned by IPG, and the news comes just a day after IPG and Omnicom Group shareholders approved the companies’ potential merger. Sequoia Capital Plans to close its office in Washington, D.C., and let go of its policy team there by the end of March, TechCrunch has confirmed. Sequoia opened its Washington office five years ago to deepen its relationship with policymakers. Three full-time employees are expected to be affected, per Forbes. Siemens Announced plans to let go of approximately 5,600 jobs globally in its automation and electric-vehicle charging businesses as part of efforts to improve competitiveness. HelloFresh Is reportedly laying off 273 employees, closing its distribution center in Grand Prairie, Texas, and consolidating to another site in Irving to manage the volume in the region. Otorio Has cut 45 employees, more than half of its workforce, after being acquired by cybersecurity company Armis for $120 million in March. ActiveFence Will reportedly reduce 22 employees, representing 7% of its workforce. Most of those affected are based in Israel as the company undergoes a streamlining process. The New York- and Tel Aviv-headquartered cybersecurity firm has raised $100 million at a valuation of about $500 million in 2021. D-ID Will cut 22 jobs, affecting nearly a quarter of its total workforce, following the announcement of the AI startup’s strategic partnership with Microsoft. NASA Announced it will be shutting down several of its offices in accordance with Elon Musk’s DOGE, including its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy and the DEI branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. Zonar Systems Has reportedly laid off some staff, according to LinkedIn posts from ex-employees. The company has not confirmed the layoffs, and it is currently unknown how many workers were affected. Wayfair Announced plans to let go of 340 employees in its technology division as part of a new restructuring effort. HPE Will cut 2,500 employees, or 5% of its total staff, in response to its shares sliding 19% in the first fiscal quarter. TikTok Will cut up to 300 workers in Dublin, accounting for roughly 10% of the company’s workforce in Ireland. LiveRamp Announced it will lay off 65 employees, affecting 5% of its total workforce. Ola Electric Is reportedly set to lay off over 1,000 employees and contractors in a cost-cutting effort. It’s the second round of cuts for the company in just five months. Rec Room Reduced its total headcount by 16% as the gaming startup shifts its focus to be “scrappier” and “more efficient.” ANS Commerce Was shut down just three years after it was acquired by Flipkart. It is currently unknown how many employees were affected. February HP Will cut up to 2,000 jobs as part of its “Future Now” restructuring plan that hopes to save the company $300 million before the end of its fiscal year. GrubHub Announced 500 job cuts after it was sold to Wonder Group for $650 million. The number of cuts affected more than 20% of its previous workforce. Autodesk Announced plans to lay off 1,350 employees, affecting 9% of its total workforce, in an attempt to reshape its GTM model. The company is also making reductions in its facilities, though it does not plan to close any offices. Google Is planning to cut employees in its People Operations and cloud organizations teams in a new reorganization effort. The company is offering a voluntary exit program to U.S.-based People Operations employees. Nautilus Reduced its headcount by 25 employees, accounting for 16% of its total workforce. The company is planning to release a commercial version of its proteome analysis platform in 2026. eBay Will reportedly cut a few dozen employees in Israel, potentially affecting 10% of its 250-person workforce in the country. Starbucks Cut 1,100 jobs in a reorganizing effort that affected its tech workers. The coffee chain will now outsource some tech work to third-party employees. Commercetools Laid off dozens of employees over the last few weeks, including around 10% of staff in one day, after failing to meet its sales growth targets. The “headless commerce” platform raised money at a $1.9 billion valuation just a few years ago. Dayforce Will cut roughly 5% of its current workforce in a new efficiency drive to increase profitability and growth. Expedia Laid off more employees in a new effort to cut costs, though the total number is unknown. Last year, the travel giant cut about 1,500 roles in its Product & Technology division. Skybox Security Has ceased operations and has laid off its employees after selling its business and technology to Israeli cybersecurity company Tufin. The cuts affect roughly 300 people. HerMD Is shutting down its operations amid “ongoing challenges in healthcare.” It’s unclear the number of employees affected. In 2023, the women’s healthcare startup raised $18 million to fund its expansion. Zendesk Cut 51 jobs in its San Francisco headquarters, according to state filings with the Employment Development Department. The SaaS startup previously reduced its headcount by 8% in 2023. Vendease Has cut 120 employees, affecting 44% of its total staff. It’s the Y Combinator-backed Nigerian startup’s second layoff round in just five months. Logically Reportedly laid off dozens of employees as part of a new cost-cutting effort that aims to ensure “long-term success” in the startup’s mission to curb misinformation online. Blue Origin Will lay off about 10% of its workforce, affecting more than 1,000 employees. According to an email to staff obtained by CNN, the cuts will largely have an impact on positions in engineering and program management. Redfin Announced in an SEC filing that it will cut around 450 positions between February and July 2025, with a complete restructuring set to be completed in the fall, following its new partnership with Zillow. Sophos Is laying off 6% of its total workforce, the cybersecurity firm confirmed to TechCrunch. The cuts come less than two weeks after Sophos acquired Secureworks for $859 million. Zepz Will cut nearly 200 employees as it introduces redundancy measures and closes down its operations in Poland and Kenya. Unity Reportedly conducted another round of layoffs. It’s unknown how many employees were affected. JustWorks Cut nearly 200 employees, CEO Mike Seckler announced in a note to employees, citing “potential adverse events” like a recession or rising interest rates. Bird Cut 120 jobs, affecting roughly one-third of its total workforce, TechCrunch exclusively learned. The move comes just a year after the Dutch startup cut 90 employees following its rebrand. Sprinklr Laid off about 500 employees, affecting 15% of its workforce, citing poor business performance. The new cuts follow two earlier layoff rounds for the company that affected roughly 200 employees. Sonos Reportedly let go of approximately 200 employees, according to The Verge. The company previously cut 100 employees as part of a layoff round in August 2024. Workday Laid off 1,750 employees, as originally reported by Bloomberg and confirmed independently by TechCrunch. The cuts affect roughly 8.5% of the enterprise HR platform’s total headcount. Okta Laid off 180 employees, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The cuts come just over one year after the access and identity management giant let go of 400 workers. Cruise Is laying off 50% of its workforce, including CEO Marc Whitten and several other top executives, as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of the autonomous vehicle company will move under General Motors. Salesforce Is reportedly eliminating more than 1,000 jobs. The cuts come as the giant is actively recruiting and hiring workers to sell new AI products. January Cushion Has shut down operations, CEO Paul Kesserwani announced on LinkedIn. The fintech startup’s post-money valuation in 2022 was $82.4 million, according to PitchBook. Placer.ai Laid off 150 employees based in the U.S., affecting roughly 18% of its total workforce, in an effort to reach profitability. Amazon Laid off dozens of workers in its communications department in order to help the company “move faster, increase ownership, strengthen our culture, and bring teams closer to customers.” Stripe Is laying off 300 people, according to a leaked memo reported by Business Insider. However, according to the memo, the fintech giant is planning to grow its total headcount by 17%. Textio Laid off 15 employees as the augmented writing startup undergoes a restructuring effort. Pocket FM Is cutting 75 employees in an effort to “ensure the long-term sustainability and success” of the company. The audio company last cut 200 writers in July 2024 months after partnering with ElevenLabs. Aurora Solar Is planning to cut 58 employees in response to an “ongoing macroeconomic challenges and continued uncertainty in the solar industry.” Meta Announced in an internal memo that it will cut 5% of its staff targeting “low performers” as the company prepares for “an intense year.” As of its latest quarterly report, Meta currently has more than 72,000 employees. Wayfair Will cut up to 730 jobs, affecting 3% of its total workforce, as it plans to exit operations in Germany and focus on physical retailers. Pandion Is shutting down its operations, affecting 63 employees. The delivery startup said employees will be paid through January 15 without severance. Icon Is laying off 114 employees as part of a team realignment, per a new WARN notice filing, focusing its efforts on a robotic printing system. Altruist Eliminated 37 jobs, affecting roughly 10% of its total workforce, even as the company pursues “aggressive” hiring. Aqua Security Is cutting dozens of employees across its global markets as part of a strategic reorganization to increase profitability. SolarEdge Technologies Plans to lay off 400 employees globally. It’s the company’s fourth layoff round since January 2024 as the solar industry as a whole faces a downturn. Level The fintech startup, founded in 2018, abruptly shut down earlier this year. Per an email from CEO Paul Aaron, the closure follows an unsuccessful attempt to find a buyer, though Employer.com has a new offer under consideration to acquire the company post-shutdown. This list updates regularly. On April 24, 2025, we corrected the number of layoffs that happened in March.

Google and nuclear site developer Elementl Power announced this week that they will work together on three sites for advanced nuclear reactors. The tech company has been rushing to lock up energy sources as its AI ambitions drive growing power demands at its data centers. This year alone, Google plans to spend $75 billion building data center capacity. With the new deal, Google is promising to add at least 600 megawatts of generating capacity at each of the three sites. Elementl said the reactors will be connected to the grid “with the option for commercial off-take,” meaning that Google can buy power directly. Elementl has been operating stealthily until this announcement. The team has experience in the nuclear industry, though it hasn’t developed any power plants yet. The company was started by Breakwater North and is backed by Energy Impact Partners. Elementl is taking a “technology agnostic” approach, meaning that it hasn’t decided on which small modular reactor (SMR) company it will work with to develop the projects. There are a number of possibilities, though Kairos Power is a likely frontrunner given its existing deal with Google. Kairos says its demo plant will generate 50 megawatts of electricity, with an eventual commercial plant producing 150 megawatts split between two reactors. There’s no universally accepted definition, but SMRs tend to top out at 300 megawatts or so. By comparison, the most recently completed nuclear power plant in the U.S., Vogtle Unit 4 in Georgia, generates over 1.1 gigawatts of electricity, nearly four times the size of a large SMR. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Silicon Valley has been smitten by SMRs. Startups have been rushing into the space, promising to slash reactor costs through mass manufacturing enabled by SMRs’ smaller size. That, coupled with the promise of 24/7 power that could be sited close to data centers, has pushed them to sign a number of deals with SMR startups, including Oklo, X-Energy, and the aforementioned Kairos. Yet no SMR has been built outside of China. One startup, NuScale, has gotten close to building one, but it suffered a setback in 2023 when its utility partner canceled its contract after the estimated cost of the project more than doubled — even as the plans were downsized in an effort to contain costs.

Data center operator CoreWeave is reportedly seeking a $1.5 billion debt deal after a disappointing IPO. According to the Financial Times, CoreWeave is holding a roadshow this week with bankers at JPMorgan for debt options. The company’s executives intend to use the meetings to gauge investor interest. New Jersey-based CoreWeave listed its shares in March, initially targeting a $2.7 billion fundraise. The company was forced to slash that total to $1.5 billion following investor concern about its large debt burden and a weakening market for AI infrastructure. CoreWeave, which has customers including Microsoft, raised $12.9 billion of debt in the past two years to build data centers. The company had about $8 billion of total debt on its balance sheet as of December 2024, and is facing debt and interest payments of $7.5 billion by the end of 2026, the Financial Times previously reported. TechCrunch has contacted CoreWeave for comment.

Sometime Thursday night, timelines stopped updating for a number of users on X, the social network owned by billionaire Elon Musk. Many users report that their notifications stopped working yesterday, meaning they aren’t being alerted to new posts by the people they follow on X. This reporter is experiencing the issue, as well. My X timeline hasn’t updated in 15 hours, since around 6 p.m. Eastern on May 8. It appears to be a server-side bug. Users affected say that their timelines aren’t updating in the X mobile apps or on the web. That’s what this reporter is seeing, as well. Switching devices and browsers appears to make no difference, nor does signing up for X’s subscription service, X Premium. My X timeline hasn’t updated in nearly a day.Image Credits:XDowndetector, a website that provides real-time information about the status of various applications and services, shows a spike in reports of X outages over the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, on Reddit, several threads about the X notifications issue popped up overnight. “No notifications since about 10 p.m. last night here in Germany!” wrote one user in a thread on X’s unofficial subreddit. Another user in the same thread wrote, “I thought that uninstalling and reinstalling the app would work (it didn’t).” X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The last major outage X suffered was in March, when users worldwide were abruptly disconnected from the social network and subsequently had trouble accessing their feeds, sending messages, and engaging with content. Musk, without evidence, blamed the disruption on a cyberattack. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Prior to that outage, X experienced large-scale connectivity issues in December 2022 and July 2023. After Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022, he promptly slashed the company’s workforce by about 80% from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers. X had just 550 full-time engineers as of January 2023, according to CNBC. A new wave of layoffs hit the company in November 2024, primarily affecting X’s engineering department.

A Florida bill, which would have required social media companies to provide an encryption backdoor for allowing police to access user accounts and private messages, has failed to pass into law. The Social Media Use by Minors bill was “indefinitely postponed” and “withdrawn from consideration” in the Florida House of Representatives earlier this week. Lawmakers in the Florida Senate had already voted to advance the legislation, but a bill requires both legislative chambers to pass before it can become law. The bill would have required social media firms to “provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena,” which are typically issued by law enforcement agencies and without judicial oversight. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the bill “dangerous and dumb.” Security professionals have long argued that it is impossible to create a secure backdoor that cannot also be maliciously abused, and encryption backdoors put user data at risk of data breaches.

Apple is reportedly developing new chips to drive smart glasses similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta as well as more powerful Macs and AI servers. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman notes that one of the chips is inspired by the Apple Watch’s low-power processors. Apple aims to put these chips into mass production with TSMC by the end of next year or 2027, according to the report. Glasses are a big focus. Bloomberg has previously reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook is determined to beat Meta in the glasses market, where the latter has seen success in recent years. Since 2023, Meta has sold around 2 million pairs of Ray-Ban Metas. According to Bloomberg, Apple is currently exploring non-AR glasses that use cameras to scan the surrounding environment and rely on AI to assist users. One of the processors under development will be able to control these cameras and other components without draining too much battery, per the report.