CodeCanyon

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. 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 April 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. 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 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.

Tools for Humanity, the startup behind the World human verification project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, unveiled Wednesday a mobile device designed to help people determine the difference between a human and an AI agent. Rich Heley, Tools for Humanity’s Chief Device Officer and a former Apple director, debuted the Orb Mini device during its “At Last” event in San Francisco. The device looks like a smartphone, and has two large sensors on the front to scan users’ eyeballs. Image Credits:ScreenshotWorld, a web3 project started by Altman and Alex Blania that was formerly known as Worldcoin, is based on the idea that it will eventually be impossible to distinguish humans from AI agents on the internet. To address this, World wants to create digital “proof of human” tools; these announcements are part of its effort to get millions of people to sign up. After scanning your eyeball with one of its silver metal Orbs — or now, one of its Orb Minis — World will give you a unique identifier on the blockchain to verify that you’re a human. The Orb Mini, a reference to the company’s larger Orb devices, has the familiar shape of a smartphone and is designed to be portable, a Tools for Humanity spokesperson told TechCrunch in a briefing. Thomas Meyerhoff, a former Apple designer, helped design the Orb Mini, according to people familiar with the new product. The main purpose of the Orb Mini is to verify more people, not necessarily to use apps, make calls, or send texts. However, the spokesperson said it’s unclear what the device’s ultimate functionality would be. After the event, Blania told TechCrunch it aims to eventually turn the Orb Mini into a mobile point-of-sale device, and perhaps even sell the sensor technology to device manufacturers. Tools for Humanity is also launching its World Network in the U.S. on Thursday, and will open storefronts in Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco. The stores, which World already has in other countries, are designed for people to come in and have their eyeballs scanned by one of the company’s Orbs. 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 World project claims 26 million people have signed up, and 12 million people are verified, around the world. Today, the company has a larger presence in Latin America, South America, and Asia — but Wednesday’s announcement aims to grow the project in the U.S. While the company was light on details about its Orb Mini, the device seems to be an effort to distribute its verification devices more broadly. While World’s objectives have shifted over the years, the Orb seems core to its mission. A key question around swirling around World is whether it will one day partner with Sam Altman’s other venture, OpenAI. It’s unclear if the Orb Mini will have any AI features, or whether it’s related to the AI device OpenAI is reportedly working on.

TechCrunch Sessions: AI is just over a month away! We’re doing a last call for exceptional volunteers to join us in bringing this event to life. If you’ve ever wondered about the inner workings of tech events, now’s your chance to get involved. Volunteer spots are limited, so don’t miss out. Apply before the May 22 deadline to be considered. Preference is given to those who apply early, so the sooner the better! As a volunteer, you’ll gain exclusive access to the behind-the-scenes action, witnessing firsthand how these events are crafted. Plus, you’ll receive a complimentary ticket to enjoy TC Sessions: AI before or after your shift, along with a free pass to our flagship Disrupt event in San Francisco taking place from October 27 to 30. Whether your ambitions lie in launching a startup, mastering marketing strategies, or coordinating remarkable events, this opportunity offers a unique insight into the world of startup events. And even after your volunteer duties, you’ll have full access to the event’s expert-led sessions, covering essential AI topics. With an anticipated attendance of approximately 1,000 people at TC Sessions: AI, volunteers will play a crucial role in ensuring a seamless and rewarding experience for all attendees. Your tasks may include assisting with registration, coordinating speakers, guiding guests, scanning tickets, or aiding in event setup. Join us in making this event a success while gaining invaluable event management experience. And fear not, there will be ample time to soak in all the AI insights that TC Sessions: AI has to offer. Apply now and secure your spot! Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: AI? Reach out to our sponsorship sales team by completing this form. 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 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! Your usual host Kirsten has passed the reins to me, Rebecca Bellan, for the day, and I want to talk about Aurora Innovation and its last-minute save. Aurora had been promising to launch the U.S.’ first fully autonomous commercial trucking service in April this year, after pushing back its original 2024 debut. With just (proverbial) minutes to spare, Aurora pulled off the win. Aurora says it has run over 1,200 miles of freight this week between Dallas and Houston with launch customers Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight. That’s with a single truck, for now. Aurora plans to build up to “tens of self-driving trucks” and expand to El Paso and Phoenix by the end of 2025 as it continues to run more freight for customers with its fleet of supervised autonomous trucks. It’s a huge step for Aurora, and for the industry. But as Trump’s tariffs grind many shipments to a halt, is Aurora well positioned to seize the moment, or could prolonged delays threaten its survival? A little bird Image Credits:Bryce DurbinGot 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. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce DurbinAeroVironment, a drone maker, has completed its acquisition of space and defense engineering company BlueHalo. The $4.1 billion all-stock deal will see the merged companies become a new kind of defense tech called AV that can build tech across all warfighting domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyber. 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 True Anomaly, a defense-focused aerospace startup building spacecraft and software for U.S. national security missions, raised $260 million in a Series C round led by VC firm Accel. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce DurbinAutonomous vehicles May Mobility is the latest to join Uber’s roster of autonomous vehicle collaborators. The two announced this week plans to deploy May’s autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform by the end of 2025, starting in Arlington, Texas, as part of a multi-year partnership. Momenta, the Chinese AV startup, is also working with Uber. The two plan to launch Momenta robotaxis on the Uber platform starting in Europe in 2026. Waymo and Toyota are exploring a deal that could one day lead to a new self-driving vehicle designed for ride-hailing and possibly even personal autonomous vehicles. It’s still early days, so think of it as more of a soft-launch of their budding relationship. Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries Canoo’s bankruptcy proceedings are still going on, and now a mysterious London investor has asked the judge to stop the sale of the EV startup’s assets to its CEO, calling it a “flawed process.” He’s throwing down an offer of $20 million for the assets, which trumps Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila’s $4 million bid. Rivian is sitting pretty on a stockpile of batteries for its trucks, SUVs, and commercial vans that it built up before and after Donald Trump’s election. That’ll soften the blow of the president’s tariffs, which are hitting the auto industry hard. Slate Auto, the buzzy new Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup that broke out of stealth last week, is eyeing a printing plant located in Warsaw, Indiana, as the future place where it’ll produce its cheap electric truck. Tesla’s board reportedly began shopping for a successor to CEO Elon Musk as the chief’s cavorting in Washington has devalued the brand, and its margins, hard. Tesla chair Robyn Denholm denied the reporting from The Wall Street Journal. While we’re on the subject of Tesla’s board, let’s turn our attention to board member Joe Gebbia (who is also connected to DOGE). Gebbia acquired about 4,000 shares of Tesla stock at a $1 million value, which is notable because it’s so rare to see board members straight up buy stock. Miscellaneous Ford has shut down its FNV4 software architecture initiative, a project it had once thought of as critical to compete with EV leaders like Tesla. Closing the initiative means an end to years of development that would vertically integrate vehicle software across Ford’s gas and electric lineups. Joby Aviation transitioned its eVTOL from horizontal to vertical flight for the first time with a pilot on board. It’s a necessary step as the company works toward FAA certification. Ride-hailing and delivery DoorDash wants a California judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Uber that accuses the delivery company of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners into exclusive deals. DoorDash said the lawsuit was nothing but a scare tactic from Uber to avoid “real competition.”

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom says AI companies are trying too hard to “juice engagement” by pestering their users with follow-up questions, instead of providing actually useful insights. Systrom said the tactics represent “a force that’s hurting us,” comparing them to those used by social media companies to expand aggressively. “You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement,” he said at StartupGrind this week. “Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me.” The comments come amid criticism of ChatGPT for being too nice to users instead of directly answering their questions. OpenAI has apologized for the problem and blamed “short-term feedback” from users for it. Systrom suggested that chatbots being overly engaging is not a bug, but an intentional feature designed for AI companies to show off metrics like time spent and daily active users. AI companies should be “laser-focused” on providing high-quality answers rather than moving metrics in the easiest way possible, he said. Systrom didn’t name any specific AI companies in his remarks. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In response, OpenAI pointed TechCrunch to its user specs, which state that its AI model “often does not have all of the information” to provide a good answer and may ask for “clarification or more details.” 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 But unless questions are too vague or difficult to answer, the AI should “take a stab at fulfilling the request and tell the user that it could be more helpful with certain information,” the specs read.

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! Your usual host Kirsten has passed the reins to me, Rebecca Bellan, for the day, and I want to talk about Aurora Innovation and its last-minute save. Aurora had been promising to launch the U.S.’ first fully autonomous commercial trucking service in April this year, after pushing back its original 2024 debut. With just (proverbial) minutes to spare, Aurora pulled off the win. Aurora says it has run over 1,200 miles of freight this week between Dallas and Houston with launch customers Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight. That’s with a single truck, for now. Aurora plans to build up to “tens of self-driving trucks” and expand to El Paso and Phoenix by the end of 2025 as it continues to run more freight for customers with its fleet of supervised autonomous trucks. It’s a huge step for Aurora, and for the industry. But as Trump’s tariffs grind many shipments to a halt, is Aurora well positioned to seize the moment, or could prolonged delays threaten its survival? A little bird Image Credits:Bryce DurbinGot 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. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce DurbinAeroVironment, a drone maker, has completed its acquisition of space and defense engineering company BlueHalo. The $4.1 billion all-stock deal will see the merged companies become a new kind of defense tech called AV that can build tech across all warfighting domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyber. 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 True Anomaly, a defense-focused aerospace startup building spacecraft and software for U.S. national security missions, raised $260 million in a Series C round led by VC firm Accel. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce DurbinAutonomous vehicles May Mobility is the latest to join Uber’s roster of autonomous vehicle collaborators. The two announced this week plans to deploy May’s autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform by the end of 2025, starting in Arlington, Texas, as part of a multi-year partnership. Momenta, the Chinese AV startup, is also working with Uber. The two plan to launch Momenta robotaxis on the Uber platform starting in Europe in 2026. Waymo and Toyota are exploring a deal that could one day lead to a new self-driving vehicle designed for ride-hailing and possibly even personal autonomous vehicles. It’s still early days, so think of it as more of a soft-launch of their budding relationship. Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries Canoo’s bankruptcy proceedings are still going on, and now a mysterious London investor has asked the judge to stop the sale of the EV startup’s assets to its CEO, calling it a “flawed process.” He’s throwing down an offer of $20 million for the assets, which trumps Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila’s $4 million bid. Rivian is sitting pretty on a stockpile of batteries for its trucks, SUVs, and commercial vans that it built up before and after Donald Trump’s election. That’ll soften the blow of the president’s tariffs, which are hitting the auto industry hard. Slate Auto, the buzzy new Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup that broke out of stealth last week, is eyeing a printing plant located in Warsaw, Indiana, as the future place where it’ll produce its cheap electric truck. Tesla’s board reportedly began shopping for a successor to CEO Elon Musk as the chief’s cavorting in Washington has devalued the brand, and its margins, hard. Tesla chair Robyn Denholm denied the reporting from The Wall Street Journal. While we’re on the subject of Tesla’s board, let’s turn our attention to board member Joe Gebbia (who is also connected to DOGE). Gebbia acquired about 4,000 shares of Tesla stock at a $1 million value, which is notable because it’s so rare to see board members straight up buy stock. Miscellaneous Ford has shut down its FNV4 software architecture initiative, a project it had once thought of as critical to compete with EV leaders like Tesla. Closing the initiative means an end to years of development that would vertically integrate vehicle software across Ford’s gas and electric lineups. Joby Aviation transitioned its eVTOL from horizontal to vertical flight for the first time with a pilot on board. It’s a necessary step as the company works toward FAA certification. Ride-hailing and delivery DoorDash wants a California judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Uber that accuses the delivery company of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners into exclusive deals. DoorDash said the lawsuit was nothing but a scare tactic from Uber to avoid “real competition.”

Next week, Google will begin allowing kids under 13 who have parent-managed Google accounts to use its Gemini chatbot, according to The New York Times. The Times reports that Gemini will be available to kids whose parents use Family Link, a Google service that enables families to opt into various Google services for their child. A Google spokesperson told the publication that Gemini has specific guardrails for younger users, and that the company won’t use that data to train its AI. As The Times notes, chatbot makers are racing to capture younger audiences as the AI race heats up. That’s despite the fact that chatbots today are imperfect at best — and potentially harmful at worst. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization late last year pushed for governments to regulate the use of generative AI in education, including implementing age limits for users and guardrails on data protection and user privacy.

Apple and Anthropic are teaming up to build a “vibe-coding” software platform that will use generative AI to write, edit, and test code for programmers, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The iPhone maker is planning to roll out the software internally, according to Bloomberg, but hasn’t decided if it will launch it publicly. The system is a new version of Apple’s programming software, Xcode, and relies on Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model, according to the report. To accelerate its AI efforts, Apple seems to be tapping a network of partners. OpenAI’s ChatGPT already helps power the company’s Apple Intelligence features, and Google’s Gemini may be added as an alternative option in the future, Apple has indicated. Now, Anthropic may help Apple write code internally. Among developers, the latest Claude models from Anthropic are particularly popular for coding tasks, especially on vibe coding platforms such as Cursor and Windsurf.

A recently released Google AI model scores worse on certain safety tests than its predecessor, according to the company’s internal benchmarking. In a technical report published this week, Google reveals that its Gemini 2.5 Flash model is more likely to generate text that violates its safety guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. On two metrics, “text-to-text safety” and “image-to-text safety,” Gemini 2.5 Flash regresses 4.1% and 9.6%, respectively. Text-to-text safety measures how frequently a model violates Google’s guidelines given a prompt, while image-to-text safety evaluates how closely the model adheres to these boundaries when prompted using an image. Both tests are automated, not human-supervised. In an emailed statement, a Google spokesperson confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse on text-to-text and image-to-text safety.” These surprising benchmark results come as AI companies move to make their models more permissive — in other words, less likely to refuse to respond to controversial or sensitive subjects. For its latest crop of Llama models, Meta said it tuned the models not to endorse “some views over others” and to reply to more “debated” political prompts. OpenAI said earlier this year that it would tweak future models to not take an editorial stance and offer multiple perspectives on controversial topics. Sometimes, those permissiveness efforts have backfired. TechCrunch reported Monday that the default model powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT allowed minors to generate erotic conversations. OpenAI blamed the behavior on a “bug.” According to Google’s technical report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in preview, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, inclusive of instructions that cross problematic lines. The company claims that the regressions can be attributed partly to false positives, but it also admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “violative content” when explicitly asked. 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 “Naturally, there is tension between [instruction following] on sensitive topics and safety policy violations, which is reflected across our evaluations,” reads the report. Scores from SpeechMap, a benchmark that probes how models respond to sensitive and controversial prompts, also suggest that Gemini 2.5 Flash is far less likely to refuse to answer contentious questions than Gemini 2.0 Flash. TechCrunch’s testing of the model via AI platform OpenRouter found that it’ll uncomplainingly write essays in support of replacing human judges with AI, weakening due process protections in the U.S., and implementing widespread warrantless government surveillance programs. Thomas Woodside, co-founder of the Secure AI Project, said the limited details Google gave in its technical report demonstrates the need for more transparency in model testing. “There’s a trade-off between instruction-following and policy following, because some users may ask for content that would violate policies,” Woodside told TechCrunch. “In this case, Google’s latest Flash model complies with instructions more while also violating policies more. Google doesn’t provide much detail on the specific cases where policies were violated, although they say they are not severe. Without knowing more, it’s hard for independent analysts to know whether there’s a problem.” Google has come under fire for its model safety reporting practices before. It took the company weeks to publish a technical report for its most capable model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report eventually was published, it initially omitted key safety testing details. On Monday, Google released a more detailed report with additional safety information.

A security lapse at dating app Raw publicly exposed the personal data and private locations data of its users, TechCrunch has found. The exposed data included users’ display names, dates of birth, dating and sexual preferences associated with the Raw app, as well as users’ location. Some of the location data included coordinates that were specific enough to locate Raw app users with street-level accuracy. Raw, which launched in 2023, is a dating app that claims to offer more genuine interactions with others in part by asking users to upload daily selfie photos. The company does not disclose how many users it has, but its app listing on the Google Play Store notes more than 500,000 Android downloads to date. News of the security lapse comes in the same week that the startup announced a hardware extension of its dating app, the Raw Ring, an unreleased wearable device that it claims will allow app users to track their partner’s heart rate and other sensor data to receive AI-generated insights, ostensibly to detect infidelity. Notwithstanding the moral and ethical issues of tracking romantic partners and the risks of emotional surveillance, Raw claims on its website and in its privacy policy that its app, and its unreleased device, both use end-to-end encryption, a security feature that prevents anyone other than the user — including the company — from accessing the data. When we tried the app this week, which included an analysis of the app’s network traffic, TechCrunch found no evidence that the app uses end-to-end encryption. Instead, we found that the app was publicly spilling data about its users to anyone with a web browser. Raw fixed the data exposure on Wednesday, shortly after TechCrunch contacted the company with details of the bug. “All previously exposed endpoints have been secured, and we’ve implemented additional safeguards to prevent similar issues in the future,” Marina Anderson, the co-founder of Raw dating app, told TechCrunch by email. When asked by TechCrunch, Anderson confirmed that the company had not performed a third-party security audit of its app, adding that its “focus remains on building a high-quality product and engaging meaningfully with our growing community.” Anderson would not commit to proactively notifying affected users that their information was exposed, but said the company would “submit a detailed report to the relevant data protection authorities under applicable regulations.” It’s not immediately known how long the app was publicly spilling its users’ data. Anderson said that the company was still investigating the incident. Regarding its claim that the app uses end-to-end encryption, Anderson said Raw “uses encryption in transit and enforces access controls for sensitive data within our infrastructure. Further steps will be clear after thoroughly analyzing the situation.” Anderson would not say, when asked, whether the company plans to adjust its privacy policy, and Anderson did not respond to a follow-up email from TechCrunch. How we found the exposed data TechCrunch discovered the bug on Wednesday during a brief test of the app. As part of our test, we installed the Raw dating app on a virtualized Android device, which allows us to use the app without having to provide any real-world data, such as our physical location. We created a new user account with dummy data, such as a name and date of birth, and configured our virtual device’s location to appear as though we were at a museum in Mountain View, California. When the app requested our virtual device’s location, we allowed the app access to our precise location down to a few meters. We used a network traffic analysis tool to monitor and inspect the data flowing in and out of the Raw app, which allowed us to understand how the app works and what kinds of data the app was uploading about its users. TechCrunch discovered the data exposure within a few minutes of using the Raw app. When we first loaded the app, we found that it was pulling the user’s profile information directly from the company’s servers, but that the server was not protecting the returned data with any authentication. In practice, that meant anyone could access any other user’s private information by using a web browser to visit the web address of the exposed server — api.raw.app/users/ followed by a unique 11-digit number corresponding to another app user. Changing the digits to correspond with any other user’s 11-digit identifier returned private information from that user’s profile, including their location data. Image Credits:TechCrunchImage Credits:TechCrunch This kind of vulnerability is known as an insecure direct object reference, or IDOR, a type of bug that can allow someone to access or modify data on someone else’s server because of a lack of proper security checks on the user accessing the data. As we’ve explained before, IDOR bugs are akin to having a key to a private mailbox, for example, but that key can also unlock every other mailbox on that same street. As such, IDOR bugs can be exploited with ease and in some cases enumerated, allowing access to record after record of user data. U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA has long warned of the risks that IDOR bugs present, including the ability to access typically sensitive data “at scale.” As part of its Secure By Design initiative, CISA said in a 2023 advisory that developers should ensure their apps perform proper authentication and authorization checks. Since Raw fixed the bug, the exposed server no longer returns user data in the browser.

Uber announced Friday yet another autonomous vehicle partnership as it leverages its dominant ride-hail and delivery position while relying on partners to supply the self-driving tech it isn’t building in-house. Today, the lucky startup is Chinese self-driving firm Momenta. The tie-up comes a day after Uber added Ann Arbor-based May Mobility to its roster of AV collaborators, which also includes Volkswagen, Waymo, Wayve, WeRide and many others. Uber said it would add Momenta’s robotaxis to the app starting in Europe in early 2026, with safety operators onboard. Momenta CEO Xudong Cao said the parternship “completes the key ecosystem needed to scale autonomous driving globally.” The plethora of deals on Uber’s end — which span into trucking and delivery — come as the company may expect to face potential competition from Tesla, which plans to launch its first robotaxi service in Austin this summer. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised that all Tesla vehicles will one day — with a mere software update — turn into fully self-driving vehicles to be used for ride-hail. Uber once had its own self-driving unit, but sold the division to Aurora Innovation in 2020.

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 low on M&A and IPO news, but there was still some drama to follow, if that’s your thing — and more importantly, some worthy startups getting funded. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty ImagesFrom frivolous to more serious, there was no shortage of legal startup developments this week. Clued up: Startups launched products such as “Truely” to catch people using viral AI cheating app Cluely, but the startup says it is ready to stay one step ahead with hardware products that will make it even harder to detect. Besieged: Troubled fashion startup CaaStle is facing new lawsuits and allegations after its founder was accused of financial misconduct. Figure it out: Hot robotics startup Figure AI sent cease-and-desist letters to at least two brokers who run secondary marketplaces, demanding that they stop marketing the company’s stock. Still fighting: Imaguru was Belarus’ first startup hub. Now its founders are in exile but continue their mission, with hubs in Warsaw and Madrid supported by European institutions. 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 Serial drama: Deel officially agreed to be served legal papers in the lawsuit initiated by its rival Rippling over alleged spying. Flawed: A mysterious London-based investor asked a U.S. bankruptcy judge to stop the sale of EV startup Canoo’s assets to its CEO, calling it a “flawed” process. Most interesting VC and funding news this week Image Credits:under a IXI (opens in a new window) license.If all the startups that announced funding rounds this week reach their goals, the world might be a better place. Plus, some funds are ready to back even more entrepreneurs. Casting a net: Cast AI, a startup building tools to optimize workloads for AI and automated tasks, raised a $108 million Series C to fuel its R&D and geographic expansion. Strong run: Lightrun, an Israeli startup whose AI-enabled observability platform helps debug code, locked in a $70 million Series B co-led by new backer Accel alongside previous investor Insight Partners. Legal tech: Supio, a startup that uses AI to automate data collection and analysis for legal teams, raised a $60 million funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. Bold vision: IXI, a Finnish startup hoping to bring autofocus to prescription glasses, raised $36.5 million from Amazon Alexa Fund and others to work on its first commercial product. B2B trade: Nuvo, a San Francisco-based startup whose platform facilitates purchasing of physical goods between businesses, raised a $34 million Series A from Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital. And OmniRetail, which aims to facilitate B2B e-commerce across Nigeria and West Africa, raised a $20 million Series A co-led by Norwegian development finance institution Norfund and Nigerian VC firm Timon Capital. Early detection: Japanese startup Craif, a Nagoya University spinout that uses microRNA to develop AI-powered early cancer detection software, raised a $22 million Series C to fuel its expansion and R&D. Ballooning: Near Space Labs, a startup whose balloon-based aerial imaging platform can have dual-use applications, secured a $20 million Series B led by Bold Capital Partners, a VC firm founded by Peter Diamandis. Hot: Glacier, a startup behind a robot-enabled recycling fleet already deployed in several U.S. cities, secured a $16 million Series A led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund, with participation from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. Not broken: Kintsugi, an AI sales tax startup named after the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery, raised $15 million from tax technology solution provider Vertex and $3 million from existing investors at a $150 million post-money valuation, up from $80 million in November. No more burping: Hoofprint Biome, a startup slashing methane emissions by modifying cattle’s microbiome, raised a $15 million Series A led by SOSV. U.K. upside: Volution, a U.K.-based VC investing in fintech, AI, and SaaS startups, launched a new $100 million fund to double down on its thesis. One-up: European entrepreneur-focused platform EWOR launched its own “founder fellowship,” committing approximately $68 million to the initiative, which will compete with Harry Stebbings’ fellowship Project Europe. Last but not least Image Credits:NeoYou may not have heard of Ali Partovi, but those in the know have. The Iranian-born Harvard graduate has an impressive multi-decade-long track record that spans founding and exiting several startups and early investing in tech giants. He now leads 8-year-old venture firm Neo, whose early funds are performing exceedingly well.

Google’s NotebookLM Android and iOS apps are expected to launch on May 20, according to app store listings. The apps are currently available for pre-order. Since its launch in 2023, the AI-based note-taking and research assistant has only been accessible via desktop. Google is now gearing up to make the service available on the go. NotebookLM is designed to help students, professionals, and researchers better understand complex information through features like smart summaries and the ability to ask questions about documents and other materials. The research assistant also lets you generate AI podcasts, called Audio Overviews, to make it easier to digest complex topics. Image Credits:GoogleAccording to screenshots on the app listings, the dedicated apps will allow users to create new notebooks and view the ones they have already created. They can also upload new sources from their device and view the ones they have already uploaded in each of the notebooks. Plus, the apps will allow you to listen to the Audio Overviews you have generated on the go. In addition to mobile, the apps will be available on iPads and tablets, where you’ll have a bigger screen to multitask. You can choose to pre-order the app on the App Store or pre-register for it on Google Play. If you do so, the app will be automatically downloaded onto your phone on May 20. Given that the apps are expected to become available on the first day of Google I/O, the tech giant will likely share more information about them at the annual conference in a few weeks. 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

OpenAI says it’ll make changes to the way it updates the AI models that power ChatGPT, following an incident that caused the platform to become overly sycophantic for many users. Last weekend, after OpenAI rolled out a tweaked GPT-4o — the default model powering ChatGPT — users on social media noted that ChatGPT began responding in an overly validating and agreeable way. It quickly became a meme. Users posted screenshots of ChatGPT applauding all sorts of problematic, dangerous decisions and ideas. In a post on X last Sunday, CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the problem and said that OpenAI would work on fixes “ASAP.” On Tuesday, Altman announced the GPT-4o update was being rolled back and that OpenAI was working on “additional fixes” to the model’s personality. The company published a postmortem on Tuesday, and in a blog post Friday, OpenAI expanded on specific adjustments it plans to make to its model deployment process. OpenAI says it plans to introduce an opt-in “alpha phase” for some models that would allow certain ChatGPT users to test the models and give feedback prior to launch. The company also says it’ll include explanations of “known limitations” for future incremental updates to models in ChatGPT, and adjust its safety review process to formally consider “model behavior issues” like personality, deception, reliability, and hallucination (i.e. when a model makes things up) as “launch-blocking” concerns. “Going forward, we’ll proactively communicate about the updates we’re making to the models in ChatGPT, whether ‘subtle’ or not,” wrote OpenAI in the blog post. “Even if these issues aren’t perfectly quantifiable today, we commit to blocking launches based on proxy measurements or qualitative signals, even when metrics like A/B testing look good.” we missed the mark with last week's GPT-4o update. what happened, what we learned, and some things we will do differently in the future: https://t.co/ER1GmRYrIC — Sam Altman (@sama) May 2, 2025 The pledged fixes come as more people turn to ChatGPT for advice. According to one recent survey by lawsuit financer Express Legal Funding, 60% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT to seek counsel or information. The growing reliance on ChatGPT — and the platform’s enormous user base — raises the stakes when issues like extreme sycophancy emerge, not to mention hallucinations and other technical shortcomings. 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 As one mitigating step, earlier this week, OpenAI said it would experiment with ways to let users give “real-time feedback” to “directly influence their interactions” with ChatGPT. The company also said it would refine techniques to steer models away from sycophancy, potentially allow people to choose from multiple model personalities in ChatGPT, build additional safety guardrails, and expand evaluations to help identify issues beyond sycophancy. “One of the biggest lessons is fully recognizing how people have started to use ChatGPT for deeply personal advice — something we didn’t see as much even a year ago,” continued OpenAI in its blog post. “At the time, this wasn’t a primary focus, but as AI and society have co-evolved, it’s become clear that we need to treat this use case with great care. It’s now going to be a more meaningful part of our safety work.”

Plenty of startups hit a wall after their first few rounds of funding, having grown too big for venture funds but still in need of cash. For startups specializing in industrial-scale hardware, which includes many climate tech companies, the problem is especially acute because the capital requirements are so large. Infrastructure funds have long filled that gap, but many have been hesitant to dive into climate tech. One firm thinks that spells opportunity, though. Ara Partners recently raised an $800 million infrastructure fund focused on reducing carbon emissions in industrial sectors, which historically have been hard to decarbonize. Ara had initially targeted $500 million, the firm told TechCrunch, but saw strong support from new and existing investors, including pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds from around the world. The new fund has already made three investments, including in an Ireland-based household organic waste recycler and a biofuels terminal developer. The fund’s decarbonization strategy focuses on repurposing existing assets for new low-carbon developments. This significant fundraise arrives at a time of political uncertainty over decarbonization in the U.S., but increasing clarity around its economics. Many companies have been able to drive down costs of low- and zero-carbon technologies in recent years, making them cost competitive with existing approaches. Ara, for example, previously invested in Divert through one of its private equity funds. The company donates food that’s still good and, for food that isn’t edible, turns the waste into biogas that can be sold or used to generate electricity and heat on site. Compared with the alternative — sending the waste to a landfill where it generates methane pollution — Divert’s approach makes a lot of sense environmentally and financially. 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 investment firm said it will announce its fourth investment under the strategy “shortly.”

Spotify said on Friday that Apple has approved its U.S. app update that will allow users to access pricing information and external payment links. The approval comes days after a U.S. judge ordered Apple to stop charging commissions on purchases through iPhone apps. “In a victory for consumers, artists, creators, and authors, Apple has approved Spotify’s U.S. app update,” Spotify spokesperson Jeanna Moran said in a statement to TechCrunch. “After nearly a decade, this will finally allow us to freely show clear pricing information and links to purchase, fostering transparency and choice for U.S. consumers.” She continued, “We can now give consumers lower prices, more control, and easier access to the Spotify experience. There is more work to do, but today represents a significant milestone for developers and entrepreneurs everywhere who want to build and compete on a more level playing field. It’s the opening act of a new era, and we could not be more ready for the show.” The updated app, version 9.0.40, is rolling out now on the App Store. Spotify is now one of the first major apps to get a new update, opening up purchases. Spotify submitted the update to Apple yesterday, noting that it could tell customers about different subscription options and how much each one costs right within the iPhone app. Users will also be able to link out to purchase or change their Spotify subscription plan on the company’s website, where its transactions won’t be subject to Apple’s 30 percent service charge on in-app payments. Plus, Spotify said it would now be able to tell U.S. customers about promotional offers in the app. Apple said on Wednesday that it will comply with the court’s order, but that it strongly disagrees with the decision and will appeal. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said on Wednesday that Apple violated an order to reform its App Store. The tech giant was told to change its app store to allow developers to send customers to their websites to make purchases. According to the ruling, Apple not only failed to comply with the order but did so willfully, with the intention of establishing new anticompetitive barriers. 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

Airbnb started rolling out an AI-powered customer service bot in the U.S. last month, CEO Brian Chesky said during the firm’s first-quarter conference call on Thursday. Chesky said 50% of Airbnb’s U.S. users are already using the AI bot for customer service, adding that the company plans to roll out the feature to all its users in the country this month. “One thing I’ll say about AI [is that] it is definitely making the customer experience easier […] It has already led to a 15% reduction in people needing to contact live human agents,” he noted during the analyst call. Last year, the company told TechCrunch that it was testing the technology, but in a limited manner and only for certain queries. “I think there is a lot of potential for applying AI to the business. We think a lot about how AI is going to change the experience at the consumer layer over time,” Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk told TechCrunch at that time. Unlike companies like OpenAI, Google, Perplexity and the slew of startups building AI agents (AI tools that can perform tasks on a user’s behalf), Airbnb seems to be taking a more measured approach with AI. Chesky said in February that the company would use AI for customer service before it started implementing it for other uses like travel planning or booking tickets, as he believes the technology is still in its early days. Meanwhile, its competitors Expedia and Booking.com are investing heavily on the technology, launching AI features like building itineraries, trip planning, and real-time updates for travel. 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 Airbnb’s reported a total revenue of $2.27 billion for the first quarter, up 6% from a year earlier. The company, however, forecast current-quarter revenue slightly below analysts’ expectations, and indicated that it was expecting travel demand to slow down as the global tariff war hurts sentiment and discourages discretionary spending.

Google Sheets has long allowed users to publish their spreadsheets on the web as HTML web pages but now you can also publish spreadsheet data as downloadable PDF or Excel files. That means anyone one can download your public spreadsheets from Google Docs servers directly in PDF or Excel format without having to open the corresponding document in Google Docs or another Office application. Related: Google Docs Guide at Digital Inspiration You may either publish your entire spreadsheet on the web or just a portion of data (e.g. cells B2 to C9 will be represented as B2 ). To see this in action, download this PDF (that contains the full sheet) and then check this HTML page that has only a portion of data. You may ask how is this any different from manually uploading a PDF version of the Excel spreadsheet on a website? Well, the advantage here is that the PDF conversion happens in real-time so people who download your spreadsheets from Google servers in PDF format will always get the latest copy of data provided you have checked “Automatically republish when changes are made” at the time of publishing your sheet(s). The .xls publishing option is available for publishing all sheets only, not specific sheets or cell ranges. Similarly, you can’t publish cell ranges on PDF files. Also see: Edit Google Docs in Microsoft Office View the full article

If you need to view Excel data without Microsoft Office, just upload the file to Google Docs and it will display the spreadsheet data in the web browser. This sounds like an easy plan but the problem is that you can’t import large volumes of data into Google Docs. For instance, Google Docs would only allow you to import spreadsheets (or CSV files) that are less than 1 MB in size and have no more than 200,000 cells in 256 columns or less. These kind of size limits should be sufficient for most spreadsheets but you may find them pretty limiting in case you are planning to view large amounts of data in Google Docs like the population statistics of the world. Enter Google Fusion Tables - it’s a new product that lets you view Excel files as large as 100 MB in the browser - you can either upload the files from the desktop or pull it directly from your Google Spreadsheets gallery. Unlike Spreadsheet, Google Tables is primarily for handling tabular data so it can’t understand formulas or cell formatting. However, the system can recognize columns that contain values that can be geo-coded. For instance, if the column contains country names or street addresses, Google Tables can easily plot that data onto a world map. You can also apply filters to the data or create views so that only a subset of data is visible to the outside world. Later, you can export the edited data out of Google Fusion Tables as a CSV file. Related: Google Docs Guide & Tutorial View the full article

Unlike Microsoft Excel, there aren’t any Filter functions available in Google Spreadsheets but you can easily emulate them with simple formulae. How to Highlight and Remove Duplicates in Google sheets Filter Unique Records in Google Sheets If you like to remove duplicate rows from a table in Google Docs, use the UNIQUE formula as shown in this screencast. Click an empty cell, type =UNIQUE(, select the range of cells you want to filter and then close the parenthesis. Simple. Find Duplicate Rows in Google Docs This is a reverse case where you want to display rows in a spreadsheet that have duplicates. This requires a couple of steps: Step 1: Assuming that our original data is in columns A, B & C, go to cell D1 and write a formula to concatenate the data in three columns. We’ll use a pipe separator to distinguish between a row like “a1, b, c” and “a, 1b, c”. =CONCATENATE(A1, "|", B1, "|", C1) – drag the cell handle to fill the formula in other cells. Step 2: Sort the D column by clicking the header as shown in the screencast. Step 3: We now need a function to compare two adjacent values in column D. If the values are same, one of them is a duplicate for sure. Type this in E2: =IF(D2=D1, "Duplicate", "") – drag to fill all cells until E5. That’s it. All rows in column E that have value “Duplicate” are duplicate rows. View the full article

Would you like to send a confidential note to a friend that self-destructs after it has been read so that no one else (including your friend) can ever see that secret note again? Maybe it has a password that shouldn’t be stored anywhere. Or you are worried that the private note can get leaked online. There are web apps - like Burn Note and Privnote - that offer an easy solution. They essentially create a temporary web page that auto-expires after it has been viewed once. Dashlane is another app also lets you send encrypted notes from the desktop and the recipient gets 30 minutes of reading time after which the note will vanish forever. Alternatively, you can even use Google Docs to send secret, self-destructing messages to anyone in few easy steps. Here’s a quick video demo: Play ; Self-Destructing Messages in Google Docs It takes a minute to convert a Google Docs sheet into a self-destructing one. Click here to make a copy of the Google sheet in your own account. Once the sheet is auto-cleared, type your secret message anywhere inside the sheet and hit the Share button to send it to a friend. Make sure the permission is set to “Can Edit” in the sharing window. Your friend opens the sheet, reads the message and after 10 seconds, the entire sheet on his screen will clear itself. If you wish to send another self-destructing message, create a copy of the original sheet and repeat the steps. How does it work? The trick is simple. We have an onOpen trigger attached to the Google sheet that becomes active as soon as the sheet is opened. This trigger waits for 10 seconds (Utilities.sleep) and then runs the clear() command to empty all the cells of the sheet. Here’s the Google Apps Script code that actually makes your “secret message” vanish. ↓ function onOpen() { var time = 10; // Wait Time (in seconds) var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet(); ss.toast("This message will disappear after " + time + " seconds"); Utilities.sleep(time * 1000); ss.toast("We are now sending this private note to the shredder"); ss.getActiveSheet().getRange(1, 1, ss.getLastRow(), ss.getLastColumn()).clear(); } View the full article

This tutorial explains how you can easily scrape Google Search results and save the listings in a Google Spreadsheet. It can be useful for monitoring the organic search rankings of your website in Google for particular search keywords vis-a-vis other competing websites. Or you can exporting search results in a spreadsheet for deeper analysis. There are powerful command-line tools, curl and wget for example, that you can use to download Google search result pages. The HTML pages can then be parsed using Python’s Beautiful Soup library or the Simple HTML DOM parser of PHP but these methods are too technical and involve coding. The other issue is that Google is very likely to temporarily block your IP address should you send them a couple of automated scraping requests in quick succession. Google Search Scraper using Google Spreadsheets If you ever need to extract results data from Google search, there’s a free tool from Google itself that is perfect for the job. It’s called Google Docs and since it will be fetching Google search pages from within Google’s own network, the scraping requests are less likely to get blocked. The idea is simple. We have a Google Sheet that will fetch and import Google search results using the ImportXML function. It then extracts the page titles and URLs using an XPath expression and then grabs the favicon images using Google’s own favicon converter. The search scraper is available in two editions - the free edition that only fetches the top ~20 results while the premium edition downloads the top 500-1000 search results for your search keywords while preserving the ranking order. Features Free Premium Maxiumum number of Google search results fetched per query ~20 ~200-800 Details fetched from Google Search Results Web page title, URL and website favicon Web page title, search snippet (description), page URL, site’s domain and favicon Perform time limited searches No Yes Sort search results by date or by relevance No Yes Limit Google Search results by language or region (country) No Yes PDF Manual None Included Support options None Email Choose your Google Search Scraper edition Forever Free [premium_gas premium=“MMWZUKU3WA2ZW” platinum=“9F4DE545U3MBW”] Google Search inside Google Sheets To get started, open this Google sheet and copy it to your Google Drive. Enter the search query in the yellow cell and it will instantly fetch the Google search results for your keywords. And now that you have the Google Search results inside the sheet, you can export the Google Search results as a CSV file, publish the sheet as an HTML page (it will refresh automatically) or you can go a step further and write a Google Script that will send you the sheet as PDF daily. Advanced Google Scraping with Google Sheets This is a screenshot of the Premium edition. It fetches more number of search results, scrapes more information about the web pages and offers more sorting options. The search results can also be restricted to pages that were published in the last minute, hour, week, month or year. Spreadsheet Functions for Scraping Web Pages Writing a scraping tool with Google sheets is simple and involve a few formulas and built-in functions. Here’s how it was done: Construct the Google Search URL with the search query and sorting parameters. You can also use advanced Google search operators like site, inurl, around and others. https://www.google.com/search?q=Edward+Snowden&num=10 Get the title of pages in search results using the XPath //h3 (in Google search results, all titles are served inside the H3 tag). =IMPORTXML(STEP1, “//h3[@class=‘r’]”) Find the XPath of any element using Chrome Dev Tools 7. Get the URL of pages in search results using another XPath expression =IMPORTXML(STEP1, “//h3/a/@href”) All external URLs in Google Search results have tracking enabled and we’ll use Regular Expression to extract clean URLs. =REGEXEXTRACT(STEP3, ”\/url\?q=(.+)&sa”) Now that we have the page URL, we can again use Regular Expression to extract the website domain from the URL. =REGEXEXTRACT(STEP4, “https?:\/\/(.[^\/]+)”) And finally, we can use this website with Google’s S2 Favicon converter to show the favicon image of the website in the sheet. The 2nd parameter is set to 4 since we want the favicon images to fit in 16x16 pixels. =IMAGE(CONCAT(“http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=”, STEP5), 4, 16, 16) View the full article

Introducing Twitter Merge, a new Twitter app that will help you send personalized tweets and direct messages (or DMs) to multiple Twitter users in one-go. You create a template for the tweet, specify a list of Twitter users and the app will take care of the rest. The Twitter Merge app, like Gmail Mail Merge, also runs inside a Google Spreadsheet but instead of emails, this one allows you to send customized tweets and DMs in bulk. Let me share a scenario where such an app may be useful. Say you are a brand and you are trying to organize meetings with Twitter users in various cities on different dates. You want to send them invites on Twitter but it would take just too much effort to compose the tweets or DMs manually. You thus create an invite template and add the Twitter user names in a Google Sheet. The Twitter Merge app, using that template, will send a personalized tweet (or DM) to every handle listed in the sheet automatically. Here’s a sample Tweet template and the corresponding tweets / DMs generated from the template. To create a Twitter template, write a tweet in notepad (or any text editor) and replace the words that will be different in each tweet with {{variables}}. For instance, if you are write a tweet with customized name and city, your template will read something like hello {{first name}} from {{city name}} while the “First Name” and “City Name” will be columns in your Google Spreadsheet. Bulk Send Tweets & Direct Messages Follow these steps to get started: Click here to copy the Twitter Merge spreadsheet in your Google Drive. Add new columns to the sheet so that you have one for every variable that exists in your tweet template. The column names should be the same as the variable name though the case doesn’t matter. Fill the spreadsheet with one or more rows. Add the Twitter screen names in the “Twitter User” column while keeping the “Tweet” and “Status” columns as blank. Go to the Twitter Merge menu at the top and choose Authorize. This is required because you need to allow the Spreadsheet to send tweets on our behalf. From the same menu, choose Configure and paste the text of your tweet template. You also need to specify whether the tweets area be sent as DMs or public tweets. Save the configuration. We are almost done now. The “Tweet” column will display the actual text that will be sent and you have an option to manually edit that text. Choose Send tweets from the Twitter menu and the app will send the customized tweets to all the listed Twitter users. The following video (link) will also guide you through the process. Play ; Also see: Archive Twitter Search Results in Google sheets. Later, if you wish to send more tweets or DMs, you can just repeat from step 2 onwards. Also, if the “Status” column for a tweet is set as “SENT”, the app will skip sending a tweet to that particular Twitter user. Internally, there’s a Google Script running that transforms your template into actual tweets using data from the row and it then connects to the Twitter API to send the tweets. Give it a try and do share your feedback in the comments section below. View the full article

The previous example shows how to convert Google Sheets to XLS format using the Google Drive API. The response file resource includes exportLinks URLs for the various export formats for Google Spreadsheets. For instance, the Microsoft Excel version of the Google Sheet can be retrieved via this link: file['exportLinks']['application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet'] You need to enabled Advanced Drive API in your Google Developers Console project to know the Export URL of a Google Drive file but there’s a way to get the Excel version using the DriveApp service as well. The getGoogleSpreadsheetAsExcel() method will convert the current Google Spreadsheet to Excel XLSX format and then emails the file as an attachment to the specified user. function getGoogleSpreadsheetAsExcel() { try { var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive(); var url = 'https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/spreadsheets/Export?key=' + ss.getId() + '&exportFormat=xlsx'; var params = { method: 'get', headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken() }, muteHttpExceptions: true, }; var blob = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, params).getBlob(); blob.setName(ss.getName() + '.xlsx'); MailApp.sendEmail('[email protected]', 'Google Sheet to Excel', 'The XLSX file is attached', { attachments: [blob] }); } catch (f) { Logger.log(f.toString()); } } View the full article

You have a master sheet in a Google Spreadsheet and you want to use it as a template. The script duplicates the master sheet and renames the new sheet. If another sheet exists with the same name, it can either be deleted or you can archive it by renaming it. function cloneGoogleSheet() { var name = 'labnol'; var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet(); var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('Template').copyTo(ss); /* Before cloning the sheet, delete any previous copy */ var old = ss.getSheetByName(name); if (old) ss.deleteSheet(old); // or old.setName(new Name); SpreadsheetApp.flush(); // Utilities.sleep(2000); sheet.setName(company); /* Make the new sheet active */ ss.setActiveSheet(sheet); } View the full article