Author: TechBrunch

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…

Khosla Ventures has raised $405 million for OpenAI, according to a regulatory filing. Based on the filing alone, Khosla's stake in the ChatGPT maker appears to represent at least 6% of the $6.6 billion round the company closed last week. But that doesn't mean Khosla put a lot of capital into this round. Most, or perhaps all, of the $405 million was pooled from other investors through a special purpose vehicle, or SPV. SPVs are used when a company does not have enough capital to meet a round, or when there is enough exposure to the company to offer its…

Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Private markets continued to generate the most funding news in the startup world this week, for both companies and funds. But it would be a mistake to forget the public sector. While startups rallied with lawmakers, others gained and lost licenses. This week's most interesting startup stories Image credit: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch This week was a reminder that, for better or worse, startups need to maintain their licenses and interact with regulators to…

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri on Friday addressed moderation issues that have caused users on Instagram and Threads to lose access to their accounts or have their posts disappear, saying the company blamed human moderators for “mistakes.” I discovered it.” The company did not initially blame flaws in its AI system, as many believed it would. In a post on the thread, Mosseri addressed the issues that have plagued the social platform in recent days, adding that the mistakes found so far have been the work of content reviewers (humans, not automated systems). I couldn't see the context of how the…

In late September, Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng vowed that U.S. weapons would never be fully autonomous, meaning that AI algorithms would make the final decision to kill someone. “Congress doesn't want that,” the defense technology founder told TechCrunch. “Nobody wants that.” But Tseng spoke too quickly. Five days later, Anduril co-founder Palmer Lackey announced his openness to autonomous weapons, or at least his deep skepticism about the debate. America's adversaries are using a phrase that “sounds pretty good in a nutshell: Don't you agree that robots should never be able to decide who lives or dies?” Lackey said this…

Did OpenAI really ask investors not to back rivals like Anthropic and xAI? That's what hosts Devin Coldewey, Margaux MacColl, and special guest Anthony Ha wanted to know on today's episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast. The team kicked off the show by reviewing OpenAI's $6.6 billion round, dubbed the “largest VC round in history.” Following the announcement, Devin elaborated on what this funding means for the company's path to profitability, especially given how unusual such investor restrictions are for late-stage funding. Some of the rumors floating around were debunked. OpenAI wasn't the only thing the Equity team was thinking about…

In today's software ecosystem, open source code is the backbone of innovation and digital infrastructure, playing a critical role in everything from startups to large enterprises. The collaborative nature of open source software unlocks incredible potential for businesses, enabling rapid development and agility. However, this openness comes with the serious dilemma of security vulnerabilities. As national-level actors target open source projects, the international community must face a balance between innovation and protection. Join TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 as Bogomil Balkansky, Partner at Sequoia Capital. Aeva Black, director of open source security at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Luis…

The Startup Battlefield 200 is a big highlight of every Disrupt, and we can't wait to see which of the thousands of startup applicants will get the chance to pitch to top VCs at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Join Moscone West in San Francisco. It will be held from October 28th to 30th and will witness an epic showdown where all the candidates will have a huge impact. Auditors provide detailed feedback on their evaluation criteria, giving you an insider's perspective on what they look for in a viable company. Don't miss your chance to learn from their expert insights and…

TikTok, owned by ByteDance, will lay off hundreds of employees, mainly in Malaysia, according to Reuters. The cuts come as social networks increasingly rely on AI for content moderation. TikTok did not reveal the exact number, but said less than 500 people were affected. The company said it made the change as part of its efforts to strengthen its global operating model for content moderation, according to Reuters. TikTok currently uses both automatic detection and human moderators to vet content shared on the social network. TikTok did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. The latest cuts at the social…

Thanks to the rise of large-scale language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's GPT, AI-generated slop is taking over the realm of user-generated internet, but think about Wikipedia editors for a moment . In addition to the normal job of removing bad human edits, an increased percentage of our time is spent removing AI filler. 404 Media spoke to crowdsourced encyclopedia editor Ilyas Lebleu, who helped found the WikiProject AI Cleanup project. The group is trying to devise best practices for detecting machine-generated contributions. (And before you ask, AI won't help with this.) In this context, a particular problem with AI-generated content…