Author: TechBrunch
OpenWeb, a New York startup that gives publishers tools to attract users, has a unique problem: Despite announcing a new CEO, reports are saying its co-founder CEO won't be stepping down. On Tuesday, OpenWeb Chairman Tim Harvey emailed employees to say he would be stepping down as CEO and thanked longtime CEO Nadav Shoval for his “incredible passion,” according to CTech. Shortly after, Shoval shared his own message with employees, claiming that “the board of directors falsely announced that I was stepping down as CEO… that is not true and was not my intention.” Shoval went on to accuse the…
In a development that will surprise almost no one, Forbes magazine reported today that Flowcarbon, the climate, cryptocurrency, and carbon credit startup from former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann, appears to be headed for demise. Purchasers of the “Goddess Nature Token,” marketed as a first step in putting carbon credits on the blockchain, were reportedly contacted last month about receiving their refunds, provided they signed non-disclosure agreements and waived any claims against FlowCarbon. The company told Forbes that this was “well known,” blaming the state of the carbon credit market for the delay in the rollout. It's unclear what the company…
Amazon's recently released shopping-focused chatbot, Rufus, will soon begin serving ads. That's according to a changelog published by Amazon this week, first spotted by AdWeek, which suggests sponsored ads may soon start appearing for Rufus users in the U.S. Amazon said that ads will be shown based on the context of Amazon searches and conversations, and that Rufus may generate text to accompany existing ad copy in certain cases. Image credit: Amazon “We continue to improve the Rufus experience, including improving brand and product discovery by introducing relevant sponsored ads to help customers find options relevant to their conversations with…
Nobody likes waiting in line, and I learned just how awful it can be last Saturday when I was forced to stand like a cow in a two-hour queue at a nightclub in unseasonably cold weather. I don't plan on repeating that experience anytime soon. Luckily, there's a startup out there for that. Y Combinator-backed LineLeap is a service that lets you pay to skip the lines at the bar. The startup's mobile app lets users purchase priority entry passes to venues that LineLeap partners with. “As college students, we noticed a common problem that many before us had experienced,”…
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 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…
OpenAI is in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $150 billion, according to Bloomberg and the Financial Times. This is significantly higher than OpenAI's reported valuation of $86 billion earlier this year, and much higher than other AI startups today. The funding round is reportedly being led by Thrive Capital, which invested heavily in OpenAI in previous rounds. Other reported investors include OpenAI's partners, including Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia, all of whom are invested in the AI startup's success in some way. Bloomberg also reports that OpenAI is in talks to raise…
On today's episode of Equity, Rebecca Beran speaks with Alok Sama, Morgan Stanley veteran and former president and CFO of SoftBank Group International. The two discuss Apple's latest tech announcements, Sama's views on the AI hype cycle, and how the tech investment landscape has changed since the dot-com era. Sama also shares insights from his upcoming memoir, “The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble,” due for release on September 17th. Sama joined SoftBank in 2014 after cutting his teeth at Morgan Stanley, where he worked closely with Masayoshi Son, the Japanese conglomerate's iconic founder. He oversaw Son's $32…
YouTube on Wednesday confirmed the full rollout of its collaborative “Add Yours” stickers for YouTube Shorts, after the Google-owned company first announced the feature in July. The stickers work in a similar way to Instagram's feature of the same name, encouraging users to share their own interpretations of creators' videos. Both platforms' “Add Yours” features take a leaf out of TikTok's book, as they look a bit like the short-form video app's “Duet” tool, which lets users create content with original videos. With the new Shorts feature, you can spark a chain reaction of adorable content by posting a Short…
After a historic presidential debate filled with discussion about eating pets, Taylor Swift ended the night with a bang. The singer-songwriter, arguably the most influential figure in American pop culture, used the night of the debate to announce on Instagram that she would be voting for Kamala Harris for president. Swift's support is monumental — she has enough political clout to get tens of thousands of Americans registered to vote simply by sharing a link — but more surprisingly, in her announcement, she also voiced concerns about AI deepfakes. Swift posted on Instagram: “I recently learned that an AI of…
Hello everyone and welcome to TechCrunch's regular AI newsletter. If you'd like to receive this newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. This week in AI, if a story in The Information is to be believed, OpenAI's next major product announcement is on the horizon. The Information reported on Tuesday that OpenAI plans to release Strawberry, an AI model that can effectively fact-check itself, within the next two weeks. Strawberry will be a standalone product but will also be integrated with OpenAI's AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT. Strawberry is reported to be better at programming and math problems than…