Author: TechBrunch
The debate over who runs OpenAI and how it is managed remains one of the hottest topics in the technology industry. Just recently, former co-founder and backer Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against the AI company, best known for its work with ChatGPT and Microsoft, for what he sees as an abandonment of its founding principles. The lawsuit sparked a heated debate among technology investors who own OpenAI stock.Is it a suit? In Vinod Khosla's opinion, it's just sour grapes.? Will his views harm open source AI research? Where? Does meta fit into the mix?? OpenAI is worth tens of…
TechCrunch Disrupt is the leading conference for early-stage startups, taking place October 28-30 in San Francisco. Granted, that's months from now. However, if you want to buy at the lowest price, you need to act before the price increases within 5 days. That's right, it's already 1 o'clock. Biggest savings at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Don't miss out on the super early bird price! Ends Friday, March 15th at 11:59pm PT. After the deadline, you can save $1,000 on Participant Passes, Founder Passes, and Investor Passes. Students and nonprofit organizations can take advantage of deeply discounted passes for just $95. There…
Airbnb announced Monday that it will ban the use of indoor surveillance cameras in all listings. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to install indoor surveillance cameras in common areas such as hallways and living rooms, as long as they disclosed them on their listing page and did not install them in bathrooms or areas where guests sleep. The company said in a blog post that it prohibits the use of indoor surveillance cameras “regardless of location, purpose, or prior disclosure.” Airbnb said the majority of listings on its platform do not report indoor surveillance camera installations, and that the update only…
Potential Twitter/X rival Bluesky is looking to invest more directly in its developer community to fuel growth. Last week, the company announced AT Protocol Grants, a new program that provides small grants to developers building new social networking protocols. Initially, Bluesky said it would release $10,000 in grants ranging from $500 to $2,000 per project, based on factors such as cost and usage. Interested developers can apply for a grant by filling out a form. There is no deadline to apply, but Bluesky will make an announcement once all $10,000 is spent. The company has already distributed $3,000 of the…
Twitter's former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, announced today that he will be joining Match Group, the parent company of several popular dating apps including Tinder and Hinge. Yoel, who shared the move on LinkedIn, is currently the company's vice president of trust and safety. “As they say…personal news! 'I swiped right on Match Groups!'” Ross said in an announcement post. “Fifteen years ago, I began researching what is now called “trust and security.” Because the world of new dating apps at the time was like the Wild West. It feels like a dream come true to be…
“Hardtech” is the latest buzz in venture capital, but all hardtech industries are still about machines that work well, parts that ship on time, and that are built to very precise requirements. relies on software infrastructure to ensure Stell is a two-year-old software startup focused on this latter part of the engineering ecosystem. The company has developed requirements management tools that allow teams to track, validate, and validate requirements for complex projects. “Requirements management is a very process-heavy and unwieldy workflow, and all the current tools are really broken in terms of user interface and are not usable by the…
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. Welcome to Equity, the startup business podcast. Uncover the numbers and nuances behind the headlines. This is Monday's show, where we look back at the weekend and what's to come this week. Over the weekend, we published an interview with Roger Lee that is well worth your time. Here's our take on his IPO finances on Reddit. Today's contents are as follows. For episode transcripts and more, visit Equity's Simplecast website. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all casts as stocks drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 a.m.…
Pinterest today announced that a tool to filter searches by different body types has officially rolled out to users in the United States. The platform began experimenting with the feature last year and is currently testing it in Canada. As part of today's launch, Pinterest's search landing page now features size-inclusive brands like Eloquii, Ganni, Mara Hoffman, Osei Duro, Gia/Irl, and more. To use this feature, users type in the search bar, select the “Body Type” option, and four different body types appear at the top of the results page. If the user selects the same option twice, the body…
Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the company expects to reach profitability next year, with an eye toward a future listing. Durov said in an interview with the Financial Times that the chat app, which has 900 million users, makes “hundreds of millions of dollars” through advertising and subscriptions. He said investors from around the world are funding the company at a valuation of more than $30 billion, but Telegram aims to go public in the future. “The main reason we started monetizing was because we wanted to maintain our independence. Generally speaking, what we see as value is: [an IPO]…
Covariant this week announced the launch of RFM-1 (Robotics Foundation Model 1). Peter Chen, co-founder and CEO of the University of California, Berkeley's artificial intelligence spinout, said the platform is “basically a large-scale language model (LLM), but for robot languages,” he told TechCrunch. told. RFM-1 is the result of, among other things, a large amount of data collected from the deployment of Covariant's Brain AI platform. With the customer's consent, the startup has been building a robot equivalent to her LLM database. “The vision for RFM-1 is to power billions of robots in the future,” Chen said. “At Covariant, we…