Author: TechBrunch

Andreessen Horowitz is suspending its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including several of the program's founders. In 2020, the company announced TxO to support founders who don't have access to traditional venture networks. Many of TxO's participants are women and minorities, and overall they receive very little venture capital funding. The fund's announcement comes amid a wave of support that underrepresented founders received after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. TechCrunch previously reported that the fund was launched with an initial contribution of $2.2 million, with a16z co-founder Ben…

Elad Gil, a prominent individual investor, said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt that AI is one of the most unpredictable technology booms he's ever seen. Gill has been on the cap tables of virtually every hit company of the past decade, including many of today's leading AI companies. Still, he believes that over the past year, certain AI markets appear to have been largely filled by market leaders. Even beyond these areas, the vast scope of AI still applies to everyone. “I started investing in generative AI in 2021, and at the time there weren’t that many people paying that…

Lawmakers have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate license plate scanning camera operator Flock Safety for allegedly failing to implement cybersecurity protections that exposed the company's camera network to hackers and spies. In a letter sent by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) on Wednesday, the lawmakers are asking FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson to investigate why Flock is not enforcing the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA), a security protection that prevents malicious access by someone who knows an account owner's password. According to the letter, Wyden and Krishnamoorthi said that while the company offers its law…

Peter Williams, former general manager of Trenchent, a division of defense contractor L3Harris that develops surveillance and hacking tools for Western governments, pleaded guilty last week to stealing and selling some of those tools to Russian brokers. Court documents filed in the case, exclusive reporting by TechCrunch, and interviews with Williams' former colleagues explain how Williams was able to steal highly valuable and sensitive exploits from Trentint. Williams, a 39-year-old Australian national known within the company as “Doogie,” admitted to prosecutors that he stole and sold eight exploits, or “zero days.” A zero-day is a security flaw in software from…

U.S. prosecutors have charged two rogue employees of a cybersecurity firm that specializes in negotiating ransom payments to hackers on behalf of victims with carrying out ransomware attacks themselves. Last month, the Department of Justice indicted Kevin Tyler Martin, who worked as a ransomware negotiator at Digital Mint, and another unnamed employee on charges of computer hacking and extortion in connection with a series of attempted ransomware attacks against at least five U.S.-based companies. Prosecutors also charged a third person, Ryan Clifford Goldberg, a former incident response manager at cybersecurity giant Signia, as part of the scheme. The three are…

Alphabet's X moonshot factory is changing the way it brings ambitious technology projects to market, with projects increasingly being spun out as independent companies rather than staying within Alphabet's corporate structure, X head Astro Teller revealed on TechCrunch Disrupt last week. The strategy relies on a dedicated venture fund that exists solely to invest in the spinout of Company X, with Alphabet being only a minority investor. “If Alphabet were the only LP, the fund would be in Alphabet, and when you invest in something in Company X, it would still be in Alphabet,” Teller explained on stage. “So Alphabet…

The Trump administration has begun directly acquiring stocks in American companies, not as a temporary crisis measure like in 2008, but as a permanent measure of industrial policy. This move raises some interesting questions, including what happens if Whitehouse appears on the cap table. At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last week, Sequoia Capital Global Steward Roelof Botha answered just that question, and his response drew knowing laughs from the packed room. “One of the most dangerous words in the world is: 'I'm a government employee and I'm here to help.'” Botha described himself as “essentially a liberal, free-market thinker''…

On Thursday, at the end of Coinbase's third-quarter earnings call, CEO Brian Armstrong admitted he was “a little bit distracted” because he was “following the prediction market of what Coinbase will say on its next earnings call.” “And I would like to add the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Staking, Web3 here just to make sure you understand before the call ends,” Armstrong added. Why blurt them out without clear context? As Mr. Armstrong hinted, these were the words that Kalsi and Polimarket's Mention Market users were betting would be spoken on the phone. In other words, by speaking, Mr. Armstrong…

This week, the four co-founders of Bending Spoons joined the ranks of billionaires. CEO Luca Ferrari's stake in the Milan-based technology conglomerate is now reportedly worth $1.4 billion, while co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella and Francesco Patarnello each hold shares worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates based on shareholder data published by the Italian Business Register. The valuation follows Bending Spoons' latest funding round, which saw $270 million from investors including T. Rowe Price and previous backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity, plus $440 million in secondary stake sales from existing shareholders. It is unclear…

On Friday morning, University of Pennsylvania alumni, students, staff, and community members received several emails from a hacker claiming to be from the University's Graduate School of Education (GSE). “We have terrible security practices and are completely meritocratic,” the email said. “We love breaking federal regulations like FERPA (all the data gets leaked).” A partially redacted email sent by a hacker who gained access to the University of Pennsylvania's email system. Image credit: TechCrunch (screenshot) The messages purported to come from various Penn-related email accounts, including GSE, as well as several senior staff members across the university. Other Penn affiliates…