Google lays off staff from Flutter, Dart and Python weeks before its developer conference | TechCrunch

April 30, 2024 12:17 AM0

Ahead of Google’s annual I/O developer conference in May, the tech giant has laid off staff across key teams like Flutter, Dart, Python and others, according to reports from affected employees shared on social media. Google confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch, but not the specific teams, roles or how many people were let go.

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson said. “To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers, and align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Through this, we’re simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.”

The company clarified that the layoffs were not company-wide but were reorgs that are a part of the normal course of business. Affected employees will be able to apply for other open roles at Google, we’re told.

In one X post, a PM from Flutter and Dart said the layoffs had affected “a LOT of teams,” and that “lots of great projects lost people.”

“We’re sad, but still cranking hard on I/O and beyond,” wrote Google PM Kevin Moore in the Flutter development community on Reddit, where he added that Flutter and Dart weren’t affected any more or less than other teams. “We know ya’ll care SO MUCH about the project and the team and the awesome ecosystem we’ve built together. You’re nervous. I get it. We get it. You’re betting on Flutter and Dart. So am I. So is Google,” he said.

Google also told TechCrunch that Flutter will have new updates to share at I/O this year.

In a separate post on Reddit, another commenter noted the Python team affected by the layoffs were those who managed the internal Python runtimes and toolchains and worked with OSS Python. Included in this group were “multiple current and former core devs and steering council members,” they said.

Meanwhile, others shared on Y Combinator’s Hacker News, where a Python team member detailed their specific duties on the technical front and noted that, for years, much of the work was done with fewer than 10 people. Another Hacker News commenter said their early years on the Python team were spent paying down internal technical debt accumulated from not having a strong Python strategy.

“…despite the understaffing, we had managers who were extremely good about maintaining work/life balance and the ‘marathon, not sprint’ approach to work. As I said in another comment, it’s the best job I’ve ever had, and I’ll miss it deeply,” they wrote.

“Python was one of the very first languages used widely at Google. It was the last major backend language to get a language team,” the user, gpshead, also said.

Though Google didn’t detail headcount, some of the layoffs at Google may have been confirmed in a WARN notice filed on April 24. WARN, or the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, requires employers with more than 100 employees to provide 60-day notice in advance of layoffs. In the filing, Google said it was laying off a total of 50 employees across three locations in Sunnyvale.

On social media, commenters raised concerns with the Python layoffs in particular, given the role that Python tooling plays in AI. But others pointed out that Google didn’t eliminate its Python team, it replaced that team with another group based in Munich — at least according to Python Steering Council member Thomas Wouters, in a post on Mastodon.

“It’s a tough day when everyone you work with directly, including your manager, is laid off — excuse me, ‘had their roles reduced,’ and you’re asked to onboard their replacements, people told to take those very same roles just in a different country who are not any happier about it,” he said in a Mastodon post last Thursday.

Google said it would support all affected employees, in line with local requirements, by providing them with time to search for different roles at Google or elsewhere, access to outplacement services and severance.

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Fisker starts new round of layoffs to 'preserve cash' | TechCrunch

April 29, 2024 11:54 PM0

EV startup Fisker Inc. is laying off more employees to “preserve cash,” one week after warning investors it would have to make cuts to stave off impending bankruptcy, according to an internal email viewed by TechCrunch.

Founder and CEO Henrik Fisker told employees Monday morning in the email that the company is “continuing to evaluate all viable options for our business, including a potential transaction, and we are committed to identifying potential buyers and pathways to infuse capital into the business.”

“That said, we must preserve cash to help keep these options available to us,” he wrote. He previously told staff in meeting last week that the company was still meeting with car companies under NDA, which was first reported by Business Insider.

“[I]t is with great personal pain and sadness that I deliver the difficult news that today we are making further reductions to our workforce,” Fisker wrote in the email.

It’s unclear how many employees Fisker Inc. is cutting. A spokesperson did not immediately didn’t respond to a request for comment. Fisker employed 1,135 people as of April 19, according to a regulatory filing. It previously announced cuts of 15% in February.

The company announced last week that it hired a chief restructuring officer who is now in charge of approving Fisker Inc.’s budget, as well as the decision-making process for any sale ofthe business. It reported having just $54 million in cash and equivalents as of April 16.

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TikTok faces a ban in the US, Tesla profits drop and healthcare data leaks | TechCrunch

April 28, 2024 2:09 AM0

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering this week’s noteworthy happenings in tech.

TikTok’s fate in the U.S. looks uncertain after President Joe Biden signed a bill that included a deadline for ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to divest itself of TikTok within nine months or face a ban on distributing it in the U.S. Ivan writes about how the impact of TikTok bans in other countries could signal what’s to come stateside.

Meanwhile, fallout from the Change Healthcare hack continues. Change, a subsidiary of health insurance giant UnitedHealth, confirmed this week that the ransomware attack targeting it earlier this year resulted in a huge theft of Americans’ private health info, possibly covering “a substantial proportion” of Americans.

And Tesla profits dropped 55% as the EV company contends with increased pressure from hybrid carmakers. The automaker’s growth plan is centered around mysterious cheaper EVs scheduled to launch next year — as well as perhaps a robotaxi. But a recall on the Cybertruck for faulty accelerator pedals certainly won’t help in the interim.

Lots else happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR — but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.

News

Amazon grocery plan: Amazon launched a new unlimited grocery delivery subscription in the U.S. The plan, which costs $9.99 per month for Amazon Prime users, comes with free deliveries for grocery orders over $35 across Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market and other local grocery retailers.

California drones grounded: In more Amazon news, the tech giant confirmed that it’s ending Prime Air drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California. The Central California town of 3,500 was the company’s second U.S. drone delivery site after College Station, Texas; Amazon didn’t offer any details around the setback.

Fisker plans layoffs: Fisker says it’s planning more layoffs less than two months after cutting 15% of its workforce, as the EV startup scrambles to raise cash to stay alive. Fisker expects to seek bankruptcy protection within the next 30 days if it can’t come up with the money.

Stripe expansion: Among a slew of other announcements at its Sessions conference in San Francisco, Stripe said that it’ll be de-coupling payments from the rest of its financial services stack. Given that Stripe previously required businesses to be payments customers in order to use any of its other products, that’s a big change.

Analysis

Rabbit hands on: Brian writes about the R1, the first gizmo from AI startup R1. The $199 price point, touchscreen and funky aesthetic from storied design firm Teenage Engineering make the R1 far more accessible than Humane’s Ai Pin, he concludes.

Lab-grown diamonds: Pascal, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup, claims it can make high-end jewelry accessible by using lab-grown diamonds chemically and physically akin to natural diamonds but that cost one-twentieth of the price.

AI poetry: An experiment called the Poetry Camera — an actual, physical camera — combines open source technology with playful design and artistic vision. Instead of merely capturing images, the Poetry Camera arranges thought-provoking, AI-generated stanzas based on the visuals it encounters.

Rippling deep dive: Connie interviewed Parker Conrad, the CEO of workforce management startup Rippling, on the company’s new $200 million funding round, new San Francisco lease (the second biggest to be signed in the city this year) and more.

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Defense startup True Anomaly lays off around 25%, cancels summer internship | TechCrunch

April 26, 2024 4:51 AM0

Space and defense startup True Anomaly has laid off around 25% of its workforce and cancelled its summer internship program, TechCrunch has learned.

“With our rapid growth over the past two years, we looked at every aspect of our company to make sure we are laser focused on our goals and best positioned to execute,” a company spokesperson said. “We identified the duplication of roles and functions across the company, and as such, reduced our headcount. This won’t impact our ability to execute on our contracts with customers or on our mission to bring security and sustainability to the space domain.”

While TechCrunch could not confirm the total headcount prior to these layoffs, True Anomaly had over 100 employees as of December 2023, it told the Denver Business Journal. Nearly 30 people were cut from the workforce, according to a post on LinkedIn from one of the people let go.

Employees started posting on LinkedIn about the layoffs on April 24; according to those messages, people impacted worked in sales, business development and recruiting. At least some interns were abruptly told the summer internship program was cancelled last Friday, on April 19, as well. The internship was set to start on June 1.

The Centennial, Colorado-based startup closed a $100 million financing round last December; at the time, executives said staff had swelled to 107 employees. Earlier this month, True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers told TechCrunch during an interview on the company’s first mission that the company was “well-capitalized.”

True Anomaly hopes to modernize space defense with its Jackal spacecraft and Mosaic software platform for command and control operations. The startup envisions using Jackals on orbit to approach, image, and gather intelligence on other objects in orbit.

True Anomaly launched that first mission, called Mission X, on March 4, though it ended early after the company failed to establish reliable communications with the two spacecraft that were deployed in orbit. The anomaly is hardly slowing them down, however. The startup is pushing to launch at least twice more in the next 12 months, aiming for another launch in October, one person told TechCrunch.

The person was offered an internship, and spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity, saying that a technical recruiter suggested that the internship program had been cancelled because the company didn’t have the human bandwidth to organize and supervise an intern project. The team is also starting work on the $30 million responsive space contract that the company was awarded earlier this month, the person said.

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Tesla layoffs hit high performers, some departments slashed, sources say | TechCrunch

April 24, 2024 10:07 PM0

Tesla management told employees Monday that the recent layoffs — which gutted some departments by 20% and even hit high performers — were largely due to poor financial performance, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The layoffs were announced to staff just a week before Tesla is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings. The move comes as Tesla has seen its profit margin narrow over the past several quarters, the result of an EV price war that has persisted for at least a year. The company delivered a record 1.81 million vehicles in 2023. Its margins, however, took a hit after Tesla repeatedly slashed prices in a bid to drum up sales and undercut the competition.

Tesla informed employees that more than 10%, or about 14,000 workers, will be laid off across the global organization that has operations in the United States, Europe and China. In a regulatory filing, Tesla referred to the layoffs as a “company-wide restructuring.” The layoffs, which affected employees across all departments and seniority levels, were made to reduce costs and increase productivity to prepare for its “next phase of growth,” according to an internal email from CEO Elon Musk that TechCrunch has viewed.

High performers also cut

Many of the laid-off employees were high performers, according to two sources who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. One source expressed shock at the number of talented employees cut and noted that many of those affected were working on projects that have fallen lower on Tesla’s priority list. The source declined to specify which projects.

Some departments saw layoffs beyond the 10% outlined in the companywide email, according to sources. One manager told TechCrunch that 20% of their employees were cut.

“I lost 20% of my team, some really good players too,” they said.

The shakeup also comes as Musk continues to bend the company’s trajectory toward building fully self-driving cars. Tesla recently dropped plans to build a lower-cost EV that would retail starting at around $25,000, opting instead to use the underlying platform being developed to power an alleged robotaxi that Musk said will debut August 8.

Musk previously tried to prioritize the dedicated robotaxi vehicle project, according to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. In 2022, he told employees that he wanted a “clean robotaxi” with no steering wheel or pedals. Tesla lead designer Franz von Holzhausen and engineering VP Lars Moravy kept running the low-cost EV project in secret and eventually convinced him to make both — that is, until last week when it was reported that Musk changed his mind.

Top execs leave

Two high-profile executives — Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Energy, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Policy and Business Development — also left the company.

Patel told TechCrunch he decided Sunday evening to leave Tesla because of “[b]ig overall changes” at the company. Patel, who had been engaging regularly with Tesla customers and fans on X in recent months, declined to be specific. He noted in a message that it would be “better for me not to speculate. … Tesla is going to be stronger than ever, and change is good,” he added.

Baglino told TechCrunch that after 18 years, it was time to leave Tesla. “I feel good about the impact I’ve been able to achieve, my leadership team is strong, the energy businesses I’m responsible for are doing well, etc.,” he wrote in a message to TechCrunch.

“Baglino was in charge of powerdrives and new battery projects, and there’s a sense that there isn’t a whole lot of innovation that’s sustainable at this point, which is probably why Baglino is leaving,” Sandeep Rao, head of research at London-based financial services company Leverage Shares, theorized in an interview with TechCrunch.

Baglino’s departure comes just a few months after Tesla’s previous CFO, Zachary Kirkhorn, stepped down. In January, Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he would want to have around 25% voting control of Tesla in order to focus more fully on the company, rather than on his other companies, and help the EV maker become a leader in AI and robotics.

This article was updated to include information from a regulatory filing that refers to the layoffs as a “restructuring.”

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Fisker plans more layoffs as cash dwindles and bankruptcy looms | TechCrunch

April 23, 2024 9:25 PM0

Fisker says it’s planning more layoffs less than two months after cutting 15% of its workforce, as the EV startup scrambles to raise cash to stay alive. Fisker expects to seek bankruptcy protection within the next 30 days if it can’t come up with that money, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing.

The imperiled company said in the regulatory filing Tuesday it had just $54 million in cash and equivalents as of April 16, and another $11.2 million that can’t be immediately accessed. Fisker said in the filing that it’s currently trying to raise money to pay off a loan that it defaulted on in order to avoid bankruptcy. The outstanding balance as of mid-January was north of $300 million.

Fisker still employed 1,135 people globally as of April 19, according to the filing. That’s down from 1,560 at the end of 2022, and around 1,300 at the end of of September 2023. The company also said Tuesday that it will be “reducing its physical footprint.”

This follows Fisker’s announcement Monday evening that a second member of its board of directors has left the company, with the first coming at the end of March. The company has also hired a Chief Restructuring Officer who is now solely in charge of approving Fisker’s budget, as well as the decision-making process for any sale of Fisker’s business.

Fisker finds itself on the brink of bankruptcy following a troubled launch of its first electric vehicle, the Fisker Ocean SUV, that kicked off in June 2023.

The Ocean has been hampered by numerous problems, including buggy software, reports of sudden power loss and brake failure, and insufficient customer service, as TechCrunch reported in February. Fisker struggled to meet internal sales goals and lost track of millions of dollars of customer payments for some of the vehicles it did sell, triggering an internal audit that helped recover a majority of that money. It has spent the last few months attempting to pivot to a dealership model.

The Ocean is now subject to three separate federal investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company has not issued any recalls, but has paused production of the SUV. In the meantime, it slashed prices on its existing inventory by as much as 39% in an attempt to generate short-term cash. The company has also been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

If Fisker ultimately seeks bankruptcy protection, it would be founder Henrik Fisker’s second automotive startup to do so. His previous effort, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013.

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Watch: Tesla's Cybertruck recall, layoffs set the stage for its Q1 earnings | TechCrunch

April 22, 2024 10:12 PM0

Tesla is not having a good start to the week. In its defense, it didn’t have a very good end to last week, either.

Today the news is that recent price cuts have irked Tesla investors, who sent its shares off around 4% in early trading today. Those losses have extended Tesla’s total share-price declines to around 43% for the year. Which is, as they say, a lot.

But those price cuts are hardly the only issues needling the U.S.-based EV company. Tesla’s last week saw the company slash its staffing, including high-performers. With the company reporting earnings tomorrow, its actions at the moment are under even greater scrutiny than usual.

The backdrop to all of this is the company’s apparent move away from a basement-priced EV, and towards a robotaxi effort that some consider to be technologically premature. Regardless, Tesla’s price cuts, pivots, and mass-recall of its Cybertruck vehicle are not the recipe for content investors. Hit play, and let’s have some fun.

After we recorded this clip, Bloomberg posted a fascinating dig into the company’s current form that we recommend as further reading.

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Tesla layoffs, Cybertruck recalls and Serve Robotics goes public | TechCrunch

April 22, 2024 1:10 AM0

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.

Tesla is back in the news cycle and our crystal ball says it’s one of those long-term affairs. The week kicked off with layoffs — about 10% of its more than 140,000-person workforce — and CEO Elon Musk declaring he was going “balls to the wall” on autonomy. It ended with a Cybertruck recall. Cool cool.

There’s lots more in the newsletter than just Tesla — although before we move on, do check out Sean O’Kane’s scoop about the company’s 1,800-mile Tesla Semi charging corridor program. Read on to catch up on Serve Robotics’ public market debut, a week of highs and lows for Waymo, and more.

Let’s go!

A little bird

While much of our focus is on startups and Silicon Valley, we do have some little birds in Washington, D.C.

A little bird told us recently that federal regulators are getting close to publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on autonomous vehicle regulations, which would be the first set of federal guardrails proposed for the industry.

Our source said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which regulates commercial vehicles in the U.S., should have a proposal out by this summer, fall at the latest. We’re told that the federal ruling on AVs will likely establish a minimum safety standard for AVs to operate on public roads but that state governments could enforce stricter regulations within their own borders. We’ve been hearing about discussions and plans around federal AV regulations for years now. Have we finally started to make headway? We shall see.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected], Sean O’Kane at [email protected] or Rebecca Bellan at [email protected]. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.

Deal of the week

Serve Robotics, the Nvidia- and Uber-backed sidewalk robot delivery company, hit the public markets this week via a reverse merger. Serve expects its public debut to bring in around $40 million in gross proceeds, funding that will go toward R&D for future robots, manufacturing of new robots, geographic expansion and more.

Serve’s goal is to increase its fleet from the 100 robots deployed today around Los Angeles to 2,000 robots across multiple U.S. cities by the end of 2025, via a partnership with Uber Eats. Serve has huge revenue ambitions, with plans to generate between $60 million and $80 million in annual revenue by that same deadline. In 2023, Serve brought in $207,545 in revenue at a loss of $1.5 million.

FWIW, Uber and Nvidia are still shareholders, but their shares in the company are decreasing with this debut. Pre-IPO, Uber and Nvidia held a 16.6% stake and 14.3% stake, respectively. Once the offering closes, those stakes will change to 11.5% and 10.1%, per regulatory filings.

Serve’s share price was $4 at market open on Thursday, and it closed that day at around $3.

Other deals that got my attention …

Found Energy, a startup that uses waste aluminum to generate heat and hydrogen, raised a $12 million seed round, but Tim De Chant’s story on the company is about so much more.

Getir, a Turkish delivery company that was once worth $12 billion, is reportedly weighing asset sales and exits from non-core markets as investors put the pressure on to cut losses.

Swtch Energy, a company building EV charging solutions for apartment buildings, raised $27.2 million in a Series B to expand its charging network and boost the tech behind its charging and energy management solutions. Blue Earth Capital led the round with participation from Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund Klima, Active Impact Investments and GIGA Investments Corp.

Notable reads and other tidbits

ADAS

Mobileye has secured orders to ship 46 million of its EyeQ6 Light ADAS chips over the next few years to automakers. Multiple models launching this year will feature the chip, which promises to deliver improved sensing of wet roads, detection of and reaction to objects at a greater distance, and better ability to read key text phrases on road signs. TechCrunch had the chance to dig into this, and our main takeaways are that automakers will probably love this chip because it’s more powerful than Mobileye’s last chip, but it’s the same price.

Autonomous vehicles

Waymo has begun initial data collection and mapping in Atlanta, the company’s latest geographic win. The Alphabet-owned company didn’t say whether it plans to launch in the Georgian city or any other city it is mapping in, such as Washington, D.C., and Buffalo. Aside from San Francisco, Waymo has launched commercial robotaxi services in Los Angeles and Phoenix, with Austin planned for the end of this year.

But with ups, come downs. Six Waymo vehicles also got caught blocking traffic to an on-ramp in San Francisco. The vehicles were caught between a construction zone and the on-ramp and had to pull over to await rescue. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that while Waymo does have the green light to go fully driverless on freeways in San Francisco, the company has not yet pulled the driver out.

Electric vehicles, charging & batteries

General Motors launched a home EV charger and vehicle-to-home (V2H) kit that lets a home pull energy from an EV battery in the event of a blackout. Customers in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan and New York can purchase today.

Gogoro, the two-wheeler battery-swapping company, and TSMC, a global semiconductor company, are partnering to introduce 15 GoStations across Taiwan that use 100% clean energy. They’ll also be launching Gogoro’s scooter-sharing service in TSMC’s headquarter city, Hsinchu, and expanding the charging network in the city.

TeslaCrunch

We’ve been all over Tesla this week, so let’s dive in.

The week started out with company-wide layoffs that affected at least 10% of the entire 140,000-person organization, with some teams seeing 20% of their staff gutted. Two high-profile executives departed Tesla as well: Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Energy, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Policy and Business Development. Patel told TechCrunch he left because of “[b]ig overall changes” at the company that he declined to specify. In an email sent to the company, CEO Elon Musk said the cuts were necessary to increase productivity and prepare for Tesla’s “next phase of growth.”

(Psssst! Don’t want to read about Tesla layoffs and what comes next? You can watch about it instead.)

Many of those who were cut, sources say, were high performers who just happened to be working on lower-priority projects. Sources at Tesla also told TechCrunch the company made the cuts because it expects poor first-quarter earnings. Deliveries were subpar, and all those price cuts last year that continued early into 2024 likely had an effect on Tesla’s margins. Deliveries were down in Q1 year-over-year, despite the $200,000 Tesla spent on advertising on X, per our reporting.

Which might be why Tesla ditched its EV inventory price discounts this week. On X, Musk said this move was in line with Tesla’s strategy to “streamline the whole Tesla sales and delivery system.”

These changes in general, and the layoffs in particular, are made more stark by Tesla’s proxy statement that calls on the board to reinstate Musk’s $56 billion payout, which a Delaware judge earlier this year voided. In a huff, Musk threatened to reincorporate Tesla in Texas instead, and it appears that plan will also be put to the board soon.

Meanwhile, on the charging front, Tesla is moving forward with its plan to build an electric big rig charging corridor stretching from Texas to California, despite being snubbed by a lucrative federal funding program that’s part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure law.

Tesla this week also had to recall the 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has delivered to customers to date over faulty accelerator pedals that can get stuck. I know what you’re thinking. Finally we know how many Cybertrucks Tesla delivered.

This week’s wheels

I’ve been in a handful of new vehicles and I’m eager to share my thoughts, but we’re also running out of space this week. In the coming issues, we’ll have some takes on electric bikes, the 2024 Lexus LC 500h, the 2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter and more.

See y’all next week!

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Boston Dynamics unveils a new robot, controversy over MKBHD, and layoffs at Tesla | TechCrunch

April 21, 2024 2:36 AM0

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s weekly news recap. The weather’s getting hotter — but not quite as hot as the generative AI space, which saw a slew of new models released this week, including Meta’s Llama 3.

In other AI news, Hyundai-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics unveiled an electric-powered humanoid follow-up to its long-running Atlas robot, which it recently retired. As Brian writes, the new robot — also called Atlas — has a kinder, gentler design than both the original Atlas and more contemporary robots like the Figure 01 and Tesla Optimus.

Turning our attention to YouTube for a moment, Dom and Amanda wrote about how Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), the famed gadget reviewer, shouldn’t be blamed for the fate of AI startup Humane AI, whose product, the Ai Pin, Brownlee gave a scathing review of earlier this week. They point out that Humane is a well-funded company with plenty of funds in the bank to burn, and find that critics of Brownlee — who accuse him of being unfairly harsh — have misplaced their rage.

And Rebecca and Sean report on layoffs at Tesla, which they say hit high performers and gutted some departments. The cuts were largely due to poor financial performance; Tesla’s seen its profit margin narrow over the past several quarters as the EV price war persists.

Lots else happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR — but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.

News

X charges for posting: X CEO Elon Musk is planning to charge new X users a small fee to enable posting on the social network in an effort to curb what he describes as a “bot problem.”

Change ransomware: An extortion group has published a portion of what it claims are the private and sensitive patient records on millions of Americans stolen during the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare in February.

Tesla adjusts prices: In more Tesla news, the automaker ditched EV inventory price discounts in what CEO Elon Musk characterized as a move to “streamline” sales and delivery. Tesla also dropped the price of its advanced driver assistance package, Full Self-Driving, to $99 per month in the U.S.

Mars free-for-all: Devin reports that space startups are licking their lips over NASA’s decision to convert its $11 billion, 15-year mission to collect and return samples from Mars into essentially a commercial free-for-all.

Waymo problems: Six Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic moving onto an on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday. It’s not the first time Waymo vehicles have caused a road blockage, notes Rebecca — but this is the first documented incident involving a freeway.

Analysis

Google Cloud bets on generative AI: Ron writes about how Google Cloud is investing heavily in generative AI, as evidenced by the string of announcements during Google’s Cloud Next conference earlier in the month.

Generative AI in health: Generative AI is coming for healthcare — but not everyone’s thrilled. Some experts don’t think the tech is ready for prime time.

Airchat, for talking: Anthony breaks down the hype over Airchat, an app launched by former AngelList founder Naval Ravikant and ex-Tinder product exec Brian Norgard that focuses on voice, not text.

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Startups Weekly: Is the wind going out of the AI sails? | TechCrunch

April 20, 2024 1:27 AM0

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

After years of booming growth, the AI industry is now experiencing a significant slowdown in investment, as detailed in a recent report from Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). The report highlights a notable decrease in both private and corporate investments in the AI sector for the second consecutive year, with overall investments dropping by 20% in 2023 compared to the previous year, Kyle reports. Despite this general downturn, certain segments like generative AI continue to attract significant funding, indicating a selective yet substantial interest in specific AI applications.

AI investment is slowing down for a few reasons, like the crowded market and the steep costs of building big AI models. According to Gartner analyst John-David Lovelock, the money is now flowing more toward big, established companies that are strengthening their positions, while it’s getting tougher for new players to get a piece of the pie. Investors are getting pickier and want to see real, solid returns instead of just throwing money at hopeful growth. (That isn’t stopping them from raising billion-dollar funds focusing on AI, of course.)

Despite these hurdles, there’s still a strong belief in the future of AI, especially in ways it can boost efficiency and spark innovation across different sectors. Right now, the market is just going through a bit of a cleanup, shifting from the wild spending of the past to a more thoughtful and sustainable way of funding. This change is key to creating AI solutions that actually work in the real world and can truly change industries, and worm its way into our battle-weary hearts.

Oh, and before we pile into the rest of the startup news this week … Do you have a pitch deck that might be a good fit for my Pitch Deck Teardown series? You can submit yours here — I’d love to take a closer look and potentially share it with TechCrunch’s readers, along with an in-depth review!

Most interesting startup stories from the week

The Humane Ai Pin. Image Credits: Brian Heater / TechCrunch

Oh hey! Look! It’s the triumphant return of TechCrunch old-timer Anthony Ha, who writes that Airchat, the latest brainchild of Naval Ravikant and Brian Norgard, is here to revolutionize social media with its groundbreaking concept: people talking to each other — shocking, right? This app, which is essentially a high-tech walkie-talkie, lets you follow others, scroll through a feed, and interact with audio posts that are also conveniently transcribed for those who can’t stand the sound of human voices. It’s currently climbing the social ladder on the App Store, all while being invite-only because nothing screams exclusivity like needing a golden ticket to listen to strangers ramble. Whether this will genuinely reduce online squabbles or just make them more melodious remains to be seen.

Airchat is like a tech-centric coffee shop where everyone’s buzzing about the latest in Silicon Valley, complete with a transcription feature that even gets Pokémon names right — because priorities. But don’t get too excited; it’s invite-only, making it another Silicon Valley whisper network. And while it’s all fun and audio games, the platform’s laid-back approach to content moderation could make it the Wild West of voice chats, where the only sheriff in town is the mute button.

Noname loses its unicorn horn: Noname Security, the cybersecurity startup that once strutted around with a $1 billion valuation, is now whispering sweet nothings to Akamai Technologies for a more modest $500 million.
Dude, where’s my phone: In a world where your smartphone feels like an extension of your hand, Humane is pitching a $699 wearable, the Ai Pin, that promises to be the next big thing — and hardware editor Brian takes a deep dive into where the company came from … and where it might be going.
Breaking out an army of ‘bots: Betaworks is diving headfirst into the AI pool, but instead of splashing around with the big LLMs, they’re floating a new idea — AI agents designed to tackle the mundane tasks we all love to hate. They’ve hatched nine of these digital minions from their latest “Camp” incubator, hoping to automate everything from email sorting to meeting scheduling.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Image Credits: Ramp / Ramp co-founders Karim Atiyeh, Eric Glyman and Gene Lee

Rippling, the HR tech darling that’s been vacuuming up venture capital like it’s going out of style, is at it again. This time, they’re passing around the Silicon Valley collection plate to the tune of $200 million in fresh capital, while also letting current shareholders cash out a cool $670 million. This latest fundraising fiesta, dubbed Series F, could puff up Rippling’s valuation to a breezy $13.4 billion. Not too shabby for a company that, just last year during the Silicon Valley Bank meltdown, had its CEO Parker Conrad frantically tweeting and dialing for dollars to make payroll. Now, with everyone writing record-breaking checks (and Coatue leading the round), it seems Rippling is less about the ripples and more about making waves.

Ramping up rapidly: Ramp, the spend management startup that’s apparently allergic to profitability, has just bagged another $150 million to keep the lights on and the acquisitions rolling. Now valued at a cool $7.7 billion, Ramp is playing financial Tetris with a mix of old and new investors, including the star-studded lineup of Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and Sequoia Capital.
And why do you think that is?: Two Chairs, the therapy startup that once championed the quaint notion of “actual human interaction,” has succumbed to the digital wave, swapping its stylish clinics for Zoom rooms. Fresh off a $72 million cash infusion, the company plans to keep expanding its digital domain, because while finding the right therapist online is still as tricky as a Sudoku puzzle, at least you don’t have to leave your couch to get disappointed.
Dust yourself off and try again: Rivos, the chip startup that Apple once accused of playing “Catch Me If You Can” with its trade secrets, has somehow managed to turn its courtroom soap opera into a $250 million funding fiesta. After Apple’s lawsuit drama cooled down, Rivos didn’t just walk away; they sprinted back to the lab to crank out chips that might just give the iPhone maker a run for its money.

Tag: Layoffs

Google lays off staff from Flutter, Dart and Python weeks before its developer conference | TechCrunch

Fisker starts new round of layoffs to 'preserve cash' | TechCrunch

Defense startup True Anomaly lays off around 25%, cancels summer internship | TechCrunch

Tesla layoffs hit high performers, some departments slashed, sources say | TechCrunch

High performers also cut

Top execs leave

Fisker plans more layoffs as cash dwindles and bankruptcy looms | TechCrunch

Watch: Tesla's Cybertruck recall, layoffs set the stage for its Q1 earnings | TechCrunch

Tesla layoffs, Cybertruck recalls and Serve Robotics goes public | TechCrunch

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