Week in Review - Apple cancels its car, Google's AI goes awry and Bumble stumbles

TechCrunch Newsletter
Week in Review logo

By Kyle Wiggers

Saturday, March 02, 2024

Hello, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter covering noteworthy happenings in the tech industry.

This week, investment firm KKR announced that it would acquire VMware’s end-user computing business from Broadcom for $4 billion. As Ron explains, that business included VMware Workspace One and VMware Horizon — two remote desktop apps that had been part of VMware’s family of products.

Elsewhere, Mistral, the French AI startup, launched a new model to rival OpenAI’s GPT-4 — and its own cheekily named chatbot dubbed Le Chat. The releases were timed with a Microsoft partnership to provide Mistral models to Microsoft’s Azure customers — and a minority investment ($16 million) from Microsoft in Mistral.

Lots else happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR.

Also — TC was in Los Angeles just last night for our latest StrictlyVC event. Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, rabbit CEO and Co-Founder Jesse Lyu, Founders Fund Partner Trae Stephens and Lightspeed Ventures partner Faraz Fatemi joined us to discuss a wide range of topics, from the reasons AI could unseat entrenched companies, Waymo’s ascent, what it’s like for rabbit to ride the r1’s hype following its CES 2024 reveal. Don’t miss us next time for StrictlyVC London in May.

 image

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Join industry leaders at Stripe Sessions

Sponsored by Stripe

Sessions is Stripe’s annual conference, where business leaders and builders share perspectives on trending payments and fintech topics. It's happening April 23-25 in San Francisco, and Stripe is offering the TechCrunch community a limited amount of complimentary tickets. Register with the promotion code TECHCRUNCH to secure your complimentary conference pass, while supplies last.

Register Now

News

Apple car canceled: Apple has scuttled its secretive, long-running effort to build an autonomous electric car. The company is likely cutting hundreds of employees from the team, and all work on the project has stopped. It joins a list of other projects Apple has scrapped in various stages, including AirPower and a TV (not to be confused with Apple TV).

Bumble stumbles: Bumble posted weak Q4 results showing a $32 million net loss and $273.6 million in revenue — below Wall Street expectations. To right the ship, CEO Lidiane Jones announced that 30% of Bumble’s workforce, or about 350 employees, would be let go and that Bumble would embark on an app overhaul targeted at reviving growth.

Google’s AI goes awry: Google has apologized for an embarrassing AI blunder this week: An image-generating model that injected diversity into pictures with a farcical disregard for historical context. While the underlying issue is perfectly understandable, Google blames the model for “becoming” oversensitive.

Bad look: Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr owner Automattic, is supposed to be on sabbatical. Instead, he argued with Tumblr users this week over a content moderation decision that sparked accusations of transphobia, Amanda reports.

Founder forced out: A group of Byju’s investors last Friday voted to remove the edtech group’s founder and chief executive, Byju Raveendran, and separately filed an oppression and management suit against the leadership at the firm to block the recently launched rights issue.

Funding

GenAI ebooks: Inkitt, a self-publishing platform using AI to develop bestsellers, has raised $37 million. The startup’s app lets people self-publish stories, and then, using AI and data science, selects what it believes are the most compelling of these to tweak and subsequently distribute and sell.

Keeping it old school: Lapse has raised $30 million for its smartphone app that has you wait for photos to be “developed” — with no chance of editing and retaking — before sharing them with a select group of friends if you choose.

Analysis

Techstars reckoning: Mary Ann interviewed Maëlle Gavet, CEO of the startup accelerator program Techstars, in the wake of changes to its operations that have attracted biting criticism.

Podcasts

On Equity, the crew talked through startup news from Microsoft and Mistral AI, Thrasio and Glean — and also covered happenings over at COTU Ventures and Zacua Ventures.

Meanwhile, Found spotlighted Ariel Kaye, the founder of Parachute, a direct-to-consumer bedding and home goods company.

And for Chain Reaction, TC pulled from the archives to air an earlier conversation with Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden, a “community-centric” NFT marketplace.

Bonus round

Steeply discounted Mirai: Toyota is offering $40,000 off a 2023 Toyota Mirai Limited, a fuel-cell vehicle that retails for $66,000 — plus $15,000 in free hydrogen over six years. As Tim writes, there’s only one catch: finding the hydrogen to power it.

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Flipboard

View this email online in your browser

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Unsubscribe

© 2024 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Older messages

Epic Games, Spotify, others say down with Apple’s DMA rules

Friday, March 1, 2024

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch PM Logo By Christine Hall Friday, March 01, 2024 Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM! It's Friday yet again and the team has been busy. First up, we were

Startups Weekly - Is there anything AI can’t do?

Friday, March 1, 2024

TechCrunch Newsletter Startups Weekly logo By Haje Jan Kamps Friday, March 01, 2024 Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. I don

Musk sues OpenAI

Friday, March 1, 2024

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch AM logo By Alex Wilhelm Friday, March 01, 2024 Good morning! Today in TechCrunch AM we have news for AI founders (Nvidia is writing a lot of checks), a new lawsuit

Apple wants everyone to know it’s working on AI, too, guys

Thursday, February 29, 2024

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch AM logo By Alex Wilhelm Thursday, February 29, 2024 Good morning and welcome to TechCrunch AM! If you had ever wondered why Apple's been strangely silent about AI,

Stripe’s employee stock sale sets valuation at $65B

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch PM Logo By Christine Hall Wednesday, February 28, 2024 Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM. Today's newsletter will get you updated on Stripe's spiked

You Might Also Like

BetterDev #271 - Memory: The Forgotten History and Why did Windows 95 setup use three operating systems?

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Better Dev #271 Nov 26, 2024 Hi all, Welcome to thanksgiving issue of BetterDev. Hope everyone had a safe and warm thanksgiving. It's getting so cold these days. If you are in warzone such as

Mapped | Unemployment Rate By U.S. State in 2024 💼

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

As of October 2024, DC and Nevada tied for the highest unemployment rate in the US at 5.7%. Which states saw the lowest rates? View Online | Subscribe | Download Our App FINAL CHANCE - ENDS TONIGHT!

🔊 7 DIY Tips for Soundproofing a Room — Why I Switched to Xfce for Linux Mint

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Also: Home Theater Sound Terms Explained, and More! How-To Geek Logo November 26, 2024 Did You Know The shiny layer of a CD doesn't contain the data; the plastic polycarbonate layer does. The shiny

JSK Daily for Nov 26, 2024

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

JSK Daily for Nov 26, 2024 View this email in your browser A community curated daily e-mail of JavaScript news JavaScript Certification Black Friday Offer – Up to 54% Off! Certificates.dev, the trusted

NumPy, Loop Targets, Vector Animation, and More

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

NumPy Practical Examples: Useful Techniques #657 – NOVEMBER 26, 2024 VIEW IN BROWSER The PyCoder's Weekly Logo NumPy Practical Examples: Useful Techniques In this tutorial, you'll learn how to

Your Games Quarterly newsletter has arrived

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

What's new for games in Google Play and Android Email not displaying correctly? View it online November 2024 The First Developer Preview of Android 16 The First Developer Preview of Android 16

Daily Coding Problem: Problem #1620 [Hard]

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Daily Coding Problem Good morning! Here's your coding interview problem for today. This problem was asked by Dropbox. Sudoku is a puzzle where you're given a partially-filled 9 by 9 grid with

Final Hours: Help Save "The Art of Data" From Falling Short 🙏

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Will Visual Capitalist end up revealing the secrets behind data storytelling? There are 12 hours left to change the fate of "The Art of Data". View Online | Subscribe | Download Our App Help

Spyglass Dispatch: Meta's Bluesky • Apple's China AI Problem • Apple's Chinese iPhone Problem • Perplexity Voice Pin • Susan's Message on Lung Cancer

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Meta's Bluesky • Apple's China AI Problem • Apple's Chinese iPhone Problem • Perplexity Voice Pin • Susan's Message on Lung Cancer The Spyglass Dispatch is a free newsletter sent out

🎁 Say Goodbye to Adobe and Hello to UPDF's Universal PDF Editor— 50% Off This Black Friday!

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Promoted by UPDF How-To Geek Logo November 26, 2024 This email is sponsored by UPDF. Product choices and opinions expressed are from the sponsor and do not necessarily reflect the views of the How-To