Monday, April 29, 2024

Happy Monday, and welcome back to TechCrunch PM. Unfortunately, there are some big firms laying people off today. Meanwhile, GitHub is getting into AI-powered software engineering, Backflip is doing a backflip after raising new capital and Getir finds out how hard the instant delivery industry is. Let’s go!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: JHVEPhoto / Getty Images

Google has some employees googling for new jobs: The tech giant confirmed it laid off staff across teams, including Flutter, Dart and Python, but was mum when it came to disclosing specific teams, roles or how many people were let go. The move comes as Google prepares for its annual I/O developer conference in May. Read More

Fisker lays off staff … again: EV startup Fisker was true to its word. The company laid off more employees in an effort to “preserve cash.” This comes one week after Fisker warned investors it would have to make cuts to stave off impending bankruptcy. Read More

A developer’s first step can be a doozy. GitHub is here to help: Meet Copilot Workspace, a developer environment of “Copilot-powered agents” that help developers brainstorm, plan, build, test and run code in natural language. Read More

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Backflip

Flipping houses: If you’ve ever wanted to flip a home, yet cringed at all the drama on HGTV, Backflip has something for you. The startup raised $15 million to help real estate investors source, track, comp and evaluate potential investments. Read More

Getir gets out: The Turkish instant delivery company rose quickly and dropped quickly. The company made the decision to leave all of its markets except for Turkey. Ingrid writes that “the move puts a bitter end to the company’s very aggressive expansion strategy that saw it raise billions of dollars to grow organically and also snap up a number of equally aggressive, yet struggling, competitors to position itself as the market leader.” Read More

Fortnite is coming to iPad: The European Union designating Apple’s iPadOS as another digital “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act means that Epic Games will now bring its popular battle royale game, Fortnite, to the iPad later this year. Read More

Creators can pull at more Threads: Meta has a few tricks up its sleeve for the X rival in the way of a limited-time bonus program for creators. There are a few caveats, of course. Read More

Ford’s BlueCruise gets a probe: Federal safety regulators are investigating the use of the hands-free driver-assistance system after two recent crashes killed multiple people. Read More

Lots of changes at Ola: Not only is the Indian ride-hailing company cutting 180 jobs, but it also let go of its chief executive officer Hemant Bakshi. Read More

Twitter co-founder takes a walk on the wild fediverse: Biz Stone joined the board of directors of Mastodon’s new U.S. nonprofit. Read More

Around the web

Image Credits: Getty Images/Patra Kongsirimongkolchai / EyeEm

Elon Musk has to have his tweets approved: The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the X owner over needing Tesla's lawyer to approve any tweets that Musk makes about Tesla. Read More

Bill Gates still pulling the strings at Microsoft: Yes, you read that right. Business Insider reports that even though the titan of tech was ousted from Microsoft in 2021, Gates never really left. Read More

AI companies have lots of capital, but not much else: It’s no secret that investors are pouring money into artificial intelligence startups. It is the future, after all. The Wall Street Journal looks at some of these companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, all without a product or revenue. Read More

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TechCrunch Minute

Elon Musk’s big plans for xAI include raising $6 billion: You might be asking yourself whether Elon Musk already has enough companies to deal with. However, can’t stop, won’t stop. In the xAI pitch, Musk’s connection to these other companies could help Tesla achieve its dream of true self-driving cars and bring its humanoid Optimus robot into factories, explains Anthony Ha. Hit play and let’s chat!