159 employees are leaving Automattic as CEO’s fight with WP Engine escalates
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said on Thursday that 159 employees (roughly 8.4% of staff) accepted a severance package that the company had offered to those who disagreed with his direction of WordPress and his handling of the tussle with web hosting provider WP Engine. In a blog post, Mullenweg said
Read moreMeet the AI native developers who build software through prompt engineering
On today’s episode we chat with Crystal Xu, chief of staff at FSH Tech. She explains how she learned to build and deploy apps and services inside her company using Python and Java, without ever getting a traditional computer science education or training to write code. Instead, Xu works with
Read moreEven the ‘godmother of AI’ has no idea what AGI is
Are you confused about artificial general intelligence, or AGI? It’s that thing OpenAI is obsessed with ultimately creating in a way that “benefits all of humanity.” You may want to take them seriously since they just raised $6.6 billion to get closer to that goal. But if you’re still wondering
Read moreApple plans four new retail stores in India
Apple is planning to open four new retail stores in India and has begun manufacturing the iPhone 16 Pro models domestically, the company said as it deepens its presence in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. The U.S. tech giant aims to launch stores in Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, building
Read moreA co-lead on Sora, OpenAI’s video generator, has left for Google
One of the co-leads on OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, has left for Google. Tim Brooks, who was heading development on Sora with William Peebles, announced in a post on X that he’ll be joining Google DeepMind, Google’s AI research division, to work on video generation technologies and “world simulators.” “I
Read moreInvestors are scrambling to get into ElevenLabs, which may soon be valued at $3 billion
ElevenLabs, a startup that makes AI tools for audio applications, is being approached by existing and new investors about a new round, which could value the company as highly as $3 billion, TechCrunch has learned. The two-year-old company specializes in making AI tools to generate synthetic voices for audiobook narrations,
Read moreAnnouncing the final agenda for the Fintech Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
We’re incredibly excited to announce the final agenda for our dedicated Fintech Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. It joins Space, SaaS, AI and Builders as the other industry-focused stages — all under one big roof. As the fintech industry evolves, new opportunities abound for founders, investors, and customers. Areas such as
Read moreThe big boys want in on crypto, too
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A little over a year after the collapse of the crypto banks Silvergate and Signature, financial institutions are very interested in crypto. PayPal has used its proprietary stablecoin to pay auditors Ernst & Young LLP, using a hub provided by SAP. Visa “is
Read moreThe 13 biggest take-private PE acquisitions so far this year in tech
A roundup of the year's billion-dollar take-private deals in the technology sector. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreDOJ sentences pair for Apple repair scheme involving 6,000 knockoff iPhones
The U.S. Department of Justice Thursday announced that it has sentenced a pair of Chinese citizens residing in Maryland following a massive bid to defraud Apple. According to the officials, the scheme involved sending more than 6,000 knockoff iPhones from Hong Kong to the company for repair. With the help
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