OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has transferred formal control of the eponymously firm’s named corporate venture fund to Ian Hathaway, OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch. The OpenAI Startup Fund, launched in 2021, was initially set up with Altman as its named controller. The arrangement could have presented a major issue to the company if he had not … Read more
Tucked inside Canoo’s 2023 earnings report is a nugget regarding the use of CEO Tony Aquila’s private jet — just one of many expenses that illustrates the gap between spending and revenue at the EV startup. Canoo posted Monday its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings for 2023 in a regulatory filing that shows a company burning … Read more
Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” has been out for only a few days, yet it’s already obvious that we’ll be talking about it for years to come — it’s breaking records across streaming platforms, and the artist herself calls it “the best music [she’s] ever made.” But in the middle of the press release for “Cowboy Carter,” … Read more
In recent months, Google has raced to settle a backlog of lawsuits ahead of major antitrust showdowns with the Justice Department later this year. On Tuesday, the company resolved its fourth case in four months, agreeing to delete billions of data records it compiled about millions of Chrome browser users, according to a legal filing. … Read more
As TikTok continues to face increased pressure in the U.S. and the U.K., the company is signaling its commitment to fostering educational content on its app. The company announced on Tuesday that it’s expanding its dedicated STEM feed across Europe, starting in the U.K. and Ireland, after first launching it in the U.S. last year. … Read more
Footage obtained by TechCrunch shows the catastrophic ending that Astra’s Rocket 3.0 suffered during prelaunch testing in March 2020. The explosion, which occurred at Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex, was simply reported as an “anomaly” at the time, an industry term for pretty much any issue that deviates from the expected outcome. “I can confirm we … Read more
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone had a restful Easter, for those who celebrate. Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send me a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You also can send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure communications, click here … Read more
One of the primary reasons that Slack joined forces with Salesforce in 2021 in a $28 billion deal was to give the communications company the clout to compete with Microsoft. For years, company co-founder Stewart Butterfield railed against Microsoft bundling Teams with Office 365, calling it anti-competitive and saying at one point that Microsoft was … Read more
The modern world is dependent on a vast network for extracting, processing, transporting and ultimately consuming hydrocarbons like crude oil and natural gas. But these resources come with a cost: they’re finite, difficult to extract and take carbon dioxide out of the ground and release it into the air. Instead of reducing humanity’s dependence on … Read more
Former president Donald Trump’s digital media company is losing money, and lots of it. But why is that any different from other “startups,” which often struggle to post a profit for years, if they ever do? There are a couple reasons. First, as a recap: Trump Media and Technology Group recently merged with Digital World … Read more
