Author: GT

Alphabet’s X moonshot factory is shifting how it brings ambitious technology projects to market, increasingly spinning them out as independent companies rather than keeping them within the Alphabet corporate structure, X’s head honcho, Astro Teller, revealed at TechCrunch Disrupt this past week. The strategy hinges on a dedicated venture fund that exists solely to invest in X spinouts, and in which Alphabet is only a minority investor. “If Alphabet was the sole LP, the fund would be inside of Alphabet, and then when they invested in something from X, it would still be inside Alphabet,” Teller explained onstage. “So Alphabet…

Google says it has removed Gemma from its AI Studio after a U.S. senator accused the AI model of fabricating accusations of sexual misconduct against her. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Senator Marsha Blackburn — a Republican from Tennessee — said that when Gemma was asked, “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?” it responded by falsely claiming that during a 1987 state senate campaign, a state trooper alleged that Blackburn “pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts.” “None of this is true, not even the campaign year which…

The Trump administration has begun taking direct equity stakes in American companies, not as temporary crisis measures, as in 2008, but as permanent fixtures of industrial policy. The moves raise interesting questions, including what happens when the White House appears on your cap table. At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last week, Sequoia Capital’s global steward Roelof Botha fielded exactly that query, and his response drew knowing laughter from the packed house: “One of the most dangerous words in the world are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” Botha, who describes himself as “sort of libertarian, free…

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! We’re mixing things up a bit this week to focus on what was said on, and off, the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. In short, it was a banger with a number of high-profile execs and founders working on the future of transportation.  Here are a few: Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, Slate CEO Chris Barman, Nuro co-CEO and founder Dave Ferguson, Uber CPO Sachin Kansal, Wayve…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the company is doing “well more” than $13 billion in annual revenue — and he sounded a little testy when pressed on how it will pay for its massive spending commitments. His comments came up during a joint interview on the Bg2 podcast between Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the partnership between their two companies. Host Brad Gerstner (who’s also founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) brought up reports that the company is currently bringing in around $13 billion in revenue — a sizable amount, but one that’s dwarfed by more…

Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Sunday amid air traffic controller shortages as the government shutdown entered its second month, with Newark airport in New Jersey experiencing delays of two to three hours. New York City’s Emergency Management office said on X that Newark delays often ripple out to the region’s other airports.Travelers flying to, from or through New York “should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections. Anyone flying today should check flight status before heading to the airport and expect longer waits,” the social media post added. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Dallas Fort Worth International…

In the midst of an unprecedented AI buildout, Meta is spending more than most. The company is building two massive data centers, and reporting indicates there will be as much as $600 billion in spending on U.S. infrastructure over the next three years.   Those figures might not raise eyebrows in Silicon Valley, but they’re starting to make Wall Street nervous.  The issue came to a head this week as Meta reported quarterly earnings, which showed the company’s operating expenses jumping $7 billion year-over-year and nearly $20 billion in capital expense. It was the result of intense spending on AI…

The White House released more details Saturday about a trade deal reached between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a meeting earlier this week. Among other things, the White House said China will suspend the restrictions on exporting rare earth minerals that it announced in October, and it will resume issuing “general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony, and graphite for the benefit of U.S. end users and their suppliers around the world.” The Trump administration says that this will effectively reverse restrictions on rare earth minerals that China had imposed in…

Artificial intelligence song generation platform Udio said it would give its frustrated users 48 hours starting Monday to download their songs before the company shifts to a new business model to comply with a legal settlement.The short reprieve comes after Udio on Wednesday said it had settled copyright infringement claims brought by Universal Music, a label with artists including Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake and Kendrick Lamar.AI companies are now fighting so many copyright lawsuits that a tech industry lobby group, the Chamber of Progress, last week called on President Donald Trump to sign an executive order directing federal attorneys…

If you believe artificial intelligence poses grave risks to humanity, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now.Zico Kolter leads a 4-person panel at OpenAI that has the authority to halt the ChatGPT maker’s release of new AI systems if it finds them unsafe. That could be technology so powerful that an evildoer could use it to make weapons of mass destruction. It could also be a new chatbot so poorly designed that it will hurt people’s mental health. “Very much we’re not just talking about existential concerns…