Author: GT

FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019.Mike Blake | ReutersScale AI plans to promote Chief Strategy Officer Jason Droege to serve as its new CEO, with founder Alexandr Wang heading to Meta as part of a multibillion-dollar deal with the company, CNBC has confirmed.Meta is finalizing a $14 billion investment into artificial intelligence startup Scale AI, CNBC reported earlier this week. Wang will help lead a new AI research lab at Meta and will be joined by some of his colleagues. The New York Times was first to report about the…

Two European journalists were hacked using government spyware made by Israeli surveillance tech provider Paragon, new research has confirmed.  On Thursday, digital rights group The Citizen Lab published a new report detailing the results of a new forensic investigation into the iPhones of Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino and an unnamed “prominent” European journalist. The researchers said both journalists were hacked by the same Paragon customer, based on evidence found on the two journalists’ devices.  Until now, there was no evidence that Pellegrino, who works for online news website Fanpage, had been either targeted or hacked with Paragon spyware. When he…

NEW YORK (AP) — Popular online services across the globe were disrupted Thursday due to ongoing issues at Google Cloud.Tens of thousands of users of Spotify, Discord and other platforms began noticing issues with their services early in the afternoon, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages. Outage reports for music streamer Spotify in particular, peaked around 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time before dropping off, and some users began saying their access was restored.Google’s Cloud status page said an incident with their systems affected clients in the U.S. and abroad. The company also posted that services are starting to recover after…

When Daniel Saks was working as a co-CEO of the previous startup he co-founded, AppDirect, billionaire Michael Dell sent him a LinkedIn message asking for a meeting. Dell famously likes to cold-contact founders of startups he finds interesting.  “I thought it was fake,” Saks tells TechCrunch. But he replied anyway. “So I’m getting ready for this call, thinking there’s no way it’s Michael Dell. And I’m almost kind of laughing about it. It actually was Michael.”  That interaction taught him a lesson that would prove vital for his current startup, Landbase: When people know who you are, they answer your…

Teachers in England have been given the all-clear to use AI to help them in low-level tasks that are part of their duties, the BBC reports.Guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) says AI can be used by school teachers in England, but it should only be for ‘low stakes’ tasks, such as writing letters to parents and marking homework.The decision to approve the use of the technology follows the results of a survey of teachers in 2023, undertaken on behalf of the DfE. In it, a majority of respondents were said to be “broadly optimistic” about using AI in…

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu was always curious about what work life was like for his colleague Feargus MacDaeid, one of the few registered blind lawyers in the U.K. Both practiced law at the global firm Freshfields. When asking about what would make his life easier, the answer was clear: “Help me navigate definitions in complex contracts without losing context,” Emelifeonwu told TechCrunch. He realized the fix to MacDaeid’s request would be useful to every lawyer. So in 2017, Emelifeonwu and MacDaeid teamed up to launch Definely, an AI legal tech startup allowing lawyers to more seamlessly review and edit complex contracts.  The…

U.S. President Donald Trump walks with North American Flat-Rolled Segment Senior Vice President and Chief Manufacturing Officer Scott Buckiso, Plant manager of Irvin and Fairless Plant Donald German and Mon Valley Works United Steel Corporation Vice President Kurt Barshick, as he visits U.S. Steel Corporation–Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S., May 30, 2025.Leah Millis | ReutersPresident Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. will have a “golden share” in U.S. Steel after its deal with Japan’s Nippon Steel closes.”We have a golden stock. We have a golden share, which I control, or the president controls,” Trump told reporters in…

Warp was founded in 2021 to help companies streamline their shipping supply chains and reduce costs through its tech-enabled network of shippers, carriers, and warehouses. Now, it wants to make supply chains further efficient by using robots to automate its web of warehouses. Daniel Sokolovsky, the co-founder and CEO of Warp, told TechCrunch that Warp is always looking for ways to make shipping more efficient for its customers, which include enterprises like Walmart, Gopuff, and HelloFresh. With the advancements in AI, the company thought there could be more opportunities to automate. Warp can’t automate the long-haul trucking or short-range delivery…

After acquiring universal messaging apps Beeper and Texts.com, WordPress.com owner Automattic has added another communication-focused startup to its lineup: relationship-management app Clay. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Clay had so far raised over $9 million in venture capital from investors like General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures. The tool will continue to be supported and will later be integrated with other Automattic products, like Beeper. Clay’s software, launched in 2021, is something of a smarter address book or personal CRM, letting users organize the people they know and keep up with their latest updates by pulling in…

CEO of Chime, Chris Britt, center right, rings the opening bell during the company’s initial public offering at the Nasdaq MarketSite on June 12, 2025 in New York City. Andres Kudacki | Getty ImagesChime opened at $43 in its Nasdaq debut on Thursday after selling shares at $27 each in an IPO that valued the online banking company at $11.6 billion.Late Wednesday, Chime raised about $700 million in its offering, and existing investors sold an additional $165 million worth of shares. The stock is trading under the ticker symbol CHYM.Chime’s IPO, from a valuation perspective, represents a big step down…