Author: GT

On Tuesday, WhatsApp scored a major victory against NSO Group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware maker to pay more than $167 million in damages to the Meta-owned company. The ruling concluded a legal battle spanning more than five years, which started in October 2019 when WhatsApp accused NSO Group of hacking more than 1,400 of its users by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the chat app’s audio-calling functionality. The verdict came after a week-long jury trial that featured several testimonies, including NSO Group’s CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp employees who responded and investigated the incident.  Even before…

We’re thrilled to announce that Ellen Chisa, partner at Boldstart Ventures, will be joining us at TechCrunch All Stage 2025 for an energizing conversation about investing in enterprise startups from day one. She’s one of the standout voices shaping this year’s lineup of founders, funders, and operators gathering July 15 in Boston’s SoWa Power Station, and you won’t want to miss what she brings to the table. All Stage is where startup builders get real answers to real questions — from how to raise your next round to how to manage founder burnout. Whether you’re scaling your team, fixing your…

Whitney Wolfe Herd returned in March to lead Bumble, the dating app she founded and took public, following the unexpected departure of CEO Lidiane Jones. Now, in a New York Times interview, Wolfe Herd opens up about what happened. “I had no intentions of coming back,” Wolfe Herd says. Her post-Bumble life initially brought existential questions about her identity, eventually giving way to daily meditation and board calls from the sidelines. That changed when Jones reached out to confess she was overwhelmed. Shortly after that conversation, Jones resigned. Wolfe Herd dismisses speculation of conflict between them. “I think the world…

It’s already been a tumultuous year for the U.S. semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry plays a sizable role in the “AI race” that the U.S. seems determined to win, which is why this context is worth paying attention to: from Intel’s appointment of Lip-Bu Tan — who wasted no time getting to work trying to revitalize the legacy company — to CEO, to Joe Biden proposing sweeping new AI chip export rules on his way out of office that may or may not actually stick. Here’s a look at what’s happened since the beginning of the year.  May A last-minute…

For years, weekend bike rides have been sacred escapes for me. Every pedal stroke helps melt away the stressors that piled up throughout the week, and I’ve collected a few gadgets that make these rides better. However, I’ve learned the hard way that bringing along too much gear takes away from the ride itself, forcing you to manage a network of pings and battery levels instead of just riding the damn bike. Enter Ray-Ban Meta: smart glasses that made my weekend rides simpler and a bit more fun. Instead of wearing sunglasses, a pair of headphones, and fumbling around with…

OpenAI appears to be pulling well ahead of rivals in the race to capture enterprises’ AI spend, according to transaction data from fintech firm Ramp. According to Ramp’s AI Index, which estimates the business adoption rate of AI products by drawing on Ramp’s card and bill pay data, 32.4% of U.S. businesses were paying for subscriptions to OpenAI AI models, platforms, and tools as of April. That’s up from 18.9% in January and 28% in March. Competitors have struggled to make similar progress, Ramp’s data shows. Just 8% of businesses had subscriptions to Anthropic’s products as of last month compared…

Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to settle two lawsuits accusing the company of tracking users’ personal location, incognito searches, and voice and facial data without their permission. The lawsuits were brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022. Facebook’s parent company Meta agreed to pay a similar amount to settle a facial recognition-related lawsuit from Paxton last year. “In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services.…

Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got lots of news for you this week: There were CEO shake-ups at Instacart and 11x; the web series is back — kind of; Threads is getting video ads; and much more. Let’s get to it! Big move: Instacart CEO Fidji Simo will become OpenAI’s CEO for Applications, the company said this week. Simo is already on the OpenAI board. She’ll be tasked with helping OpenAI in scaling “traditional” company functions, CEO Sam Altman said, but he didn’t provide any details on what that means. Speaking of OpenAI: The company decided that its…

The Federal Trade Commission voted Friday to delay enforcement of the Negative Option Rule — known widely as the “click-to-cancel” rule requiring companies to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up. The rule, which was first proposed in 2023, took aim at businesses selling physical and digital subscriptions — everything from streaming services to gym memberships — through simple signup flows, only to have customers discover later that they have to go through a much more complex or time-consuming process to cancel. Under the Negative Option Rule, businesses would not be able to…

Google and nuclear site developer Elementl Power announced this week that they will work together on three sites for advanced nuclear reactors. The tech company has been rushing to lock up energy sources as its AI ambitions drive growing power demands at its data centers. This year alone, Google plans to spend $75 billion building data center capacity. With the new deal, Google is promising to add at least 600 megawatts of generating capacity at each of the three sites. Elementl said the reactors will be connected to the grid “with the option for commercial off-take,” meaning that Google can…