Hey, people, welcome to Week in Assessment (WiR), TechCrunch’s common e-newsletter recapping noteworthy happenings in tech over the previous few days.
This week, TechCrunch viewed leaked documents out of SpaceX displaying some questionable practices associated to worker inventory choices.
X CEO Elon Musk announced that he would open supply Grok, X’s AI-powered chatbot meant to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Grok — developed by Musk’s AI startup, xAI — was launched final 12 months, armed with options resembling entry to “real-time” info on X and views undeterred by “politically correct” norms.
Elsewhere, Ron interviewed Denise Dresser, the CEO of Slack, on her effort to deliver stability to the Salesforce enterprise that’s seen three CEOs in a single 12 months.
Heaps else occurred. We recap all of it on this version of WiR — however first, a reminder to sign up to obtain the WiR e-newsletter in your inbox each Saturday.
Information
Leaked SpaceX docs: We obtained our palms on some leaked SpaceX paperwork that present some uncommon phrases to inventory awards that workers are required to conform to. Amongst different issues, the corporate provides itself the suitable to ban previous and current workers from collaborating in tender presents if they’re deemed to have dedicated “an act of dishonesty against the company” or to have violated written firm insurance policies.
Phantom, now a phantom: Phantom Auto, a distant driving startup that launched seven years in the past amid the thrill of autonomous car know-how, is shutting down after failing to safe new funding, Kirsten completely stories.
Meme stock: In a brand new SEC submitting, Reddit reveals that, following its IPO, it’ll enable its neighborhood members to promote their shares instantly as a substitute of being topic to the same old lock-up agreements that forestall IPO buyers from promoting shares for six months.
Funding
Banking as a service: U.Okay.-based Griffin Bank, an API-driven banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, simply obtained a license to launch as a completely operational financial institution — and raised $24 million from buyers, together with MassMutual Ventures, NordicNinja and Breega.
EU breaches data rules: An investigation into the European Union’s use of Microsoft 365 has discovered that the European Fee, the cupboard authorities of the EU, breached the bloc’s information safety guidelines by means of its use of the cloud-based productiveness software program.
Evaluation
Deepfakes go royal: Amanda writes about how a photograph of Kate Middleton and her kids, probably edited with the assistance of AI, is an omen of what’s to return as AI deepfaking and enhancing instruments proliferate.
Relaxation device: Haje goes hands-on with Moonbird’s leisure machine, which is designed to assist clients discover sleep and scale back stress by means of respiration workouts.
Podcasts
This week on Equity, Alex checked out information from Carta on how startup compensation is altering, raises from Empathy and Bear Robotics and developments from Bluesky, Courageous and Chamath Palihapitiya’s VC agency Social Capital.
On Found, Becca and Dom spoke with Rebecca Hu, the CEO and co-founder of Glacier, an AI robotics firm that’s constructing robots to precisely type recycling.
And on Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Melody Hildebrandt, CTO of Fox Company, and Mike Clean, COO at Polygon Labs. The episode is a part of Chain Response’s month-to-month sequence diving into totally different subjects and themes in crypto. This month’s theme is blockchain and AI integrations.
Bonus spherical
Metaverse royale: Readyverse Studios — co-founded by blockchain tech firm Futureverse and Ernest Cline, the thoughts behind the sci-fi sequence Prepared Participant One — this week debuted Open, a third-person battle royale expertise. Lauren has the story.
