Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're exploring why some VCs are backing Trump; Ex-Tesla and former OpenAI researcher Andrej Karpathy's next venture; and how Fisker got the green light to start its liquidation. We've also got notes on Musk moving away from California, Tinder's new AI features, more funding for literally anything to do with AI, and the case for universal basic income. Let's dive in! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

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1. Why a16z is backing Trump: Marc Andreessen has been a Democrat his whole life, but he's happy to throw that all away this year because he believes Trump's policies will be more favorable for tech, specifically the startup ecosystem. One of his bugbears? The current administration's plan to "overregulate" AI, which Andreessen says shouldn't have any limitations. No limitations may be good for business (and raking in that money), but are no limitations on AI good for the world? Read More

2. Eureka! More AI!: Andrej Karpathy, the former head of AI at Tesla and OpenAI researcher, has launched his own startup called Eureka Labs. We're a bit fuzzy on the details, but it looks like Karpathy wants to bring AI teaching assistants to the classroom. Or, does he want to teach students how to build their own AI assistant? Maybe a little of both. Read More

3. Fisker gets the green light: The bankrupt EV startup has gotten the go ahead to sell more than 3,000 of its Ocean SUVs to a vehicle leasing company, giving it up to $46.25 million to pay back its creditors. The feds had previously objected to the sale, saying Fisker didn't try hard enough to get a better deal. But Fisker showed that it really did try hard, and this was the best it could get. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

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Elon has had it with California: Musk is moving SpaceX's headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Texas, protesting a California bill that prohibits schools from requiring employees to disclose students' sexuality or gender identity without their consent. Towing the party line, I see. Musk has also vowed to move X's headquarters to Austin from San Francisco, as well, largely in response to the "gangs of violent drug addicts" hanging out outside its offices. Read More

The end of mirror selfies and posing with fish: Tinder's new AI photo selector is now available in the U.S. and will roll out to international markets later this summer to help daters choose the best photos for their dating profile. The AI is trained to select pics based on Tinder's "learnings." For example, group photos are a no go because they're confusing. Read More

Menlo Ventures, Anthropic set up a $100M AI fund: As if there wasn't enough money going to AI startups, the Silicon Valley VC firm has launched an initiative called "the Anthology Fund" with Anthropic to invest in pre-seed and Series A AI companies. Menlo, one of Anthropic's largest backers, is clearly taking advantage of its proximity to Anthropic's AI expertise to choose interesting new startups for future investments. Read More

Are there actually plenty of fish in the sea? A Canadian startup wants to use AI to boost the seafood supply chain in a way that's profitable, efficient and sustainable. Wittaya Aqua is fresh to the industry with a $2.8 million seed round, but it's already working to expand its feed-to-farm platform further into Asia, the largest aquaculture-producing region in the world. Read More

Managing Apple devices is a lucrative business: At least, investors think so. Kandji, an Apple device management platform, has raised a cool $100 million from General Catalyst to keep expanding outside the U.S. and boost its endpoint security offerings. Its ARR has increased 600% since 2021 and it has over 4,000 customers, so this niche is clearly a lucrative one. Read More

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Around the Web

Give us UBI: If AI and robotics are going to take all our jobs, then we need to revisit something American founding father Thomas Paine suggested: Universal basic income. Because, as he wrote, Earth is "the common property of the human race," and land ownership has dispossessed everyone. They're already trialing such a policy in Ireland, according to The Guardian, where many are finding the safety net allows them to spend time doing things that actually give their lives meaning, like caring for others and pursuing creative work. Read More

GitLab is exploring a sale: Reuters reports that the cloud-based software development tools provider is working with investment bankers on a sale process. Apparently, cloud monitoring firm Datadog is a potential buyer of the firm, which has a market cap of about $8 billion. Read More

U.S. moves a step closer to outlawing Chinese smart cars: Chinese EVs have barely made it into the U.S., but the government is already putting up roadblocks. The Commerce Department plans to issue rules on connected vehicles next month, which will include limits on some software made in China and other adversarial countries, according to Reuters. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Tracking 2024's data breaches: The year's not even over yet, and we've already hit 1 billion stolen records thanks to some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. Big names like UnitedHealth, Snowflake and AT&T (twice) have been affected, and the hits just keep coming. Read More