Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Welcome to TC PM! Today we're diving into OpenAI's CTO stepping down; we've got a rundown on what went down at Meta Connect; and we slide into the return of Backyard Baseball. Play ball!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: OpenAI

👋 Another departure: OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, who has been with the AI startup for six years, announced on X today that she is stepping down. This is just the latest among many departures by high-profile executives at the AI company. Read more

⚙️ Meta time: We've got the skinny on everything you need to know that was announced or teased at today's Meta Connect 2024 event, like new Quest headsets, updates to Ray-Ban Meta, and upgrades to Meta's Llama AI model. Read more

👓 Orion sneak peek: One particularly interesting thing Meta teased during Connect was Orion, its brain-powered true AR glasses. The tech still has a long way to go before landing in consumers' hands, though. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Backyard Sports

⚾ An old classic returns: Backyard Baseball '97 is coming back, baby. The classic baseball video game will be rereleased on Steam on October 10 — 27 years after its initial release. I hope a Backyard Soccer reboot is next. Read more

🚀 Space plane! Radian Aerospace, a startup that is working to make a reusable space plane that takes off and lands like a regular airplane, reached a new milestone: It was able to complete a set of ground tests this summer. Read more

🌉 Back to the Bay: At Y Combinator's virtual Demo Day today, YC president and CEO Garry Tan said that the next Demo Day will return to being an in-person event. This makes sense, as the accelerator cohorts went back to in-person two years ago. Read more

👀 Mozilla, mo' privacy? Mozilla, the nonprofit developer of Firefox, is usually known for bolstering users' privacy rights, but not today. European Union privacy rights group NOYB says a new feature by the company is tracking users without their permission. Read more

🤏 More models: Do all AI models have to be large and built by deep-pocketed tech companies? Ai2 says no. Today, Ai2 released Molmo, a multimodal AI model that is small, open source, and completely free to use. Read more

🤝 AI pact: The European Commission released the initial 100 signatories of its AI Pact, an initiative meant to encourage companies to release "voluntary pledges" on how they approach and deploy AI. While many of the names on the list were expected, Meta and Apple aren't on there. Read more

💰 Blockchain builder: VC Tomasz Tunguz thinks one of the reasons blockchain hasn't seen wider adoption is that decentralized services are hard to build. Tunguz thinks he's identified a company that solves that problem, Initia, and led its $14 million Series A round. Read more

💻 A YC favorite: Supabase, an open source developer platform and Postgres database service used by 40% of the latest YC batch, raised new funds. The company landed a hefty $80 million Series C round amid a surge in demand due to AI. Read more

💸 Raise for Raycast: Raycast, a company looking to create a "shortcut to everything" by concentrating workflow tools into one place, raised a $30 million Series B round. The funding will be used to bring its app to Windows and iOS. Read more

Around the web

📰 Media money: Media startups have a mixed history when it comes to both fundraising and overall success. Today the Financial Times reports that Bari Weiss' media startup, The Free Press, is doing OK — it just raised $100 million. Read more

🎮 Video game AI: The role AI will play in video game creation has yet to be determined, but there is one area it seems developers are experimenting with the tech more than others: non-player characters. Read more

Before you go

Image Credits: Meta

👕 Facebook fashion: You know the old saying, there are only three things guaranteed in life: death, taxes, and Mark Zuckerberg doing something that makes us go "???" Amanda Silberling thankfully unpacked what was up with the interesting shirt Zuck wore during his Meta Connect 2024 keynote. Read more