Thursday, October 31, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're looking at the EU stepping in the way of yet another acquisition, an open letter from Amazon employees who want to work remotely, Bezos' growing interests in Washington, layoffs at crypto exchange Kraken, and more.

We've also got tons of excellent coverage from the final day of TechCrunch Disrupt, including notes on the winner of Startup Battlefield, what Perplexity's CEO had to say about plagiarism, and what Zoox's co-founder thinks about Tesla's robotaxis. Let's go! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Romain Dillet / TechCrunch

1. And the winner of Startup Battlefield is… Salva Health! This is a company I was rooting for after hearing their pitch to sell portable devices that detect breast cancer early. Congrats to Salva, which is walking away with $100,000! Read More

2. The EU is reviewing Nvidia's proposed acquisition of Tel Aviv-based startup Run:ai. The deal has a price tag of around $700 million, but the bloc says the transaction doesn't meet its notification thresholds. Read More

3. Perplexity won't define plagiarism: TC's Devin Coldelwey put Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on the spot on stage at Disrupt when he asked him how the AI company defines "plagiarism," something Perplexity has been accused of. Srinivas wouldn't say. Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Barak Shrama/ Slava Blazer Photography

🚘 Rivian doesn't like buttons in cars: The EV maker's chief software officer Wassym Bensaid said using buttons in cars is a "bug," not a feature. "Ideally, you want to interact with your car through voice," he said, but most voice assistants are not there yet. Read More

🧨 How to disrupt: Colin Kaepernick – former NFL quarterback, civil rights activist, and founder of Lumi – closed out TechCrunch Disrupt with advice for founders who are trying to change an industry: Have people you can lean on when you're facing resistance. Read More

🚗 Not full self-driving: Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson doesn't think Tesla is primed to actually launch a robotaxi ride-hailing service in California next year, despite Elon Musk's claims. He says the "fundamental issue is they don't have technology that works." Read More

🏠 WFH 4ever: More than 500 Amazon employees reportedly sent a letter to AWS CEO Matt Garman, urging him to reverse the company's full return-to-office policy. I'm not sure how that'll go since my guess is Amazon is using this as a way to make employees quit and avoid needed layoffs. Read More

🚚 The best laid plans… Aurora Innovation had planned to launch its self-driving trucks by the end of this year, but has now shelved that plan until April 2025 to validate its technology. Read More

Around the web

🕶️ Meta gets a reality check: Meta's Reality Labs logged an operating loss of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, per CNBC. Revenue rose 29% to $270 million, but still came in below analysts' expectations of $310.4 million. To put it into context, the unit has recorded operating losses of over $58 billion since 2020. Read More

🐙 Trouble at Kraken: Crypto exchange Kraken has laid off 15% of workers, and is shaking up its corporate structure, including appointing a new co-chief executive, reports The New York Times. Long-time Silicon Valley exec Arjun Sethi will take up the co-CEO mantle. Read More

🤑 Big business: As Amazon's various businesses increasingly face stiff competition from Big Tech, Jeff Bezos' interests in Washington have expanded, especially as the federal government contracts billions to AWS and Blue Origin, reports The Washington Post. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: JuSun / Getty Images

⛔ No puedo: Don't try to ask your AI models questions about the upcoming U.S. election in Spanish. Apparently they're struggling with that. Read More