Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we've got some insight into Meta's competitive streak, Change Healthcare hiding details of its breach, and the SEC's latest fight with Elon Musk. We've also got notes on a company bringing back woolly mammoths, online gambling, data breaches, Intel's spinoff, and Hinge's attempt to fix your boring dating responses. Let's dive in! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC / Getty Images

1. Meta's executives were obsessed with beating OpenAI's GPT-4 model while developing Llama 3, internal messages reveal. And what happens when companies building pioneer tech have a rabid competitive streak? They cut corners, which is what prosecutors are alleging in a lawsuit. Read More

2. Own up to your mistakes: UnitedHealth apparently hid the notice of its Change Healthcare data breach — which revealed more than 100 million people's sensitive health data – for months. A TC investigation revealed the notice's webpage's source included a "noindex" code, telling search engines to ignore the page. Read More

3. Going out with a bang: Gary Gensler's not going down without a fight. The SEC has sued Elon Musk over an alleged securities violation relating to his acquisition of Twitter/X. The agency claims he failed to disclose his 5% ownership stake in the company in a timely manner. Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: LEONELLO CALVETTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images

🦣 Pleistocene park: Startup Colossal Biosciences has raised $200 million at a $10.2 billion valuation to – as its name suggests – bring back woolly mammoths. Colossal is also trying to bring back the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo bird, in line with its goal to restore extinct species and enhance biodiversity. Read More

🚸 What's privacy? U.S. school districts affected by the cyberattack on edtech giant PowerSchool told TC that hackers accessed all of their historical student and teacher data. For an idea of the scale of the attack: PowerSchool's software is used by schools to support over 50 million students. Read More

🌪️ Spinoff time: Intel plans to spin off its corporate venture arm, Intel Capital, into a standalone fund. Intel will remain an anchor investor in the fund, but it's doing this to give the fund "greater autonomy" and the "flexibility to attract external capital." Read More

💥 Every CEO's new fave app: Nikita Bier, creator of apps like Facebook-acquired tbh and Discord-acquired Gas, has created a new app called Explode, which helps you send disappearing messages through Apple's iMessage. Perfect for avoiding discovery during those pesky subpoenas or having extramarital affairs. Read More

👯 Twinsies! Nvidia is all about digital twins lately, recently launching its Omniverse and Mega platforms. Now, it's backing MetAI, a Taiwanese startup whose model can quickly generate "SimReady" digital twins using AI and 3D tech, with a $4 million seed round. Read More

🐦 Does Elon Musk actually work? The man tweets – I'm sorry, posts – so much that people have bet over $1 million weekly on prediction betting platform Polymarket to guess how many times he'll regale the internet with his every thought. This is late-stage capitalism, people. Enjoy. Read More

🚁 Rise above the traffic: Sarla Aviation is an Indian electric air taxi startup building aircraft that can carry more weight in exchange for shorter range. The pitch landed with investors, including Accel, which led the startup's $10 million round. Read More

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Around the web

🫣 No consent needed: Instagram has been found to be responsible for sending 90% of traffic to Crushmate, an AI app that can be used to create nonconsensual nude images of people, reports 404 Media. The app buys thousands of explicit ads featuring nonconsensual nudity of celebrities and influencers — yet another violation of Meta's stated policies. Read More

🤑 VC monopoly: Top investors, led by Andreessen Horowitz, handled an increasing number of all venture deals, according to an analysis by Crunchbase Daily. Other firms at the top are the ones you'd expect: Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Alumni Ventures, and Lightspeed. Read More

🎰 The perils of online gambling: The Philippines recently decided to supercharge its online gambling sector for… reasons, and the results have been disastrous, reports Bloomberg. It has opened the door to criminal networks that stretch across Asia and perform money laundering, people smuggling, drug trafficking, and online theft. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: Hinge

💋 Don't be yourself: You might be too basic. But not to worry! Hinge is here to help with a new AI-powered feature that gives you feedback on your responses to the app's prompts. So no more lame responses like, "Together we could: make up a fake story about how we met." Read More