Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! We've got lots of great stories for you today, like Waymo expanding into Silicon Valley, Mark Cuban's thoughts on AI (spoiler: He's bullish!), and Hugging Face teaming up with Yaak. Let's dig in!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Getty Images/SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP

🕵 Agents incoming: OpenAI released a new set of tools to help developers build their own AI agents on OpenAI's models. It's part of the company's Responses API, which lets companies develop agents that will perform tasks such as searching the web.

🍎 Another Apple update is coming: This one is poised to change almost everything. It will reportedly include a substantial design overhaul with refreshed menus, apps, windows, and buttons, and more simplified navigation and control options.

🚗 Waymo hits more streets: Waymo has officially expanded throughout Silicon Valley. It will now offer rides in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and parts of Sunnyvale.

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: SXSW

🛠️ "AI is a tool": Mark Cuban shared his thoughts about AI at SXSW, saying that AI itself is not an answer but rather a tool that can help make it easier for founders to grow their businesses. He said founders today should spend their time learning more about AI because of its potential.

💵 Worth it: Worth, a fintech startup, has raised a $20 million seed round to provide "frictionless" onboarding services to small businesses applying for loans, financing, or other credit-based products. The company launched a year ago and has more than 25 clients.

🎉 The IPO market is coming back! Virtual physical therapist Hinge Health filed to go public, hoping to raise $500 million in its offering. The company, which is 10 years old, made $290 million in revenue last year, up 33% from the year prior.

💸 Don't fall for it: The FTC says that Americans lost $12.5 billion in scams last year, a massive jump from $2.3 billion in 2024. Social media remains one of the biggest culprits, but the most common scams seem to be people falling for bad actors pretending to be family members, technical support, or other entities.

🤖 Hugging Face is expanding its LeRobot training: The company is teaming up with AI startup Yaak. Testing of this set, which helps train autonomous robots and cars, will start this summer.

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Around the web

🗣️ Speaking out about Meta: Another ex-Facebook employee is speaking out about her time at the company. NBC News got the exclusive with Sarah Wynn-Williams and her new book, where she alleges sexual harassment at the company and speaks about Meta's pursuit of growth at the expense of human rights.

🇮🇳 Elon's global expansion continues: His company Starlink is coming to India after striking a deal with one of the country's largest telecommunication companies. Rest of World has the deets on what this all means and what happens now.