Friday, June 12, 2025

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! It's Ram taking over for Rebecca again. This morning, we're looking at why the backlash against Bluesky misses the point; Scale AI landing big money from Meta; Chime's early believers; why big parts of the internet went down yesterday; the Meta AI app's transparency failings, and much more. Let's get reading!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Jaque Silva/NurPhoto / Getty Images

1. There's more to the story: Bluesky is getting hammered for declining post engagement and gaining a swift reputation of being a woke echo chamber. But TC's Sarah Perez says Bluesky's social app is only one example of what's possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem. Read More

2. Investment, confirmed: Scale AI said it's received a "significant" investment — reportedly around $14.3 billion for a 49% stake — from Meta at a $29 billion valuation. The startup's co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang is stepping down from his role to join Meta on its new AI team. Read More

3. Good startups are worth it: TC's Julie Bort chronicles how VC firm Iconiq identified the worth of Chime, which IPO'd this week, early on, and didn't sell its stake for the longest time, opting to wait it out with the company's founders. "We have our shares, and we're selling in the IPO," Iconiq's Yoonkee Sul told TechCrunch. Read More

Morning Must-Reads

Image Credits: JuSun / Getty Images

🚫 Page 404: Significant portions of the internet went offline on Thursday, with infrastructure like Cloudflare and Google Cloud rendered inoperable. Cloudflare said the outage on its side lasted about 2.5 hours. Read More

⚡ From tech to energy: Seems like all the big tech companies have become energy asset companies. Meta is the latest to do so, striking a deal with startup XGS Energy to develop a 150 megawatt geothermal power plant in New Mexico. Read More

‼️ Yikes: The new Meta AI app has people unwittingly publishing their private, sensitive, and in many cases, embarrassing text conversations, audio clips, and images with the world at large. A transparency failing on Meta's part, and a privacy nightmare for users. Read More

🦅 Early bird gets the worm: Felicis is on fire. After a series of successes, the early-stage venture capital firm has raised $900 million for Fund X, its largest fund so far. Felicis has backed winners like Bonobos, Ring, Shopify, and Twitch. Read More

Around the Web

☠ It's not all sunshine and rainbows: What did you think of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's glowing post about what AI will bring us in the future? MIT Tech Review has an interesting interview with Adam Becker, a science writer and astrophysicist, who warns that the headlong rush to develop AI encouraged by billionaire tech CEOs is likely not the best thing for humanity. Read More

💲 Stablecoins are in now: Retail giants including Walmart and Amazon are said to be considering issuing their own USD-pegged stablecoins, complete with their own branding, the Wall Street Journal reports. The speculation is that this move would take billions away from banks as these companies could move to stablecoin-based payment systems. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

🔺 Cream of the crop: Y Combinator held the Demo Day for its Spring 2025 cohort, and TC's Marina Temkin has pulled up some of the most interesting startups that had investors talking. Read More