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Hold on to your Apple Watches, people! During WWDC 2024, Apple finally decided to transplant a brain into Siri using something they call “Apple Intelligence” (AI – get it?). Apparently he is so smart that he’ll know more about your life than you do. Tim Cook guarantees that it can all be about privacy and personal context – so intimate that even your diary could appear neglected. And guess what? The Siri overhaul means we’ll get Genmoji (yes, that is real), because I know you’ve got been longing for AI to create your emojis. Also on the menu: typing queries into Siri prefer it’s 2010 again, and “Private Cloud Compute,” which seems like tech speak for “We’re still spying on you, but in a nicer way.” Watch out for the latest wave of iMagic coming soon! Here’s every little thing announced at WWDC!
However, not everyone is excited about these announcements: In this week’s latest episode of Tech Titans Throw Tantrums, Elon Musk threatens to ban iPhones from Tesla, SpaceX and xAI over Apple’s latest ChatGPT integration. I suppose in Elon’s world, “cutting edge innovation” is corresponding to banning the hottest smartphone in the world because of an AI assistant feature that asks for permission before doing anything. Is Tim Cook shaking in his legs or is he just rolling his eyes? Answers on the postcard, plz.
Trend of the week: circling the tide
In today’s episode of “The Mighty: How They Have Fallen,” we explore the tragic story of Byju, once the darling of the $22 billion edtech industry, now value zero in the eyes of BlackRock. After missing financial goals, dealing with resignations faster than you’ll be able to say “management issues” and being publicly ridiculed by investors, Byju’s has turn out to be a cautionary tale for startups around the world.
Stick to your charts now, people! Carta, once the darling of Silicon Valley and dreaming of becoming the world’s biggest share trading ruler, will see the company’s valuation plummet from $8.5 billion to simply $2 billion – if she’s lucky. After being caught red-handed misusing customer data and exiting a secondary industrial enterprise faster than you would say “PR disaster,” it became clear that every one that glitters is not gold in startup land. With lawsuits, claims of a toxic culture and customers fleeing to larger banks, it appears Carta’s winning streak is over for good. Investors like Andreessen Horowitz should be delighted…
More bad news:
- Leaky snowflake: Buckle up, people! Here comes Snowflake’s latest PR nightmare. Despite claims of invincibility, they have suffered a rash of knowledge breaches involving big names like Ticketmaster and LendingTree. Perpetrator? A former worker’s demo account with ridiculous security. Mandiant revealed that hackers stole tons of knowledge from Snowflake customers.
- Tough times for Apple’s third-party developers: Apple WWDC 2024 – where innovation meets imitation! Brace yourselves, third-party app developers, because Apple has once again “locked down” your favorite tools. Apple is principally telling these developers, “Thanks for the idea; We’ll take it from here.”
- HR-rrrgh: HR startup Rippling apparently has a “no soup for you” policy when it involves former employees now working at competitors like Deel and Workday. Despite investor demand reaching greater than $2 billion (bags of cash), Rippling plays a gatekeeper by offering huge tender offers that only allow non-competitive former employees to money in their shares.
The most interesting collections this week
Welcome to the 2024 startup funding circus as Y Combinator firms pull off a daring latest feat – raising tiny seed rounds at sky-high valuations and no lead investors. Angels are flying in like hungry pigeons, leaving institutional investors scratching their heads and clutching their wallets. Will this dangerous move repay, or will it leave startups hanging without a safety net? Grab some popcorn; this version of the program is just starting!
Heck, Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI just scored a whopping $640 million in Series B funding. With General Catalyst at the helm, this fresh competitor in the AI arena is now valued at an incredible $6 billion. Founded by former Meta and DeepMind geniuses, Mistral goals to take on big players like OpenAI with its own shiny open-source models and gadgets. But don’t get too cozy; their high-end models are more tightly sealed than Banque de France unless you have an API pass.
- Too much money: The Italian startup scene is getting a caffeine boost with the latest Italian Founders’ Fund (IFF) throwing €50 million into the ring. In a bid to shut the funding gap for Italian startups, IFF plans to distribute money to 25 firms, raining down on early-stage founders, tourist-in-Rome-without-Google-Maps style.
- You naive ones, eat the crow: Urvashi Barooah was told she had a higher probability of finding Bigfoot than breaking into enterprise capital. Rejected from all MBA programs and ridiculed for her ambitions, she decided that the haters were just free motivational speakers: she is now a partner at Redpoint Ventures, handling their ninth $650 million fund.
- Demand for money: Meet Fizz, the debit card that guarantees to save lots of Gen Z from credit aversion. It seems that traditional banks simply cannot handle this TikTok generation. Two Harvard and Cornell graduates decided that building a financial empire was more attractive than graduating from college. Who needs degrees when you have $14.4 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins?
Other stories you’ll be able to’t miss on TechCrunch…
Welcome to a world where cats finally get the VIP treatment they deserve – Meowtel has climbed its method to profitability even as dog-obsessed VC investors turn up their noses. Founder Sonya Petcavich, inspired by her own cat guilt, took $100,000 and dreamed of making an elite cat care service. With 2,200 caregivers and over 95,000 successful sit-ins (or perhaps collars?), Meowtel proves that cats are not only second-class animals.
Moar? Moar!
- Rivian is leading the method to a less bleak future: Riding Rivian’s roller coaster through the EV landscape was much less nauseating. After combining electric pickup trucks, SUVs, delivery trucks for Amazon, and even an ambitious IPO, Rivian has finally simplified its chaotic life. But bring popcorn; The electric automotive saga is not over yet.
- Raspberry Pi goes to LSE: Who would have expected that the humble Raspberry Pi, beloved by tinkerers and hobbyists for creating low-cost, small computers, would grow up and hit the London Stock Exchange? With the company now valued at a modest £542 million (or $690 million if you like dollar numbers), its shares immediately shot up 32% because apparently everyone loves a good underdog story.
- BeDollars: BeReal, the app that convinced 40 million people to share their day by day lives without filters, just received a €500 million bailout from Voodoo. Apparently, keeping the truth didn’t mean paying the bills.
- Smartphone meets dumb phone: Tired of your iPhone’s ever-increasing IQ making you are feeling like the village idiot? Meet the Light Phone III, the phone that reduces your digital life to its minimalist core. With a shiny latest OLED screen and zero social media apps, it’s perfect for those that wish to live in denial of technology.
- To infinity… and back!: Hold on to your space helmets: SpaceX just launched the rocket equivalent of a triple axle during the latest Starship launch. Not only did they send this gigantic device into the sky, but in addition they managed to revive each the amplifier and the overhead stage. Musk’s team even threw in some heat shield antics for good measure, proving once again that rocket science is not rocket science…