Heya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the noteworthy happenings in tech over the past several days (and change).
Famed startup accelerator Y Combinator had its Demo Days, and the venture desk took it all in with an appropriately skeptical eye. You can read their day one and day two coverage, along with an AI roundup from yours truly and analysis pieces from the rest of the dogged edit team.
But the world didn’t stop turning for YC. Also this week, Microsoft and Quantinuum, a quantum computing startup, made a scientific breakthrough — or so they claim. The companies say that they were able to run thousands of experiments on a quantum computer without a single error, a feat that’s long eluded the industry.
Elsewhere, Apple could be getting into home robots. Reportedly, the company — fresh off its decision to cancel its long-in-the-works autonomous EV — has put Apple Home and AI execs on some form of robotics project for households, although many of the details have yet to be finalized.
Lots else happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR — but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
Canoo paid for its CEO’s jet: Kirsten reports that EV startup Canoo paid the rent for the CEO’s private jet — $1.7 million— in 2023. That’s double the amount of revenue the company generated that year.
AT&T leak: Phone giant AT&T has reset millions of account passcodes after a huge cache of data containing customer records was dumped online earlier this month, Zack reports.
No ChatGPT account required: OpenAI is making its flagship conversational AI, ChatGPT, accessible to everyone — even people who haven’t bothered making an account. But it won’t be quite the same experience. Devin has the story.
Microsoft unbundles: Microsoft has introduced new versions of its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscription services that exclude Teams, its business collaboration chat offering, following scrutiny from European Union regulators and complaints from rival Slack.
Funding
Ghost ghosts: Ghost Autonomy, a startup working on autonomous driving software for automaker partners, has shut down after raising nearly $220 million.
Analysis
Alphabet and HubSpot: Reuters reported on Thursday that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is exploring the possibility of buying Boston-based HubSpot, a CRM and marketing automation company with a market cap of over $33 billion. Ron explains why that’d make for strange bedfellows.
Podcasts
This week on Equity, Alex chatted about BlaBlaCar’s new credit facility (and how it managed to land it), and he discusses how PipeDreams could be onto a clever model of startup construction, GoStudent’s rebound and profitability, Hailo’s chip business and the two new brands that GGV calls home as it divvies up its operations on opposite sides of the Pacific.
And over on Found, Nick Green, the co-founder and CEO of Thrive Market, was the featured guest. Thrive is a membership-based online grocery store that focuses on natural and organic food and household products. Green spoke about how Thrive isn’t just focused on offering healthy options, but also wants to ensure that everyone has access to them — including those with SNAP and EBT benefits.
Bonus round
NSFW on X: The social media company has confirmed that authorized users on the platform can create NSFW communities, ahead of a change that’ll see all NSFW content on X filtered by default.