Crunch Hype

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It seems darkly funny, now, that anyone ever dared to dream that tech would be different. But we did, once. We would build new companies in new ways, was the thinking, not like the amoral industrial behemoths of old. The corporate villains of 90s cyberpunk were fresh in […]

Sending severed heads, and even more PR DON’Ts I wrote a “master list” of PR DON’Ts earlier this week, and now that list has nearly doubled as my fellow TechCrunch writers continued to experience even more bad behavior around pitches. So, here are another 12 things of what not to do when pitching a startup: […]

This week, I published a piece called the “The master list of PR DON’Ts (or how not to piss off the writer covering your startup).” The problem, of course, with writing a “master list” is that as soon as you publish it, everyone takes the opportunity to point out all the (hopefully) long-tail stories that […]

We’re barely more than 24 hours away from what’s widely expected to be the most spectacular and devastating battle that we’ve seen on “Game of Thrones,” but before then, the Original Content podcast revisits last weekend’s episode, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” In the past, we’ve tended to discuss TV shows in a more […]

In The Division 2, the answer to every question is a bullet. That’s not unique in the pervasively violent world of gaming, but in an environment drawn from the life and richly decorated with plausible human cost and cruelty, it seems a shame; and in a real world where plentiful assault rifles and government hit […]

The last year has been the worst on record in the US for measles outbreaks since the disease was declared ‘eradicated’ in 2000. Even though vaccination rates across the country are still high, (according to the CDC) there remains some communities where disinformation campaigns which claim that ‘vaccines are dangerous’ (often called ‘anti-vaxx’ campaigns) have […]

The only job named in and protected by the U.S. constitution is journalism. But when it’s under attack from fake news, misinformation, and the supposed defender-of-the-constitution-in-chief, who looks out for the press? Reporters have an unlikely ally in the late night comedy circuit. Late night television has a steady stream of male comedians ready to […]

Last week we held our third annual robotics event at UC Berkeley. It’s my favorite TechCrunch event, and this year’s was our best show to date. We had some amazing conversations with a number of the top names in robotics and artificial intelligent, demoed some incredible robots and broke some exciting news about the future […]

The antitrust argument that says big tech needs breaking up to stop platforms abusing competition and consumers in a two-faced role as seller and (manipulative) marketplace may only just be getting going on a mainstream political stage — but startups have been at the coal face of the fight against crushing platform power for years. […]

The San Francisco Bay Area is a global powerhouse at launching startups that go on to dominate their industries. For locals, this has long been a blessing and a curse.

Most of us don’t know what a geometric modeling kernel or solid modeling kernel is, but every CAD or design application uses one to create shapes. It’s the underlying infrastructure that allows someone to do the math of CAD design. Just putting a hole in an object or blending lines or removing a corner requires […]

In this week's newsletter: Uber, Slack and the evolving Series A.

Tesla, Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached an agreement Friday that will give the CEO freedom to use Twitter —within certain limitations — without fear of being held in contempt for violating an earlier court order. Musk can tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

I wrote a lot about the Galaxy Fold here. After a week with the device, I was left with mixed feelings independent of the whole ongoing display saga. The TLDR; of it is the story of a first-generation device that’s full of promise but still a bit clunky and prohibitively priced. Of course, the real […]

Earlier today, agents from the FBI searched the offices of uBiome, the medical testing company that sells analyses of an individual’s microbiome — the bacteria that live in the gut, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The FBI is reportedly investigating uBiome’s billing practices, the WSJ reported. “I can confirm that special […]

Several recent court decisions have changed the landscape of California’s competition law, concluding that employee non-solicitation provisions are per se invalid. These cases have major implications both for mature companies relying on such provisions to preserve their talent pool, and for startups and other companies looking to attract the best people from their competitors.

If Magic Leap fails, the skeptics will at least have to admire the AR startup’s keen ability to raise vast amounts of capital. The company announced today that it has locked down another $280 million in a deal with Japan’s largest mobile operator, Docomo. The deal brings the company’s ever-swelling total cash raised to $2.6 […]

Uber’s announcement of its IPO pricing earlier today came with a $500 million belated Easter egg. The payments giant PayPal is making a half-billion-dollar investment in the company, paying $47 per share, which gives the company a valuation of $78.8 billion (in the middle of the range of Uber’s IPO pricing of $44-$50 per share). […]

Low-income Americans can file their taxes for free, but odds are they ended up paying anyway. ProPublica found that tax-filing giant Intuit is deliberately concealing search results for its free filing service, instead pointing all consumers toward its paid products. While users visiting TurboTax’s homepage will be greeted with what looks like free tax software, […]

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Facebook hit with three privacy investigations in a single day First came a probe by the Irish data protection authority looking […]

E3’s just over a month away, and per usual, the news in the lead up has offered more insight into what we won’t be hearing about at the big gaming show. Late last year, Sony announced that it would be skipping its big annual press conference at the event. The move marks a key absence […]

Media center app Plex today is rolling out new features to expand upon its partnership with TIDAL, the streaming music service it began working with last November. Before, Plex subscribers could fill in the missing albums from artists in their library by way of TIDAL, but this option was only available within playlists. Now it’s […]

If free nations demand companies store data locally, it legitimizes that practice for authoritarian nations, which can then steal that data for their own nefarious purposes, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He laid out the threat in a new 93-minute video of a discussion with Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari released today as part […]

Amidst the newly minted scooter unicorns, ebbs and flows of bitcoin investments and wagers on the price of Uber's IPO, another trend has shaken up the tech industry: enterprise software successes.

Whenever a security startup lands on my desk, I have one question: Who’s the chief security officer (CSO) and when can I get time with them? Having a chief security officer is as relevant today as a chief marketing officer (CMO) or chief revenue boss. Just as you need to make sure your offering looks […]

Go to Google (don’t worry, I’ll wait). Type in “Thanos.” Click the little cartoon Infinity Gauntlet on the right side. Now sit back in horror as Evil Space Grimace snaps half of your search results into dust in the wind. Call it an Easter egg or Snap Engine Optimization. It’s a fun little promotion for the […]

Facebook’s VP of global affairs and communications, Nick Clegg, today said the social network — likely in response to pressure from European officials — is “open” to changing its rules on election advertising for European Union elections that will take place on May 23, by allowing cross-border campaigning rather than requiring those running ads in […]

Sam Altman's little brother Jack is an entrepreneur, too. And yes, his startup is a YC grad.

On the one hand, you’ve got Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lamenting the “like” button’s existence, and threatening to just kill the thing off entirely for incentivizing the wrong kind of behavior. On the other hand, you have twttr — Twitter’s prototype app where the company is testing new concepts including, most recently, a way to […]

Is your early-stage startup ready for prime time? Do you have what it takes to step onto the Main Stage at Disrupt San Francisco 2019 and compete in Startup Battlefield? Show us what you’ve got and apply here today. In our premier startup pitch competition, you’ll go up against some of the best early-stage startups and compete for […]

Yesterday Amazon managed to beat Wall Street’s already optimistic expectations with another record quarterly revenue report. In amongst its victory laps, the company announced intentions to shift its free two-day Prime shipping to one day. The move has been a Holy Grail for the company, which has already pushed parcel services and its own fulfillment […]

Amazon’s cloud computing unit is making further inroads into Asia after it opened a data center in Hong Kong this week, adding to the seven existing locations where it currently operates across Asia Pacific and China. The new entry will likely give the American giant a leg up in its regional battle with Alibaba’s cloud […]

Slack has filed to go public via a direct listing. Similar to what Spotify did last year, this means that the company won’t have a traditional IPO, and will instead allow existing shareholders to sell their stock to investors. The company’s S-1 filing says it plans to make $100 million worth of shares available, but […]

Amazon is prepping a high-fidelity music streaming service for a launch by year-end, according to a report from Music Business Worldwide — a site which also accurately reported Amazon’s recent launch of the free, ad-supported Amazon Music service for Echo device owners. As for the high-fidelity service, the plan is to charge around $15 per […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

In what seems like a historic moment in crypto, New York State Attorney General (NYSAG) office has announced that it is investigating iFinex, the company behind exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin Tether, over an alleged $850 million fraud. Attorney General Letitia James’ office said on Thursday that it is looking how the company (apparently) lost $850 million […]

Uber, the transportation-on-demand behemoth, today filed its much-anticipated updated S-1 today where it announced that it would be pricing its initial public offering at $44-50 per share. Selling 180 million common shares, Uber plans to raise between $7.9 billion and $9 billion ahead of its public debut on the NYSE, valuing it at $84 billion — […]

China’s Ctrip, the world’s second largest online travel company, is doubling down on India after it announced a deal to increase its ownership of travel company MakeMyTrip to nearly half. Ctrip will boost its ownership of MakeMyTrip, which is listed on the Nasdaq like Ctrip, to 49 percent through an exchange deal that sees Naspers, the […]

London-based startup Wheely has raised a $15 million Series B round led by Concentric with Oleg Tscheltzoff, Misha Sokolov and other investors also participating. The company wants to build an Uber competitor focused on the luxury market. It’s a bit ironic when you think about it as Uber started as a luxury company. But everybody […]

RosieReality, a startup out of Zürich developing consumer augmented reality experiences, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by RedAlpine. Other backers include Shasta Ventures, Atomico Partners Mattias Ljungman and Siraj Khaliq (both of whom invested in a personal capacity), and Akatsuki Entertainment Fund. Founded in early 2018, RosieReality’s first AR experience is designed […]

It’s official: Nikkei, the Japanese media firm that owns the FT, has confirmed that it has acquired Singapore-based new media startup Deal Street Asia. (The Nikkei announcement is buried behind a paywall — make of that what you will!) The deal is undisclosed, but the announcement does confirm a TechCrunch report from last month which […]

Facebook is cracking down on services that promise to help Instagram users buy themselves a large following on the photo app. The social network said today that it has filed a lawsuit against a New Zealand-based company that operates one such ‘follower-buying service.’ The suit is in a U.S. court and is targeting the three […]

China’s biggest ecommerce company Alibaba was again on the U.S. Trade Representative’s blacklist over suspected counterfeits sold on its popular Taobao marketplace that connects small merchants to consumers. Nestling with Alibaba on the U.S.’s annual “notorious” list that reviews trading partners’ intellectual property practice is its fast-rising competitor Pinduoduo . Just this week, Pinduoduo founder […]

Honestbee, the online grocery delivery service in Asia, is nearly out of money and trying to offload its business. The company has held early conversations with a number of suitors in Asia, including ride-hailing giants Grab and Go-Jek, over the potential acquisition of part, or all, of its business, according to two industry sources with […]

The never-ending quest to kill Comcast is poised to receive some renewed investment as an ambitious startup readies to secure some new cash. Starry, a Boston-based wireless broadband internet startup, has filed to raise up to $125 million in Series D funding according to a Delaware stock authorization filing uncovered by Pitchbook. If Starry closes […]

Carbon is issuing new shares at a valuation of $2.5 billion.

Amazon announced today that it has beat Wall Street’s already optimistic Q1 projections. The e-commerce giant’s revenues have slowed a bit, contributing to moderate fluctuations in after-hours trading, but the company greatly benefits by ever-increasing profit margins. Net income for the quarter hit $3.6 billion, a new record for the company. Much of those inflated […]

Over the past few months, Sinemia has gone from promising MoviePass competitor to the source of frustration for moviegoers across the country. After rumors surfaced earlier this week that it would be backing away from its troubled subscription-based movie ticket offering, it posted official word tonight that it will be shutting down operations in the […]

Uber is reportedly looking to sell shares between $44 to $50, aiming to raise $8 to $10 billion in the offering. This would value the company between $80 billion to $90 billion, Bloomberg reports. Previous reports had pegged Uber’s valuation at around $120 billion. Still, that valuation is higher than its last valuation of $76 […]