The Daily Crunch – Spoken Edition

Why choose fossil fuels or electricity when you can have both? NOC Energy has figured out how to hybridize heavy industry. Also, Runway's CEO says AI could help studios make dozens of films for the cost of one, betting volume will boost hit-making odds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

LinkedIn says hiring is down 20% since 2022, but blames higher interest rates — not AI — for the slowdown. Also, Allbirds is ditching wool sneakers for AI servers, rebranding as NewBird AI after locking in a $50M convertible financing facility. Plus, Gizmo, an AI-powered learning platform, has attracted more than 13 million users and just secured $22 million in Series A funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anything is planning to launch a desktop companion app to aid mobile app development after its App Store removal. Also, Amazon on Tuesday agreed to buy satellite company Globalstar, known for powering Apple's "Emergency SOS" feature, for $11.57 billion in cash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber employees can now hail a Lucid robotaxi as part of the testing. Also, Chicago-based music superfan Aadam Jacobs has been recording the concerts he goes to since the 1980s, amassing an archive of over 10,000 tapes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The OpenAI CEO's new blog post responds to both an apparent attack on his home and an in-depth New Yorker profile raising questions about his trustworthiness. Also, the report is particularly surprising since the Department of Defense recently declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andy Jassy's annual shareholder letter reads something like a diss track to a wide range of competitors as he defends spending $200 billion in capex. Also, Radify Metals is developing a new way to process a variety of metals that promises to be pollution free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This incident has brought negative attention to the new technology. Also, Canva says the acquisitions add strengths in agentic AI, data infrastructure, marketing automation, and customer engagement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic bulked up its compute deal with Google and Broadcom as the company has seen its run-rate revenue surge to $30 billion. Also, family offices are bypassing VCs to gain direct exposure to AI startups, turning them from passive investors into active participants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI proposes taxes on AI profits, public wealth funds, and expanded safety nets to address job loss and inequality, blending redistribution with capitalism as policymakers debate AI's economic impact. Also, Iran said it will target U.S.-linked data centers with new missile strikes, as the war between the U.S. and Iran escalates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Democratic congressman had harsh criticism for Polymarket for allowing users to bet on the date the U.S. would confirm the rescue of Air Force service members shot down over Iran. Plus, it's about to become more expensive for Claude Code subscribers to use Anthropic's coding assistant with OpenClaw and other third-party tools. And, Tesla's headcount fell from 21,191 workers to 16,506 workers in 2025, according to a report, as it grappled with its second straight year of declining sales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that the use of Paragon spyware is necessary to counter terrorists' “thriving exploitation of encrypted communications platforms.” Also, Tesla's deliveries in the first quarter were just 6% higher than last year, and Tesla now faces a third straight year of falling sales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonder profiles are completely unstructured, encouraging users to build something that looks like a mood board or a digital collage Think MySpace rather than LinkedIn. Also, Anthropic executives said it was an accident and retracted the bulk of the takedown notices. And passengers in Baidu's robotaxis were trapped for up to two hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FedEx recently announced a partnership with Berkshire Gray as the company works with external players to develop its automation tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI's decision last week to shut down Sora, its AI video-generation tool, just six months after releasing it to the public raised immediate suspicions. The app had invited users to upload their own faces — so was this some kind of elaborate data grab? Also, Mantis takes disparate sources of data to make synthetic datasets that can be used to build so-called "digital twins" of the human body, representing anatomy, physiology and behavior. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While there's been plenty of debate about AI sycophancy, a new study by Stanford computer scientists attempts to measure how harmful that tendency might be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's what we know, and what you need to know, about Coruna and DarkSword, two advanced iPhone hacking tools discovered by security researchers. DarkSword has now leaked online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hours after announcement of the new policy Elon Musk said X is pausing the rollout. Also, Sift is building the data infrastructure for advanced manufacturing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Agile Robots will incorporate Google DeepMind's robotics foundation models into its bots while collecting data for the AI research lab. Also, Ultrahuman pushes back into the U.S. with Ring Pro, as Oura strengthens its lead in a market driving 60% of global demand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hackers working for Iran's government are using Telegram in hacking operations that use malware to target dissidents, opposition groups, and journalists who oppose its regime, according to the FBI. Also, in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) equated the DoD's decision to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk" as retaliation, arguing that the Pentagon could simply have terminated its contract with the AI lab. Plus, Hachette Book Group said it will not be publishing “Shy Girl” over concerns that artificial intelligence was used to generate the text. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maybe tokens really will become the fourth pillar of engineering compensation. But engineers might want to hold the line before embracing this as a straightforward win. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey posted a simple message: “just setting up my twittr”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Horizon Worlds was once a cornerstone of Meta's plans to build a social metaverse -- four years later, the company almost shut it down. Also, the U.S. cybersecurity agency urged companies to prevent access to systems used for remotely managing their fleets of employee devices after hackers broke into a major U.S. medical tech giant and remotely wiped thousands of phones and computers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patreon CEO Jack Conte says AI companies should pay creators for training data, arguing their fair use defense falls apart when they license content from major publishers. Also, Nvidia's networking business raked in $11 billion last quarter despite getting significantly less fanfare than chips and gaming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arizona's lawsuit is the latest salvo in an escalating battle between state regulators and an industry that claims it's not beholden to them. Also, Mistral Forge lets enterprises train custom AI models from scratch on their own data, challenging rivals that rely on fine-tuning and retrieval-based approaches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Memories.ai is building a large visual memory model that can index and retrieve video-recorded memories for physical AI. Nvidia announced an open enterprise AI agent platform, called NemoClaw, that is built off of viral OpenClaw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Written by Connie Loizos for TechCrunch. In 2010, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates launched a disarmingly simple campaign to get the richest people on earth to promise, publicly, to give most of their money away. The moment seemed to call for it. Tech was minting billionaires faster than any industry in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bumble's new AI assistant Bee will move the dating app beyond the swipe by matching people based on compatibility and goals. Also, founded in 2024, Vidoso uses large language models to help organizations generate marketing collateral like images, presentations, video clips, blog posts, and social media content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The National Transportation Safety Board released documents ahead of a March 31 hearing that help show how and why two drivers crashed into stationary vehicles in 2024, leading to three deaths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google has officially acquired Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion in all-cash, a full year after the companies announced the deal. This marks Google's biggest acquisition in its history. Also, Amazon's changes allow more merchants to participate in Amazon's Shop Direct program, which sends Amazon customers to other retailers' websites. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startup Hyperscale Power is developing technology that promises to shrink power transformers, freeing up precious space within data centers. Also, YouTube's AI deepfake detection tool is becoming available to politicians, journalists, and officials, letting them flag unauthorized likenesses for removal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that his company's investments in OpenAI and Anthropic will likely be its last — but his explanation may not tell the whole story. Also, if Rivian reaches its R2 sales target in 2026, it will be one of the fastest ramp-ups ever of a new EV in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Luma introduced Luma Agents, powered by its new “Unified Intelligence” models, designed to coordinate multiple AI systems and generate end-to-end creative work across text, images, video and audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A father is suing Google and Alphabet, alleging its Gemini chatbot reinforced his son's delusional belief it was his AI wife and coached him toward suicide and a planned airport attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The social media giant says that end-to-end encryption would make users less safe. Plus, TikTok says that end-to-end encryption would make users less safe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The new Audible Standard plan is $6 cheaper than the platform's existing "Premium" plan, which costs $14.95 per month. The new X chat app promises a way to send and receive messages without being distracted by your timeline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many consumers ditched ChatGPT's app after news of its DoD deal went live, while Claude's downloads grew. Also, Stripe released a preview intended to allow AI companies to easily track, pass through, and make a profit on underlying AI model fees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech workers have signed an open letter urging the Department of War to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" and instead to settle the matter quietly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As TechCrunch's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai writes, a hacking group called Department of Peace said they hacked a specific office within Homeland Security to protest ICE's mass deportation campaign, and the companies aiding it. Also, the new labels comply with regulations and allow creators to be more transparent with their followers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Six newly-created accounts made a profit of $1 million by correctly betting that the U.S. would strike Iran by February 28. TechCrunch spoke with VCs to learn what investors aren't looking for in AI SaaS startups anymore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a one-two punch of centibillion-dollar offers, the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery is over. David Ellison-owned Paramount will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix has lost. Plus, Plaid valued at $8B in employee share sale. The new valuation is a 31% increase from $6.1 billion Plaid reached in April. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The suit said Walmart mislead drivers about their possible tips and would reduce their base pay, among other things. Also, Read AI is launching Ada, which can reply with your availability and extract answers from the company knowledge base and the web. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

IDC says phone makers will ship only 1.12 billion smartphones as compared to 1.26 billion last year Also, Mistral AI lands a partnership with Accenture, the consultant that has also recently announced partnerships with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recent findings also show that video podcasting -- while popular -- is not necessarily replacing audio shows. Also, general purpose tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok are not designed for this use, making mental health professionals wary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices