<p>The clock is ticking for one of our Super Early Bird sales! You have just 5 days left to lock in your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rates of the year for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Save up to $1,400 on two of the same individual ticket type. This limited-time offer ends this Friday, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has emerged as a potential challenger to U.S. AI companies, demonstrating breakthrough models that claim to offer performance comparable to leading offerings at a fraction of the cost. The company&#8217;s mobile app, released in early January, has lately topped the App Store charts across major markets including the U.S., U.K., and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Since Chinese AI company DeepSeek released an open version of its reasoning model R1 at the beginning of this week, many in the tech industry have been making grand pronouncements about what the company achieved, and what it means for the state of AI. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, for example, posted that DeepSeek is “one [&hellip;]</p>

<p>In Reid Hoffman’s new book &#8220;Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future,&#8221; the LinkedIn co-founder makes the case that AI can extend human agency — giving us more knowledge, better jobs, and improved lives — rather than reducing it. That doesn’t mean he’s ignoring the technology’s potential downsides. In fact, Hoffman (who [&hellip;]</p>

<p>We&#8217;re kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Don’t miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27 to 29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Waymo lobbyists had a busy 2024. A recent review of lobbyist disclosure data by the San Francisco Examiner revealed Waymo paid lobbyists to meet with San Francisco government officials 348 times last year, more than double the 137 times it reported in 2023. The pop in lobbyist activity is in sync with Waymo&#8217;s expansion in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Voyager Technologies has reportedly filed its confidential paperwork to go public, hoping for a $2 billion to $3 billion valuation.</p>

<p>What do AI voice agents and self-driving cars have in common? Their performance can be evaluated in the same way, argues Brooke Hopkins, a former tech lead at Waymo. Coval, Hopkins&#8217; new startup, looks to do just that. &#8220;When I left Waymo, I realized a lot of these problems that we had at Waymo were [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Stockholm startup Neko Health has made a big bet on consumers wanting to learn about their state of health and how to prevent things going wrong. Now investors are making a big bet on Neko.  The startup has raised a fresh $260 million in funding, a Series B that values Neko at $1.8 billion post-money, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that the two AI leaders, Sam Altman and Mustafa Suleyman do not care for each other.</p>

<p>Since it was founded in 2014, India-based Postman has made a name for itself as one of the most popular platforms for building and using APIs, with 500,000 organizations now using the service. Like with so many other SaaS services, though, its valuation today is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion high in 2021. But [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Since it was founded in 2014, India-based Postman has made a name for itself as one of the most popular platforms for building and using APIs, with 500,000 organizations now using the service. Like with so many other SaaS services, though, its valuation today is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion high in 2021. But [&hellip;]</p>

<p>President Trump on Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the infamous dark web exchange Silk Road, which was best known as a once-thriving online marketplace for illegal drugs. Trump announced the news in a Truth Social post, saying the pardon was in honor of Ulbricht&#8217;s mother and the Libertarian movement. In 2015, a federal [&hellip;]</p>

<p>President Trump on Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the infamous dark web exchange Silk Road, which was best known as a once-thriving online marketplace for illegal drugs. Trump announced the news in a Truth Social post, saying the pardon was in honor of Ulbricht&#8217;s mother and the Libertarian movement. In 2015, a federal [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Meta&#8217;s Reality Labs is expanding its lineup of AI smart glasses with a new pair of Oakley-branded spectacles targeted at athletes, according to Bloomberg&#8217;s Mark Gurman. Bloomberg reports the new smart glasses, with which Meta seeks to capitalize on the Ray-Ban Meta&#8217;s success, will be based on Oakley&#8217;s Sphaera glasses and will shift the camera [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Meta&#8217;s Reality Labs is expanding its lineup of AI smart glasses with a new pair of Oakley-branded spectacles targeted at athletes, according to Bloomberg&#8217;s Mark Gurman. Bloomberg reports the new smart glasses, with which Meta seeks to capitalize on the Ray-Ban Meta&#8217;s success, will be based on Oakley&#8217;s Sphaera glasses and will shift the camera [&hellip;]</p>

<p>An arena. A hype tunnel, the kind through which NBA players typically streak. A competitor dressed in a jersey patterned with six-pack abs. In a new piece, The New York Times takes readers to an event that organizers call the Microsoft Excel World Championship, a 40-minute, Las Vegas-based competition featuring 12 contestants &#8212; all of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>An arena. A hype tunnel, the kind through which NBA players typically streak. A competitor dressed in a jersey patterned with six-pack abs. In a new piece, The New York Times takes readers to an event that organizers call the Microsoft Excel World Championship, a 40-minute, Las Vegas-based competition featuring 12 contestants &#8212; all of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon more efficient, without letting their AI kill people. Today, their tools are not being used as weapons, but AI is giving the Department of Defense a &#8220;significant advantage” in identifying, tracking, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon more efficient, without letting their AI kill people. Today, their tools are not being used as weapons, but AI is giving the Department of Defense a &#8220;significant advantage” in identifying, tracking, [&hellip;]</p>