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☆ Startup funding is falling in most major cities. So why is Boston pulling ahead?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Melia Russell | Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

AdvertisementThe Bay Area took the lion's share of capital raised on Carta in 2023, followed by Boston, then New York. AdvertisementAccording to Carta data, select metro areas saw the total early-stage funding raised decline by at least a third from 2022 to 2023. Yet early-stage funding was only down 24% in Boston, however, the smallest decrease of the metro areas that Carta tracks. According to Carta data, about $2.6 billion of capital raised in biotech flowed to Boston startups last year. Beyond biotechThe Carta data shows Boston also had strong showings across investment in software-as-a-service and hardware.

Persons: —, Zach Weinberg, Roche, Carta, Founders, that's, Rudina Seseri, Seseri, Peter Walker, Michael Greeley, Greeley, Mark Castleman, Castleman, Clement Cazalot, Cazalot, Walker Organizations: Service, Massachusetts Turnpike, Partners, Business, Carta, Boston, East Coast, Companies, Area, Flare Capital Partners, pharma, Intel Ignite, Glasswing Ventures, Founders, Machinery, Pritzker Group, Armory Square Ventures, Way Ventures, Klaviyo's, New York Stock Exchange Locations: Boston, New York City, East, Boston , Cambridge, Newton , Massachusetts, Newark, Jersey City , New Jersey, New York, San Francisco, Bay, France, Copley

☆ Apple is shipping out jailbroken iPhones and a bunch of stickers to bug bounty hunters
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Camilo Fonseca | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewJailbreaking iPhones — essentially, hacking iOS to remove security features — is a talking point on social media again. Gergely Kalman, a security researcher, posted a photo of a "Security Research Device," or SRD, a jailbroken iPhone 14 Pro sent to him by Apple, on X (formerly known as Twitter). Apple pre-jailbreaks the devices, allowing third-party researchers to probe for vulnerabilities without worrying about being locked out. "Apple strongly cautions against installing any software that modifies iOS," the iPhone User Guide said.

Persons: —, Gergely Kalman, Kalman, Apple Organizations: Service, Apple, Business, iOS, TechCrunch Locations: Spain

☆ Marcelo Claure and Paul Judge bought SoftBank's diversity fund. Now they're trying to raise $200 million for it.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewFormer SoftBank executive Marcelo Claure and serial entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge are in the throes of raising a new $200 million fund. The past year has been transitional for the fund since Claure and Judge bought the $100 million fund from SoftBank. Since then, there haven't been any new investments, but the two are poised to capitalize on the success of the first fund and are raising the second Open Opportunity Fund. He said that limited partners' interest has been positive overall since the Open Opportunity Fund's first fund has had so much success. AdvertisementJudge said that he expects the first Open Opportunity Fund to continue to deliver "top quartile" returns to its investors over the next five to seven years.

Persons: —, Marcelo Claure, Paul Judge, It's, Claure, haven't, SoftBank —, I've, Judge, George Floyd's, Masayoshi, Shu Nyatta, Stacy Brown, what's Organizations: Service, Business, Opportunity Fund, Opportunity, Fund, Mastercard, Vista Equity Partners, Ventures, Sprint, Bicycle Capital, TechCrunch Locations: SoftBank, Atlanta, America

Zuckerberg has accumulated a long history of public apologies, often issued in the wake of crisis or when Facebook users rose up against unannounced — and frequently unappreciated — changes in its service. Whether or not the public always buys his apologies, there's little doubt that Zuckerberg finds it important to make them himself. BLINDED BY BEACONPhotos You Should See View All 45 ImagesFacebook's first big privacy blow-up entailed a service called Beacon, which the platform launched in 2007. VR TOUR OF A DISASTER ZONEZuckerberg's fascination with virtual reality long predated his decision to rename the company Facebook as Meta Platforms. That data was reportedly used to target voters during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign that resulted in Trump's election.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, “, you've, Meta's, Zuckerberg, it's, Here's, Beacon, — Zuckerberg, “ we’ve, we’ve, who'd, ”, Hurricane Maria, Trump's, Steve Bannon Organizations: FRANCISCO, Facebook, TechCrunch, Business, Yorker, Federal Trade, VR, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, Cambridge, CNN Locations: It's, Puerto Rico, Hurricane, CAMBRIDGE

☆ Cult-favorite fashion brand Selkie used AI to design its new clothes, and fans are disappointed
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Amanda Krause | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewThe cult-favorite fashion brand Selkie seems to have fallen from its pedestal after using AI to create new clothing designs. AdvertisementThey also argued that using AI goes against Selkie's message of encouraging inclusivity, "artistic self-expression," and ethical manufacturing. John Lamparski/Stringer/Getty ImagesSelkie responded to the complaints via an Instagram comment, in which the brand acknowledged that AI art is "polarizing." The rise of AI in fashion has prompted backlash against other brands and designers in the past. A fashion model also told The Guardian that AI was used to alter her appearance and make her skin appear lighter in photos, and AI Fashion Week is now an annual event.

Persons: —, Kimberley Gordon, Gordon, John Lamparski, Stringer, Selkie, Selkie's, Levi's Organizations: Service, Business, TechCrunch, Selkie, York, Guardian

☆ OpenAI drops prices on new GPT 3.5 Turbo model and announces fixes for 'laziness' in GPT 4 Turbo
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewOpenAI is set to introduce a new GPT 3.5 Turbo model — the same model used to power ChatGPT — and will lower prices on the product for the third time in the past year. GPT models teach themselves to understand the relationship between the tokens and can produce the subsequent token in a sequence, according to OpenAI. GPT-3.5 Turbo has become the industry standard among other AI models seeking to compete with OpenAI's accuracy and brand recognition. AdvertisementOpenAI is also introducing an updated version of the GPT-4 Turbo preview model, the company said this week. The update comes about three weeks after OpenAI reopened sign-ups for its subscription model, ChatGPT Plus, which is powered by GPT-4.

Persons: —, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Business, TechCrunch

☆ 23andMe took 5 months to realize hackers had stolen data from customer accounts
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Advertisement23andMe customer accounts were breached by hackers last year, but it took the DNA testing company five months to detect the intrusion. The company learned about the attack after stolen customer data was advertised on Reddit, as well as on the darkweb forum BreachForums, per the filing. The filing stated: "On October 10, we required all 23andMe customers to reset their password. 23andMe previously told Business Insider that the hackers gained access to customer data through " credential stuffing ." 23andMe didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Persons: 23andMe, didn't, —, 23andMe didn't Organizations: Service, TechCrunch, Business

The genetic testing company 23andMe is being accused in a class-action lawsuit of failing to protect the privacy of customers whose personal information was exposed last year in a data breach that affected nearly seven million profiles. The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in federal court in San Francisco, also accused the company of failing to notify customers with Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage that they appeared to have been specifically targeted, or that their personal genetic information had been compiled into “specially curated lists” that were shared and sold on the dark web. The suit was filed after 23andMe submitted a notification to the California Attorney General’s Office that showed the company was hacked over the course of five months, from late April 2023 through September 2023, before it became aware of the breach. According to the filing, which was reported by TechCrunch, the company learned about the breach on Oct. 1, when a hacker posted on an unofficial 23andMe subreddit claiming to have customer data and sharing a sample as proof. The company first disclosed the breach in a blog post on Oct. 6 in which it said that a “threat actor” had gained access to “certain accounts” by using “recycled login credentials” — old passwords that 23andMe customers had used on other sites that had been compromised.

Persons: 23andMe, ” Organizations: California Attorney General’s, TechCrunch Locations: San Francisco, California

☆ Don't worry — the machines won't be as smart as humans for a long time, because they've still got a lot to learn
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Much of today's most popular AI models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4, are trained on what's publicly available on the internet. It's worth noting that AI models exist today that are pretty effective at generating images, but these are text-to-image models, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Koller also sees issues with today's LLMs. This isn't the first time doubts have been raised about the capacity of today's AI models. Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunchThis is not to say today's LLMs are useless.

Persons: —, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Bill Gates, Daphne Koller, MacArthur, Koller, Neilson Barnard, chatbots, Yann LeCun, –, today's LLMs, LLMs, that's, Kai, Fu Lee, Steve Jennings Organizations: Economic, Service, Big Tech titans, Google, Microsoft, Getty, Meta Locations: Davos, Switzerland, today's, silico

☆ UiPath stock spikes more than 20% after earnings beat, generative AI integration
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Jake Piazza | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Co-founder and CEO of UiPath Daniel Dines speaks on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2019 at Arena Berlin in Berlin on Dec. 12, 2019. UiPath stock popped more than 20% on Friday, one day after the company released quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations. UiPath also raised its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2024 outlook for annual recurring revenue. For companies like UiPath that are reliant on subscriptions, annual recurring revenue is an important metric that reveals how much money a company receives on a recurring basis. "The weaving of Generative AI into its broadened automation platform, is driving strong adoption amongst enterprises," the analysts wrote.

Persons: UiPath Daniel Dines, UiPath, Davidson, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: TechCrunch, Berlin, Bank of America, CNBC PRO Locations: Berlin

☆ Two Amazon and Netflix alums have raised $1 million for their fintech startup that aims to disrupt entertainment and production financing
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Conduiit, a fintech startup that promises to save entertainment companies time and money by centralizing their production finance operations, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. He saw how production companies were using a hodgepodge of services to manage day-to-day transactions, as well as managing individual productions in silos, resulting in lost time and wasted expense. ConduiitCharging on a SaaS model, Conduiit lets production companies access all their compliance, management, accounting, and payment tools from a single platform. "There are two Black founders in a world that doesn't have a lot of them," said Glover of Hamilton and Thurman. Only about 1% of venture funding in 2022 went to Black startup founders, according to Crunchbase data analyzed by TechCrunch .

Persons: Hiro Mizushima, Shawn Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton's, Jason Thurman, who's, HBO Max, Max, John Oliver, Drew Glover, Glover, Thurman, we're Organizations: Fiat Ventures, Aperture Venture, Business, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, HBO, Jigsaw, Laylow Productions, Productions, Silicon Valley Bank, Fiat, TechCrunch Locations: Silicon, Hollywood

☆ Password authenticator Okta says hackers stole names and email addresses of all its customer support users
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Okta said hackers stole a report with names and email addresses of all customer support users. Those users face an "increased risk of phishing," the password authenticator said in a blog. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . But in a blog post Wednesday, Okta said hackers stole a report that included the names and email addresses of "all Okta customer support system users." A group of hackers called Lapsus$ extortion group accessed a customer support engineer's account in January 2022 and shared screenshots of Okta's systems, per the report.

Persons: Okta, —, David Bradbury, Bradbury Organizations: Service, FedEx, P, TechCrunch Locations: San Francisco

☆ Forbes built a hall of shame for all the questionable people on its 30 Under 30 lists
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Plenty of people on the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists have turned out to be not quite so shiny. AdvertisementThe Forbes "30 Under 30" lists celebrate the achievements of young people making a mark in a range of sectors. Its "hall of shame" starts – appropriately enough – with Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX cofounder who was on the 30 Under 30 finance list in 2021. Caroline Ellison was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list last year. Outside the 30 Under 30 finance class, the gun rights activist Cody Wilson also makes the hall of shame.

Persons: Forbes, Sam Bankman, Martin Shkreli, —, Mark Zuckerberg, FTX, Fried, Caroline Ellison, Eduardo Munoz Alvarez Martin Shkreli, Craig Ruttle, Charlie Javice, Frank, JP Morgan Chase, Javice, Morgan, She's, Nate Paul, Lucas Duplan Clinkle, Lucas Duplan, Peter Thiel, Andreesen Horowitz, Cody Wilson, Kelly West, Steph Korey, James O'Keefe, Prendergrast, she's Organizations: Forbes, Service, Prosecutors, Justice, TechCrunch, Business, Reuters, Project Veritas, The City Magazine Locations: Alameda

☆ Elon Musk's Neuralink raises more cash ahead of human trials next year
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Neuralink has raised another $43 million, per an SEC filing, as it faces mounting scrutiny. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel's Founders Fund led the latest round, TechCrunch reported. AdvertisementElon Musk's controversial brain implant company Neuralink has raised more funding as it gears up to start human trials. The latest round was led by billionaire investor Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, TechCrunch reported. The latest funding round comes as Elon Musk faces further criticism over the deaths of monkeys that Neuralink used to test its chips.

Persons: Neuralink, Peter Thiel's, —, Elon, Elon Musk, Gary Gensler, Musk, Luke, Optimus, Neuralink didn't Organizations: SEC, Fund, TechCrunch, Service, Elon, Responsible Medicine, Business

☆ 'Black Twitter' asks 'What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?' in the wake of ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Monica Melton | Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Sam Altman's high-profile firing has drawn comparisons to Timnit Gebru's exit from Google. Some tech observers and "Black Twitter" asked: "What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?" Sam Altman's shocking ouster— and reinstatement — to OpenAI drew comparisons to Steve Jobs's exit and eventual return to Apple . But a less obvious comparison has been drawn that asks the question: "What if Sam Altman was a Black Woman?" Advertisement"What If Sam Altman Were A Black Woman?

Persons: Sam Altman's, Sam Altman, —, OpenAI, Steve Jobs's, Timnit, Altman, wasn't, Gebru's, Googlers, Jeff Dean, WVBvXJZwh0 — Daniel, @growing_daniel, Eric Schmidt —, Kimberly Bryant, Bryant, TechCrunch's Dominic, Madori Davis, Greg Brockman, z5Dc1BbhbQ — Taylor Poindexter, @engineering_bae, aren't, Émile Torres, Black, Gebru, Torres Organizations: Google, Service, Apple, Microsoft, Tech, Black Locations: America, OpenAI

☆ Nadella's handling of the OpenAI situation is a 'poker move for the ages', says Wedbush's Dan Ives
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailNadella's handling of the OpenAI situation is a 'poker move for the ages', says Wedbush's Dan IvesConnie Loizos, TechCrunch editor-in-chief, and Dan Ives, Wedbush managing director, join 'Closing Bell Overtime' to talk Sam Altman returning to OpenAI, what this means for the company moving forward and what it means for the AI space as a whole.

Persons: Wedbush's Dan Ives Connie Loizos, Dan Ives, Wedbush, Sam Altman Locations: OpenAI

☆ Who are OpenAI's new board members as Sam Altman returns?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria Acquire Licensing RightsNov 22 (Reuters) - ChatGPT-maker OpenAI on Tuesday said it reached an agreement for Sam Altman to return as CEO days after his ouster, and also agreed in principle to partly reconstitute the board of directors that had dismissed him. Bret Taylor, formerly co-CEO of Salesforce and Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, along with Quora CEO and current director Adam D'Angelo will be part of the board, OpenAI said. Here's what we know about them:* Taylor, 43, is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur, who is also a board member at Shopify (SHOP.TO). Taylor will chair the OpenAI board* Summers, 68, is an American economist who has served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001* A professor at Charles W Eliot University, Summers is also President Emeritus at Harvard* Summers is also on the board of Jack Dorsey's Block Inc (SQ.N) and Skillsoft Corp (SKIL.N)* D'Angelo, 39, is an American internet entrepreneur, best known as founder of California-based social question-and-answer website and online knowledge market Quora* A Computer Science graduate, D'Angelo was previously CTO of Facebook for nearly two years till June 2008(Sources: TechCrunch, Reuters reporting and LinkedIn)Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Nivedita BhattacharjeeOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Sam Altman, Carlos Barria, OpenAI, Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, Adam D'Angelo, Taylor, Charles, Summers, Jack Dorsey's, D'Angelo, Aby Jose Koilparambil, Anil D'Silva Organizations: Economic Cooperation, REUTERS, U.S . Treasury, Quora, Treasury, Charles W Eliot University, Harvard, Skillsoft Corp, Science, Facebook, Thomson Locations: Asia, San Francisco , California, U.S, American, Shopify, California, Bengaluru

☆ Here are the dozen brands that have paused ads on X amid ongoing crisis for Elon Musk’s platform
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —At least a dozen major brands have halted ad spending on X, formerly Twitter, since its latest advertiser exodus began last week over concerns about antisemitism and hate speech on Elon Musk’s social media platform. The ongoing exit of advertisers marks a deepening crisis for X, which was already struggling to woo brands back to the platform following Musk’s takeover last year. IBM’s decision also came after Musk had publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in a post on X earlier in the week. X also said it had made the pro-Nazi accounts identified by Media Matters ineligible for monetization, meaning ads can no longer be run on their pages. (Media Matters has vowed to fight the lawsuit from X and says it stands by its reporting.)

Persons: Axios, they’d, Musk, Apple, Linda Yaccarino, Richard Spencer, —, CNN’s Oliver Darcy, Liam Reilly, Brian Fung Organizations: New, New York CNN, Elon, Fox Sports, Ubisoft, TechCrunch, Paris, CNN, White, IBM, Media, Disney, Paramount, Comcast, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros, Media Matters, University of Michigan, D.C, National Football League Locations: New York, Washington

☆ Inflection AI's Mustafa Suleyman tells OpenAI staff 'come run with us' after 'utterly insane' weekend
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Mustafa Suleyman told OpenAI staff "come run with us" after a "utterly insane" weekend. The Inflection AI cofounder and CEO used an X post to promote his own firm and its progress. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementThe cofounder of Inflection AI weighed in on the "utterly insane" weekend experienced by its rival OpenAI and told workers to "come run with us." It's now the 2nd best LLM in the world ... & we're scaling MUCH further," Suleyman said in an X post .

Persons: Mustafa Suleyman, OpenAI, —, who's, It's, Suleyman, — Mustafa Suleyman, @mustafasuleyman, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Sam Altman, reinstates Altman, Kelsey Laymon, Marc Benioff, Eric Schmidt, Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, DeepMind Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Nvidia, Forbes, TechCrunch, Paypal, Google, Business

☆ A former venture capitalist known as Silicon Valley's 'party animal' has been convicted in a $19 million fraud case
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Polly Thompson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Michael Rothenberg became known for his rapid rise to success with his VC firm, Rothenberg Ventures. But this week he became yet another Silicon Valley star to be convicted of fraud. AdvertisementA once high-flying Silicon Valley venture capitalist, whose partying lifestyle inspired an HBO show, has been convicted of committing fraud amounting to $18.8 million. Rothenberg first rose to prominence in 2013 after raising $5 million for his venture capital management fund, Rothenberg Ventures, aged just 27. But in 2016, Rothenberg Ventures collapsed after admitting to investors it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Persons: Michael Rothenberg, Rothenberg, —, Chace Crawford's, Vox Organizations: Rothenberg Ventures, Service, HBO, US, Office, Northern, Northern District of California, Bloomberg, Rothenbergs Ventures, Golden State Warriors, San Francisco Giants, Golden Globes, TechCrunch, Rothenberg's, T, Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Wired, River Studios, Coldplay, Valley Bank Locations: Silicon, California, Northern District, Napa Valley, Hollywood, San Francisco

☆ Here are six important questions as Elon Musk faces an ever-deepening crisis over his unhinged behavior
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Elon Musk has an ever-deepening crisis on his hands. Days after the billionaire conspiracy theorist endorsed an antisemitic post on his hate-drenched platform, X, there is mounting pressure for others to take additional action against the unhinged businessman. Here are six questions about the calamity besieging X:What is Musk doing with his lawsuit against Media Matters? Earlier this year, the NFL expressed concern when a Media Matters report found its ads were appearing next to accounts belonging to racists. But it has not said a word since, even as X continued placing ads for NFL teams onto VDARE’s account.

Persons: CNN — Elon Musk, It’s, Musk, Ted Boutrous, X, ” Angelo Carusone, Will Linda Yaccarino, Lou Paskalis, Clare Duffy, Elon Musk, ” Paskalis, she’s, ‘, ” Yaccarino, Axios, TechCrunch, I’m, newsrooms, Casey Newton, ” Newton Organizations: CNN, Media Matters, Media, Hamas, AJL Advisory, NFL, The Washington Post, Financial Times, New York Times Locations: Israel

☆ Microsoft CEO Nadella 'made all the right chess moves' with OpenAI, says DA Davidson's Gil Luria
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailMicrosoft CEO Nadella 'made all the right chess moves' with OpenAI, says DA Davidson's Gil LuriaConnie Loizos, TechCrunch general manager and editor-in-chief, and Gil Luria, DA Davidson, join 'Closing Bell Overtime' to talk the abrupt departure of Sam Altman from OpenAI, Microsoft's response, and what this means for the AI space as a whole.

Persons: Nadella, OpenAI, Davidson's Gil Luria Connie Loizos, Gil Luria, DA Davidson, Sam Altman Organizations: Microsoft, TechCrunch Locations: OpenAI

☆ Layoffs keep hitting Amazon, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, and more entertainment companies — here's the list of those with recent cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Lucia Moses | Alison Brower | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"Netflix missed their numbers, and Wall Street woke up," said Paul Hardart, director of NYU Stern's entertainment, media and technology program. A wide range of companies and employees were impacted, from entertainment giants to independent production companies to Hollywood talent agencies. More consolidation among the legacy media companies and independent production companies is widely expected, which often entails job cuts. Entertainment companies will get back to staffing up, but the jobs will be in stronger growth areas like gaming, streaming, and advertising, more than in filmed entertainment programming. Here are the Hollywood companies, listed alphabetically, that have made layoffs since the summer.

Persons: Paul Hardart, Bob Iger, Joanna Sucherman, Fox, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Nadia Sinh, Companywide, Rami Malek, Mr, Dawn Olmstead, Heather McCauley, YANNIS DRAKOULIDIS, Oscar, Severance, Roku, Alison Levin, NBCUniversal, Curtis Brown, James, Jennifer Coolidge Organizations: Netflix, Disney, Business, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, NYU, Warner Bros, NBC, JLS Media, Entertainment, Hollywood, Amazon Studios, Studios, Talent, Variety, CAA, ICM Partners, DreamWorks Animation, Apple, NETFLIX, Nasdaq, TechCrunch, Starz, CNBC, Lionsgate, LIonsgate, UTA, Hollywood Reporter, Fletcher & Company, Co, HBO Locations: Hollywood, Australia

☆ Confessions of a startup founder's wife
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +20 min

I wished I had told Kyle that I would understand if he wanted to quit. That's as apt a description of Kyle's startup as it is of our relationship. I'm not sure Kyle has found as many perks to being a startup founder married to a startup reporter. Now Kyle's startup has pivoted a third time. The truth is, I don't know if Kyle's startup will make it.

Persons: Kyle, Kyle shrugged, pang, I'd, hadn't, Scott Belsky, It's, messier, I've, he'd, Jillian, Chris Dixon, Andreessen Horowitz, Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, Schulze, TikTok, Josh Cochran, Marc Andreessen, I'm, He'd, Eric Paley, Steve Jobs, —, Playbyte, he's, Rohan Seth, Paul Davison, Steve Huffman, hasn't, Instagram, it's, Zelda, That's, cradling, Melia Russell Organizations: Apple Watch, Steam, Francisco's Mission, University of California, TechCrunch, White House, YouTube, Labor Locations: Champagne, Francisco's, Berkeley, San Francisco, New York, America, Playbyte, Kyle, Boston, Bay, sobs

☆ Billionaire hedge fund boss Ken Griffin says remote working makes it easier for companies to fire people
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Tom Carter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ken Griffin said that remote working was weakening the "social contract" of companies. Major US firms are pushing back against remote working and telling workers to return to the office. AdvertisementKen Griffin has warned that working from home will make it easier for companies to fire people. Griffin also warned that remote working was having a negative impact on corporate culture, pointing to the stories of so-called "Zoom firings" that became notorious during the pandemic. "We have all read about companies that are firing thousands of people on Zoom calls," Griffin said.

Persons: Ken Griffin, —, Griffin, Vishal Garg, Garg, Jane Organizations: Citadel, Bloomberg, Major, Service, Meta, TechCrunch Locations: America

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