Friday, April 26, 2024

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechCrunch PM. It was a busy day, what with all the Tesla and M&A action going on. Take a gander at the latest Pitch Deck Teardown and remember to get your Disrupt speaker application in by midnight. Have a good weekend!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Tesla

Government tells Tesla its Autopilot warnings don't do enough: The electric vehicle maker's executives may be wiping off their brows now that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its long-standing investigation into Tesla's Autopilot driver-assistance system. However, the work has only just begun. Read More

Inside the IBM-HashiCorp deal: Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm take a look at whether this $6.4 billion deal is a good one — and whether it is going to be more complex than originally thought. Read More

OpenAI Startup Fund raises $15 million: The OpenAI Startup Fund has a second special-purpose vehicle that will invest in early-stage, typically AI-related companies across education, law and the sciences. Read More

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Thoma Bravo takes another company private: This time it's U.K. cybersecurity company Darktrace. Paul writes that Darktrace "had previously rebuffed approaches from Thoma Bravo on the grounds that the offers were too low — something that the duo have now clearly resolved with the amended bid." I'm assuming $5 billion was an offer they couldn't refuse. Read More

Extra, extra, read all about it: Audio journalism startup Curio raised $4.4 million for Rio, an "AI news anchor" designed to help readers connect with the stories and topics they're most interested in from trustworthy sources. Read More

This is no joke: America's favorite satirical news publication The Onion has a new owner. He's the co-founder and former CEO of Twilio, and he's ready to help it make a change for the better. Read More

Pitch Deck Teardown: Young companies have to start somewhere. Read what Haje had to say about NOQX's $200,000 pre-seed deck. Read More

That's fake: Apple's claim that its App Store is trustworthy was tested this week when RockAuto, an auto parts dealer popular with home mechanics and other DIYers, asked for an imposter app to be removed from the App Store. You can pretty much guess what happened since we are writing about it. Read More

Google wants to practice its English: Google is testing a new "Speaking practice" feature in Search that helps global users improve their conversational English skills. Read More

Want to speak at Disrupt? Time is running out: Applications close at midnight. Read More

Around the web

Alphabet shares soar: CNBC reports Google's parent company saw shares shoot up 10% Friday following the announcement of better-than-expected first-quarter earnings and the approval of its first-ever dividend. Happiness is all around. A Barclays analyst wrote, "Google is in the sweet spot of accelerating growth, expanding margins while shipping product faster, and returning capital — basically proving the naysayers wrong." Read More

Intel is having a terrible, no good, very bad year: MarketWatch gets into Intel's less-than-stellar earnings and what it means for the chip maker's future. Read More

No one wants to pay for an Apple Vision Pro: Probably not a shocker to you that folks aren't lining up to separate themselves from $3,500. Even the Forbes reporter writes that "the price-tag alone was going to kill this thing before it ever had a chance to make a splash." What did Apple do? Slashed the number of shipments by half. Read More

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Rabbit's R1 vs. Humane's Ai Pin — which had the best launch?: In the battle between the Ai Pin and R1, and who will reign supreme, it will likely come down to preference. And how much you have in your wallet. Hit play and let's chat!