Technology
OpenAI unleashes GPT-4, SVB files for bankruptcy, and a PE firm acquires Pornhub


Welcome to Week in Review, folks, TechCrunch’s regular recap of the week in tech. GPT-4, OpenAI’s text- and image-understanding AI, might’ve dominated the headlines over the past few days. But fresh drama around Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse emerged as well.
We cover all that and more in this edition, so grab a coffee and settle in.
Quick note, TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 is fast approaching. It’ll be in Boston on April 20 and will feature three concurrent tracks of founder-forward workshops, case studies and deep dives with experts in tech entrepreneurship. Further down the line, mark your calendar for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which will take place in San Francisco on September 19– 21. As always, it’ll be jampacked with roundtables, firesides, Q&As and showcases from luminaries in their fields. You won’t want to miss it.
Now, on to the news.
most read
OpenAI debuts GPT-4: After much anticipation, OpenAI, the AI startup with major backing from Microsoft, has released a powerful new AI model called GPT-4. GPT-4 can generate text and accept image and text inputs — an improvement over its predecessor, which only accepted text — and performs at “human level” on various benchmarks. But GPT-4 isn’t perfect. Like most other generative text AI, the model “hallucinates” facts and makes reasoning errors — sometimes with great confidence.
Microsoft goes all-in on AI: Leveraging the latest tech from OpenAI, including GPT-4, Microsoft launched new AI-powered features across its suite of productivity tools under the brand Copilot. Copilot handles different tasks depending on the app in which it’s used. For example, in Word, Copilot writes, edits, summarizes and generates text; in PowerPoint and Excel, Copilot turns natural language commands into designed presentations and data visualizations; and in Power Apps, Copilot helps refine ideas for low-code software.
SVB files for bankruptcy: One week after trading was halted for SVB Financial and after regulators took control of the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank and other subsidiaries, SVB Financial has taken the next inevitable step. On Friday, the bank announced that it has formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. This will mean that SVB Financial can apply — and plans to apply — to the courts to resume activities while finding buyers for its assets, which include going ahead with its plan to sell off SVB Securities and SVB Capital.
YouTube TV gets pricey: In a move sure to irk cord cutters, YouTube has announced that it’s raising the price of its YouTube TV subscription to $72.99 per month — an $8 increase from the current $64.99 monthly fee. The Google-owned company blames a rise in “content costs” for the change. (Perhaps not coincidentally, YouTube TV recently announced a streaming deal with NFL Sunday Ticket, which is reportedly worth $2 billion per season.)
Via acquires Citymapper: Transportation startup Via, which recently raised $110 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, has snatched up Citymapper, the London startup that produces the popular urban mapping app of the same name. Originally making a name for itself as an alternative to apps like Google Maps for consumers planning journeys in metropolitan areas using public transportation, Citymapper arguably never really managed to capitalize on its momentum and early promise.
Baidu’s ChatGPT rival flails: In other AI news this week, Ernie Bot, Chinese search giant Baidu’s answer to ChatGPT, underwhelmed. TechCrunch wasn’t able to try it, but industry observers inside and outside China pointed to the fact that rather than showcasing Ernie through a live demo, Baidu opted for a lengthy presentation with pre-recordings of Ernie’s answers. The company’s shares slumped as much as 10% in Hong Kong following Li’s presentation.
Pornhub meets private equity: MindGeek — owner of several adult entertainment sites, including Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP). The acquisition follows a rocky few years for the porn giant. MindGeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo both departed from the company in June 2022. MindGeek also is currently in the midst of multiple lawsuits that allege it has knowingly profited off of child sexual abuse material.
Dish customers in the dark: Dish customers are still looking for answers two weeks after the U.S. satellite television giant was hit by a ransomware attack. In a public filing published on February 28, Dish confirmed that ransomware was to blame for an ongoing outage and warned that hackers exfiltrated data, which “may” include customers’ personal information, from its systems. But Dish hasn’t provided a substantive update since, despite customers continuing to experience issues — and not knowing if their personal data is at risk.
audio
TechCrunch’s stable of quality podcasts grows by the hour. (Rejoice, those with long commutes.) This week on Equity, Alex and Natasha discussed the M&A spree that captured Qualtrics, Cvent, and Mint Mobile, as well as what’s followed the SVB collapse, GPT-4 and why Y Combinator is scaling back from late stage. Over at Found, meanwhile, Amanda and Darrell spoke with Teddy Solomon, the co-founder of Fizz, a social media app aimed at college students focusing on building community on campus. The interview touched on what Gen Z is looking for in their social media, how to thoroughly moderate a platform like Fizz and how this kind of community building could go far beyond colleges.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
Rethinking points of failure: Natasha M writes about how, in light of the SVB collapse, perhaps founders should rethink entrusting a single person to lead their business to success. She polled a number of early-stage founders who are building companies that have raised a Series A or less to understand how they think about succession. The consensus is that it’s not top of mind, or even top of the list, in a world where founders are more focused on runway, product-market fit and growth.
Strange things afoot at Unearthly Materials: Tim reports on Unearthly Materials, a startup that claimed to have big-name investors behind its tech that could lead to a superconductor breakthrough. But as it turns out, those investors weren’t all on board, especially given Unearthly Materials’ questionable record.
Good news for software companies: Depressed from this week in news? Alex writes that it isn’t all doom and gloom. Some software companies are performing quite well during the wider tech industry crash — at least, if their earnings reports are anything to go by.
Technology
Tesla more than tripled its Austin gigafactory workforce in 2022


Tesla’s 2,500-acre manufacturing hub in Austin, Texas tripled its workforce last year, according to the company’s annual compliance report filed with county officials. Bloomberg first reported on the news.
The report filed with Travis County’s Economic Development Program shows that Tesla increased its Austin workforce from just 3,523 contingent and permanent employees in 2021 to 12,277 by the end of 2022. Bloomberg reports that just over half of Tesla’s workers reside in the county, with the average full-time employee earning a salary of at least $47,147. Outside of Tesla’s factory, the average salary of an Austin worker is $68,060, according to data from ZipRecruiter.
TechCrunch was unable to acquire a copy of the report, so it’s not clear if those workers are all full-time. If they are, Tesla has hired a far cry more full-time employees than it is contracted to do. According to the agreement between Tesla and Travis County, the company is obligated to create 5,001 new full-time jobs over the next four years.
The contract also states that Tesla must invest about $1.1 billion in the county over the next five years. Tesla’s compliance report shows that the automaker last year invested $5.81 billion in Gigafactory Texas, which officially launched a year ago at a “Cyber Rodeo” event. In January, Tesla notified regulators that it plans to invest another $770 million into an expansion of the factory to include a battery cell testing site and cathode and drive unit manufacturing site. With that investment will come more jobs.
Tesla’s choice to move its headquarters to Texas and build a gigafactory there has helped the state lead the nation in job growth. The automaker builds its Model Y crossover there and plans to build its Cybertruck in Texas, as well. Giga Texas will also be a model for sustainable manufacturing, CEO Elon Musk has said. Last year, Tesla completed the first phase of what will become “the largest rooftop solar installation in the world,” according to the report, per Bloomberg. Tesla has begun on the second phase of installation, but already there are reports of being able to see the rooftop from space. The goal is to generate 27 megawatts of power.
Musk has also promised to turn the site into an “ecological paradise,” complete with a boardwalk and a hiking/biking trail that will open to the public. There haven’t been many updates on that front, and locals have been concerned that the site is actually more of an environmental nightmare that has led to noise and water pollution. The site, located at the intersection of State Highway 130 and Harold Green Road, east of Austin, is along the Colorado River and could create a climate catastrophe if the river overflows.
The site of Tesla’s gigafactory has also historically been the home of low-income households and has a large population of Spanish-speaking residents. It’s not clear if the jobs at the factory reflect the demographic population of the community in which it resides.
Technology
Launch startup Stoke Space rolls out software tool for complex hardware development

Stoke Space, a company that’s developing a fully reusable rocket, has unveiled a new tool to let hardware companies track the design, testing and integration of parts. The new tool, Fusion, is targeting an unsexy but essential aspect of the hardware workflow.
It’s a solution born out of “ubiquitous pain in the industry,” Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa said in a recent interview. The current parts tracking status quo is marked by cumbersome, balkanized solutions built on piles of paperwork and spreadsheets. Many of the existing tools are not optimized “for boots on the ground,” but for finance or procurement teams, or even the C-suite, Lapsa explained.
In contrast, Fusion is designed to optimize simple inventory transactions and parts organization, and it will continue to track parts through their lifespan: as they are built into larger assemblies and go through testing. In an extreme example, such as hardware failures, Fusion will help teams connect anomalous data to the exact serial numbers of the parts involved.

Image credit: Stoke Space
“If you think about aerospace in general, there’s a need and a desire to be able to understand the part pedigree of every single part number and serial number that’s in an assembly,” Lapsa said. “So not only do you understand the configuration, you understand the history of all of those parts dating back to forever.”
While Lapsa clarified that Fusion is the result of an organic in-house need for better parts management – designing a fully reusable rocket is complicated, after all – turning it into a sell-able product was a decision that the Stoke team made early on. It’s a notable example of a rocket startup generating pathways for revenue while their vehicle is still under development.
Fusion offers particular relevance to startups. Many existing tools are designed for production runs – not the fast-moving research and development environment that many hardware startups find themselves, Lapsa added. In these environments, speed and accuracy are paramount.
Brent Bradbury, Stoke’s head of software, echoed these comments.
“The parts are changing, the people are changing, the processes are changing,” he said. “This lets us capture all that as it happens without a whole lot of extra work.”
Technology
Amid a boom in AI accelerators, a UC Berkeley-focused outfit, House Fund, swings open its doors


Companies at the forefront of AI would naturally like to stay at the forefront, so it’s no surprise they want to stay close to smaller startups that are putting some of their newest advancements to work.
Last month, for example, Neo, a startup accelerator founded by Silicon Valley investor Ali Partovi, announced that OpenAI and Microsoft have offered to provide free software and advice to companies in a new track focused on artificial intelligence.
Now, another Bay Area outfit — House Fund, which invests in startups with ties to UC Berkeley — says it is launching an AI accelerator and that, similarly, OpenAI, Microsoft, Databricks, and Google’s Gradient Ventures are offering participating startups free and early access to tech from their companies, along with mentorship from top AI founders and executives at these companies.
We talked with House Fund founder Jeremy Fiance over the weekend to get a bit more color about the program, which will replace a broader-based accelerator program House Fund has run and whose alums include an additive manufacturing software company, Dyndrite, and the managed app development platform Chowbotics, whose most recent round in January brought the company’s total funding to more than $60 million.
For founders interested in learning more, the new AI accelerator program runs for two months, kicking off in early July and ending in early September. Six or so companies will be accepted, with the early application deadline coming up next week on April 13th. (The final application deadline is on June 1.) As for the time commitment involved across those two months, every startup could have a different experience, says Fiance. “We’re there when you need us, and we’re good at staying out of the way.”
There will be the requisite kickoff retreat to spark the program and founders to get to know one another. Candidates who are accepted will also have access to some of UC Berkeley’s renowned AI professors, including Michael Jordan, Ion Stoica, and Trevor Darrell. And they can opt into dinners and events in collaboration with these various constituents.
As for some of the financial dynamics, every startup that goes through the program will receive a $1 million investment on a $10 million post-money SAFE note. Importantly, too, as with the House Fund’s venture dollars, its AI accelerator is seeking startups that have at least one Berkeley-affiliated founder on the co-founding team. That includes alumni, faculty, PhDs, postdocs, staff, students, dropouts, and other affiliates.
There is no demo day. Instead, says Fiance, founders will receive “directed, personal introductions” to the VCs who best fit with their startups.
Given the buzz over AI, the new program could supercharge House Fund, the venture organization, which is already growing fast. Fiance launched it in 2016 with just $6 million and it now manages $300 million in assets, including on behalf of Berkeley Endowment Management Company and the University of California.
At the same time, the competition out there is fierce and growing more so by the day.
Though OpenAI has offered to partner with House Fund, for example, the San Francisco-based company announced its own accelerator back in November. Called Converge, the cohort was to be made up of 10 or so founders who received $1 million each and admission to five weeks of office hours, workshops and other events that ended and that received their funding from the OpenAI Startup Fund.
Y Combinator, the biggest accelerator in the world, is also oozing with AI startups right now, all of them part of a winter class that will be talking directly with investors this week via demo days that are taking place tomorrow, April 5th, and on Thursday.
-
Interviews2 years ago
Interview with Jean-Francois Desormeaux, Real Estate Investor
-
Technology10 months ago
Amplio helps companies find components when supply chain breaks down
-
Business News1 year ago
NFTMagazine.com Is Bringing NFTMag Conference 2022 to Miami this Year Says JetSetFly
-
Technology1 year ago
General Atlantic buys out SoftBank’s 15% stake in edtech Kahoot, now valued at about $152M vs the $215M SoftBank ponied up 2 years ago
-
Interviews10 months ago
Interview with Justice Mitchell, A 16-year-old Student-Athlete Who Received a Basketball Scholarship Offer from Pennsylvania University Greater Allegheny
-
Interviews1 year ago
Paying it Forward — Meet Dr. Jonathan Kenigson, the Founder of the World’s Leading Think-Tank in the Quadrivium
-
Entrepreneurship2 years ago
600% In Under 5 Years, Financial Advisors Grow Business By Podcasting And YouTube
-
Entrepreneurship2 years ago
Muminovic Benjamin E-commerce on Shopify the Course of the Business Man