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Wait... it is Fridaa... Thursday? Will this week ever come to a close? We are all fine and looking forward to our vacation.
The TechCrunch Top 3
SpaceX employees seeing stars, and not in a good way: Thanks to a group of SpaceX employees, we now know that the company has a so-called no-asshole policy for employee behavior. This group, via an open letter, expressed their concern that leadership, in this case their fearless leader Elon Musk, should be held accountable for his Twitter behavior, Darrell reports.
Everyone loves a good map: Not sure if you’ve caught on yet, but we enjoy reporting on map technology. Ivan reports that Google Maps will now show you live traffic around you in a new Android widget. Going to have to give that a try this weekend.
The goat world tour begins: Goat Brand Labs has raised a whopping $50 million in fresh funding as the Indian direct-to-consumer brand aggregator looks to acquire more premium brands and help it scale globally, Manish reports.
Startups and VC
As Mike reported today, we are pretty excited about the news that $4 million worth of grant funding is going to 40 black-led startup across Europe. Please more of that kind of thing.
Dominic- Madori wrote a piece on why a downturn is business as usual for minority entrepreneurs. It's worth reading.
In an up-and-down market, a field guide for startup board members can be found in a piece written byConnie. It is a must-read for startup founders and board members who have not experienced a market downturn before.
Always more.
3 climate tech VCs share how they find, vet and support carbon-slashing startups
Tim De Chant interviews three people at a climate conference.
Tim De Chant spoke to three active climate tech investors about how they find new opportunities and what they are looking for at the moment.
Kiersten Stead, managing partner, DCVC Bio
Christian Garcia, partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Pae Wu, general partner at SOSV, CTO of IndieBio
To risk it on teams that we think are truly talented is what our job is.
She said that was one part of the equation. Unless there is a great market with it, the world doesn't get the benefit of anything unless it can scale.
3 climate tech VCs share how they find, vet and support carbon-slashing startups
Techcrunch+ is a membership program that helps startup teams. You can join here.
Big Tech Inc.
Normally, we get into the Big Tech news and find it fits into a few buckets, but to our delight, there were a lot of great stories that ran across a number of industries. We should dig into some.
Alex has been keeping an eye on the ugly public markets climate for a while now and waiting for it to get better and for a long list of companies poised for IPO action to pull the trigger. The company that opened the IPO window was not one that he anticipated.
Mastercard is no longer a problem in India. The country lifted its ban on the credit card giant after it found that they had complied with their data storage requirements.
It's meanwhile.
Browsing an app is soooo yesterday: Sarah writes that our smartphone’s home screen will be the next big social platform thanks to widgets and push notifications.
Tesla plays “The Price Is Right”: Weren’t electric vehicles supposed to get cheaper so everyone would be enticed to buy them? Tesla didn’t seem to get that message, and instead is increasing the prices across its lineup, Rebecca reported. I guess if you are already spending $99,990 for a Model S, spending $104,990 isn’t a stretch, but sheesh.
Samsung gets on the mobile wallet train: Aisha reported that the tech is combining Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass together under the Samsung Wallet umbrella so you can find your cards and certain car makers’ keys all in one place.
Going once, going twice: You’ve enjoyed the energy rush you get when you are the final bidder on eBay, and now you can do it live, Aisha also writes. The e-commerce marketplace is launching an interactive live shopping platform and will start with rare trading cards. Speaking of live shopping, Amazon is doing it, too, starting June 21, Ivan reported. Don’t forget to set a calendar reminder for Amazon Prime Day on July 12 and 13.
To infinity jobs and beyond: Microsoft has a new mission for its employee portal, Viva. The company is adding job support, starting with sales, so that users can find all of their tools in one centralized location, Ron writes.
Notarize, a startup that offers remote online notarization services, has let go of 110 people — or 25% of its workforce. Doing the math, the 7-year-old, Boston-based company had about 440 employees...The crypto selloff of the past several weeks has erased hundreds of billions of dollars in paper gains and is leaving plenty of had-been crypto millionaires looking for something else to hodl onto....Reddit announced Thursday that it would buy Spell, a platform for running machine learning (ML) experiments, for an undisclosed amount. Spell was founded by former Facebook engineer Serkan Piantino...Instagram announced today it will begin testing a new version of its full-screen feed, similar to TikTok’s, which aims to improve upon the way photos appear in this new format. The company sa...London-based Waymap wants to help guide visually impaired people to navigate their surroundings, and it’s starting with public transit. The company just concluded a closed two-week trial of i...On stage at TC Sessions: Climate 2022 this week, renowned climate modeling expert Dr. William Collins shared why he’s deeply skeptical of carbon offsets, and tree-based offsets in particular. Asked...The U.S. has seen monthly funding drop 36.7% through the end of May, while Europe saw a decline of 50% in the same period. But it doesn’t feel like the European market is in nearly as much of...The crypto markets buckled this week as fears of cascading failures of key blockchain finance players showed just how fragile things are for the asset class, which dipped below a $1 trillion total ...Today’s chatbots are compelling. They use AI and ML algorithms to learn, speak like people, offer solutions and basic customer support, route customers, and much more.
The company’s U.S. operations accounted for about 5% of the grocery delivery startup’s overall business.
TikTok is testing a new feature that allows users to see which of their followers have viewed their videos. On the other hand, people you follow will be able to see that you viewed their posts. A s...Ergeon, the fence-building startup founded by a licensed contractor and the co-founder of Upwork, shared the pitch deck it used to raise a $40 million Series B. In a company-wide Twitter call today, presumptive buyer Elon Musk answered questions from “tweeps” for the first time. Will the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s $44 billion offer to buy Twi...The idea of the “family” culture that businesses push for is seeping deeper into the crypto world as communities are formed on a toxic, cultish stance to unwaveringly back projects they...Firefly Aerospace is on the hunt for a new CEO, after it announced Wednesday that co-founder Tom Markusic is transitioning to chief technical advisor and full-time board member. The leadership swit...In an effort to kick-start a greater number of Black tech founders in Europe, last year Google for Startups launched a $2 million (£1.5 million) grant fund to help tackle the quite obvious and star...VCs are playing with web3 founders’ hearts, wallets and valuations as the market shifts to a VC-friendly landscape
