Welcome, my friends, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the week in tech. This edition is a bit bittersweet for me – it will be my last (for a while anyway). Soon I will turn my attention to a new AI-focused newsletter, which I am very excited about. Stay tuned!
Now let’s move on to the news: this week, Google dismissed staff from its Flutter, Dart and Python teams weeks before its annual I/O Developers Conference. In total, 200 people were laid off across Google’s “core” teams, which included those working on application platforms and other engineering roles.
Elsewhere, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gutted the company’s team responsible for overseeing its Supercharger network in a new round of layoffs – despite the recent victory of major automakers like Ford and General Motors. The cuts are so comprehensive that Musk suggested in an email that they would force Tesla to slow the expansion of the Supercharger network.
And UnitedHealthcare CEO Andrew Witty told a House subcommittee that the ransomware gang that hacked US healthtech giant Change Healthcare – the subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare – used a set of stolen credentials to access Change Healthcare systems that were not protected by the multi-factor authentication. Last week, UnitedHealthcare said hackers stole health data on a “substantial proportion of people in America.”
Many other things happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR — but first, a reminder to register to receive the WiR newsletter in your mailbox every Saturday.
News
Hallucinations, hallucinations: OpenAI faces another privacy complaint in the EU. This one – filed by a non-profit privacy organization No on behalf of an individual complainant – targets the inability of its AI chatbot ChatGPT to correct the misinformation it generates about individuals.
Get out…of Sam’s Club: Sam’s Club customers who pay either at checkout or via the Scan & Go mobile app can now exit the store without their purchases being double-checked. Technology, revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, is now deployed in 20% of Sam’s Club locations.
TikTok circumvents Apple’s rules: TikTok presents some users with a link to a website to purchase the coins used to tip digital creators on the platform. Typically, these coins must be purchased via an in-app purchase – which requires a 30% commission paid to Apple – suggesting that TikTok may be attempting to circumvent Apple’s App Store rules.
NIST GenAI Platform: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that develops and tests technologies for the U.S. government, businesses and the general public, has launched NIST GenAI, a new program to evaluate technologies of generative AI, including text and image-generating AI.
Getir withdraws: Getir, the fast trading giant, has pulled out of the US, UK and Europe to focus on its home country Turkey. The company – once valued at nearly $12 billion – said the move would impact thousands of full-time and full-time workers.
Analysis
In the “cold war” of Techstars: Dom’s brilliant reporting lifts the lid on a year of financial losses and job cuts at startup accelerator Techstars, whose CEO Maëlle Gavet has been a controversial force for change.
AI-powered coding: Yours truly takes a look at Copilot Workspace, a sort of evolution of Copilot, GitHub’s AI-powered coding assistant, into a more general tool, building on recently introduced features such as Co-pilot catwhich allows developers to ask questions about code in natural language.
