February 7, 2025

These documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda

Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government.  The payment reports have been…

Technology

What led to EV darling Proterra’s bankruptcy

August 9, 2023
Proterra, a company that develops battery systems for buses and other heavy duty EVs, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, making it the latest in a string of failures in the EV sector. While some parallels can be drawn between Proterra and other failing or defunct EV companies, this company faces specific headwinds that took […]

Messina joins Ride Home Fund’s new $15M AI vehicle, backed by Andreessen, Dixon, Crowley

August 9, 2023
Tech veteran Chris Messina and writer/podcaster Brian McCullough are launching a new $15 million fund aimed at AI startups. The backers include tech luminary investors and founders such as Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, and Dennis Crowley, who are all investing personally. McCullough has been running his Ride Home Fund for two years now, a fund […]

JB Straubel, Redwood Materials founder and Tesla board member, is headed to TC Disrupt 2023

August 9, 2023
In the world of electric vehicles, batteries and renewable energy systems, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more experienced than JB Straubel. We’re excited to welcome Straubel, founder and CEO of Redwood Materials — and Tesla’s co-founder, former CTO and newest board member — to the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which runs […]

California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo

August 9, 2023
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is scheduled Thursday to make a high-stakes vote that will determine the commercial future for autonomous vehicle technology companies Cruise and Waymo — not to mention any other AV company with aspirations to launch commercial robotaxi services in the state. Cruise and Waymo already offer limited commercial services in […]

DARPA launches two-year competition to build AI-powered cyber defenses

August 9, 2023
As a part of an ongoing White House initiative to make software more secure, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to launch a two-year contest, the AI Cyber Challenge, that’ll task competitors with identifying and fixing software vulnerabilities using AI. In collaboration with AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as Microsoft and […]

Merging physical and digital tools to build resilient supply chains

August 9, 2023
Organizations are building resilient supply chains with a “phygital” approach, a blend of digital and physical tools. In recent years, the global supply chain has been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical volatility, overwhelmed legacy systems, and labor shortages. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an industrial advocacy group, warns the disruption isn’t over—NAM’s…

Why watermarking AI-generated content won’t guarantee trust online

August 9, 2023
In late May, the Pentagon appeared to be on fire.  A few miles away, White House aides and reporters scrambled to figure out whether a viral online image of the exploding building was in fact real.  It wasn’t. It was AI-generated. Yet government officials, journalists, and tech companies were unable to take action before the…