Welcome again to Week in Overview! We’ve obtained tons of cool stuff in your studying pleasure this week: Jeff Bezos backs EV startup Slate; a Meta whistleblower accuses the corporate of collusion; Waymo could use inside digital camera information; and rather more. Let’s get to it!
I need this: Slate, an EV startup, has the formidable purpose of constructing an inexpensive two-seater pickup truck for the engaging worth of $25,000. It’s amassed a large conflict chest in service of that purpose, backed by Jeff Bezos, and hopes to get its automobile into manufacturing as quickly as late 2026.
China collusion: Sarah Wynn-Williams, Fb’s former head of worldwide public coverage who wrote a guide about her time at Fb, testified earlier than the U.S. Senate this week. Her testimony was spicy, as you possibly can think about. In keeping with Wynn-Williams, Fb, now referred to as Meta, labored straight with the Chinese language Communist Get together to “undermine U.S. national security and betray American values,” she stated.
Wait, what? Trevor Milton, the Nikola founder who was lately pardoned after being convicted of securities fraud, is making an attempt to purchase the belongings of his former firm out of chapter. It’s unclear if every other events submitted bids for Nikola’s belongings.
That is TechCrunch’s Week in Overview, the place we recap the week’s largest information. Need this delivered as a publication to your inbox each Saturday? Enroll right here.
Information
Say “cheese”: In keeping with an unreleased model of Waymo’s privateness coverage, the self-driving automobile firm is planning to make use of information from its robotaxis, together with video from inside cameras tied to rider identities, to coach generative AI fashions. Customers will apparently have the ability to choose out.
Again, again, again once more: President Trump on Tuesday signed an government order that endorses coal for information heart energy. The federal government shall be directed to designate coal as a vital mineral and forestall the closure of some coal-fired energy vegetation, requiring them to proceed working.
Methods to be wealthy: A breach of Berkshire Hathaway-owned non-public jet firm NetJets has revealed some details about how flight attendants ought to serve Elon Musk on planes. In keeping with the information, Musk apparently isn’t “interested in conserving fuel” as a result of he “wants to fly as quickly and as direct” as potential. He additionally likes to maintain the cabin at a frigid 65 levels.
Scooping up expertise: OpenAI’s former CTO Mira Murati’s new AI enterprise, Pondering Machine Labs, has employed some distinguished names within the subject to be advisers — Bob McGrew, beforehand OpenAI’s chief analysis officer, and Alec Radford, a former OpenAI researcher behind most of the firm’s extra transformative improvements.
Dropping Dropbox: Dropbox chief buyer officer Eric Cox, who joined the corporate in 2023, is stepping down, in accordance with an SEC submitting. It’s not clear but who will exchange him.
Received HVAC on my thoughts: Nest co-founder Matt Rogers is aware of about rolling with the punches. “Nest is not necessarily doing everything that I set them out to do years ago,” Rogers instructed Tim De Chant. “It’s one of the things when you sell a company.” However Rogers hasn’t been capable of shake his obsession with HVAC.
Stick a fork in it: At a summit exploring how AI will have an effect on schooling, U.S. Secretary of Training Linda McMahon referred to AI as “A1,” just like the steak sauce. Throughout a panel, she stated “AI” at first, however grew to become more and more much less constant, main us to imagine that she is aware of the distinction and it was only a slipup. A tasty, tasty slipup.
Evaluation
$$$$$: AI itself is tremendous costly for corporations to run, however we’re discovering out that testing these fashions might be fairly pricey, too. Evaluating OpenAI’s o1 reasoning mannequin, for instance, prices $2,767. Benchmarking Anthropic’s latest Claude 3.7 Sonnet “hybrid” reasoning mannequin on the identical set of checks is $1,485.35. Evaluate that to how a lot it prices to guage OpenAI’s o1-mini ($141.22) and Claude 3.7 Sonnet’s non-reasoning predecessor ($81.41). Kyle Wiggers appears to be like at why benchmarking is getting dearer as fashions get greater and extra sophisticated.
