Techmeme
March 11, 2024, 5:25 PM

Top News

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
GM, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, others have added features in their mobile apps to rate driving skills, then sent the data to brokers; some saw insurance payments jump  —  LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Elon Musk says xAI plans to open source Grok this week; xAI released Grok in November 2023, offering access to “real-time” data via X's $16/month subscription  —  Elon Musk's AI startup xAI will open source Grok, its chatbot rivaling ChatGPT, this week, the entrepreneur said …
Fortune:
Sources: a16z Crypto made a secret $100M investment in Kickstarter in 2021 that let staff and investors cash out and led to its later-abandoned blockchain pivot  —  In early December 2021, employees at the crowdfunding startup Kickstarter got news of a windfall: An investor group wanted to buy some of their shares.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Airbnb will no longer let hosts use indoor security cameras, staring April 30, citing renters' privacy; previously, cameras in common areas had been allowed  —  Airbnb will no longer allow hosts to use indoor security cameras, regardless of where they're placed or what they're used for.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU privacy watchdog EDPS says the European Commission using Microsoft 365 breached privacy rules and the EU didn't implement adequate data transfer safeguards  —  The European Commission's use of Microsoft (MSFT.O) software breached EU privacy rules and the bloc's executive also failed …
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Filing: Reddit aims to raise up to $748M in its IPO, selling ~22M shares at $31 to $34 each, for a ~$6.5B valuation; Reddit set aside 1.76M shares for its users  —  - Reddit aims to raise up to $748 million as part of its upcoming IPO, according to a corporate filing on Monday.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Authors Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O'Nan sue Nvidia over allegedly using their work to train NeMo, saying the company “admitted” to using the books  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O), whose chips power artificial intelligence, has been sued by three authors who said it used …
Alexandra Sternlicht / Fortune:
TikTok uses a non-disparagement clause in RSU contracts, perhaps to silence staff, an unusual practice; one ex-staffer claims a share buyback offer was withheld  —  Current and former TikTok employees who criticize the company risk losing any stock they own—in some cases worth millions of dollars …
More: Business Insider.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to.  Bluesky: @glynmoody.bsky.social.  X: @lexnfx.  Forums: Hacker News and r/technology
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Pavel Durov says Telegram has 900M users, aims “to become profitable next year, if not this year”, was “offered $30B+ valuations” by VCs, and is weighing an IPO  —  In rare interview, Pavel Durov says secretive messaging app is making ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ from ads business
Lauren Goode / Wired:
Q&A with Yoel Roth, just named Match Group's head of trust and safety, 16 months after his public exit from Twitter following Elon Musk's acquisition  —  Yoel Roth suffered targeted harassment after quitting as top content cop at Elon Musk's Twitter.  Now he's head of trust and safety …

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Featured Podcasts

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The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: