Techmeme
August 20, 2024, 7:20 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
PitchBook: seven banks' ~$13B loans to Musk to buy Twitter have been “hung” for two years, weighing on balance sheets, the worst buyout for banks since 2008-09  —  Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, bringing in interest payments but weighing on banks' balance sheets
OpenAI:
OpenAI launches fine-tuning for GPT-4o, which lets developers customize a version of the model with their own datasets to improve domain-specific performance  —  Fine-tune custom versions of GPT-4o to increase performance and accuracy for your applications  —  Today, we're launching fine-tuning …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana says Waymo is now giving 100K+ paid robotaxi rides every week in LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix, a few months after passing 50K+  —  Waymo disclosed Tuesday it's now giving more than 100,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across its three main commercial markets in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix.
CNBC:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Flight tracking site FlightAware, which claims 10M+ monthly users, reports a breach dating back to January 2021 that exposed names, SSNs, addresses, and more  —  Flight tracking site FlightAware has blamed a “configuration error” for exposing a raft of personal information of its customers …
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
Condé Nast makes a multiyear deal with OpenAI, letting ChatGPT and SearchGPT surface stories from The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and Wired  —  The media company joins The Atlantic, Axel Springer, Vox Media, and a host of other publishers who have partnered with OpenAI.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches a single unified Teams app that allows switching between work, personal, and education accounts on Windows and Mac  —  Microsoft is finally launching a single unified Microsoft Teams app that will allow you to switch between personal and work accounts.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
In a letter to investors, Bolt says its finalizing a $450M Series F at a $14B valuation, but the deal terms are bewildering and hard to believe  —  The financial technology company told investors that it is raising at a $14 billion valuation.  That's hard to believe.  —  ∙ Paid
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Writers and journalists Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Johnson sue Anthropic for misusing “hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books” to train Claude  —  Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has been hit with a class-action lawsuit in California federal court …
Daniel Tencer / Music Business Worldwide:
The AGs of 10 states join the US DOJ's antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster; 39 states, plus DC, are now part of the lawsuit  —  The attorneys general of 10 states have joined the US Department of Justice (DoJ)'s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break off Live Nation …
Bloomberg:
Chinese-made, Tencent-backed game Black Myth: Wukong became Steam's second most popular title ever within hours of its launch, gaining 2.1M+ concurrent players  —  - The made-in-China blockbuster surpasses Cyberpunk play record  — Monkey King epic on track to set records for concurrent gamers
Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to make the most expensive iPhone models in India for the first time, as Foxconn rushes to produce iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max in India  —  - Plan shows Apple making further progress with India assembly  — Company is shifting output to India to diversify beyond China

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Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
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Big Technology Podcast:
Sam Altman: How OpenAI Wins, AI Buildout Logic, IPO in 2026?
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Access:
Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour
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Lenny's Podcast:
The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
"Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What's Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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More News

Samantha Cole / 404 Media:
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:

Earlier Picks

Kamil Kowalcze / Bloomberg:
Connor Jones / The Register:
Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:
Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal: