Meta’s vanilla Maverick AI model ranks below rivals on a popular chat benchmark
Earlier this week, Meta landed in hot water for using an experimental, unreleased version of its Llama 4 Maverick model to achieve a high score on a crowdsourced benchmark, LM Arena. The incident prompted the maintainers of LM Arena to apologize, change their policies, and score the unmodified, vanilla Maverick.
Turns out, it’s not very competitive.
The unmodified Maverick, “Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct,” was ranked below models including OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro as of Friday. Many of these models are months old.
The release version of Llama 4 has been added to LMArena after it was found out they cheated, but you probably didn’t see it because you have to scroll down to 32nd place which is where is ranks pic.twitter.com/A0Bxkdx4LX
— ρ:ɡeσn (@pigeon__s) April 11, 2025
Why the poor performance? Meta’s experimental Maverick, Llama-4-Maverick-03-26-Experimental, was “optimized for conversationality,” the company explained in a chart published last Saturday. Those optimizations evidently played well to LM Arena, which has human raters compare the outputs of models and choose which they prefer.
As we’ve written about before, for various reasons, LM Arena has never been the most reliable measure of an AI model’s performance. Still, tailoring a model to a benchmark — besides being misleading — makes it challenging for developers to predict exactly how well the model will perform in different contexts.
In a statement, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that Meta experiments with “all types of custom variants.”
“‘Llama-4-Maverick-03-26-Experimental’ is a chat optimized version we experimented with that also performs well on LMArena,” the spokesperson said. “We have now released our open source version and will see how developers customize Llama 4 for their own use cases. We’re excited to see what they will build and look forward to their ongoing feedback.”
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The most interesting startups showcased at Google Cloud Next
Google held its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas this week, where it announced dozens of new features like its next generation AI processing chip, called Ironwood, and its latest AI model Gemini 2.5 Flash.
It also announced a long list of AI startups that have signed to use its cloud. Among them are some of the most watched startups in the world. As we previously reported, this list includes Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the startup founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
It also includes:
Anysphere, which makes the uber popular AI-powered code editor Cursor. Google says Cursor is using Anthropic’s Claude models on Google Cloud. Cursor was recently valued at $10 billion, sources have told TechCrunch. Its biggest rival is probably GitHub CoPilot, so that would make Microsoft one of its top competitors.
Hebbia uses AI to search large documents and answer questions, which has made it a hit in the legal industry. Andreessen Horowitz led, while Index Ventures, Google Ventures, and Peter Thiel participated in its $130 million Series B. It is using Google’s Gemini models, Google says.
Magic is building frontier models to automate coding as well as research. Its choice of Google Cloud is likely somewhat obvious, given that its 2024 $320 million fundraising round included Alphabet’s CapitalG and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as investors. It’s tapping Google Cloud for GPUs, according to Google.
Physical Intelligence is working on developing foundational software for robots and has a who’s-who roster of co-founders, including solo investor extraordinaire Lachy Groom. It raised $400 million at a $2 billion pre-money valuation in November from backers including Sequoia, Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital. A few of its founders have deep ties to Google, having previously worked at Google DeepMind, including Karol Hausman and Chelsea Finn.
Photoroom is one of the hottest AI startups in Paris, Europe’s center of AI. It offers AI photo editing and is using Google Cloud’s Veo 2 video generating model and its text-to-image model Imagen 3 model.
Synthesia is building products that make highly realistic AI avatars and is using various Google models. It raised $180 million at a $2.1 billion round in January led by NEA but with GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) among the investors.
All in all, Google Cloud is collecting an impressive list of startups to bolster its race against Microsoft Azure, and to some extent AWS, for AI workloads.
In addition, Google announced that it added Lightspeed to VC partners in addition to Sequoia and Y Combinator. Google Cloud grants portfolio companies from its partner investors access to its AI chips and models. Lightspeed’s AI portfolio companies can qualify for $150,000 in cloud credits, Google said. So it has plans to convince even more rising star startups to join its cloud.
Here are the rest of the AI startups that Google showcased this week:
- Augment Code – AI software coding agent.
- Autoscience – scientific research AI agents.
- Big Sur AI – personalized recommendations for ecommerce
- Captions – talking video creator and video editor
- Eon.io – autonomous enterprise backup and recovery
- fal is – Text to image, and image to video
- Spot AI – AI for security cameras
- Story – blockchain for storing and licensing intellectual property
- Studyhall AI – Coaches students on reading, writing, and exam prep
- Ubie – Japanese healthcare symptom analyzer
- Udio – music creation
- Ufonia – agent for clinical healthcare consultations with patients
- Wagestream – financial wellbeing platform built by charities
- Wondercraft, GenAI realistic audio content
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Meta adds Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and Dina Powell McCormick to its board
Banking executive and former presidential advisor Dina Powell McCormick and Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison are joining the board of Meta, according to a report from Axios.
Powell McCormick spent 16 years in several leadership roles at Goldman Sachs. She also served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald J. Trump during his first administration. Collision started digital payments giant Stripe, which was valued at $91.5 billion earlier this year, with his brother John in 2010.
The appointments are seen as a broader move by Meta to “expand its board to include more global business experts” at a time “the company looks to curry favor with the Trump administration” ahead of an antitrust trial that begins Monday, reported Axios.
Collison previously served on Meta’s advisory group. Powell McCormick is new to Meta. Their appointments will be effective April 15.
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Law professors side with authors battling Meta in AI copyright case
A group of professors specializing in copyright law has filed an amicus brief in support of authors suing Meta for allegedly training its Llama AI models on e-books without permission.
The brief, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, calls Meta’s fair use defense “a breathtaking request for greater legal privileges than courts have ever granted human authors.”
“The use of copyrighted works to train generative models is not ‘transformative,’ because using works for that purpose is not relevantly different from using them to educate human authors, which is a principal original purpose of all of [authors’] works,” reads the brief. “That training use is also not ‘transformative’ because its purpose is to enable the creation of works that compete with the copied works in the same markets – a purpose that, when pursued by a for-profit company like Meta, also makes the use undeniably ‘commercial.’”
In the case, Kadrey v. Meta, authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates have alleged that Meta violated their intellectual property rights by using their e-books to train models, and that the company removed the copyright information from those e-books to hide the alleged infringement. Meta, meanwhile, has claimed not only that its training qualifies as fair use, but that the case should be dismissed because the authors lack standing to sue.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria allowed the case to move forward, although he dismissed part of it. In his ruling, Chhabria wrote that the allegation of copyright infringement is “obviously a concrete injury sufficient for standing” and that the authors have also “adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed CMI [copyright management information] to conceal copyright infringement.”
The courts are weighing a number of AI copyright lawsuits at the moment, including The New York Times’ suit against OpenAI.
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38 consumer startup founders lobby over Trump tariffs: One faces a surprise $200K bill
Small businesses could be crushed under President Trump’s increased tariffs, according to an open letter by 38 female consumer product founders.
While Trump paused his tariff increases for 90 days for various countries – setting the rate at 10% for now – China’s was raised to 145%, which includes the previous 20% levy.
In the letter, published Thursday, these founders urged Trump and Congress to back off the tariff increases, at least until small businesses can find affordable supply chain alternatives. Short of that, they want exemptions for small businesses.
The letter was written by Allison Luvera, founder of Juliet Wine, a startup that sells upscale boxed wine direct to consumers. Luvera tells TechCrunch that she faces a surprise $200,000 bill, annually, because she’s buying a key packaging component from overseas and has no U.S. alternative.
The letter documents a few other such problems, such as a home-cleaning brand that must source its refillable pouches from overseas for lack of immediate U.S. options. Tariffs threaten to increase the costs of that bit of packaging by 80%.
The group of 38 say their businesses generate $800 million annually, employ thousands, and source supplies from both domestic and international manufacturers. They point out that tariffs land more heavily on small businesses.
“Unlike large corporations, small businesses lack the leverage to renegotiate supply chain contracts, the margins to absorb steep costs increases, or the capital required to rapidly reconfigure global supply chains,” Luvera wrote.
This group wants other small business owners – and anyone else concerned about the economic impact – to help them lobby Congress. They’re asking for a small business assessment – so the government knows the impact. Ideally, they would like small businesses to be exempt from such tariff increases. Failing that, they are lobbying for “grants, tax incentives, or technical assistance” in helping U.S. small businesses solve their supply chain pain caused by Trump’s trade policies.
Among the signatories is designer Rebecca Minkoff and Alison Wyatt of the Female Founder Collective. Others include: Emily Doyle and Mei Kwok of Dune Suncare and Yanghee Paik of Rael.
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TechCrunch Mobility: Jeff Bezos backs a secretive EV startup and Lucid snaps up Nikola’s assets
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!
Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. If there is one certainty in this uncertain moment, it’s this: U.S. tariff policy is likely to change again. As of Friday morning, there is a 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs placed on most countries. However, 10% base tariffs remain and President Trump has ratcheted up tariffs against China to about 145%.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives slashed his price targets for Apple and Tesla because tariffs threaten to disrupt both businesses.
However, they’re hardly the only U.S. companies expected to feel the pain — and then decide whether to pass that along to customers. The pause on higher tariffs placed on goods imported from Mexico and Canada provides relief to the transportation sector. However, the sector, particularly any EV companies using LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries, are highly exposed thanks to the outsized tariffs placed on China imports.
We’ll be following the tariffs issue closely, the effects of which won’t bear out for months.
A little bird
Nearly a year ago, a little bird gave us a tip that sparked a months-long hunt for more information about a secretive EV startup called Slate Auto. And boy, did we discover a lot. Senior reporter Sean O’Kane has all of the details in this story, including that Jeff Bezos is backing the company, along with other high-profile backers like Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the LA Dodgers and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, and Thomas Tull, who is a lead investor of Re:Build Manufacturing.
But there is so much more, including Slate’s origin story and its business model, as well as a second story that confirms a recent spy shot of its first product, an EV pickup truck.
Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at [email protected], or Rebecca Bellan at [email protected]. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.
Deals!
Welp, I have to admit I did not see this deal coming. I’m talking about Lucid Motors buying up some of Nikola’s assets out of bankruptcy.
Yes, Nikola founder and former CEO Trevor Milton, who was convicted of securities fraud and recently pardoned by President Trump, wanted those assets. Milton was met with a frosty reception. But Lucid was the winner, after committing around $30 million in cash and non-cash considerations in exchange for the factory, Nikola’s lease on its Phoenix headquarters, and “certain machinery, equipment and inventory,” according to a filing.
Other deals that got my attention …
Ayan Capital, which provides halal vehicle financing serving private hire and business drivers seeking halal alternatives to purchasing low-carbon emission cars, raised £25 million ($32.6 million) in Sharia-compliant financing from institutional debt provider Partners for Growth.
Nowos, a European lithium-ion battery repair and maintenance startup, raised €6 million in a round led by impact venture fund Shift4Good, with participation from Dutch investors Fair Capital Impact Fund and Goeie Grutten Impact Fund. An additional €3 million in debt financing is currently being raised.
Nuro, the California-based autonomous vehicle startup, secured $106 million in a Series E round. The raise, which was a down round, brings Nuro’s total funding raised to $2.2 billion and its valuation to $6 billion. That’s a drop from the $8.6 billion post-money valuation Nuro secured after its $600 million Series D in 2021. Backers in this round are mostly existing institutional investors, including T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global Management, Greylock Partners, and XN LP — as well as strategic partners.
Parallel Systems, which is developing autonomous, electric freight technology, raised a $38 million Series B round led by Anthos Capital with participation from Collaborative Fund, Congruent Ventures, and Riot Ventures, among others.
Notable reads and other tidbits
ADAS
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has made cuts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that “disproportionately affected” employees working on vehicle automation safety.
Nissan plans to use automated driving software developed by Wayve to beef up its advanced driver-assistance system starting in 2027.
Autonomous vehicles
Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong.
Meanwhile, a Waymo robotaxi in Santa Monica caused a traffic jam at a Chick-fil-A after getting stuck at the entrance of the drive-through.
Zoox is deploying a small fleet of retrofitted test vehicles on the streets of Los Angeles.
Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries
Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila can buy the bankrupt EV startup’s assets, a judge ruled this week.
Elon Musk’s political activities, which have fueled global Tesla Takedown protests, are affecting the company’s sales. Used Tesla listings have skyrocketed. And other brands, which still lag far behind Tesla in total sales, are seeing an uptick. For instance, Polestar sales jumped in Q1 on discounts like its “Tesla conquest” bonus.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Nikola founder Trevor Milton accused of trying to derail bankruptcy case
A court hearing on the sale of bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola’s assets to Lucid Motors was going smoothly on Friday. No objections had been filed to the transaction, and Delaware bankruptcy Judge Thomas Horan verbally approved it without hesitation.
Until, that is, a lawyer piped up on the Zoom call towards the end of the hearing.
The lawyer said his client “has some concerns” about the way the auction process was run. Those could be addressed at a later date, he said, but he stressed he didn’t want his client’s silence to “be held against us in the future.”
The lawyer was representing ISSO LLC, an entity that Nikola’s founder Trevor Milton has been using to evaluate a bid for his former company’s assets. As part of that process, he was already barred by Nikola from touring its Arizona factory — a decision that Judge Horan stood by last week.
While the approval of the sale to Lucid was breezy, the late appearance by Milton’s representative was an ominous sign that he is not done poking at his former company.
Fresh off a pardon from President Donald Trump, which helped him avoid serving a four-year prison sentence, it’s possible that Milton could try to fight a $168 million arbitration award he was ordered to pay Nikola last year.
That arbitration award remains a key component of Nikola’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Ahead of the bankruptcy, Nikola was able to settle a class action lawsuit by shareholders related to the false claims Milton made while serving as CEO of the company. But it was able to do so by promising to distribute that arbitration award to those shareholders.
Nikola also still has some assets it hopes to sell following the Lucid transaction. Lucid purchased the Coolidge, Arizona factory and the Phoenix headquarters lease, plus manufacturing equipment. It will also hire 300 or so Nikola employees. But Nikola is still holding onto its inventory of hydrogen-powered big rigs and other assorted equipment.
Joshua Morris, a lawyer for Nikola, said in the hearing he was not surprised ISSO and Milton “would want to try and taint these proceedings.”
“This is a pattern of behavior that we’ve seen over and over,” Morris said. “We believe these are baseless assertions. When asked for any evidence or any specificity, none was provided. We think your honor should view these with a jaundiced eye.”
Morris went on to say that he believes Milton’s participation in the sale process appears to be “an attempt to continue to harm the company for a benefit that I can’t quite ascertain.”
He added that Milton may be casting a pall on the sale process in hopes of impacting that arbitration award.
“Perhaps the play is to render [Nikola] desperate for support cash so that the committee [of unsecured creditors] forces the debtor to attempt or accept some low ball settlement proposal,” he said. “We just know that we believe we ran the sale process with an openness and involved all parties.”
The lawyers left things there and let the hearing come to a close. A spokesperson for Milton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Blue Water Autonomy comes out of stealth promising autonomous naval ships
A new ship-building startup called Blue Water Autonomy has emerged from stealth with the promise of developing captain-less naval ships.
The Boston, Massachusetts-based company has raised a $14 million seed round from Eclipse VC, Riot, and Impatient Ventures. The startup was founded in 2024 by former members of the U.S. Navy, leaders of Amazon Robotics, and iRobot.
Blue Water Autonomy joins an ever-growing list of startups that are taking advantage of a splurge in defense investment. Defense tech funding set a new record in 2024, led by Anduril’s $1.5 billion Series F round and Saronic — another autonomous maritime startup that notched a $175 million Series B.
The startup says it has developed a full-stack autonomy suite and concept ship designs in “under a year.” It’s already salt-water testing a 100-ton autonomous test vessel just outside of Boston, a spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch.
The seed funding will help Blue Water Autonomy expand its engineering team and accelerate testing, according to a release.
“No other company is tackling this problem at the ship level like Blue Water,” Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse, said in a statement. “The team is a rare combination of roboticists and Navy veterans that positions them to be a critical partner to the Navy, the entire Department of Defense, and will have a major impact on the maritime industry.”
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Ex-OpenAI staffers file amicus brief opposing the company’s for-profit transition
A group of ex-OpenAI employees on Friday filed a proposed amicus brief in support of Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, opposing OpenAI’s planned conversion from a non-profit to a for-profit corporation.
The brief, filed by Harvard law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, names twelve former OpenAI employees: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright, and Jeffrey Wu. It makes the case that, if OpenAI’s non-profit ceded control of the organization’s business operations, it would “fundamentally violate its mission.”
Several of the ex-staffers have spoken out against OpenAI’s practices publicly before. Krueger has called on the company to improve its accountability and transparency, while Kokotajlo and Saunders previously warned that OpenAI is in a “reckless” race for AI dominance. Wainwright has said that OpenAI “should not [be trusted] when it promises to do the right thing later.”
In a statement, an OpenAI spokesperson said that OpenAI’s nonprofit “isn’t going anywhere” and that the organization’s mission “will remain the same.”
“Our board has been very clear,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. “We’re turning our existing for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC) — the same structure as other AI labs like Anthropic — where some of these former employees now work — and [Musk’s AI startup] xAI.”
OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015, but it converted to a “capped-profit” in 2019, and is now trying to restructure once more into a PBC. When it transitioned to a capped-profit, OpenAI retained its nonprofit wing, which currently has a controlling stake in the organization’s corporate arm.
Musk’s suit against OpenAI accuses the startup of abandoning its non-profit mission, which aimed to ensure its AI research benefits all humanity. Musk had sought a preliminary injunction to halt OpenAI’s conversion. A federal judge denied the request, but permitted the case to go to a jury trial in spring 2026.
According to the ex-OpenAI employees’ brief, OpenAI’s present structure — a nonprofit controlling a group of other subsidiaries — is a “crucial part” of its overall strategy and “critical” to the organization’s mission. Restructuring that removes the nonprofit’s controlling role would not only contradict OpenAI’s mission and charter commitments, but would also “breach the trust of employees, donors, and other stakeholders who joined and supported the organization based on these commitments,” asserts the brief.
“OpenAI committed to several key principles for executing on [its] mission in their charter document,” the brief reads. “These commitments were taken extremely seriously within the company and were repeatedly communicated and treated internally as being binding. The court should recognize that maintaining the nonprofit’s governance is essential to preserving OpenAI’s unique structure, which was designed to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits humanity rather than serving narrow financial interests.”
Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is broadly understood to mean AI that can complete any task a human can.
According to the brief, OpenAI often used its structure as a recruitment tool — and repeatedly assured staff that the nonprofit control was “critical” in executing its mission. The brief recounts an OpenAI all-hands meeting toward the end of 2020 during which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman allegedly stressed that the nonprofits’ governance and oversight were “paramount” in “guaranteeing that safety and broad societal benefits were prioritized over short-term financial gains.”
“In recruiting conversations with candidates, it was common to cite OpenAI’s unique governance structure as a critical differentiating factor between OpenAI and competitors such as Google or Anthropic and an important reason they should consider joining the company,” reads the brief. “This same reason was also often used to persuade employees who were considering leaving for competitors to stay at OpenAI — including some of us.”
The brief warns that, should OpenAI be allowed to convert to a for-profit, it might be incentivized to “[cut] corners” on safety work and develop powerful AI “concentrated among its shareholders.” A for-profit OpenAI would have little reason to abide by the “merge and assist” clause in OpenAI’s current charter, which pledges that OpenAI will stop competing with and assist any “value-aligned, safety-conscious” project that achieves AGI before it does, asserts the brief.
The ex-OpenAI employees, some of whom were research and policy leaders at the company, join a growing cohort voicing strong opposition to OpenAI’s transition.
Earlier this week, a group of organizations, including non-profits and labor groups like the California Teamsters, petitioned California Attorney General Rob Bonta to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit. They claimed the company has “failed to protect its charitable assets” and is actively “subverting its charitable mission to advance safe artificial intelligence.”
Encode, a non-profit organization that co-sponsored California’s ill-fated SB 1047 AI safety legislation, cited similar concerns in an amicus brief filed in December.
OpenAI has said that its conversion would preserve its non-profit arm and infuse it with resources to be spent on “charitable initiatives” in sectors such as healthcare, education, and science. In exchange for its controlling stake in OpenAI’s enterprise, the nonprofit would reportedly stand to reap billions of dollars.
“We’re actually getting ready to build the best-equipped nonprofit the world has ever seen — we’re not converting it away,” the company wrote in a series of posts on X on Wednesday.
The stakes are high for OpenAI, which needs to complete its for-profit conversion by the end of this year or next or risk relinquishing some of the capital it has raised in recent months, according to reports.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
GM cuts 500 jobs because of weak demand for BrightDrop electric vans
General Motors is laying off 500 workers at a factory in Canada because of weak demand for its all-electric BrightDrop vans, according to CNBC.
GM told CNBC that the cuts were not related to the ongoing trade war being waged by President Donald Trump. The company is cutting one of the two shifts at the CAMI plant in Ontario, and will idle the facility for 20 weeks beginning in May.
The cuts are the newest twist in BrightDrop’s short but somewhat tumultuous history. It created BrightDrop as a separate entity within GM in 2021, but absorbed it in 2023. In 2024 BrightDrop’s vans suffered a recall after a few battery fires. Later last year, GM moved BrightDrop under the Chevy brand.
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ChatGPT became the most downloaded app globally in March
ChatGPT became the world’s most downloaded app in March, excluding games, topping the usual contenders for the No. 1 spot, Instagram and TikTok. This is the first time the app has topped the monthly download charts and ChatGPT’s biggest month ever. According to new data, ChatGPT’s installs jumped 28% from February to March to reach 46 million new downloads during March, app intelligence provider Appfigures recently reported.
That put the app slightly ahead of Instagram, which fell to the No. 2 position. TikTok followed at No. 3.
Perhaps helping to drive installs, ChatGPT saw some notable upgrades in March, including the first major upgrade to its image-generation capabilities in over a year. This led to a viral moment for ChatGPT in late March and early April as users discovered they could generate images and memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the popular Japanese animation studio behind movies like “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.”
OpenAI also removed some safeguards around content moderation policies for images in March and upgraded ChatGPT’s AI voice feature.
Appfigures noted that ChatGPT’s installs have grown 148% year-over-year when comparing the first quarter of 2021 to Q1 2025.
However, the firm speculates that new features weren’t the main driver behind this month’s growth for the popular chatbot.
“It’s starting to feel like ChatGPT is becoming a verb, a lot like how Google did in the 2000s, to the point where many don’t think ‘AI’ but rather ‘ChatGPT,’” said Appfigures founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli. “So when there’s excitement about AI — even about competition like Grok, Manus AI, or DeepSeek — many who are not swimming in this topic come for AI but really download ChatGPT.”
Because of ChatGPT’s brand recognition, it may be harder for other AI chatbots to take off. That’s partly why Anthropic’s Claude has poorer performance on this front than ChatGPT. It’s also why Grok could do better than other ChatGPT rivals — not necessarily because it’s better, but because it has someone famous to market it with Elon Musk, and a large platform for distribution with X.
Instagram, meanwhile, had previously held the No. 2 spot across both the Apple App Store and Google Play in both January and February of this year, while TikTok remained No. 1.
To some extent, TikTok’s download growth earlier this year was driven by concerns over a potential U.S. ban, as consumers rushed to download the app in case it disappeared from the app stores. Now, that ban is on hold as President Trump aims to cut a deal with China, where TikTok parent ByteDance is based, to keep the app available to U.S. users.
Ahead of this, Instagram had regularly been beating out TikTok for the No. 1 position across global app stores, having been the No. 1 (non-game) app throughout 2024. Instagram’s popularity in the U.S. market has been growing, remaining a fave among U.S. teens.
For instance, a new survey of U.S. teens by Piper Sandler released this week found that Instagram is the most-used social app, with 87% monthly usage, compared with 79% for TikTok and 72% for Snapchat.
In March, other social apps, including those from Meta, rounded out the top charts, with Facebook and WhatsApp filling out the top five, and others like CapCut, Telegram, Snapchat, and Meta’s Threads in the top 10, alongside Temu.
In total, the top 10 apps were downloaded a collective 339 million times in March, higher than February’s 299 million.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
YouTube considers a daily timer for users looking to cut back on Shorts
YouTube is looking into potentially offering a feature that would allow users to set a daily timer to limit how long they spend on Shorts.
Recent findings from the beta version of the YouTube app, first reported by Android Authority, suggest that the platform is developing a feature to help users stop the endless scrolling through Shorts.
YouTube confirmed to TechCrunch that, while this feature is not currently being publicly tested, it is “exploring this for the future,” a company spokesperson said.
The code indicates the daily timer allows users to set a specific number of hours. Once the allotted time runs out, Shorts will pause, making it unavailable for the remainder of the day. However, there’s also mention of viewers still being able to see “individual Shorts,” meaning it doesn’t block access to all short videos entirely.
YouTube already has a “Take a Break” reminder that users can enable for regular-length videos on the platform.
YouTube’s exploration into the anti-doomscrolling area follows a growing trend among users who are downloading apps dedicated to limiting their screen time. There are even devices, such as this fob, that temporarily lock certain apps on users’ phones, highlighting the increasing concern about social media addiction. Tech giants such as Apple and Google also provide tools for users looking to manage their doomscrolling habits.
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Stripe CEO says company management regularly asks customers for ‘candid feedback’
Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get “candid feedback,” according to co-founder Patrick Collison.
In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer join for the first 30 minutes of the meeting, which is attended by about 40 leaders “from across Stripe.”
“Even though we already have a lot of customer feedback mechanisms, it somehow always spurs new thoughts and investigations,” he wrote.
It’s an interesting strategy from Stripe, which was founded in 2010 and is considered to be the highest-valued private fintech in the world (its most recent valuation was $91.5 billion).
Over the years, startups have complained anecdotally that Stripe is more focused on its larger customers than the smaller ones it set out to serve. But the company must be doing something right. Stripe’s annual letter in February penned by Collison noted that payment volume in 2024 grew to $1.4 trillion, up 38% on the year before.
Stripe also added in the letter that it is now used by half of the Fortune 100 companies, underscoring how it has catapulted from a startup working with other startups into a major enterprise player.
In the post on X, Collison responded to the Cloudflare CTO’s question of when his company would get an invite with a, “Would love to have you guys…will reach out.”
To the point of smaller businesses feeling neglected, one investor wrote: “Hi Patrick – you know I admire @Stripe – but you should pay attention to the extent things have degraded for the indie community using Stripe. I messaged support a week ago – no reply, things are super complicated. There’s more stuff, but it’s a mess.”
Many praised the move, with one user noting: “Love this. Keeps the culture focused on what matters and helps reconciles (sic) reality.”
And, naturally, some Stripe customers used the X post to post their complaints (here and here).
However, one high-profile founder seemed to approve of Stripe’s approach: Elon Musk replied to the post with a simple, “Good idea.”
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Ireland’s data regulator investigates X’s use of European user data to train Grok
Ireland’s data regulator, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), said Friday that it has opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the social media platform’s use of personal data collected from European users to train Grok.
The DPC will investigate how X processes personal data “comprised” in publicly accessible posts by European users for the purposes of training generative AI models, according to a Reuters report. The powerful Irish privacy regulator has issued fines to Microsoft, TikTok, and Meta in the past. Its fines to Meta total almost €3 billion (roughly $3.38 billion).
X quietly opted in users to sharing data with xAI, Musk’s AI company, to train its AI chatbot Grok, in 2024. Last month, Musk announced that xAI had acquired X.
Ireland’s data regulator can impose fines of up to 4% of a company’s global revenue under the EU’s GDPR rules, which require that companies have a valid legal basis for processing people’s data. The agency’s latest inquiry comes after it sought a court order last year to restrict X from processing European user data for AI training.
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Parallel Systems is building autonomous electric rail for short-distance freight
The business of moving goods in the United States is dominated by trucks, which handles about two-thirds of the 20.2 billion tons of freight that’s transported annually. Parallel Systems founder and CEO Matt Soule wants to change that by putting a modern autonomous and electric twist on the centuries-old railroad system.
The Los Angeles-based company is building battery-powered autonomous freight technology that works with existing freight cars and integrates with existing train control software. Soule’s pitch: Parallel’s system makes it less expensive for companies to use rail — not trucks — for short-distance deliveries.
Rail has been traditionally underutilized because trains are typically powered by large and expensive locomotives that pull hundreds of freight cars at a time over long distances, Soule explained to TechCrunch. Businesses often turn to trucks for moving freight shorter distances.
Parallel Systems developed a system that allows train cars to attach and detach autonomously. This means companies can use Parallel’s tech for a variety of different delivery sizes and humans don’t have to manually connect and disconnect the cars — a dangerous process. Parallel’s tech also allows freight cars to brake significantly quicker than existing trains, Soule added.
“We’re using a different physical architecture to accomplish truck competitive economics at small scale rather than big scale,” Soule said. “The vehicle itself is compatible with existing rail infrastructure. It is designed and being demonstrated to operate alongside traditional rail operations. We’re not proposing to replace existing freight trains with this.”
Parallel recently was approved by the Federal Railway Administration to start piloting the tech in Georgia. This program will allow the company to test its tech-enabled trains along a 160-mile stretch between the Port of Savannah in Savannah, Georgia and multiple distribution sites in the state.
Parallel also recently raised a $38 million Series B round co-led by Anthos Capital and Collaborative Fund with participation from Congruent Ventures and Riot Ventures, among others. This brings Parallel’s total funding to more than $100 million. The fresh capital will be put toward commercialization with the company hoping to host its initial commercial launch in 2026.
Sophie Bakalar, a partner at Collaborative Fund, told TechCrunch that while Parallel doesn’t neatly fit into its consumer-leaning generalist thesis, the firm was intrigued by the company after getting introduced through an existing founder in their portfolio.
While Collaborative Fund doesn’t invest in this area typically, shipping and the movement of goods does have a big impact on the consumer companies Collab is usually backing, said Bakalar, adding that it’s hard to pass up a good opportunity — even if it is off-thesis.
“I think this team is really uniquely-positioned to solve this problem,” Bakalar said. “Just not many folks are going to be able to do it. I think it is a team that has a founder-product fit. It is a massive market and a massive challenge.”
Soule doesn’t have a background in rail, specifically. However, he does have a history of working in regulated transportation. He spent 20 years in aerospace, 13 of which were at SpaceX.
“We were constantly developing new technologies,” Soule said. “I worked in avionics, which is electronics and software that controls the rocket and got incredibly curious about how all these technologies could benefit other types of industries that have maybe not seen as much innovation.”
He launched the company in 2020 and now, five years later, Parallel has built out the technology and is focused on commercialization.
While getting companies to change their shipping and distribution strategies could be a large feat, demand for different solutions is there, Soule said. He added that that they have had interest from across the globe but plan to focus on the U.S. and Australia for now.
This news also comes as the U.S. hangs in tariff limbo. If tariffs do end up going through, Bakalar predicts it could stir up more demand for companies like Parallel as companies will likely be looking to cut costs in any way.
“This is like a generational innovation in terms of freight and you don’t see a lot of change in the freight industry,” Soule said. “But this is hitting on points that matter.”
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Hacked documents reveal guide to serving Elon Musk on private jets
A recent breach of Berkshire Hathaway-owned private jet company NetJets has revealed a guide for flight attendants serving Elon Musk, per a Bloomberg report. The memo offers an interesting glimpse into the personal preferences of the world’s richest man.
Some of the preferences are surprising for the CEO of Tesla, a company dedicated to sustainability. Apparently Musk isn’t “interested in conserving fuel” because he “wants to fly as quickly and as direct” as possible.
Other inclinations are not surprising at all, like the note to staff not to offer him technical help.
“Mr. Musk considers himself self-sufficient and does not need help with technology – if he does, he will ask.”
And then there’s the relatable stuff, like his dislike of unexpected WiFi outages and his penchant to take a nap, even on day trips. He also prefers to keep the cabin at 65 degrees, the lights dim and the passenger vents off because he “does not like the noise.”
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Why Nest co-founder Matt Rogers is still bullish on HVAC
Back in 2010, when Matt Rogers founded Nest with Tony Fadell, home heating and cooling wasn’t exactly an area you’d think two ex-Apple engineers would be obsessing about.
That fixation defined a new category of product, the smart thermostat, which is now serving as a beachhead for other companies’ smart home ambitions, even as Google lets Nest whither on the vine, killing products that were once core to the company.
“Nest is not necessarily doing everything that I set them out to do years ago,” Rogers told TechCrunch. “It’s one of the things when you sell a company.”
But Rogers hasn’t been able to shake his obsession with HVAC.
“I’ve been thinking about HVAC for a really long time — longer than most,” Rogers said with a chuckle. “And the opportunity is really great. The opportunity to drive efficiency, comfort, better quality of life — those things are all true.”
Rogers’ optimism, coupled with his seemingly inexhaustible energy, are what led him serve as an informal advisor to Quilt, the heat pump startup, even as he was launching his own new food waste startup, Mill, and running an investment, philanthropy, and activism organization, Incite, with his wife.
“I had a lot going on starting Mill,” Rogers said.
Now, with Rogers happy where Mill is at, he said has time to “go deeper with a company.” In this case, that means joining Quilt as an independent board member.
Rogers met Quilt’s co-founder and CEO Paul Lambert a few years ago, just before the company raised its seed round. Since then, they’ve been in near constant communication.
“We talked like almost every week, for years,” Rogers said. “Sometimes Paul’s co-founder, Matt, would give me a call from their factory or from a supplier with, ‘Hey, what do you think about X? Give me some advice.’ At some point, it’s good to formalize.”
With Rogers taking a board seat, it’s even more likely that Quilt will pick up where Nest left off. The company has already focused heavily on product design and user experience. “We’re really trying to do the Nest playbook,” Lambert said.
“The world is getting hotter and it is getting richer,” he said. “And as a world gets hotter, people need more cooling, and a heat pump is an AC. And when the world get’s richer, people buy more cooling. It’s one of the most dependable things they consume as soon as they have more disposable income.”
“Those macro trends are all true,” Rogers agreed. “It’s good to work with a team that’s carrying the torch.”
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Spotify invests over $1M to grow its catalog of non-English audiobooks
Spotify announced on Friday that it plans to invest €1 million–or approximately $1.1 million — to boost audiobook production in languages other than English, beginning with French and Dutch.
The investment indicates that Spotify is eager for more non-English titles in its limited library as it tries to compete with major players like Audible in the $8.7 billion global audiobooks market.
Adoption has been particularly slow in France and the Netherlands, which is why Spotify is starting with these languages.
According to the company, less than 3% of French-language books are currently available in audio format, with only 20,000 audiobooks in France compared to about 750,000 physical titles. In the Netherlands, around 15,000 Dutch audiobooks are available out of a physical library of 209,000 titles.
The company launched its audiobook service in France and the Benelux region this past October.
Spotify believes the slow adoption can likely be attributed to high production costs, which may deter publishers from converting their written works into audio formats.
Despite the company emphasizing its commitment to working with human narrators, Spotify recently partnered with ElevenLabs as a cost-effective solution to encourage authors to publish AI-narrated content. However, the use of AI narration has raised concerns within the publishing community.
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Less than a month to get your exhibit table for TechCrunch Sessions: AI
TechCrunch Sessions: AI is fast approaching. So, what does that mean for you? It means exhibit tables are nearly gone — and now’s your chance to grab one before they’re all sold out. If you’ve got a game-changing product to showcase to the AI world, don’t keep it quiet. Exhibit your brand in front of the leaders and visionaries of the AI community.
On June 5, 1,200 AI leaders, investors, and visionaries will gather at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall — and they’re hungry for what’s next. They’re looking for the tools, solutions, and tech that’ll help them move faster and think bigger.
Step up, show off, and get your brand in front of the right people by booking your exhibit table here.
What exhibiting will do for your brand
- Showcase your solutions to 1,200+ key decision-makers and visionaries in AI
- Establish your brand’s authority as a trusted name in AI
- Position your company as the future of AI technology
- Generate high-value connections with potential clients, partners, and industry influencers
Exhibiting perks
Here’s a glimpse of what you get when you exhibit at TC Sessions: AI. For more details, check out the full offering on the TC Sessions: AI exhibit page.
- Full-day 6’ x 3’ exhibit space
- Your brand featured on-site at TC Sessions: AI, event website, and in the event app
- A bundle of tickets for you and your team
- Access to high-value leads
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Boost your brand’s presence in the AI community
Time is running out to secure your exhibit table at TC Sessions: AI. Tables are available until they sell out or until the May 9 deadline — whichever comes first. Don’t miss your chance to establish your brand in the AI community. Learn more and book your table here.
Want to amplify your brand in other events?
Explore additional opportunities to showcase your brand at other TechCrunch events.
TechCrunch All Stage is designed for 1,200+ founders and VCs at every stage of their journey — whether they’re looking to launch their idea, accelerate scaling, or prepare for an exit. Showcase your brand and connect with key decision-makers who are looking for a brand like yours — book your exhibit table at TC All Stage here.
Disrupt 2025 is our flagship conference, bringing together over 10,000 tech leaders, VCs, and visionaries across industries like fintech, AI, space, building, scaling, investing, and more. Get in front of thousands of key industry leaders — reserve your exhibit table at Disrupt 2025 here before they sell out.
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A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs
The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone.
We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies. As businesses continue to embrace AI and automation, this tracker serves as a reminder of the human impact of layoffs — and what could be at stake with increased innovation.
Below you’ll find a comprehensive list of all the known tech layoffs that have occurred in 2025, which will be updated regularly. If you have a tip on a layoff, contact us here. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can contact us here.
April
The search giant has laid off hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices division, which covers Android, Pixel phones, the Chrome browser, and more, according to The Information.
Microsoft
The company is contemplating additional layoffs that could happen by May, Business Insider reported, citing anonymous sources. The company is said to be discussing reducing the number of middle managers and non-coders in a bid to increase the ratio of programmers to product managers.
Automattic
The WordPress.com developer is laying off 16% of its workforce across departments. Before the layoffs, the company’s website showed it had 1,744 employees, so more than 270 staff may have been laid off.
Canva
Has let go of 10 to 12 technical writers approximately nine months after telling its employees to use generative AI tools wherever possible. The company, which had around 5,500 staff in 2024, was valued at $26 billion after a secondary stock sale in 2024.
March
Northvolt
Has laid off 2,800 employees, impacting 62% of its total staff. The layoffs come weeks after the embattled Swedish battery maker filed for bankruptcy.
Block
Let go of 931 employees, around 8% of its workforce, as part of a reorganization, according to an internal email seen by TechCrunch. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of the fintech company, wrote in the email that the layoffs were not for financial reasons or to replace workers with AI.
Brightcove
Has laid off 198 employees, who make up about two-thirds of its U.S. workforce, per a media report. The layoff comes a month after the company was acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italian app developer, for $233 million. Brightcove had 600 employees worldwide, with 300 in the U.S., as of December 2023.
Acxiom
Has reportedly laid off 130 employees, or 3.5% of its total workforce of 3,700 people. Acxiom is owned by IPG, and the news comes just a day after IPG and Omnicom Group shareholders approved the companies’ potential merger.
Sequoia Capital
Plans to close its office in Washington, D.C., and let go of its policy team there by the end of March, TechCrunch has confirmed. Sequoia opened its Washington office five years ago to deepen its relationship with policymakers. Three full-time employees are expected to be affected, per Forbes.
Siemens
Announced plans to let go of approximately 5,600 jobs globally in its automation and electric-vehicle charging businesses as part of efforts to improve competitiveness.
HelloFresh
Is reportedly laying off 273 employees, closing its distribution center in Grand Prairie, Texas, and consolidating to another site in Irving to manage the volume in the region.
Otorio
Has cut 45 employees, more than half of its workforce, after being acquired by cybersecurity company Armis for $120 million in March.
ActiveFence
Will reportedly reduce 22 employees, representing 7% of its workforce. Most of those affected are based in Israel as the company undergoes a streamlining process. The New York- and Tel Aviv-headquartered cybersecurity firm has raised $100 million at a valuation of about $500 million in 2021.
D-ID
Will cut 22 jobs, affecting nearly a quarter of its total workforce, following the announcement of the AI startup’s strategic partnership with Microsoft.
NASA
Announced it will be shutting down several of its offices in accordance with Elon Musk’s DOGE, including its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy and the DEI branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
Zonar Systems
Has reportedly laid off some staff, according to LinkedIn posts from ex-employees. The company has not confirmed the layoffs, and it is currently unknown how many workers were affected.
Wayfair
Announced plans to let go of 340 employees in its technology division as part of a new restructuring effort.
HPE
Will cut 2,500 employees, or 5% of its total staff, in response to its shares sliding 19% in the first fiscal quarter.
TikTok
Will cut up to 300 workers in Dublin, accounting for roughly 10% of the company’s workforce in Ireland.
LiveRamp
Announced it will lay off 65 employees, affecting 5% of its total workforce.
Ola Electric
Is reportedly set to lay off over 1,000 employees and contractors in a cost-cutting effort. It’s the second round of cuts for the company in just five months.
Rec Room
Reduced its total headcount by 16% as the gaming startup shifts its focus to be “scrappier” and “more efficient.”
ANS Commerce
Was shut down just three years after it was acquired by Flipkart. It is currently unknown how many employees were affected.
February
HP
Will cut up to 2,000 jobs as part of its “Future Now” restructuring plan that hopes to save the company $300 million before the end of its fiscal year.
GrubHub
Announced 500 job cuts after it was sold to Wonder Group for $650 million. The number of cuts affected more than 20% of its previous workforce.
Autodesk
Announced plans to lay off 1,350 employees, affecting 9% of its total workforce, in an attempt to reshape its GTM model. The company is also making reductions in its facilities, though it does not plan to close any offices.
Is planning to cut employees in its People Operations and cloud organizations teams in a new reorganization effort. The company is offering a voluntary exit program to U.S.-based People Operations employees.
Nautilus
Reduced its headcount by 25 employees, accounting for 16% of its total workforce. The company is planning to release a commercial version of its proteome analysis platform in 2026.
eBay
Will reportedly cut a few dozen employees in Israel, potentially affecting 10% of its 250-person workforce in the country.
Starbucks
Cut 1,100 jobs in a reorganizing effort that affected its tech workers. The coffee chain will now outsource some tech work to third-party employees.
Commercetools
Laid off dozens of employees over the last few weeks, including around 10% of staff in one day, after failing to meet its sales growth targets. The “headless commerce” platform raised money at a $1.9 billion valuation just a few years ago.
Dayforce
Will cut roughly 5% of its current workforce in a new efficiency drive to increase profitability and growth.
Expedia
Laid off more employees in a new effort to cut costs, though the total number is unknown. Last year, the travel giant cut about 1,500 roles in its Product & Technology division.
Skybox Security
Has ceased operations and has laid off its employees after selling its business and technology to Israeli cybersecurity company Tufin. The cuts affect roughly 300 people.
HerMD
Is shutting down its operations amid “ongoing challenges in healthcare.” It’s unclear the number of employees affected. In 2023, the women’s healthcare startup raised $18 million to fund its expansion.
Zendesk
Cut 51 jobs in its San Francisco headquarters, according to state filings with the Employment Development Department. The SaaS startup previously reduced its headcount by 8% in 2023.
Vendease
Has cut 120 employees, impacting 44% of its total staff. It’s the Y Combinator-backed Nigerian startup’s second layoff round in just five months.
Logically
Reportedly laid off dozens of employees as part of a new cost-cutting effort that aims to ensure “long-term success” in the startup’s mission to curb misinformation online.
Blue Origin
Will lay off about 10% of its workforce, affecting more than 1,000 employees. According to an email to staff obtained by CNN, the cuts will largely have an impact on positions in engineering and program management.
Redfin
Announced in an SEC filing that it will cut around 450 positions between February and July 2025, with a complete restructuring set to be completed in the fall, following its new partnership with Zillow.
Sophos
Is laying off 6% of its total workforce, the cybersecurity firm confirmed to TechCrunch. The cuts come less than two weeks after Sophos acquired Secureworks for $859 million.
Zepz
Will cut nearly 200 employees as it introduces redundancy measures and closes down its operations in Poland and Kenya.
Unity
Reportedly conducted another round of layoffs. It’s unknown how many employees were affected.
JustWorks
Cut nearly 200 employees, CEO Mike Seckler announced in a note to employees, citing “potential adverse events” like a recession or rising interest rates.
Bird
Cut 120 jobs, affecting roughly one-third of its total workforce, TechCrunch exclusively learned. The move comes just a year after the Dutch startup cut 90 employees following its rebrand.
Sprinklr
Laid off about 500 employees, affecting 15% of its workforce, citing poor business performance. The new cuts follow two earlier layoff rounds for the company that affected roughly 200 employees.
Sonos
Reportedly let go of approximately 200 employees, according to The Verge. The company previously cut 100 employees as part of a layoff round in August 2024.
Workday
Laid off 1,750 employees, as originally reported by Bloomberg and confirmed independently by TechCrunch. The cuts affect roughly 8.5% of the enterprise HR platform’s total headcount.
Okta
Laid off 180 employees, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The cuts come just over one year after the access and identity management giant let go of 400 workers.
Cruise
Is laying off 50% of its workforce, including CEO Marc Whitten and several other top executives, as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of the autonomous vehicle company will move under General Motors.
Salesforce
Is reportedly eliminating more than 1,000 jobs. The cuts come as the giant is actively recruiting and hiring workers to sell new AI products.
January
Cushion
Has shut down operations, CEO Paul Kesserwani announced on LinkedIn. The fintech startup’s post-money valuation in 2022 was $82.4 million, according to PitchBook.
Placer.ai
Laid off 150 employees based in the U.S., affecting roughly 18% of its total workforce, in an effort to reach profitability.
Amazon
Laid off dozens of workers in its communications department in order to help the company “move faster, increase ownership, strengthen our culture, and bring teams closer to customers.”
Stripe
Is laying off 300 people, according to a leaked memo reported by Business Insider. However, according to the memo, the fintech giant is planning to grow its total headcount by 17%.
Textio
Laid off 15 employees as the augmented writing startup undergoes a restructuring effort.
Pocket FM
Is cutting 75 employees in an effort to “ensure the long-term sustainability and success” of the company. The audio company last cut 200 writers in July 2024 months after partnering with ElevenLabs.
Aurora Solar
Is planning to cut 58 employees in response to an “ongoing macroeconomic challenges and continued uncertainty in the solar industry.”
Meta
Announced in an internal memo that it will cut 5% of its staff targeting “low performers” as the company prepares for “an intense year.” As of its latest quarterly report, Meta currently has more than 72,000 employees.
Wayfair
Will cut up to 730 jobs, impacting 3% of its total workforce, as it plans to exit operations in Germany and focus on physical retailers.
Pandion
Is shutting down its operations, impacting 63 employees. The delivery startup said employees will be paid through January 15 without severance.
Icon
Is laying off 114 employees as part of a team realignment, per a new WARN notice filing, focusing its efforts on a robotic printing system.
Altruist
Eliminated 37 jobs, impacting roughly 10% of its total workforce, even as the company pursues “aggressive” hiring.
Aqua Security
Is cutting dozens of employees across its global markets as part of a strategic reorganization to increase profitability.
SolarEdge Technologies
Plans to lay off 400 employees globally. It’s the company’s fourth layoff round since January 2024 as the solar industry as a whole faces a downturn.
Level
The fintech startup, founded in 2018, abruptly shut down earlier this year. Per an email from CEO Paul Aaron, the closure follows an unsuccessful attempt to find a buyer, though Employer.com has a new offer under consideration to acquire the company post-shutdown.
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