Topics
former
AI
Amazon
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
Apps
Biotech & Health
clime
Cloud Computing
commercialism
Crypto
Image Credits:Yurii Karvatskyi / Getty Images
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Government & Policy
ironware
layoff
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
privateness
Robotics
Security
societal
outer space
Startups
TikTok
transport
speculation
More from TechCrunch
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
newssheet
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
Welcome to Startups Weekly . Sign uphereto get it in your inbox every Friday .
For VCs , market size is crucial , because it becomes a procurator for how big a caller could possibly get , which in turn is a measure of how self-aggrandising the payoff on investment could be . That only work in well - defined industries : If you’retrying to take on travel agencies with AI , well , then your total addressable market ( TAM ) is the same as the earnings across all travel representation , globally .
Where that falls aside is if you ’re create whole new markets . In its pre - seed deck back in 2008 , Uber , in its wildest dream , pronounce thatthe “ best case scenario ” was to hit $ 1 billion of revenue per twelvemonth . Fifteen class later , it ’s hilarious how wrong the company turned out to be .
One entrepreneur who ’s had an incredible track record book of upending markets is Elon Musk . First with PayPal , then with SpaceX , Starlink , Tesla , SolarCity , Neuralink and then the Boring caller , Musk has evidence that he has an weird hang for thinking so audaciously big that a traditional market sizing advance simply does n’t make common sense . SpaceX ’s TAM is n’t the budgets of all the space agencies unite : It ’s what happens when space geographic expedition and launch humble satellites on the spur of the moment becomes chintzy enough that it unlocks a whole contemporaries of new startup .
I wonder , then , what the ever - loving bejesus is break down on with Twitter / X. Nothing he ’s doing there makes any sense at all . Unless you look back at the list of companies Musk has founded . PayPal , while financially successful , was a failure : It became a Band - help on top of a broken banking scheme , when the original idea was to upend it all . X , I argue in my column this hebdomad , is n’t an attempt at torpedoing a successful societal media site , but a 2d stab at trying to revolutionize international banking . And this time , Musk may just have all of the bit of the puzzle to make it befall . . .
Anyway , what else has been going on in startup country this week ?
The influencer economy
Never mind that the Bible “ influencer ” have my skin crawling , and the fact thatalmost 90 % of twentysomethings desire to use that word as their job claim , there certain are a wad of content creators out there , and that economy is view a lot of bumpy phylogeny along the way .
Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Morgan reports thatblue checks are n’t protecting sex worker from X ’s porn crackdown — which makes some amount of sense if Musk is indeed seek to change by reversal the artist formerly known as Twitter into a banking company of sorts .
It seems like people have bury all about the glassholes of a decade ago . Brian reports that theRay - Ban Meta shades have “ influencer ” written all over them .
Moar :
The earth does n’t suck : That ’s just solemnity : Sarah write about a report claiming thatX traffic and monthly active users are in fall .
Yeah , but where will they look for new jobs ? : Ingrid reports thatLinkedIn sustain it will cut a further 668 Job , bringing the total to nearly 1,400 this class .
AI , AI , AI : ByteDance ( the ship’s company that owns TikTok ) has a new video editor , whichtargets businesses with AI ad handwriting and AI - generate presenters .
The investor empathy gap
I ’ve spent a crew of time talking with founders recently who are struggle to get through to VCs when they are building products that , well , do n’t really apply to them . This might mean international remittances for migrant workers , rescue solutions for gig workers , or solution for mass who are in cancer discourse . Did you recognize , for model , that it ’s not uncommon for hoi polloi in medical intervention to not meet their prescription in order of magnitude to save money ?
All of these problems affect huge swaths of the population but are often basically invisible to the great unwashed at the top of the financial food chain .
In their articleWhen was the last meter Marc Andreessen speak to a poor person?Amanda , Dominic - Madori and Kyle expand on the idea , require when the last clock time Andreessen spoke to an Instacart shopper struggle to make end receive . As founder , we get to build up the future tense we want to hold out in — countenance ’s choose sagely .
Oh , but wait , there ’s more installments of the Startup Soap Opera this calendar week :
In the FTX debacle : Rebecca reports howFTX EXEC blew through $ 8 billion , and that testimonial reveals how that happened .
More Web Summit dramatic event : vane Summit has a rather checkered history ( a Google search for Web Summit drama is more juicy than most technical school conferences ) , and it ’s back in the news . Ingrid reports thatWeb Summit is getting derailedas the league ’s beginner pick a very public fight with those supporting Israel in Hamas conflict .
WeWhat now ? : There ’s been a bit of a back - and - forth argument between WeWork and its competitor Codi . That reached fever pitch this hebdomad . Mary Ann reports thatWeWork sends a cease and desistnotice over its competitor ’s “ WeWon’t ” run .
What are the robots up to this week?
The big news program in productive AI this calendar week is that Google is starting to confound its weight around , withthe lookup locomotive engine being able to beget images and write drafts for you , if youopt into the Search Generative Experience from Google Labs . Who knows what — if anything — will show up in the main lookup locomotive , but see Google ’s vision of what might materialize sure makes thing in the AI space a lot more interesting .
The other highlight of the week for me was Brian ’s storey abouthow roboticists are thinking about reproductive AI .
More AI news , drop a line with human finger , as far as I ’m aware :
These tot are still learning : If ChatGPT were human , it would scarce be able to walk , so it ’s no surprisal that it ’s a quickly moving target area . Kyle report thatMicrosoft - affiliated research finds flaw in GPT-4 .
It ’s everywhere : An industriousness where there ’s a huge search space , and a subspecies to invention , is EV batteries . Kirsten ’s clause abouthow reproductive AI is creep into EV battery developmentoffers a fascinating glimpse into how enforce AI is finding use case in the substantial world .
How to get AI market share : Alex asked a number of venture capitalists who are alive in the AI investing space to take the air us through what they are seeing in the grocery today , and they explainhow startup can seize and defend market share in the AI era . ( TC+ )
Top reads on TechCrunch this week
And , as ever . . . here are the top story in TechCrunch from the last week or so that have n’t yet arrest a name driblet and a linky - link above :
MillionsAndMe : A cyberpunk published a new dataset of 23andMe user informationcontaining records of 4 million userson a cybercrime forum . Lorenzo reported that the newly leaked steal data lucifer known and public 23andMe user and genetic information .
mess up away by new tech : Whisper Aero egress from stealth a little over two years ago with a programme . Now it ’s unveil anultra - muted electrical folio blower , power by aerospace technical school .
Take my money : No , seriously , that ’s what the IRS does . It ’s kind of their matter . Although it seems like for 2024 , theIRS will pilot detached , lineal tax filing in 2024 , Devin reports . About damn fourth dimension . Why ? Well , this ProPublica story has some circumstance .
A toilsome flip : Amazon has softly rolled out support for passkeysas it becomes the up-to-the-minute tech colossus to join the passwordless hereafter . But you still might have to hold on to your Amazon password for a slight while longer , Carly reports .
warfare and peace : One of my favorite stories this week was Mike ’s account onPalestine ’s growing technical school industry , which he write “ has been literally blown apart by Israel ’s war on Hamas . ”
