Friday, February 28, 2025
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Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we have notes on Microsoft shutting down Skype, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia’s role at DOGE, and the SEC’s new stance on cryptocurrency. We’re also looking at Belgium investigating a data breach at its intelligence service, a spyware app ridden with bugs, Snowflake’s attempt to foster AI development on its platform, and more. Let’s dive in!
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Image Credits:Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images
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1. End of an era: Microsoft is officially shutting down once-beloved video messaging service Skype on May 5 to instead focus on Teams. Skype, which once had 300 million users, only had around 36 million when Microsoft last released numbers in 2023. Read More
2. More techies in the government: Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia says he plans to help out at DOGE by leveraging his background in design to overhaul the government's paper-heavy retirement process. Read More
3. Crypto scams ahoy! The SEC says that meme coins are not securities, and that the people who buy them will not be protected by federal securities law. It also means people who buy them don’t need to register them with the Commission. Read More
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Image Credits: Geraint Rowland Photography / Getty Images
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Belgium suffers a major data breach: Belgium is looking into whether hackers linked to the Chinese government breached the data of its state security service. The investigation was opened in November 2023 after the country first learned of the attack. Read More
Yet another example of why spyware is bad: Stalkerware app Spyzie apparently suffers from a bug that has exposed the email information of thousands of people who signed up to use the app. Thousands of Android smartphones and iPhones are affected, but many users have no idea their devices have been hacked. Read More
Get them while they’re young: Snowflake is setting aside an extra $200 million for its startup accelerator, which invests in early-stage startups building AI on top of Snowflake. Startups in the program also receive technical support and cloud credits for AWS. Read More
Change of plans: Twitch plans to open up its monetization tools to most creators, regardless of how many followers they have. Previously only affiliates and partners on Twitch had access to subscriptions or had to meet a certain eligibility criteria. Read More
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What work-life balance? Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin feels that 60 hours per week is the “sweet spot” for productivity, and in a memo, is urging employees to go back to office, the New York Times reports. The sentiment driving this is obviously the AI arms race, and Brin believes artificial general intelligence is not far off. Read More
No talking back: A Tesla employee who publicly criticized Elon Musk for making Nazi jokes has been fired, the New York Times reports. The employee has reportedly been flagging Musk’s behavior since 2022, but said Tesla has remained silent. Read More
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Image Credits: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg / Getty Images
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If it looks too good to be true, it probably is: A managing partner at Sequoia is warning against following investor hype and putting money into special-purpose vehicles, which let investors sell their startup equity, but the buyers get shares in the vehicle, not the startup. It’s a risky proposition, because to see any profit, the startup’s valuation would have to skyrocket, and that’s never a guarantee. Read More
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