The company has been trying to embed itself inside the AV industry — as a data provider, an investor, and a distribution platform — but the consumer-facing bet may be just as important.

The invisible force behind all of this is no mystery to anyone paying attention to the city's tech economy. San Francisco is home to some of the most valuable private companies in the world, and their employees have been quietly accumulating — and, increasingly, cashing out — fortunes.

Intel's stock has risen a stunning 490% over the past year, a bet by Wall Street that may be running well ahead of the company's actual turnaround.

Like many AI companies automating work that humans currently do, Basata will eventually face a harder question about where the line is between augmenting workers and displacing them. For now, the founders say the administrative staff they work with aren't worried about that; they're more worried about drowning.

Christophe Fouquet, who became ASML's CEO in 2024 after more than a decade at the company, sat down with this editor on the rooftop deck of his Beverly Hills hotel Tuesday morning ahead of his appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference. Dressed in a blue suit and white shirt, he was relaxed — even when the conversation turned to the rivals.

The raise gives Sierra more than $1 billion to work with — capital the company says it will use to become the "global standard" for AI-powered customer experiences.

The portfolio he has assembled since 2019 is dotted with technologies that have become more widely interesting to VCs over the last year.

Within hours he'd thrown up a website — a janky, one-hour job, by his own admission — and by Sunday, 36,000 "founding patrons" had pledged nearly $23 million, crashing his servers in the process.

Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber's chief technology officer, revealed the plan in an interview at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, describing it as a natural extension of a nascent program the company announced in late January called AV Labs.

At TechCrunch's sold-out StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, we covered a lot of ground in a short time, beginning with the question everyone in the industry is asking right now: in a world where rival Cursor is reportedly in talks to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion, is Replit also bound to sell?

It's a story Musk has told before -- in interviews and to author Walter Isaacson for his bestselling biography of Musk -- but Tuesday was the first time he said it under oath.

Golden Child is launching with two "five-star" products: a fresh frozen meal system and, more intriguingly, a "drizzle." It has also raised $37 million in funding.

Can a book like this actually change anything? Or does the spotlight, as it always seems to, send more students racing to the place?

Meta has been poaching talent from Thinking Machines Lab. But it's a two-way street.

Ryan Roslansky has stepped down as LinkedIn's CEO after six years running the world's largest professional network. Dan Shapero, the company's COO, takes over immediately.

Apple's top job comes with almost unrivaled power and money, but it comes with plenty of baggage, too.

A lot of AI startups exist partly because the foundation models haven't expanded into their category yet. As many jokingly acknowledge, that won't last forever.

For most of its life, Airwallex and Stripe have mostly operated in different geographies, selling to different buyers. That's changing.

The fundraise is the first major capital raise under Sequoia's new leadership, with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady now serving as co-stewards of the 54-year-old firm.