It’s 2021 for AI while the rest of the startup market is stuck in 2024Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our Monday show, in which we take a look back at the weekend and the week ahead.
This time ’round, there was so much in the news that we had to greatly compress everything we wanted to talk about.
Here’s the rundown:Like I said, it’s a busy start to the week!
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Get to know Tom Blomfield: Group partner at Y CombinatorPrior to joining Y Combinator, Tom Blomfield, a British entrepreneur, founded two companies valued at more than $1 billion.
TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 takes place on April 25, 2024, in Boston.
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Another CES has come and gone and transportation was still one of the central actors on one of the world’s largest tech stages.
Here are some of the tech themes that stood out to us at CES 2024.
With so many electric vehicles, it might not surprise folks to learn that EV charging companies were also there en masse.
HydrogenHydrogen power isn’t new, however, it’s taken a bit of a backseat lately to more traditional battery electric vehicles.
In-cabin hardware meets softwareAutomakers, automotive suppliers and even some startups, showed off their respective vision for the inside of the car.
Remember that robot chef Samsung “debuted” at CES 2020?
At least the “return” of Ballie demonstrated that Samsung hasn’t lost interest in the home robot.
So why — after 20+ years — do we have little more to show for it than a bunch of robot vacuums?
Instead, conservatively tens of millions of dollars go into R&D across countless companies aimed at building a better robot vacuum.
Matic is — for most intents and purposes — yet another robot vacuum looking to make a name in a very crowded space.
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Much progress has been made since then, and 2024 — the 20th anniversary of Ghostrider — will be another seminal year for autonomous vehicles, especially for off-road industries.
The possibilities off-roadSafety remains the paramount metric for autonomous vehicle deployment, yet there has to be industry consensus on how to adequately measure a robotic or human driver’s safety.
For commercial operations, there is another compelling reason for deploying autonomous vehicles in these conditions: increased profits.
Safety remains a concernSafety remains the paramount metric for autonomous vehicle deployment, yet there has to be industry consensus on how to adequately measure a robotic or human driver’s safety.
To increase transparency, the California DMV logs autonomous vehicle collisions.
CES has increasingly become defined by what automakers and other mobility-focused companies bring to Las Vegas, and CES 2024 has been no exception.
Hydrogen’s making a big comebackThe underlying technology for hydrogen-powered vehicles has been around for a while, though it’s been eclipsed by battery-powered electric vehicles.
But at CES 2024, a number of companies from Nikola to Hyundai and Bosch were touting its benefits.
We explore why this is the year several companies are highlighting hydrogen, with an additional deep dive into Hyundai’s plans.
Kia’s modular EV lineup is revealedModular phones may have come and gone, but Kia hopes modular vehicles will have a bit more success.
Disney-owned animation studio Pixar is poised to undergo layoffs this year, TechCrunch has learned and the company confirmed.
The studio stressed the layoffs are not imminent, but will take place later this year as Pixar focuses on making less content.
According to insiders, the Pixar layoffs include headcount that was hired for Disney+ — hires Disney pushed on Pixar to produce for its streaming division, which hasn’t yet turned a profit.
In Q4, Disney+ added 7 million new subscribers, bringing its total to 150.2 million, including Hotstar, beating analysts’ expectations of 148.15 million subscribers.
A Disney subsidiary, Pixar is best known for films like “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.” “WALL-E,” the “Toy Story” franchise, and others.
And major features like multi-admin, which in theory allows Matter devices to work with every smart home platform simultaneously, remain broken pending future standards patches.
Lockly also announced at CES that its $80 Matter Link Hub, which allows users to manage older Lockly devices from Matter-supporting apps and devices, will become available later this year.
Aqara Hub M3Aqara, the smart home upstart, brought its long-teased Matter-compatible hub — the Hub M3 — to CES 2024.
Roborock S8 MaxV UltraRoborock, a longtime fixture of the robot vacuum cleaner market, launched its first Matter-compatible vacuum at CES: the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra.
But Amazon became the first to support Matter Casting, the video- and audio-beaming feature of the Matter smart home standard, on its smart displays and smart TVs this week.
