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Heeeey! Today has been a fun, rich, and varied day of news on your favorite tech news site. Haje got the unfortunate news that he will be attending his 15th CES in Las Vegas, so if you’re going with your startup, the TC hardware team wants to hear from you. Oh, and we have a slew of gift guides coming up — here’s a sneaky preview for the first few, if you want some inspiration for getting the jump on your holiday shopping. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

The answers to all of life’s important questions: Generative artificial intelligence has come a long way, and many of our colleagues took OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a ride, including Darrell, who asked the all-important question about Pokémon strengths and weaknesses. While you’re at it, check out Kyle’s story on OpenAI’s release of GPT-3.5.
A new face: Shein is embracing its third-party business by bringing on Jessica Liu, the former co-president at the Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Lazada. Rita has more.
One surprising delay for India, one giant “whew” for retailers: Manish writes that India is delaying a market share cap on the Unified Payments Interface payments network until 2025. This is a win — for now — for companies like Google and Walmart, which own a large share of it.

Startups and VC

Smoodi wants to see its smoothies in the hands of, well, everyone, and it closed $5 million to expand the reach for its robotic smart blender, Christine reports. Not gonna lie: we prefer smoothie robots over robots being used to kill people. See Brian’s article about how the police department in San Francisco can now use robots to kill people. In other robot news, also from Brian, Monarch delivers its first “smart tractor.”

Meanwhile, it seems like Mozilla is on a buying spree. Today, Kyle reports that it acquired Active Replica to build on its metaverse vision, and yesterday, Paul wrote that the company snapped up the team behind Pulse, an automated status updater for Slack.

Another fistful of news stories to brighten your day:

Hitting the brakes: Kirsten reports that Hyundai-backed autonomous vehicle startup Motional cuts workforce.
From container ships to $60,000 Jet Skis: Haje reports that YC-backed Boundary Layer pivots from container ships to hydrofoiling personal watercraft, despite claiming to have $90 million worth of preorders for the former.
We can still go deeper: Connie speaks with a secondary market pro who thinks we haven’t hit bottom quite yet, but he sees the price drops slowing, finally.
Uncovering skincare: Kenya’s Uncover raises $1 million to expand skincare product enterprise across Africa, Annie reports.
You, but artier: Amanda reports that Lensa AI climbs the App Store charts as its AI-enhanced “magic avatars” that look like you go hella viral.

Pitch Deck Teardown: Hour One’s $20M Series A deck

Startups are approaching language learning from every angle: Hour One uses AI to deploy avatars that turn text into video.

In 2020, its founders raised a $5 million seed round, but earlier this year, it raised $20 million more via a Series A. Here’s a complete breakdown of the company’s unredacted 11-slide deck:

Cover slide
“At a glance” summary slide
Solution slide
Market size slide
Value proposition slide
Product slide 1
Product slide 2
Target audience slide
Case study slide
Team slide
Closing slide

Haje takes a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in the company’s $20 million series A pitch deck:

Three more from the TC+ team:

Bird is the word: Bird’s plan to stay in the shared scooter game, by Rebecca.
Robots writing words: Alex is relieved that ChatGPT isn’t putting him out of a job yet, concluding that it’s a lot of fun.
Going down, in some places: Startup valuations are declining — but not consistently, writes Becca in her latest piece.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

As we sift through Elon Musk’s tweet regarding hate speech today, we have to point out there’s been a lot of “FAFO” going on in the Twitterverse, and Kanye West is the latest to FO what happens when he FAs. Just a little over a month after Kanye was reinstated on Twitter, Elon Musk suspended his account again for breaking the social media giant’s rules, Ivan writes. This also comes as West decides he isn’t buying Parler after all.Darrell has more.

Meanwhile, in the world of corporate shake-ups, Mary Ann delivers a primo headline for her story on Opendoor’s CEO Eric Wu, who stepped down today, while Aria reports that space company Astra is restructuring its management team after Benjamin Lyon resigns.

Enjoy the start of your weekend with four more:

Breaker, we got ourselves a semi: Rebecca brings us news that Tesla delivered its long-awaited Semi truck and that the car maker is offering a discount for its Model 3, Model Y deliveries in December.
Exposed in the Sunshine State: Zack writes that a security flaw in Florida’s state tax website led to the exposure of hundreds of filers’ data.
More representation: Activision Blizzard workers in Albany voted to form a union, the company’s second one, Amanda reports.
Just in time?: Payment giant Stripe is the latest to offer a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp widget so that people can hold cryptocurrencies without having to sign up for a currency exchange. Romain has more.

Daily Crunch: ChatGPT’s user experience and implementation ‘should have Google scared’ by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

Calling out to the die-hard procrastinators, last-minute decision makers and all you head-down-get-it-done types. TC Sessions: Space 2022 takes place next week on December 6, but you have just 12 short hours left before the price of admission heads into a higher stratosphere.

It’s now o’clock: Hop off the fence already and save. Buy a pass before December 2 at 11:59 p.m. PST— while they still cost $199. The price increases to $495 at midnight. Why pay more if you don’t have to?

The event agenda is packed with experts and essential topics across the public, private and defense domains — including our partner sessions. Check them out below.

Bringing It to the Space Warfighting Domain

Space is playing an ever-greater role in modern warfare and in our broader national security. But delivering those critical space-based capabilities to warfighters and other end users is just one step in the increasingly complex mission life cycle.

From how to incorporate the latest innovations to what role commercial capabilities can play, the way our nation’s space programs acquire, deploy and operate next-generation systems is undergoing profound shifts. Charlie McGillis (Slingshot Aerospace), Jean L. Michael (Aerospace Corporation), Pete Muend (National Reconnaissance Office), Col. Joseph Roth (USSF Space Systems Command) and Christopher A. Solee (United States Space Command) will discuss how these pieces fit together to deliver needed capabilities and the opportunities to drive greater integration for the benefit of all. Sponsored by the Aerospace Corporation.

ISAM: A Commercial Linchpin for the New Space Economy

Large-scale commercial investments will dominate the next wave of space innovation, including commercial space stations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and technologies that will enable a permanent human presence on the moon. The United States has issued a national policy for developing In-Space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities that can operationally sustain the new space economy with efficiency and scale. This session encourages participants to roll up their sleeves, break past the 411 on ISAM and get practical about how to stimulate ISAM capability development. With Robert Hauge (SpaceLogistics) and Carolyn Mercer (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Sponsored by the Aerospace Corporation.

Space Workforce 2030: Inspiring, Preparing and Employing the Next Generation

The dawning space age offers enormous opportunities to explore new frontiers, grow the economy on orbit and strengthen our security. Making the most of this momentous time calls for an innovative workforce that can leverage diverse experiences and perspectives to solve the hard problems we’ll encounter.

The Space Workforce 2030 pledge is a first-of-its-kind effort launched earlier this year that is bringing together more than 30 of the country’s leading space companies to work collaboratively to increase diversity across our industry to build a vibrant workforce for the future. Hear from Michael Edmonds (Blue Origin), Steve Isakowitz (Aerospace Corporation) and Melanie Stricklan (Slingshot Aerospace) about the work they’re doing to inspire, prepare and employ the next generation of scientists and engineers and how you can play a part in supporting this vital mission. Sponsored by the Aerospace Corporation.

Hardware? What’s That? Why Software Is the Future of the Space Economy

Launch gets all the press, but satellites and the software behind them are the workhorses of space. Hear from Antaris founder/CEO Tom Barton and Epsilon3 founder/CEOLaura Crabtree about how SaaS, open source and cloud-based platforms are revolutionizing the satellite industry and accelerating the space economy. They’ll also share what it’s like to be first-time founders, what it really takes to put good code into space and tips for fellow spacepreneurs. Sponsored by Antaris.

TC Sessions: Space 2022 takes place on December 6 in Los Angeles, but you have only 12 hours left until that $199 deal leaves orbit. Buy your pass by December 2 at 11:59 p.m. PST. The price increases to $495 at midnight. Stop procrastinating and start saving!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space? Contact our sponsorship sales team byfilling out this form.

The final 12-hours to savings on passes to TC Sessions: Space by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

Prefabricated homes always seem to be on the cusp of something big — solving housing shortages, tacklingsystemic waste or just generally ushering in the “very up-to-date.” But in the U.S., new prefab housing still represents a small fraction of the market (around 2% of single-family homes built in 2021, for example).

By now it’s clear that prefabrication wasn’t a cure-all for America’s housing crises, but Plant Prefab says its take on it — along with $42 million in additional funding and a new factory — will still make an impact, eventually delivering as much as 900,000 square feet of “extremely sustainable” and “extremely healthy” housing per year. The startup estimates that’ll represent around 800 units annually, in a mix of homes, apartments and condos.

Plenty of startups do prefab dwellings, including Veev, Mighty Buildings, Cover, Modulous and Factory OS. Plant Prefab says its focus on developing custom-built homes for urban areas is unique.

“The vast majority of companies out there are focused on standard homes,” offering a selection of models with customizable finishes and fixtures, CEO Steve Glenn told TechCrunch. In contrast, he said Plant Prefab works with architects to prefabricate their designs, because they “understand local vernacular, local permitting process, local materials and local needs.” He added, “we want to give them a more efficient way.”

The CEO described Plant Prefab’s building system as, “in a sense, our own Legos.” The company produces panels with infrastructure built-in. “We combine it into specialized modules for kitchens baths, utility courts — in other words, the expensive parts of the home,” he said. And on the software side, Glenn said the company offers a 3D configurator and works with third-party CAD software to build a “structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing model of every home we build, so that we’re able to create absolutely precise takeoffs” and limit construction waste.

The new, automated facility will be a “big step change for us,” Glenn told TechCrunch. He said the company currently produces around 40 homes a year via two other facilities. “Our average project is three months, so we’re pretty damn fast, but significantly faster in the new facility, and at a much lower price point,” he added. As things were, Glenn said the company netted $16 million in revenue last year.

Citing carbon emission savings associated with city living, Glenn believes the firm’s focus on speedier urban infill will ultimately help the planet. The company’s environmental claims also include designing for energy and water savings, using recycled drywall and insulation as well as environmentally friendlier paints, and buying carbon offsets to cover “the first two years of operation of our homes,” Glenn said. He added, “We designed the first home ever to be certified LEED Platinum in the history of the program [and we’ve] had over 30 homes certified LEED Platinum.” The startup’s also a B Corp.

Not counting electricity, the building sector made up 14% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. What’s worse is it’s headed in the wrong direction: The business is “not on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050,” warned a 2022 report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Plant Prefab’s new round consists of around $30 million in equity led by Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau, as well as $12 million in debt from Silicon Valley-based Western Technology Investments and ATEL Capital. Other investors to chip in on the equity side include Tokyo-based chemical company Asahi Kasei, a Brown University alumni group and Unreasonable Collective, an entrepreneurship club. That’s in addition to early top-ups from firms like Amazon and Obvious Ventures.

Plant Prefab nabs $42M to crank out ‘extremely sustainable’ custom homes by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch

There was a time when AWS re:Invent, the yearly customer extravaganza put on by Amazon’s cloud arm, was chock full of announcements. The innovation coming out of the company was so mind-boggling that it was hard to keep up with the onslaught of news.

But this year felt different. If last year was incremental, this year was downright slow when it came to meaningful news.

To give you a sense of our coverage here at TechCrunch, last year, we wrote 28 stories about the event. This year, it’s down to 18, including this one. It’s not that we wanted to write less — we just simply found there was less relevant news to write about.

The day two AI and machine learning keynote was all incremental improvements to existing products. There were so few meaningful announcements that my colleague Frederic Lardinois wrote a post in pictures mocking the lack of news.

It’s gotten to the point, it seems, where the ecosystem has grown so enormous, and there are so many products, that the company has decided to focus on making it easier to work with and between those products (or with external partner products) than creating stuff from scratch.

From a news perspective, that means that there’s really less to write about. Eight new SageMaker capabilities or five new database and analytics capabilities, which I’m sure are important to the folks who needed those features, feel like piling on to an already feature-rich set of products.

It’s not unlike Microsoft Word over the years: It’s a perfectly fine word processor, so the only way to really improve it was to lob on new feature after new feature to make it relevant to an ever wider or more granular audience.

The era of constant innovation at Amazon could be over by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

Ye might have crossed the line by tweeting a swastika superimposed with a Star of David, but you can’t blame other Nazi apologists for getting mixed signals.

On Thursday night, Musk personally intervened after the artist formerly known as Kanye West shared the symbol. “I tried my best,” Musk tweeted in response to a tweet raising alarm at West’s behavior. “Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

On Truth Social, West shared a screenshot that indicates he was only suspended from Twitter for 12 hours — a relatively lenient sentence. But West’s account was still suspended as of 1PM PT on Friday.

Hours prior to his suspension, West openly elaborated his anti-Semitic beliefs in an interview with Alex Jones. West appeared wearing a full mask on the show and praised Hitler, repeatedly declared his “love” of Nazis and doubled down when a visibly uncomfortable Jones gave him a chance to backtrack.

As Nazi-related hashtags take over Twitter’s trending topics, the infamous neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin also re-appeared on the site, tweeting from a new handle associated with the account he had banned back in 2015. Anglin, who created the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer, probed Twitter’s new rules in a reply to Musk. “Ye caught a 12 hour suspension for tweeting a Star of David with a swastika in it… Whatever the rules are, people will follow them. We just need to know what the rules are.”

Anglin was de-platformed from the broader internet when companies providing The Daily Stormer’s web hosting, DDoS protection and other utilities cut off their services back in 2017. That push against the site, which is named after a Nazi propaganda paper, came after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville raised alarm about a rising tide of open white supremacy in the U.S. In a speech he wrote that was read aloud at the rally (Anglin wasn’t present), Anglin warned that he and his supporters would soon be “digging graves” and called for death to “enemies of the white race.”

Anglin’s fans quickly welcomed him back to the platform. One account with an obvious reference to white supremacy in its handle tweeted that it was checking in for duty. Other neo-Nazi and white supremacist accounts criticized Musk’s action against West, characterizing them as an unexpected betrayal.

Richard Spencer is also benefitting from Musk’s changes at Twitter. Spencer, a Unite the Right organizer and an open white nationalist who has greeted supporters with the Nazi salute, is now a verified Twitter user who pays for a Twitter Blue monthly subscription. Spencer is currently promoting a Twitter Space declaring “Ye-ism triumphant.”

Twitter’s pre-Musk policy against hateful conduct is still online, but the company’s new owner mostly appears to be winging it lately. Last week, Musk conducted an Twitter poll of his followers and later declared “amnesty” for any accounts that “have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” That decision set up potentially thousands of accounts that previously violated Twitter’s policies against hate and harassment to be restored to the platform.

Musk’s one man approach to content moderation is unlikely to scale. The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO slashed Twitter’s moderation teams when he took over at the company last month. He also lost Twitter’s Global Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth who helped steer the company through many of its thorniest policy decisions in recent years. “One of my limits was if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by policy… there’s no longer a need for me in my role, doing what I do,” Roth said in his first post-departure interview this week.

In spite of his early promises for a policy-making council, so far Musk is relying on unscientific Twitter polls skewed toward his supporters to set the platform’s rules. According to research from the ADL, white supremacists and other extremists noticed the opportunity and encouraged their supporters to vote in Musk’s “amnesty” poll on Telegram.

One Telegram channel with thousands of followers cautioned members who planned to head back to Twitter: “Refrain from obvious slurs; don’t make it easy for them.”

Elon Musk just brought an infamous neo-Nazi back to Twitter by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

Space company Astra’s management team is undergoing another shake-up. The company said Friday that chief engineer Benjamin Lyon has resigned after just short of two years in the role. Rather than seek a replacement for that position, Astra promoted four key staff to management positions that will now directly report to CEO Chris Kemp and other C-Suite staff.

Astra hired Lyon in February 2021, after a two-decade-plus career at Apple. The move from consumer electronics to rockets may have been unconventional, but at the time CEO Chris Kemp was adamant that the company sought someone from outside the aerospace industry.

In an interview with TechCrunch on today’s news, Kemp said it was a “very well-coordinated and collaborative transition.”

“[Lyon] hired a bunch of star players,” he said. “One thing that became pretty clear to all of us was the caliber of his team and the opportunity to elevate them onto our management team would really streamline things.”

Kemp added that Lyon had an opportunity to join a Fortune 500 company in a C-level position, and that at least two of the promotions — Giovanni Greco, who is now leading launch system delivery, and Jonathan Donaldson, who will lead Astra Spacecraft Engine delivery — were green-lighted around a month ago. The other promotions include Doug Kunzman to lead launch and test operations and Bryson Gentile to lead manufacturing.

These are far from the only recent changes to Astra’s workforce. In September, the company announced that it was bringing on a new CFO, Axel Martinez, as the company seeks to grow its spacecraft business and accelerate development of its launch system and Rocket 4.0. Two months later, the company saw the departure of VP of communications Kati Dahm.

Amid these staff changes, Astra also laid off 16% of its workforce. In a fourth-quarter earnings call with investors, executives said they anticipate payroll savings from the layoffs to be realized in the first quarter of next year.

Astra star hire Benjamin Lyon resigns, management team restructured by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

A few years ago, I was driving in a rural area on the coast north of San Francisco and found myself low on gas. In fact, the fuel light was flashing urgently.

My cell phone couldn’t get a signal to direct me to the nearest gas station, so I put the engine in economy mode and drove on instinct. I knew the car had a reserve tank, but I had no idea how far it would take me.

Founders who don’t implement proper treasury management practices during a downturn are as foolhardy as I was that day — how far can your company go on fumes?

“Your cash reserves mean nothing if you aren’t able to access them in time to pay for your ongoing expenses,” writes Michael Dombrowski, corporate treasury adviser at Rho.

In a TC+ guest post, he shares the basic steps for creating a cash management plan for startups that have closed an extension or need to make the most out of their precious runway.

Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members
Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription

TechCrunch+ is hiring for several roles, including a part-time desk editor who will help manage our guest contributor program.

If you’re interested, please don’t contact me — you can find more information about this role and submit an application via LinkedIn.

Thanks very much for reading, and have a great weekend.

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

Move over, operators — consultants are the new nontraditional VC

In the first half of this year, 30 funds received almost two-thirds of all new venture capital raised, according to PitchBook.

Nevertheless, Rebecca Szkutak found that several consulting firms that help early-stage startups get to the next level are now launching their own VC funds.

“Over the last two to three years we’ve been asked by a lot of founders to join their cap table,” said FNDR founder and CEO James Vincent.

“The founder wants us on the journey. We’ve spent time with them and shown great intimacy. We don’t do it with everybody.”

Strategic warfare: How to hire and retain top analytics talent

Especially in the early days, non-technical founders are vulnerable when it comes to hiring technical employees. How can you tell if someone can deliver when you don’t have experience doing the job yourself?

Analytics can be as much of a black box as engineering, which is why hiring managers need to look past the skill list on CVs to find more effective ways to sort candidates, writes Chuck Soha, managing director at StoneTurn.

In an article that includes suggested pre-screening techniques and sample questions, he says companies should rely on case studies during the interview process, “which ultimately makes the experience better both for the employee and the employer.”

Proptech in Review: 3 investors explain why they’re bullish on tech that makes buildings greener

Investors who work at the intersection of climate tech and proptech seek out potentially profitable startups that can reduce emissions and enhance the built environment.

It’s a high-stakes balancing act with significant risk, but considering the upside for category winners and the health of the planet, “the potential market is enormous,” reports Tim De Chant.

For his second proptech investor survey in a three-part series, he interviewed:

Jake Fingert, managing partner, and Lionel Foster, investor, Camber Creek
Anja Rath, managing partner, PropTech1 Ventures
Othmane Zrikem, chief data officer, A/O Proptech

Dear Sophie: How should I prepare for my visa interview?

Dear Sophie,

Our startup was just accepted into the winter batch of a top accelerator!

My co-founder with an H-1B just got laid off from Big Tech, but he’s OK because his immigration lawyer is filing a change of status to B-1 within the 60-day grace period. I’m nervous though, because I’m outside the U.S. and I don’t yet have a B-1/B-2 visitor visa.

How can I ace the visa interview? What type of questions will I be asked? How should I prepare?

— Tenacious in Tobago

5 methods for leveraging digital advertising during a downturn

When Apple offered its customers greater privacy control, it upended mobile advertising. According to a survey by data science company Proxima, 40% of respondents said the iOS privacy policy change negatively impacted their business.

To stay flexible, Proxima CEO Alex Song says marketers should experiment with shifting their campaigns to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

“For the remainder of 2022 and beyond, the decision is not whether to advertise, but where, how much and how to augment performance.”

Pitch Deck Teardown: Hour One’s $20M Series A deck

Startups are approaching language learning from every angle: Hour One uses AI to deploy avatars that turn text into video.

In 2020, its founders raised a $5 million seed round, but earlier this year, it raised $20 million more via a Series A. Here’s a complete breakdown of the company’s unredacted 11-slide deck:

Cover slide
“At a glance” summary slide
Solution slide
Market size slide
Value proposition slide
Product slide 1
Product slide 2
Target audience slide
Case study slide
Team slide
Closing slide

TechCrunch+ roundup: Cash management basics, proptech investor survey, visa interview prep by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

This week, I talk with Rita Liao about the great wall of porn obscuring information about protests in china. And Ron Miller comes on to recap the AWS re:invent event and his story on Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor stepping down. And as always, we break down the biggest stories in tech.

Articles from the episode:

Great Wall of porn obscures China protest news on Twitter
Bret Taylor steps down as co-chair and CEO of Salesforce
All of TC’s AWS re:invent converage

Other news from the week:

Instafest app lets you create your own festival lineup from Spotify
Musk at Twitter has ‘huge work’ ahead to comply with EU rules, warns bloc
BeReal wins ‘app of the year’ in Apple’s annual App Store Awards in 2022

Salesforce CEO succession drama and other TC news by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

We’re a month out from the next CES. TechCrunch is returning to Vegas for the first time a few years and — as usual — we’re on the hunt for the most fascinating startups.

Work for a startup showing off a cool new product at CES next month? Let us know by filling out the below form. Our team will be reaching out to those companies we think we will be a good fit for coverage.

Thanks, good luck and see you in Las Vegas!

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TechCrunch wants to meet your startup at CES 2023 by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch