TechCrunch Top 3

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1. Dropbox is letting go 20% of its staff as it realizes it might have over-hired in certain areas and needs to design a "flatter, more efficient" team structure. The CEO says he takes "full responsibility." Read More

2. Everyone gets a gold star: Ashton Kutcher, actor, co-founder of Sound Ventures, and Kelso from "That 70s Show", thinks every company will be an AI company eventually. But he doesn't think there will be a winner in the space. That said, his firm is backing Fei-Fei Li's World Labs. Read More

3. Tony Fadell throws hands: We love a spicy interview, and Tony Fadell delivered at TC Disrupt. The iPod creator talked about the "mission-driven assholes" building deeptech, entitlement in Silicon Valley, why LLMs are "know-it-alls," and even took a shot at Sam Altman. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

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🐿️ Chip shop open for business: OpenAI is reportedly working with TSMC and Broadcom to build its first in-house AI chip, slated for 2026. The AI company is also apparently going to use AMD chips alongside Nvidia's for training its AI. Read More

👗 Fit check: Aesthetic has launched what it says is "Shazam for clothes," and never have I been so excited for an app. Pinterest has a similar feature for sourcing apparel and other items, but it never quite finds the exact brand. I'm curious how well Aesthetic's app works. Read More

⏸️ Hold up: Google says it's not planning to ship AI agents from its Project Astra effort until next year. These agents will purportedly be able to understand and answer questions about things — like apps that can recognize the world around them and answer questions. Read More

🥊 Fighting the good fight: Deepfakes aren't going away, but it's heartening to know there are people fighting the good fight. ForceField, one of the companies competing on TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield stage, is building a set of APIs designed to authenticate content. Read More

🪲 Cage the antibodies: Biotech startup Archon has come out of stealth with $20 million in seed funding and a new way to use AI to design novel biomolecules. The startup's goal? To supercharge antibody treatments by caging them to multiply their effects. Read More

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Last chance to soak in the ultimate tech experience at Disrupt 2024!

It's the final day of Disrupt 2024 at Moscone West! You still have the chance to gain insights from tech giants, explore startups from around the world, and witness the final fast-paced pitches from global startups and in Startup Battlefield 200. Don't miss enhanced networking opportunities and exclusive after-hour events. Immerse yourself in the ultimate tech event of the year before it ends!

Around the Web

📧 Don't get phished: Bloomberg has the details of a Microsoft report about Russian hackers targeting U.S. government officials and defense workers in a new email phishing campaign. Thousands of people in over 100 organizations have been targeted since last week. Read More

🔫 We live in a society: Meta appears to have given up on managing misinformation and potentially harmful content on its platform, according to Wired. The company is not only allowing anti-government militia groups to use Facebook to recruit, but the site is auto-generating pages. Read More

💥 AI goes nuclear: And I'm not talking about energy. The U.S. Air Force General said the government is developing AI tools to help leaders respond to "time-sensitive scenarios," 404 Media reports. The general said that AI brings "unique deterrence effects" to the table. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Kimberly White / Getty Images

🏆 And the finalists are… The judges at TC Disrupt have come up with the five finalists for Startup Battlefield. The startups competing follow in the footsteps of a set of Startup Battlefield alumni (including Dropbox, Discord, and Mint) who have collectively raised over $29 billion. Read More