TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Eugene Gologursky/The New York Times / Getty Images

😌 Keep it simple: OpenAI's Sam Altman announced that the company won't be releasing its o3 model as a stand-alone model in a quest to simplify its product offerings. Does this mean the yearlong battle of AI companies one-upping each other with new models each week is over? I hope so. Read more

🖥️ Another tech appointee: President Donald Trump announced that he's picked Jonathan Morrison to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Morrison was involved with the first Trump administration and has been working at Apple for the last four years. Read more

🤖 Speaking of Apple: Apple is reportedly working on both humanoid and non-humanoid robots. While this development is still in the earliest stages, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts 2028 is a realistic timeline for mass production of a consumer-focused robot. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Sheel Mohnot stands in front of a sign that says Everything is fintech

Image Credits: Sheel Mohnot, Better Tomorrow Ventures / Rex Salisbury

🔔 Talking Taco Bell: Today's episode of Equity features a conversation with Sheel Mohnot, the former startup founder and general partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures. Mohnot talks about his fintech investments, his fun X presence, and his thoughts on AI. Listen here

🔐 Safe opportunity: TechCrunch's Romain Dillet sat down with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at the Paris AI Action Summit today. Amodei reiterated that he thinks we need more AI governance and added that he thinks having a focus on safety doesn't limit opportunity. Read more

🤝 A match made in security: Security compliance automation platform Drata acquired software security review startup SafeBase for $250 million. Phew, say that five times fast. SafeBase will continue to offer a stand-alone product, and its core solution will become part of Drata's product. Read more

🍰 Scaling up: Suger is a startup that built a suite of tools to help companies list and scale up on cloud marketplaces. The startup already has more than 200 customers and just raised a $15 million Series A. Read more

📞 A prison call: Elizabeth Holmes conducted her first interview from behind bars with People magazine, in which she said she's still working on research and innovation in the healthcare space. Hmmm. Read more

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Around the web

🇸🇾 Silicon Valley heads to Syria: Syria held its first tech conference in 50 years last weekend. The SYNC 25 conference was created by Syrian-American folks in Silicon Valley and touched on areas such as AI and data security. Read more

🪟 Not transparent: Elon Musk said yesterday that all of the federal cost-cutting that DOGE would be doing would be transparent — 404 Media looked at some of the DOGE-related websites and found that there isn't much there about government efficiency. But one of the sites still has filler text about an imaginary architecture firm. Read more

Before you go

Image Credits: Netflix

🌮 Netflix nachos: Netflix opened a restaurant in Las Vegas called Netflix Bites. The restaurant will feature food and drinks inspired by Netflix shows and is set to be open for a year. It never hurts to have a little fun with it. Read more