Startups and technology

Startups don’t need to go viral to win customers
At TechCrunch Disrupt last week, two founders and a VC discussed how to not just gain an early following but keep one....

OpenAI says it will no longer train its AI models on the live internet, citing “significant risks”
OpenAI will cut frontier models off from the internet weeks after one of its engineers said that solution wouldn't work....

Hottest toy for Christmas? Nvidia CEO plays with adorable Microduck robots, 20,000 sell
The robots, stomping their little feet and making tiny R2-D2 noises, sat, fell down dead for a "nap," and summersaulted on voice command....

VCs, Superhuman Mail founder share red flags about product-market fit
Top investors from Iconiq and Sapphire Ventures, along with Rahul Vohra, the founder of Superhuman Mail, share the do's and don'ts for build...

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 roundtables: Go deeper on the challenges founders are solving right now
TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 is coming to SoWa Power Station in Boston on November 4, bringing founders, investors, and operators together...

Carta and NewView partner, hoping to entice more startups to let employees sell shares early
A new program wants to encourage more startups to allow workers to cash out early by making it easier to transact tender offers....

From Toast to Bessemer: Who founders will hear from at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026
Hosted by TechCrunch in partnership with Fidelity Private Shares, the full-day event goes beyond fundraising and AI to explore the realities...

Agent cloud startup Daytona hits $1B valuation backed by FirstMark and a who’s who of angels
Daytona is building a cloud for agents that's like giving every agent its own computer. It has attracted founders of Stripe, Perplextity, Da...

Commonwealth Fusion Systems gets $85M to build better fusion-ready semiconductors
Top-funded fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems received an $85 million award from the federal government to advance conductors for fu...

What some of Anthropic’s backers are worth before its IPO
Early-stage and follow-on investors in the AI lab are already sitting on major paper returns....