Happy weekend, folks, and welcome to the TechCrunch Week review. Henry here, standing in for vacationing Kyle Wiegers, who is standing in for parent-out Greg Kumparak. Listen, we have a deep bench, and both locks will be back soon. Until then, here’s a look at just a few of the week’s top stories.
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Netflix password sharing hack: The streaming giant is tired of its customers sharing passwords with friends and loved ones around the world. So this week it announced guidelines designed to keep passwords close to home. Literally within the walls of the housing.
Entered conversation OpenAI this week launched trial registration for its text-generating AI. For $20 a month, subscribers can get more than the basic tier: access to ChatGPT during peak hours, faster response times, and priority access to new features and updates.
Human or AI? That’s the question, and obviously OpenAI wants to help. The company unveiled a tool designed to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text, but its success rate is around 26 percent. But when used with other methods, AI text generators can help prevent abuse, OpenAI said.
Bypassing FB 2FA: Meta created a new centralized system for users to manage their logins for Facebook and Instagram, but a bug could have allowed malicious hackers to disable 2FA by knowing a user’s phone number. Ike, a security researcher from Nepal, discovered the bug and reported it to the Meta Account Center last September. And it paid off.
Sales Force Layoff Hit: In January, the company recently announced a 10% workforce reduction. However, not everyone was made aware of it at the time. Hundreds of company employees learned the fate of their jobs this week.
“Pour the tea”; Alphonso “Fonz” Terrell lost his job at Twitter three months ago as global head of social and editorial and immediately began working on a new app. The app, called Spill, has already attracted a seed round and 60,000 handles. The app is set to launch in alpha sometime in the first quarter of this year.
Google Fi breach: The company has confirmed that mobile network provider Google Fi has suffered a data breach, which, depending on the timing of the announcement, may be related to a recent security breach at T-Mobile that allowed hackers to steal the data of millions of customers.
Audio summary
This week on TechCrunch Podcast Network, Equity covered the usual business and startup funding news, and Mary Ann Talked to Hans Tung, investor and managing partner of GGVC, a venture capital firm with over $9 billion in assets under management. found, Darrell And Becca She spoke to Rosie Nguyen, Co-Founder and CMO of Fanhouse, about her journey from content creator to founder and how her experience as a creator informs every product decision at Fanhouse.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get in-depth commentary, analytics, and surveys — something you already know if you’re a subscriber. If not, consider signing up. I doubt you will regret it. Check out just this week’s highlights:
Not in the second place. Becca reported in this week’s data that secondary deals are coming out of the subdued venture capital market this year.
Open source startups: Paul Sauers examines a report this week that explores which commercial open source software startups are growing and raising money the fastest.
Go to group. Have you ever wondered which slide is the most important slide in a beginner’s pitch deck? Why is the team’s slide and Haje explains how surprised how many rookies don’t tell good stories about their teams? And speaking of pitch decks, Haje brings you Laos’ $570K angel deck wreckage.
Dear Sophie: Immigration Sophie Alcorn What H-1B and other immigration changes can we expect this year?
