Q&A with Figma CEO Dylan Field on managing the company after the failed sale to Adobe, maintaining culture, using the $1B breakup fee, expansion plans, and more (Alex Heath/The Verge)

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Q&A with Figma CEO Dylan Field on managing the company after the failed sale to Adobe, maintaining culture, using the $1B breakup fee, expansion plans, and more  —  Figma has a billion dollars and big plans for expansion as it emerges from the acquisition with its ‘foot on the gas.’  —  Happy Friday.

Ahead of the 2024 US election, Anthropic is testing Prompt Shield, which will redirect users asking political topics to "authoritative" sources of voting info (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Ahead of the 2024 US election, Anthropic is testing Prompt Shield, which will redirect users asking political topics to “authoritative” sources of voting info  —  Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Anthropic, the well-funded AI startup, is testing a technology to detect …

An interview with Kurt Wagner on his new book Battle for the Bird, a Jack Dorsey biography morphed into a deep dive on Twitter's tumultuous transition to X (Zoë Schiffer/Platformer)

Zoë Schiffer / Platformer:
An interview with Kurt Wagner on his new book Battle for the Bird, a Jack Dorsey biography morphed into a deep dive on Twitter's tumultuous transition to X  —  Was it Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk?  Kurt Wagner and Zoë Schiffer, authors of two new books on the subject, interview each other about what they learned

PitchBook: Q4 2023 saw only 12 crypto exits, the lowest number since Q4 2020 and consistent with the "low-level activity seen throughout 2023" (TechCrunch)

TechCrunch:
PitchBook: Q4 2023 saw only 12 crypto exits, the lowest number since Q4 2020 and consistent with the “low-level activity seen throughout 2023”  —  The global venture capital market is enduring a long period of limited exits.  Startups are staying private longer …

TSMC rises ~8% in its first post-Lunar New Year trading session, reaching a record $575B market cap and passing Visa as the world's 12th most valuable company (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
TSMC rises ~8% in its first post-Lunar New Year trading session, reaching a record $575B market cap and passing Visa as the world's 12th most valuable company  —  - Global AI activity should benefit Taiwan's largest company  — TSMC is the main contract chipmaker to Nvidia and Apple

A US judge approves Genesis' plan to sell ~$1.6B in Grayscale crypto trust shares to repay creditors, including 35M GBTC shares, worth ~$1.38B (Dietrich Knauth/Reuters)

Dietrich Knauth / Reuters:
A US judge approves Genesis' plan to sell ~$1.6B in Grayscale crypto trust shares to repay creditors, including 35M GBTC shares, worth ~$1.38B  —  Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global on Wednesday received permission from a U.S. court to sell about $1.6 billion in Grayscale cryptocurrency trust shares …

Sources: Italian app developer Bending Spoons raised $155M from Baillie Gifford and more at a $2.6B valuation, after raising $100M in 2023, and seeks M&A deals (Daniele Lepido/Bloomberg)

Daniele Lepido / Bloomberg:
Sources: Italian app developer Bending Spoons raised $155M from Baillie Gifford and more at a $2.6B valuation, after raising $100M in 2023, and seeks M&A deals  —  - Italian app developer has raised $155 million in new funding  — Company on track to generate $500 million in sales this year

Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer's push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda (Brian Fung/CNN)

Brian Fung / CNN:
Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer's push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda  —  Artificial intelligence is already sowing chaos and confusion in US elections — from a bogus robocall impersonating President Joe Biden …

A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs' tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers (Joanna Stern/Wall Street Journal)

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs' tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers  —  Grieving parents made these audio deepfakes to stir the emotions of lawmakers.  But they also mark a new era for artificial intelligence.

UMG begins pulling its artists' music from TikTok after contract talks failed; videos featuring UMG artists will be muted and users can pick a new soundtrack (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
UMG begins pulling its artists' music from TikTok after contract talks failed; videos featuring UMG artists will be muted and users can pick a new soundtrack  —  - Publisher behind Drake and Taylor Swift pushes for better pay  — Videos featuring Universal Music-owned songs will be muted

After Amazon ended its acquisition, iRobot, whose market share has been steadily eroding since 2014, could quickly become an also-ran in the robot vacuum market (Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge)

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
After Amazon ended its acquisition, iRobot, whose market share has been steadily eroding since 2014, could quickly become an also-ran in the robot vacuum market  —  By abandoning its deal to buy iRobot, Amazon has left the robot vacuum maker stuck under the couch.

US and UK law enforcement are bracing for an explosion of AI-generated CSAM, and criticize Meta, the authorities' best partner for flagging CSAM, over E2EE (Eileen Sullivan/New York Times)

Eileen Sullivan / New York Times:
US and UK law enforcement are bracing for an explosion of AI-generated CSAM, and criticize Meta, the authorities' best partner for flagging CSAM, over E2EE  —  Law enforcement officials are bracing for an explosion of material generated by artificial intelligence that realistically depicts children …

Silicon Valley's powerful companies claim to embrace Enlightenment values, but instead are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal, and authoritarian technocracy (Adrienne LaFrance/The Atlantic)

Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
Silicon Valley's powerful companies claim to embrace Enlightenment values, but instead are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal, and authoritarian technocracy  —  Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology.  It's past time we call it what it is.

ByteDance co-founder and CEO Liang Rubo urges staff to resist mediocrity after the company missed the initial wave of generative AI, in a company-wide meeting (Jane Zhang/Bloomberg)

Jane Zhang / Bloomberg:
ByteDance co-founder and CEO Liang Rubo urges staff to resist mediocrity after the company missed the initial wave of generative AI, in a company-wide meeting  —  - Co-founder said the company showed signs of complacency  — Chinese peer Baidu claims its model can rival OpenAI's ChatGPT

Berlin-based Delivery Hero plans to sell 68.2M shares of Deliveroo, or a ~4.5% stake worth ~£83M, and does not expect to hold any Deliveroo stock afterwards (Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu/Financial Times)

Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu / Financial Times:
Berlin-based Delivery Hero plans to sell 68.2M shares of Deliveroo, or a ~4.5% stake worth ~£83M, and does not expect to hold any Deliveroo stock afterwards  —  Sector has been coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate profitability as cost of capital has risen