(ProMarket) What is “purpose”? Is it a goalpost one sets for oneself, a well-intentioned promise between friends, or a legally binding commitment? In the nonprofit world, purpose is a binding commitment made to the public, and the law does not make it easy to abandon it. Therein lies the current controversy surrounding artificial intelligence developer…

(Axios) Google’s dominance of the online advertising and ad-tech markets violates U.S. antitrust laws, a federal court ruled Thursday, in a decision that could scramble the massive digital ad universe. Why it matters: It’s the second major recent antitrust loss for Google, after a different court ruled last year that the giant has abused its…

(Marketplace Tech) The state’s law enforcement agencies are increasingly implementing public-facing, 24/7 surveillance tech like automated license plate readers, according to an investigation by the nonprofit Cardinal News. Editor Jeff Schwaner discusses the rights issues that motivated him to take an excursion through the network. Listen here.

(Fairview Capital) This year marks a significant milestone as the number of woman and minority-owned firms in the United States surpassed 1,000 firms for the first time, reflecting a nearly tenfold increase since Fairview began publishing this data in 2014. The pace of this growth has evolved consistently, amidst significant structural shifts in the private…

(Bloomberg) Korean chip startup FuriosaAI has turned down an $800 million takeover offer from Meta Platforms Inc., choosing instead to grow the business as an independent company, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Meta had been in discussions about acquiring Seoul-based FuriosaAI since the start of this year, said the person, who asked…

(Fortune) Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms, is laying off its Washington, D.C.-based policy team and shuttering its office there, just as some tech-related companies try to increase their visibility in the U.S. capital after President Trump’s re-election. The changes will take effect at the end of March and impact…

(Axios) The SEC has issued new general solicitation guidance that makes the process much less onerous for private equity and venture capital. The big picture: We may not see Times Square billboards advertising new funds, but it’s at least theoretically possible. Catch up quick: The Obama administration had tried to open the floodgates to general…

(Pitchbook) Mounting amounts of dry powder held in three- to five-year-old venture capital funds have reached levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a new PitchBook research report. These large untapped capital commitments stem from limited partners piling into funds in venture’s 2020 and 2021 boom. But the market’s prolonged downturn since…

(TechCrunch) The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is investigating the data-labeling startup Scale AI for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, TechCrunch has learned. That’s a federal law that regulates unpaid wages, misclassification of employees as contractors, and illegal retaliation against workers. The investigation has been active since at least August 2024, a document…

(TechCrunch) Alec Radford, a researcher who helped develop many of OpenAI’s key AI technologies, has been subpoenaed in a copyright case against the AI startup, according to a court filing Tuesday. The filing, submitted by an attorney for the plaintiffs to the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, indicated that Radford was…