The text file that runs the internet

May 23, 2024

(Verge) For decades, robots.txt governed the behavior of web crawlers. But as unscrupulous AI companies seek out more and more data, the basic social contract of the web is falling apart.  Read more here.

Blackstone to Grant Equity to Most Employees in Future U.S. Buyouts

May 21, 2024

(WSJ) Blackstone wants rank-and-file employees at the companies it buys to own a piece of their business. Read more here.

Half of venture firms will ‘fade or fail,’ prominent VC forecasts

May 20, 2024

(MarketWatch) As many as half the venture-capital firms will fade or fail, says a prominent player in that space. Josh Wolfe, the co-founder of New York VC firm Lux Capital, says the contraction will be driven by both fractured partnerships as well as what he calls “feckless” strategies that are too weak to fix. He…

Election “uncertainty” won’t dent dealmaking in 2024

May 17, 2024

(Axios) Dealmakers aren’t sweating this year’s presidential election, even if it’s the most important of our lifetimes. Read more here.

Billionaire Frank McCourt Plans Bid for TikTok in U.S.

May 15, 2024

(WSJ) The real-estate mogul said he is organizing a bid to acquire platform, saying he will put users and data security at the center of its design and purpose. Read more here.

Kids Hooked on Video Games Prompt a Flurry of Lawsuits

May 13, 2024

(Bloomberg) Attorneys for parents say publishers are addicting users and causing health issues like ADHD and depression. Read more here.

Uber’s results hit by legal costs after decade of regulatory battles

May 8, 2024

(FT) First-quarter operating profit sharply misses analysts’ expectations after payouts related to driver lawsuits Read more here.

San Jose Police boosts its VC exposure

May 7, 2024

(Venture Capital Journal) City of San Jose Police and Fire Department Retirement Plan increased its target to venture capital by 0.5 percent, seeing a chance to benefit from a depressed VC marketplace. Read more here.

Stanford AI leader Fei-Fei Li building ‘spatial intelligence’ startup

May 3, 2024

(Reuters) Prominent computer scientist Fei-Fei Li is building a startup that uses human-like processing of visual data to make artificial intelligence (AI) capable of advanced reasoning, six sources told Reuters, in what would be a leap forward for the technology. Read more here.

ChatGPT’s ‘hallucination’ problem hit with another privacy complaint in EU

April 29, 2024

(TechCrunch) OpenAI is facing another privacy complaint in the European Union. This one, which has been filed by privacy rights nonprofit noyb on behalf of an individual complainant, targets the inability of its AI chatbot ChatGPT to correct misinformation it generates about individuals. Read more here.