Alyssa Stringer, Author at TechCrunch

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 22:00:00 +0000

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

Kyle Wiggers, Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:45:00 +0000

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into […]

Elon Musk’s X: A complete timeline of what Twitter has become

Amanda Silberling, Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 20:45:00 +0000

Welcome to Elon Musk’s X. The social network formerly known as Twitter where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter. Or do they? The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, zealously driven to rid the platform of spam bots and protect free speech. Musk […]

A comprehensive archive of 2023 tech layoffs

Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 01 May 2024 12:00:43 +0000

A tech-wide reckoning that began in 2022 and ran throughout into 2023. Though 2024 has gotten off to a rough start, it has yet to reach the peak of the prior year’s substantial cutbacks. This post serves as a record of those layoffs, and the coverage of the reasons behind them, ranging from duplicative roles, […]

What is Bluesky? Everything to know about the app trying to replace Twitter

Amanda Silberling, Alyssa Stringer, Cody Corrall — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 13:00:31 +0000

Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is most certainly bluer. It’s been more than a year since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now X, leading people to set up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (which has already shuttered operations) and Spill have been presented as potential […]

ChatGPT: All announcements from the AI-powered chatbot in 2023

Kyle Wiggers, Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 19:30:00 +0000

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, had a big year in 2023. After launching in November 2022, the company announced that ChatGPT has hit 100 million weekly active users, and OpenAI is heavily investing in it. On November 6, OpenAI held its first developer conference: OpenAI DevDay. During the conference, it announced a slew of updates […]

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

Kyle Wiggers, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:00:30 +0000

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. It’s able to write essays, code and more given short text prompts, hyper-charging productivity. But it also has a more…nefarious side. In any case, AI tools are not going away — and indeed has expanded dramatically since its launch just a few months ago. […]

A comprehensive list of 2023 tech layoffs

Alyssa Stringer — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 12:26:38 +0000

Last year’s techwide reckoning continues. In 2023, layoffs have yet again cost tens of thousands of tech workers their jobs; this time, the workforce reductions have been driven by the biggest names in tech like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta and Zoom. Startups, too, have announced cuts across all sectors, from crypto to enterprise SaaS. […]

This week in robotics: Chinese startups net a series of fundraising successes

Alyssa Stringer — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 15:00:54 +0000

Before we dive into this week’s biggest news within the robotics space, there’s an announcement of our own to highlight. We’ll be hosting a number of robotics industry experts at our very first Hardware Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. The stage kicks off on day three of Disrupt on September 21, and features speakers from […]

This week in robotics: Amazon’s iRobot deal hits an EU snag as new funding keeps hot drone summer rolling

Alyssa Stringer — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 12:00:30 +0000

This week brought in good news for the robotics space in the form of new investment for nascent companies, but two established players within the space hit a snag. Amazon’s potential $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, which had previously been approved by the U.K.’s antitrust regulators, is now getting an extensive review by the European […]

This week in robotics: Teaching robots chores from YouTube, robot dogs at the border and drone consolidation

Alyssa Stringer — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 16:00:13 +0000

AI’s grabbing headlines, but the robotics field is still making a significant impact in the real world — and this is your briefing on our latest coverage of the growing industry. Before we get into the depths of the past week’s noteworthy robotics news, our resident expert Brian Heater dove into the debate over the […]

A comprehensive list of 2023 tech layoffs

Alyssa Stringer — Thu, 18 May 2023 14:00:08 +0000

Silicon Valley Bank: Here’s a timeline of the bank’s failure

Natasha Mascarenhas, Alyssa Stringer — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 12:01:38 +0000

On Friday, I wrote about how Silicon Valley Bank has been closed by regulators, which are now in charge of the bank’s deposits. The bank is set to reopen Monday, which means we — and I mean that in the most collective sense — are in for a weekend of pause, fear and further questions. This is not a story of the week; it’s a story for the weeks and months ahead. As Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan put it, this could set startups and innovation back by 10 years.

ChatGPT: Everything released from the AI-powered chatbot in 2022

Kyle Wiggers, Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 19:00:00 +0000

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, launched in November 2022 to massive success and interest from users curious about the technology. The release sparked a widespread conversation about AI and its implementation in everyday life for the first time at that scale, and it resulted in download numbers spiking for its iOS app even in limited […]

A complete timeline of the Elon Musk-Twitter saga

Alyssa Stringer, Taylor Hatmaker — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 15:00:39 +0000

It’s been a wild month of news for the social network that we collectively love to hate. In early April, Elon Musk took a bite out of Twitter, coming away with 9.2% of the company and plans to exercise his influence over the company through its board. After he backed out of his planned board […]

Everything you need to know about YC Demo Day Winter 2022, part 2

Alex Wilhelm, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 23:44:43 +0000

The second day of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day is now behind us, and the TechCrunch team is recovering from watching hundreds of pitches in quick succession. Every accelerator demo day is a marathon, but the U.S. group has worked with more startups over time, making its pitch sessions a veritable deluge of new […]

Everything you need to know about YC Winter 2022 Demo Day, part 1

Natasha Mascarenhas, Alyssa Stringer — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:35:44 +0000

The TechCrunch team spent today covering the first day of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day, which featured half of the 394 companies that plan to virtually present. Since the overall batch is bigger than ever before – with 414 companies in total – we decided to divide, conquer and create a slew of YC […]

Best of TechCrunch 2021

Alyssa Stringer, Miranda Halpern — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 19:23:17 +0000

We asked our staff to vote on their favorite stories of the year, added evergreen content and our top TC+ articles for a well-rounded 2021 list. Enjoy!