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Hellooooo and welcome to the Wednesday Crunch!
SVB’s new CEO, Tim Mayopoulos, has had a lot to say in the 24 hours since he joined the bank on Monday. In a private Zoom meeting hosted by SVB for a select number of LPs and investors, he asked clients to return deposits to the institution. natasha m. reports.
with much love from christina and The wine
TechCrunch Top 3
- mint takeover: The big news today is that T-Mobile will acquire Mint Mobile’s parent company, you know, the company Ryan Reynolds owns a stake in, in a deal valued at $1.35 billion. Aisha notes that this “movement indicates that T-Mobile is looking to boost its prepaid offerings.”
- I know you are, but what am I?: Well, if you ask Greg Brockman of OpenAI, GPT-4 isn’t perfect, but neither are you. Kyle write oh
- talk about time: On the back of OpenAI announcing its new GPT-4 model, Quora announces Poe, its own chatbot offering, which is launching subscriptions to allow you to chat with a GPT-4 powered bot. Ivan reports.
Startups and VCs
There is no shortage of startups trying to put drones to work. However, there is a long-standing question about the effectiveness of such plans. Drones, especially the smaller variety, are impressive pieces of technology, but their functionality is relatively limited. A small quadcopter probably won’t be trimming your trees or walking your dog any time soon, Brian writes However, one thing they can do exceptionally well is image creation. Verity raises $32 million as Ikea stores roll out their inventory drones.
To celebrate Wednesday, here are some attractive alliterations:
Zero-Based Budget: A Proven Framework for Expanding the Runway
Image Credits: fake images
Widening the trail is critical in this environment, but going too far back in the wrong places can reduce momentum throughout the organization.
Rather than simply trim a bit off the top, more startups are turning to zero-based budgeting, an aggressive tactic in which founders return to Square One “every budget period to check that all line items are relevant.” and profitable,” writes FP&A. Analyst Healy Jones.
“The best founders look for a framework to strategically reduce consumption while keeping their startup’s value drivers running.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps start-up founders and teams get ahead of the rest. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” to get 15% off an annual subscription!
big tech inc
Today’s Big Tech theme seems to be “ways to make something easier.” First is GitHub, which created its own set of guidelines on creating open source software offices. Pablo writes that companies trying to keep up with open source compliance, security, etc. will soon find this challenging, so the open source program office “emerges as a core part of the modern corporation, formalizing what previously might have been a loose collective of employees spanning myriad departments and functions.”
Then we go to Waze. If you have an electric vehicle, you’re going to want to get up close. Ivan reports that Waze has a new feature that tells EV owners where compatible charging points are located along their route.
And we have five more for you:
