Welcome to Startups Weekly — Hey's weekly roundup of everything you can't miss in the world of startups. To register here to receive it in your inbox every Friday.
Elon Musk just convinced Tesla shareholders to approve his $56 billion pay package, making him the highest-paid CEO in history — assuming he can avoid a Delaware judge's censure. And where better to stage this circus than in Texas, home of all things great, including egos? Shareholders erupted in applause at the Texas Tesla giant as the voting results were announced. Meanwhile, Musk is juggling more companies than a clown with chainsaws and is facing two new lawsuits (being sued only once a week is for wimps). Oh, and forget all the great ESG initiatives; they were shot down faster than you can say 'corporate responsibility'. Who needs sustainability when you have Elon dancing on stage with 0.7 Twitter money in a suitcase?
Most interesting startup stories of the week
It seems that Henrik Fisker's talent for designing cars is matched only by his talent for putting companies out of business. Despite aspiring to be the Apple of EVs (with Magna playing Foxconn), the critically acclaimed Ocean SUV sank faster than the Titanic, with software issues, recalls and lemon lawsuits galore. Now filing for Chapter 11 in Delaware, Fisker has gone from dreaming of revolutionizing the auto industry to trying not to be stuck with a $500 million bill. This marks Fisker's second attempt to bankrupt an eponymous company. Can he get the three? Stay tuned.
- Yes, I saw that coming: Have you ever felt like your subscription services are conspiring against you? Well, Adobe just got called out by the DOJ for allegedly making it easier to escape Alcatraz than canceling one of their subscriptions.
- you shall view our advertisements: YouTube is at it again, folks. This time, they're taking their anti-adblocker campaign to new heights with server-side ad injections, making sure those annoying ads greet you before the video even lands on your device. Oh, and I recapped this story in the JS Minute series, if you're more of a viewer than a reader.
- I'm going around in circlesIt looks like Loop, the insurance startup with a noble mission to overturn biased pricing models, has hit a huge fundraising wall. After twenty months of trying (and failing) to raise some money, co-founder John Henry had the unenviable task of announcing layoffs via Instagram.
Trend of the week: All eyes on AI
Apple has finally thrown its hat into the AI icon circus, joining the likes of Google and OpenAI in a desperate attempt to depict AI with a logo that has any meaning at all. Spoiler alert: they're just as clueless as everyone else. Apple's new visual for “Intelligence” is essentially a psychedelic circle – wait, no – a crooked infinity symbol? Actually, it's the new Siri. Or maybe it's when the edges of your phone glow like an alien spaceship landing. The real takeaway here? No one knows what AI should look like, but let's use some friendly pastels and call it innovation.
Meanwhile, Ilya Sutskever, the AI brain who decided last month that OpenAI wasn't exciting enough anymore, is starting his own shindig called Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) started with a few other ex-OpenAI friends. After a dramatic exit from OpenAI (presumably over how to prevent Skynet from taking over), Sutskever is doing everything it can to ensure that super-smart AI doesn't become our overlord anytime soon. SSI's mission? To balance the amazing AI developments with safety measures so that we don't end up in our own “Black Mirror” episode.
Most interesting fundraising this week
Meet the dynamic duo who seem to have skipped their quarter-life crisis and gone straight to swimming with cash. Edward Tian and Alex Cui, founders of GPTZero, are living proof that high school friendships can lead to multimillion-dollar businesses. In just a year and a half, they've turned their AI detection startup into a money-making machine that surpasses your favorite viral app. With $10 million fresh from eager VCs who couldn't wait for an official raise, these guys are on their way to creating an internet where we can still tell if your essay was written by you or by Cheech, the stoned cousin of ChatGPT.
Other can't-miss JS stories…
Every week there are always a few stories I want to share with you that somehow don't fit into the above categories. It would be a shame if you missed them, so here's a random grab bag of goodies for you:
- What happened to Fisker?: Once again Fisker proves that this is the little engine that couldn't. Despite outsourcing production to auto giant Magna and aiming for a quick launch, the EV startup ignored one glaring problem: it wasn't ready to become a real car company yet.
- Tough times to be an Apple developer: Prepare to pour one out for your favorite third-party apps, because iOS 18 is coming and it's bringing its wrecking ball with it. Apple's infamous practice of “sherlocking” (aka swiping ideas from third-party developers and incorporating them into the operating system) could generate nearly $400 million in app revenue.
- Vita minus: Well, it looks like personalized vitamin subscription company Care/of is officially calling it quits. The company announced that all subscriptions will end on June 17. Despite being backed with $46 million from investors and a hefty buy-in from Bayer worth $225 million in 2020, it couldn't keep the lights on.
- That's not how privacy worksIn a dazzling display of cybersecurity ignorance, EU lawmakers are once again trying to pull off the legislative equivalent of juggling sabre-tooth tigers blindfolded. Meredith Whittaker, chairman of Signal and a common sense bearer, denounced the EU's latest plan to scan private messages for CSAM as a surefire way to throw web security under the bus.
