Good morning, and welcome to TechCrunch AM for February 2, 2024. It’s Friday! We made it! And to celebrate that, we have drama at an Indian unicorn, Apple’s genAI plans, the latest on Apple’s App Store payments fracas, a neat startup out of Armenia, and a small Tesla fine.

– Alex

TechCrunch Top 3

1. Governance matters: If an investor wants to take the extraordinary step of removing a CEO from their company, what can stop them? Well, the legal paperwork. Indian edtech giant Byju’s said in a statement today that its investors’ “shareholder’s agreement does not give them the right to vote on a CEO or management change.” Of course, lawyers will have the final say, but the mess at Byju’s is a reminder that governance really does matter.
2. Apple teases its GenAI: If you are an Apple fan bummed out that your favorite tech company is nowhere on the generative AI map, well the company’s CEO Tim Cook wants you to expect some good news on that front. The questions before us now include when, and, of course, what would GenAI under the aegis of Apple look like?
3. What two top AI investors see in the market today: At our recent StrictlyVC event, TechCrunch Editor in Chief Connie Loizos spoke with investors Sarah Guo and Elad Gil about investing in AI startups, how they are working to track the latest developments in the technology, and what to do when AI products are used in an abusive manner. (Our next StrictlyVC event is in LA later this month!).

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No one’s happy with Apple’s App Store shenanigans: Apple’s recent moves to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) have been met with criticism, but it’s not just from small app developers and the like. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks that the company’s new plan is “so onerous” that he doesn’t expect developers to adopt the new policies.

That’s good news for Apple, which wants to keep its lucrative status quo in effect. How much money is at stake? Apple just revealed that the EU accounts for 7% of its total App Store revenue. That’s about one in every fourteen dollars. That was lower than I expected given how large the EU is.

A startup market to watch: Armenian startup Podcastle just raised $13.5 million in a round led by Mosaic Ventures. The company’s service offers a podcasting platform infused with AI elements for recording and editing. And we should expect more news out of Armenia, where developer talent is driving tech interest, according to Podcastle CEO Arto Yeritsyan. “We’re basically becoming a small Silicon Valley here,” he says.

Paytm’s expensive regulatory woes: The value of Indian fintech giant Paytm has been in freefall after India’s central bank imposed measures that would impact Paytm’s Payments Bank. The company’s stock fell about 20% on Friday after falling 20% on Thursday, causing its market cap to shrink by $2.1 billion.

Today in tiny corporate fines: Just two days after 25 California counties filed a lawsuit against Tesla alleging that the automaker repeatedly mishandled hazardous waste at its facilities throughout the state, the parties have reached a settlement. The total bill? $1.5 million. That’s, well, just about nothing to a company of Tesla’s size.

Amazon’s Rufus wants to help you shop: Amazon has a new shopping tool coming your way, an AI-powered shopping assistant called Rufus. The gist is that the tool aims to help customers find products, compare them, and get better recommendations. Sure, but why not just make the normal Amazon shopping system… better?

Before you go

Will the UK kill the AI golden goose? The UK’s House of Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee thinks that the “government should refocus its efforts on more near-term security and societal risks posed by large language models (LLMs) such as copyright infringement and misinformation,” instead of apocalyptic scenarios. That seems reasonable enough. On the other hand, there’s risk of “regulatory capture” if governments focus on the issues that existing foundation model companies want to keep in center view, Paul Sawers reports.

• Sr. Data Engineer (USAFacts) at USAFacts (Bellevue, WA, USA)
• Founding Data Engineer (Staff / Principal) at Everyday Agents (San Francisco, CA 94105, United States)
• Founding AI/ML Platform Engineer (Staff / Principal) at Everyday Agents (San Francisco, CA 94105, United States)
• Chief Information Officer at Raftelis (Washington County, Oregon, USA)
• System Administrator, OT at Hoosier Energy (Bloomington, IN, USA)

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