The case against AI art

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Image Credits: Andriy Onufriyenko / Getty Images

No matter who powerful generative AI becomes, writer Ted Chiang says it will never create true art.

Chiang is one of the most admired science fiction authors writing today, best known for the novella “Story Of Your Life” (which was adapted into the movie “Arrival”). But he’s also published terrific pieces for The New Yorker looking at the dangers and shortcomings of AI.

You should really read his latest article in its entirety, but briefly: Chiang argues that the potential of large language models remains “largely theoretical” — thus far, generative AI has been most successful at “lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning.”

Even as LLMs improve, Chiang argues that their output will never be art — which he acknowledges is “notoriously hard to define,” but he tries anyway: “Art is something that results from making a lot of choices.” Sure, those choices might not result in a particularly good novel or painting or film, but you’re still “engaged in an act of communication between you and your audience.”

“We are all products of what has come before us, but it’s by living our lives in interaction with others that we bring meaning into the world,” Chiang concludes. “That is something that an auto-complete algorithm can never do, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

The Google Inc. logo

Google loses massive antitrust case over search, will appeal ruling

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The Google Inc. logo

Image Credits: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Google will appeal a U.S. District Court judge’s opinion Monday that found the technology giant acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search.

The decision from Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a major defeat for Google that could alter the way it does business and even change the structure of the internet as we know it, should the decision stand.

Mehta said that Google abused its monopoly power over the search business in part by paying companies like Apple to present its search engine as the default choice on their devices and web browsers. The Justice Department and states filed the antitrust suit against Google in 2020, which kicked off in court in September 2023.

Google pays companies, including Apple, Samsung and Mozilla, billions of dollars for prime placement in web browsers and on smartphones. In 2021 alone, Google spent $26 billion to be the default search engine across Apple and Android platforms. According to The New York Times, about $18 billion of that spend went to Apple alone. Google shares 36% of search ad revenue from Safari with Apple. The government has argued that paying for the dominant position effectively kneecapped competitors from being able to build up their own search engines to a scale that would give them the data and reach to stay competitive.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his opinion filed Monday. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it illegal for any person or business to monopolize, attempt to monopolize or conspire to monopolize any part of trade or commerce.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of Global Affairs, told TechCrunch the company plans to appeal the decision. Walker doubled down on Google’s previous arguments that it has used its dominant position to make the best and most useful search engine, which has benefited consumers and advertisers alike.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker told TechCrunch. “We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices’, ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior.’”

The opinion caps off a years-long case — U.S. et al. v. Google — that resulted in a 10-week trial last year. The Department of Justice and a group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020, alleging that Google unfairly blocked out would-be search rivals like Bing and DuckDuckGo. The Department of Justice estimated that Google had a 90% share of the search market, a figure that Google disputed.

The outcome of the case is a significant win for the Justice Department in an election year when former president Donald Trump would, should he win a second term in office, almost certainly take a decidedly more hands-off, deregulatory approach to tech. President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has garnered a reputation for coming after big tech, particularly in regards to antitrust law, that many of those companies have not taken kindly to.

This case could set precedent for the raft of other antitrust lawsuits making their way through the courts today. The DOJ has sued Apple for making it difficult for consumers to switch away from the iPhone. The FTC has also recently sued Meta for stamping out early competitors and Amazon for squeezing sellers on its online marketplace.

Judge Mehta’s decision Monday may also impact the outcome of the Justice Department’s second antitrust suit against Google, which alleges that Google illegally monopolized the digital ads market. Arguments for that case are scheduled to begin September 9.

The judge has yet to decide remedies for Google’s behavior. He could force the company to change the way it runs its search business — or order it to sell off parts of that business. The opinion could be appealed, of course, and the final verdict may differ significantly, as happened with Microsoft’s famed antitrust case in the dot-com era.

In that case, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft violated antitrust laws and ordered the company to be split into two entities. Microsoft appealed the decision, and an appeals court overturned the breakup order, but Microsoft still had to take certain steps that experts today say might influence Mehta’s behavioral remedies for Google. As part of Microsoft’s settlement, the company had to share its APIs with third-party companies and appoint a panel to monitor its compliance.

Update: This article was originally published August 5 at 12:20 p.m. PT. It has been updated with more context and information from Google.

Mike Lynch, recently acquitted in HP-Autonomy fraud case, is missing after yacht capsized off Sicily (updated)

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Image Credits: TechCrunch

Update 2: His body has now been identified. Story here.

Update: Authorities have yet to access the inside of the sunken yacht, and Mike Lynch is still classified as missing. Other details have emerged in the interim.

The accident appears to have been caused by a major storm and a resulting tornado-like water column that ensnared and damaged the yacht. Among the other six people still missing are Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter and Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer. The voyage was to celebrate Lynch being acquitted of criminal charges in the U.S., and several members of his legal team were also on board. (The ship was registered to Lynch’s wife, one of the survivors.) By a terrible coincidence, the other person acquitted in Lynch’s trial — Autonomy’s finance head Stephen Chamberlain — had died just a few days before when he was hit by a car while out jogging. Original article continues below.

Mike Lynch, the investor and high-profile founder of U.K. tech firm Autonomy, has been declared missing at sea after the yacht he was on, the Bayesian, capsized in a storm off the coast of Sicily early Monday morning.

TechCrunch confirmed with a source close to the rescue operation that Lynch is one of six people missing from the boat. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is one of the 15 who have been rescued. One body has been found.

The news is a dramatic, tragic development for one of the more colorful, and sometimes controversial, figures in technology out of the U.K.

Lynch’s enterprise technology firm Autonomy was acquired in 2011 by HP for $11 billion — a major milestone for U.K. technology. But it quickly turned sour, and HP sued Lynch and other executives at the company, arguing it was misled in the transaction.

HP claimed that the deal led to a $4 billion loss — money it then demanded from Lynch and his former CFO. Lynch (pictured above, left) long asserted that he acted in good faith and that he was being made into a scapegoat over a merger gone bad.

That legal drama went on for more than a decade and involved a host of other thorny chapters, including Lynch’s extradition to the U.S. and a lot of very bad publicity for Lynch. It also led to a second civil case that took place in 2022 in the U.K., which Lynch lost.

The U.S. criminal case, where Lynch was charged with 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy, went to trial earlier this year in San Francisco. Finally, in June, Lynch was acquitted.

“I am elated with today’s verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last ten weeks. My deepest thanks go to my legal team for their tireless work on my behalf,” Lynch said at the time. “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”

In the interim years, Lynch built up a profile in the U.K. as an investor, most prominently as the founder of Invoke Capital. The VC firm was the biggest investor in cybersecurity firm Darktrace, a connection that was not without its own controversy. It also invested in Sophia Genetics, Featurespace and Luminance, among others. And it appeared that this is the route that he was set to continue.

Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and colleagues. We’ll update this post as we learn more.

Google loses massive antitrust case over search, will appeal ruling

by with No Comment Tech

The Google Inc. logo

Image Credits: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Google will appeal a U.S. District Court judge’s opinion Monday that found the technology giant acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search.

The decision from Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a major defeat for Google that could alter the way it does business and even change the structure of the internet as we know it, should the decision stand.

Mehta said that Google abused its monopoly power over the search business in part by paying companies like Apple to present its search engine as the default choice on their devices and web browsers. The Justice Department and states filed the antitrust suit against Google in 2020, which kicked off in court in September 2023.

Google pays companies including Apple, Samsung and Mozilla billions of dollars for prime placement in web browsers and on smartphones. In 2021 alone, Google spent $26 billion to be the default search engine across Apple and Android platforms. According to The New York Times, about $18 billion of that spend went to Apple alone. Google shares 36% of search ad revenue from Safari with Apple. The government has argued that paying for the dominant position effectively kneecapped competitors from being able to build up their own search engines to a scale that would give them the data and reach to stay competitive.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his opinion filed Monday. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it illegal for any person or business to monopolize, attempt to monopolize or conspire to monopolize any part of trade or commerce.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of Global Affairs, told TechCrunch the company plans to appeal the decision. Walker doubled down on Google’s previous arguments that it has used its dominant position to make the best and most useful search engine, which has benefited consumers and advertisers alike.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker told TechCrunch. “We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices’, ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior.’”

The opinion caps off a years-long case — U.S. et al. v. Google — that resulted in a 10-week trial last year. The Department of Justice and a group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020, alleging that Google unfairly blocked out would-be search rivals like Bing and DuckDuckGo. The Department of Justice estimated that Google had a 90% share of the search market, a figure that Google disputed.

The outcome of the case is a significant win for the Justice Department in an election year when former president Donald Trump would, should he win a second term in office, almost certainly take a decidedly more hands-off, deregulatory approach to tech. President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has garnered a reputation for coming after big tech, particularly in regards to antitrust law, that many of those companies have not taken kindly to.

This case could set precedent for the raft of other antitrust lawsuits making their way through the courts today. The DOJ has sued Apple for making it difficult for consumers to switch away from the iPhone. The FTC has also recently sued Meta for stamping out early competitors and Amazon for squeezing sellers on its online marketplace.

Judge Mehta’s decision Monday may also impact the outcome of the Justice Department’s second antitrust suit against Google, which alleges that Google illegally monopolized the digital ads market. Arguments for that case are scheduled to begin September 9.

The judge has yet to decide remedies for Google’s behavior. He could force the company to change the way it runs its search business — or order it to sell off parts of that business. The opinion could be appealed, of course, and the final verdict may differ significantly, as happened with Microsoft’s famed antitrust case in the dot-com era.

In that case, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft violated antitrust laws and ordered the company to be split into two entities. Microsoft appealed the decision, and an appeals court overturned the breakup order, but Microsoft still had to take certain steps that experts today say might influence Mehta’s behavioral remedies for Google. As part of Microsoft’s settlement, the company had to share its APIs with third-party companies and appoint a panel to monitor its compliance.

Update: This article was originally published August 5 at 12:20 pm PT. It has been updated with more context and information from Google.

Supreme Court declines to hear Apple-Epic antitrust case, meaning app makers can now point customers to the web

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Apple logo on the side of a building

Image Credits: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images

The Supreme Court has denied both Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games’ request to appeal a lower court’s ruling on the alleged anticompetitive nature of Apple’s App Store. The decision to not hear the case was a bit of a surprise, given that a jury trial recently found Google guilty in a similar antitrust battle with Epic. With the nation’s highest court refusing to weigh in on Apple’s status, that means the original ruling still stands. Apple had largely won its case, as the judge decided that Apple had not engaged in anticompetitive practices. However, there was one area where Apple would have to cede ground to developers, the court had ruled — it said that app makers should be able to steer their customers to the web from links inside their apps.

This upset to Apple’s “anti-steering” rules for its App Store is what originally prompted the tech giant’s appeal. It does not want to allow app developers to market their own websites and payment mechanisms from inside iOS apps, which could reduce the purchases made on its App Store — and therefore Apple’s cut of developer revenues through its commissions.

Developers, however, want to have a direct relationship with their customers. And for consumers, there may be a benefit to transacting on the web as the in-app purchases or subscriptions may be available for less than in the App Store, as the developer no longer has to pay the “Apple tax,” or commissions.

In a statement, Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney dubbed the Supreme Court’s decision to not take up the case as a “sad outcome for all developers,” but proclaimed that the “fight goes on.”

“The Supreme Court denied both sides’ appeals of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. The court battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States. A sad outcome for all developers,” said Sweeney in a prepared statement. Now the District Court’s injunction against Apple’s anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps ‘buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP,’” he continued.

“As of today, developers can begin exercising their court-established right to tell U.S. customers about better prices on the web. These awful Apple-mandated confusion screens are over and done forever. The fight goes on. Regulators are taking action and policymakers around the world are passing new laws to end Apple’s illegal anticompetitive app store practices. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act goes into effect March 7,” noted Sweeney.

Apple in April 2023 had won its appeals court battle with Epic, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court upheld the district court’s earlier ruling related to Epic’s antitrust claims, but also the lower court’s judgment in favor of Epic under California’s Unfair Competition law, which will require Apple to remove the “anti-steering” clause from its agreement with App Store developers.

The latter could potentially lead to a loss of billions in annual revenue for the tech giant if app makers can successfully redirect their customers to pay for purchases and subscriptions via the web. Apple investors immediately understood the impact of this decision, as Apple’s stock dropped over two and a half percent shortly after the news broke. It has since recovered slightly and is currently down by 1.09% as of the time of writing.

“The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up Apple’s appeal confirmed that the company’s anti-steering policy is illegal, anti-competitive and must come to an end,” noted Rick VanMeter, executive director of the lobbying group Coalition for App Fairness, which includes Epic Games, Spotify, Tile, Match and others. “It’s a win that developers can now point their customers to their websites to make purchases, which will lower prices and increase consumer choice. This is a step in the right direction and highlights the need for legislation — like the Open App Markets Act — to create an open and free app store ecosystem,” he added.

Apple logo on the side of a building

Supreme Court declines to hear Apple-Epic antitrust case, meaning app makers can now point customers to the web

by with No Comment Tech

Apple logo on the side of a building

Image Credits: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images

The Supreme Court has denied both Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games’ request to appeal a lower court’s ruling on the alleged anticompetitive nature of Apple’s App Store. The decision to not hear the case was a bit of a surprise, given that a jury trial recently found Google guilty in a similar antitrust battle with Epic. With the nation’s highest court refusing to weigh in on Apple’s status, that means the original ruling still stands. Apple had largely won its case, as the judge decided that Apple had not engaged in anticompetitive practices. However, there was one area where Apple would have to cede ground to developers, the court had ruled — it said that app makers should be able to steer their customers to the web from links inside their apps.

This upset to Apple’s “anti-steering” rules for its App Store is what originally prompted the tech giant’s appeal. It does not want to allow app developers to market their own websites and payment mechanisms from inside iOS apps, which could reduce the purchases made on its App Store — and therefore Apple’s cut of developer revenues through its commissions.

Developers, however, want to have a direct relationship with their customers. And for consumers, there may be a benefit to transacting on the web as the in-app purchases or subscriptions may be available for less than in the App Store, as the developer no longer has to pay the “Apple tax,” or commissions.

In a statement, Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney dubbed the Supreme Court’s decision to not take up the case as a “sad outcome for all developers,” but proclaimed that the “fight goes on.”

“The Supreme Court denied both sides’ appeals of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. The court battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States. A sad outcome for all developers,” said Sweeney in a prepared statement. Now the District Court’s injunction against Apple’s anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps ‘buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP,’” he continued.

“As of today, developers can begin exercising their court-established right to tell U.S. customers about better prices on the web. These awful Apple-mandated confusion screens are over and done forever. The fight goes on. Regulators are taking action and policymakers around the world are passing new laws to end Apple’s illegal anticompetitive app store practices. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act goes into effect March 7,” noted Sweeney.

Apple in April 2023 had won its appeals court battle with Epic, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court upheld the district court’s earlier ruling related to Epic’s antitrust claims, but also the lower court’s judgment in favor of Epic under California’s Unfair Competition law, which will require Apple to remove the “anti-steering” clause from its agreement with App Store developers.

The latter could potentially lead to a loss of billions in annual revenue for the tech giant if app makers can successfully redirect their customers to pay for purchases and subscriptions via the web. Apple investors immediately understood the impact of this decision, as Apple’s stock dropped over two and a half percent shortly after the news broke. It has since recovered slightly and is currently down by 1.09% as of the time of writing.

“The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up Apple’s appeal confirmed that the company’s anti-steering policy is illegal, anti-competitive and must come to an end,” noted Rick VanMeter, executive director of the lobbying group Coalition for App Fairness, which includes Epic Games, Spotify, Tile, Match and others. “It’s a win that developers can now point their customers to their websites to make purchases, which will lower prices and increase consumer choice. This is a step in the right direction and highlights the need for legislation — like the Open App Markets Act — to create an open and free app store ecosystem,” he added.

Apple slams DOJ case as misguided attempt to turn iPhone into Android

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Apple CEO Tim Cook with the iPhone 13 Pro Max and Apple Watch Series 7 during a special event at Apple Park.

Image Credits: Apple

Apple is coming out swinging against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust case, just announced Thursday, which accuses the iPhone maker of being a monopolist with its thumb on a mobile chokepoint of its own making.

Apple is dubbing the litigation misguided and warning the DOJ risks trashing all the things its customers value about its integrated mobile ecosystem.

The lawsuit threatens to undo the features that make its smartphones different from the rest of the market, as Apple tells it — with the risk, should the suit prevail, of the iPhone ending up looking and feeling just like an Android phone. So it’s even managed to get a trolling swipe at Google into its defense.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Apple said:

This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets. If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple—where hardware, software, and services intersect. It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology. We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it.

The suit, which is being filed by the DOJ and 16 state attorneys general, accuses the iPhone maker of anti-competitive exclusion across two markets the litigation will seek to establish — so-called “performance smartphones” and “US smartphones” — which are narrower market definitions than the smartphone market as a whole. The suit claims Apple holds a more than 70% share of “performance smartphones” and over 65% of the US smartphone market, respectively.

In a briefing with journalists following the DOJ’s announcement this morning, Apple dismissed these market definitions as gerrymandering on the part of government lawyers trying to make a monopoly case stick where it argues there is none.

It says the circa 20% global smartphone market share the iPhone holds is the only market definition that makes sense.

In wider remarks Apple hit out at the DOJ’s case as legally dubious and/or misguided — suggesting it’s an attempt to replicate the antitrust case the government successfully brought against Microsoft’s Windows OS back in the 1990s by desperately trying squeeze Apple into the same mould.

Apple representatives reject any comparison here, pointing out that Microsoft had a 95% market share, for example. They also argue it ignores how Apple has created an entirely new marketplace for developers and consumers.

On the call, Apple representatives sought to back up this claim by dropping in a few growth metrics — saying for example that, over the past ten years, the number of paid developers on the App Store has increased by 374% (from 1.1 million to 5.2 million).

Citing stats from 2020 to 2022, they also sought to highlight growth in commerce generated by developers in its App Store. Globally, they said this increased by 64%, from 685 billion to 1.1 trillion. Although it’s worth noting the time period Apple selected to highlight here spans the pandemic, when digital commerce skyrocketed for all sorts of services as a consequence of lockdowns. And often came back down to Earth with a bump after pandemic restrictions lifted.

While Apple is seeking to paint the government as misguided, it is directly accusing a handful of vested commercial interests of being the driving force behind the lawsuit. It points to the Coalition for App Fairness, a lobby organization which counts the likes of Epic Games, Spotify, Match Group and Basecamp among its members — accusing the app developers of trying to use a dubious competition complaint to get a free ride on its platform, and trying to force it to give them unfettered access to consumers.

The Coalition responded to today’s suit with an aggressive statement of its own — welcoming the DOJ’s “strong stand against Apple’s stranglehold over the mobile app ecosystem”, as they put it.

Apple’s rebuttal is that App Store rules are designed to protect consumer interests — by ensuring a high quality of service and standard of privacy and security. It also argues there is no legal requirement on Apple to design its technologies in ways that might be better for competitors.

The wider argument Apple is making is the suit targets an experience consumers value, which drives loyalty and leads them to prefer iPhones over Android smartphones in the first place — something it suggests the DOJ’s case entirely fails to factor in. And by seeking to undo core differentiating (and valued) features of its mobile ecosystem a successful outcome for the government would result in reduced consumer choice.

Apple representatives even dangled the idea of judges, rather than Apple engineers, designing iOS user experiences.

But they are also aggressively briefing that the DOJ case will fail. Company reps referenced snippets from a number of earlier judgements, such as the Epic Games v Apple case; and the AliveCor litigation, to suggest US courts have backed the company’s right to design and operate its platform as it does. And while Apple has not always had its way in these legal skirmishes, it’s true that in a 2021 ruling judges did not find it to be a monopolist.

In today’s briefing Apple also claimed the DOJ’s case has changed tack multiple times (it suggests at least six) over the four years it’s been in formulation.

Apple representatives did not provide any specific detail on earlier DOJ theories — but claimed the government did not progress them because of a lack of evidence. So Apple is seeking to frame the suit as a hodgepodge of bits and bobs that doesn’t really hang together.

During the call, an Apple representative offered some rebuttals to specific charges, too — saying, for example, that Apple does now allow cross-platform “super apps.” They also suggested it intends to implement RCS for messaging. But a company rep suggested it wants to integrate the technology in a way that does not lower the level of privacy and security for iOS users, hence taking its time.

In its defense, Apple is also claiming it’s continued to increase access to iOS over the years — with a company rep saying the iPhone is open to millions of third party apps and hundreds of third party accessories.

For more on Apple’s antitrust lawsuit, check here:

Apple sued by DOJ over iPhone monopoly claimsDOJ claims green bubbles are an issue in Apple iPhone antitrust lawsuitWhy Apple’s antitrust lawsuit could be a silver lining for Epic GamesApple’s iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly Epic, Spotify, Deezer, Match Group and others applaud DOJ’s Apple lawsuitDOJ calls out Apple for breaking iMessage-on-Android solution, BeeperHere’s what the DOJ suit could mean for Apple WatchDOJ says Apple’s ‘complete control’ over tap-to-pay transactions stops innovation

Read more about the DOJ's antitrust suit against Apple on TechCrunch

StrictlyVC

Lina Khan, Steve Case & more join StrictlyVC in Washington, DC

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StrictlyVC

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Late last summer, TechCrunch joined forces with StrictlyVC to create smaller, more intimate evenings for our readers. Already this year, we’ve hosted these nights in San Francisco and Los Angeles, featuring the co-CEO of Waymo, the co-founders of Anduril and WorldCoin, and the founder of the AI hardware device Rabbit, along with top investors like Elad Gil. Now, we’re headed to Washington, D.C., for another night of top-notch interviews and unparalleled networking, all at the cozy Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Tuesday, June 11.

What to expect

StrictlyVC events deliver exclusive, insider content while facilitating meaningful connections among leading investors, entrepreneurs and executives. Attendees can anticipate engaging discussions, thought-provoking insights and ample opportunities to forge new connections — all while enjoying complimentary cocktails and canapés.

Who’s speaking?

Lina Khan – Chair, Federal Trade Commission
As chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the table. With a background in business reporting and antitrust research, Khan has dedicated her career to addressing consolidation across various markets.

Steve Case – Chairman & CEO, Revolution
Steve Case is known for his pioneering efforts, such as founding AOL, and integrating the internet into everyday life. As the chairman and CEO of Revolution, Case has been instrumental in backing numerous successful ventures, with a focus on empowering entrepreneurs across different stages of growth.

Michael Gronager – CEO and Co-founder, Chainalysis
Michael Gronager’s journey from co-founding one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges to leading Chainalysis highlights his deep understanding of blockchain technology and its implications. With Chainalysis, Gronager aims to equip global agencies and financial institutions with the tools to combat illicit activities in the crypto space.

Helen Toner – Director of Strategy & Foundational Research Grants, Georgetown’s CSET
As the director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Helen Toner brings a unique perspective on the intersection of AI, national security and geopolitics. Her expertise in analyzing the AI ecosystem, particularly in China and the United States, offers valuable insights into the future of technology and its implications on global security.

Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno – Co-Founders, Humane
Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, the dynamic duo behind Humane Inc., have left their mark on the tech industry through their innovative designs and product development. With a background in designing iconic Apple products, including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, Chaudhri and Bongiorno continue to push boundaries with Humane, focusing on creating human-centric technologies that redefine user experience.

Secure your spot

Tickets for StrictlyVC Washington, D.C., are priced at $159, offering exceptional value for an evening packed with exclusive content and networking opportunities. Don’t miss out — book your tickets now before we sell out.