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Hey, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch\u2019s newsletter covering the past week (or so) in tech industry happenings. This week marked OpenAI\u2019s first-ever dev conference, where the Microsoft-backed AI startup announced a host<\/a> of new products. But that was far from the only item of note.<\/p>\n In this edition of WiR, we spotlight Brian\u2019s review of the 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Air and M3 iMac 24-inch; Mozilla betting on a decentralized social networking future; Ford shuttering<\/a> a company that was building an app for plumbers, electricians and other trades; and Tim Cook\u2019s thoughts on generative AI. Also on the agenda is WeWork officially filing for bankruptcy, Bumble getting a new CEO, and the spectacular failure of EV startup Arrival.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a lot to get through, as always \u2014 so we won\u2019t delay. But first, a reminder to sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven\u2019t already done so.<\/p>\n OpenAI throws a dev day:<\/strong><\/a> OpenAI hosted its first-ever developer conference on Monday, and the company had a lot to talk about. Some of the more notable items announced were tools to create custom \u201cGPTs\u201d<\/a> (i.e., domain-specific chatbots), new text-to-speech models, an API for the text-to-image model DALL-E 3<\/a>, and an improved version of OpenAI\u2019s flagship model, GPT-4, called GPT-4 Turbo<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mac<\/a> attack:<\/a><\/b> Brian reviewed Apple\u2019s new 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro and the M3 iMac 24-inch. He found the iMac to be lacking and not necessarily worth the upgrade from the 2021 model, excepting the M3 chip, which brings \u201cimpressive\u201d performance gains over the already-powerful M1. As for the M3 Max MacBook Pro, Brian reports that, at $2,500 (plus some pricey add-ons), it successfully splits the difference between the Mac Studio and MacBook Air.<\/p>\n Mozilla bets on a decentralized future:<\/strong><\/a> Sarah spoke with Mozilla senior director of content Carolyn O\u2019Hara, who outlined Mozilla\u2019s strategy where it concerns the \u201cfediverse\u201d \u2014 a collection of decentralized social networking applications, like Mastodon, that communicate with one another over the ActivityPub protocol. The idea, O\u2019Hara said, is to rethink social networking from the ground up.<\/p>\n Ford shutters SaaS app for field work:<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Ford has shut down VIIZR, a software-as-a-service company that, along with Salesforce, built an app to help tradespeople like plumbers, locksmiths and electricians to schedule field appointments, send invoices and manage customers, Kirsten reports. VIIZR, which was announced in December 2021, was a separate company majority owned by Ford, with Salesforce as a minority investor.<\/p>\n Apple bets on generative AI:<\/a> <\/strong>Apple CEO Tim Cook pushed back against the notion that the company was behind in AI on Apple\u2019s Q4 earnings call with investors, as he highlighted technology developments that Apple had made recently that \u201cwould not be possible without AI.\u201d Cook also said that Apple was working on generative AI technologies, lending credence to reports<\/a> suggesting the company is on track to spend $1 billion per year on developing generative AI products.<\/p>\n WeWork goes bust:<\/strong><\/a> As predicted<\/a>, flexible office-space firm WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing over $18.6 billion of debt in a remarkable collapse for the once high-flying startup co-founded by Adam Neumann and bankrolled by SoftBank, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n Slack\u2019s loss, Bumble\u2019s gain:<\/strong><\/a> Dating app Bumble announced a doozy this week: It\u2019s replacing founder CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd with Slack CEO Lidiane Jones. Jones only\u00a0started as CEO<\/a> at Slack last year, stepping in for another founder CEO, Stewart Butterfield. Ron and Sarah write that \u2014 while Bumble now has a clear line of succession \u2014 the move leaves Slack in a bit of a pickle.<\/p>\n Arrival fails to deliver:<\/strong><\/a> Arrival set out eight years ago to make electric vehicle production \u201cradically more efficient.\u201d So far, its plan to forgo the gigafactory for local microfactories has proved anything but, writes Harri \u2014 thanks to missed production targets, low cash reserves, layoffs and a pivot.<\/p>\n It\u2019s winter, it ain\u2019t getting warmer (at least here in NYC), and I\u2019d argue that there\u2019s no better place to be than snuggled up indoors with a podcast for company. If you\u2019re in need of material, TechCrunch has a few that should definitely be on your radar.<\/p>\n This week on Equity<\/a><\/strong>, the crew dove deep into the encouraging signs from the fintech startup market, starting with Klarna\u2019s Q3 results. From there, they looked at buy now, pay later consumer behavior and fintech fundraising results with a 2021 flavor.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Found<\/a><\/strong> featured Nasrat Khalid of Aseel, which started as an e-commerce company making it possible for local artisans in Afghanistan to sell to customers across the world. It has evolved into working in humanitarian aid, delivering emergency food supplies to people in need in Afghanistan and Turkey.<\/p>\n TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys \u2014 which you know if you\u2019re already a subscriber. If you\u2019re not,\u00a0consider signing up<\/a>. Here are a few highlights from this week:<\/em><\/p>\n Another superconductor disappointment:<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Tim writes that a new, supposedly room-temperature superconducting material isn\u2019t what the scientific community hoped it would be. With the Nature-published paper detailing the material facing retraction, the odds of researchers discovering a room-temperature superconductor are looking even longer.<\/p>\n Klarna inches toward an IPO:<\/a><\/strong> Mary Ann and Alex write that Swedish fintech Klarna is taking steps toward an eventual IPO. The company has initiated a process for a legal entity restructuring to set up a holding company in the U.K. as an important early step in its plans for an initial public offering, a Klarna spokesperson tells TechCrunch+.<\/p>\nMost read<\/h2>\n
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