Business & Tech DMV Now Hammering Out Rules for Self-Driving Trucks to Come to California The next frontier of the self-driving car movement is likely to be self-driving commercial trucks, and the California DMV is creating the rules right now for the testing of autonomous semi trucks.
SF News Waymo Strikes Small Dog In Western Addition, Dog's Condition Not Known Weeks after one of its robotaxis struck and killed a beloved Mission District bodega cat, Waymo has confirmed that one of its cars also struck an unleashed dog.
Business & Tech Instagram Ordering Everyone Back to the Office Five Days a Week There's been a long tail on pandemic-era hybrid work across the Bay Area and the tech sector especially, but some big companies like Meta are now cracking the whip and calling for five mandatory in-office days, just like olden times.
Business & Tech NYT: Trump’s Silicon Valley ‘AI and Crypto Czar’ David Sacks Apparently Enriching Himself and Friends In White House Role SF’s own right-wing VC billionaire David Sacks was named the Trump administration’s ‘AI and Crypto Czar’ last year, and a New York Times analysis says that since then, his investments have hit the jackpot over policies he helped craft.
Business & Tech Report: SF Home Hit by $11 Million Crypto Theft Owned By Sam Altman’s Ex While Sam Altman’s one-time romantic partner Lachy Groom was not the person who had $11 million in crypto stolen from his account, Groom does own the home where the invasion happened, and reportedly lives there too.
Business & Tech East Bay Man Arrested for Alleged Scheme to Smuggle Nvidia GPUs and AI Chips to China The DOJ arrested a San Leandro man and three others as part of an alleged conspiracy to evade US trade laws by smuggling powerful Nvidia GPUs and AI chips to China through Thailand and Malaysia. The man allegedly bragged that his dad did the same work for the CCP.
Business & Tech The Hilton Union Square and Parc55 Sold for $408 Million, Though Were Previously Worth $1.5 Billion We’re just now learning the sale price of a hotel deal that happened three months ago, and SF’s largest hotel the Hilton Union Square, plus the also-very-large Parc55, sold for $408 million, though they’d been worth $1.5 billion in 2016.
Business & Tech DoorDash Wins Its Appeal to Test Food Delivery Drones in the Mission, and the Teamsters Aren’t Happy Delivery platform DoorDash bought a warehouse at 16th and Folsom to test delivery drones, but the Teamsters challenged their permit on zoning grounds. Now the drones will fly, after the SF Board of Appeals shot down the Teamsters' appeal.
SF Politics Marc Benioff, Elon Musk Attend White House Dinner With Murderous Saudi Crown Prince The billionaires were all back in their billionaire bubble alongside Trump Tuesday night, and even Elon Musk has been welcomed back into the fold after his teenage-style tiff with Trump.
Business & Tech Tesla Human Robotaxi Driver Falls Asleep at the Wheel While Driving Passenger, Video Goes Viral Tesla robotaxis currently have human drivers while the company gets its permissions worked out, but one SF Tesla robotaxi rider saw their human driver fall asleep at the wheel multiple times on their ride.
Business & Tech Meta Wins Antitrust Battle, Does Not Have to Spin Off Instagram or WhatsApp A yearslong fight between the FTC and Meta has ended with Meta prevailing, and a federal judge declaring that the company likely does not hold a monopoly in the social media sphere anymore.
Business & Tech Amazon-Owned Autonomous Taxi Company Zoox Begins Offering Public Rides Zoox, whose funny-looking, steering-wheel-free, four-seater robocars have been roving about San Francisco for a while now, is now launching its first program to give rides to the general public.
Business & Tech Travis Kalanick’s Cloudkitchens Closes Its East Oakland Ghost Kitchen Complex, Looking to Sell the Place Maybe ghost kitchens aren’t scaring up as much business these days, as Uber founder Travis Kalanick just shut down a ghost kitchen that his new megabucks startup Cloudkitchens opened there five years ago.
Business & Tech Anthropic Says Its AI Chatbot Was Used By Chinese Hackers for Large-Scale Cyber Attack In what sounds like both a word of warning and weirdly a little bit of bragging, SF-based Anthropic says that its AI chatbot Claude was used by state-sponsored hackers in China to commit a large-scale cyberattack on American companies.
Business & Tech Legal Dispute Continues Between Transamerica Building Owner and High-End Private Club That Was Set to Be a Tenant A legal battle that's been ongoing for about 18 months between upscale membership club CORE and SHVO, the developer behind the revamp of the Transamerica Building, appeared to escalate this week.
SF News Someone Finally Bought the Beleaguered Former Westfield Mall, at Just 10% of Its Previous Value A conglomerate of big-name banks just finally bought the San Francisco Centre mall for a fraction of its previous value, though this tells us nothing about what will happen to the mall, as those banks are just going to sell the place again.
Business & Tech Waymo Launches Freeway Service In Bay Area and LA For Select Users, SFO Service Still to Come Waymo announced Wednesday that its cars are officially being deployed on Bay Area freeways, and while not all riders will have access to the service right away, you can theoretically now take a Waymo from downtown San Francisco to downtown San Jose.
Business & Tech SF-Based Furnished Apartment Rental Startup Sonder Shuts Down, Declares Bankruptcy Sonder, the San Francisco-based rival to Airbnb that had established a lucrative partnership with Marriott last year, has now lost that partnership and is shutting down entirely.
Business & Tech OpenAI Not Looking at an IPO Anytime Soon, CFO Says OpenAI, which had previously been thought to be looking at an IPO in the next two years, may be holding off on that plan, according to comments made Wednesday by the company's CFO.
Business & Tech Elon Musk Wants to Open One of Those Tesla Diners in the Bay Area Well look who wants to open a business in California now, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk says it “makes sense” to build one of his Tesla Diner locations in Palo Alto, in addition to the one that opened in LA this summer.
Business & Tech Alleged SoCal Tech Burglar Crew Charged With Stealing $22 Million Worth of Gear From Bay Area Companies A crew of six Southern California men has been charged with heists targeting Nvidia and Apple shipments, where they allegedly broke into warehouses or robbed delivery trucks of their high-priced contents.
SF Politics SF Supervisor Holding Rally for Cat Slain by Waymo, Promises Autonomous Car Legislation There's a rally Tuesday afternoon for the bodega cat KitKat who was run over by a Waymo, and it’s being organized by Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who’s vowing legislation for local controls of self-driving vehicles.
Business & Tech Convicted Crypto Fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried Appealing Conviction, Wants Retrial or Trump Pardon Notorious cryptocurrency huckster Sam Bankman-Fried is angling for a new trial on all the fraud counts that netted him a 25-year prison sentence, while his parents are angling to get Trump to give their rich-kid son a pardon.
Business & Tech Elon Musk Basically Accuses Sam Altman of Murdering OpenAI Engineer on (Of Course) Joe Rogan’s Podcast Elon Musk visited Joe Rogan’s podcast again, and continued his crusade against his more successful AI competitor Sam Altman, pretty much flat-out saying that Altman murdered the engineer found dead in his SF apartment.
Business & Tech Waymo Confirms Vehicle's Role In Death of 16th Street Bodega Cat, as Mourning Continues Waymo has acknowledged that one of its autonomous vehicles ran over a beloved corner store cat on 16th Street Monday, and the company says it will be making a donation to an animal rights organization in the cat's honor.
