All posts tagged: Wave

The next wave of VCs judging Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2026

The next wave of VCs judging Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2026

Published by Miika Tikkanen

For founders, Startup Battlefield 200 is one of the biggest moments of their careers. For everyone else in the TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 audience, it’s one of the best ways to learn how great companies are actually evaluated by VCs. This startup pitch competition is as intense as you’d expect. From October 13–15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, every hand-picked founder has six minutes to make their case, but the most revealing moments often come after the presentation ends. That’s when the judges start asking the questions every investor, customer, and future employee will eventually want answered. Can this team execute? Is the market big enough? Why now? What’s defensible? Those conversations are as valuable for the thousands of founders watching from the audience as they are for the companies onstage. That’s why we’re continuing to build one of the strongest judging panels in Startup Battlefield’s history. Today we’re excited to introduce another group of five top-tier investors who’ll help identify the companies with the potential to become tomorrow’s breakout success stories. Join the Startup Battlefield contenders and VC …

A wave of dead seabirds washes ashore in Venice

A wave of dead seabirds washes ashore in Venice

Published by Sam Flores

More than 40 dead cormorants, the black birds known for perching on rocks and stretching their wings to dry, washed ashore on Venice Beach over the weekend. “We don’t usually see that many,” said Nicole Mooradian, spokesperson for the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors. Carcasses lay strewn along the shoreline as the beach brimmed with weekend activity. Swimmers and loungers largely ignored them. County employees found the dead birds Sunday morning and worked into the afternoon clearing them. Since last fall, an influx of dead and emaciated seabirds washing up on California beaches has had the attention of wildlife experts. They say many of the deaths are probably tied to lack of food — an extreme marine heat wave is causing fish, the birds’ prey, to travel north or deeper underwater. Parasites and infections are also thought to be contributing factors. The cause of death for this weekend’s cormorants is unknown. The county Department of Public Health said that by the time it was able to evaluate reports of the dead birds, the …

Already rich, already successful, why the last wave of tech winners is grinding again

Already rich, already successful, why the last wave of tech winners is grinding again

Published by Miika Tikkanen

A pattern is emerging among people who’ve already made it big. They’re rolling up their sleeves again, seemingly out of fear of missing AI’s defining moment and, presumably, the irresistible allure of making even more money — potentially a lot more. Tom Blomfield, who co-founded GoCardless and Monzo before spending 4.5 years mentoring founders as a Y Combinator Group Partner, announced on Monday that he is taking a leave of absence to join Anthropic’s compute team — not as an executive, but as a member of technical staff. He’s not alone in making that kind of move. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger joined Anthropic as Chief Product Officer in 2024, and Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI who went on to lead AI at Tesla and start his own company, Eureka Labs, joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May, framing the decision almost identically to Blomfield’s, writing that “the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative.” Not everyone is joining someone else’s lab. Chamath Palihapitiya, the “SPAC King” who has mostly …

The Leatherman Wave Alpha multitool review: A fantastic blade and scissors you might actually use

The Leatherman Wave Alpha multitool review: A fantastic blade and scissors you might actually use

Published by Jenni Sidey

Sign Up For Goods 🛍️ Product news, reviews, and must-have deals. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Multitool scissors have a well-earned bad reputation. They’re typically small, thin, and struggle to reliably cut a Slim Jim, let alone a stubborn tarp or zip tie. For the Wave Alpha multitool, however, Leatherman has taken the scissors a lot more seriously. The company says these scissors have the longest cutting surface of any tool in its pliers-based lineup, and after carrying the Wave Alpha as my daily tool, I believe it. They are also not the only upgrade. The Wave Alpha is Leatherman’s attempt to take its most popular multitool and rebuild it with better materials and a higher-end experience overall. Those upgrades come with a hefty price tag, but the 25-year warranty and lifetime knife sharpening soften the blow. If you don’t mind the investment, this …

The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg

The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Something strange is happening in tech right now. Companies are posting record profits and revenue while laying off tens of thousands of people, citing AI as the official explanation. So far this year, there have been an estimated 363 layoffs at tech companies this year, affecting nearly 150,000 people — a pace of about 974 people per day, 44% faster than last year — according to TrueUp, a tech job board and recruiting platform that also runs one of the most widely cited tech layoff trackers. The trend appears to be accelerating. Tech layoffs hit their highest single month in two years last month, with nearly 40,000 cuts, and AI was the most-cited reason for layoffs across every industry for the third month running, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas. There’s growing skepticism that AI is really the culprit, though — that it’s more of a convenient cover story than the actual cause. Few examples illustrate the pushback better than what happened at the payments outfit Block earlier this year. After getting hammered …

Gravitational wave astronomy is now a fully mature science

Gravitational wave astronomy is now a fully mature science

Published by Jenni Sidey

Here in 2026, something remarkable has happened: the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration has just released their results from the second part of their fourth observing run. All told, 161 new gravitational wave events were added to the catalog of successful direct detections, bringing the total number of events up to a staggering 390. Here in 2026, there are: four active gravitational wave detectors (with a fifth in the works), with sensors, vacuum systems, and quantum-squeezed light that have been upgraded several times, now capable of detecting the mergers of compact objects from over 20 billion light-years away, spanning mass ranges, for the post-merger remnant, from under 3 solar masses to over 200 solar masses. It’s a remarkable feat for a field of science that, as little as 11 years ago, had not yet been born. After all, from 1915, when general relativity was first put forth in its final (correct) form until 2015, all attempts at gravitational wave direct detection had only returned null results. The first successful direct detection occurred just days after Advanced LIGO’s original …

LVK collaboration reports 161 new gravitational wave detections

LVK collaboration reports 161 new gravitational wave detections

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Scientists from the international LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration have released the latest catalogue of gravitational wave detections, adding 161 newly identified signals from colliding black holes and bringing the total number of confirmed events to 390. The findings, published in the Gravitational Wave Transient Catalogue 5.0 (GWTC-5), mark a significant step forward for gravitational astronomy and provide researchers with an unprecedented dataset for studying some of the most extreme events in the Universe. The new catalogue includes observations collected between April 2024 and January 2025 by the LIGO detectors in the United States, Virgo in Italy, and KAGRA in Japan. The growing number of gravitational wave detections is helping scientists improve measurements of black holes, test fundamental laws of physics and refine estimates of how quickly the Universe is expanding. Among the most important results are evidence for the existence of second-generation black holes, the most precise localisation of a gravitational-wave source ever achieved, and the clearest gravitational-wave signal recorded to date. Together, these discoveries highlight how rapidly the field has matured since the first direct …

Politics is shaken by a new wave of #MeToo reckonings

Politics is shaken by a new wave of #MeToo reckonings

Published by Sam Flores

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.   A years-long, explosive investigation by The New York Times last month exposed allegations of sexual abuse by the late labor leader Cesar Chavez. Two members of Congress, one Democrat and one Republican, resigned this week after being accused of sexual misconduct. And Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is facing an internal investigation, including allegations of inappropriate behavior by her father and husband toward young women staff. The #MeToo movement, founded in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke, brought a reckoning for powerful men at its public peak in 2017 and 2018, leading to changes in laws and policies to address abuse and help survivors get justice. It also drew a swift cultural backlash, culminating in President Donald Trump’s election to a second term after he was found liable of sexual abuse. Now, in 2026, sexual misconduct by people in positions of power is back at the forefront of the political conversation and …

Coachella Favorite PinkPantheress Is Shaping a New British Wave

Coachella Favorite PinkPantheress Is Shaping a New British Wave

Published by Sam Flores

Alongside artists like RAYE, Olivia Dean, and Charli xcx, PinkPanthress is part of a new class of British musicians finding global traction by leaning further into their sound, instead of smoothing it out. “There’s definitely a raw spirit that the UK brings,” she says, calling ahead of a show in Vancouver. “I don’t really know how or why…but we tend to be more from the heart.” Vanity Fair: You’ve gone straight from a show in Mexico City into Weekend 1 of Coachella and back on tour. What’s that run been like so far? PinkPantheress: It’s been pretty hectic, but I’ve enjoyed every aspect of it. I really enjoy performing these days, so it’s been incredible being able to play like that. You’ve created a really immersive, almost cinematic show on tour, with characters like DJ Joe and backup dancers called Pinkettes. How do things change when you bring it to a festival like Coachella? When I got booked for Coachella, I realised there’d be fans there. But I’d guess maybe less than 50% of the …

Britney Spears sells her entire music catalog to Primary Wave: reports

Britney Spears sells her entire music catalog to Primary Wave: reports

Published by Daniella Wilson

Britney Spears has reportedly sold off her entire catalog to music company Primary Wave for an unknown amount. The deal, which would include the rights to some of pop music’s most iconic hits, like “Oops!… I Did It Again!,” “…Baby One More Time” and “Gimme More,” was confirmed by two sources to The Hollywood Reporter. Spears’ representatives did not immediately return The Independent’s request for comment. Additional details of the supposed sale were reported by TMZ, which spoke with a source who called it a “landmark deal,” somewhere in the ballpark of Justin Bieber’s $200 million deal with Hipgnosis Songs Capital for the rights to his back catalog. The documents, obtained by TMZ, are dated December 30, 2025. Britney Spears has reportedly sold off the rights to her entire music catalog to Primary Wave for an unknown amount (Getty Images) The business move comes a month after Spears insisted she would “never” perform in the U.S., citing “extremely sensitive reasons.” “Sending this piano to my son this year!!! Interestingly enough, I dance on IG to …