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by Shane Nelson Last updated: 10:40 AM ET, Fri October 3, 2025 The final speaker at this year’s two-day Hawaii Tourism Conference had a sobering message for a room filled with the state’s visitor industry stakeholders. “I know a lot of you have already done your forecasting for 2026, and what I’m hearing in the marketplace is at best you’re looking at a 1.5, maybe a 2% increase,” said David Uchiyama, the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s (HTA) chief administrative officer. “And that’s for the hotels that are on the ocean. Neighbor islands, off the shoreline, are running a lower occupancy. And what…
Silicon Valley is full of comfortable offices with gleaming meeting rooms and on-site baristas. So when early HappyRobot engineer Ari Polakof decided to strike out and start his own company, he didn’t exactly expect to wind up tapping on his laptop in a service bay alongside mechanics. “Very noisy, impossible to concentrate,” he laughed. But that’s part of the story of how Polakof’s new AI-for-car-dealerships startup Flai got off the ground last year. Founded by Polakof and his brother Alen (also from HappyRobot) at Y Combinator, along with former Netflix data scientist Juan Alzugaray, Flai is one of a number…
The Founder and Investor bundle sale for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is live — but only until tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. This is your only chance this year to lock in group bundle savings on Founder Passes and an even bigger discount on group Investor Passes. After today, these deals are gone. Disrupt 2025 brings together over 10,000 founders, investors, and operators from around the world to tackle the toughest challenges and uncover the biggest opportunities in tech. Image Credits:Noam Galai Why this matters for founders TechCrunch Disrupt isn’t just a conference — it’s a launchpad for your startup. With…
The space economy isn’t just about rockets and satellites anymore — it’s about building resilient infrastructure, deploying autonomous systems, and creating entirely new models for how we operate and defend assets off-Earth. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, the Space Stage is where these seismic shifts in space innovation come to life. Save big this week by registering as a group. Save up to 20% on your ticket if you register with a group of 4-9 before today at 11:59 p.m. PT. Or, if you’re going solo, secure your pass to save up…
This week, the Department of Energy canceled nearly $8 billion worth of awards — a move touted by the Trump administration as an effort to protect fossil fuels at the expense of renewables. But documents obtained by TechCrunch show that the reality is more complex than that simple message. The agency has not released a list of the canceled awards, but TechCrunch has obtained a copy and has analyzed the 321 contracts that the DOE is seeking to undo. Not all projects focused on renewable energy, though. Two listed in the document, one for $300 million to Colorado State University…
PRAGUE (AP) — Ivan Klíma, a Czech author and anti-communist dissident whose work and life were shaped by Europe’s 20th-century totalitarian regimes, has died. His son Michal told the Czech ČTK news agency that Klíma died on Saturday morning at home after battling a long illness. He was 94. A prolific author, Klima published novels, plays, short story collections and essays as well as children’s books, becoming an internationally known writer whose works were translated into more than 30 languages.Born Ivan Kauders on Sept 14, 1931, in Prague, Klima faced his first repressive regime during World War II when his…
OpenAI’s Sora app for AI videos is a viral hit, despite being invite-only for now and limited to users in the U.S. and Canada at launch. On its first day, Sora saw 56,000 downloads, and is now ranked as the No. 3 Top Overall app on Apple’s U.S. App Store, according to new data from app intelligence provider Appfigures. On Friday, October 3, it became the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store. That puts it ahead of Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm estimates Sora’s iOS app pulled in a total of 164,000 installs during its first…
It’s been a whirlwind year for the vibe-coding world’s database of choice: Supabase. On Friday, Supabase announced that it raised a fresh $100 million Series E at a $5 billion valuation, led by Accel and Peak XV. This is just four months after closing its $200 million Series D at a $2 billion valuation, led by Accel. And that Series D was just seven months after raising an $80 million Series C led by Sequoia spinoff Peak XV and David Sacks’ Craft Ventures at an undisclosed valuation. PitchBook estimated Supabase was valued at around $765 million in that deal, post-money.…
Welcome to YC Arena, which is not a top secret fight club for Y Combinator founders but rather a suite of games that give you a vague sense of what it’s like to be a partner at YC. Created by a student in Berlin, YC Arena’s YC Partner Simulator game shows you a publicly available pitch video from a company that applied to YC, along with the year of their application. You click “accept” or “reject,” and then find out if you made the same choice as YC. Image Credits:YCArena It’s a lot harder than it looks. YC is estimated…
NEW YORK (AP) — Live from New York! It’s a new “SNL” season, with faces both fresh and familiar.After a fanfare-filled 50th season celebrating the past, “Saturday Night Live” looks to the future with a cast that includes five new featured players. As for the high-wattage early hosts, none other than Bad Bunny kicks things off on Saturday.The music superstar is having what can only be described as an enormous week: in another kickoff moment, he’s been announced as headliner for the Super Bowl halftime show.Bad Bunny is also coming off a historic residency in Puerto Rico, which ends Saturday.…