Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of news for you this week: Slate EVs spotted in the wild; Airbnb pricing updates; a hack at Blue Shield; and much more. Let’s go!
Get a clue: Cluely is an AI-based tool that helps people cheat on exams, sales calls, and even job interviews. Though one of the co-founders was kicked out of Columbia over a similar tool, and one of the company’s ads falls short, Cluely boasts a $5.3 million monthly ARR. Guess cheaters do win sometimes?
I’m interested: EV maker Slate has operated in relative secrecy until TechCrunch published a report revealing Bezos’ financial involvement, as well as its plan to price its EV at around $25,000. Now the company is planting concept cars around LA to garner interest.
Seeing red: Tesla had its Q1 earnings call on Tuesday, and we got a look at how the company is doing. In short, it’s not doing well: Tesla’s net income reflects a 71% drop from the same quarter last year, and it was the worst quarter for Tesla deliveries in more than two years.
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News
No more hidden fees: Airbnb will now automatically show the total cost for a given property, including all charges, when people search for properties.
Just vibing: Adaptive Computer’s “vibe coding” platform makes it easier for non-programmers to build apps, just using text prompts. The company recently announced a $7 million seed round, led by Pebblebed.
It’s still bad, though: While the government tries to pass legislation aiming to change teens’ experience online, a new study from Pew Research shows that some teens find social media to be a positive influence: According to the study, 74% of U.S. teens said social media makes them feel more connected to their friends, and 63% said that online platforms give them a place to express their creativity.
Great, awesome: Blue Shield of California notified customers this week of a data breach. The insurance giant said it used Google Analytics to track how its customers used its websites, but a misconfiguration had allowed for personal and health information to be collected as well.
Down bad: Bluesky went down for users Thursday night, making us wonder how a decentralized network could even go down in the first place. On Friday, Bluesky confirmed that it had been hit by a DDoS attack.
Checkmate! Chess.com boasts that it now has 200 million members. Albert Cheng, chief growth officer at Chess.com, credits the company’s continued product innovation as one of the reasons it has seen strong and sustained growth.
Go with the Flow: Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann’s proptech company, Flow, has secured over $100 million in funding, bringing its valuation to approximately $2.5 billion. This certainly raised eyebrows, given the problematic history of WeWork.
Analysis
Tesla troubles: Backlash against Elon Musk has risen to such a level that Tesla’s lawyers feel the need to warn investors it could damage the company’s brand and business. While risk factors are typically written to be broad and overly cautious, sometimes new (or removal of old) language can signal what issues or developments are most important to a company like Tesla and, crucially, its legal team, Sean O’Kane writes.