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Some OpenAI shareholders are privately floating board chair Bret Taylor as a potential replacement for CEO Sam Altman ahead of a planned roughly $850 billion IPO amid ongoing concerns about Altman’s outside investments and potential conflicts of interest. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent today to resolve a dispute with the Pentagon that is blocking use of its AI models, including Mythos, which Treasury and other federal agencies are eager to deploy to guard against cyber attacks. The meeting was “productive and constructive,” according to the White House. Axios has more here.

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By Tim Fernholz

There’s an old saw in management: What you measure matters. And, typically, you get more of whatever you’re measuring.

Software engineers have debated productivity metrics for decades, starting with lines of code. But as the new generation of AI coding agents delivers more code than ever, what their managers ought to be measuring is less clear.

Enormous token budgets — essentially, the amount of AI processing power a developer is authorized to consume — have become a badge of honor among Silicon Valley developers, but that’s a very weird way to think about productivity. Measuring an input to the process makes little sense when you presumably care more about the output. It might make sense if you’re trying to encourage more AI adoption (or selling tokens), but not if you’re trying to become more efficient.

Consider the evidence from a new class of companies operating in the “developer productivity insight” space. They’re finding that developers using tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex generate a lot more accepted code than they did before. But they also find that engineers have to return to revise that accepted code far more often than before, undercutting claims of increased productivity.

Alex Circei, the CEO and founder of Waydev, is building an intelligence layer to track these dynamics; his firm works with 50 different customers that employ more than 10,000 software engineers. (Circei has contributed to TechCrunch in the past, but this reporter had never met him before.)

He says that engineering managers are seeing code acceptance rates of 80% to 90% — meaning the share of AI-generated code that developers approve and keep — but they’re missing the churn that happens when engineers have to revise that code in the following weeks, which drives the real-world acceptance rate down between 10% and 30% of generated code.

Cursor, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that provides AI coding tools for developers and enterprises, is reportedly in talks to raise a $2+ billion round at a $50 billion valuation, with Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz expected to lead and Battery Ventures and Nvidia also expected to participate. TechCrunch has more here.

DeepSeek, a three-year-old Chinese startup that develops open-source large language models optimized for high efficiency and low-cost training, is reportedly in the market to raise at least $300 million at a $10+ billion valuation. This would be the first time DeepSeek has raised outside capital. The Information has more here.

Loop, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to analyze supply chain data and predict disruptions, raised a $95 million Series C round co-led by Valor Equity Partners and the Valor Atreides AI Fund, with 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, and J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

OnlyFans, a nine-year-old London company that operates a subscription platform where creators charge users for access to photos, videos, and direct interactions, is reportedly in talks to sell a minority stake that would value it at more than $3 billion, with Architect Capital in advanced discussions to invest. The Financial Times has more here.

Plata, a three-year-old Mexico City startup that offers digital banking services including credit cards, deposits, lending, and payments through a mobile-first platform, raised a $405 million Series C round at a $5 billion valuation. The deal was led by Bicycle Capital, with QIA, BTG Pactual, and Valor Capital Group as well as previous investors Kora, Hedosophia, Spice Expeditions, and Audeo Ventures also engaging. The company has raised a total of $2+ billion in debt and equity. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Recursive Superintelligence, a four-month-old London startup that is working on AI systems that can improve themselves without human intervention, raised at least $500 million round at a $4 billion pre-money valuation. The deal was led by GV, with Nvidia also joining in. The Financial Times has more here.

Zūm, an 11-year-old company based in Redwood City, CA, whose platform is designed to coordinate school transportation by managing routing, dispatch, and communication in real-time, raised a $100 million round at a $1.7 billion valuation. TPG was the deal lead. More here.

AlixLabs, a seven-year-old startup based in Lund, Sweden, that develops atomic layer etching technology to manufacture semiconductor nanostructures with greater precision, efficiency, and reduced process steps, raised a $17.7 million Series A round. Global Brain and Stephen Industries invested in the deal. EU-Startups has more here.

Eigen, a recently founded San Francisco startup that aims to facilitate human connections by acting as an AI “mutual friend” that helps people collaborate, navigate relationships, and connect more effectively, raised a $15 million seed round. Benchmark was the deal lead. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Expo, an 11-year-old San Francisco company that provides a platform and framework for building, deploying, and maintaining cross-platform mobile applications using a unified codebase, raised a $45 million Series B round led by Georgian, with Leadout Capital, A.Capital Ventures, and Red Swan Ventures also participating. More here.

InsightFinder AI, an 11-year-old company based in Durham, NC, that monitors and analyzes infrastructure, data, and AI models to detect, diagnose, and fix system and model issues across enterprise environments, raised a $15 million Series B round led by Yu Galaxy. The company has raised a total of $35+ million. TechCrunch has more here.

Joyful Health, a three-year-old New York startup that consolidates fragmented healthcare billing data to track, analyze, and recover unpaid insurance claims across the revenue cycle, raised a $17 million Series A round led by CRV, with XYZ Venture Capital, Designer Fund, Inflect Capital, and Go Global Ventures also contributing. The company has raised a total of $22 million. More here.

Sennos, a nine-year-old startup based in Durham, NC, that develops sensing, analytics, and automation systems to monitor and optimize fermentation and fluid-processing operations in real-time, raised a $20 million round led by TomEnterprise. More here.

TextQL, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that provides a natural language interface that lets executives query enterprise data and receive instant answers without relying on analysts or consultants, raised a $17 million round. Blackstone was the deal lead. Fortune has more here.

Ulysses, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that builds networked fleets of autonomous vehicles that operate above and below the ocean surface for exploration, monitoring, and infrastructure protection, raised a $38 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Booz Allen Ventures and Harpoon Ventures as well as previous investors Lowercarbon Capital, ReGen Ventures, and Superorganism also digging in. The company has raised a total of $46 million. Silicon Republic has more here.

Zenskar, a four-year-old New York startup that automates billing, revenue recognition, and collections for B2B companies with complex pricing models, raised a $15 million Series A round co-led by Susquehanna Venture Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Shine Capital, and Rho, with Rocketship, J-Ventures, Future Back Ventures by Bain & Company, and Converge also stepping up. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

GetWhys, a three-year-old Boise startup that turns proprietary buyer research into go-to-market-ready messaging, content, and sales materials for B2B teams, raised a $5.2 million seed round led by Epic Ventures, with CEAS Investments and the Portland Seed Fund as well as previous investors Next Frontier Capital, Tuesday Capital, and Capital Eleven also taking part. The company has raised a total of $8+ million. More here.

Lua, a two-year-old London startup that provides an operating system for building, deploying, and managing human and AI agent workflows within enterprise teams, raised a $5.8 million round led by Norrsken22, with Flourish Ventures, 20VC, P1 Ventures, Phosphor Capital, and Y Combinator also pitching in. EU-Startups has more here.

️NOC Energy, a three-year-old Houston startup that develops electric heating systems that integrate with fossil fuel-powered industrial plants to reduce emissions and enable hybrid energy use, raised a $2.7 million seed round led by 360 Capital, with SOSV and Desai VC also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

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Lockheed Martin says it's expanding its venture capital fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures, from $400 million to $1 billion — a 150% increase and the largest investment boost since the fund launched in 2007 — with the additional capital earmarked to accelerate promising national security technologies from R&D into the broader Defense Industrial Base. More here.

Kraken’s parent company Payward has agreed to acquire crypto derivatives platform Bitnomial for up to $550 million in cash and stock, giving it a fully licensed U.S. derivatives stack as it expands in regulated markets. CoinDesk has more here.

Cerebras, a 10-year-old Sunnyvale-based AI chipmaker that provides cloud access to its processors for running models, filed to go public on Nasdaq today after scrapping earlier IPO plans, reporting $510 million in 2025 revenue and highlighting a multibillion-dollar OpenAI partnership expected to drive future growth. CNBC has more here.

Ramp, a six-year-old New York startup that offers corporate cards and software for expense management, bill pay, and procurement, is telling investors it is on track to reach a $1.4 billion annualized revenue run rate as it prepares for a potential IPO. Business Insider has more here.

Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s former chief product officer who had been leading its Prism AI workspace for scientists; Srinivas Narayanan, CTO of B2B Applications; and Bill Peebles, Head of Sora, are all leaving the company as it attempts to sharpen its focus and prepare for an IPO. TechCrunch has more here.

Legendary investor Ron Conway of SV Angel tweeted today that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. “I am optimistic about my prognosis,” he writes. “I am fortunate to have the best/amazing team of UCSF doctors in San Francisco, and as you know, I never back down from a fight.“ More here.

Meta plans to begin a first wave of layoffs around May 20, cutting 8,000 employees or roughly 10% of its workforce, with additional reductions expected later this year. Reuters has more here.

Iconiq, a wealth manager for tech billionaires, is emerging as a major AI investor, pouring billions into startups like Anthropic and leveraging its elite global network to connect companies with capital, customers, and governments while expanding its venture arm into one of the largest in the U.S. Bloomberg has more here.

In a Congress divided on nearly everything, lawmakers from both parties are coalescing around regulating prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi amid an uptick in insider trading and bets on geopolitical and political events. Fast Company has more here.

Once close enough for an acquisition, Stripe and Airwallex are now going after each other. TechCrunch has more here.

Mahjong is surging in popularity across the U.S., with younger players driving a post-pandemic boom that has turned the once-retiree pastime into a trendy social activity, even as debates over commercialization and cultural appropriation intensify.

Coachella’s car-camping scene is going viral as attendees build elaborate, social-media-ready setups with beds, décor, and even showers.

Top Gun 3 is officially in the works, with Tom Cruise set to return as ace aviator Pete Mitchell, as Paramount moves ahead with a sequel to the $1.5 billion-grossing Top Gun: Maverick.

Cartier has revived its Crash watch for the first time in eight years, releasing a limited run of 150 platinum models whose exposed movement doubles as the dial.

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