Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
Former Mercor staffers describe “operational mishaps” at the $10B startup, including employee fraud, a security breach, and suspected North Korean infiltration  —  Founded in 2023 by 20-somethings, data labeling startup Mercor exploded to $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate in September.

Sean O'Kane / TechCrunch:
Filings: Caterpillar acquires self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor's assets, after it raised $200M+ and struggled to pivot to software services  —  Monarch Tractor's assets have been acquired by construction giant Caterpillar, after struggling to pivot to a software services business …

Apple's $599 MacBook Neo ($499 for students) has sent shockwaves through the PC ecosystem, and now Microsoft is responding with deals targeting students in the US. A new "Microsoft College Offer" is launching today, which will see the software giant bundle 12 months of free Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with select […]

The Information:
Sources: Apple plans to send ~200 people from its Siri team, a group internally known as a laggard, to an AI coding bootcamp  —  Apple is sending a portion of its Siri programmers back to coding school just two months before the company is expected to unveil a major, AI-powered revamp of the voice assistant …

YouTube's time management settings now have an option to put a zero-minute time limit on Shorts, effectively removing them from your app in Android and iOS. The option is an update to the Shorts timer YouTube originally announced in October; the lowest previous option was 15 minutes. The feature was expanded in January to give […]