September 30, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Hackers stole millions of US military personnel records during months-long data breach: The Department of Defense notified millions of current and former U.S. military personnel that their personal information had been stolen in a months-long breach. Read More

BMW built the same car for gas and electric. The EV is $4,400 cheaper.: The new BMW 3 Series shows just how quickly EVs have caught up to fossil fuel vehicles on pricing. Read More

Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition: VC Chris Degnan and former board advisor to Factory AI has taken a job as chief revenue officer for Cognition. Read More

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Afternoon Must-Reads

Pledge signed by President Trump and top AI leaders misspells the United States: On Tuesday, President Donald Trump and top AI leaders announced a signed pledge called a “Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities” — a voluntary promise to implement more controls and safety measures as the rapid development of artificial intelligence continues. But there seems to be a catch. Read More

Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots: Reddit is ending support for RSS feeds, as the company continues tightening access to its trove of user-generated content. Read More

The ugly economics of consumer AI: There’s a reason frontier labs have gotten gun-shy about consumer AI — and it’s not because the tech isn’t good enough. Read More

OpenAI's Jev clone could help the frontier lab stop its swarming agents: OpenAI's "Decisions API" is a Jev clone that confirms the importance of fast, cheap intelligence. Read More

Valor, Atreides, and Sequoia back AI startup Flow Engineering at $750M valuation: Flow Engineering, which is bringing AI agents to hardware design, also landed Roelof Botha as an angel investor and board member. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Meta disputes claim that Muse read a user's private messages without permission: Meta says its Muse AI agent cannot access a user’s Messages without explicit permission, disputing a journalist’s account that the agent read his private messages while the required Mac setting was turned off. Read More

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