TechCrunch Top 3

Tesla is reportedly bringing a limited version of its robotaxi service to San Francisco: There will be an employee in the driver's seat -- a big change from how things have been working in Austin. Read More

Google is testing a vibe-coding app called Opal: Google is testing a new vibe-coding tool called Opal, available in the U.S. through Google Labs, that lets users quickly spin up web apps with just a few prompts. Read More

Meta names Shengjia Zhao as chief scientist of AI superintelligence unit: Shengjia Zhao, a former OpenAI researcher, will round out the leadership team at Meta's new AI lab. Read More

A message from Pacaso

Major investors bet big on this "unlisted" stock

When the founder who sold his last company to Zillow for $120M starts a new venture, people notice. No wonder well-known VCs who backed the likes of eBay, Venmo, and Uber already backed Pacaso. They've made $110M+ in gross profits to date by bringing co-ownership to a $1.3T market. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO. And you can invest, too.

This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso's Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the Nasdaq is subject to approvals.

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Afternoon Must-Reads

Tesla is reportedly behind on its pledge to build 5,000 Optimus bots this year: Tesla is behind on its goal to produce at least 5,000 Optimus humanoid robots by the end of 2025. Read More

How a Y Combinator food-delivery app used TikTok to soar in the App Store: BiteSight is a food-delivery app that lets users watch videos of food before ordering. It also lets customers see what their friends have ordered and bookmark places to try out. Read More

Lyft to add autonomous shuttles in 2026 as Uber inks more self-driving deals: It's one of just a few similar partnerships Lyft has struck, while rival Uber has an increasingly long list of robotaxi deals. Read More

AI referrals to top websites were up 357% year-over-year in June, reaching 1.13B: AI platforms in June 2025 generated over 1.13 billion referrals to the top 1,000 websites globally, up 357% year-over-year. Read More

Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers: Google has suspended the Firebase account of Catwatchful following a TechCrunch investigation. The spyware operation was caught using Google's own servers to host and run its surveillance app, which was stealthily monitoring thousands of people's phones. Read More

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Last but Not Least

Sam Altman warns there's no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist: In response to a question about how AI works with today's legal system, Altman said one of the problems of not yet having a legal or policy framework for AI is that there's no legal confidentiality for users' conversations. Read More