The Gemini autonomous hacks that breached three real companies in May 2026 were not the product of a sophisticated cyberattack. They were the product of a misconfigured test environment and a model that, left with access to the open internet, simply got on with the job it had been given. Google confirmed the incidents publicly on 19 September 2026, after the Wall Street Journal sought comment. The breaches had taken place during a capture-the-flag exercise run by Ars Technica-covered evaluation partner Irregular, an Israeli company that had tasked Gemini with retrieving data from a fictional organisation. That fictional organisation happened…
Author: Funke Adeyemi
Funke Adeyemi
Funke Adeyemi spent a decade in corporate banking and fintech before moving to business journalism. She started in trade finance at a major UK bank, moved to a payments company scaling into African markets, and spent her last role leading partnerships at a cross-border remittance platform. She writes about business strategy, fintech, digital banking, and the corporate news that moves markets. She is interested in how companies actually make money rather than how they describe making money in investor presentations. Funke lives in South London. She reads earnings calls the way other people listen to podcasts, and finds them about as reliable.
The appointment of Howard Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway chairman was announced on 18 September 2026, completing what Warren Buffett has constructed, with characteristic patience, as a three-stage handover of the conglomerate he has run for six decades. Warren Buffett, now 96, will remain on the board as chairman emeritus, retaining the ability to ‘continue to offer his valued judgment and perspective,’ according to the company’s press release. Greg Abel, who became chief executive at the start of 2026 after Buffett’s May 2025 announcement, keeps that role. Susan L. Decker continues as Lead Independent Director, providing further continuity at the board…
India’s TRAI spam reporting rules, updated through the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026, now compel caller-ID and call-management apps to route users’ spam reports directly to a blockchain-based platform operated by telecom operators. The mandate has put the regulator on a collision course with Truecaller, the Stockholm-based company whose app is used by well over 350 million of its more than 500 million monthly active users globally in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) framed the requirement as a practical fix: spam reports collected by apps were staying inside those apps’ own ecosystems, unreachable…
Three words from Kevin Warsh have turned a routine quarter-point move into the most debated question in markets: just how far will Warsh Fed rate hikes go? The Fed chairman’s description of the September 16 decision as removing ‘a dose of accommodation’ rattled Wall Street precisely because it was not an off-the-cuff remark. The rate decision itself lifted the federal funds target range to 3.75%–4%, a quarter-point increase approved by a 9–3 vote. According to the FOMC September 2026 minutes, the three dissenters, Beth M. Hammack, Neel Kashkari, and Lorie K. Logan, had each preferred to raise rates at the…
The open vs closed AI debate is no longer a theoretical skirmish among researchers: it is a live business decision being made inside startups today, one that can determine cost structure, product defensibility, and fundraising narrative before a company has found its first hundred customers. That decision is the subject of a session titled ‘The Open vs. Closed AI Debate Is Just Getting Started,’ coming to the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, scheduled for 13–15 October in San Francisco. Nvidia’s Nader Khalil, Director of Developer Tech, and Sydney Sykes, Global Head of VC Partnerships, will lead the discussion. The…
An Intel options trading surge anchored a broad bullish sweep through technology stocks on Thursday, with volumes in Advanced Micro Devices, CrowdStrike, and SpaceX all running well above their 30-day averages as traders positioned aggressively for further gains. Intel was the day’s centrepiece. More than 1.3 million options contracts changed hands, nearly three times the monthly average, according to ThinkOrSwim data. Buyers leaned heavily into calls: roughly 270,000 call contracts were likely purchased against fewer than 140,000 puts. Of the $320 million in premium initiated by buyers, $231 million flowed into call contracts, SpotGamma data show. The stock has extended…
The Mazama Energy Series B round closed at $135 million on 17 September 2026, oversubscribed and with enough demand that the Texas-based startup could hand-pick its new backers. The money will fund Project Ceres, its programme to drill horizontal wells into rock so hot it forces water into a supercritical state, and to begin generating electricity by 2027. The round was led by Centaurus Capital and Doerr Capital, with ConocoPhillips and Shell Ventures joining as strategic participants. Existing investors Khosla Ventures and Gates Frontier returned. New entrants included SiteGround Capital, H. Barton Asset Management, and the Jeffrey and Marieke Rothschild…
The Waymo San Antonio service is back on the road, five months after a recalled fleet and a software overhaul that followed one of the company’s robotaxis being swept into a creek during a flash flood. Waymo confirmed the resumption this week, telling the San Antonio Express-News, which first reported the news, that dozens of its white Jaguar I-Pace vehicles would begin covering a 60-square-mile area including downtown, several residential neighbourhoods, the Arena District, and San Antonio International Airport. The service area runs roughly inside Interstate 10 to the south and west and Loop 410 to the north and east.…
The deadline to apply for a TechCrunch Disrupt volunteer position at this year’s conference is Tuesday, 22 September, and available spots are filling up. Once they are gone, the programme does not reopen until 2026’s cycle begins again. The conference itself runs 13–15 October at Moscone West, 800 Howard Street, San Francisco. Volunteer shifts, however, begin as early as Saturday, 10 October, covering the three days ahead of the conference and all three conference days themselves. What the TechCrunch Disrupt Volunteer Role Actually Involves Prospective applicants should know the commitment upfront. A minimum of 12 hours is required before or…
The Comp AI Series A, a $34 million round led by Roo Capital and Grand Ventures, is the latest bet that security and compliance work is ripe for automation, and that the agentic era has made that bet more urgent. The Miami-based cybersecurity startup announced the raise on Thursday. OSS Capital also participated in the round, according to the company’s press release. Comp AI has now raised $37.5 million in total funding since its founding in January 2025. The growth backing the round is hard to ignore. Comp AI says it has achieved 15x year-over-year ARR growth and now serves…
