Good morning. Earlier this week, we told you about Google’s $10 million purchase of Spirit Airlines’ data in a bankruptcy auction. Well, Spirit Airlines’ former flight attendants have an announcement to make: Not so fast.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a labor union representing thousands of former flight attendants from the defunct airline have asked the court to block the deal unless it explicitly guarantees protection of their personal data.
Google wants to feed the data—which includes decades’ worth of travel and booking information, payroll data, and emails—into the maw of its ever-hungry AI machine, and it has said that customers’ personal information will be removed. The flight attendants want to make sure employee data gets the same safeguards. A judge overseeing the bankruptcy case has delayed approval of the sale so that the court can evaluate the claims.
Now for today’s other tech news…
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Amazon isn’t giving up on delivery drones
Remember those delivery drones Jeff Bezos promised were coming, way back in 2013?
Don’t count them out yet. Amazon announced plans Wednesday to significantly ramp up its Prime Air drone delivery service, aiming for airborne deliveries in nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of this year. The drones can transport virtually any item weighing five pounds or less that can fit in a shoebox-sized container, with free delivery for Prime members who spend $50 or more.
To be sure, the drones are still constrained by various issues: They can’t fly beyond a roughly seven mile radius, limiting their reach, and they operate primarily in suburban locations in order to avoid tall buildings and other tricky obstacles. But as Fortune’s Sebastian Herrera writes, the announcement signals that Amazon is still serious about making Bezos’ drone dream a reality. —AO
Stripe’s snaps up OpenRouter
Stripe, the fintech company that once reigned as the world’s most valuable startup, has found a way to get some of that AI sparkle. It’s paying big bucks to acquire OpenRouter.
As its name suggests, OpenRouter makes AI router software—a type of tool that allows organizations to select the best and most cost-efficient AI models for every task. Routers have become one of the hottest areas in enterprise tech lately, as Fortune reported earlier this month, due to the sticker shock many businesses have experienced while their token consumption surges.
Stripe did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but the New York Times, citing an anonymous source, put the price tag at $7.5 billion. Three months ago, investors in a funding round valued OpenRouter at just $1.3 billion. Talk about sticker shock.—AO
Google and Marvell get circular
Another day, another “circular” deal in the AI industry.
Google parent-company, Alphabet struck a deal recently that gives it the right to buy as much as $12.2 billion in shares of Marvell Technology, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company. In return, Marvell will develop chips designed for Google’s “TPU ecosystem” (basically, Google’s homegrown alternative to Nvidia GPUs—the key chips in the data centers that are running AI models).
The near term loser is Broadcom, which already works with Google to create the TPU chips, and whose stock dropped 4.6% on Wednesday. In the longer term, the risk for the entire industry grows as the interests and ownership of various companies become ever more entwined.—AO
More tech
—Ex-engineer/whistleblower testifies in Meta child safety trial. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’
—OpenAI will be a public company in 2027. So says CFO in all-hands.
—Did SpaceX try to buy AI coding startup Cognition? “Not for sale and we haven’t been talking” says Cognition CEO.
—YouTube reportedly offers creators millions for ‘exclusivity’ windows. And ‘consequences’ for Netflix deals.
—Rivian spinoff Also, which makes a $3,500 e-bike, is now worth $1 billion.
—Google and the U.K. think changing flights paths could cut down on climate change.
