Author: Keith Anthony

Sam Altman has spent the past few years building what may be the most important AI company in the world. OpenAI sits at the centre of consumer chat, enterprise tooling, and a widening set of cloud and infrastructure ties. Its models are threaded through Microsoft’s product stack, including Office, GitHub, and Azure. By the end of 2025, OpenAI was reporting roughly 900 million weekly active users and more than 1.3 million paying business and enterprise customers. That scale has led many executives to treat OpenAI less like a vendor and more like a layer of modern computing. But the realistic…

AI isn’t just a shiny buzzword on TechCrunch. For many people it’s quietly becoming part of how they pay the rent, or at least subsidise it with weird little cash streams that weren’t possible a few years ago. Some of these might even make you chuckle. 1. Viral AI “slop” videos There’s an odd cottage industry of creators churning out bizarre, AI-generated videos that go viral for being weird or hilarious. One creator told The Washington Post that by pumping out low-effort clips, he was earning around $5,000 a month from platform creator funds. Most of these creators aren’t trying…

For much of the past two years, AI was sold as an inevitability: exponential gains, limitless demand, and profits that would eventually justify the infrastructure build-out. That story is starting to crack. Not because AI stopped working, but because it started showing up on balance sheets. Across Big Tech and venture-backed startups, usage continues to rise. Microsoft stated more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies now use at least one of its AI products. OpenAI reported more than 900 million weekly active users in December 2025. The shift is in how executives, investors, and finance teams talk about that growth.…

There is no self-disclosed net-worth figure for Altman. However, Forbes & Bloomberg have reported that Sam Altman is worth around $2 billion. This reflects that his wealth sits in private assets that are rarely revalued publicly and does not rely on speculative valuations of OpenAI. No Direct Equity in OpenAI OpenAI is the most misunderstood part of Sam Altman’s wealth profile. Despite being CEO of one of the world’s most valuable private AI companies, Altman does not hold traditional founder equity in OpenAI’s core entity. The company’s unusual capped-profit structure and governance model separate leadership from ownership, and Altman has…

A spot on Shark Tank is often described as priceless. In raw marketing terms, it comes close. But the value of that exposure depends heavily on what kind of company is on the stage. A large, repeat audience In recent seasons, Shark Tank has typically attracted 4 to 6 million viewers per episode in the US according to Nielsen Ratings. That figure does not include re-runs, which air frequently on CNBC and other networks, sometimes years after the original broadcast. For certain companies, those replays continue to drive traffic long after the initial spike fades. The audience skews consumer-focused and…

Not every business that appears on Shark Tank goes on to become a success story. While the show has helped launch several household brands, many companies struggled to scale and lost momentum after the cameras stopped rolling. Kevin O’Leary has often warned founders that television exposure doesn’t guarantee success. As he puts it, “Being on television doesn’t build a business. Customers do.” The companies below learned that lesson the hard way. List of Shark Tank companies that shutdown: 180 Cup – Spill-resistant self-sealing drinkware. 50 State Capitals Deck – Educational card game teaching U.S. state capitals. AFreSHeet – Disposable fitted…

Tucked between turquoise seas and coral reefs, the island of Anguilla seems an unlikely player in the global tech economy. With just 15,000 residents and an area smaller than most city suburbs, its economy has long depended on tourism, fishing, and offshore services. Yet in the last few years, this British overseas territory has found a surprising source of wealth, ownership of two letters: .ai The “.ai” country code was introduced in the 1990s to give Anguilla an online identity. For years, it was used only by a handful of local businesses and hobbyists. Then, as the world’s fascination with…

SaucyTV has gone from a small family project to a thriving YouTube channel in just a few years. Run by brothers Marco and Pier D’Alessandro with the support of their family, the channel mixes pranks, interviews, and vlogs into a formula that now draws millions of views every month. Since starting in 2022, SaucyTV has crossed the four-million subscriber mark and built a business that goes far beyond ad revenue. The family formula What makes SaucyTV stand out in a crowded space is how often family members are at the center of the content. Their father (nicknamed Al Dente) has…

Andrew Tulloch has once again reminded Silicon Valley that purpose can trump pay. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta dangled a package worth up to $1.5 billion over six years. Tulloch, a former Facebook engineer who now co-leads Mira Murati’s startup Thinking Machines Lab, politely declined. Rival Labs Push Back Tulloch’s rebuff comes amid an aggressive, and only partially successful, hiring blitz. Since early June, Meta has messaged well over a hundred OpenAI employees, luring just ten. The boldest catch so far is Shengjia Zhao, a Chinese researcher who spent three years at OpenAI and was appointed to run…

As venture capital floods into artificial intelligence, a controversial trend is re-emerging in Silicon Valley: the glorification of overwork. Multiple U.S.-based AI startups are now adopting working hours reminiscent of China’s notorious “996” culture: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Some are pushing it even further. Rilla, a U.S.-based AI startup, expects nearly all of its 80 employees to work under this model. According to Wired, the company provides office meals every day of the week, and its job listings are upfront about the hours. Will Gao, Rilla’s head of growth, explained the philosophy in Wired: “There’s…