Live Nation’s Rapino enjoys widest CEO-to-Worker Fortune 500 pay gap, says studyLive Nation Entertainment President and CEO Michael Rapino got the largest compensation package of any Fortune 500 executive last year at $139 million. The package included his $3 million base. Continue reading
The post Live Nation’s Rapino enjoys widest CEO-to-Worker Fortune 500 pay gap, says study appeared first on Hypebot.

Why we MUST protect the Creative Class [SoundExchange’s Michael Huppe]President and CEO of SoundExchange, Michael Huppe, discusses why musicians and other creatives matter so much in our modern society and what we need to do to support them. Op-ed. Continue reading
The post Why we MUST protect the Creative Class [SoundExchange’s Michael Huppe] appeared first on Hypebot.

3 proven strategies to guide every Musician’s Publicity CampaignConsistent and positive publicity is a major cornerstone of every career in music. This guide will give you three winning strategies for your next PR campaign. by Wayne Martin from. Continue reading
The post 3 proven strategies to guide every Musician’s Publicity Campaign appeared first on Hypebot.

Watch Aphex Twin’s full Field Day 2023 set in 360 video — for freeAphex Twin’s recent performance at 2023’s Field Day festival is now available in its full glory online.

READ MORE: Talks from Spotify, TikTok and YouTube will feature in ADE’s Essential Insider Knowledge Series

Earlier this month, the DJ put on his first UK show since 2019 at Victoria Park, setting the festival ablaze with an hour and a half of groovy techno beats and intoxicating visuals. The performance saw Aphex Twin sampling tracks from his extensive discography, including hits from his new EP ‘Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760’.
And now, NTS Radio has released a full stream of the entire set in 360 video (and spatial audio) for you to relive the show. Watch it below. You can also check out our review of his set here.

The festival also saw Aphex Twin marking his headlining performance with the release of a limited edition run of 12’’ vinyls. Limited to just 100 copies, the Field Day-exclusive 5-track vinyls were said to be snapped up by 2:30pm on the day of its release.
Many of those records, which cost just £5 to purchase, are now going for more than 100x their original price online. A quick scan through eBay shows one seller listing the vinyl for a whopping £599 while another recently sold it for £520.
The record’s tracklist, according to Discogs, is as follows:
A1 Korg Funk5
A2 Korg 1B RU,EC,E
B1 Soog E
B2 Body Pads
B3 Dgitne Tst1e
The post Watch Aphex Twin’s full Field Day 2023 set in 360 video — for free appeared first on MusicTech.

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Sampleson release SkyWaves Sampleson’s latest software instrument combines four synth layers with a trio of effects modules and some powerful macro controls. 

In Memory of Paul DaCruz - SOS North America Sales Manager R.I.P. It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our longtime colleague, good friend, and Sound On Sound North America Sales Manager, Paul DaCruz.

Balancer exploited in nearly $900k after vulnerability warningDeFi protocol Balancer was exploited just a few days after disclosing a vulnerability affecting its boosted pools.

The battery business is booming and Zeekr kicks off it IPO roadshowThe Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. 
Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B.
We have a lot to cover so let’s jump in. But wait! One note to share: These days, I’m a semi-regular guest on TechCrunch’s Equity Podcast, including an episode that aired Friday that covers robotaxis, Nvidia’s earning, plus Better.com and startups that are full of shit (you’ll get the joke if you listen).
Vamos.

Want to reach out with a tip, comment or complaint? Email Kirsten at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com.
Reminder that you can drop us a note at tips@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.
Deal of the week

The battery business keeps attracting capital.
Just take a look at Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt. The company raised around $1.2 billion in a convertible notes from BlackRock and various Canadian pension plans. Participants in the round included Goldman Sachs, Volkswagen, Baillie Gifford, Swedbank Robur, Singapore’s GIC and Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
That cash will be used to build new factories in North America and Europe.
Northvolt has been on a bit of tear the past few years — even before the big battery boom really took off. The company has raised $9 billion in debt and equity since 2017, including $1.1 billion in convertible notes last year. The company has also secured more than $55 billion in orders from customers like BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volvo and Volkswagen.
The Northvolt deal gives me another chance to plug a collection of articles we put together earlier this month on the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, including a look at how startups have benefited and a map that tracks all the battery factories in North America. Once Northvolt picks a location for this next factory, we’ll update the map.
Other deals that caught my attention …
Accure, a startup that uses AI to predict lithium-ion battery failures, raised $7.8 million in a Series A2 round led by Blue Bear Capital and HSBC Asset Management with participation from Riverstone Holdings and Capnamic Ventures.
Channel19, a startup that developed software for refrigerated trucking companies, raised $2.7 million in pre-seed and seed funding round led by Augment Ventures with participation by Accion Venture Lab, TMV, Overton Venture Capital and Refashiond Ventures. Several Silicon Valley and freight tech industry angels also participated, according to the company.
Electric Era, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers that developed software and hardware to make EV charging stations faster and more reliable, raised $11.5 million in a Series A round led by HSBC’s asset management arm. Climate-tech fund Blackhorn, lithium-mining giant SQM and mobility-focused investor Proeza also participated.
NaaS Technology Inc., an EV charging service company in China, said it plans to acquire Charge Amps AB in a deal valued at $66.4 million.
Nickelytics, an advertising tech startup focused on rideshare, has been acquired by Texas-based venture capital group T72 Club Inc. Terms were not disclosed.
Zeekr, the Chinese EV maker under Geely Holdings, is kicking off its roadshow with investors ahead of its initial public offering, Reuters reported citing unnamed sources. Zeekr’s aim is a share sale that will push its valuation over $13 billion. Zeekr filed confidentially for an IPO back in December and raised $750 million in February. If Zeekr is successful and actually lists, this could be one of the largest Chinese IPOs in the past two years.
Chinese companies listing on U.S. exchanges haven’t had the smoothest of rides. Didi, which raised $4.4 billion in its June 2021 IPO,  ran up against Chinese regulators. The company delisted later that year. A few other Chinese companies, including Hesai are dipping their toes back in the U.S. IPO waters now that there is more regulatory clarity in both countries. Last year, the U.S. and China struck a deal that allows American officials to review audit documents of Chinese businesses that trade in the United States, an agreement expected to lower the likelihood of Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges delisting.
Notable reads and other tidbits

ADAS
Polestar plans to make Mobileye’s hands-off, eyes-off automated driving technology (called Chauffeur) available to owners of the upcoming Polestar 4 electric SUV coupe. The vehicle, which launched in China and will hit global markets in 2024, comes standard with Mobileye’s SuperVision advanced driver assistance system. Polestar plans to add Chauffeur at a later date, but did not specify when.
Tesla shareholders who sued the company for financial losses stemming from Elon Musk’s “funding secured” tweet in 2018 are set to receive compensation now that the case has been settled. The SEC said 3,350 eligible claimants will share in the $42.3 million payout.
Speaking of Tesla, CEO Elon Musk livestreamed a test drive of FSD Beta v12 — a yet-to-be-released version of its automated driving software (the video has since been posted on YouTube by a number of people). To be clear, this is not a self-driving car; it is ADAS that requires a human to be ready to intervene at any time. The 40-minute video showed the vehicle handling roundabouts and intersections and even some construction. At about the 19-minute mark Musk had to intervene and take control of the vehicle when it misread the traffic signal and tried to go through a busy intersection at the wrong time.
Autonomous vehicles
Baidu expanded its Apollo Go driverless ride-hailing service to cover trips to and from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport. The company now operates Apollo Go robotaxis in five cities in China.
Beep has partnered with self-driving software company Oxa (previously known as Oxbotica) to deploy autonomous vehicles in the United States.
Electric vehicles, charging & batteries
Jaguar Land Rover has found a use for its second-life Jaguar I-Pace batteries.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether Ford‘s 2022 recall of nearly 49,000 Mustang Mach-E electric vehicles sufficiently addressed issues and whether more vehicles should be included in the recall.
Gig economy
Uber is blaming high insurance rates for its decision to raise the minimum age requirement for new drivers in California to 25 years old. There are some caveats though.
People
General Motors’ Ultium Cells, the joint venture with LG Energy Solutions, reached an agreement with the United Auto Workers to increase pay for workers at its Ohio battery factory by an average of 25%.
Wu Xinzhou, the former vice president of autonomous driving at Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng, posted on social media site Weibo that he’s taken a job at Nvidia.
Disrupt!

Vroom vroom! TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, taking place in San Francisco on September 19–21, is where you’ll get the inside scoop on the future of mobility. Come and hear from today’s leading mobility entrepreneurs on what it takes to build and innovate for a more sustainable future. Save up to $400 when you buy your pass now through September 18, and save 15% on top of that with promo code STATION. Learn more.

Out Take: Tim Burnett Tim Burnett 

VP of Business and Publishing Administration, Heavy Hitters

VP of Music Publishing Administration, Made in Memphis Entertainment

Web: heavyhittersmusic.com, mimecorp.com

Contact: Bill Greenwood, bill@jaybirdcom.com

Tim Burnett is the VP of Business and Publishing Administration at Heavy Hitters Music, a boutique song catalog and music publisher that pitches for sync placements in film, television, games and more. It’s part of the Made in Memphis Entertainment family of companies, where Burnett is also VP of Music Publishing Administration. “This job requires a love of music, obviously, but going beyond that, you have to have a knowledge of a diversity of music. Everyone has styles they gravitate to, but in the sync world, we’re looking for everything. We say that when we pitch clients. Pop may be a 10-lane highway, metal might be a dirt road, but all music has a lane. You have to be able to listen to all those styles of music and find out where they fit,” Burnett says. 

Heavy Hitters and MIME offer regular “sync camps,” during which their writers, artists and producers collaborate with other companies to create music licensing opportunities, which most recently resulted in a placement in Season 2 of the Showtime series Your Honor starring Bryan Cranston. 

“In the sync world, you don’t know what you’re going to get from day to day, which makes it exciting,” Burnett says. “Any given day we could get a brief asking for anything―something that sounds similar to Drake, or something that has a ‘60s Motown sound. We never know what someone is going to be asking for, so it’s always interesting.”  

But the amount of content available through streaming platforms is also the most challenging part of the job, Burnett says. “We’re constantly trying to identify and fill gaps in the catalog, and we also know that it is a very competitive space. Everything we’re pitching for―other companies are pitching for the same thing. That’s why it’s so rewarding when we land a placement.” 

Burnett says being a good student is one of the most valuable skills someone aspiring to work in the sync licensing world can have. “When I look to acquire talent, a willingness to learn and just being open to the possibilities is the most valuable,” he says. •

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Sam Bankman-Fried’s life in jail, Tornado Cash’s turmoil, and a $3B BTC whale: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 20-26Sam Bankman-Fried faces challenges in jail, Tornado Cash’s developer is arrested, and a Bitcoin whale holding $3 billion is identified.

Microsoft brings Python to Excel, Cruise reduces fleet following crash, and MrBeast creates controversyHello, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that covers the biggest happenings in tech over the past few days. Haven’t been able to follow the news closely? Don’t sweat it. WiR will get you up to speed.
In this edition of WiR, we cover Microsoft bringing Python to Excel, Cruise being forced to reduce its robotaxi fleet following a crash, and Amazon launching its new Fire TV Channels app. We also recap Twitter competitor Bluesky buckling under load, influencer MrBeast’s poorly timed Olympics video, IBM building a code translator for COBOL, and Snapchat expanding further into generative AI.
If you haven’t already, sign up here to get WiR in your inbox every Saturday. Now, without further ado, here’s the week’s news!

Most read
Microsoft brings Python to Excel: Microsoft this week announced the public preview of Python in Excel, which will allow advanced spreadsheet users to combine scripts in the popular Python language and their usual Excel formulas in the same workbook. The feature will first roll out to Microsoft 365 Insiders as part of the Excel for Windows beta channel, Frederic reports.
Cruise told to reduce fleet following crash: Cruise, the self-driving car subsidiary of GM, has been asked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles to reduce its robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco following a crash Thursday night with a fire truck.

MrBeast’s geopolitical nightmare: Billionaire creator MrBeast inadvertently stoked generations of geopolitical tension in his latest YouTube video, in which participants from “every country on Earth” competed in “Squid Game”-like elimination challenges for a chance to win $250,000. It was the countries that weren’t included in the competition, as well as the map featured in the video, that made the stunt ripe for discourse.
IBM taps AI to translate COBOL code: IBM this week unveiled Code Assistant for IBM Z, which uses a code-generating AI model to translate COBOL (one of the older programming languages in use) into Java syntax. It’s potentially quite handy, considering there’s over 800 billion lines of COBOL in use on production systems and a strong desire among many of the companies using it to migrate to more modern languages.
Amazon launches Fire TV Channels app: Amazon announced Monday the launch of its new Fire TV Channels app, giving Fire TV customers access to over 400 free ad-supported TV channels, including ABC News, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, MLB, Martha Stewart and more.
Bluesky struggles with growing popularity: X (formerly Twitter) competitor Bluesky buckled following Elon Musk’s announcement that X will no longer support blocking users in favor of mutes only. The company has often had to deal with an influx of users when Twitter announces particularly unwelcome changes, Sarah writes.
Snapchat adds new generative AI features: Snapchat is preparing to further expand into generative AI features, after earlier launching its AI-powered chatbot My AI, which can now respond with a Snap back, not just text. With the company’s forthcoming generative AI feature called “Dreams,” Snap will again experiment with AI images — but soon, those images may contain you and your friends in imaginative backgrounds.
Phone hacking company tries to keep tech secret: For years, cops and other government authorities all over the world have been using phone hacking technology provided by Cellebrite to unlock phones and obtain the data within. And the company has been keen on keeping the use of its technology “hush hush,” Lorenzo reports.
Audio
Have a hankering for new podcast content? You’re in luck. TechCrunch has plenty on deck for your listening enjoyment.
On Equity, the crew discussed Nvidia’s earnings report, raises from Ramp and AI-powered writing platform Lex, Northvolt’s move to North America, the story behind Better.com’s IPO and startups that are literally full of crap (it’ll make sense once you listen — trust me).
Meanwhile, Found focused on Feyi Ayodele, the co-founder and CEO of CancerIQ, a precision health company designed for physicians to help their patients with monitoring cancer risk and prevention. Ayodele recounted how she came up with the startup idea while hiking Mount Kilimanjaro with her mother.
And on Chain Reaction, Erik Svenson talked about Blockstream, a bitcoin and blockchain-focused infrastructure firm that he helped co-found in 2014. Blockstream has its own sidechain technology, Liquid Network, as well as bitcoin mining operations and hardware wallets for Bitcoin and other assets.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
OnlyFans proves the creator economy boom was real: Venture capital investment into the creator economy category slowed down significantly starting in the second half of 2022. But Ron and Anna write about how OnlyFans’ profitability suggests that there’s juice in the sector yet.
Nvidia rides the AI wave — but for how long?: When Nvidia announced eye-popping earnings on Wednesday with three-digit year-over-year growth, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement. But the lingering question is, can it keep it up?
The late-stage venture market is crumbling: New data from CB Insights details that there have been sharp valuation declines across nearly every startup stage around the world. But is that a reason for panic? Alex and Anna don’t think so — at least not now.
Grab your pass to TC Disrupt 2023
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