Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has made it clear he’s not afraid to say when his company sucks at something.

That habit was on full display this week at an event hosted by GE in Manhattan, where the rideshare leader delved into a stint as an undercover Uber driver and what it taught him about the company’s less-than-stellar driver app, as well as his ongoing attempts at transforming the company from its hard-charging past.

Khosrowshahi’s comments came after Uber turned its first profit in its 14-year history last month. That milestone was thanks in part to a retrenchment in which the company jettisoned nonessential businesses like its autonomous-vehicle unit and e-bike manufacturing amid a pandemic-era cratering of its business.

“We lost 85% of our volume [during the first months of the pandemic]. And in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been Covid that caused us as a company to really focus on what we are great at,” Khosrowshahi said at the event. “Pre-Covid, we were engaged in tons of activities—building autonomous technology, manufacturing bikes and scooters, building flying cars, etc., that just weren’t core to what Uber does, and frankly, we sucked at.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Let’s face it: Tech is evolving faster than you can say, “AI.” That’s why IT transformation is absolutely critical these days. But how do you become a leader of digital innovation in this ever-evolving environment?

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If it feels like every other funding announcement from a venture capital firm lately has focused on AI, you wouldn’t be too far off: One in four investment dollars this year has gone to startups using the technology, according to a new report from Crunchbase.

The firm, which tracks venture dollars funneled into startups, found that the share of venture capital money going to AI-related companies in the US in 2023 more than doubled YoY, a sign of just how much the hype around ChatGPT and its ilk has captivated investors in an otherwise dreary startup-funding market.

That’s a big jump from AI’s usual slice of the pie, historically speaking. Crunchbase said AI’s share of funding dollars averaged around 12% between 2018 and 2022, before rocketing up to 26%, or about $23 billion so far, in 2023. The soaring growth comes as venture funding in North America has been down 50% across the board in the first half of the year.

“It hasn’t even been a year since AI rushed to the forefront, and we’re seeing so much interest in it,” Crunchbase News Editor in Chief Marlize van Romburgh told Tech Brew. “It’s one of the few bright spots in venture funding overall.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Environmental changes like wildfires, heat waves, and other extreme weather events will no doubt have an increasing impact on the way people and companies move through the world as the climate crisis progresses.

In recognition of that fact, Google Maps is debuting a set of application program interfaces (APIs) to give developers more access to data on air quality, pollen, and solar viability. The rollout adds to a growing flock of tools and services from companies of all kinds to help businesses and developers better plan for climate risks.

Sun power potential: Google’s new solar API for maps builds on the Project Sunroof tool that the company rolled out in 2015 to help consumers estimate power savings. The API will tap AI and data tools to make the data more precise than the satellite and lidar that powered Project Sunroof, according to a blog post from Jennifer Anderson, general manager of the Google Maps platform.

That means more insight into the amount of sunlight a particular building receives, the most energy-efficient solar panel array, and potential shading effects, Anderson wrote.

Air-quality alerts: Anybody who’s spent any time in the Northeastern United States this summer—or the western US during numerous recent years—knows the disruption that wildfire smoke can cause to daily life.

Google’s new Air Quality API is designed to help people plan around that new reality. It draws data from a variety of sources, including government monitors, sensors, weather information, satellites, and traffic, according to Anderson.

Keep reading here.—PK

Stat: 41%. That’s how much demand for online gig work increased globally between 2016 and Q1 2023, the AP reported, citing a World Bank report.

Quote: “Two decades ago, Google became the darling of Silicon Valley as a scrappy start-up with an innovative way to search the emerging internet…That Google is long gone.”—The Department of Justice, in a lawsuit in which the government accuses the search giant of anticompetitive practices

Read: Andreessen Horowitz funds ‘uncensored’ AI that will tell you how to kill yourself (404 Media)

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Opting out: Hello hello hello. We want to once again welcome you to the very bottom of the Tech Brew newsletter. Thanks for sticking with us. Today, we’re aiming to be servicey.

Assuming you’re in the roughly 60% of global browser users who use Chrome for your internet-accessing needs, we’re passing along some helpful instructions from The Verge.

The publication concisely details how you can turn off “Topics API,” Google’s replacement for the cookies that have been hoovering up your digital detritus for years to serve you with “targeted ads.” The scare quotes are deliberate there—we find that for all the personal data we’re willingly handing to Google, the ads have been a little weird lately, yeah? For that reason, we’ve revoked permissions, which takes just a few clicks. Head on over to The Verge for deets on how to do the same.