Best of TechCrunch — November 2025

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   Hugging Face CEO says we’re in an ‘LLM bubble,’ not an ‘AI bubble’

   Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue argues the tech industry is experiencing an LLM bubble rather than a broader AI bubble, predicting it may burst soon. He believes the current focus on large, general-purpose language models is misplaced, and that smaller, specialized models will dominate the future for specific use cases like banking chatbots. While competitors spend billions on LLM infrastructure, Hugging Face maintains a capital-efficient approach with half of its $400 million funding still in reserve, positioning itself for long-term sustainability across the diversified AI landscape.

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   Meta estimates that it earns 10% of its revenue from scams, report says

   Reuters reports that Meta projected $16 billion (10% of annual revenue) would come from fraudulent ads in the previous year. Internal documents reveal Meta's fraud detection system only deactivates advertisers when 95% certain of fraud, otherwise charging suspected fraudsters higher rates. The company has allegedly failed to adequately protect users from scam ads promoting illegal gambling, investment schemes, and banned medical products for three years. Meta claims to have reduced scam ad reports by 58% over 18 months and removed 134 million fraudulent ads.

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   WhatsApp launches long-awaited Apple Watch app

   WhatsApp has released its first Apple Watch companion app, enabling users to read messages, send voice recordings, react to messages, and receive call notifications directly from their wrist. The app supports Apple Watch Series 4 or later with watchOS 10+, maintains end-to-end encryption, and displays clearer images and stickers. This follows WhatsApp's recent expansion to iPad and comes after Snapchat's similar Apple Watch app launch earlier this year.

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   Red Bull Racing’s secret weapon? An engineer who treats workflows like lap times

   Red Bull Racing's new CEO Laurent Mekies applies engineering principles to organizational workflows, treating security and system access as performance optimization opportunities rather than friction points. His partnership with 1Password demonstrates how eliminating workflow bottlenecks—like authentication delays—can create competitive advantages. Mekies' technical background shapes his leadership approach: focusing on process efficiency, understanding root causes before moving forward, and empowering 2,000 team members rather than seeking spotlight. The team faces a major technical challenge in 2026, building their own power unit from scratch while competing against manufacturers with 90+ years of experience.

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   Amazon sends legal threats to Perplexity over agentic browsing

   Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity demanding its AI shopping assistant Comet identify itself as an agent when browsing Amazon's site. Perplexity argues agents acting on behalf of users should have the same permissions as human users, while Amazon insists third-party agents must identify themselves and respect service provider decisions. The dispute echoes previous controversies around Perplexity's web scraping practices and raises broader questions about how websites will handle autonomous AI agents in e-commerce, travel booking, and other online services.

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