Monday, July 25, 2022

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The Dogefather sends his regards

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 05:35 PM PDT

Welcome back to Chain Reaction.

Last week, we looked at a crossover episode for meme investing. This week, we’re talking about Musk dumping tokens while holding onto others.

You can get this newsletter in your inbox every week by subscribing on TechCrunch’s newsletter page.

Dumping favor

A weekly dispatch from the desk of TechCrunch crypto editor Lucas Matney:

Elon Musk shared that Tesla sold some Bitcoin this week. Well, to be fair they sold an awful lot of Bitcoin… tens of thousands of coins.

And while Tesla’s announcement last year that they were buying Bitcoin sent prices to the moon, the disclosure Wednesday that they sold 75% of their Bitcoin reserves in Q2 didn’t drastically impact the crypto market which has been on a tear this week with BTC prices pumping and Ethereum shooting even higher (though still wildly below prices from a couple months ago).

At the end of the day, Tesla was one of the top corporate holders of Bitcoin and Elon Musk was, for a while at least, the currency’s top billionaire hype-man. His stock in crypto circles seems to be falling, crypto Twitter was broadly upset by the announcement with some noting that crypto holders should join those shorting the electric car maker’s stock.

Hidden inside this disclosure that the company had offloaded nearly $1 billion worth of Bitcoin was a small admission from Musk that Tesla was holding onto Dogecoin and had not sold any of it. What was unclear from this statement is how much Dogecoin Tesla actually owns. Musk has written on Twitter that he owns it, and Tesla has accepted Dogecoin payments for merchandise on its site for months, but they haven’t disclosed any buys of the cryptocurrency.

I tried to do some napkin math on how much Dogecoin the company may hold this week:

The company disclosed that it currently owns $218 million worth of digital assets after selling $963 million worth of Bitcoin. The bulk of that $218 million is likely its remaining Bitcoin.

Tesla reportedly had around 42,000 Bitcoin heading into the second quarter, so after selling 75% of them, it should have had around 10,500 at the end of the quarter. Now, to determine exactly how much of that total holding is Bitcoin, we'd have to know exactly when the snapshot was taken. It was assumedly taken sometime the last day of June when fiscal Q2 ended, so 1 Bitcoin would have been trading for between $18,750 and $20,300 throughout the day, which at 10,500 coins would mean that around $197 million to $213 million of its total "digital assets" would be in Bitcoin.

Ultimately, Musk’s assertion that Tesla was holding onto its Dogecoin was probably more about keeping in the good graces of that Twitter community that anything else, especially during a time when his Twitter dealings have taken some digs at his popularity among retail investors.

Elon Musk discloses that Tesla owns Dogecoin, but how much does it have?

the latest pod

Chain Reaction has recapped plenty of negative news in the past month as token prices took a beating and web3 companies suffered as a result. The pain is far from over, but crypto prices did see a fairly substantial recovery this past week, with ETH up 45% week-over-week. Lucas and Anita talked about what might have driven the uptick, though they also had to talk through the much more unfortunate news of layoffs at OpenSea. 

Both co-hosts were hard at work this past week on two separate feature articles that relate to current crypto news, so they unpacked those on the show. Anita talked about her piece on intensifying competition between crypto exchanges for the U.S. market (and which is most likely to win), while Lucas shared his thoughts on Yuga Labs' highly hyped Otherside metaverse video game as one of its very first players.

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple, Spotify or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.

follow the money

Where startup money is moving in the crypto world:

  1. Cryptography developer tools startup Sunscreen raised $4.65 million in seed funding led by Polychain.
  2. Optic, an AI-based NFT authenticator, raised $11 million in a seed round led by Kleiner Perkins and Pantera.
  3. Zebedee raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Kingsway Capital to develop Bitcoin-based game payments.
  4. Blockchain cybersecurity startup Halborn raised a $90 million Series A led by Summit Partners.
  5. UnCaged Studios raised $24 million from investors including Griffin Gaming Partners and 6th Man Ventures to build crypto games.
  6. NFT brand loyalty platform Hang banked $16 million in new Series A funding led by crypto venture firm Paradigm.
  7. Peer-to-peer wallet messaging app Lines raised a $4 million seed round from investors including Elad Gil and Scalar Capital.
  8. Crypto corporate treasury company Meow closed a $22 Million Series A led by Tiger Global.
  9. Data infrastructure provider Empiric Network raised $7 million for its seed round from investors including Variant and Alameda Research.
  10. Web3 security auditor Secure3 raised a $5 million seed round led by Mirana Ventures.

Gaming-focused UnCaged Studios raises $24M to build good crypto games

the week in web3

A weekly window into the thoughts of web3 reporter Anita Ramaswamy:

More than a few times recently, I've heard people in crypto say a bear market will separate the good companies from the bad ones. Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton put it more directly at Bloomberg's crypto summit on Tuesday, saying regulators should make responding to the "garbage" going on in web3 their first priority.

Clayton invoked the 2017 ICO boom when describing the aforementioned garbage, a time during which all sorts of rampant scammery and securities fraud was unfolding within crypto. I couldn't help but wonder … has crypto made any material progress since then in improving its reputation as a refuge for miscreants?

For U.S. lawmakers, the answer seems to be "yes," perhaps because they are loathe to stifle what's proven to be a substantially large industry worth millions (or billions in a strong market) of dollars. So despite their sluggishness, they are finally coming around. Specifically, U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand proposed a bipartisan crypto bill last month that has been on everyone's lips. The pair made an appearance at the Bloomberg summit to share updates on the bill's status since it was introduced. Gillibrand shared that while certain provisions look set to move forward, the entirety of the legislation is likely to be deferred to next year.

Still, there are two provisions in the bill Gillibrand predicted could garner consensus much sooner than the rest. The first is a set of rules for banks looking to issue stablecoins – it's understandable that those are an area of particular concern for lawmakers after the Terra fiasco. The second is the portion of the bill that would make the CFTC the key regulatory authority overseeing crypto, which she said is currently being finalized in committee. Congress will be able to vote on that provision by the end of the year, she noted.

While U.S. lawmakers and regulators alike will probably always drag their feet in cracking down on crypto because they don't want to be seen as stifling innovation, the new bill seems to be moving right along, faster than many expected. It's not exactly a sudden 0 to 100 shift, but it's very possible the U.S. is on the brink of a faster and more furious regulatory response than most in web3 could imagine just a few months ago when the markets were in better straits.

Regulators should address crypto ‘garbage’ first, former SEC Chairman Clayton says

TC+ analysis

Here’s some of this week’s crypto analysis available on our subscription service TC+ from senior reporter Jacquelyn Melinek: 

Regulators should address crypto 'garbage' first, former SEC Chairman Clayton says
As the crypto industry continues to grow, regulators across the world are looking for operational and legal frameworks to guide their actions to more effectively monitor the industry. While there's a "tremendous number of responsible players in the industry" there are also irresponsible ones, former U.S. SEC chairman Jay Clayton said during the Bloomberg Crypto Summit conference on Tuesday. "And regulators have to respond to the garbage first. That's the job."

NFTs have the potential to become media companies, Rarible co-founder says
As NFTs work to retain mainstream attention, one founder predicts the digital asset sector will pivot in a new direction. "I think NFT collections will evolve as media companies [into something] like Disney," Alex Salnikov, co-founder and head of product at NFT marketplace Rarible, said to TechCrunch. In recent months, major "blue-chip" NFT projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Doodles propelled their collections beyond just images and into different sectors, which may be the beginning of what's in store for NFT expansion into the mainstream, Salnikov said. 

Some venture investors are doubling down on crypto despite an unknown recovery timeline
The crypto markets might be red all over, but that isn't stopping many venture capitalists from investing in the space. People who entered the crypto market briefly — aka tourists — are "already going home," Craig Burel, partner at crypto-focused firm Reciprocal Ventures, joked to TechCrunch. But a number of VC firms are looking at the space as a huge opportunity, even though there might not be measurable traction for a number of years. 

MetaMask co-founder sees a developer-led future for its crypto wallet
Six years ago, MetaMask was founded and today it's the largest non-custodial crypto wallet. But that wasn't always the plan, co-founder Dan Finlay told TechCrunch. "We thought it was going to be a quick in-and-out thing. Aaron thought we'd be working on it for a few weeks; I thought it would be a few months. It became clear pretty quickly that wasn't the case." Now, the team is testing out a hands-off approach to be "less opinionated" and get out of users' way.

Thanks for reading and, again, you can get this newsletter in your inbox every week by subscribing on TechCrunch’s newsletter page.

Google pauses hiring, Netflix loses nearly 1M customers, and Slack increases prices

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 01:16 PM PDT

Hey, friends! It’s that time again. Another week has passed us by, which means another issue of Week in Review — the newsletter where we recap the top stories to hit TechCrunch’s front page in the past seven days. Sign up here!

The top story this week was about a new set of documents detailing how (and how often) the Department of Homeland Security taps third-party data brokers to obtain potentially sensitive location info while “sidestepping the legal process government officials would typically need to go through.” A privacy bill aptly named the “Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale” act is in the works that would require agencies to get a warrant for this data — but it’s still in its early stages.

other stuff

What else were people reading on TechCrunch? Here’s a handful of the most read posts this week:

Solar for your balcony: Got a balcony bathed in sunlight and want to make a shift toward renewable energy? That’s the idea behind these vertical solar panels designed to strap right onto a balcony’s railing. Mike Butcher caught up with WeDoSolar, a team founded by a Ukrainian entrepreneur to “wean Europe off Russian gas,” to hear their story.

Google pauses hiring: Last week Google announced that it was slowing its hiring pace for the latter half of 2022; now the company says it’ll outright freeze hiring for the next few weeks “to enable teams to prioritize their roles and hiring plans for the rest of the year.”

Netflix loses customers: The good news? Netflix lost fewer customers this quarter than it was predicting. The bad news? It still lost nearly a million customers, which works out to the “the largest quarterly loss in the company's history.”

OpenAI expands access to DALL-E 2: DALL-E 2, OpenAI’s tool for generating entirely new (and often impossibly good if wildly surreal) imagery from a text prompt, will be available to a million new users in the weeks ahead. The company also announced pricing for the (thus far free) tool, and it basically works out to “free if you just want to mess with it occasionally, but expect to pay if you use it a lot.”

Tesla dumps most of its Bitcoin: Last year Tesla announced that it had acquired $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin has been up and down (mostly down) since, and it seems the company wants at least partly off this roller coaster; in its most recent earnings report, Tesla disclosed that it has sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings.

Slack price hike: Inflation comes for everything! Milk! Meat! and now… Slack? This week the company announced its first ever price hike since launching in 2014, bumping the price per user by around 60 to 75 cents per month (depending on if you pay monthly/annually.) They’re also changing the way free plans work a bit; if you’re part of any smaller/less active Slack communities that use the free plan, know that messages wont hang around as long.

audio stuff

Podcasts podcasts podcasts!

Want a recap of everything thats been going on in the world of TC podcasts lately? Check out Matt’s weekly podcast roundup. Here’s some of what went down:

  • On TechCrunch Live, Brian Heater talks with Ayanna Howard (dean of the Ohio State University College of Engineering) and Ayah Bdeir (founder of littleBits) about the future of robotics and how to get more kids into the field.
  • On Chain Reaction, Lucas and Anita talk about OpenSea’s layoffs, Binance looking to gain ground in the U.S. as Coinbase stumbles, and the latest project from the Bored Apes founders.
  • On The TechCrunch Podcast, Darrell Etherington is joined by TC climate writer Harri Weber to hear about the challenges Tesla is facing in its effort to install 1,000 solar roofs a week.

Oh! And if you’re free Tuesday July 26 at noon Pacific and are interested in the nitty-gritty of startup economics, tune into our “WTF is a 409A?” Twitter space and learn why lowering your company’s valuation might actually be a good thing.

additional stuff

TechCrunch+. Are you a member yet? No? I know, I know — paywalls are a bummer. But this paywalled section of our site helps us keep the words aflowin’ and, crucially, lets us go deep on the stuff our most vocal readers tell us they want to see more of. Things like:

Stripe’s new valuation, explained: Speaking of 409As and lowered valuations, Alex Wilhelm dives into why Stripe lowered its internal valuation from around $95 billion to $74 billion.

Fundraising tips for 2022: With dozens upon dozens of investor meetings behind him, Kami Vision CEO Yamin Durrani has insights for raising a round in the current climate.

A look at Arkive’s $9.7M seed deck: Working on your startup’s slide deck and need some inspiration? In the latest installment of his popular Pitch Deck Teardown series, Haje takes a look at the deck that helped Arkive — described as the “world’s first decentralized physical museum” — close a $9.7 million seed round.

3 views on Amazon’s $3.9B acquisition of One Medical

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 12:00 PM PDT

After it was rumored to be in play earlier this month, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that One Medical has found a new home. After a torrid public offering, the value of the American consumer healthcare and technology company had fallen below its IPO price, and it was an obvious target for the right buyer.

But after CVS left the table, it wasn't a healthcare entity that snapped up the former venture darling, and nor was it turned into a platform play by private equity. Instead, Amazon nabbed it up in a deal that comes to around $3.9 billion. At $18 per share, One Medical is exiting the public markets with a price tag that’s higher than when it IPO’d — a win of sorts for the unprofitable company.

What should we make of the Amazon deal, though? We covered the news on TechCrunch, and TechCrunch+ dug around into what the smaller company could offer its new parent, so we've gathered to share a few more thoughts on the matter.

From Walter Thompson, Miranda Halpern and Alex Wilhelm, three views follow on the Amazon-One Medial transaction.

Walter Thompson: Amazon is the black hole created by the death of Main Street retail

One Medical’s CEO said his company’s acquisition by Amazon is “an opportunity to transform health care and improve outcomes.” But I interpreted the pending $3.9 billion purchase as a bright, blinking sign that the world’s largest retailer is not afraid of regulatory oversight or intervention. Amazon has moved beyond revenue generation: At this point, the company largely exists to accrete additional mass.

Great Resignation meets Great Reset meets (Great R…un down those valuations please)

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 11:02 AM PDT

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week's startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

We love a counternarrative angle these days, and this week's choice is a look into why lower valuations may actually be a good thing for startups these days.

In the past few months, both Stripe and Instacart have seen their internal valuations updated in a 409A appraisal process. The startups saw their valuations being slashed by 28% and 38%, respectively, as a result of the appraisals. Anita Ramaswamy and I looked into 409As and learned about an entirely different meaning of a "valuation haircut."

Here's an excerpt from our piece:

Many founders and industry experts see a company receiving a 409A valuation that's lower than its investor-assigned valuation as a boon. That's because a low 409A valuation allows companies to grant their employees stock options at a lower price. Companies can also use the new, lower 409A valuation as a recruiting tool, luring prospective employees with cheap options and the promise of cashing out at a higher price when the company eventually exits.

Sumukh Sridhara, head of founder products at AngelList, says companies view 409As as an "internal equity granting authorization mechanism, and not them thinking we're worth less."

"If those companies would have their way, they would argue that they are worth 5% of what their public market comps are. But they won't really get away with that," he said.

For our full take, read the entire story, "WTF is a 409A" live on TechCrunch right now or read the companion TechCrunch+ piece, "Stripe's new and lower internal valuation, explained." 

Plus, if you want to get more into the weeds of this conversation, join Anita Ramaswamy and me on a Twitter Space next Tuesday at noon PDT, 3 p.m. EDT. We'll have some guests from the piece on the mic, and of course riff on whatever got cut out of the story.

In the rest of this newsletter, we'll get into a fintech favorite, robots and software eating up headquarters. As always, you can support me by forwarding this newsletter to a friend or following me on Twitter or subscribing to my blog.

Deal of the week

TomoCredit! The fintech raised $22 million to make credit scores obsolete. I know, I know it's not the first fintech to try this, but there's something that stands out.

Here's why it's important, via Mary Ann Azevedo: "Tomo is different from many other credit offerings out there in that it doesn't rely on FICO scores to underwrite. Rather, it applies a "proprietary" underwriting algorithm (Tomo Score) to identify "high potential borrowers" without a credit score. The TomoCredit card requires no credit check, no deposit, 0% APR and no fees."

A person is smashing a bottle of champagne against the side of an enormous credit card as if they were launching a boat.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

About those robots

TC Robotics was so wild this week that it shut the site down (for a few minutes). In all seriousness, the event was a blast and featured some of the biggest names in tech innovation. Big ups to Brian Heater for spearheading the effort.

Here's why it's important: Robotics, unlike many tech sectors, is poised to have a great year in funding and, per investors focused in the category, has some key recession-proof characteristics. If you missed the event, don't fret because we covered each and every single panel for you to read and relive. 

Illustration of a robot with a speech bubble in a laptop; chatbot strategy for marketing

Image Credits: Carol Yepes (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Software is eating the world and just gobbled up a16z's offices, too

First up, thanks to Haje for this witty subhed! Second, venture firm and investment adviser Andreeseen Horowitz announced this week that they will no longer have a single, physical headquarters and instead are building out global outposts.

Here's why it's important: The firm is prioritizing physical offices around the world instead of one centralized HQ. It doesn’t entirely come as a surprise, if you consider, well, the still on-going pandemic. That said, it's helpful to track how distributed VCs adjust to a remote-first, but not remote-only environment.

Eric Tarczynski of Contrary Capital says his firm has been remote since inception but recently launched an in-person community space in NYC for portfolio companies and founders within the firm's network. Ankur Nagpal, of Vibe Capital, launched his fund with plans to spend one month at a time in geographies he plans to invest in. Brianne Kimmel of Worklife Ventures is creating an invite-only community space in Los Angeles. Most recently, Index Ventures opened its fourth office in New York — its first new office in more than a decade.

a photo of an art deco style building in Miami with pastel gradient colors

Image Credits: Artur Debat (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

 Insert “Pitch Perfect” joke here

First things first, TechCrunch Live is on a brand new platform, and we’ve made it easier to apply for pitch practice. Investors (and my inbox) can attest to the importance of brevity, savviness and clarity in pitches, so it's great to see.

Startups can now apply any day, any time for Pitch Practice by completing this form. We'll select the startups 24 hours before that week’s event and notify startups by email. If you're selected for one event, you can apply for future events too. We want companies to present more than once using the feedback provided from previous experiences. Call it growth at no costs.

Seen on TechCrunch

Amazon is buying primary care tech provider One Medical for $3.9B

Andreessen Horowitz ditches physical HQ in return for global outposts

The SEC takes a long-feared position in Coinbase insider trading suit

Google tells staff to act 'more entrepreneurial.' Translation: Work harder, or else

Tesla dumped 75% of its Bitcoin holdings

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia steps back from leadership role

Seen on TechCrunch+

What does Amazon get for the $3.9B it is paying for One Medical?

Where should US-based startups file their patent applications?

Did no one tell Europe the party is over?

Can Medicare save the insurtech market?

Until next time,

N

Cash is nice — as an option

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 10:00 AM PDT

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It's inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

When I visited London recently, I found it hard to spend even one pound in cash: Cashless transactions were more than encouraged — they were often mandatory. However, cash payments are still very much a reality for American cannabis dispensaries and in emerging countries. But are we ready for the end of cash? Let’s explore. — Anna

Forced to pay by card, or forced to pay cash?

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it less common for people to use cash to pay for their everyday purchases.

Because of hygiene and social distancing measures, merchants who used to frown upon letting customers pay small amounts by card are now encouraging contactless transactions. And with many outdoor activities simply out of the question, cash was more often hoarded than it was spent.

Review: Framework’s latest modular laptop is one I could stick with for years

Posted: 23 Jul 2022 08:31 AM PDT

Framework has been expanding its footprint in the laptop scene over the last few years, and we felt it was time to give one of their modular laptops a look. This latest generation is good enough that I felt it could be my daily driver, the port swap system is simple enough for a child to use, and if you don’t mind continuing to take part in the company’s ecosystem, you’ve got upgrades for years without having to throw away any more than the bare minimum.

If you’re not familiar with Framework, the company makes laptops and parts with two goals in mind: sustainability and repairability.

The repairability piece is a breath of fresh air to someone like me who has used exclusively Apple laptops for the last 10 years — good devices to be sure, but forget about repairing or upgrading them. Framework’s models are built from the ground up to be fixed, whether that’s swapping out bad RAM, replacing the keyboard, or adding a (new or old) port.

That feeds into the sustainability side, since instead of buying a whole new laptop every few years, you keep the old one and just swap out the piece that needs to go. Less e-waste, less cash waste.

The latest Framework laptop includes the following standard:

  • 13.5″ 2256×1504 display (3:2 ratio)
  • 55 Wh battery
  • 1080p webcam
  • Fingerprint reader
  • 1.3 kg, 16mm thick
  • 3.5mm headphone port

You can specify storage, RAM, and of course processor, from a i5-1240P to a i7-1280P, with onboard graphics.

Out of the box, the laptop is quite ordinary looking — which is a compliment, I feel. The soft grey brushed aluminum (50% recycled) and gear logo are tasteful, and the general shape is inoffensive and familiar, though it lacks the “premium” feel of a MacBook Pro (much of which comes from the MBP’s unibody construction that precludes easy repair).

Open it up and you have the now-familiar black bezel and black keys on silver, the now default style for mid- and high-end laptops.

But you notice right away that above the screen there are little switches next to the camera and microphone. These privacy switches completely remove the device from your system’s awareness — they’re not just covers. It’s the kind of kill switch I’ve always wanted in my devices, and here it is implemented very well.

Image Credits: Framework

Switching them on and off actually deregisters them in the OS (in my case, Windows 11), and they pop back up as soon as you click them back on. It’s just like plugging and unplugging a USB peripheral (which is probably more or less how it works inside the box). My only caveat is the switch is a little difficult to snick back and forth, which is probably for the best since it would be annoying to be hitting it on accident all the time.

The rest of the basic laptop items are as expected: the screen is fine, if a rather unusual resolution, and the whole bezel can be swapped out for different colors if you want to fly your freak flag (or just an orange one). The fingerprint reader, which doubles as a power button, worked flawlessly for me.

Image Credits: Framework

The keyboard is advertised as having a longer travel distance (1.5mm) than others, and that does feel true, though it’s still a long way from having the tactility of a mechanical or anything like that. It’s a perfectly good laptop keyboard and if you tend to bottom out when you type on shallower ones, this could be a nice upgrade.

I only had one serious hardware problem and that was the power cord. It’s stiff, ugly, and bulky. I would happily sacrifice a port for a custom magnetic power connector or pay extra for a

Hot swappable and cold fixable

The Framework laptop open to the elements. It’s actually upside-down right now, something I realized after I took the picture. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

Where the Framework diverges from the rest is in its hot swappable side ports. When you order the laptop, you also order as many ports as you need, from USB-C to USB-A, Micro SD, Ethernet, HDMI, and removable storage up to a terabyte. The only port the laptop is born with is a 3.5mm headphone adapter.

Image Credits: Framework

The little port devices are essentially self-contained USB-C adapters, so they don’t register as extra devices or anything like that (except that they’ll mount as drives in the case of an inserted card or drive, of course). They lock into place quite securely — you may feel too securely, but how often do you need to change them out?

As someone who refused to upgrade my Mac for years because of their port shenanigans, this feels like the best of both worlds. I can plug in the power on the right or left, swap in the Micro SD when I’m doing that sort of thing, and keep the HDMI in for just in case. The flexibility is nice to have, though I would have liked a full size SD one for camera work. Hopefully more are on the way, but they’ve covered the main use cases and of course my existing adapters still work.

When it comes to the internals, it’s a bit different from the usual DIY computing style. When I put together a desktop, I buy an ATX standard motherboard and pick my components from a range of compatible pieces. Non-standard parts tend to be motherboard-specific or for things like dual-GPU setups or liquid cooling.

With the Framework, there’s a mix of standard parts (the internal SSD, for instance) and device-specific ones, like the mainboard and audio module. So if you intend to make this laptop your main for the next five years or so, you have to be OK with the idea of Framework being your primary supplier. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — but some people do value being able to just order a part and swap it in.

The truth is, though, that although the old method of building and maintaining a DIY computer are not completely here, the spirit certainly is. You may not be able to choose between MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte for some parts, but you can still easily replace them, even tweak them to your liking. I think this allows for a happy medium between the fully DIY but buggy and chunky laptops that hardware enthusiasts tend to be stuck with and the sleeker, but barely upgradeable ones that the majority end up with.

Framework isn’t necessarily trying to get people already wild for DIY to go upscale — this is about capturing people who’d like a little more flexibility and reusability but can’t find it in mainstream devices.

QR code links point you to replacements, instructions, and other info. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

From my limited delvings into the internals, I think that anyone comfortable enough to open it will also be fine switching out a piece. It really is close to drop-in and there are instructions baked into the parts, easy enough to look up and follow. All it takes is the included screwdriver, which is also helpfully magnetic:

Looks big but isn’t big. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

I’ve always shied away from PC laptops because the truth is Apple’s products are in many ways built to last — my old 2012 Air is now running Zorin and loving life. I’m not sure I could do that if I had a 2012 Acer (though as usual, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage).

But the Framework suggests to me that there’s a real reason to switch to their approach (though it sure isn’t Windows 11, which the review device shipped with, though you can select others). Attempting to be a little more ethical about gadget buying is a good thing, but I also just like the idea of buying something that will actually last 5-10 years, and not just become more and more obsolete.

At $819 for the lowest configuration, it’s not the cheapest laptop on the market, and you could almost certainly find one with better specs for a similar price if you looked. But if you think about that money (and another $50-100 for ports, etc) as the beginning of an investment, and one that will prevent you from having to buy another computer 3-4 years from now, it starts to make more sense. Plus you’re supporting a company that’s doing more than talk in service of the right to repair and reducing e-waste.

If I was in the market for a non-Mac laptop, Framework would be my first stop. I hope that in the future they’ll offer more models, and other options for customization to lower the cost or accommodate specialty builds.
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