If you use the AI-powered note-taking app Granola, you might want to double-check your privacy settings. Though Granola says your notes are “private by default,” it makes them viewable to anyone with a link, and also uses them for internal AI training unless you opt out.
Granola describes itself as an “AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings.” It integrates with your calendar to capture audio from your meetings, and then uses AI to generate a bulleted list of what you’ve heard, which it calls a “note.” You can edit the AI-generated notes, invite other collaborators to view them, and use Granola’s AI assistant to ask questions about your notes and review the meeting transcript they’re based on.
But in the app’s settings menu, Granola says, “By default, your notes are viewable to anyone with the link.” That means anyone on the web can see your notes if you accidentally share a link — potentially a major issue if you’re recording sensitive meetings. After testing this out for myself, I found that I could access my own note from a private window in my browser, all without signing into my Granola account. The site even tells you who the note belongs to and when it was created.
While I couldn’t view the entire transcript linked to the note, I could still view parts of it. Selecting one of the bullet points generated by Granola pulls up a quote from the transcript that the note is referring to, along with an AI-generated summary with additional context about the conversation.
On its website, Granola says “full transcript access is available to collaborators who open the same folder or note inside the Granola desktop app.” It’s not clear whether anyone with a Granola account can access your transcript, or if it’s just people you’ve shared your workspace with. Granola didn’t respond to a request for more information by the time of publication.
You can change who can view your links by opening Granola, selecting your profile in the bottom-left corner of the screen, and then choosing “Settings.” From there, navigate to the “Default link sharing” option, and change “Anyone with the link” to either “Only my company” or “Private.” If you delete your note, people with the link will no longer be able to access it.
One user on LinkedIn called attention to the public notes setting last year, saying, “these links aren’t indexed, but if you share or leak one – even accidentally – it’s public to whoever finds it.” And at least one major company has denied use of the tool to a senior executive due to security concerns, a source tells The Verge.
Additionally, Granola “may use anonymized data” to improve its AI models, according to the app’s support page. Enterprise customers are opted out of AI training by default, but people on all other plans aren’t. You can disable AI training by going to the settings menu and toggling off the “Use my data to improve models for everyone” option. The company says it doesn’t allow third-party companies, like OpenAI or Anthropic, to use your data for AI training if the setting is enabled.
Granola’s security page says the company stores your notes in a US-hosted Amazon Web Services private cloud, and says they are “encrypted at rest and in transit.” The company doesn’t store audio from meetings, either. It only saves meeting notes and transcripts, both of which it processes in the cloud.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Source link
#PSA #link #view #Granola #notes #default
-SOURCE-Scott-Gilbertson.jpg)
![RJ Scaringe has raised more than B across three startups and investors still want more | TechCrunch
Investors can’t seem to get enough of RJ Scaringe or his ideas.
In less than a decade, the serial entrepreneur best known for his EV company Rivian, has raised more than .3 billion from venture capital firms, as well as strategic and institutional investors for his three — and counting — startups. If the latest 0 million raise for his new venture Mind Robotics is an indicator, investors are still happily piling in.
Outsized raises for newly minted startups have become more common in recent years. But those hundred-million-plus seed rounds have generally been reserved for buzzy defense tech startups or AI companies founded by former OpenAI or Anthropic employees.
Those supersized seeds certainly weren’t flowing toward something as niche as an electric micromobility startup. And yet in 2025, Scaringe raised 5 million for exactly that — a startup called Also, which he founded that same year. The total has since surpassed 0 million, with DoorDash among its backers.
Jiten Behl, partner at Eclipse and former chief growth officer at Rivian, has spent years watching and learning from Scaringe. His firm is now one of Scaringe’s biggest backers, leading rounds in both Also and Mind Robotics — Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startup that he also founded last year.
Storytelling and communication are one of his superpowers, according to Behl, who joined Rivian when the company had just a handful of employees.
“When RJ explains a certain issue, topic, opportunity, vision, he just has this very unique ability to communicate it so effectively, and it comes across so credible,” Behl said. “He’s not trying to undersell the difficulty or oversell the opportunity, and that’s an art.”
Scaringe isn’t the only serial entrepreneur to repeatedly attract massive amounts of capital, but founders who can raise billions across multiple ventures remain rare. A self-professed car enthusiast who earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, Scaringe joins a small cadre of entrepreneurs that includes Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, who founded Square (now called Block) and Twitter.
The difference, at least in the view of some investors TechCrunch spoke to, is that he is able to separate selling the idea from selling himself. “He is very comfortable and confident in his own personality, and he’s not trying to be an Elon,” Behl said, noting that many have tried to make the comparison over the years.
“It’s not about him,” another insider familiar with Scaringe’s companies told TechCrunch. “When you talk to him, he has enthusiasm about the product that is completely external.”
Of course, there is confidence and even a little ego, the same source mused, but “it doesn’t weigh on you.” The source also added that Scaringe also has a unique ability to make you feel like the most special person in the room — a sentiment others echoed.
Giving that kind of undivided attention to an investor, supplier, or exec at a manufacturer is a challenge at the scale Scaringe is attempting. He is running three companies, often traveling between Palo Alto, Irvine, Rivian’s factory in Normal, Illinois, and a second factory soon to open in Georgia. And then there is family — Scaringe has three sons with his ex-wife.
Joe Fath, another partner at Eclipse, credits his open-mindedness and collaborative nature for helping him attract investment and juggle these connected, yet disparate businesses.
He noted that Scaringe also “has the rare combination of being a truly great engineer while also having an exceptional instinct for product design,” said Fath, who previously worked at a major Rivian backer T.Rowe Price. “Very few founders can operate at that level technically while also understanding what resonates emotionally with customers — both consumers and commercial buyers. That combination is incredibly uncommon and has clearly been part of what makes Rivian’s products, and now Also and Mind’s, so differentiated.”
The pace of Scaringe’s fundraising over the past eight years is particularly notable, and doesn’t seem to be slowing.
More than billion, and by far the largest slice of VC and strategic capital, went into Rivian — most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That’s a startling timeline especially considering the company, initially called Mainstream Motors, had existed since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, unknown entity until its breakout moment in late 2018 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, when it revealed prototypes of its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.
The money soon flowed, and from every direction. In early 2019 and just a couple of months after that reveal, Rivian raised a 0 million funding round led by Amazon. U.S. automaker Ford would invest 0 million and make plans to collaborate on a since-scrapped future EV program. Cox Automotive contributed 0 million. Rivian would close out the year with a .3 billion round — its fourth in 2019 — led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with additional participation from Amazon, Ford, and funds managed by BlackRock.
In July 2020, Rivian raised .5 billion and another .65 billion six months later. As whispers of an IPO got louder, Rivian closed another .5 billion private funding round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Coatue also participated.
Then the IPO came. Rivian raised nearly billion in gross proceeds after locking in per share. Its market cap hit 0 billion when it debuted on Nasdaq in November 2021. Today, it stands at .2 billion today, a significant comedown that also reflects the broader struggles of the EV sector.
The ability to raise that much capital, despite those headwinds, is exceptional. But Scaringe didn’t stop with Rivian. If anything, the pace has accelerated. Also and Mind Robotics have together raised more than .3 billion so far, with Mind Robotics moving especially fast: 5 million in its first year, 0 million in March, and another 0 million just this week.
Rivian also continues to land notable backers through high-profile deals like the .8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen Group and a robotaxi partnership valued at up to .25 billion with Uber.
“Now, the big question is, how much can he do?” Behl said. “That’s a question [that] already assumes that he’s reaching his limit. The thing is, he doesn’t look at it that way. His perspective is that there is huge value to be created, there is huge impact to be created, and I just have to do it.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Scaringe #raised #12B #startups #investors #TechCrunchalso,EVs,mind robotics,Rivian,RJ Scaringe](https://i1.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/rj-scaringe.jpeg?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1 "RJ Scaringe has raised more than B across three startups and investors still want more | TechCrunch
Investors can’t seem to get enough of RJ Scaringe or his ideas.
In less than a decade, the serial entrepreneur best known for his EV company Rivian, has raised more than .3 billion from venture capital firms, as well as strategic and institutional investors for his three — and counting — startups. If the latest 0 million raise for his new venture Mind Robotics is an indicator, investors are still happily piling in.
Outsized raises for newly minted startups have become more common in recent years. But those hundred-million-plus seed rounds have generally been reserved for buzzy defense tech startups or AI companies founded by former OpenAI or Anthropic employees.
Those supersized seeds certainly weren’t flowing toward something as niche as an electric micromobility startup. And yet in 2025, Scaringe raised 5 million for exactly that — a startup called Also, which he founded that same year. The total has since surpassed 0 million, with DoorDash among its backers.
Jiten Behl, partner at Eclipse and former chief growth officer at Rivian, has spent years watching and learning from Scaringe. His firm is now one of Scaringe’s biggest backers, leading rounds in both Also and Mind Robotics — Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startup that he also founded last year.
Storytelling and communication are one of his superpowers, according to Behl, who joined Rivian when the company had just a handful of employees.
“When RJ explains a certain issue, topic, opportunity, vision, he just has this very unique ability to communicate it so effectively, and it comes across so credible,” Behl said. “He’s not trying to undersell the difficulty or oversell the opportunity, and that’s an art.”
Scaringe isn’t the only serial entrepreneur to repeatedly attract massive amounts of capital, but founders who can raise billions across multiple ventures remain rare. A self-professed car enthusiast who earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, Scaringe joins a small cadre of entrepreneurs that includes Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, who founded Square (now called Block) and Twitter.
The difference, at least in the view of some investors TechCrunch spoke to, is that he is able to separate selling the idea from selling himself. “He is very comfortable and confident in his own personality, and he’s not trying to be an Elon,” Behl said, noting that many have tried to make the comparison over the years.
“It’s not about him,” another insider familiar with Scaringe’s companies told TechCrunch. “When you talk to him, he has enthusiasm about the product that is completely external.”
Of course, there is confidence and even a little ego, the same source mused, but “it doesn’t weigh on you.” The source also added that Scaringe also has a unique ability to make you feel like the most special person in the room — a sentiment others echoed.
Giving that kind of undivided attention to an investor, supplier, or exec at a manufacturer is a challenge at the scale Scaringe is attempting. He is running three companies, often traveling between Palo Alto, Irvine, Rivian’s factory in Normal, Illinois, and a second factory soon to open in Georgia. And then there is family — Scaringe has three sons with his ex-wife.
Joe Fath, another partner at Eclipse, credits his open-mindedness and collaborative nature for helping him attract investment and juggle these connected, yet disparate businesses.
He noted that Scaringe also “has the rare combination of being a truly great engineer while also having an exceptional instinct for product design,” said Fath, who previously worked at a major Rivian backer T.Rowe Price. “Very few founders can operate at that level technically while also understanding what resonates emotionally with customers — both consumers and commercial buyers. That combination is incredibly uncommon and has clearly been part of what makes Rivian’s products, and now Also and Mind’s, so differentiated.”
The pace of Scaringe’s fundraising over the past eight years is particularly notable, and doesn’t seem to be slowing.
More than billion, and by far the largest slice of VC and strategic capital, went into Rivian — most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That’s a startling timeline especially considering the company, initially called Mainstream Motors, had existed since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, unknown entity until its breakout moment in late 2018 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, when it revealed prototypes of its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.
The money soon flowed, and from every direction. In early 2019 and just a couple of months after that reveal, Rivian raised a 0 million funding round led by Amazon. U.S. automaker Ford would invest 0 million and make plans to collaborate on a since-scrapped future EV program. Cox Automotive contributed 0 million. Rivian would close out the year with a .3 billion round — its fourth in 2019 — led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with additional participation from Amazon, Ford, and funds managed by BlackRock.
In July 2020, Rivian raised .5 billion and another .65 billion six months later. As whispers of an IPO got louder, Rivian closed another .5 billion private funding round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Coatue also participated.
Then the IPO came. Rivian raised nearly billion in gross proceeds after locking in per share. Its market cap hit 0 billion when it debuted on Nasdaq in November 2021. Today, it stands at .2 billion today, a significant comedown that also reflects the broader struggles of the EV sector.
The ability to raise that much capital, despite those headwinds, is exceptional. But Scaringe didn’t stop with Rivian. If anything, the pace has accelerated. Also and Mind Robotics have together raised more than .3 billion so far, with Mind Robotics moving especially fast: 5 million in its first year, 0 million in March, and another 0 million just this week.
Rivian also continues to land notable backers through high-profile deals like the .8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen Group and a robotaxi partnership valued at up to .25 billion with Uber.
“Now, the big question is, how much can he do?” Behl said. “That’s a question [that] already assumes that he’s reaching his limit. The thing is, he doesn’t look at it that way. His perspective is that there is huge value to be created, there is huge impact to be created, and I just have to do it.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Scaringe #raised #12B #startups #investors #TechCrunchalso,EVs,mind robotics,Rivian,RJ Scaringe")
Post Comment