Sequoia Capital has become one of the most closely watched market prognosticators of the modern era, so when a 52-slide presentation from the venture capital company began leaking online earlier this week, entrepreneurs and investors listened closely. The company, whose “R.I.P. Good Times” memo in 2008 and “Black Swan” missive in March 2020 proved to foretell coming economic crises, lays out a collection of risks that founders could face in the months ahead, calling t
Tech companies often come under criticism for hosting extremist content that inspires mass shooters. But many big Silicon Valley names, and affiliated political action committees, have also donated directly and indirectly to politicians that support limited gun restrictions. That comes as U.S. gun deaths vastly exceed those of other rich nations, a disparity that’s owed in large part to lax gun regulations. While tech execs, when they do speak out, often favor gun control, companies donat
Having served in executive roles at LEGO and Apple, and now running my own startup at Uplift Labs, I’ve been put in a few tight situations with some pretty high stakes involved. But I’m not sure anything compares to one challenge I had to meet as the President of Tesla Japan: the 2014 launch of the Model S for Japan. I had led other launches in the past, and I estimated that I’d have about five months to put it together. But at Tesla things move fast, and Elon Musk came to m
Accepted standards are funny things. You can use a tech tool for months or even years without ever thinking about its shortcomings—and then, the second you experience a better alternative, you wonder how you ever dealt with the now-clearly-flawed setup you’d stuck with for so long. That’s exactly what happened to me with the current crop of mainstream videoconferencing systems—Zoom, Google Meet, or whichever flavor you happen to prefer. Like most people these days, I
Amazon opens its first brick-and-mortar fashion store today at The Americana at Brand, a shopping complex in Glendale, California. Announced earlier this year, the physical retail experience is described as a mix of Amazon Style app-based interactions, in-store styling-and-fitting services, online-to-IRL try-ons, and Amazon One palm-recognition-based checkouts—a blend of data-driven technology that makes the customer journey unique in the fashion space. According to early reports, shopper
Benchmark’s Bill Gurley tweeted in April 2022, “An entire generation of entrepreneurs and tech investors built their entire perspectives on valuation during the second half of a 13-year amazing bull market run.” With VCs raising larger and larger funds, startup founders had become accustomed to certain key performance indicators (KPIs) set by VCs who were simultaneously providing mammoth funding rounds. The global economic challenges, alongside a volatile stock mar
Niantic, the augmented reality gaming platform best known for the hit Pokémon Go, announced a number of enhancements to its Lightship development platform that may help it compete with larger, cash-rich tech companies that will soon go full throttle into 3D spatial computing. At its developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Niantic launched its “Lightship Virtual Positioning System,” a virtual map of the Earth that allows game developers to anchor 3D graphics to places
Given the current wave of consolidation in the video game industry, all eyes have been on Electronic Arts for several months now. And, given the rumors of a near merger deal, the whispers are growing. EA, for years, was the gaming world’s largest independent publisher, and it has a library of intellectual properties and legacy licensing brands that any company would envy. But given the eye-popping price tags of Take-Two’s just-completed Zynga deal ($12.7 billion) and Microsoft 
There may be a seemingly endless supply of podcasts available today, but it can be difficult to find ones that toe the line between style and substance. They do exist, though. Here’s a shortlist of fact-filled podcasts that are interesting, informative, and—best of all—entertaining. You’ll laugh. You’ll learn. And you’ll be glad you added them to your podcast player.
Stuff You Should Know With a name like Stuff You Should Know, this podcast better deliv
Twitter reports that fewer than 5% of accounts are fakes or spammers, commonly referred to as “bots.” Since his offer to buy Twitter was accepted, Elon Musk has repeatedly questioned these estimates, even dismissing CEO Parag Agrawal’s public response. Later, Musk put the deal on hold and demanded more proof. So why are people arguing about the percentage of bot accounts on Twitter? As the creators of Botometer, a widely used bot-detection tool, our group