The Information

Sonder CEO Francis Davidson. Photo: Sonder

Sonder and Knotel Near Deals as Real Estate Startups Snap Up Funding

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 24, 2019 6:31am PDT · 5 comments

A new breed of real-estate focused startups is attracting a sudden flood of venture money.The group includes Sonder, a travel rental firm which is finalizing a deal to raise more than $200 million from investors such as Fidelity Investments, according to people familiar with the matter. Just days ago Lyric, a short-term rentals manager,... A new breed of real-estate focused startups is attracting a sudden flood of venture money.The...

Zap's radiosurgery device. Photo by Zap

Zap Surgical, Backed by Foxconn, Seeks New Funding

By Wayne Ma · Apr 22, 2019 10:38am PDT

Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn Technology, lost both his first wife and brother to cancer. The deaths galvanized him to invest in a radiosurgery startup founded by the American neurosurgeon who helped treat his brother. Now the startup, Zap Surgical Systems, which recently came out of stealth... Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn Technology, lost both...

Mike Sullivan

Bug Juice, Amazon Envy: Inside Airbnb’s Engineering Challenges

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 19, 2019 6:30am PDT · 3 comments

Airbnb software engineers were struggling a couple of years ago to keep up with the number of technical glitches that were piling up with the site. At one point, employees halted all work on new features for a week to try to fix bugs in the code. To toast the effort, CEO Brian Chesky drank a cup of liquefied bugs—one for every problem... Airbnb software engineers were struggling a couple of years ago to keep up with the number of...

Illustration by J. Claeys

Lyft Moves to Restrict Employee Access to Customer Data

By Matt Drange · Apr 16, 2019 6:32am PDT · 1 comment

Illustration by J. Claeys

Lyft Moves to Restrict Employee Access to Customer Data

By Matt Drange · Apr 16, 2019 6:32am PDT · 1 comment

When employees at Lyft log into their computer to look up information about a Lyft customer or driver nowadays, a warning message flashes on their screen with a reminder that their actions are logged and could be audited. Introducing the warning is just one of a series of changes Lyft has made over the past year to better protect customer... When employees at Lyft log into their computer to look up information about a Lyft customer or...

A PAX Labs vaporizer. Photo by Bloomberg

PAX Labs in Talks to Raise Around $400 Million

By Zoë Bernard · Apr 15, 2019 1:33pm PDT

PAX Labs, the maker of a popular line of devices for vaping cannabis, is close to raising over $400 million in a financing round that values the company at around $1.3 billion, according to two people familiar with the deal. Initially, the San Francisco-based company had sought to raise $150 million in capital, according to a presentation for... PAX Labs, the maker of a popular line of devices for vaping cannabis, is close to raising over...

ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin in 2017. Photo: AP

ConsenSys Seeks $200 Million From Investors After Bumpy Year

By Jon Victor · Apr 15, 2019 11:59am PDT

The cryptocurrency company ConsenSys is trying to raise $200 million from outside investors, according to several people with knowledge of the plans, as the startup looks to chart a new course just months after a widely publicized restructuring that included layoffs of around 13% of its staff.The pitch might be an uphill battle for the company,... The cryptocurrency company ConsenSys is trying to raise $200 million from outside investors,...

Amazon's Beth Galetti, center. Photo by Amazon

Amazon’s Talent Scout Has Tech’s Toughest HR Job

By Priya Anand · Apr 10, 2019 6:30am PDT · 1 comment

Last month, Amazon’s top human resources executive, Beth Galetti, told a group of employees at a company all-hands meeting how seriously she takes Amazon’s leadership principles, a collection of 14 company proverbs with titles like “bias for action” and “have backbone; disagree and commit.” Ms. Galetti told... Last month, Amazon’s top human resources executive, Beth Galetti, told a group of employees...

Customers in Beijing used JDPay electronic payment apps on their smartphones last year to pay at a 7FRESH grocery store operated by JD.com. Photo: AP

Deep Cuts Planned at China’s JD.com

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · Apr 9, 2019 8:32am PDT · 2 comments

Customers in Beijing used JDPay electronic payment apps on their smartphones last year to pay at a 7FRESH grocery store operated by JD.com. Photo: AP

Deep Cuts Planned at China’s JD.com

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · Apr 9, 2019 8:32am PDT · 2 comments

Chinese online retail giant JD.com is working on a substantial round of layoffs that could slash the workforce of some teams by half, according to people briefed on the matter. In total, JD.com could cut up to 8% of its 150,000-plus workforce, or more than 12,000 jobs, according to investors in the Nasdaq-listed company. While it isn’t... Chinese online retail giant JD.com is working on a substantial round of layoffs that could slash...

How Iger Broke Disney’s Netflix Addiction

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Apr 9, 2019 6:32am PDT · 5 comments

In the spring of 2015, Tom Staggs, who had just become Disney’s chief operating officer, held a strategy discussion with his top TV executives about the future of television. Mr. Staggs issued warnings about Disney’s licensing of TV shows to Netflix, worrying that the entertainment giant was selling Netflix “the bullets”... In the spring of 2015, Tom Staggs, who had just become Disney’s chief operating officer,...

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Photo by Bloomberg

Ten Questions Uber’s IPO Investors Should Ask

By Amir Efrati · Apr 8, 2019 6:32am PDT · 7 comments

Uber, which is expected to follow its smaller U.S. rival Lyft to the public market in the next month or so, could get a valuation of $110 billion based on where Lyft is now trading. But valuing Uber will be tougher than figuring out Lyft. Uber is a bigger, more global company with a fast-growing hot-food delivery business and a costly... Uber, which is expected to follow its smaller U.S. rival Lyft to the public market in the next...

Lyft's co founders John Zimmer and Logan Green after the company's IPO last Friday. Photo by Bloomberg.

Lyft Threatened Morgan Stanley With Legal Action Over Short-Selling Trades

By Martin Peers and Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 5, 2019 12:38pm PDT · 3 comments

Lyft threatened Morgan Stanley with legal action earlier this week, demanding in a letter the investment bank stop marketing a short-selling product that the ride-hailing firm believed was disrupting trading in its stock, according to four people familiar with the situation.The letter, sent on April 2, cited an article in the New York Post ... Lyft threatened Morgan Stanley with legal action earlier this week, demanding in a letter the...

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy at a conference in March. Photo by Bloomberg

Demand Soaring for Amazon AI Services? Not So Fast

By Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Apr 5, 2019 6:32am PDT · 2 comments

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy at a conference in March. Photo by Bloomberg

Demand Soaring for Amazon AI Services? Not So Fast

By Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Apr 5, 2019 6:32am PDT · 2 comments

Big cloud computing providers have said customers are clamoring for their artificial intelligence services, which help companies with everything from translating text into speech to automatically recognizing images to fraud detection. Just this week, an investment analyst raised his share price target for Amazon, the dominant player in cloud... Big cloud computing providers have said customers are clamoring for their artificial intelligence...

The People Behind ByteDance’s App Factory

By Yunan Zhang · Apr 4, 2019 6:30am PDT · 3 comments

To grow fast in China, apparently, you’ve also got to get big.ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, the viral short video app that has taken the world’s teenagers by storm, has gone on a massive hiring spree in the past year. Its headcount has roughly doubled to 40,000—more than Facebook, which had 35,600 at Dec.... To grow fast in China, apparently, you’ve also got to get big.ByteDance, the Chinese...

A Chinese employee shows a wafer containing Huaxintong Semiconductor Technology's StarDragon chip. Photo by AP

Qualcomm’s China Venture Shows Risks of Beijing’s Tech Ambition

By Aaron Tilley, Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Apr 3, 2019 7:32am PDT

A joint venture between Qualcomm and the government of a rural Chinese province to make server chips appears to have stalled. And with it, a symbol of China’s push to boost its homegrown industries could instead spotlight the perils of letting bureaucrats pick technology winners.Chinese government officials showcased Huaxintong... A joint venture between Qualcomm and the government of a rural Chinese province to make server...

Ren Zhengfei, founder and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facing U.S. Pushback, Huawei Aims to Triple Its Consumer Electronics Business to $150 Billion

By Juro Osawa · Apr 3, 2019 5:40am PDT

Huawei’s fight against Samsung and Apple is about to get even fiercer. The Chinese tech giant wants to more than triple its consumer electronics sales to $150 billion in four years, according to an internal speech last week by its founder. As Huawei’s other big business of selling infrastructure for wireless networks... Huawei’s fight against Samsung and Apple is about to get even fiercer. The Chinese tech...

Shopify CEO and co-founder Tobias Lütke. Photo by Bloomberg

Microsoft Considers Creating a Shopify Competitor

By Priya Anand · Apr 2, 2019 6:31am PDT · 1 comment

Shopify CEO and co-founder Tobias Lütke. Photo by Bloomberg

Microsoft Considers Creating a Shopify Competitor

By Priya Anand · Apr 2, 2019 6:31am PDT · 1 comment

Shopify may be the most important e-commerce company the average shopper has never heard of, powering the websites of many e-commerce services and brands like Red Bull, Budweiser and Allbirds. Now Microsoft is considering trying to grab some of the market, a top Microsoft executive says.Microsoft, which already provides cloud computing services... Shopify may be the most important e-commerce company the average shopper has never heard of,...

Taobao's web site. Photo by Bloomberg

Alibaba’s Ad Shift Shows Path for Amazon

By Juro Osawa · Apr 1, 2019 6:31am PDT · 1 comment

For a look at how Amazon could develop its ad business, it’s worth paying attention to what China’s Alibaba is doing.Alibaba is China’s biggest digital advertising platform, thanks to search ads it sells to merchants promoting their items on its Taobao marketplace. Now, Alibaba is testing new types of ads that are designed to... For a look at how Amazon could develop its ad business, it’s worth paying attention to what...

Amazon's senior vice president of devices, David Limp, talking bout the Fire TV in 2017. Photo by Bloomberg.

Amazon Planning Video News App for Fire TV

By Jessica Toonkel · Mar 29, 2019 10:05am PDT

Amazon.com is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for its Fire TV streaming video devices, featuring live and on-demand digital news programming from TV networks, say three people familiar with the discussions. Ultimately Amazon hopes to integrate the news app into its Alexa offering, the people said.With the news app, the... Amazon.com is planning to launch a free ad-supported video news app for its Fire TV streaming...

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and general partner Marc Andreessen. Photo by Bloomberg

Andreessen Horowitz Said to Lead Carta Funding at $1.8 Billion Valuation

By Zoë Bernard · Mar 28, 2019 3:16pm PDT · 1 comment

Carta, a startup that helps investors manage their equity stakes in private companies, is close to having a new set of investors of its own. The company, previously known as eShares, is nearing the completion of a funding round of around $300 million which will value the 7-year-old company at roughly $1.8 billion, according to a person familiar... Carta, a startup that helps investors manage their equity stakes in private companies, is close...

Lyft’s Biggest IPO Winners

By Amir Efrati · Mar 28, 2019 6:31am PDT · 3 comments

Lyft’s Biggest IPO Winners

By Amir Efrati · Mar 28, 2019 6:31am PDT · 3 comments

If Lyft completes its initial public offering on Friday, as is expected, it will cap a 12-year journey for the ride-hailing firm’s founders and investors, some of whom had more conviction than others about its ability to survive. Now, those who remained steadfast are about to be rewarded.That group includes former eBay executive Sean... If Lyft completes its initial public offering on Friday, as is expected, it will cap a 12-year...