The Big Interview

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Branded president Michael Ronen. Photo provided by Branded
The Big Interview

Branded Joins Frenzy of Startups Acquiring Amazon Merchants, Finds Profits

By Mark Di Stefano · May 5, 2021 6:01am PDT · 1 comment
Michael Ronen recently learned more than he ever thought he’d know about soap. Ronen runs Branded, a startup that buys up successful small businesses who sell their wares on Amazon. He was courting the American proprietor of a profitable online soap merchant, a business he was considering acquiring. “He can just talk to you all day... Michael Ronen recently learned more than he ever thought he’d know about soap. Ronen runs...
Kim Posnett, head of investment banking services for Goldman Sachs. Photo: Goldman Sachs
The Big Interview

The ‘Tech Supercycle’ for Listings Is Accelerating: Top Goldman Sachs Banker

By Berber Jin · May 3, 2021 9:30am PDT
For tech investors used to last year’s massive initial public offerings and price pops, the last few weeks have been sobering. UiPath priced its IPO below its last private valuation, Compass slashed the size of its IPO and once-hot cloud-computing stocks have tumbled. But according to Kim Posnett, global head of investment banking services... For tech investors used to last year’s massive initial public offerings and price pops, the...
The Commons Project CEO and co-founder Paul Meyer. Photo provided by The Commons Project
The Big Interview

The Push to Keep Digital Vaccine Passports From Becoming a Mess

By Nick Wingfield · Apr 14, 2021 6:01am PDT · 1 comment
For the past several weeks, New Yorkers have been able to download a QR code onto their phones—or print out an analog copy of it—that vouches for the fact that they’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine or a negative test result for the virus. Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and other local venues are already testing the... For the past several weeks, New Yorkers have been able to download a QR code onto their...
Proton CEO Andy Yen. Image: Proton Technologies
How ProtonMail Is Fighting Big Tech
By Josh Sisco · Apr 13, 2021 9:00am PDT · 2 comments
Proton CEO Andy Yen. Image: Proton Technologies
The Big Interview

How ProtonMail Is Fighting Big Tech

By Josh Sisco · Apr 13, 2021 9:00am PDT · 2 comments
Andy Yen and Proton Technologies, the company behind ProtonMail, are having their moment. Seven years after Yen and his co-founders launched the encrypted email app as an alternative to services offered by tech giants like Google and Microsoft, mounting consumer privacy concerns are driving a flood of new users to the company’s platform. ... Andy Yen and Proton Technologies, the company behind ProtonMail, are having their moment. Seven...
Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer. Photo provided by Twitter
The Big Interview

Twitter CTO: ‘We Need to Do Better’

By Kevin McLaughlin · Mar 17, 2021 6:01am PDT · 1 comment
For a tech company, Twitter has often had a surprisingly difficult relationship with technology. Twitter outages were once so common that the Fail Whale—the marine mammal–themed error message its users received when Twitter went down—became fodder for countless tech industry jokes. More recently, the company’s convoluted... For a tech company, Twitter has often had a surprisingly difficult relationship with technology....
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg; illustration by Mike Sullivan
The Big Interview

Mark Zuckerberg on Mind Reading, Apple and the Race to Mainstream VR

By Alex Heath and Mathew Olson · Mar 8, 2021 7:41am PST · 2 comments
Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast featuring a recent interview we conducted with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, about his company’s growing investments in augmented and virtual reality. The following is a lightly edited transcript of that interview: Alex Heath: Can you just set... Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast...
Jannick Malling, co-founder of Public and its co-CEO (l) and Leif Abraham (r), Public's other CEO.
The Big Interview

No ‘Trader Bros’ Here: Public CEO Rides Anti-Robinhood Backlash

By Kate Clark · Feb 12, 2021 6:00am PST
These are strange times for stock-trading app Public. New customers, irate over rival Robinhood’s trading policies, have been rushing to sign up. Deep-pocketed investors are vying to back it. And the 60-person startup has just abandoned a practice of accepting payments for routing trades to big Wall Street firms, a major way it made money.... These are strange times for stock-trading app Public. New customers, irate over rival...
VMware's Craig McLuckie. Photo provided by VMware
Meet the Former Googler Trying to Make VMware Cool to App Developers
By Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 15, 2021 9:00am PST
VMware's Craig McLuckie. Photo provided by VMware
The Big Interview

Meet the Former Googler Trying to Make VMware Cool to App Developers

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 15, 2021 9:00am PST
When Craig McLuckie was a product manager at Google several years ago, he helped create Kubernetes, software that later became a widely used open-source tool for managing some of the most demanding online applications. Now at VMware, McLuckie is playing a key role in the company’s efforts to reinvent itself for an era when more and more... When Craig McLuckie was a product manager at Google several years ago, he helped create...
Chris Britt. Photo courtesy of Chime.
The Big Interview

How $14.5 Billion Chime Proved Silicon Valley Investors Wrong

By Kate Clark · Jan 7, 2021 6:02am PST · 8 comments
Chime co-founders Chris Britt and Ryan King pitched more than 200 investors in Silicon Valley during the banking startup’s first four years. Nearly every firm passed on it. “It was a little bit of a rocky road just trying to get our footing,” said Britt. The eight-year-old startup, which provides fee-free debit cards for... Chime co-founders Chris Britt and Ryan King pitched more than 200 investors in Silicon Valley...
Cdiscount's Emmanuel Grenier. Photo provided by Cdiscount
The Big Interview

An Amazon Rival in France Awaits New Europe Regulations

By Mark Di Stefano · Dec 14, 2020 6:01am PST · 3 comments
On Tuesday, Europe’s main antitrust authority in Brussels plans to unveil sweeping new proposals aimed partly at preventing digital gatekeepers like Amazon from crushing much smaller competitors. Emmanuel Grenier is exactly the kind of business executive the new rules could help. Last month, Europe’s top competition official,... On Tuesday, Europe’s main antitrust authority in Brussels plans to unveil sweeping new...
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Photo by Bloomberg
The Big Interview

Slack CEO Downplays Microsoft as Factor in Salesforce Deal

By Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 3, 2020 2:39pm PST
Before word of Salesforce’s planned acquisition of Slack leaked last week, investor sentiment about the workplace chat provider had decidedly soured, causing its stock to lose about a quarter of its value since Slack went public in June of last year. A big reason was competition from Microsoft, that old bogeyman for any upstart in the... Before word of Salesforce’s planned acquisition of Slack leaked last week, investor...
Basecamp's David Heinemeier Hansson. Photo provided by Hansson
The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves to Troll Silicon Valley
By Zoë Bernard · Jun 30, 2020 7:01am PDT · 3 comments
Basecamp's David Heinemeier Hansson. Photo provided by Hansson
The Big Interview

The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves to Troll Silicon Valley

By Zoë Bernard · Jun 30, 2020 7:01am PDT · 3 comments
Earlier this month, David Heinemeier Hansson opened up Twitter and laced into Apple, describing the company as a “gangster” after it threatened to remove a new email app by his company, Basecamp, from the App Store for violating Apple policies. Hansson—who co-founded Basecamp with Jason Fried—has mastered the ability of... Earlier this month, David Heinemeier Hansson opened up Twitter and laced into Apple, describing...
Zenly CEO and Snap executive Antoine Martin. Photo courtesy of Zenly
The Big Interview

Snap’s Map Czar: In Five Years, Everyone Will Use Location Sharing

By Alex Heath · May 21, 2020 10:14am PDT · 2 comments
Zenly CEO Antoine Martin was on a weekend trip to Aspen, Colorado, in 2016 when an investor introduced him to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel over lunch. The two founders hit it off, and the next year, Snap bought Martin’s mapping app for $213 million.That deal, still Snap’s largest, rankled some Snap executives and investors who had watched... Zenly CEO Antoine Martin was on a weekend trip to Aspen, Colorado, in 2016 when an investor...
Stephen Zhu. Photo by Didi.
The Big Interview

Exclusive: Top Didi Executive Outlines How Ride-Hailing Will Bounce Back

By Yunan Zhang and Shai Oster · May 7, 2020 7:01am PDT · 2 comments
After a two-month lockdown, China is coming back to life. Even without a big marketing push or substantial discounts, Didi Chuxing has seen use of its ride-hailing apps recover to about 70% of their levels before Covid-19, as The Information previously reported. But Didi’s senior vice president Stephen Zhu hints that the West may not... After a two-month lockdown, China is coming back to life. Even without a big marketing push or...
Nick Giovanni. Photo courtesy of Goldman Sachs
The Big Interview

Goldman’s Top Tech Banker: Here Come the Debt Deals

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 27, 2020 11:21am PDT · 1 comment
Six weeks ago, Goldman Sachs’ tech bankers were preparing Airbnb for its stock-market debut. Investors in the travel firm would be able to sell their shares on an open market, providing a clear window into what Airbnb was worth. Instead, as coronavirus halted travel around the world, Airbnb’s revenue began evaporating. The company... Six weeks ago, Goldman Sachs’ tech bankers were preparing Airbnb for its stock-market...
Will Cathcart, the head of Whats App, and Fidji Simo, the head of the Facebook app. Photos by Facebook
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Leaders Shift Focus During Crisis
By Alex Heath · Apr 2, 2020 4:16pm PDT · 1 comment
Will Cathcart, the head of Whats App, and Fidji Simo, the head of the Facebook app. Photos by Facebook
The Big Interview

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Leaders Shift Focus During Crisis

By Alex Heath · Apr 2, 2020 4:16pm PDT · 1 comment
Will Cathcart, who runs WhatsApp, is doing whatever he can to keep the Facebook messaging service from crashing under a crush of users. Fidji Simo, who runs Facebook’s main app, plans to give small businesses a way to fundraise through the site. And Vishal Shah, a top executive at Instagram, is making live broadcasting more appealing on... Will Cathcart, who runs WhatsApp, is doing whatever he can to keep the Facebook messaging service...
Shrug Capital's Niv Dror. Photo by Shrug Capital
The Big Interview

Big Stunts, Small Checks: Shrug Capital’s Unusual Rise

By Kate Clark · Mar 9, 2020 7:02am PDT
Niv Dror used to ride his motorcycle up and down Sand Hill Road to ogle the entrances to Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and other iconic venture capital firms. Then working as an accountant auditing Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Dror grew obsessed with powerful people and how they worked.Today, two years after starting his own... Niv Dror used to ride his motorcycle up and down Sand Hill Road to ogle the entrances to Sequoia...
FNDR CEO James Vincent. Photo by Cara Robbins
The Big Interview

Former Apple Ad Guru Becomes ‘Storyteller’ for Tech Founders

By Alex Heath · Feb 26, 2020 7:00am PST · 1 comment
James Vincent helped Steve Jobs come up with some of Apple’s most memorable advertisements, from its Mac versus PC commercials to an iPod campaign featuring dancing silhouettes. More recently, Vincent has turned himself into a brand whisperer to some of the most prominent companies in tech and media, including Snap, Vice Media and... James Vincent helped Steve Jobs come up with some of Apple’s most memorable advertisements,...
Peter Chernin
The Big Interview

Peter Chernin’s Unexpectedly Successful Third Act

By Tom Dotan · Feb 20, 2020 7:00am PST · 1 comment
In Hollywood, guessing Peter Chernin’s next job in the entertainment industry has long been something of a parlor game. Surely he would end up taking a job at AT&T, overseeing WarnerMedia—he says AT&T never made the offer. What about Amazon, where he could bring some much needed stability to the chaotic studio group?... In Hollywood, guessing Peter Chernin’s next job in the entertainment industry has long been...
Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and chief executive officer of Databricks. Photo by Bloomberg
Databricks Dismisses Open Source Criticism of Amazon
By Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 27, 2019 7:00am PST · 2 comments
Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and chief executive officer of Databricks. Photo by Bloomberg
The Big Interview

Databricks Dismisses Open Source Criticism of Amazon

By Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 27, 2019 7:00am PST · 2 comments
To some advocates of open source—the software created by squads of volunteer developers—Amazon has become a bogeyman because of the way it offers their free programs through its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services. Ali Ghodsi isn’t one of the Amazon haters. Ghodsi is the CEO of Databricks, a six-year-old startup that... To some advocates of open source—the software created by squads of volunteer...