Bill Stasior, the longtime former Apple executive overseeing its Siri digital assistant, has joined Microsoft, continuing a reshuffling of artificial intelligence leadership at big tech companies. 

Starting this month, Stasior, whose move to Microsoft hasn’t been previously reported, will become a corporate vice president of technology, reporting to Chief Technology Officer Kevin ...

Apple has said upcoming changes to its iPhone operating system will better protect the privacy of users. But a group of app developers recently told Apple some of those changes will hurt their businesses, while accusing the company of anti-competitive behavior in the way it subjects its own software to the new rules.

In an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook last Friday, the leaders of seven app ...

Chinese online retailer JD.com is in talks with bankers to list shares of its online supermarket joint venture in the U.S. next May, looking to capitalize on the growth of China’s e-commerce sector, which is a bright spot in the country’s otherwise weakening economy.

Dada-JD Daojia, a joint venture controlled by JD.com and 10% owned by Walmart, which earlier sold its own China-based ...

A host of startups have sought to build residential housing’s answer to office giant WeWork: a modern property manager that offers flexible leases and a friendly atmosphere for residents. One of the tech industry’s most prominent investment firms is backing a newer entrant to the field, even as the concept as a whole has struggled to catch fire. 

Bungalow Living, a San ...

Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story. Founded in 2010, it soon attracted funding from well-known investors including Andreessen Horowitz and hired scores of employees who were promised stock if things went well and the company raised more money.

And things did go well. So well, in fact, that Toptal has grown at least 30% ...

BuzzFeed Chief Marketing Officer and commerce leader Ben Kaufman is stepping down from his position at the end of the year, a move that comes at a delicate time for the digital media company as it seeks to boost revenue and return to profit. 

Like many of its peers, BuzzFeed has been looking for new sources of revenue, after relying too heavily on Facebook for traffic and ad revenue. ...

An issue that has long vexed many iPhone users—the inability to play music from Spotify using Siri, Apple’s voice assistant—may soon be a thing of the past.

Spotify, the world’s most popular streaming service, is currently discussing a plan with Apple to let iPhone users tell Siri to play songs, playlists and albums with voice commands, according to three people familiar ...

Amazon has assembled all the pieces necessary to become a force in the video game industry. And to help put those pieces together, Amazon has turned to video game veteran Bing Gordon.

Gordon, a former Amazon board director who is best known for helping build video-game maker Electronic Arts into one of the industry’s dominant companies, has been advising Amazon on its various ...

Apple is taking a swipe at Facebook and other messaging apps by making a small but significant change to its mobile operating system. 

The change will restrict a feature that apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp used to make voice calls over the internet. Right now, the calling feature in these apps runs in the background even when it’s not in use, ensuring the apps can connect ...

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick lately has gone on a hiring spree to staff his latest startup, CloudKitchens—snapping up at least four senior engineers from Uber. And that appears to have sparked an unusual warning from Uber Chairman Ron Sugar at the company’s latest board meeting two weeks ago.

Mr. Sugar told his fellow directors—who include Mr. Kalanick—that they ...

In mid-January, Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz gathered staff at the company’s San Francisco headquarters to lay out her strategy for the year ahead. A few months removed from the excitement of going public, Ms. Hartz described ambitious plans to expand into dozens of overseas markets and grow faster in existing ones.

But these goals ignored signs that Eventbrite’s core ...

In a big shift, Facebook plans to signal its control of Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps, according to three people familiar with the matter. The social network will rebrand the apps to “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook,” the people said.

Employees for the apps were recently notified about the changes, which come as antitrust ...

In 1999, Philippe Laffont opened a small tech hedge fund called Coatue that withstood the dot-com bust, thanks to smart investments in companies like Tencent and Apple. Today, he is one of the industry’s hottest managers—with $17 billion under management. 

Now, Mr. Laffont and his brother Thomas are making another big bet: a $700 million fund to back startups raising their ...

Apple has moved a high-profile software executive into the company’s secretive augmented reality team, a shift seen internally as intended to bring some order to the team developing a long-anticipated AR headset.

Kim Vorrath, who led program management in the software team for more than 15 years, has moved over to the team headed by Mike Rockwell, the vice president of AR and virtual ...