Facebook and Shopify Pick Up New VR and AR Teams

Last Friday brought back-to-back acquisitions in virtual and augmented reality: Facebook said it was buying Seattle’s BigBox VR, makers of Population: One, and would incorporate it into Oculus Studios. And Shopify is taking on the team behind AR home design app Primer. Both deals underscore the appetite of big tech companies for developers with proven...

3h

A Former AWS Executive Helps Smartsheet Grow Up

When Gene Farrell left Amazon Web Services four years ago to join a company called Smartsheet, his former employer sued Farrell for violating his noncompete agreement. Apparently, the hard feelings didn’t last: Amazon is in talks with Smartsheet to officially sanction the company’s workplace collaboration app for use by Amazon employees, according to...

4h

Three Startups Show How the Pandemic’s Hardest Hit Are Rebounding

Kinside CEO Shadiah Sigala remembers the moment in November when she knew her startup, which helps parents find day care openings, wasn’t just recovering after a tough half year—it was about to take off. Pfizer had announced that its Covid19 vaccine was mostly effective. Parents, tired of juggling Zoom calls and bored preschoolers, were on the hunt...

8h

Founder Burnout and Why You Should Care

Before we dive into The Takeaway, I want to draw your attention to two quick things.First, thank you to everyone who has filled out our major tech comp survey. Many of you asked that we survey our community about the nitty-gritty of comp, benefits and performance reviews and how they are changing, and we obliged. The results have been pouring in and...

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Washington’s Flawed Big Tech Breakup Proposals

Lawmakers took a step towards breaking up big tech today, introducing a package of bills that would, among other things, prevent online platforms from using their scale to go into other businesses. (For a more involved explanation, see stories here, here and here). Coming on a near-summer slow-news Friday, this was bound to generate lots of headlines...

2d

Are You Better Than the Average Human? — The 411 Podcast

It’s been a difficult couple of years for self-driving car developers trying to bring robotaxis to the public. How do they get out of the so-called "trough of disillusionment?" Listen to highlights of The Information’s Autonomous Vehicles Summit. Amir Efrati interviews Argo AI CEO Bryan Salesky and former Zoox CEO Tim Kentley Klay about where the industry...

3d

Is Sand Hill Road Over? No. But Zoom Deals Are Here to Stay

When Andreessen Horowitz finishes construction on its new office in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, its partners shouldn’t expect to find an assigned desk waiting for them. Instead, they’ll need to reserve space to work or meet with prospective portfolio companies under the firm’s new office hoteling model, which has no assigned seating. The...

3d

TI Briefing: Didi IPO Poses a Puzzle for U.S. Investors

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which filed to go public in the U.S. today, has a subsidiary called City Puzzle Holdings Ltd. listed in a chart of its byzantine corporate structure. Investors may find that an appropriate metaphor for assessing Didi as an IPO prospect, particularly compared to the two U.S.-based firms, Uber and Lyft, neither...

3d

TI Creator Economy: What Clubhouse’s New Hires Say About Its Future; Goldman Sachs Exec Says It’s The ‘Year of the Creator’

A hiring spree isn’t unusual for a startup that’s just raised a lot of money, as Clubhouse did when it brought in an estimated $300 million since January, but its recent recruits hold clues to where the social audio app is headed after a roller-coaster year. In recent weeks, the 40-person startup hired a former long-time Google engineer, a TED executive...

3d

Inflation Numbers Support Bitcoin Recovery

Crypto bears may want to go back into hibernation. Today’s inflation news, showing consumer prices rose 5% when compared to 2020, should reinforce the bull case for bitcoin, as a hedge against inflation. The new numbers follow data out of China indicating that the producer price index, a global barometer of inflation, increased 9% in May, the largest...

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