Wednesday 27 January 2021

Governor Chamath and venture capital's politics invasion

 
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This week: Chamath's California Governor dreaming and the venture capital invasion

chamath palihapitiya profile controversial silicon valley 4x3

There was a time when the only thing a VC had to worry about was finding the next Google.

These days it seems as if there's nothing that's not within the purview of an industrious venture capitalist.

Andreessen Horowitz, a VC firm that has backed Facebook, Slack, and Lyft, is creating its own media brand.

Not to be outdone, Chamath Palihapitiya, the outspoken founder of the firm Social Capital, has announced that he plans to run for California governor.

  • Palihapitiya is among many techies (including Sequoia partner Doug Leone) supporting an effort to recall Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California. According to the LA Times, the recall effort also has close ties to radical groups like QAnon.
  • "California is a mess — it's too expensive, our teachers are underpaid, and our schools aren't good enough," Palihapitiya says on a new website devoted to his gubernatorial campaign. Palihapitiya does not yet appear to have filed any political paperwork with the California Secretary of State to officially run for governor. 

A Governor Palihapitiya may seem like a longshot, but he would not be the first VC to become a state's top executive: Gina Raimondo, an East Coast VC, became Rhode Island's governor in 2015.

The diffusion of VCs promises to bring a jolt of Silicon Valley innovation to hidebound sectors. And because VCs fund startups with lengthy investment cycles, they look at things with a long-term perspective that might be helpful for some of today's problems. (On the other hand, the venture industry is also famous for propping-up failing business ideas and enabling bad behavior among startup founders.)

But as long as we're talking about potential career moves for VCs, here's a few other occupations where venture capitalists could go next:

Therapist: VCs are used to listening to hours of pitches from strangers every day. As psychotherapists they could put those listening skills to use while also doling out nuggets of advice to a captive audience.

Late-night TV host: After years of firing off snappy one-liners on Twitter, VCs are ready to make the jump to TV. 

Animal trainer: When you think about it, training a wild beast can't be all that different from coaching a startup, right?


Tech Feuds are back

Feuds between companies are a time-honored tradition in the ego-driven tech industry. 

The Mac vs. PC snipping goes back decades and amazingly, even in the age of smartphones, it's still active:

Here are a few other recent tech feuds to keep an eye on, if you're into that sort of thing:

Tesla vs. Waymo: Elon Musk took a swipe at Waymo this week, tweeting that his company's AI hardware and software are each superior to Waymo's. The diss was apparently in response to comments by Waymo CEO John Krafcik, who in a recent interview deemed Tesla's autonomous technology "no competitor at all."

Elastic vs. Amazon Web Services: The open-source-software company accused Amazon of unfairly benefiting from its work, and it made changes to its licensing terms to put limits on larger users like AWS. Amazon in turn published a blog post that accused Elastic of publishing a "blustery blog" to distract from its "fishy" licensing changes. 


Snapshot: Work from Car

Working out of the car is one of the least enjoyable makeshift offices I've experimented with since the pandemic began. 

But I might have a different perspective if I were seated in Samsung's "2021 digital cockpit." 

With a giant 49-inch QLED screen, 5G internet access, cameras, and separate touchscreen controls, the digital cockpit is a mobile office, video conferencing station, and gaming room all in one.

SamDigCar1

When you need to drive, the screen tucks snugly into the dashboard so that it doesn't obstruct your view of the road. (Hopefully the screen has safeguards so a malfunction doesn't cause it to pop up while your driving!)

SamDigCar2

It's still just a concept, of course. And it's worth noting that Samsung has shown off versions of this digital cockpit over the past four years. Maybe the rise of remote working will be the catalyst that makes Samsung's rolling office a reality in the near future.


Newsletter Alert: You don't have to live in Washington, DC, to need up-to-date information about the latest political news.

That's why Insider is launching a newsletter to bring you the most important updates every morning. The first newsletter is landing in inboxes next week. Sign up here to receive 10 Things in Politics You Need to Know Today.


Recommended Readings:

$7 billion Deliveroo is preparing for a blockbuster float. Here's the who's who of executives and investors steering it to IPO.

How Nigeria is becoming a top hub for open source development, with strong community, Big Tech investments, and successful startups like Paystack which Stripe just bought for $200 million

Google's balloon project Loon crashed, but some investors are happy with CEO Sundar Pichai putting limits on money-burning 'moonshots'

We surveyed hundreds of Amazon employees about their job satisfaction, pay, and direct managers. Here's how they responded.

VCs are in a frenzy for Census, a data startup that's close to finalizing a Series A led by Sequoia at a $100 million valuation


Not necessarily in tech:

The MyPillow guy says God helped him beat a crack addiction to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Now his religious devotion to Trump threatens to bring it all crashing down.


Thanks for reading, and if you like this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it.

And as always, please reach out with rants, raves, and tips at aoreskovic@businessinsider.com

— Alexei

 
 
 
 
 
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Tuesday 26 January 2021

Pitch deck database: Search over 300 from top startups

Startups typically persuade investors to fund their ideas using pitch decks....
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Search over 300 pitch decks that startups like Uber and Postmates used to raise millions

Startups typically persuade investors to fund their ideas using pitch decks.

Insider regularly publishes these decks to give readers an inside look at how successful companies persuaded investors to fund them.

We've compiled these decks into a searchable library which we've just updated with dozens of new names.

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Friday 22 January 2021

Ex-Plaid employees flooded with $1,200 offers for shares

Everyone wants a piece of fintech unicorn Plaid now that it's abandoned plans to sell to Visa...
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Ex-Plaid employees are being flooded with 'sketchy' bids to buy their shares at $1,200 each from the hidden world of private buyers

Everyone wants a piece of fintech unicorn Plaid now that it's abandoned plans to sell to Visa. Former Plaid employees say they've been 'inundated' with offers to buy their shares for up to $1,200 apiece. Such offers are problematic for shareholders in a private company like Plaid. Employees told us they won't sell.

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Monday 11 January 2021

10 things in tech you need to know today

Today's top news and analysis.
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10 THINGS IN TECH YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

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    1. Trump is off Twitter. The president was permanently banned from his favorite social media service on Friday because of the risk he would incite further violence after the Capitol riots.

    2. Twitter warned that it has seen discussion of 'secondary attack.' Twitter said it was concerned with how the president's posts prior to his ban were being interpreted by the far-right as coded approval for their actions, and thus "likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021."

    3. Twitter cracked down on QAnon. The firm suspended the accounts of Trump allies Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, as well as Ron Watkins, the operator of far-right social media site 8kun, NBC News first reported and Business Insider confirmed Friday.

    4. Trump tried and failed to circumvent the Twitter ban. He tweeted from the official @POTUS Twitter account Friday evening, but Twitter almost immediately deleted the tweets.

    5. There's a pincer movement on Parler. The so-called free speech app, popular with Trump's supporters, got booted off Amazon's hosting service on Saturday, and Apple's App Store.

    6. Gab, another self-proclaimed free speech service, says it's gaining users. Gab, which is banned by both Google and Apple, tweeted that it was receiving over 10,000 new users every hour. 

    7. Twitter blocked a Chinese Embassy tweet. On Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in the US posted a tweet claiming that Uighur women were no longer "baby-making machines" because of the eradication of extremism.

    8. Analysis: Tech bans don't violate US free speech laws. The First Amendment bans the government from regulating the speech of private people and companies, not the other way around.
       
    9. Apple and Hyundai might team up on a car. Apple and Hyundai reportedly plan to sign a deal that would lead to a 'beta' version of an Apple electric vehicle as early as 2022.

    10. Amazon shut down Prime Pantry. The grocery and goods program was launched in 2014 and was initially offered to members of the Prime free shipping program.
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