Global venture capitalists invested $56.31 billion in 4,894 deals during the first half of 2015–the lowest number of deals recorded by the Pitchbook blog over a six month period in the last 25 years. The major reason for a smaller number of companies being funded is that venture capitalists are throwing huge amounts of money at a small number of “unicorns.”
As Uber and other Silicon Valley startups come under legal pressure for employing an army of full-time freelancers, a well-funded new startup has decided to completely switch its workforce to staffed employees with full benefits (“W2” workers).
There was a long line of advocates claiming responsibility for same-sex marriage’s victory at the Supreme Court on Friday, but a key driver was the support two years ago from 278 mostly multi-national tech companies that included Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, eBay, Electronic Arts, Intel, Intuit, Oracle, Twitter and Zynga.
“Live under the stars in the great outdoors of Silicon Valley for a mere $900 a month.” A Mountain View, California man is renting out a tent in his backyard.
On the heels of Apple Music’s $9.99 streaming service getting the bodyslam from a 99-pounder named Taylor Swift, Google has just rolled out “Play Music,” which will offer a free, ad-supported streaming music service. Combined with their “All Access” subscription product released in May, Google appears positioned to crush both Spotify and Apple Music.
Marketing company Turn Inc. of Redwood City has been sued in what looks to be a huge mass tort lawsuit alleging a conspiracy with telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless to engage in undisclosed tracking and storing of Internet browsing histories.
If Robin Leach visited the headquarters of Fibit, Inc. in San Francisco today, it would be all “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” as the leading wearable fitness tracker raised $793.5 million at a stunning valuation of $4.1 billion in the largest initial public offering (IPO) by any consumer electronics company in history.
The California Labor Comission just ruled that Uber must treat its drivers like normal employees, rather than independent contractors, potentially forcing the company to pay benefits and cover expenses. The decision is being hailed as a victory for worker rights and a major blow to the growing billion-dollar transportation startup.
What do you suppose is more likely to get you banned from a tech conference: Endorsing violence against your political opponents? Or writing abstract blog posts critical of egalitarian theory?
Dick Costolo was ousted as Twitter’s CEO on Thurday, after a disastrous year that saw active users stagnate and the company make earnings promises it could never have met.
Google has just announced a brand new initiative to improve city life, Sidewalk Labs, which will tackle cost of living, transportation, and the environment for urban citizens. While details are scant, it’s worth noting that suburban-based Google is just the latest influential tech giant to join the “cities” bandwagon.
The Blue Bottle Coffee, the Bay Area foodies’ favorite coffee house, merged with the Tartine Bakery and Café in April. Now, the combined artisan food company has raised $70 million in venture capital to be the “next big thing.”
San Francisco, home to a plentitude of left-wing ideologists contemptuous of one percenters, commands a hefty average median rent of $4,225 a month, prompting one to suspect that the enemy must lie within.
Democrat Ro Khanna has appointed Joe Trippi, a Fox News Channel contributor, to help him lead his second attempt to unseat eight-time incumbent Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) in 2016.
It has been just two months since a San Francisco jury of six women and six men ruled against former junior partner Ellen Pao on all four of Pao’s claims of gender discrimination and retaliation against the prestigious Silicon Valley venture capital firm of
Prices for homes in the Bay Area have increased to the point where hi-tech workers are fleeing to the Pacific Northwest to find affordable housing, according to the real estate site Redfin. The median home price in the Bay Area has surpassed $1 million, and Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told the San Francisco Chronicle that one-quarter of Bay Area searchers are checking areas elsewhere–a steep hike from the one-seventh of searchers looking elsewhere in 2011.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A woman at the center of a high-profile gender bias lawsuit against an elite Silicon Valley venture capital firm filed an appeal on Monday of a jury verdict against her.
With San Francisco offering massive tax incentives to redevelop 77 dilapidated warehouse buildings into a “Twitter Town” for the “digerati” venture capital crowd, the adjacent Mission District community is now in turmoil, as the city’s poor are being booted to make room for new buildings and Airbnb vacation rental conversions.
Democrats and Silicon Valley are locked in a head-on collision course; this week, New York City regulators proposed rules requiring Uber and other ride-hailing startups to get pre-approval each time they make major changes to their apps and pay $1,000 to cover the government’s labor costs. The battle between Uber and New York is a perfect example of the fundamental conflict between Democrats and Silicon Valley.
Bay Area employees are trading in their caffeine for dancing with a new trend that has hit San Francisco: early morning dance parties, minus the booze.
A new economic analysis finds that Santa Clara Country could completely end its homeless problem at zero net cost by providing public housing for every single person living on the street. The study, from the Knowledge for Greater Good Economic
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel revealed Tuesday at the California Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes that the company is planning for an initial public offering (IPO). He said the company, recently valued at $15 billion, had no desire to be acquired in a merger like the Facebook’s $3 billion offer two years ago. Then, in a refreshing twist for such a young captain of industry, Spiegel warned that the Fed’s “easy money policy” and low interest have created a tech bubble and it’s only a “matter of time till it bursts.”
Former congressional candidate Ro Khanna will try to defeat fellow Democrat and incumbent Rep. Mike Honda–again.
Up-and-coming tech titans are shelling out massive salaries to retain the best immigrants in the world. Netflix is paying an average of $239K per year, and Airbnb is dolling out $163K, up from $134K and $106K in 2012, respectively.
This week it was Silicon Valley versus the entire transportation sector. Scrappy startups and tech behemoths battled entrenched industries and government regulators throughout the globe, in what has become a fascinating illustration of how an entire social sector responds to
Leaking information to reporters in Silicon Valley is an everyday occurrence. But a former employee at Yahoo is being sued for actually leaking passwords to confidential computer files inside the company to help a financial industry journalist write an unauthorized biography titled: “Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!”
GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Saturday will launch a campaign presence in the tech community in Silicon Valley—similar to his campaign’s efforts in Austin, Texas—he tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.
In February, Google unveiled an expansion of its Silicon Valley campus that many dubbed the new Star Wars Fleet Command Headquarters. The worldwide acclaim for its eco-friendly biosphere design, which features translucent canopies and walkways around natural salt water lagoons, has been intense. But this week, the City of Mountain View decided, in order to maximize property tax revenue, to give the property to Linkedin to build 1970s-style conventional stack-and-pack office towers that maximize occupancy.
Earlier this week, the San Jose Mercury published an article, “Asian-American Tech Workers Absent from Silicon Valley’s Executive Suites,” that describes how the Ascend Foundation wants to add Asians to the classes of black, women and Latino engineers that are
A new, unauthorized, supposedly “tell-all” biography just released by Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance claims that serial entrepreneur and Tesla (TSLA-NASDAQ) CEO Elon Musk hid from investors and customers that the electric car company was down to two weeks of cash in early 2013 and had to beg for Google to consider buying the company.
The Four Seasons issued a statement saying the incident did not happen on any of its properties and that David Goldberg was not registered as a guest in any of the resort’s rooms, villas or residences.
The sudden death of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO and husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, rocked the tech world this weekend.
Uber is systematically wiping out taxis in San Francisco. As of last year, average taxi trips per month had reportedly plummeted 65 percent in just 2 years. In an effort to save the industry, a new startup, FlyWheel, has begun outfitting taxis with the Uber-like convenience of smartphone hailing and payments.
To prove a point that it may become the Silicon Valley cocktail of the future, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Santa Clara Mayor Jamie Matthews and other Silicon Valley leaders gulped down some filtered, cleaned and disinfected sewage water.
15 years after the Dot-Com Bubble burst, the Nasdaq Composite Index leapt by 20.89 points, or 0.4%, to close at 5056.06 on Thursday, a record high. The strength of the index is being driven by the Silicon Valley 150 tech companies that have provided the juice to lift the NASDAQ by 6.8%, despite U.S. stock performance trailing major world markets.
Tech workers do have a libertarian streak. Twelve times more tech workers would vote for Paul (12 percent) than Jeb Bush (one percent). But, I must stress, the results are within the margin of error.
Techies in Silicon Valley often tell me that if they do their job right, it should cease to exist. The goal of a lot of technology is to reduce the amount of human labor necessary to get something done. A new study finds that this Silicon Valley maxim also holds true for the government — in a massive way.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was in California’s Bay Area Wednesday and Thursday making his potential pre-presidential fundraising rounds.
About 11.3 percent of Bay Area residents are living at or below the poverty level, according to a Joint Venture Silicon Valley Institute analysis entitled, “Poverty in the Bay Area.” Despite low unemployment in Santa Clara County, the heart of the Silicon
Media observers are claiming that Ellen Pao’s loss in her $160 million gender discrimination claims against her former venture capitalist employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer means a dark future for women in Silicon Valley. But women already control 36 percent of small businesses, hold 50 percent of all management positions and account for 60 percent of college students. With rising economic power, women seem destined to eventually dominate Silicon Valley and much of American business.