Techmeme
May 4, 2021, 10:25 AM

Top News

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Court docs: Epic's total gross revenue was $5.6B in 2018 and $4.2B in 2019, with the vast majority of revenue coming from Fortnite  —  New financial figures were revealed as part of Epic Games' antitrust case against Apple  —  After a meteoric rise to popularity in 2018 …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Epic vs. Apple trial begins with Epic attacking the App Store's “walled garden”, arguing Apple's 30% cut is monopolistic; Apple argues 30% is standard practice  —  Today marked the beginning of the highly-anticipated Apple vs. Epic trial, and things kicked off with both companies presenting their opening statements.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Basecamp employees detail an all-hands that led to resignations, including the head of strategy, who questioned the existence of white supremacy at the company  —  I.  —  At 8AM PT on Friday, a bleary-eyed Basecamp CEO Jason Fried gathered his remote workforce together on Zoom to apologize.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Twitter buys Scroll, the $5/month service that removes ads from partner news sites; Scroll's Nuzzel email service will shut down on May 6  —  The Nuzzel email service is winding down and the future of Scroll is uncertain  —  Twitter's acquisition spree continues today with Scroll …
Rupert Neate / The Guardian:
Filing: Amazon had sales of €44B in Europe in 2020, but reported a €1.2B loss and therefore paid no corporate tax  —  Despite lockdown surge the firm's Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid zero corporation tax  —  Fresh questions have been raised …
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
Justin Zhu, former Iterable CEO ousted for taking LSD before a meeting, on his disputes with key investors and the challenges of being Chinese in Silicon Valley  —  Justin Zhu, chief executive officer of digital marketing startup Iterable Inc., was walking down Broadway in San Francisco …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter opens Spaces, its live audio feature, to anyone with 600+ followers and details plans for Ticketed Spaces, reminders, co-hosting, accessibility, more  —  Twitter Spaces, the company's new live audio rooms feature, is opening up more broadly.  The company announced today it's making …
Reuters:
Apple hires ex-Google AI scientist Samy Bengio, who left last month after colleagues' firings; sources say Bengio will lead a new AI unit under John Giannandrea  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Monday it has hired former distinguished Google (GOOGL.O) scientist Samy Bengio …
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Intel to invest $3.5B to upgrade its chipmaking plant in New Mexico, resulting in 700 new jobs over three years, as part of CEO Pat Gelsinger's turnaround plan  —  Intel on Monday plans to announce a $3.5 billion upgrade to a chip manufacturing plant in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
WorkBoard, which develops software to help companies manage their corporate planning, raises $75M Series D led by SoftBank at a post-money valuation of $800M  —  This morning WorkBoard, a software startup that sells software designed to help other companies plan, announced that it has raised …
More: FinSMEs and VentureBeat
Kate Clark / The Information:
PitchBook: the number of “inside rounds”, where only previous investors participate, rose to over 1,000 in 2020 with $30B invested, up 15% from 2019  —  Venture capitalists may be getting too comfortable with marking up their own portfolios.  —  The number of inside rounds …
Katie Canales / Insider:
SensorTower data shows Clubhouse was downloaded only about 900,000 times in April, down from 2.7M installs in March and from February's peak of 9.6M  —  - Clubhouse's 922,000 downloads in April is a dip from February when 9.6 million users installed it.  — The audio app has enjoyed …
Steve Kovach / CNBC:
Verizon says it will sell Yahoo and AOL to PE firm Apollo Global Management for $5B, keeping a 10% stake in the company, which will be rebranded as just “Yahoo”  —  - Verizon will sell its media group, which includes brands from AOL and Yahoo, to private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

Sponsor Posts

Niantic Spatial:
World models need real-world data  —  Scaniverse is the gateway to spatial services — self-serve and built for AI and robotics.  Large-area 3D reconstruction from 360° cameras and precise localization, anywhere machines operate.
Zoho:
Meet Zoho Books MCP: Bring AI-powered accounting to your business  —  Isn't change the only constant?  And that holds true for accounting too.  For years, accounting software has helped businesses manage their finances …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Anuma:
The Private AI That Remembers  —  Anuma is the all-in-one AI platform with private, portable memory.  Chat, text, create, build, and solve across every model.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's User Growth Miss, Musk vs. Altman, Prediction Market Ban
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Training Data:
OpenAI's Greg Brockman: Why Human Attention Is the New Bottleneck
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Runway's Cris Valenzuela: Building The Hollywood-Friendly Video AI That OpenAI Couldn't
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI's Big Reset + A.I. in the Doctor's Office + Talkie, a pre-1930s LLM
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Food and Beverage Director', With MG Siegler
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:25 AM ET, May 4, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
CNN: