Techmeme
May 26, 2022, 4:30 PM

Top News

Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Broadcom offers to acquire VMware for ~$61B in cash and stock, paying $142.50 per share, a nearly 49% premium, and will assume VMware's $8B in net debt  —  May 26 (Reuters) - Broadcom Inc (AVGO.O) said on Thursday it will buy cloud service provider VMware Inc (VMW.N) in a $61 billion cash …
Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
Q&A with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney on creating the metaverse, Unreal Engine's role, Apple's and Google's app store monopolies, Meta's metaverse investment, and more  —  Online game Fortnite is arguably the closest thing to the metaverse that exists today.  Some 70mn gamers immerse themselves …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
A profile of Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison; sources: Stripe gross revenue rose 60% YoY to nearly $12B in 2021 as net revenue reached almost $2.5B  —  Billionaire brothers John and Patrick Collison built Stripe into one of the world's most-hyped, highest valued — and profitable! — startups, worth some $95 billion.
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to keep iPhone production in 2022 at ~220M, about the same as 2021, compared to ~240M market forecasts, amid inflation and a tough market  —  Apple Inc. is planning to keep iPhone production roughly flat in 2022, a conservative stance as the year turns increasingly challenging for the smartphone industry.
Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
Apple plans to bump US hourly workers' pay to $22+ per hour, up 45% from 2018, amid inflation and unionization pushes; US starting salaries are also set to rise  —  The iPhone maker faces store unionization attempts, higher inflation  —  Apple Inc. AAPL .11%▲ is boosting pay …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Bolt Financial laid off 185 employees, or about one-third of its workforce; some have to repay loans they took from the company for vested shares within 90 days  —  One-click checkout company Bolt Financial yesterday laid off 185 employees, or approximately one-third of its workforce …
Kyle Alspach / Protocol:
Cloud security startup Lacework, which employed 1,000+ in March 2022, lays off 20% of its workforce; Lacework has raised $1.85B including $1.3B in November 2021  —  A well-funded startup in the cybersecurity industry, Lacework, has become the latest tech firm to disclose a major round …
Sujith Somraaj / Decrypt:
Binance, FTX, Crypto.com, Huobi, Bitfinex, Kucoin, and other exchanges pledge support for Do Kwon's Terra 2.0, set to launch on May 27 by airdropping tokens  —  Cryptocurrency exchanges have pledged support to Terra's upcoming relaunch, following the passing of a proposal to launch a new blockchain.
Bloomberg:
The tech market collapse, aided by macroeconomic forces, is an opportunity to reckon with wildly inflated valuations, overpaid VCs, and crypto pyramid schemes  —  Over the past half-century, Silicon Valley has toggled between two similar-sounding pursuits that are often in conflict: wealth creation and moneymaking.
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Sources: Substack dropped efforts to raise money, after talks to raise $75M to $100M at a $750M to $1B valuation, and told investors it had ~$9M revenue in 2021  —  Amid an industrywide downturn, venture investors are preaching austerity and halting new deals, particularly for companies that have spent aggressively on growth.
Sam Nussey / Reuters:
Sony plans to ramp up PlayStation 5 production as supply chain issues ease, and a radical broadening of its game portfolio, including more PC and mobile titles  —  Sony Group Corp (6758.T) said it plans to ramp up production of its PlayStation 5 console as supply chain snarls ease and signalled …
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Analysis of 164 remote learning apps and sites used in 49 countries during the pandemic finds ~90% shared student data with ad tech companies and data brokers  —  The educational tools used by students during the pandemic shared their information with advertisers and data brokers that could track …
Source: Human Rights WatchMore: 9to5Mac and CNN
Tweets: @walterkirn, @hrw, and @hrw
Politico:
Sources: a bipartisan bill that would stop platforms from favoring their own products is facing resistance from some Senate Democrats worried about the midterms  —  A bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the nation's largest tech companies is facing fresh resistance from a faction …
Ashley Stewart / Insider:
Interviews with former and current Microsoft employees suggest a widespread pattern of executive misconduct persists, years after Satya Nadella vowed to end it  —  The Microsoft executive walked into the small, windowless room in Studio C at about 8 o'clock that evening.
The Markup:
An investigation finds Apple, Meta, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have launched coordinated campaigns in 31 states against data privacy legislation since 2021  —  Coordinated industry lobbying is overwhelming the scattered efforts of consumer groups and privacy-minded lawmakers
Jonathan Browning / Bloomberg:
The UK's CMA opens an investigation into whether Google abused its dominant position in ad tech to illegally favor its ad exchange services and exclude rivals  —  The UK's antitrust watchdog started a new investigation of Alphabet Inc.'s Google, over suspicions it may have abused …
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Oura debuts the Gucci x Oura Ring wearable with its Generation 3 tech to monitor live heart rate, sleep, activity, and more, available in select stores for $950  —  Oura, the startup that's pushing the limits of how small a wearable can be, just announced a collaboration that could boost its profile considerably.
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Twitter agrees to pay $150M to the FTC, settling allegations that it misrepresented the “security and privacy” of user data between May 2013 and September 2019  —  Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) has settled with U.S. authorities over allegations it misrepresented the “security and privacy” …
Peter Grant / Wall Street Journal:
Some hotels are looking to guarantee bookings revenue by partnering with startups like Pinktada that convert stays into NFTs to be bought and sold by guests  —  NFTs also are being used to raise capital to buy golf courses or land, giving token buyers a stake in the projects
Noi Mahoney / FreightWaves:
Fleet management software provider Motive, formerly called KeepTruckin, raises a $150M Series F led by Insight and Kleiner Perkins at a $2.85B valuation  —  Motive raised $150 million to invest in products aimed at the “safety, productivity and profitability” of businesses.

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