Techmeme
September 17, 2022, 7:45 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
A profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who will become the wealthiest person from the Thiel Fellowship by far, as PitchBook estimates his stake is worth $2B+  —  Dylan Field dropped out of an Ivy League school in 2012 to take a grant from the billionaire Peter Thiel and start a software company called Figma.
Hunter Walk:
Adobe's $20B Figma acquisition is worth it because Figma's $400M ARR, independent of margin, was continuing to double, creating pricing pressure on Adobe  —  Hint: The Answer Doesn't Involve a Spreadsheet  —  I'm not an investor in Figma.  I don't know Figma CEO Dylan Field.  And I'm not a designer.
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
EVGA exits graphics cards, citing issues with Nvidia, after exclusively using GeForce GPUs, reportedly making up 80% of its revenue, since its founding in 1999  —  EVGA will continue selling current-gen GeForce cards until it runs out of stock.  —  Graphics card manufacturer eVGA has made a name …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
The 5th Circuit federal court's ruling to uphold the Texas social media content moderation law is based on a misrepresentation of how Section 230 actually works  —  from the batshit-crazy dept  —  As far as I can tell, in the area the 5th Circuit appeals court has jurisdiction …
Joe Schneider / Bloomberg:
A US federal appeals court upholds the Texas social media content moderation law, lifting an injunction that blocked it and remanding it back to the lower court  —  A federal appeals court upheld the validity of a Texas social-media law that companies like Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Unsealed court docs in a privacy user profiling suit against Meta show that apps from Zynga, Yahoo, and others had extensive access to users' friends' data  —  It's not the crime, it's the cover up... The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep …
Matteo Wong / The Atlantic:
How neural network chess engines redefined the game's creativity, leading some top players to use deception, misdirection, and other psychological techniques  —  It was as if a bottom seed had knocked out the top team in March Madness: At the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament in St. Louis earlier this month …
Financial Times:
Sources: BeReal is exploring adding paid features to avoid advertising; the app has 15M+ DAUs, up from 10K in March 2021, and was valued at ~$600M in June 2022  —  Photo-sharing app BeReal is exploring the addition of in-app payments for extra features to avoid Instagram-style advertising …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber says there is “no evidence” the hacker accessed sensitive user info, like trip histories, during the breach and that all its products are now “operational”  —  Uber says there is “no evidence” that any of its users' private information was compromised in a breach of its internal computer systems.
Washington Post:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta's stock has lost 60% of its value in the past 12 months, by far the biggest slide among Big Tech stocks and more than double the Nasdaq Composite's drop  —  - Meta shares dropped below the company's pandemic nadir during the day on Friday and are down more than 60% for the year.
Stefanie Marotta / Bloomberg:
Shopify changes its compensation practices to let employees choose a mix of cash, restricted stock units, and stock options; Shopify's stock is down 73% in 2022  —  Shopify Inc. is changing its compensation practices to let staff decide how much of their pay will be cash versus equity …

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More News

Sharon Goldman / VentureBeat:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Earlier Picks

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Tim Hakki / Decrypt: