Techmeme: Bill Gurley says Silicon Valley is taking on the most risk since 1999, will see high-profile failures in the next year or two (Wall Street Journal)

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September 15, 2014, 10:20 PM

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Markus Persson / notch.net:

Markus “Notch” Persson on selling and leaving Mojang: “It's not about the money. It's about my sanity.” — I'm leaving Mojang — September 15th, 2014 I don't see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it's fun, and because I love games and I love to program …

More: USA Today, BuzzFeed, PC World, New York Times, Re/code, Washington Post, The Register, Tubefilter, TechnoBuffalo, Cult of Mac, Neowin, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, PC Gamer and ReadWrite

Tweets: @mcpe_news, @garrynewman, @bgurley, @geoffkeighley, @bfod, @joshmedia, @notch, @therealcliffyb, @paullicino, @dalmaer and @steveklabnik

Owen Hill / Mojang:

Mojang's founders Markus “Notch” Persson, Carl Manneh, and Jakob Porsér to leave the company after Microsoft acquisition — Yes, we're being bought by Microsoft — Yes, the deal is real. Mojang is being bought by Microsoft. — It was reassuring to see how many of …

More: CNET, VentureBeat, Tech Times, Wall Street Journal, Ubergizmo, Polygon, GeekWire, Computerworld, DisplayBlog, PC Gamer, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, VentureBeat and SlashGear

Tweets: @chrisremo, @realbengilbert, @siracusa, @theromit, @carlmanneh, @tomwarren, @pkafka and @svengrundberg

Microsoft Corporation:

Microsoft buys Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5B — Minecraft to join Microsoft — Iconic cross-platform franchise to become part of Microsoft Studios. — Microsoft Corp. today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Mojang, the celebrated Stockholm-based game developer, and the company's iconic “Minecraft” franchise.

More: CNET, GeekWire, Reuters, Forbes, ZDNet, Business Insider, Polygon, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Guardian, VentureBreak, WinBeta, iPhone in Canada Blog, eWeek and Businessweek

Tweets: @pkafka, @edbott and @dinabass

Phil Spencer / Xbox Wire:

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer: we will “grow the Minecraft community and nurture the franchise”, continue to make the game available on all existing platforms — Minecraft to Join Microsoft — By Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox — Today is an incredibly exciting day for our team …

More: NPR, Wired, Touch Arcade, Gizmodo, DailyTech, GeekWire, Polygon and Blue's News. Tweets: @thurrott

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Why parents are raising their kids on Minecraft — Microsoft's latest purchase has remarkable intergenerational appeal — Back in June of 2011, David Pakman's daughter and son, at the time age 10 and eight, asked him for a copy of Minecraft. “At the time I didn't know what that was …

Tweets: @a91g and @cwarzel

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

Minecraft fits into Nadella's new vision for Microsoft, but the Xbox business creates conflict

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Microsoft buys Mojang, Minecraft: Five reasons it makes strategic sense

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft announces Windows 9 event in San Francisco on September 30th — Microsoft is preparing to detail its next major version of Windows. We had been expecting the company to hold a press event later this month, and now it's official. Microsoft will hold a “Windows event” in San Francisco on September 30th.

More: Re/code, Laptop Mag, PC World, CNET, Wall Street Journal, TechSpot, CIO.com, Mashable, TechCrunch, MobileSyrup.com, Liliputing, GeekWire, Windows Phone Central, Pocketnow, Pocket-lint, WinBeta, Electronista and BGR. Tweets: @zpower

Apple:

Apple Announces Record Pre-orders for iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus Top Four Million in First 24 Hours — Available in More Than 20 Additional Countries on Friday, September 26 — Apple® today announced a record number of first day pre-orders of iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus …

Michael Carney / PandoDaily:

Paypal attacks Apple Pay security with full-page ad in NYT referencing recent iCloud celebrity photo hack — “We the people want our money safer than our selfies.” PayPal goes after Apple in a full page NYT ad — As the rumors of an Apple payments platform swirled leading up to last week's keynote …

More: CNET, MacRumors, TechCrunch, ReadWrite, AppleInsider, Patently Apple, TechRadar.com, 9to5Mac and TUAW

Tweets: @lessien, @rabois, @cjc, @rabois, @halthomas and @ow

Wall Street Journal:

Bill Gurley says Silicon Valley is taking on the most risk since 1999, will see high-profile failures in the next year or two — Venture Capitalist Sounds Alarm on Startup Investing — Silicon Valley Has Taken on Too Much Risk, Gurley Says — Silicon Valley is a risk-driven place.

More: Business Insider and Valleywag. Tweets: @rabois, @ross, @evelynrusli, @daniellemorrill, @kgimvalley, @caseynewton and @pmarca

Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:

Silicon Valley's view of Alibaba: a competitor only for investments, and a potential acquirer — How Silicon Valley sees Alibaba — Wall Street is seeing green this week regarding the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. It hopes to raise more than $20 billion.

Wall Street Journal:

Alibaba increases IPO price range to $66-68 a share, from $60-66, could raise as much as $25B

More: CNET, Bloomberg, SiliconBeat, Gigaom, Associated Press, New York Times, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters and Forbes. Tweets: @wsjbreakingnews

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Panasonic puts a 1-inch sensor and a Leica lens on new CM1 smartphone — Seeking to set a new benchmark for the cameraphone category — Panasonic has made the biggest news of Photokina so far with the announcement of its new Lumix CM1 Android smartphone.

Christina Farr / Reuters:

Stanford, Duke University hospitals to launch HealthKit trials with diabetics, other patients — Exclusive: Two Apple medical trials shed light on how HealthKit will work — (Reuters) - Two prominent U.S. hospitals are preparing to launch trials with diabetics and chronic disease patients …

More: TUAW, iLounge, Tech Times, MacRumors, Macworld, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, SlashGear, Engadget, CNET and Patently Apple. Tweets: @grantabt

WikiLeaks:

WikiLeaks releases copies of FinFisher malware governments reportedly use to spy on journalists, political dissidents, and others — SpyFiles 4 — Today, 15 September 2014, WikiLeaks releases previously unseen copies of weaponised German surveillance malware used by intelligence agencies around …

More: The Next Web, CNET, Sydney Morning Herald, TechSpot, Guardian, SC Magazine, ZDNet, SecurityWeek, The Online Citizen and The Register. See also Mediagazer

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Facebook launches an open source organization and releases new routing tech — Facebook is upping the ante in the open source world, announcing on Monday a new open source technology for routing data across server caches, and also a new open organization (along with other big-name companies) to help foster open source efforts.

More: Facebook Code, Facebook Code, VentureBeat, New York Times, AllFacebook, Computerworld, Re/code, AllFacebook, Inside Facebook, EnterpriseTech, InfoWorld, Bloomberg, ZDNet and Data Center Knowledge

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Apple makes it easier to delete the new U2 album from iTunes libraries — Responds to controversy around ‘Songs of Innocence’ being pushed to people's devices with new web removal tool — Apple has responded to criticism of its deal to give away U2's new album to iTunes users by making …

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

The FBI just finished building its facial recognition system — The FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) system is now fully operational, after more than three years of development. The bureau announced today that development on the project was complete, and it would be rolling …

More: Federal Bureau …, Engadget, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, The Daily Caller and Nextgov

Richard Salgado / Google Public Policy Blog:

Transparency Report: Government demands for user info have risen 150% over the last five years — Today, we're updating our Transparency Report for the tenth time. This update details the number of government demands we received for user information in criminal investigations during the first half of 2014.

More: The Next Web, 9to5Google, Computerworld, Ubergizmo, AndroidHeadlines.com, VentureBeat, Reuters, ZDNet and CNET

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Recruitment Trainwreck BranchOut In Talks To Be Acquired, May Sell Mobile Team To Hearst — BranchOut's story is a brutal lesson about the risk of derailment when you build on someone else's platform. After raising $49 million and growing to 33 million users, Facebook changed its viral channels leading BranchOut to starve.

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