Techmeme
February 7, 2018, 7:55 AM

Top News

Olivia Zaleski / Bloomberg:
Inside the battle among Airbnb investors and executives over whether to remain private or IPO; sources say founders and early employees cashed ~$350M of equity  —  Investors and executives disagreed over when to take the home-rental company public.  The stay-private crowd is winning.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
A pollster Facebook hired in April '17, who quit after 6 months, says his role was to measure Zuckerberg's approval ratings and track speeches amid US tour  —  Why Tavis McGinn quit after six months  —  Tavis McGinn applied for a job at Facebook last year hoping to work in market research.
Snap Investor Relations:
Snap reports Q4 revenue of $285.7M, up 72% YoY, as DAUs rise 8.9M to 187M, up 18% YoY; net loss of $350M, up 106% YoY  —  02/06/18 VENICE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) today announced financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2017.
Eric Zimmerman / The Keyword:
Google begins rolling out ability to book flights and hotels directly from search results  —  Planning a trip involves lots of searching for flights, hotels, things to do, itineraries and more.  The process is often cumbersome because we have to use multiple tools to gather everything we need—especially on a mobile phone.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft is offering OneDrive for Business for free to select businesses for the length of their existing contracts with Google/Box/Dropbox, for up to 3 years  —  Microsoft has a new OneDrive-for-Business compete offer for organizations which currently use some of its rivals' cloud storage services.
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Streaming service ESPN Plus launching next month at $4.99/mo; sources say it won't have ESPN cable channels' content, which still requires ESPN subscription  —  How much would you pay for sports you weren't watching on TV?  —  Want to pay for a subscription to ESPN without paying for a subscription to other cable channels?
Motherboard:
Pornhub says it's banning AI-generated fake porn videos because they're “nonconsensual”, yet such “deepfake” videos are still available via site search results  —  In its search of a platform that will host fake porn videos of celebrities created with a machine learning algorithm …
Mark Maurer / The Real Deal New York:
Sources: Google to buy 1.2M sq. ft. Chelsea Market building in NYC, where it leases 400K sq. ft. already, for $2B+ in deal expected to close in two months  —  Jamestown in contract to sell the 1.2M sf office-and-retail property at 75 Ninth Avenue  —  Google did not have to search far and wide for results.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Apple HomePod review: best-in-class sound for $349 and above, looks great, but Siri only works with Apple Music, bad support for third-party services  —  I don't think I've ever described a tech product as “lonely” before, but it's the word I thought about the most as I was reviewing Apple's new HomePod.
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive  —  Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm.  Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Great Chat:
Doomers at Dreamforce
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:55 AM ET, February 7, 2018.

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

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Reuters: