Techmeme
May 13, 2022, 5:05 AM

Top News

@kayvz:
[Thread] Twitter product chief Kayvon Beykpour says he is leaving at the request of CEO Parag Agrawal, who wants to “take the team in a different direction”  —  Interrupting my paternity leave to share some final @twitter-related news: I'm leaving the company after over 7 years.
Bloomberg:
In a memo, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting efforts; VP of product Jay Sullivan will take over as head of product  —  Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal announced a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting efforts on Thursday …
Tim Copeland / The Block:
Terraform Labs resumes Terra block production, with staking disabled, after halting the blockchain “to prevent governance attacks” following LUNA's collapse  —  Quick Take  — Terraform Labs has said the Terra blockchain has been halted.  — This is due to concerns …
Financial Times:
Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino declines to reveal details about the company's $40B US government bond holdings, for fear of revealing its “secret sauce”  —  Token's tech chief declines to provide details on Treasury holdings on fear of revealing ‘secret sauce’
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:
Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg:
Coinbase's market cap falls to $12.98B from a $75B+ peak in 2021 as its stock closes at $58.50, far below its first day closing price of $328.28 in April 2021  —  Coinbase Global Inc. has declined precipitously this year, largely mimicking the drop in Bitcoin prices and taking its market value …
Veronica Irwin / Protocol:
Masayoshi Son says SoftBank plans to cut its startup investments by 50%-75% through March 2023, after Vision Fund reported a $20B+ loss for its fiscal year  —  Japanese conglomerate SoftBank is severely cutting its planned startup investments through next March, Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said in a Thursday earnings call.
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Ex-Facebook crypto chief David Marcus launches Lightspark, a payments startup building on Bitcoin's Lightning network, backed by a16z, Paradigm, and others  —  After his departure from Facebook in November, many crypto industry insiders speculated where long-time executive David Marcus would land.
Washington Post:
Interviews with 17 Hollywood insiders reveal that celebrities view Twitter as a high-risk, low-reward platform, and why Musk's ownership might make it worse  —  Elon Musk was right that Twitter's most popular accounts have gone quieter over the years.  Hollywood insiders explain what happened …
Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
SEC filing: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried bought a 7.6% stake, worth $648M, in Robinhood, calling it “an attractive investment”; stock jumps 20%+ after hours  —  Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has taken a 7.6% stake in Robinhood, according to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mahira Dayal / The Information:
PitchBook: 16 new VC funds with 60%+ female decision makers have raised $4.5B from January to April 2022; women-led funds raised $3.7B in 2021 and $1.8B in 2020  —  For years, women-led venture capital funds were the true Silicon Valley unicorns, a rarity in a sector where the vast majority of check writers are men.
Riana Pfefferkorn / Stanford CIS Blog:
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the enforcement of US laws should be seen as a strong argument for strengthening encryption, not weakening it  —  With the Supreme Court poised to rip away a constitutional right that's been the law of the land for nearly half a century by overturning Roe v. Wade …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
MicroStrategy's massive bitcoin bet has become a $330M paper loss as bitcoin trades around $28K; MicroStrategy holds 129,218 BTC, bought for $30,700 on average  —  Quick Take  — Bitcoin's price fall has led to unrealized losses for MicroStrategy.  — The Nasdaq-listed company …
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times:

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.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Zoho Mail Admin Console: A complete overview  —  You just got added as an admin for your company's Zoho Mail account.  Someone from IT sends you a link, you log in, and there it is, a full console with everything …
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

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Tony Xu from DoorDash
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Invest Like the Best:
Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Anthropic's first technical PM on token maxing, the jagged edge, and living in the future | Dianne Penn
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 5:05 AM ET, May 13, 2022.

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

Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:

Earlier Picks

Scott Stein / CNET:
Thomas Stackpole / HBR.org:
Reuters: