Chinese president Xi Jinping got a warm welcome from tech leaders Wednesday (Sept. 23) for his US tour. Some of the biggest names in tech—including Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—met with the president for a discussion held in Seattle, where Xi is having a series of high-level meetings.
Investors are growing impatient as Twitter’s CEO search drags on past 100 days. Jack Dorsey—the social network’s cofounder, chairman, former CEO, and current interim CEO—appears to be the top contender, but the board is hung up on the fact idea he won’t fully commit to Twitter.
Connecting everyone in the world to the internet requires more than just cables, lasers, and drones. Though infrastructure is important, it’s equally important to help the 4.2 billion people who are currently offline understand the web’s value—something that’s hard to do if there isn’t much in their native language.
There are a number of reason why white men dominate the technology industry, including the fact they tend to invest in or hire others that look like them. Paul Graham, the venture capitalist who founded tech accelerator Y Combinator, received his share of backlash in 2013 when he told the New York Times magazine about an investment that went sour: “I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg. There was a guy once who we funded who was terrible. I said: ‘How could he be bad? He looks like Zuckerberg!’”
This article has been corrected.
Here’s a bit of simple math: Facebook, the world’s largest social network, counts 1.49 billion users, or roughly 20% of the world’s population. Twitter, whose stock has been punished by Wall Street for disappointing growth, reported 316 million users in the second quarter. Given these numbers, one would reasonably deduce that Facebook’s user base is close to five times larger than Twitter’s.
In Pinterest’s five-year history, the virtual scrapbooking site has remained mum on its user numbers, only pointing the press to stats reported by third-party firms like comScore.
Amazon’s new Fire tablet is so cheap, it’s selling it as a six-pack.
Carly Fiorina made a big splash at the second Republican presidential debate, but she didn’t escape a lengthy fracas with GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who attacked her record as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Fiorina, in turn, struck back at Trump’s many debt-laden businesses.
Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, is taking over a historic launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, joining Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance joint venture, owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Blue Origin plans to invest $200 million at the site and eventually create 330 jobs.
You’re going to like this: The dislike button is coming to Facebook.
Porsche is looking to give Tesla a run for its money.
Gustavo Dudamel, the charismatic principal conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, inspires his supporters with the idea that music is a universal human right. But classical music isn’t so universally enjoyed. The philharmonic’s patrons tend to skew grayer; its average ticket buyer is 60 years old.
Within a day of each other, two founders of startups acquired by Facebook said they are departing the company.
Out of nowhere, a new mobile game called Happy Wheels has topped Apple’s App Store in multiple countries days after its release.
“This is to start you toward a successful life of being smart about money (something I never learned to which has plagued me). You don’t have to wait until you’re in your 60’s to wise up about investing and saving.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 1 billion people used the social network on the day of Aug. 24, setting a new milestone for the company.
One of the defining features of Instagram—aside from filters that can turn mediocre images into glamour shots—is its stolidly square photos. But almost five years after launching its app, the company announced today that it will support photos and videos shot in rectangular landscape and portrait orientations.
It has been an erratic week for the global markets, but should startups be concerned?
Virtual reality is still far from being a mainstream technology. But when Facebook bought VR headset-maker Oculus for $2 billion last year, it signaled to the world that virtual reality was no longer sci-fi, kicking off a frenzy of experimentation.
Startup founders are just like us. They may know how to negotiate term sheets and build unicorns, but when it comes to their own personal finances, billion-dollar valuations be damned—they’re just as lost as we are.
There’s a reason why Silicon Valley has a reputation for being the land of young, white, privileged brogrammers.
If you’re like most people, you probably missed out on your chance to buy Twitter’s stock at its IPO price. But shares have taken such a beating in the last month—falling 5.8% today (Aug. 20) alone—that they’re now available at $26, their offering price.
Android and iOS may dominate the global smartphone market, but there’s still room for other players.
