Since roughly 2012, billionaire Bill Gates has been participating in Reddit’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, which matches Reddit users with internet strangers who give them presents. He seems to relish the role. For example, in 2017, he was matched with a cat lover, sending off a giant load of feline-themed gifts, including a large…
Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is leaving the company’s board of directors, the ride-hailing company announced today. Kalanick will officially resign from the board as of December 31, to “focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors,” according to a press release issued by Uber. Kalanick, who was forced out as Uber CEO…
A year from now, this is likely to have all blown over. A year from now, the Samsung Galaxy Fold’s turbulent takeoff may well be a footnote in the largest story of foldables. For now, however, it’s an important caveat that will come up in every conversation about the nascent product category. How history remembers…
SpaceX is closing out the year with an achievement that should help it keep on track to fly astronauts on board one of its spacecraft next year. The Elon Musk-led space company finished its 10th successful parachute system test in a row yesterday, an important safety system milestone that should be a good indication that…
Tesla has reportedly secured over $1.4 billion in financing in the form of loans from multiple Chinese banks in order to help fund the construction of its new gigafactory in Shanghai. First Reuters and now Bloomberg reported the funding as confirmed on Monday morning, with an official announcement to happen sometime this week. The loan will…
Nik Milanovic Contributor Nik Milanovic is a fintech and financial inclusion enthusiast, with a decade of work across mobile payments, online lending, credit and microfinance. More posts by this contributor Libra’s critics are missing the forest for the trees What money should be So what happens when fintech ‘brings it all together’? In a world…
Update (8:34 AM EST): Boeing provided an updated current state of affairs, and we’ll be watching the NASA press conference at 9 AM EST to hopefully find out more. We’ll be providing updated information as it becomes available here. Update (7:47 AM EST): NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says that the agency and Boeing will host…
Every year, the tech industry experiences moments that serve as guideposts for future entrepreneurs and investors looking to profit from the wisdom of the past. In 2017, Susan Fowler published her heroic blog post criticizing Uber for its culture of sexual harassment, helping spark the #MeToo movement within the tech industry; 2018 was the year…
Coral is a company that wants to “simplify the personal care space through smart automation,” and they’ve raised $4.3 million to get it done. Their first goal? An at-home, fully automated machine for painting your nails. Stick a finger in, press down, wait a few seconds and you’ve got a fully painted and dried nail.…
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate was in SF, Alex was in Providence, and there was a mountain of news to shovel through. If you’re here because we mentioned linking to a certain story in the show notes, that’s here. For…
