Welcome back to The Electric!Investors and mining hands were broadsided last year by a large surplus of lithium, nickel and other battery metals and a plunge in their prices. This week, we look at a little-known reason for the unexpected hit lithium prices have taken—Chinese companies have massively overproduced iron-based cathodes.At a lithium evaporation pond in Golmud, China, a billboard promotes the production of battery metals and minerals. Photo: Qilai... Read more ›
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Hi, welcome to your Weekend.When a team of assassins killed the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a little over five years ago, Silicon Valley for a moment found its vertebrae. At the time, tech investors and founders were growing increasingly intoxicated by funding from Saudi sources. But those days seemed like they might be over after western intelligence services pointed the finger at the country’s... Read more ›
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Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha and ThirdLove CEO Heidi Zak were among the guests who packed a restaurant in San Francisco Friday night to celebrate The Information’s 10 year anniversary. Party goers traded in their hoodies for black ties and gowns at the gala, held at Foreign Cinema restaurant in the city’s Mission District. Guests listened to The Information’s founder and CEO Jessica Lessin stress the importance... Read more ›
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Earnings season is back! Netflix kicks off the tech sector’s round of December-quarter reports on Tuesday, followed the week after by Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Meta Platforms and others. This promises to be an unremarkable quarter, with big companies’ growth rates largely unchanged from the third quarter. That’s not as true for Netflix, which last fall projected its revenue would grow 10.7% year on year in the quarter. That would be... Read more ›
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Flexport is raising $260 million from e-commerce software giant Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders, according to two people with direct knowledge, giving the struggling logistics startup more breathing room after it burned through cash last year. Shopify will get notes that are convertible into Flexport equity in exchange for the money. The fundraising, which has not been previously reported, follows Shopify's sale of its money-losing logistics business to Flexport... Read more ›
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So you’ve decided to hop on an Emirates or Etihad flight to the Middle East for the first time to get sovereign wealth fund managers and family offices interested in your venture fund or startup. When do you go to maximize your networking? Where do you stay? And where do you talk business over a delicious kebab platter and a hookah? We canvassed investors in the Gulf region, along with... Read more ›
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Citigroup is in discussions with cash flow analytics startup Prism Data about incorporating the firm’s technology in its consumer credit underwriting, according to people close to the discussions between the two firms. A Citi deal with Prism would be a boost for the startup. Spun off from Peter Thiel–backed credit card fintech firm Petal last year, it has since raised money in a seed round from investors such as Obvious... Read more ›
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In our most recent subscriber survey, more than 40% of respondents said they are somewhat likely or extremely likely to consider buying the Apple Vision Pro, for which Apple is accepting pre-orders starting today. Among those most eagerly awaiting the Vision Pro are developers building apps for the mixed-reality device. Michael Markman, a senior product designer at virtual reality collaboration startup ShapesXR, is excited to build a version of the... Read more ›
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How do you know when a venture capitalist or founder is in Saudi Arabia looking to get a piece of the country’s piles of petro cash for their latest funds or startups? A telltale sign is the procession of Mercedes-Benz cars and SUVs weaving through the streets of Riyadh from the city’s Four Seasons Hotel to grand royal meeting rooms where local sovereign wealth fund managers are waiting. Zafer Younis... Read more ›
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When a year or so ago tech companies including Amazon, Meta Platforms and Google announced broad layoffs—in some cases for the first time in their history—tech workers were on edge.But as 2023 wore on, there was a little sense of relief. It started to feel like the post-pandemic themes of “rightsizing” and “removing layers of management” that defined the “year of efficiency” had passed. Read more ›
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Apple is testing a new button on prototypes of the iPhone 16 to help people quickly take videos and photos when they hold the device horizontally, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. Apple has envisioned the new camera button as a key selling point for the device, these people said. The iPhone 16 is due out in the fall. The development of the button comes as... Read more ›
15
More than four years ago, Jess Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media at the University of Alabama, pitched a course to teach students how to create content. Her department wasn’t interested. This spring semester, she started teaching a course about just that.“It was important for me to build and advocate for a class like this because there's such a myth that anybody can be a creator, anybody can be... Read more ›
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Aileen Lee, co-founder of seed venture capital firm Cowboy Ventures, famously coined the term “unicorn” to describe tech companies with billion-dollar valuations back in 2013. Now she’s using “ZIRPicorns” to describe the hundreds of startups that haven’t raised money since the zero-interest rate period and whose valuations are likely wildly off base. In a blog post celebrating the 10th birthday of her famous term, she writes that 40% of the... Read more ›
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As a pioneer in renting out cloud servers, Amazon Web Services has long generated far more revenue and profits than its rivals. But one rival, Google Cloud, has made up a lot of ground on AWS when it comes to a key measure of efficiency—revenue per employee. In the first three quarters of 2023, AWS generated around $580,000 per employee while Google Cloud generated around $460,000 per employee, according to... Read more ›
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Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset looks like it’s headed for a strong debut next month—at least among readers of The Information. More than 40% of respondents to our most recent survey said they are somewhat likely or very likely to consider buying the augmented reality and virtual reality device. The survey also found readers about as optimistic about the tech sector as at any point since we started polling them... Read more ›
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The time it takes for a new technology to replace (or try to replace) an incumbent has consistently gotten shorter over time (just take a look at how long it took Google Docs to overthrow Microsoft Word versus the flurry of 15-minute grocery delivery startups that popped up following the success of companies like Instacart). That’s why nobody should bat an eye if the current it girl in AI, transformers,... Read more ›
5
If you had invested $1,000 in MongoDB’s 2017 initial public offering, you’d be sitting on more than $16,800 today. That far outpaces the returns over the same period of each of the five most valuable pure-play software as a service firms—Adobe, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Shopify and Workday. It also beats the returns over that period of Microsoft and Apple, the world’s two most valuable companies. Three years before MongoDB’s IPO, Dev... Read more ›
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A third U.S. silicon anode maker says it will build a big battery materials plant at Moses Lake, Wash., which is fast becoming a major hub for the production of next-generation silicon anodes. California-based OneD Battery Sciences said Wednesday that by the middle of 2027 it will begin manufacturing enough silicon-based anodes at Moses Lake to equip 500,000 electric vehicles a year, substantially boosting their driving range and fast-charging capability. Read more ›
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday acknowledged the company’s recent wave of layoffs for the first time, warning staff in an email that cuts would continue throughout the year, according to a person with direct knowledge of the email. Google in the past week laid off more than 1,000 people across teams including hardware, ad sales and Google Assistant, mirroring recent job cuts at other major companies such as Amazon... Read more ›
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The year is still young, but so far it hasn’t been auspicious for Apple. A federal court today ruled against the iPhone maker on its latest appeal regarding a blood oxygen monitoring feature in the Apple Watch, almost certainly meaning Apple will disable the feature on the device while it pursues further appeals. Meanwhile, on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Apple’s appeal of a California ruling relating... Read more ›
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Most popular sources
Tech Wire Asia
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30% 24 |
Business Insider
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28% 1 |
CNET
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9% 4 |
Eurogamer.net
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5% 1 |
Android Authority
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4% 1 |
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28.11.2024 15:27
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