Jeff Immelt has emerged as the front-runner to become Uber’s CEO Former General Electric chairman Jeff Immelt has become the front-runner candidate to become CEO of Uber, according to numerous sources with knowledge of the situation. While the tension on the board of the car-hailing company remains high — due of late to an ugly lawsuit that one of its major investors, Benchmark, is waging against its ousted co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick — sources said that a majority of the board is coalescing around the experienced Immelt. [ Recode ] Cryptocurrency’s Movers and Shakers Who are the most influential people in cryptocurrency? Which startups or platforms are poised to change the fast-growing marketplace over the next year? To help our readers get a lay of the land in this often-opaque sector, we have put together profiles of individuals who have emerged as prominent figures in the digital currency arena. While our list is by no means exhaustive, it offers a snapshot of leaders in the field who will be making headlines in the months ahead, from recent college graduates to Silicon Valley veterans. [ The Information ] The early Uber investor suing Travis Kalanick turned its $12 million investment into $7 billion stakeBenchmark Capital's early investment in Uber has grown exponentially since the ride-hailing company's unicorn days.Benchmark is suing Travis Kalanick, Uber's cofounder and ousted CEO, over claims that he committed fraud in 2016. Kalanick on Friday responded to the allegations and released a legal filing arguing why the suit should be dismissed or handled in private arbitration. Tucked into the latest legal filing is a new detail about the worth of Benchmark's early investment. The venture capital firm first backed Uber in 2011 when it led an $11 million Series A round. Benchmark subsequently added to that investment so that its total money in the company was $12 million. That $12 million is now worth more than $7 billion, according to the legal filing. Benchmark did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment. The World’s Biggest Tech Companies Are No Longer Just American The technology world’s $400 billion-and-up club — long a group of exclusively American names like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon — needs to make room for two Chinese members. The Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, Chinese companies that dominate their home market, have rocketed this year to become global investor darlings. They are now among the world’s most highly valued public companies, each of them twice as valuable as tech stalwarts such as Intel, Cisco and IBM. [ NY Times ] Here's who the 5 biggest startups in the US are buyingThe five most valuable startups in the US have achieved unicorn status many times over. They have also proven rather acquisitive along the way. Taken together, the elite group has completed nearly 50 M&A deals, according to the PitchBook Platform. As these companies mature ahead of—or, perhaps, even to set themselves up for—their hotly anticipated IPOs, their approaches to scaling their businesses have also matured to reflect a mix of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. [ PitchBook ] |