UNICORNS ARE RARE. THIS STUDY SUGGESTS THEY SHOULD BE EVEN RARERFOR STARTUPS, ACHIEVING unicorn status is a big deal. Companies valued at more than $1 billion look more formidable to competitors, customers, and recruits—and less like the fly-by-night startups they may actually be. Thus, for the past three years, startup founders have asked investors to grant them billion-dollar valuations, regardless of whether they’re worth that by any traditional business metric. [ Wired ] Where SoftBank has invested its $98 billion Vision FundIt seems like each week brings new investments for SoftBank’s mammoth Vision Fund. We’re keeping track. Led by Recode 100 honoree Masayoshi Son, the Japanese company has changed the landscape of venture capital, making it both a hero (to startups) and a villain (to other venture capitalists). Last year, SoftBank was involved in more than half of the top 10 biggest investments in VC-backed startups. [ Recode ] Bitcoin dives below $7,000 for the first time since November 15
The bitcoin bear market has extended into new territory. The cryptocurrency, which gripped the attention of the markets when it soared to almost $20,000 a coin, was trading below $7,000 on Monday for the first time since November 15, according to data from CoinMarketCap. [ Business Insider ] In “Brotopia,” sex parties are the least of Silicon Valley’s problemsTwo years ago, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang set out to write a book about gender discrimination in Silicon Valley. It wasn’t specifically prompted by that now-famous post of former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, wherein Fowler calmly recounted the many ways that Uber’s internal controls were either very messed up or nonexistent. But the national movement that Fowler unwittingly kicked off certainly gave more urgency to Chang’s work, and today, the product of that effort, Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, hits bookshelves.. [ Tech Crunch ] Lino is launching to be a crypto YouTube with $20 million from China’s most famous seed investorYouTube on the blockchain is one of the Holy Grails of the crypto community. The new generation of video artists and their audience seem tailor-made for a blockchain-based distribution and restitution system — one that depends on micro-payments and digitally secured provenance. It’d also be a system that could get creators out from under the yoke of YouTube, Snap, and Facebook revenue sharing agreements that see platforms profit while the professional content creators that provide grist for the social media mill are paid cents on the dollar. [ Tech Crunch ] Drivers don’t trust Uber. This is how it’s trying to win them backOn a busy evening in February 2017, while America watched the New England Patriots face off against the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl, Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick was having his own sort of showdown. It started off as a friendly UberBlack ride. Kalanick, who sat between two women in an SUV, shimmied to Maroon 5 as the driver, Fawzi Kamel, brought them to their destination. It ended, however, with Kalanick and Kamel in a heated debate over pay. Kamel claimed the company lowered the fares on its premium black car service. Kalanick denied it. “You know what,” Kalanick said to Kamel before he abruptly exited the car. “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else.” [ Re/Code ] The Investor Using Venture Capital and Machine Learning to Cure CancerAndreessen Horowitz’s Vijay Pande is betting that money plus computing power will equal medical breakthroughs. Vijay Pande, a lifelong coder who holds a couple of degrees in physics, doesn’t seem like he’d be the guy to thwart death. But Pande, a general partner at the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz since 2015, is providing money muscle to computer-powered medical startups including BioAge Labs, which uses genomics data to create anti-aging drugs, and Asimov, which is programming cells to fight disease. (Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz. One of Pande’s first investments, Freenome Inc., uses machine learning to help detect cancer in its earliest stages by reading signals sent by the immune system. If successful, the technique could lead to cheaper, less invasive treatments. “Andreessen Horowitz pioneered this,” says Freenome co-founder Gabriel Otte of the wave of investors funding biotech-machine-learning hybrids. “Freenome wouldn’t exist without that intersection.” A scientific polymath, Pande likes to tinker at the cutting edge, viewing progress with a dose of healthy cynicism. He was a finalist in the 1988 Westinghouse Science Talent Search for his computer simulation of the Strategic Defense Initiative antimissile system, nicknamed Star Wars. SDI Director Lieutenant General James Abrahamson invited Pande, then 17, to the Pentagon to discuss his theories on why the system’s lasers wouldn’t work. Over the years, Pande has taught computer science, biophysics, chemistry, and biology at Stanford, where he still runs a lab. In 2014 he started advising Andreessen Horowitz as “professor in residence.” Within a year, Pande went to work full time at the firm, having realized he could accomplish more as an investor, fostering multiple companies. [ Bloomberg ] The venture capital firm Lightspeed is trying to hold its portfolio companies accountable by asking them to sign a new diversity letterAfrica Roundup: Partech Ventures launches $70M fund, TPG Growth acquires TRACE, Rensource raises $3.5MFemale Founders Conference - SeattleAustralian VCs come together to support women-led startups with office hours on International Women’s DaySwish Goswami - The Future Of EntrepreneurshipAre Accelerators the Secret to Building Truly Great Startup Hubs?Ep. 07: Helen Ciesielski discusses her ascent into venture capital while starting her own businessBroadcom Raises Qualcomm Hostile Bid to About $121 BillionThe real problem with women in tech efforts is theSplitting The DealVC Shervin Pishevar, who resigned after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, has dropped a lawsuit alleging a smear campaign4 Things Women Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Approaching Angel Investors and VCs |