Bill Gurley reunites with Zillow’s Spencer Rascoff to talk ‘insane curiosity’ and finding good leadersBill Gurley, the Benchmark venture capitalist who served for 10 years on the board of directors at Zillow Group, reunited with Spencer Rascoff for the latest episode of the CEO’s podcast “Office Hours.” Gurley, one of the top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, left Zillow in 2015. He was an early investor in such companies as Uber, Snapchat, Instagram, Dropbox and Twitter and currently serves on the boards of Stitch Fix, OpenTable and Next-door. [ Geek Wire ] A walk around Station F with Emmanuel MacronOn Thursday evening, the world’s biggest startup campus officially opened. Around 3,000 people are going to work in this huge building. TechCrunch walked around the building with the President of France Emmanuel Macron and other officials. Invisible unicorns: 35 big companies that started with little or no moneyVenture capital is a hell of a drug, and it’s possible to overdose on VC, but for most founders that is a champagne problem. More often the question investors hear is “how do I get a VC to back my startup?” These founders aren’t worried about how overcapitalization will make their IPO prospects trickier — they’re scrambling to get someone, anyone, to sign their first term sheet. There’s a widespread belief among founders that venture capital is a precursor to success. VC is a common denominator of the most successful tech startups, but it isn’t a prerequisite, especially at the early stages. [ Tech Crunch ] The Silicon Valley blacklistWhat a year (life?) it’s been for white women, people of color and nonbinary people in tech. First, engineer Susan Fowler came forward about her time at Uber, where she says the company ignored her numerous reports of sexual harassment. Then, three female founders, Niniane Wang, Susan Ho and Leiti Hsu, came forward about their experiences of sexual harassment and unwanted advances with Justin Caldbeck, co-founder of Binary Capital. And just on Friday, the New York Times broke the internet with allegations that 500 Startups founder Dave McClure and VC Chris Sacca had also engaged in some sexual misconduct. [ Tech Crunch ] On Preserving Human Memory: Evernote Founder’s Impossible MissionStepan Pachikov, the founder of Evernote, is a Silicon Valley pioneer whose innovations include the first handwriting input for handheld computers and significant early work in 3D technology and virtual reality. Though his contributions to the advancement of technology affect the lives of millions of people everyday, the man himself has remained somewhat of an enigma. Through many hours of conversations over the span of several months, we sought to discover the human story that drives Stepan and his work. [ Medium ] LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman explains why Silicon Valley is still the center of techFor years, cities around the world have tried to dethrone Silicon Valley as the best place to be a tech entrepreneur. But LinkedIn founder and Greylock Partners venture capitalist Reid Hoffman says the key to the Valley’s staying power often goes overlooked. “When you listen to people talk about what the ‘secret of Silicon Valley’ is, they always give you the startup story,” Hoffman said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. “‘Technologists, inventors, tech companies, tech universities, put ‘em in a soup, lightning strikes, network emerges.’ Actually, that exists in many places in the world now.” [ Recode ] Tech veterans set up $100M fund to turn India’s top startups into unicornsTwo Indian technology veterans have set up a new fund that they hope will help the county churn out world-class, billion dollar startups. Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder and the former CEO of $33 billion IT services giant Infosys, and Sanjeev Aggarwal, VC with Helion Ventures who founded now IBM-owned BPO firm Daksh, have come together to launch the Fundamentum Partnership. Initially a $100 million fund — half of which is committed already — the duo told TechCrunch that they aim to help cover the funding gap for India’s most promising tech firms. [ Tech Crunch ] An Open Letter to Chris Sacca, Dave McClure, Travis Kalanick, and All of Silicon ValleyThis is an open letter, after two weeks of reading about sexual harassment scandals. Dear Silicon Valley We know you're very sorry about creating a culture that for decades has demeaned and excluded both women and people of color. Thanks so much for your multiple apologies. The question is, are you satisfied with your own apologies, or do you want to change things? If you do, I have a few suggestions. It certainly has been a fascinating couple of weeks. It began with Travis Kalanick's departure as Uber CEO, in the wake of a blog post detailing the company's routine practice of protecting and concealing sexual harassment. [ Inc. ] These cities in California’s East Bay are raking in venture capitalMost Americans have never heard of Emeryville, California. Those who have probably know it as a place where they got stuck on a traffic-clogged stretch of highway overlooking a giant IKEA. Yet Emeryville, a largely concrete-surfaced city covering all of two square miles, has a lot more entrepreneurial clout than meets the eye. Companies in this San Francisco Bay Area city of around 10,000 have raised more than half a billion dollars in venture funding over the past three years. That total handily beats much larger metropolises, including Dallas, Portland and even neighboring Oakland. Dropbox Is Getting Ready for the Biggest Tech IPO Since SnapchatData-sharing business Dropbox Inc is seeking to hire underwriters for an initial public offering that could come later this year, which would make it the biggest U.S. technology company to go public since Snap Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The IPO will be a key test of Dropbox 's worth after it was valued at almost $10 billion in a private fundraising round in 2014. Dropbox will begin interviewing investment banks in the coming weeks, the sources said, asking not to be named because the deliberations are private. [ Fortune ] ‘Netflix of Transportation’ is a trillion-dollar market by 2030 – and this Toyota-backed Finnish startup is in pole position to seize it |