Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has mastered a different part of the travel economy — but Uber is a new beastThe new proposed CEO of Uber has spent a decade mastering a different part of the travel economy. But Uber is a new beast. The selection of 48-year-old Dara Khosrowshahi to oversee the $70 billion company is an enormous challenge for an executive who has no background in transportation. Khosrowshahi has led Expedia, the travel-booking site, since 2005, to be “one of the largest online travel companies in the world,” according to the company. Expedia has ridden the explosion in online bookings that have displaced traditional travel agents working out of brick-and-mortar offices across America. [ Re/Code ] Y Combinator takes machine intelligence startups to school and learns a thing or twoMachine intelligence startups are the black sheep of the startup world. The new kids on the block are challenging investors to do their technical homework and differentiate themselves in intentional ways. Y Combinator joined a growing list of investors offering exclusive services to these companies in a specialized AI trackfor its latest S17 batch of startups. In the competitive world of investing, Y Combinator has to work to convince top startups to apply to the program. Today, many startups that fit the bill are working to solve challenging AI problems. And with the amount of money sloshing around for AI startups, the sense of urgency isn’t always there for prominent researchers who have their choice of financial partners. [ Tech Crunch ] Blue Apron and Snap’s ‘busted’ IPOs herald judgment day for unicornsA year that began with high hopes for a tech IPO revival has crashed into a wall of reality following sputtering public offerings from Snap and Blue Apron. The catastrophe that is Blue Apron was driven home in recent days thanks to multiple shareholder lawsuits claiming management misled investors. Less than two months after its initial public offering, Blue Apron’s stock has been hovering at around half of its IPO price. [ Venture Beat ] Silicon Valley’s new technocrats still excel in old-school sexismAfew months ago, a Google engineer named James Damore wrote an incendiary internal memo on a 12-hour flight to China. He had just attended a “diversity programme” run by his employer, which had clearly annoyed or disturbed him. “I heard things that I definitely disagreed with,” he later told an interviewer. He said there was a lot of shaming at the programme. “They said ‘No you can’t say that, that’s sexist… You can’t do this…’ There’s just so much hypocrisy in a lot of the things that they’re saying.” [ The Guardian ] How Meg Whitman Re-Emerged as Uber CEO Favorite Uber’s fractured board of directors was leaning in favor of installing Hewlett Packard Enterprise chief Meg Whitman as CEO on Sunday. Among the directors backing the 61-year old veteran tech executive was Arianna Huffington, who came around to supporting Ms. Whitman’s candidacy despite having been a close confidant to former CEO Travis Kalanick, who did not prefer Ms. Whitman, said two people familiar with the process. That change marked a tipping point in the process, these people said. Ms. Whitman is backed by Benchmark, an early Uber investor which has become one of Mr. Kalanick's biggest foes. Besides Ms. Whitman's extensive experience, Ms. Huffington and others believed a female CEO could bring about the kind of change Uber needed. Ms. Whitman, who previously ran three public companies, including online auction site eBay and legacy computer maker HP, is expected to try to impose order and adult supervision at a company that, under Mr. Kalanick, had been part autocracy, part Wild West libertarian “meritocracy,” albeit one that produced one of the fastest-growing consumer Internet products of the past decade. Mutual Funds’ Markdowns Hit Warby Parker’s Billion-Dollar StatusSeveral mutual funds have marked down their investment in eyeglass startup Warby Parker in the second quarter, including a nearly 17% price cut from John Hancock Investments, according to regulatory filings. New York-based Warby Parker sells glasses online and in stores. It started as an online-only brand, but it now operates more than 50 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Warby Parker’s valuation shot up to $1.2 billion in a... [ WSJ ] This Is How Sexism Works in Silicon Valley My lawsuit failed. Others won’t.In December 2010, Sheryl Sandberg gave a talk about women’s leadership in which she mentioned “sitting at the table.” Women, she said, have to pull up a chair and sit at the conference-room table rather than clinging to the edges of the room, “because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side.” These Millennial Entrepreneurs Are Disrupting The Coworking Space Industry The coworking industry has exploded in recent years. Offering offices, conference rooms, and work spaces for individuals, this trend has caused companies like WeWork to experience record growth. Just yesterday it won a $4.4 billion investment for additional expansion. While these spaces are incredibly useful in today’s workforce, they rarely are designed to meet the professional and social needs of members. Most coworking options are limited to desk space, WiFi, and maybe a coffee bar. And they are typically designed for the freelancer or small company that doesn’t want the ongoing burden of an expensive lease. [ Forbes ] California Bill Tweaks Sexual Harassment Law To Account For Venture CapitalFollowing numerous public revelations about bad behavior in the tech industry, a Golden State senator wants to ensure that founders and funders are in line with the law. Last week, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson introduced a bill to the California legislature that targets sexual harassment in venture capital, several instances of which have recently made wavesacross the state and country. The proposed SB 224, which was re-purposed from a previous bill, would seek to tackle the inappropriate, sexually harassing behavior that many women founders and entrepreneurs endure by adding a single word to the state's current law in this area: "investor." [ Forbes ] A female programmer who worked in tech in the 70s on encountering views like James Damore's“People imagine that programming is logical, a process like fixing a clock,” Ellen Ullman writes in her essay “Outside of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life.” “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Instead, writing code is “an illness, a fever, and obsession. It’s like riding a train and never being able to get off.” [ Business Insider ] [PODCAST] Startup meet Corporate – Episode 7: Life InsuranceMichael Wood, of Receipt Bank, on disrupting bookkeeping and what VCs look for before investingHow to read an Investment Termsheet: the Economic Terms — Further ReadingTrump Damaged Democracy, Silicon Valley Will Finish It Off |