Japan's SoftBank Says $93 Billion Pledged to Technology Fund
SoftBank Group Corp. secured the first capital commitment to a $100 billion fund with Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi that would eventually put its founder Masayoshi Son in charge of one of technology’s biggest investment vehicles. The Japanese telecom conglomerate is investing $28 billion and has agreements with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. and Apple Inc. With more than $93 billion committed, the fund -- which includes Qualcomm Inc., Foxconn Technology Group and Sharp Corp. -- aims to reach $100 billion within six months, SoftBank said in a statement Saturday. Mubadala committed $15 billion, according to a separate statement. [ Bloomberg ] Option B and Sheryl Sandberg’s Impossible PositionWhen Sheryl Sandberg’s husband Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly two years ago, something strange happened. Amid widespread sympathy, some of her detractors sank their teeth into the news with unnerving zest. Author Christine Carter told SFGate, “We don’t know how many nannies she has. We don’t know if she has a cook. We just know she did half and Dave did half. She’s going to have to revise that formula, and I’m just really hopeful that she’ll be more transparent by how she’s doing it.” Blogger Penelope Trunk was even less circumspect, speculating (without basis, before the autopsy results came back) that Goldberg might have killed himself. [ NY Mag ] E733: News Roundtable! Molly Wood & Ben Parr: net neutrality, Google AR, UberFreight, TrumpVenture capitalist George Zachary thought he had cancer, and from that point he was all biotechSilicon Valley investor George Zachary has a knack for betting early on Internet successes, with Twitter and Microsoft-owned Yammer among his lucrative wins. But you won't hear the venture capitalist touting those businesses anymore. Not since a doctor gave him the scare of his life. Two years ago, a sudden bout of intense abdominal pains sent Zachary, now 51, to the emergency room at Stanford University Medical Center for some tests and an X-Ray. [ CNBC ] Ev Williams says Twitter's role in Trump's rise is ‘a very bad thing’“If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry,” Twitter co-founder Ev Williams tells the New York Times in a profile today. The he, of course, being Donald Trump, who used Twitter flamboyantly to stoke his base of campaign supporters, and continues to tweet flamboyantly as U.S. president, frequently waging attacks on the “fake news” media, including the “failing” New York Times. [ Re/Code ] Last wednesday morning, I went to Techonomy NYC and talked with my friend David Kirkpatrick for about 30mins. There is one gross misrepresentation in the talk. David and I were talking about my efforts to ignore Trump and I said that the Gotham Gal spends “two to three hours a day on that stuff” which is not anywhere close to accurate. She reads the NY Times religiously in paper form every day and does pay a lot more attention to Trump than I do, but it’s not anywhere near two to three hours. I apologize to her for suggesting such nonsense. [ AVC ] Uber Starts Charging What It Thinks You’re Willing to PayUber drivers have been complaining that the gap between the fare a rider pays and what the driver receives is getting wider. After months of unsatisfying answers, Uber Technologies Inc. is providing an explanation: It’s charging some passengers more because it needs the extra cash. The company detailed for the first time in an interview with Bloomberg a new pricing system that’s been in testing for months in certain cities. On Friday, Uber acknowledged to drivers the discrepancy between their compensation and what riders pay. [ Bloomberg ] Away nears 100K stylish suitcases sold as it raises $20MWhat do people actually want in luggage? A phone charger, unbreakable exterior, and maximum packing space at a resonable price is what Away discovered. So it built a line of sleek but expansive polycarbonite suitcases equipped with battery packs, and sold them direct-to-consumer. [ Tech Crunch ] The big six tech companies grew by $18 billion in total revenue and $4.5 billion in profit last quarterSaudi Arabia Greets Trump With Billions of Dollars of Deals'Young and promising' vs. 'young and inexperienced': 125 VC meetings reveal something disturbing about how financiers describe entrepreneursThe trio of researchers behind a recent paper on gender bias in the venture-capitalist community didn't set out to study gender bias specifically. As they explain in a Harvard Business Review article, their initial goal was to study financial decision-making among governmental VCs in Sweden, and to help the group improve their processes. [ Business Insider ] MM.LaFleur wants to bring well-tailored professional clothing to plus-size womenIt seems like the fashion industry is finally realizing that 67% of American women are plus-size. For women sizes 14 and up, finding any attractive clothing can be a challenge, but when it comes to more complex garments, like swimwear, jeans, or workwear, it can be close to impossible. The Uncomfortable Reality Behind Uber’s Culture MeltdownA Boom with a View is a column about startups and the technology industry, written by Erin Griffith. Find them all here: fortune.com/boom. When a company as successful as Uber stumbles as dramatically as the startup did this year, the blame game begins. Uber’s leaders should have earlier addressed allegations of sexism and workplace harassment. Investors should have pressured management to fire HR policy violators. Certainly the board of directors should be held accountable for something. [ Fortune] Investor Wei-Chun Tai Seeks Authentic Stories from Founders at Mosley VenturesWei-Chun Tai speaks candidly about her entrepreneurial failures, especially during her time at her special occasion fashion startup. After some early success, including two of her dresses being worn on the Emmy’s red carpet, the now-investor is upfront about the fact that she scaled her business too quickly during the client transition from high-end boutiques to large department stores. [ Hypepotamus ] The Startup That Went Down Under: The Rise And Fall Of 1-PageIn November 2015, Joanna Riley stood in front of an audience at a Dublin technology event exuding confidence. Dressed in a vanilla tuxedo jacket and clutching a black remote to toggle between presentation slides, she paced back and forth on stage while delivering a speech about ignoring rejection, a skill she employed many times during the course of starting her company. |