As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check In the last five years, dozens of schools have popped up offering an unusual promise: Even humanities graduates can learn how to code in a few months and join the high-paying digital economy. Students and their hopeful parents shelled out as much as $26,000 seeking to jump-start a career. But the coding boot-camp field now faces a sobering moment, as two large schools have announced plans to shut down this year — despite backing by major for-profit education companies, Kaplan and the Apollo Education Group, the parent of the University of Phoenix. [ NY Times ]
‘Athleisure’ brand Outdoor Voices closes $9 million in funding Outdoor Voices, the ‘athleisure’ brand that wants to take on Lululemon, has closed a $9 million round of funding. The round was led by Mickey Drexler, with participation from a few strategic partners including Walter Robb (former co-CEO of Whole Foods) and OV’s lead manufacturer. As part of the deal, Drexler will take over as Executive Chairman of the Board. [ Tech Crunch ] Uber's divided board will meet today to try to pick a CEO — and there may be a 3rd candidate in the running
Uber is at war with itself as two factions within its board try to select a new CEO to replace Travis Kalanick, the ride-hailing service's cofounder and board member. The group's members, divided between Kalanick supporters and those who want him gone, will meet on Friday to attempt to agree on a new leader for the company. [ Business Insider ]
BILL GATES AND RICHARD BRANSON ARE INVESTING IN A MYSTERIOUS NEW KIND OF MEATJust as Whole Foods shareholders and the Federal Trade Commission gave the green light to Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, news broke that a number of high-profile investors—including billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson—have decided to pour their money into a very different sort of food venture: Memphis Meats, a San Francisco-based company that is developing meat from stem cells. The start-up is part of a growing “clean meat” movement intended to produce a variety of sustainable, lab-grown meat products using animal cells, without having to actually feed or slaughter any animals in the process. [ Vanity Fair ] Startup Entrepreneurs Should Adopt This Number One Rule for SuccessWith plenty of disagreement about which priorities startups should set, this is one rule that all startup entrepreneurs should accept. [ Inc. ] INSIDE VALERIE PLAME’S QUIXOTIC MISSION TO BUY TWITTER—AND SHUT DOWN TRUMP Nearly 15 years after former C.I.A. operative Valerie Plamehad her covert status leaked to the press by members of the George W. Bush administration, the outed spy has a new national security mission: saving the world from Donald Trump. She has been keeping busy in the years since she retired from the C.I.A. and moved, with her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, from Washington to Sante Fe, writing spy thrillers and raising teenage twins. She turned one of her books, a memoir about the 2003 scandal that bears her name, into a movie starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. But it is her obsession with nuclear weapons that has inspired her most recent, and most quixotic, bout of activism. [ Vanity Fair ] Elon Musk’s Neuralink Gets $27 Million to Build Brain ComputersNeuralink Corp., the startup co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has taken steps to sell as much as $100 million in stock to fund the development of technology that connects human brains with computers. The San Francisco-based company has already gotten $27 million in funding, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk said via Twitter on Friday that Neuralink isn’t seeking outside investors. A spokesman didn’t respond to questions about the source of the funds. [ Bloomberg ] Mortgage technology provider Blend raised another $100 million led by GreylockSan Francisco-based Blend is simplifying the process of mortgage applications for both borrowers and lenders, but is looking to expand into other lending products. To do that the company has raised $100 million in new funding led by Greylock, with participation from a bunch of existing investors. Founded in 2012 by a group of Palantir veterans, Blend builds technology used by multiple big banks to help collect and evaluate information in their mortgage underwriting processes. [ TechCrunch ] Grab is investing $100M to shut Uber out of fast-growing MyanmarGrab is going all out to win the nascent ride-hailing market in Myanmar after it committed to investing $100 million into the Southeast Asian country over the next three years. Myanmar might just be the world’s most fascinating internet market. Internet access had been heavily restricted when the country was fully controlled by the military, but it opened up following the free elections in 2015. [ Tech Crunch ] In Silicon Valley, the right sounds a surprising battle cry: Regulate tech giantsA year ago, Andrew Torba would have balked at the idea of regulating the Internet. He is a conservative, and like many other technologists here, he adheres to the long-standing Silicon Valley belief in a free and open Web, unhindered by government interference. But things changed in wake of violence in Charlottesville, when one technology company after another shut down or cut off service to right-wing accounts and sites. [ Washingtonpost ] China's Ping An Turns To Venture Capital for Technology Edge TE755: News Roundtable! Ari Levy & Dave Mathews: Trump, Cloudflare, amazon, IPO lows, Uber, Bitcoin |