RIP Juicero, the $400 venture-backed juice machine It sounds like America’s favorite $400 juice machine will be no longer. “After selling over a million Produce Packs, we must let you know that we are suspending the sale of the Juicero Press and Produce Packs immediately,” reads the company blog post. Juicero will also be giving people money back. “For the next 90 days,
we are offering refunds for your purchase of the Juicero Press.” Supermodel Karlie Kloss runs a coding program for young women — take a look inside their brand-new office 25-year-old supermodel Karlie Kloss began learning how to code in 2014. Since then, one of her main missions has been to help educate young women who are interested in the world of technology. In 2016, she started the charity organization Kode With Klossy, a coding camp and career scholarship program that works with partners like the Flatiron School to facilitate learning programs and create a community for young women in tech. Last month, Kode With Klossy opened its first office in New York City with the help of Homepolish designer Tina Rich, who decked it out with furniture from Lulu & Georgia. Kloss told Architectural Digest of the new space: "Since I'll be hosting my team, business partners, friends, and family in the office, it was important for the space to feel comfortable and chic, and flow from room to room." [ Business Insider ] SoFi responds to sexual harassment and wage lawsuitsLast month, Social Finance, or SoFi, a startup centered around the refinancing of student loans, was sued by an employee. The senior operations manager who filed the lawsuits, Brandon Charles, says he was wrongfully terminated for reporting sexual harassment of female colleagues by their managers, as well as for outing several managers who he claims improperly recorded loans in order to goose their bonus pay. Days later, a group of five former SoFi employees filed a separate lawsuit, alleging that they weren’t given breaks or paid in accordance with California law. [ Tech Crunch ] E759: Tezos Kathleen Breitman raises $232m top ICO for new self-governing smart contract blockchainEquity podcast: The Uber saga, delayed IPOs and just what is an ICO?Hello and welcome back to Equity, a social experiment regarding how many acronyms an audience can endure before passing out. Each week we dive into the world of venture capital, looking to understand exactly what’s going on behind the money. This week Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley, and myself — Alex! — were joined by Samuel Angus, a partner on the corporate team of Fenwick and West, where he represents a number of venture-backed firms including Airbnb and Github. But before we could bring Angus on, we had Uber to get through. The ridesharing company wouldn’t leave us alone this week, as per usual, dropping a sheaf of news items since the last time we came together. [ Tech Crunch ] In Silicon Valley, Working 9 to 5 Is for Losers Silicon Valley prides itself on “thinking different.” So maybe it makes sense that just as a lot of industries have begun paying more attention to work-life balance, Silicon Valley is taking the opposite approach — and branding workaholism as a desirable lifestyle choice. An entire cottage industry has sprung up there, selling an internet-centric prosperity gospel that says that there is no higher calling than to start your own company, and that to succeed you must be willing to give up everything. [ NY Times ] Stanford and Berkeley top new startup ranking, showing split between Seattle and Bay Area techBay Area universities top Pitchbook’s new annual report on the schools producing the most venture capital-backed entrepreneurs. Seattle’s University of Washington, which has topped other rankings, is number 23 on this one, reflecting a key difference between the two tech hubs. [ Geekwire ] Silicon Valley on edge as lawmakers target online sex traffickingAfter a sustained assault from lawmakers, investigators and victims groups, the website Backpage.com agreed early this year to shut down its lucrative adult page, which had become a well-known sex-trafficking hub. It wasn’t long before the company was back in the headlines. The adult section was gone, but the sex traffic was not. In May, authorities in Stockton charged 23 people with involvement in a trafficking ring that was using another corner of Backpage to market sex with girls as young as 14. A Chicago teenager allegedly trafficked on Backpage had her throat slit in June. [ LA Times ] Two ex-Googlers are using AI to guarantee interviews for tech job seekersYou might be forgiven for thinking you’re reading last year’s news. Every year PitchBook, which tracks data on venture capital deals, publishes a ranking of where new tech entrepreneurs got their undergraduate degrees, based on who got backing from venture capital firms. The latest ranking shows those schools didn’t change at all from last year, at least among the top 10. For the full list of the top 50, “just one new university made it into the rankings” compared to last year, the firm says. [ QZ ] Bloomberg U.S. Startups BarometerMeet The Russians Helping The Feds Hack Silicon ValleyWest Venture Partners to raise $100 mln venture fund |