Author : zebethcontrol

ispace wants to stake its claim to the moon with November launch • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in ispace, lunar lander, Space, StartupsNo Comments

Tokyo-based startup ispace’s lunar ambitions will soon be put to the test, as the company gears up for its first launch at the end of this month. The startup will attempt to send its “Hakuto-R” lander to the moon’s surface, kicking off an ambitious lunar exploration program of the same name. Founded in 2010, ispace is one of many emerging companies that want to foster new markets on and around the moon; on its website, it describes its goal as becoming “a gateway for private sector companies to bring their business to the moon.” Being the middle- and last-mile delivery partner of the moon could prove to be lucrative, given the intensifying interest from both government space agencies and private companies in lunar exploration. But there’s more than far-off revenues at stake in this first launch; recent reporting suggested that ispace is preparing to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as early as this fiscal year. While the company was previously targeting a launch window of November 9-15, ispace said Monday it was now aiming to launch no earlier than November 22. The new date was chosen “in careful coordination” with launch partner SpaceX, the startup said in a statement. Ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada confirmed that the lander had arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida, via cargo plane in advance of launch. ispace’s lander being loaded onto the cargo plane. Image Credits: ispace “This mission will be a historic first not only for our company, but also for the development of the cislunar economy,” Hakamada said. If all goes to plan, the Hakuto-R will carry multiple payloads to the surface of the moon. Those include a 22-pound rover for the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, a lunar robot for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and several more payloads from commercial and government customers. After launch, the mission will be monitored from the company’s mission control center in Tokyo.

SpaceX set to launch two spacecraft tomorrow aboard Falcon Heavy rocket • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Last week was a hell of a week in startup news, and Henry wrote a particularly good summary of everything that went down, including Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase, Meta’s troubles, and a minute of silence for self-driving cars. — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Flying chonk goes wheeeeeee: While we were all distracted by Elon Musk’s other pet project, SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in three years. Aria has more. Swipe right for utter chaos: Glitch or not, Instagram has some ‘splaining to do. A number of users woke up this morning to suspended accounts. We adore Aisha’s headline, “Instagram is giving Twitter a run for its money as the most chaotic social network today.” We concur. Circle of friends: Egyptian fintech Money Fellows banked $31 million in new funding to, what Tage describes as, “digitizing money circles,” which is where people essentially save and borrow together as a group. Startups and VC Politician turned venture capitalist Bradley Tusk recently spoke at a ZebethMedia Live event on how startups should approach regulation, in a session called “How to launch a startup into a regulated market.” Dibbs CEO and co-founder Evan Vandenberg joined Tusk in the conversation. The event is embedded here and is both free and very worth watching. Invygo, a startup operating in UAE and Saudi Arabia, has raised $10 million in its Series A funding as it works to scale its car rental service in the region. The Middle East–based startup has raised $14.3 million to date, Ivan reports. And, as ever, there’s a handful of additional stories. Just 4 this time — there were 5, but then a PR person decided to move the embargo for a story that was already published, and Haje got all salty and grumpy about it. 6 reasons why you shouldn’t join an accelerator Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images As director of Techstars’ startup pipeline, Saba Karim devotes much of his time touting the many ways entrepreneurs can benefit by joining an accelerator. But is it the right choice for every founder? “Keep in mind that funding will solve your money problems, but it won’t solve everything else,” he says. “You’ll still need to figure out how to acquire customers, find the best talent, build an incredible product, assemble a great advisory board and get to product-market fit.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. Darrell writing that Mark Zuckerberg should drop all that metaverse nonsense and “make a new Twitter” makes us want to respond with “bite your tongue!” But really, as he puts it, “Cloning the features of its rivals” is something Meta is good at, plus it has the best chance at also replicating user base and monetary worth. It’s unlikely Zuck will take the bait, but never say never. It’s indeed a Twitter world, and we just live in it. First, Devin writes that Elon Musk just dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, making him now the sole owner; then Ron followed up with what Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor can do now that he isn’t on the board. Sarah reports on Twitter Blue’s troubles, namely that the subscription service is feeling blue that it is not bringing in more green. Meanwhile, Amanda writes about what happens if Twitter starts charging for that little blue checkmark, and Natasha L reports that Musk might be trying to bring back Vine. Over the weekend, Rebecca wrote about layoffs at the company. Don’t worry, there was plenty of other news: Mind cleanse: To get all that Twitter out of your mind, try your hand at Google’s new doodle game. Have you ever watched your child play Snake.io and wondered, “Will I like that?” Well, Google got into the Halloween spirit with today’s doodle, where you get to be a ghost and collect spirit flames while playing with friends or random people, Aisha writes. The heat is on: Amazon to delist top seller Appario on India marketplace after some retailers allege that sellers got preferential treatment, Manish reports. We’ve got a ticket to ride: WhatsApp users in Bengaluru can now buy train tickets via QR code, Jagmeet reports. Bed, Bath & Breach: Bed, Bath & Beyond confirms a data breach that happened when a hacker gained access to an employee’s hard drive, Carly writes. Query that data: Ron reports on Pinecone’s new vector database that can handle hybrid keyword-semantic searches.

Manufacturing firm Bright Machines raises $132M after unfulfilled SPAC deal • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Bright Machines, Eclipse Ventures, HardwareNo Comments

In May of last year, Bright Machines announced plans to embrace the SPAC craze with a merger deal that valued the Bay Area-based manufacturing firm at $1.6 billion. As the temperatures for the phenomenon cooled, however, so too did its plans. The plug was pulled last December, a little over a month before it was planned to go through. Even without the SPAC slowdown, it hasn’t exactly been the ideal economy for such a large deal. Today, the company announced that it’s returned to the more tried and true method of fundraising with a combined $132 million raise — that’s $100 million in equity funding (led by founder Lior Susan’s own Eclipse Ventures) and $32 million in debt (co-led by Silicon Valley Bank and Hercules Capital). All told, the latest round brings the firm up to $330 million since its 2018 founding, when it arrived with a $179 million Series A. The funding comes as the U.S. has taken an aggressive approach toward reinvigorating domestic manufacturing, in part due to economic incentive bills like the CHIPS act. Firms like Intel have been investing billions to help diversify geographic semiconductor production. Bright Machines’ own vision is built around the concept of “micro factories” — software-driven production lines that rely on robotics and automation. The company says it has deployed some 100 such micro factories across 13 countries since its founding. The latest funding will go toward accelerating its roadmap.

Third Nature targets $35M fund • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Climate, climate fund, decarbonization, ocean tech, Third Nature, VentureNo Comments

With a glitzy vision of tackling some of “the biggest planetary challenges,” Third Nature is out to raise $35 million for its first VC fund, ZebethMedia has learned. Third Nature has secured at least $2.8 million so far, per a regulatory filing. It joins a wave of relatively new, environmentally-focused funds that are driving the current climate-tech boom. While introducing Third Nature earlier this year, founder Jason Ingle argued that “simply decarbonizing our economy won’t restore planetary health.” In a blog, he laid out his take on something broader, which he called “earth systems investing” in an apparent nod to earth system science. Ingle did not respond to a request for comment on his plans, however the firm’s website indicates it will back businesses that focus on the climate crisis and other interrelated threats to life as we know it, such as ocean acidification and biodiversity loss. Third Nature participated in AlgiKnit’s $13 million series A earlier this year, alongside fast-fashion giant H&M and Collaborative Fund. AlgiKnit makes yarn with giant kelp; the startup aims to help shrink the textile industry’s carbon footprint. Third Nature may have an especially broad raison d’etre, but its scope overlaps with plenty of other climate-minded investors, including Boston’s Propeller and Paris-based Satgana. But unlike Propeller, which is working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and climate scientist Dr. Julie Pullen, Third Nature hasn’t announced any noteworthy partnerships or advisors to date. Before Third Nature, Ingle co-founded Closed Loop Capital, which backed firms like Beyond Meat and farm software developer Conservis. Ingle is based in Philadelphia, according to LinkedIn.

Arnica raises $7M to improve software supply chain security • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Arnica, Enterprise, First Rays Venture Partners, funding, Security, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Everybody wants to talk about software supply chain risks these days, whether that’s security teams, developers or government officials. It’s no surprise then, that VCs, despite the current economic climate, continue to fund startups in this space, too. One of the newest members in this club is Arnica, a startup that takes a somewhat broader view of supply chain security than most of its competitors and helps companies. The company today announced that it has raised a $7 million seed round. The round was led by Joule Ventures and First Rays Venture Partners. A number of angel investors, including Avi Shua (co-founder & CEO of Orca Security), Dror Davidoff (co-founder & CEO of Aqua Security) and Baruch Sadogursky (head of Developer Relations at JFrog), also participated in this round. Arnica founding team. Image Credits: Arnica “As a former buyer of application security products, I tested more than a dozen solutions for securing my previous company’s software supply chain but reached a dead end. Most products were expensive visibility dashboards driven by varying definitions of “best practices,” said Arnica CEO and co-founder Nir Valtman. “We decided to provide this visibility for free, for unlimited users, forever. We went further though and developed a comprehensive solution to not only identify risks based on historical and anomalous behavior but also to mitigate them. We do this by using automated workflows with single-click mitigations that empower developers to own security from within the tools they already use.” The team argues that supply chain attacks succeed because of inefficient developer access management or the inability to detect anomalous identity or code behavior. So that’s where Arnica comes in. Its behavior-based approach combines access management and a service that can detect anomalous developer behavior that could be the result of a breach. “Each of our machine learning algorithms have thousands of features that identify whether it was actually the developer who wrote the pushed code,” explained Valtman. “When an anomaly is detected, it kicks off an immediate workflow to validate it with the developer in a simple and secure way. It is not only good for the company, but also good for developers.” There’s also secret detection to avoid leaking those, a service that continuously monitors security and compliance and tools for identifying the open source libraries used across an organization, which can also compile a full software bill of materials (SBOM). The company plans to use the new funding to accelerate its go-to-market and R&D efforts, with a focus on expanding its automated workflows and mitigation capabilities. “In a market full of security solutions adding only incremental value, Arnica’s instant resolution-oriented approach is a game changer for enterprise dev teams,” said Brian Rosenzweig, partner at Joule Ventures. “Arnica goes beyond just flagging security problems — every issue that is identified can be immediately addressed with a provided one-click fix. This allows businesses to quickly protect their software supply chain from attacks, while behavior-based detection ensures it remains secure in the long term. Arnica’s pragmatic approach and advanced technology enable companies to avoid costly breaches without compromising on agility.”

Elon Musk tells Europe that Twitter will comply with bloc’s illegal speech rules • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Digital Services Act, Elon Musk, Government & Policy, online regulation, Social, thierry-breton, TwitterNo Comments

Surprise! Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter is already shaping up to be confusing and contradictory. Whether this dynamic ends up being more self-defeating for him and his new company than harmful for the rest of humanity and human civilization remains tbc. On the one hand, a fresh report today suggests Musk is preparing major staff cuts: 25%, per the Washington Post. (He denied an earlier report by the same newspaper, last week — suggesting he’d told investors he planned to slash costs by liquidating a full 75% of staff — so how radical a haircut he’s planning is still unclear, even as reports of fired staffers are trickling onto Twitter.) But, also today, Reuters reported that Twitter’s new CEO — the self-styled “Chief Twit” — reached out to the European Union last week to assure local lawmakers that the platform will comply with an incoming flagship reboot of the bloc’s rules on digital governance around illegal content. A move that will, self-evidently, demand a beefed up legal, trust and safety function inside Twitter if Musk is to actually deliver compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) — at a time when Musk is sharpening the knives to cut headcount. DSA compliance for a platform like Twitter will likely require a whole team in and of itself. A team that should be starting work ASAP. The comprehensive EU framework for regulating “information society services” and “intermediary services” across the bloc spans 93 articles and 156 recitals — and is due to start applying as soon as next year for larger platforms. (It’s February 17, 2024, for all the rest.) Penalties for violations of the incoming regime can scale up to 6% of global annual turnover — which, on Twitter’s full year revenue for 2021, implies potential fines of up to a few hundred million dollars apiece. So there should be incentive to comply to avoid such costly regulatory risk. (Er, unless Musk’s strategy for “saving” Twitter involves dismantling the business entirely and running its revenue into the ground.) Yet — in another early step — one of Musk’s first moves as owner of the social media platform was to fire a number of senior execs, including Vijaya Gadde, its former head of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety. Musk had been critical of her role in a decision by Twitter, back in October 2020, to — initially — limit the distribution of a controversial New York Post article reporting on emails and other data supposedly originating on a laptop belonging to U.S. president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The action led to accusations that Twitter was censoring journalism and demonstrating a pro-Democrat bias, even though the company subsequently rowed back on the restrictions and revised its policies. Targeted harassment Musk waded into the saga earlier this year with a tweet that branded the Post’s story “truthful” and dubbed Twitter’s actions “incredibly inappropriate.” He also doubled down shortly afterward by retweeting a meme targeting Gadde by name — which led to a vicious pile-on by his followers that prompted former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, to tweet at Musk publicly to ask why he was encouraging targeted harassment of the Twitter exec. Put another way, a former Twitter CEO felt forced to call out the (now current) CEO of Twitter for encouraging targeted harassment of a senior staffer — who also happens to be a woman and POC. To say that this bodes badly for Twitter’s compliance with EU rules that are intended to ensure platforms act responsibility toward users — and drive accountability around how they are operated — is an understatement. what’s going on? You’re making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats. — dick costolo (@dickc) April 27, 2022 While the EU’s DSA is most focused on governance rules for handling illegal content/goods and so on — that is, rather than tackling the grayer area of online disinformation, election interference, “legal but harmful” stuff (abuse, bullying, etc.), and such, areas where the EU has some other mechanisms/approaches in the works — larger platforms can be designated as a specific category (called VLOPs, or very large online platforms) and will then have a set of additional obligations they must comply with. These extra requirements for VLOPs include carrying out mandatory risk assessments in areas such as whether the application of their terms and conditions and content moderation policies have any negative effects on “civic discourse, electoral processes and public security,” for example; and a follow-on requirement to mitigate any risks — by putting in place “reasonable, proportionate and effective mitigation measures, tailored to the specific systemic risks identified” (including where risks are impacting users’ fundamental rights, so stuff like respect for human dignity and equality; nondiscrimination; respect for diversity, etc., among other core rights listed in the EU charter). The implication is a VLOP would face major challenges under the DSA if it was to ignore risks to fundamental rights flowing from, say, a decision to apply a “free speech absolutist” approach to content moderation, as Musk has, at times, claimed is his preference (but — ever mercurial — he’s also said that, as Twitter CEO, he would comply with all legal requirements, everywhere in the world they apply). Whether Twitter will be classed as a VLOP is one (now) very burning question for EU citizens and lawmakers. The Commission hasn’t specified either way — but internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, has (at least) heavily implied Musk’s Twitter will face meaningful checks and balances under the DSA. Which suggests it will be designated and regulated as a VLOP. Hence Breton’s quick schooling of Musk last week — when, in response to Musk’s “free speech” base-inflaming “the bird is freed” tweet, the commissioner pointedly rejoined: “In Europe the bird will fly by our [EU] rules.” Musk did not respond publicly to Breton’s schooling at the time. But, according to a Reuters report today, he reached out to the Commission to “assure” it the platform will

With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk is now lord of the manor over at Twitter after the board of directors was dissolved as part of the merger agreement. While the state of affairs likely isn’t permanent, it does mean that as owner, director, and “Chief Twit,” he has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform. In an SEC filing, the company detailed some of the many changes having to do with the controversial purchase of the platform by Musk: [A]s a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter. In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou. You may recognize some or all of those names, and certainly the Twitter board was quite a who’s-who of Silicon Valley. But their watch is finished and the deal they squabbled over is complete. This is not some unprecedented move in a private takeover of a public company, just a part of the process. The board of directors represented the former shareholders and now those shares are owned by someone else. It’s not rare for a board to be cleared this way, and new ones installed as a decision-making and advisory body adjacent to company leadership. That said, because examples of private takeovers at this scale are so few, let alone examples with comparable context, it’s difficult to say with any confidence what would be “normal.” The result, at all events, is that right now Twitter has what amounts to a dictator, and that dictator is reportedly using that power to enact sweeping changes like company-wide cuts and charging for verification. How Musk intends to structure leadership at Twitter is still something of a mystery, probably as much to him as anyone else, but as sole director it’s pretty much his prerogative. It may be that part of the complex and risky financing of the deal entails the installation of certain persons (or indeed kingdoms) in positions of real power and responsibility. Of course Musk is not doing all this alone — he has reportedly surrounded himself with various cronies and operators who, though lacking any actual power as yet, are no doubt doing their utmost to influence the sole director.

Mastodon’s microblogging app saw a record number of downloads after Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, mastodon, open source, Social, TwitterNo Comments

There are signs of a small but growing Twitter exodus underway following Elon Musk’s closure of the deal to buy the social media platform last Thursday. While many Twitter users are taking a wait-and-see approach and may not have fully deleted their accounts at this time, a sizable number of people are currently checking out Twitter alternatives. One of those alternatives is Mastodon, a decentralized social network that gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, the day after the Musk Twitter takeover completed. And this weekend, the official Mastodon mobile app saw a record number of downloads as more people fleeing Twitter began to seek out a new online home. Mastodon, to be clear, is not a new platform. The free and open-source microblogging service debuted in March 2016, offering a different approach to online social networking. Similar to Twitter, you can follow other users and create posts that can be liked and retweeted (or “tooted,” in Mastodon lingo), use hashtags, share media, and more. But unlike Twitter, Mastodon is a distributed social network where users sign up on individual servers, or nodes, each with its own theme, rules, language, and moderation policy. For instance, the most popular server currently is mastodon.social, touting 817,219 users. A Japanese server pawoo.net is just behind that with some 766,399 users. Users can generally view content and interact with people on other servers, with the exception of any servers in the “fediverse” — the group of interconnected, or federated, servers — that their own server admin has banned. Mastodon works on the web or mobile, including through native mobile apps. In addition to the main Mastodon mobile client, there’s a long list of third-party clients to choose from, too, with names like Tootle, Metatext, Mast, tooot, Toot!, Mastoot, Twidere X, Mercury for Mastodon, Tootoise, Tootter for Mastodon, Stella, and more. There were already signs last week that Mastodon was benefiting from the chaos and concern that’s accompanied the chaotic change in Twitter’s ownership. Looks like #Mastodon is trending on Twitter as more and more people are announcing their new profiles. Welcome to the better social media that does not belong to a single company and cannot be sold, welcome to the fediverse! pic.twitter.com/75pugCA0si — Mastodon (@joinmastodon) October 27, 2022 On Friday, the hashtag #mastodon began trending and many people were tweeting #TwitterMigration as they prepared to make the shift to the open-source service. Even in advance of the Twitter sale, some were checking out Mastodon, noted Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder and lead developer. He said that 18,000 people signed up for Mastodon accounts in the week leading up to the Twitter sale (Oct. 20 to Oct. 27), Wired reported at the time. On Friday, Mastodon shared that number had increased by quite a bit: over 70,000 people signed up for a Mastodon account on that day alone (Oct. 28). (Rochko later noted the figure was actually 70,849, up from 10,801 the day prior.) This influx of new users also helped boost the Mastodon mobile app. As of Friday afternoon, the app had jumped to No. 38 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicated. This was the app’s highest rank since April 27, 2022 when it had ranked No. 37 — shortly after Musk made his initial offer to buy Twitter, prompting the first Twitter exodus. The highest rank the app had ever seen then was No. 31 on April 26, 2022. That’s since changed, Sensor Tower tells us. The app has now moved up to No. 21 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, topping its earlier high. It also saw the most installs ever in a single day on Saturday, Oct. 29, with 34,000 new downloads across both iOS and Android that day. And, over the past three days (Oct. 28-30) the app has seen around 91,000 new installs, Sensor Tower says. That’s up 658% when compared with the 12,000 installs from the prior three days (Oct. 25-27). It’s also a sizable chunk of the lifetime installs the app has seen to date, which now total 489,000 across iOS and Android. Germany is Mastodon’s largest market with 37% of installs, followed by the U.S. with 19% and Japan with 7%. However, despite breaking records, Mastodon’s mobile app hasn’t yet broken into the Top Overall iPhone apps on the U.S. App Store. That could be because Mastodon has such a long tail of third-party clients that some app downloads from new users are being siphoned away from the main app and directed elsewhere. For example, the Mastodon app MetaText jumped up 14 positions in its ranking in the Social Networking category while Mercury moved up 3 ranks. Neither are all that sizable, though, with Social Networking category ranks of 469 and 1,295, respectively. There’s no doubt this rapid growth in Mastodon app downloads is directly tied to the Musk Twitter takeover. However, Mastodon’s growth isn’t the only sign that some Twitter users are abandoning the platform. Twitter developer partner Tweepsmap, a Twitter analytics provider, saw a slightly higher than usual drop in the number of “unfollows” on the platform among a sample size of 400,000 Twitter users on Friday, Oct. 28 — or about 30% higher than the usual Friday average. This could signal a somewhat higher number of users were deactivating their accounts than is usual, leading to them “unfollowing” other users as a result. The only other pattern Tweepsmap could detect was that liberal-leaning accounts had higher than usual losses, with a follower drop of < 0.2% — a decline that’s not significant in the grand scheme of things, but also not entirely negligible, either, the company told us. That would likely correlate with the types of Twitter users who are looking to exit a Musk-led platform, but it’s still small enough of an exit to not really hurt Twitter at present. In the meantime, Rochko posted that he’s purchased more powerful hardware to upgrade Mastodon’s

I’m not really in the mood to finance your vanity project • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in EC Media, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

News that Elon Musk’s interim Twitter leadership is considering charging users for verification on its platform has caused no end of consternation among current holders of the service’s well-known blue check marks. Complaints have arisen about price (potentially too high) and value offered (potentially too low), among other concerns. It’s also fair to note that before the Musk deal was completed, Twitter had already begun to experiment with subscription-based services targeting its most active users. I am well aware of those efforts as a Twitter addict; I signed up for Twitter Blue and continue to pay for it. (Though it appears to be only a modest revenue driver to date.) The calculus of my support of Twitter, however, has changed. Before the Musk transaction, Twitter’s product cadence had picked up pace. Therefore, buying a cheap pass to beta features, which supported the company where I have long made my digital home, seemed reasonable. Sure, simping for a public company is about as sensical as pining after a celebrity, but what can I say? I’m human. Twitter started to put much-demanded features behind its low paywall, including an edit button. For some folks, that was a draw. However, it felt like Twitter wasn’t taking existing capabilities and putting them in a walled garden. Instead, the service was making new stuff aimed at a more niche audience, charging for incremental functionality. That did not bother me in the least. Now, however, Twitter is controlled by a single person instead of, I presume, owned by a good chunk of its users through index funds. Even more, it is largely owned by one person who took on quite a lot of debt to finance the deal. Encumbered with more obligations than before, Twitter is likely in a hurry to boost the rate at which it generates positive cash flow to service those new debts.

TuSimple CEO and co-founder fired by board over ties to Chinese startup Hydron • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in investigation, self-driving trucks, Transportation, TuSimple, xiaodi houNo Comments

TuSimple co-founder Xiaodi Hou was fired from his CEO, president and CTO posts by the autonomous trucking company’s board, according to a securities filing Monday. Hou, who co-founded TuSimple in 2015 with Mo Chen, was also removed from his position as chairman of the board and member of the board’s government security committee. The firing came a day after The Wall Street Journal published a report citing unnamed sources that TuSimple was facing concurrent probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Securities and Exchange Commission and Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). The investigation is apparently focused on TuSimple’s relationship with Hydron, a hydrogen-powered trucking company led by TuSimple co-founder Chen and backed by Chinese investors. Hydron’s website lists its headquarters as Canada. It is incorporated in China, Hong Kong and Delaware. Shares of TuSimple plummeted more than 45% in trading Monday. The board said in the filing that based on information obtained in an ongoing investigation by its audit committee, employees spent paid hours working on matters for Hydron in 2021. That work had an estimated value of less than $300,000 and was not presented to, or approved by, the audit committee, according to the board. The board also believes that during 2022 the company shared confidential information with Hydron and its partners as part of an evaluation of Hydron as a potential OEM partner. Some insiders told ZebethMedia that the firing seemed more political and about Hou’s management style than news of an investigation. Sources, who asked not to be named, said they were unaware of any investigations. Hou defended himself in a post on LinkedIn, stating the board voted to remove him without cause. “My motivation has always been and continues to be chasing that visionary dream,” Hou wrote. “The painful truth is that on Oct. 30, the Board voted to remove me as CEO and Chairman of the Board without Cause. Unfortunately, the Board’s processes and conclusions have been questionable at best. As the facts come to light, I am confident that my decisions as CEO and Chairman, and our vision for TuSimple, will be vindicated.” CFIUS had investigated TuSimple in the past, largely over concerns of an investment by Sun Dream, an affiliate of Sina Corporation, which runs China’s biggest microblogging platform Sina Weibo. Sun Dream is TuSimple’s largest shareholder, with 20% Class A shares. Charles Chao and Bonnie Yi Zhang, respectively the CEO and CFO of Weibo, were both members of TuSimple’s board. In February, TuSimple entered into a national security agreement with CFIUS, agreeing to limit access to certain data, adopt a technology control plan, appoint a security officer and director, establish a government security committee of the board and periodically meet with and report to certain CFIUS monitoring agencies. Chao and Zhang also agreed not to stand for reelection as part of the agreement. TuSimple also set out to sell off its Asia operations. That unit has yet to be sold. Ersin Yumer, TuSimple’s executive VP of operations, will be interim CEO and president while an executive search is conducted, according to the filing. TuSimple’s lead independent director Brad Buss will now be chairman. The board said it is also actively engaged in the search to add new independent members. These actions have been taken in connection with an ongoing investigation led by the audit committee of the board that led the board to conclude that a change of chief executive officer was necessary.