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NASA’s Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid is back on the books for October 2023 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in falcon heavy, NASA, psyche, Space, SpaceXNo Comments on NASA’s Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid is back on the books for October 2023 • ZebethMedia

NASA said Friday that its Psyche mission (named after the asteroid the mission is targeting) has been rescheduled to October next year. The news comes just a few months after the agency announced that it would definitively miss its planned 2022 launch attempt. The delayed schedule is due to late delivery of key components of the spacecraft, including the flight software and testing equipment. The launch window for this year concluded on October 11. NASA conducted an internal review to determine whether the mission could launch next year, in addition to a separate independent review commissioned by the agency to examine the failures that led to missing the launch window. It appears that the review determined that next year’s launch is a go. While the launch window has changed, NASA said the flight profile will be similar: The spacecraft will use Martian gravity in 2026 to propel the spacecraft toward the asteroid Psyche. If the mission does move forward next year, the spacecraft is targeted to arrive at the asteroid in August 2029. The mission, which is being led by Arizona State University, will explore the metal asteroid dubbed “Psyche” located between Mars and Jupiter. It was chosen for exploration because scientists believe it is the nickel-iron core of an earlier planet, making it a rich target for understanding how our own planet came to exist. Folks with asteroid mining ambitions, of course, undoubtedly also have their interest piqued. Total mission costs, including launch, are $985 million; of that, $717 million had been spent as of June. Two additional projects were scheduled to launch with Psyche: a NASA mission called Janus, to explore a twin binary asteroid system, and a technology demonstration of high-data-rate laser communication data. The latter has already been integrated with the Psyche spacecraft and will launch with it, but NASA is still exploring options for Janus. In February 2020, NASA announced it had awarded the launch contract to SpaceX for a value of $117 million. The agency booked a ride on a Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket currently in operation and which has only flown three times in its history. (The fourth could take place as early as next week.)

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The TwitterMusking and other news • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments on The TwitterMusking and other news • ZebethMedia

Lo, the day is upon us: Elon Musk owns the bird app and all that comes with it. Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition has closed, and he fired most of the top people in charge and is now busy learning about this thing he sort of wanted, then didn’t want at all, and now has been at least in part forced to spend a large fortune on. This week I talk with Taylor Hatmaker about the Twitter’s new owner and what it means. I also talk to Amanda Silberling about YouTuber MrBeast’s business, and why a billion-dollar-plus valuation for it makes us nervous. Plus, Kirsten Korosec comes on to talk about the scoop of the week after she broke the news that Argo is shutting down. Be sure to find us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, leave us a rating and a review.

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Elon Musk says Twitter will form a ‘content moderation council’ before deciding on Trump • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments on Elon Musk says Twitter will form a ‘content moderation council’ before deciding on Trump • ZebethMedia

Elon Musk has only been in control of Twitter for a short time, but he’s already making big moves. Musk fired a number of key executives on day one including Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, but in a new tweet he claims he’ll be moving more slowly when it comes to making content moderation decisions. Musk hasn’t said much since taking over at Twitter, but he will apparently form some kind of policy advisory body to oversee content moderation decisions. Musk said the group will reflect “diverse viewpoints” though we’ll certainly have to wait and see on that one. Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022 Importantly, Musk says he won’t be making any major decisions or account reinstatements— i.e. restoring former President Donald Trump — before the council is put in place. Because it’s Musk that might happen within hours or it might not happen at all, it’s hard to say. On Thursday, Musk also let go of Vijaya Gadde, a well-respected top policy executive at the company who helped it navigate complex legal and moderation issues for more than 11 years. Getting rid of Gadde was a signal that a new era with different decision making is beginning, for better or worse. The tweet is likely more balm for skittish advertisers wary of Musk immediately turning the platform into an anything-goes mess of harassment, hate and misinformation. While Twitter arguably already meets that description with existing levels of moderation in place, advertisers are watching for any major shifts in the kind of content allowed on the platform and how it might adversely affect their brands. Musk might think this is an original idea, but Twitter already consults a trust and safety council to advise its product and policy decisions. The council — it’s already called a council — consisted initially of 40 organizations and experts that advised it in challenging policy areas. That group served in more of an advisory capacity, and unlike with Meta’s Oversight Board, it wasn’t designed to create binding decisions. First announced in 2016, Twitter expanded the entity in 2020 to form groups dedicated to specific difficult topics, including safety and online harassment, digital rights, child sexual exploitation and suicide prevention. “A lot of what we currently do, such as ongoing meetings with NGOs, activists and other organizations is always part of our process, but we haven’t done enough to share that externally,” Twitter wrote at the time. It’s possible Musk has something more like the Oversight Board in mind when it comes to content moderation decision making, but everything from the people who wind up serving on a hypothetical council to the nature of the group’s impact is likely to be controversial.

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Here’s why ServiceNow’s stock soared in a week of dismal tech earnings reports • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Bill McDermott, EC Cloud and Enterprise Infrastructure, EC News Analysis, Enterprise, SaaS, ServiceNow, stock marketNo Comments on Here’s why ServiceNow’s stock soared in a week of dismal tech earnings reports • ZebethMedia

If you’re a regular reader of this publication, chances are you know that it hasn’t been a great year for many tech company stocks — one in which giants like Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet have been mauled by the markets after less than stellar earnings reports. Even an enterprise stalwart like Salesforce is behind hounded by activist investors. The fact is that few have been spared, whether startups or established public companies. We’ve seen a litany of stories on hiring freezes, layoff announcements, and tech stocks taking bigger hits than an NFL quarterback behind a bad offensive line — in other words, getting crushed. SaaS stocks in particular are having a rough year, so when a SaaS stock does well, well, that’s news. And that’s what happened to ServiceNow this week when it reported Q32022 earnings. It bucked the odds with a mostly positive earnings report — good revenue, good guidance, the whole nine yards — and believe it or not, Wall Street rewarded the company, with the stock up over 13% at the bell on Thursday, a number that held steady throughout the day. (It was down around 1% so far in trading today.) Maybe we’re not the only ones looking for some good news. Perhaps investors are, too. But what led to this positive 2022 earnings anomaly? To find out, let’s explore the earnings report and the impact of hiring former SAP CEO Bill McDermott to lead the company. A look at the numbers Given the general carnage we’ve seen in the public markets for tech earnings this quarterly cycle — Snap kicked things off with a raspberry, followed quickly by other leading tech shops failing to meet Wall Street’s stringent expectations — the ServiceNow share-price boomlet caught our eye and made us curious what the company had managed that was so worthy of investor praise.

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Fundraising beyond the Bay Area, web3 gaming, TDD prep checklist • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in biotech startups, Crypto, due diligence, EC roundup, immigration law, Startups, Venture, web3 gamingNo Comments on Fundraising beyond the Bay Area, web3 gaming, TDD prep checklist • ZebethMedia

In a previous era, aspiring journalists relocated to New York, would-be actors made pilgrimages to Hollywood, and plucky tech founders moved to the Bay Area so they could attract capital and talent. But San Francisco is no longer the center of the startup universe, and it hasn’t been for a while. Cities like Boulder, Detroit and Austin had emerging tech ecosystems long before the pandemic forced VCs to start taking pitches via Zoom, and social media has leveled the playing field when it comes to networking and PR. Full ZebethMedia+ articles are only available to membersUse discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription “We noticed a couple of years ago, in looking at our own analytics, that most of our deals were coming through Twitter,” said Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner of Hustle Fund, last week at ZebethMedia Disrupt. “If I look at my portfolio, my companies that are active on Twitter actually do have an easier time raising money because investors feel like they know them.” Reporter Dominic-Madori Davis moderated a discussion with Yin, Mike Asem (founding partner of M25), and Accel partner Rich Wong that elicited suggestions for early-stage founders who don’t live in the 415 area code and spilled the tea about “the emerging markets on their radars.” If you’re interested in the entire conversation, there’s a link to a video at the end of the article. Keep an eye out for more recaps from TC Disrupt in the coming days. Thanks for reading, Walter ThompsonEditorial Manager, ZebethMedia+@yourprotagonist 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market Image Credits: Chelsea Sampson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Every online product requires some network effect, but gaming is unique: Without large, loyal and enthusiastic customers, there’s no way to build products that can be monetized. Play-to-earn games (P2E) are particularly susceptible to this problem, which is why “building a game that succeeds in the long term means developing monetization strategies that can weather market ebbs and flows,” says Corey Wilton, co-founder and CEO of Mirai Labs, the gaming studio behind Pegaxy. In this primer for P2E founders, Wilton shares suggestions for how to approach investors, explains why tokens are not a reliable fundraising vehicle and discusses the recent “shift toward Web 2.0 monetization.” A prep checklist for startups about to undergo technical due diligence Image Credits: Pixelimage (opens in a new window) / Getty Images On Tuesday, founder and CEO of codebase analytics company Sema, Matt Van Itallie, shared a guest post for founding teams who are about to begin technical due diligence before an investment or acquisition. On Wednesday, he followed up with a detailed checklist for C-level executives and senior managers responsible for helping VCs determine whether their “codebase is safe enough for investment.” Product roadmap Code quality Code, network and information security Intellectual property Development process Engineering team contributions DevOps Pitch Deck Teardown: The Palau Project’s $125k pre-seed deck Image Credits: Palau Project (opens in a new window) Fundraising takes many forms, but because pre-seed founders are so often coaxing money from family and friends to validate their ideas, it can raise the emotional stakes. To raise money for The Palau Project, an app that lets users find the environmental impact and nutritional benefits of packaged food, founder Jerome Cloetens put together a 22-slide deck with a $500,000 goal. In the end, the team raised just $125,000. Dear Sophie: How can early-stage startups improve their chances of getting H-1Bs? Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/ZebethMedia Dear Sophie, We have a stealth early-stage biotech startup. Do we qualify to petition a co-founder on STEM OPT for an H-1B in the lottery? Is it worth it or are there better alternatives? — Budding Biotech 3 VCs explain how founders can stand out when pitching Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan (opens in a new window) / Getty Images There’s a lot of wisdom in corny motivational writing. For instance, this quote by Will Durant, a historian and philosopher: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. A great pitch requires more than charm and storytelling skills: investors expect founders to understand their market and competitors, and help them prepare before the meeting begins. “I generally recommend having almost like a teaser version of the deck with enough data and information to give us a sense of where you are in terms of the journey of your company,” said Jomayra Herrera, a partner at Reach Capital. “Just enough information so that we come prepared to the meeting.” 5 ways biotech startups can mitigate risk to grow sustainably in the long run Image Credits: jayk7 (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Thanks to R&D and clinical trials, life science startups have long lead times before they can bring their capital-intensive products to market. “But,” asks Omar Khalil, a partner at Santé Ventures, “what happens when the funding suddenly dries up?” In a guest post for TC+, he shares five strategies for biotech startups that are trying to stay warm through the winter ahead. “It’s still too early to know whether this is a short-term correction, or if it’s a new normal that will be maintained for the foreseeable future.”

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Latinx founders see VC funding drop as investors retreat from underrepresented cohorts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in EC DEI, EC venture capital, Latinx, Startups, VentureNo Comments on Latinx founders see VC funding drop as investors retreat from underrepresented cohorts • ZebethMedia

The latest Crunchbase data shows that Latinx-founded companies in the United States raised $250 million out of the $39.85 billion allocated in venture funds in the U.S. this Q3 — or about 0.63%.1 The Q3 sum is a sharp decrease from the $2.3 billion the cohort raised in Q3 last year and a dramatic decline from the $1.3 billion raise in Q2 this year. In total, 1.5% of all venture dollars so far in 2022 have been allocated to Latinx-founded companies, a drop from 2.5% last year, according to the Crunchbase analysis. The numbers are not surprising. Minorities and women overall are seeing dramatic dips in venture funding this year. ZebethMedia previously reported that Black founders raised $187 million this Q3, which meant, given historical data trends, the amount allocated to Latinx-founded companies wouldn’t be too far from that sum. Meanwhile, PitchBook found that female-founded companies have raised 1.9% of all venture funds so far this year, which is, again, a drop from the 2.4% the group raised last year. ZebethMedia noted before that investors tend to pull back toward their old networks to fund the founders who are familiar to them amid economic downturns — and those people tend to be white men. The somewhat encouraging news is that funding for early-stage Latinx-founded companies is on pace to exceed 2021’s total; much of the decline that we see in the above numbers came from a decrease in late-stage financing. The reality remains that women and minorities are not faring well right now when it comes to raising VC, and promises of change have dissipated. Last year, Latinx-founded U.S. companies raised $8.5 billion. Through the end of Q3 2022, that number stands at $2.7 billion, meaning it won’t even come close to passing last year’s record-breaking sum.

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As overall cloud infrastructure market growth dips to 24%, AWS reports slowdown • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Amazon, cloud infrastructure market share, Enterprise, Google, Microsoft, Synergy ResearchNo Comments on As overall cloud infrastructure market growth dips to 24%, AWS reports slowdown • ZebethMedia

With the big three — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — reporting earnings this week, we learned that the cloud infrastructure market topped $57 billion for the quarter, up $11 billion over the same period last year. That adds up to 24% growth, according to data from Synergy Research. It might not be the growth we are used to seeing from this market, but at a time of economic instability, it continues to perform remarkably well. Still, it is a step back from the days when we saw growth steadily in the 30s. It’s even down from last quarter when the market grew 29%. So it’s fair to say that growth is slowing in an area that’s seen explosive expansion over the last several years. Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale attributed this slowdown to several factors. First of all, there’s the law of large numbers, which states that as a market size increases, growth decreases. When you combine that with a strong dollar affecting earnings outside the U.S. and a shrinking market in China, it is having an impact. “It is a strong testament to the benefits of cloud computing that despite two major obstacles to growth, the worldwide market still expanded by 24% from last year. Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path, then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” Dinsdale said in a statement. The other news here is that of the big three, Google Cloud was the only one to gain share, up a tick to 11%, as the work that CEO Thomas Kurian is doing to build the business continues to pay dividends. Meanwhile, Amazon held steady as the market leader at 34%, good for around $19 billion for the quarter, with Microsoft in second at 21% with revenue of almost $12 billion. Google’s 11% came in at around $6 billion. But that doesn’t tell the whole story as Amazon’s cloud growth slowed to 27.5% in the quarter, down from 33% growth the prior quarter. As the chart below showing third-quarter data back to 2017 illustrates, the market has grown in leaps and bounds over the five-year period, from just over $10 billion to almost $60 billion. Image Credits: Synergy Research It’s also worth noting that only Google beat analysts’ expectations for cloud revenue, while both AWS and Microsoft came up short of their predictions. The usual caveats apply here around numbers matching publicly reported amounts. Synergy counts public platform, infrastructure and hosted private cloud services in its numbers. Total revenue reported by individual companies may also include other elements, which Synergy doesn’t count. The fact is that in spite of economic headwinds, the market remains surprisingly strong, and while companies may be looking for places to cut, as we wrote back in June, it’s not that easy to reduce cloud spending because it’s fundamental to most businesses these days. Most companies born in the cloud aren’t going to suddenly build a data center, and those in the midst of shifting to the cloud need to keep moving workloads because of all the benefits the cloud brings around business agility. Companies looking to cut spending can and should be looking for waste, but regardless, the cloud market will likely continue to produce decent numbers, even if the economics force down overall revenue and slow growth in the short term. We usually include Canalys data as a means of comparison in these reports, but the data was not available yet at the time we published. As soon as Canalys publishes its data, we will update the article.

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India to create committees with veto power over social media content moderation • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Facebook, Google, Government & Policy, india, meta, TwitterNo Comments on India to create committees with veto power over social media content moderation • ZebethMedia

India will set up grievance committees with the veto power to reverse content moderation decisions of social media firms, it said today, moving ahead with a proposal that has rattled Meta, Google and Twitter. The panels, called Grievance Appellate Committee, will be created within three months, it said. In an amendment to the nation’s new IT law that went into effect last year, the Indian government said any individual aggrieved by the social media’s appointed grievance officer may appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee, which will comprise a chairperson and two whole time members appointed by the government. The Grievance Appellate Committee will have the power to reverse the social media firm’s decision, the government said. “Every order passed by the Grievance Appellate Committee shall be complied with by the intermediary concerned and a report to that effect shall be uploaded on its website,” New Delhi said in a statement. Shortly after India proposed creating such panels, the US-India Business Council (USIBC), part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), both raised concerns about the independence of such committees if the government controlled their formation. Both the firms represent tech giants including Google, Meta and Twitter. (More to follow)

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5 ways biotech startups can mitigate risk to grow sustainably in the long run • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Biotech & Health, biotech startups, Column, EC Column, EC Digital Biotech, EC How To, fundraising, Startups, VentureNo Comments on 5 ways biotech startups can mitigate risk to grow sustainably in the long run • ZebethMedia

Omar Khalil is a partner at Santé Ventures, where he focuses primarily on biotechnology and medical technology companies. The unprecedented explosion of investment in life sciences over the past decade has resulted in incredible new therapies for patients, strong financial returns for companies and an overall increase in translational research, which is critical to advancing the next generation of therapies. It has also led to eye-popping levels of capital raised by early-stage companies, some of which were years away from entering the clinic with their first product. Naturally, a generous flow of financing generates excitement for everyone involved. Capital is the fuel that advances scientific and technological innovation, and it means a life science startup can create products that benefit the world at large. But what happens when the funding suddenly dries up? In the world of biotech, for example, it’s extremely capital intensive to develop multiple products that are all going through clinical trials simultaneously. The infrastructure needed to maintain these different programs can be too unwieldy to weather a financial drought. A better approach would be to focus on a lead program — a single product that they can take through various stages of development, ultimately leading to FDA approval. In fact, lead programs validate the value of an underlying platform, enabling companies to raise capital through licensing and partnerships. Founders shouldn’t let peer pressure or investor check size mandates dictate their financing strategy. There will always be ebbs and flows in funding, so here are five ways life science startups can optimize for success regardless of the economic climate. Don’t confuse successful fundraising with a successful company At the end of the day, fundraising is a means to an end. The mission for most life science startups is to improve patient outcomes. However, science is hard, and cash in the bank does not overcome the complexities of human biology. Plenty of companies have successfully raised significant amounts of capital but were never successful in developing a beneficial product, therapy or technology. While not a perfect proxy, the value at which a venture-backed company exits (through M&A or IPO) can be an indication of its success in developing a new product. However, there is practically no correlation between the amount of capital a company raises and its ultimate exit value. Since 2010, the R-squared between exit value and total invested capital — a measure of how correlated the two variables are — for all healthcare exits is a paltry 0.34. When you drill down to a correlation between the exit value and the amount of capital raised in a company’s Series A financing, it drops to a practically negligible value of 0.05, according to PitchBook. These statistics support the notion that just because a company raises significant amounts of capital (especially early on), there is no guarantee of a successful investment outcome. Founders shouldn’t let peer pressure or investor check size mandates dictate their financing strategy. Instead, focus on advancing your program through the key stages of technical and clinical development.

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