Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.
With worries over outbreaks growing nationwide, health officials responded to reports of infected individuals by imposing quarantines at UCLA and Cal State LA.
Source: Wired
Commentary: Spoilers assemble. Steve Rogers’ decision hints at an exciting future for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Source: CNET
The tiny Swedish hypercar manufacturer can’t afford to crash test lots of cars, so it crashes one car a lot.
Source: CNET
Tesla, Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached an agreement Friday that will give the CEO freedom to use Twitter —within certain limitations — without fear of being held in contempt for violating an earlier court order.
Musk can tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In those cases, Musk must seek pre-approval from a securities lawyer, according to the agreement filed with Manhattan federal court.
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, the presiding judge on this matter, must still approve the deal. Nathan had given the SEC and Musk two weeks to work out their differences and come to a resolution.
Musk must seek pre-approval if his tweets include:
The fight between the two parties began after Musk’s now infamous August 7, 2018 tweet that had “funding secured” for a private takeover of the company at $420 per share. The SEC filed a complaint in alleging that Musk had committed securities fraud.
Musk and Tesla settled with the SEC last year without admitting wrongdoing. Tesla agreed to pay a $20 million fine; Musk had to agree to step down as Tesla chairman for a period of at least three years; the company had to appoint two independent directors to the board; and Tesla was also told to put in place a way to monitor Musk’s statements to the public about the company, including via Twitter.
The fight was re-ignited after Musk sent a tweet on February 19 that Tesla would produce “around” 500,000 cars this year, correcting himself hours later to clarify that he meant the company would be producing at an annualized rate of 500,000 vehicles by year end.
The SEC argued that the tweet sent by Musk violated their agreement. Musk has said the tweet was “immaterial” and complied with the settlement.
The SEC had asked the court to hold Musk in contempt for violating a settlement agreement reached last October over Musk’s now infamous “funding secured” tweet. The SEC had argued that Musk was supposed to get approval from Tesla’s board before communicating potentially material information to investors, the agency has argued. The SEC claimed a February 19 tweet violated the agreement.
Musk has steadfastly maintained that he didn’t violate the agreement.
Source: TechCrunch
The company is going back on its plans to have DSRC-based vehicle-to-vehicle communications in its cars over concerns for the security of the tech.
Source: CNET
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the SEC settled their latest dispute over his not-always-truthful tweets, with stricter standards for what’s permissible in missives.
Source: Wired
Workers say they’re being targeted by the company after last year’s historic Google walkout.
Source: CNET
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Kate and Alex are back (again), bringing you the latest on the IPO front. As Friday is coming to a close, we’ll keep this post short to leave plenty of room for you to dig into the audio. Welcome to the weekend.
Up first we dug into Uber’s latest S-1 filing. This time, the company set a price range for itself (TechCrunch’s coverage here), valuing itself at $84 billion and also detailing estimates of its first-quarter results (Crunchbase News’s notes here).
We suspect Uber will ultimately price a top that range. Time will tell.
And then we turned to Slack, who’s direct listing will help set the historical tone for the unicorn era; screw your money, Slack says, we have our own. Well maybe not, but the company has impressive growth, killer margins, and, to our surprise, larger GAAP deficits than we expected. The company’s filing was fascinating.
But worry not, we can figure out how to value Slack. It’s Uber that left us scratching our heads. Expect next week to be another blizzard of news and numbers.
Thanks as always for listening to the show. We’ve never had more downloads than these last few weeks. It means a lot that you want to hang out with us. Don’t forget that we have an email address (equitypod@techcrunch.com), and a hashtag that Alex needs to learn to use: #equitypod.
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.
Source: TechCrunch
The Captain Marvel star also really wants Kamala Khan and the A-Force to get their own films.
Source: CNET
I wrote a lot about the Galaxy Fold here. After a week with the device, I was left with mixed feelings independent of the whole ongoing display saga. The TLDR; of it is the story of a first-generation device that’s full of promise but still a bit clunky and prohibitively priced.
Of course, the real reason we couldn’t possibly recommend the device is the high percentage of issues around the device. Samsung issued a handful of early units to reviewers and multiple devices returned with broken screens. Samsung was quick to downplay the issue, but ultimately apologized, issued early findings and pushed the release back to an undisclosed date.
The Fold was supposed to be released today, and until Monday, Samsung had us convinced that it would hit that optimistic time frame. The fact of it all, however, is that the timing was always in question. The device was officially unveiled at an event in February. A week later at Mobile World Congress, the closest we got to the device was the other side of a plate of display glass and a velvet rope. It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in a product.
Later that day, Huawei gave us hands-on time with its own (still unreleased) foldable, the Mate X. Granted, the time was limited and a rep was hovering over us the whole time, but being able to touch the device goes a long way.
For the moment, Samsung’s in lockdown mode. Reviewers (ourselves included) have returned the devices at the company’s behest. A week with the phone was always the plan, as Samsung was likely planning to send it out to additional reviewers. I suspect all the breakages have put the brakes on that for now.
More notably, Samsung convinced iFixit to pull a lengthy teardown that referred to the Fold’s display as “alarmingly fragile.” The write-up has been replaced by a lengthy note explaining the site’s position and Samsung’s role in the takedown:
We were provided our Galaxy Fold unit by a trusted partner. Samsung has requested, through that partner, that iFixit remove its teardown. We are under no obligation to remove our analysis, legal or otherwise. But out of respect for this partner, whom we consider an ally in making devices more repairable, we are choosing to withdraw our story until we can purchase a Galaxy Fold at retail.
It’s easy to understand why the piece irked Samsung, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that it did much additional damage to an already problematic situation. We covered the story, along with dozens of other sites. I personally found it an insightful look at the product, as iFixit described a display that wasn’t sufficiently reinforced and an otherwise impressive gear system that let dirt and debris fall behind the screen.
In fact, Samsung’s own “initial findings” were actually pretty well in line with iFixit’s:
Initial findings from the inspection of reported issues on the display showed that they could be associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge. There was also an instance where substances found inside the device affected the display performance.
From the outset, many were suspect about the product’s ability to hold up to real-world stresses without the presence of a Gorilla Glass-like screen covering. Corning has already noted that it’s working on just such a flexible material, but Samsung didn’t seem much interested in waiting.
In retrospect, the process of bringing the technology to market felt like a thoughtful, leisurely progression, followed by a potentially careless sprint the final few yards before the end zone. While Samsung had been showcasing flexible display technology since CES 2011, it no doubt saw the writing on the wall heading into this year. Royole had already launched its own reference device, and the week following the Fold’s announcement, we saw the aforementioned handset from Huawei and a reference design from TCL. Xiaomi showed off its own project at around the same time, and leaks have highlighted competition from companies like Motorola.
Samsung, it seems, wanted badly to be the first to market with a consumer device. It’s a stumble, but as we’ve pointed out previously, Samsung’s been through worse. This isn’t the Galaxy Note 7 part two for two key reasons:
The broader question, however is two-fold:
The answer, I think is the same for both: not very much. Both the phone and the category will live and die by consumer demand, not some dumb stumble by Samsung.
Huawei’s got a golden opportunity to show what can be done here (even though ongoing legal troubles will make the Mate X tough to come by in the U.S. And in spite of how well the first Fold sells, it seems likely that Samsung has a sequel in the works. Remember how masterfully the company spun the Note after the smoke had cleared? The arrival of its eight-point battery testing turned battery safety from a concern to a feature.
Of course, this will be a short-term setback from the company and product. Consumers will smartly be cautious, even after the company says it’s hammered out the original issues and firmed up a release date. If there’s major learning from the Note debacle that can be applied here, it’s that companies can be too eager to sound the all clear. Remember, the Note 7 was subject to two recalls.
But like the Note 7, these early misadventures will likely do little to impact the future of foldables — or Samsung’s bottom line.
Source: TechCrunch