News Hub – trouble in Silicon Valley
Much of this week’s news comes straight out of Silicon Valley. Elon Musk’s future hangs in the balance, Zuckerberg has sent Instagram’s founders packing and Stripe has become a mega-unicorn. All this and a lot more in one of the craziest News Hubs to date.
Silicon Valley
No smoke without fire for Elon Musk
It has been a rough year for Elon Musk – and it’s about to get worse. He is currently being sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It alleges that he deliberately misled investors when he announced he had secured the funds to take Tesla private, at $420 a share (4/20 being a deliberate reference to Marijuana according to the article). A loss could mean that he is ineligible to serve as a company director or officer.
Read more on Bloomberg
Instagram founders leave Facebook under a dark cloud
Facebook’s promises to give its acquisitions the space to grow under their own direction were emptier than a Tesla-made cave submarine. After six years, Instagram’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have left the company after seeing their autonomy erode. This comes only months after WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum left the company.
Read more on Bloomberg
Funding
Stripe raises huge round: now valued at $20 billion
Not only is payment platform Stripe a unicorn, but it lays Fabergé eggs, floats on a rainbow, and dresses like Liberace.
The company is considered one of Silicon Valley’s top startups. And no wonder: it just bagged a $245 million funding round and is now valued at $20 billion. Turns out that money is where the money is.
Read more on Business Insider
Is the sun setting on Silicon Valley?
A dramatic question, but VCs are certainly shifting their attention elsewhere. As startups become scale ups and operating costs become prohibitive in region, growth is coming harder to find. Startups are looking elsewhere to set up and VCs are eyeballing them.
Read more on TechCrunch
Corporate Social Responsibility
Snapchat gets serious…about democracy
Snapchat, a platform the Hubbub Labs crew is far too old to understand, is rolling out a new feature to encourage people 18 and over to vote. It will send users a voter registration link and send them to a dedicated site. A brilliant initiative, we’re just a little surprised.
Read more on The Verge
Off the wall
Space Force One
Launching Trump’s Space Force is likely to be expensive. Costing at least $13 billion to set up, there’s a lot of debate surrounding how it should be structured. The Verge goes further into the debate in this troubling article. We’re just picturing POTUS on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. It’s not a pretty sight.
Read more on The Verge
Hubbub Labs
KPI, CPC, CVA, PPC, ROI…drowning in the startup alphabet soup? Ugh. We know the feeling – and Hubbub Labs is here to help. Our ultimate Startup Marketing Glossary will help you clear up some of the most useful & common bits of business jargon.
Read more right here: The Ultimate Startup Marketing Glossary
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