Key Uber investor sues Uber founder, Google cancels an all-hands due to safety concerns and Amazon takes a look at the ticketing industry. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for August 11, 2017. 1. Benchmark sues Uber founder Travis Kalanick VC firm Benchmark has sued Travis Kalanick, the founder and CEO of one of its strongest portfolio companies. The move is pretty uncharacteristic of investment firm behavior, but this is all about power plays. Benchmark is basically accusing Kalanick of having tricked them into allowing him to stack Uber's board using misinformation. If successful, Benchmark could block Kalanick from Uber's board for good – preventing what seems like a plan he has in the works to orchestrate an eventual return to the CEO spot. 2. Google cancels all-hands meeting due to potential threats Google is facing a lot of backlash from the alt-right troll community after firing engineer James Damore over his manifesto about gender differences. The company had planned to hold an all-hands yesterday afternoon, but CEO Sundar Pichai cancelled the meeting after employees wrote in expressing concern for their safety should they pose a question in this semi-public forum. 3. Amazon might become an event ticket seller Buying sporting event or concert tickets on Amazon? That might happen in the U.S. in the future, if Amazon can get the right partnerships in place. It's a lucrative market and a potential Prime membership driver, so it sounds like a good fit if they can work around the apparent blocks resulting from user data sharing policies. 4. SoundCloud faces do-or-die moment SoundCloud is reportedly trying one big last gamble to stay afloat, which would seek a big chunk of new funding by deeply cutting the company's valuation and basically screwing early investors and shareholders. If it doesn't go through, however, it might not exist at all for long. 5. Toyota, Intel, NNT Docomo and others form auto data consortium Auto data is the next big frontier in Big Data, and it's going to be lucrative. So it makes sense that Toyota would team up with Denso, Ericsson, Intel and NTT Docomo to form an industry group dedicated to edge computing data collection. 6. Amazon signs deal with Walking Dead creator to create shows Amazon Prime Video shows could get a lot more comics-inspired, now that the streaming service has penned a deal with Robert Kirkman, the creator of the original The Walking Dead comic and co-creator of the show. It's a comics TV content arms race in streaming right now. 7. HP Enterprise is testing a new kind of space supercomputer HPE is sending supercomputers to space aboard SpaceX's CRS-12 ISS resupply mission on Monday. The goal? To use a stock, off-the-shelf supercomputer hardened for use in space using software, not hardware modifications, that can eventually survive the trip to Mars. |
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