Uber’s float is a huge gamble on the future of transport May 10, 2019 Every time you jump into an Uber, your ride is essentially subsidised by venture capitalists who prop up the loss-making outfit in the hope of riches down the road. Later today in New York, many more hopefuls will get the chance to back the immensely-popular-yet-controversial tech firm when it finally comes to market. Similarly [...]
Uber prices at the bottom of its IPO range to be valued at $82.4bn May 9, 2019 Ride-hailing giant Uber has priced its initial public offering at $45 per share, landing at the lower end of its targeted range to raise $8.1bn (£6.2bn) in a Wall Street flotation on Friday afternoon . The pricing assigns Uber a valuation of $82.4bn, significantly lower than the $120bn valuation predicted by its investment bankers last [...]
Facebook co-founder joins chorus of voices to break up the company May 9, 2019 Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has echoed calls to break up the social media giant amid a rise in anti-trust and data privacy concerns surrounding big tech. Hughes, a former roommate of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, called his power "unprecedented and un-American" in an opinion piece for the New York Times. "We are a nation with [...]
Twitter suspends 166,000 accounts in battle against online terrorism May 9, 2019 Twitter suspended more than 166,000 accounts in the last six months of 2018, it revealed today, as it makes progress on battling terrorism on its platform. Read more: Facebook bans Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos The number of users banned from the social network amounted to a 19 per cent drop from the first half of [...]
Softbank gears up for launch of second Vision Fund as full-year profits soar May 9, 2019 Japanese investment giant Softbank will launch its eagerly-awaited second Vision Fund soon, the firm’s founder and chief executive has revealed. Read more: Softbank mulls float for $100bn Vision Fund Masayoshi Son said the new fund will be a similar size to its original $100bn (£77bn) Vision Fund, which has invested in major tech firms including [...]
Stockwatch: When you should buy Amazon and Microsoft May 9, 2019 | City Talk By Edmond Jackson from interactive investor. We've studied the charts, now our companies analyst runs through the fundamentals and gives his view. At a time of questions over durability of growth in US GDP and corporate profits, results in respect of Q1 2019 from Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) have beaten expectations. As a result, [...]
When women ruled the coding world: Female programmers have been written out of history – it’s time to turn back the clock May 9, 2019 Coding was once a field dominated by women. From the 1940s to the 1960s, about 90 per cent of computer programmers and systems analysts in the US were female. Hardware was largely run by men, but software was treated as clerical work and offered to women who were good at maths and logical thinking. In [...]
Huawei CFO hopes to avoid US extradition after Trump’s ‘corrosive’ comments May 9, 2019 Lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer have said she will seek a stay of extradition, citing a string of civil rights abuses including comments made by US President Donald Trump about the case. Meng Wanzhou, who is the daughter of Huawei founder Reng Zengfei, was arrested in Vancouver in December on allegations relating to the [...]
DEBATE: With Uber drivers striking over pay and conditions, is the gig economy bad news for workers? May 9, 2019 With Uber drivers striking over pay and conditions, is the gig economy bad news for workers? Dalia Gebrial, researcher on the gig economy and workers’ rights at the London School of Economics, says YES. The gig economy is currently rigged against workers. Platforms like Uber hide behind their status as tech firms, rather than employers, to [...]
Ocado chips in to £7m round for UK robotics startup Karakuri May 9, 2019 Ocado has led a £7m seed round for UK robotics firm Karakuri, its first investment in a tech startup. Other backers in the round included Hoxton Ventures, Firstminute Capital and Taylor Brothers. The online supermarket chain will use Karakuri's technology to expand its grocery offering after a fire devastated one of its automated warehouses. It [...]