Technology – Page 6 – Product Management Confabulation

August 24, 2022

Check out the official Disrupt 2022 roundtables

I tell you what, folks. The roundtable discussions at TechCrunch Disrupt — coming to you live and in person on October 18-20 in San Francisco — will be off the hook.

Disrupt attendees love roundtables — 30-minute, expert-led discussions designed for up to 20 attendees who share an interest in a particular subject. The format allows for deeper conversation, questions and answers, and time for attendees to connect and explore collaborative opportunities.

These roundtables cover a range of interesting topics. Check out the list of sessions below; for the full schedule and descriptions, check out the agenda.

Don’t forget! Prices jump $1,100 come September 16. Book your Disrupt 2022 Pass here.

THE DISRUPT 2022 ROUNDTABLES

Hypefeast: How Hype Fuels The Economy And The Unique Opportunity Startups Have To Take Advantage
with Alain Sylvain (SYLVIAN)

My Daughter The Cyborg
with Jeremiah Robison (CIONIC)

How Will I Know? How To Pick The Right Time (And Way) To Launch From Stealth Mode
with Andrej Safundzic (Lumos)

Starting Early: The How-Tos Of Investing In Student Founders
with Melissa Li (Dorm Room Fund)

From IPO Frenzies To Delays: What’s Changing With Equity
Sponsored By: Secfi

Using AI To Cut Meeting Costs And Time
with Sam Liang (Otter.Ai)
Sponsored By: Otter.Ai

Democratizing Retail With AI-Powered Marketplaces
with Kathy Zhou (Queenly)

Expanding Applications Of AI Across Real Estate And Beyond
with Sam Stone (Opendoor)

Startup Exits: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
with Sam Wong (Fundable Startups)

Why Nine Out Of Ten Startups Fail
with Dheeraj Pandey (DevRev)
Sponsored By: Mayfield

NFTs For Real-World Problems
with Manuela Seve (alphaa.io)

Making Venture More Accessible
with Ryan Nece (Next Play Capital)

Changing Consumer Behavior & Turning Customers Into Advocates
with TBD

Gen Z: Adapting To The Next Generation Of Consumers
with Emir Talu (Pentas Ventures)

How To Build A Tech Team To Hack Government Bureaucracy
with Hongyi Li (Government Technology Agency Of Singapore)

Traction vs. Funding: The Chicken-Or-Egg Problem For Deep Tech Startups
with Thomas Rouffiac (Natrion)

Saving The World: The Playbook For Building Planetary Health Unicorns
with Arvind Gupta (Mayfield Fund)
Sponsored By: Mayfield

Art Of Persuasion: How To Convince People To Work With You
with Trisha Bantigue (Queenly)

The Fintech Scaling Dilemma: When To Expand Across Continents
with Yorick Naeff (BUX)

How To Approach Personalization In A Post-Cookie World
with Alexandre Robicquet (Crossing Minds)

How To Recession-Proof Your Saas Startup
with Haseeb Budhani (Rafay Systems)

Harnessing Data And Culture At Scale
with Christine Spang (Nylas)

Design And Scale Using Behavioral Science
with Shirin Oreizy (Next Step)

Love What You Do: Lessons From The Passion Economy
with Robin Åström (Wehype)

Lessons From Disrupting The Disruptors
with Shaival Shah (Ribbon)

Changing Consumer Behavior & Turning Customers Into Advocates
with Sofia Laurell (Tiny Organics)

Pricing For Competitive Advantage
with Andy Rooks (Price Theory)

Hacking Hiring: How To Build An A-Team Without A Budget Of A Large Corporation
with Anna Buldakova (Vektor AI)

The Value Of Flat Wins
with Alex Hersham (Zencargo)

Delivering Value & Driving Pipeline: How B2B Marketers Can Tackle Both
Sponsored By: LinkedIn

A Serial Software Entrepreneur Shares The Playbook For Building Breakout Companies
with Rehan Jalil (Securiti)
Sponsored By: Mayfield

August 24, 2022

Dear Sophie: What should we know about the H-1B lottery before we hire STEM OPTs?

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives.

Timing is important

The earliest a candidate can apply for STEM OPT is 90 days before the current 12-month OPT EAD (Employment Authorization Document) is set to expire. I recommend that they submit their application as early as possible.

August 23, 2022

Twitter ex-security head says the social network has ‘deficient moderation’ for Spaces

Twitter’s former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko alleges that the social network’s Spaces feature lacks proper moderation. Zatko made the claim in an explosive whistleblower complaint first obtained by CNN and The Washington Post.

In the complaint, Zatko says a Twitter executive incorrectly told staff and board members in December 2021 that the feature was being appropriately moderated. However, Zatko says he discovered that “about half of Spaces content flagged for review was in a language that the moderators did not speak, and there there was little to no moderation happening,” according to his whistleblower complaint dated July 6, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department.

The whistleblower complaint notes that among other responsibilities, Zatko worked with Twitter Service, the company’s internal name for the division tasked with operational enforcement of global content moderation.

The complaint follows a report from The Washington Post published last year that said Twitter knew Spaces could be misused due to a lack of moderation. The report said employees who complained about the lack of moderation were sidelined by the company, as some questioned how the social network planned to make sure the offering didn’t turn into a platform for hate speech and calls to violence.

The report said Twitter executives were aware of the potential for abuse, but refused to slow the roll-out, despite the feature being widely used by white nationalists, Taliban supporters and anti-vaccine activists posting COVID-19 misinformation. Employees who raised concerns about Twitter’s plans to make Spaces available more widely were allegedly told that the technology needed to properly moderate Spaces did not exist, and that its small number of human moderators were unable to listen to tens of thousands of conversations occurring in multiple languages in real-time.

Twitter launched its Clubhouse-like Spaces feature in December 2020 as social audio was steadily growing in popularity. Interest around social audio became increasingly popular at the height of the pandemic, as people around the world were confined to their homes. In October 2021, Twitter rolled out the ability for all anyone to host a Space, opening up the tool to all sorts of groups and people despite a lack of proper moderation.

Zatko also accused his former employer of cybersecurity negligence. During his time at the company, Zatko says he witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy,” despite his attempts to flag the security lapses with Twitter’s board, which were ignored.

Twitter recruited Zatko, a renown hacker and security researcher, in late 2020 following a breach that allowed hackers to very publicly hijack the Twitter accounts of high profile accounts, including Joe Biden and Elon Musk.

Zatko was let go from the company in January 2022 along with CISO Rinki Sethi.

It’s worth noting that the complaint could impact Twitter’s ongoing legal fight with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is trying to get out of a $44 billion agreement to buy the social network. Zatko says Twitter executives don’t have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform and weren’t motivated to do so.

Twitter spokesperson Madeline Broas told TechCrunch in a boilerplate statement: “Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter in January 2022 for ineffective leadership and poor performance. What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context. Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be.”

Mudge’s report helps Musk’s legal fight over $44B Twitter deal; says there are ‘millions’ of accounts that could be spam bots

August 23, 2022

Ex-security chief accuses Twitter of cybersecurity mismanagement in an explosive whistleblower complaint

Twitter’s former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has accused his former employer of cybersecurity negligence in an explosive whistleblower complaint first obtained by CNN and The Washington Post.

Zatko, a well-known hacker, was recruited by Twitter to head up the company’s security division in late-2020, months after a very public breach saw hackers hijack the Twitter accounts of some of the world’s most famous people, including Joe Biden and Elon Musk. He was let go from the company less than two years later.

Though his time at Twitter was brief, Zatko says he witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy,” according to his whistleblower complaint dated July 6, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department. He told the Washington Post that his public whistleblowing comes after his attempts to flag the security lapses with Twitter’s board were ignored.

Zatko alleges in the complaint, reviewed by TechCrunch, that Twitter lacked basic security controls. He said thousands of employee laptops contained complete copies of Twitter’s source code and that about one-third of those devices blocked automatic security fixes, had system firewalls turned off, and had remote desktop access enabled for non-approved purposes. Zatko also accused the company of failing to actively monitor what employees were doing on their computers. As a result, “employees were repeatedly found to be intentionally installing spyware on their work computers at the request of external organizations,” the complaint said.

Zatko also alleges that about 5,000 full-time employees had broad access to the company’s internal software and that access was not closely monitored, giving them the ability to tap into sensitive data and alter how the service worked.

During his time at the company, Zatko said he came across a number of vulnerabilities “waiting to be discovered.” He says he discovered that half of the company’s 500,000 datacenter servers run on outdated software that do not support basic security features, such as encryption for stored data, or no longer received regular security updates from their vendors, This meant that Twitter suffered from an “anomalously high rate” of security incidents, Zatko said, and “reasonably feared Twitter could suffer an Equifax-level hack,” referring to the 2017 credit agency breach that resulted in the theft of close to 150 million Americans’ personal information.

The complaint alleges that the company had approximately one security incident each week serious enough that Twitter was required to report it to government agencies.

“In 2020 alone, Twitter had more than 40 security incidents, 70% of which were access control-related,” the complaint reads. “These included 20 incidents defined as breaches; all but two of which were access control related.”

Beyond claims of serious cybersecurity failings, Zatko also alleges that the Indian government forced Twitter to hire one of its agents and that the company repeatedly violated the terms of a 2011 agreement with the FTC. The complaint alleges Twitter does not reliably delete users’ data — including direct messages — after they cancel their accounts, in some cases because the company has lost track of the information, and that it has misled regulators about whether it deletes the data as it is required to do.

The complaint also has potential implications for Twitter’s legal battle with Musk, who is trying to get out of a $44 billion contract to buy the social media platform. Zatko says Twitter executives don’t have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform, and weren’t motivated to do so.

Twitter fixes security bug that exposed at least 5.4 million accounts

August 18, 2022

Veterinary telehealth service Vetster launches in the UK, post expansion in the US

Vetster, a veterinary telehealth service which has raised $40M, is launching in the UK following expansion in the US.

Vetster connects licensed veterinarians with pet owners via video, voice and online chat.

It hopes to fill a yawning gap in provision. In the UK one in two veterinary clinics are overbooked and unable to take on more patients, according to research.

Vetster commissioned research through 3Gem with 150 vets in March 2022 and found vets are overwhelmed with pets, overbooked and unable to take on new patients. And many are looking to quit. So the Telehealth industry is probably arriving just in time.

Mark Bordo, CEO and coFounder of Vetster. “Veterinarians are facing tremendous pressure to provide services to millions of pet owners. Vetster’s virtual care platform connects pet owners with licensed UK veterinarians to provide support when their clinic is closed, to answer a non-urgent question, and to improve the health outcomes of their pet and help ensure owners can care for their animals.”

The pet telehealth service has been live in North America for over two years.

Vetster raised $30M USD in its Series B funding in April 2022.

Competitors include Televet (raised $7M) ,Dutch ($25M), and Pawp ($17.5M), among others.

August 17, 2022

Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant has been fired by her board

Kimberly Bryant is officially out from Black Girls Code, eight months after being indefinitely suspended from the organization that she founded.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, a Black Girls Code spokesperson writes that it “believes the decision to remove Ms. Bryant as CEO and as a board member is in the best interests of the organization, the girls it serves, its employees, and its donors. BGC has been focusing its efforts on moving forward and expanding on the success of the organization since its inception.”

Bryant filed a federal lawsuit on August 11 alleging wrongful suspension and conflict of interest by board member Heather Hiles. One day later, according to Bryant, her job as a board member and chief executive was terminated. A statement provided to TechCrunch by Bryant and her attorney describes the termination as “an unfortunate culmination of a hostile takeover initiated by Board Member Heather Hiles of the nonprofit that Ms. Bryant created from the ground up, with Hiles’ ultimate desire to gain control of over $30 million in donated philanthropic funds.”

Also named in the suit are Wells Fargo and other individual board members. Hiles and Stacy Brown-Philpot, another board member, did not immediately return TechCrunch’s request for comment. A BGC spokesperson said that “the timing of the Board’s decision had nothing to do with Ms. Bryant’s lawsuit” and that the newest filing makes all the same claims as the state court lawsuits Bryant filed in January.

Bryant’s firing comes after a tense period between Bryant and the board of directors she appointed. In December 2021, Bryant was denied access to her email, which she eventually learned was a result of being indefinitely suspended from the nonprofit organization by her board of directors.

At the time, the board told TechCrunch that Bryant was placed on administrative paid leave to review complaints against her.

Allegations from the board — supported by multiple interviews that TechCrunch conducted with former BGC employees — included Bryant misgendering a staff member and creating a toxic work environment. The board then said that it would form a special committee to investigate the aforementioned allegations but declined to provide a specific timeline.

In Bryant’s legal filing, she claims that the independent investigation cost the nonprofit almost $2 million of donor funds in legal fees. The investigation, led by Aisha Adam of Adam Law, saw 26 witnesses, including Bryant, interviewed over eight months. Bryant’s filing states that Adam “concluded in her presentation to the Board on Friday, August 12th, that none of the witnesses substantiated the special committee’s claims against Bryant.” It’s unclear what claims the special committee set against Bryant, as the board formed a special committee last year in response to claims set forward by former employees of Black Girls Code.

TechCrunch reached out to the lead investor, Adam, for further comment but did not hear back by time of publication. A Black Girls Code spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation’s findings on the record.

The same day of the presentation, the nonprofit tweeted a statement by Hiles, who said, “Bryant will move on from CEO and board member of BGC. The entire community wishes her well on her next endeavor.”

In response, Bryant tweeted that she had been “wrongly removed” and “without cause or an opportunity to participate in a vote of these actions.” Days later, she tweeted that she was offered no severance, healthcare assistance, or a vacation payout, the latter of which she is entitled to by law in California, where BGC is based. “Sounds like retaliation?” she tweeted regarding the lack of severance.

A Black Girls Code spokesperson said that Ms. Bryant was paid her accrued vacation in accordance with California law, but declined to comment on Bryant’s severance and healthcare assistance allegations.

In December, TechCrunch spoke to five former employees of Black Girls Code. The individuals spoke to TechCrunch anonymously out of fear of retaliation about the state of affairs at BGC. They confirmed the board’s decision to look into the company culture after a summer of rapid turnover, with many individuals citing Bryant as a key reason for parting ways with the nonprofit in the first place.

The former employees said staff churn was largely attributed to Bryant’s leadership style, which they describe was “rooted in fear.” When Bryant was there, they say she would publicly berate managers within meetings, repeatedly calling folks incompetent and urging a manager to “go back to school” when they were unable to deliver on a certain task.

One former employee spoke at the time about the precariousness of the situation. “We know how it is perceived to take down a Black person,” this person said. “And that’s not even what we want to accomplish. We want the organization to be under leadership that could continue the growth of our work.”

Despite believing in the mission, this individual said they finally left the company, partially thanks to consulting a therapist. “To work for an organization that is trying to change how you are treated, valued, and appreciated — and when that doesn’t happen again — it’s really a particular kind of betrayal,” added this person.

Meanwhile, Bryant has continued to receive overwhelming public support, especially from Black women founders.

Martine Pierre, the founder of edtech cannabis company Cannalution, told TechCrunch that the ordeal represented how Black women never receive the same grace as other groups of people and believes if this situation happened to a white, male leader, then the outrage would be “deafening.”

“Her former and current employees deserve to be heard,” Pierre said of those who alleged misconduct from Bryant. “Their allegations, if true, should not be brushed aside; however, Kimberly deserved a fair review process that could have alleviated any previous or current issues within the company. How they terminated her was gross. There was no warning at all. There was no internal investigation.”

Aniesia Williams, the founder of the communication services company AW+CO, said the way Bryant was treated was unacceptable and that many Black founders within the ecosystem can relate to what Bryant is going through. She also said the way the organization removed Bryant sends a bad message to the young girls the foundation has impacted over the years.

“Even the erasure of her on the website, all the while using her daughter’s face everywhere, is a slap in the face,” Williams told TechCrunch. “Black women as a whole can’t make any mistakes without fear of everything we have built being snatched away from us.”

At the same time, Nicole Tinson, the founder of the inclusion networking company HBCU 20 x 20, also felt that Bryant’s abrupt suspension was a disservice to the Black venture community. She said the world needs to see more Black women making a global impact, and Bryant’s removal means it has one less role model.

“There are proper protocols and procedures to address and encourage improvement and efficacy for leaders in any organization, and this was a missed opportunity to move the organization forward in a positive way for the Black girls it serves,” Tinson told TechCrunch.

She hopes there is a positive outcome for all in that “Kimberly is able to continue with her plans for the future.”

“Sometimes we forget that the vision founders have is the guiding light for the future of the communities they serve,” Tinson continued. “The decision to abruptly suspend, then terminate Kimberly Bryant from the organization she founded disrupts and impacts the most important stakeholder — the Black girls she saw the future in.”

August 17, 2022

Dear Sophie: How do I get an O-1 visa to freelance on web3 projects?

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

The work visa that allows you to freelance…

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak/Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

Most non-immigrant work visas that allow you to stay and work temporarily in the United States are tied to a specific employer that sponsors you for the visa by offering you a job and filing a visa application on your behalf.

Unless you can get a work permit, only one main visa type clearly allows you to do freelance work — in other words, work with multiple companies — and that’s the O-1 visa. With an O-1A, you will need to have a U.S. agent acting either as your employer or representing multiple employers to sponsor you for the O-1. A colleague in your field may act as your U.S. agent, but the petition must provide the details of the relationship between you as the O-1 beneficiary and the U.S. agent.

The O-1 doesn’t provide you with complete autonomy, but it will allow you the freedom to choose a variety of projects in your field at different organizations.

August 16, 2022

Pomelo exits stealth mode with $20M seed to rethink international money transfer

Eric Velasquez Frenkiel had a seemingly simple thought when visiting his family in the Philippines, impressed by the cashless economy that had formed. Instead of sending money to his family once a year — a costly, fee-heavy affair — why can’t he just leave his credit card there?

As with many things in fintech, it wasn’t that simple. But the seed of the idea made the former enterprise chief executive turn his career into a bet on one of fintech’s most elusive problems.

Pomelo, Frenkiel’s new startup launching out of stealth today, wants to make it easier to send remittance payments and conduct international money transfers, with a credit twist.

To execute on that vision, Pomelo has raised a $20 million seed round led by Keith Rabois at Founders Fund and Kevin Hartz at A* Capital, with participation from Afore Capital, Xfund, Josh Buckley and The Chainsmokers. The round also included a $50 million warehouse facility, which will allow Pomelo to give upfront cash to people who want to make transfers.

Venture investors are not the only cohort showing interest; more than 120,000 people have joined Pomelo’s waitlist over six months, according to Frenkiel. (It’s important not to confuse this Pomelo with another Pomelo, a fintech-as-a-service platform for Latin America that has raised $9 million in funding.) Oh, fintech.

Here’s how the startup works: If someone wants to send money overseas, they make a Pomelo account, which comes with up to four credit cards. The creator of the account — let’s just assume that they’re the one that is sending the money — can set limits, pause cards and view spending habits.

Pomelo’s key tweak is around credit. Senders can give cash, in the form of credit, to family members — which the startup thinks will help with instant access to funds, fraud and chargeback protection and, for potential immigrants that may use this to send money back home, a way to boost one’s credit score with more transaction history.

Challenges still await any fintech, whether traditional or scrappy upstart, that is betting its business on backing potentially risky individuals. For example, Pomelo doesn’t want to rely on credit scores when deciding whether or not to trust a sender, because the metric historically leaves out those who don’t have a bounty of access to financial literacy or spending.

Image Credits: Pomelo

“If you do have a credit score and you have enough credit history, you would get up to $1,000 a month,” Frenkiel said. “But if you don’t have credit or wish to improve your credit, we give you a credit builder.” Customers are invited to supply a secure deposit, so that there’s a way to prove creditworthiness down the road, and Pomelo is able to “actually balance the need to extend credit but also ensure we stay in business long term.”

International money transfer continues to be an expensive affair for senders. Unsurprisingly, that pain point has led to a plethora of startups. Startups offer a sliding scale proposition, meaning it costs more to send more money, or a flat-fee value proposition, with a $5 fee for all transfers regardless of size. Per the World Bank, around 6% of a total check is removed via fees and exchange rate markups.

Rethinking remittance thus feels like a common pitch. Frenkiel says that Pomelo’s closest competitors are Xoom and Remitly, although he thinks they differentiate in two keys ways: the focus on credit, and a “fundamentally new revenue model.”

Pomelo doesn’t make money from senders via transfer fees, instead leaning its business on interchange fees paid by merchants. “You shouldn’t have to pay money to send money,” Frenkiel adds.

While interchange fees have their own slew of issues as a business model, let’s end with some insurance: both Visa and Mastercard were interested in partnering with the startup, but the latter won the deal.

“Mastercard allows us to work in more than 100 countries,” Frenkiel said. “Obviously, we’re starting off with a few, but the idea is that there’s far more endpoints to take Mastercard or Visa than having banking as a prerequisite to send money… we hope we can eventually deliver a product to wherever MasterCard is accepted around the world. ”

The startup is servicing the Philippines, but soon plans to expand to Mexico and India as well as other geographies.

August 15, 2022

Tech industry reacts to Adam Neumann’s a16z-backed return to real estate

WeWork co-founder and former chief executive Adam Neumann’s career arc has felt synonymous with the rise and eventual fall of unicorn dreams. The entrepreneur, whose fall from grace has attracted global interest, just found a ladder in the form of a check from storied venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Andreessen Horowitz announced on Monday that it has written its largest single check to-date into Neumann’s new startup, Flow. The stealthy startup is trying to reinvent real estate (again), but instead of commercial properties, which WeWork focused on, Neumann is looking into revolutionizing rental properties. Horowitz’s check, reportedly upwards of $350 million, values the not-yet-launched company at over $1 billion, according to The New York Times. (Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment beyond the blog post, and Flow did not respond immediately to request for comment.) It is unclear how the deal is structured between equity financing or debt financing.

a16z says ‘WeBack’ to WeWork’s Neumann with its biggest check ever

While details remain sparse, the development has met with a range of opinions from early-stage investors, whose entire job it is to back outlier founders with high chances of success. Some say that this is the exact point of the venture asset class — backing bold founders — while others note that Neumann’s second chance comes as women and founders of color struggle more than ever to get starter capital.

Is it really all about track record?

Neumann’s track record at WeWork can be viewed differently depending on who you ask. Much has been made of the cultural malaise at the company. Neumann spent investor cash on copious amounts of booze for the office, a school for his wife’s vanity project and a wave pool, but when the business finally imploded ahead of its long-planned IPO, Neumann wasn’t the one left holding the bag.

The company saw its valuation plummet from $47 billion at its peak to ~$8 billion under Neumann’s tenure. WeWork laid off thousands of employees party because of his own fiscal imprudence, and he was eventually forced out as CEO by his own investors in 2019. They still paid him handsomely to leave, though — his exit package was worth more than $1 billion.

Post-game analysis of WeWork’s failed IPO attempt focused on some of the more far-fetched parts of his vision, from reporting “community-adjusted EBITDA” to announcing his intent to “elevate the world’s consciousness.”

But the company did eventually make its public debut through a SPAC in late 2021, albeit at a much lower valuation and to markedly less fanfare. Despite the public criticism, early WeWork investors still benefited from backing the company, Rare Breed Ventures founder McKeever Conwell, whose firm backs seed and pre-seed companies, told TechCrunch.

“At the end of the day, Adam is a white guy who started a company and got a multibillion-dollar valuation. Now, was there some trickery in there? Sure. Some things he did wrong? Sure. But I think what people forget is, if you were an early investor, which we weren’t, you still got paid,” Conwell said.

Conwell said that given the weight that VCs place on a founder’s network at the seed stage, it’s understandable why a firm like a16z would want to place their trust in a founder like Neumann, at least when it comes to building a multibillion-dollar real estate business — something he’s done before.

“If we look at the history of entrepreneurs, of successful tech founders, many of these founders’ largest outcomes aren’t their first thing. It’s like their third, or fourth or fifth company [that succeeds],” Conwell said.

Particularly during tough economic times, as Conwell pointed out on Twitter, asset allocators tend to pile money into what they view as “safe” investments. That’s exactly what a16z seems to be doing with its bet on Neumann, he added.

A reminder that in times of economic downturn allocators turn back to what they deem is safer. That's right you'd get fired faster for investing in underrepresented founders than investing in Adam Neumann from WeWork fame. (And with a giant check too)https://t.co/MyQEsmMIDK

— MacTheVC.eth (@MacConwell) August 15, 2022

“Firms like Andreessen are only going to be focused on a small pocket [of opportunities] in which they know they know how to make money … It’s a playbook. They know that works, it’s a playbook they can sell to their investors. It’s a playbook that they never change. It doesn’t matter, because if they don’t change it, they’re still winning,” Conwell said.

The vision

As far as visions go, renovating the rental real estate market isn’t a unique idea. With over $100 million in venture capital investment, Common is a co-living company that plays property manager to a suite of apartments and homes. The startup, ironically, operates one of the former WeLives, which was WeWork’s dorm-like take on rental properties.

Co-founder Brad Hargreaves, who stepped back as chief executive of the company less than two weeks ago, told TechCrunch over e-mail that “whatever you think of Neumann, WeWork was innovative and defined the category.”

“I believe we’re going to see more ‘asset-heavy’ venture deals happen,” Hargreaves continued. “VCs (if you can even call them that these days) have plenty of capital to deploy, and it’s clear that massive change in some industries won’t come through light-touch software innovation alone,” Hargreaves said.

At the same time, Hargreaves hinted that Neumman’s new deal is rich. He said that the check size is a “hell of a preference stack to layer over this kind of company,” pointing out how Alliance Residential, which owned 110,000 apartment units, was bought for $200 million by Greystar. FSV, which offers property management services, is valued at only $6 billion and owns 1.5 billion units and dozens of brands. He thinks that it’s likely the deal is not structured like a traditional venture deal, although it’s unclear what percent of the check would be debt funding versus equity financing.

If a startup is worth $1b before it launches a product it’s probably a scam.

— jason@calacanis.com (@Jason) August 15, 2022

Kate Brodock, CEO of Switch and general partner at the W Fund, called the deal “disgusting.”

“This is one of the biggest, most notable films out there and I just cannot understand,” Brodock said in an interview with TechCrunch. “This is just like somebody woke up and they were like, how many boxes can I check that just moves us backwards?”

Allison Byers, the founder of Scroobious, a platform that aims to diversify startups and make founders more venture backable, described feeling a muted rage.

“There’s this undertone of acceptance and almost learned helplessness. Or like trauma we’ve all experienced so much it doesn’t make the same impact anymore,” she said to TechCrunch over Twitter DMs. “This all seems new and horrendous to those who have opened their eyes to the systemic issues of VC funding over the past couple years, but we’ve been dealing with it forever.”

Byers added: “It’s really just a matter of fact and I can’t let it consume my day [because] I’ve got my normal load of female founder shit to do.”

Startup yachts, Adam Neumann and wait what year is it again?

August 8, 2022

5 reasons why Ukraine’s fintech sector is growing despite war

Vadym Synegin Contributor

Vadym Synegin is a Ukrainian impact entrepreneur, philanthropist and investor in fintech and crypto projects with more than 15 years’ experience as an entrepreneur in Europe and the UAE.

Ukrainians have often pioneered market-leading companies and built products that positively impact society, especially in the fintech sector.

Despite the hurdles of war, the Ukrainian fintech community is working to create better infrastructure and regulation for the country, which can attract valuable companies and institutional investors from different backgrounds.

It’s a valuable market

I’m sure many investors think the country’s IT sector is a risky investment right now. But it’s still business as usual at fintech companies here. They have proven their resilience even in wartime conditions, and impressively, 90% of Ukrainian tech startups are still hiring.

This March, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill to establish a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency in the country. While the bill doesn’t let you use digital assets as a form of payment, it seeks to create proper conditions to establish a strong cryptocurrency market.

Cryptocurrency exchanges can now claim a license to operate legally in the country. Banks will be able to open accounts for crypto companies, which can opt for different licenses depending on what they do.

The Ukrainian IT sector is still growing

In the first five months of 2022, Ukraine’s IT sector generated roughly $3.2 billion from exports — 27% more than the same period in 2021, and accounting for almost half of the country’s total volume of export services.

One of the main goals of the Ukrainian government is to increase the IT sector’s share of the country’s GDP from the current 4% to 10% by 2024.

The government’s backing and the strong growth together make for a strong signal of how the IT sector is ripe for investments.

Global finance and tech firms are supporting Ukraine

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation presented Digital4Freedom — a global initiative that is the primary source of charitable donations for tech companies to support Ukraine.

Digital4Freedom is part of the global UNITED24 effort and allows anyone across the globe to make monetary contributions to the restoration of the country’s economy.

The program consists of nine projects presented to 40 companies, of which the vast majority have agreed to help with monetary contributions or technology solutions.

Amazon, for example, will reportedly provide over $100 million in cloud hosting services for Ukrainian state registers and is planning to develop solutions for deploying artificial intelligence in courts.

Crypto exchange Binance will become an official partner of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine to offer educational projects in the IT, web3 and finance fields.

Meta, with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, recently launched a $1.5 million assistance program for the recovery of the Ukrainian economy, helping small- and medium-sized businesses with a specialized training centre.

Startups are an integral part of the Ukrainian economy

Ukrainian businesses expect a reduction in the production of goods and services due to the war. What’s more, company executives predict the next 12 months will bring inflation and devaluation of the hryvnia.

Ukrainian tech startups are dedicating their efforts to elevating the industry to new heights. They are set to become the foundational pillars for a new layer of technology companies that will add significant value to the economy.

Fintech is growing fast despite setbacks

This year, Ukrainian lawmakers introduced the Law of Ukraine on Payment Services (LPS), which will provide a better regulatory environment for the fintech sector, including for payment services.

Additionally, the Ukrainian Association of Fintech and Innovation Companies (UAFIC) became the first non-EU member to join the European Digital Finance Association (EDFA). Both organizations are collaborating to strengthen the fintech landscape in Ukraine.

I believe Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian aggression, and the tremendous growth of the fintech landscape despite the crisis has proven that investors should not hesitate to invest in the fast-growing industry.

Despite the difficult situation in the country, the industry continues to develop. While attending numerous conferences and fintech events, I meet investors from all over the world interested in companies from Ukraine. All this tells us that the prospects for fintech in Ukraine look good, and that now is an excellent time to invest in it.