Category: Tech news

US carmakers fare well in JD Power’s annual survey of new vehicle owners. Tesla gets poor grades on a small sample.

Facebook shifts its VR strategy, WhatsApp’s payment service hits a snag in Brazil and we look at how Trump’s visa ban will affect Silicon Valley.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 24, 2020.

1. Facebook kills off its cheapest VR headset

Just two years after launching the Oculus Go, Facebook announced that it’s discontinuing the headset — the least powerful and least expensive VR hardware the company sold.

The entry-level product was meant to hook consumers on the idea of VR and convince them to upgrade. Last year, however, Facebook released the $399 Oculus Quest, and it quickly became clear that the Quest was likely the best path forward for Oculus’ consumer ambitions.

2. Brazil suspends WhatsApp’s payments service

Speaking of Facebook, the new payment feature in its popular messaging app has been blocked in its second largest market. Brazil’s central bank said it was making the decision to “preserve an adequate competitive environment” in the mobile payments space and to ensure “functioning of a payment system that’s interchangeable, fast, secure, transparent, open and cheap.”

3. Trump’s worker visa ban will hit Silicon Valley hard

We’ve been regularly featuring immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn’s column. But for this piece, editor Walter Thompson interviews Alcorn about President Trump’s executive order extending an existing ban on immigrant work visas. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

4. Stacy Brown-Philpot is stepping down as CEO of TaskRabbit

Brown-Philpot joined TaskRabbit seven years ago as the company’s chief operating officer and was promoted to CEO in the spring of 2016. In the fall of 2017, the company was acquired by Ikea for undisclosed terms in a stock deal and has continued to operate independently as a subsidiary of the company.

5. Olympus plans to sell its struggling camera division

After three straight years of operating losses, one of the world’s foremost camera makers is giving up the ghost. Olympus announced its intentions to sell off its imaging unit by the end of September 2020.

6. 11 top VCs discuss the future of New York startups

New York City was an initial U.S. hotspot for the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s also one of the most expensive cities in the world — so you might think startups would be anxious to leave. However, when we surveyed a number of New York-based venture capitalists, they seemed bullish about the city’s future as a startup and technology hub. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. Google updates its analytics tools for newsrooms

Google is introducing version 2.0 of both News Consumer Insights and Realtime Content Insights, while also adding a new feature called the News Tagging Guide. These efforts fall under the umbrella of the broader Google News Initiative, introduced in 2018 as a way for the search giant to fund quality journalism and find other ways to support the industry.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

Starting today, the search giant will make a previously opt-in auto-delete feature the norm.

When we announced the formation of The TechCrunch List last week, we had no idea what response we would get to our proposal for founders to recommend their “first-check” investors. While plenty of founders over the years have told us that they wanted such a database to rely on or to refer to other founders who are raising for the first time, there is always something nerve-wracking about launching a new product and waiting for feedback.

Well, the TechCrunch community came through, since in just a few days, we’ve already received more than 500 proposals from founders recommending VCs who wrote their first checks and who have been particularly helpful in fundraising and getting a round closed.

If you haven’t submitted a recommendation, please help us using the form linked here.

The short survey takes five minutes, and could save founders dozens of hours armed with the right intel. Our editorial team is carefully processing these submissions to ensure their veracity and accuracy, and the more data points we have, the better the List can be for founders.

We’ve gotten quite a few questions about this new initiative, so we wanted to answer some common queries.

First check into each round: We want to know who wrote the first check that helped catalyze a round at each stage of a startup. So it’s okay to submit a name for each round.

Only one recommendation per early-stage round: We are holding the line on only allowing one name per round though. We realize that party rounds are not uncommon at the angel and seed stages, but a list of 30 people who all “led” a round is precisely what we are trying to avoid with the List. So keep the recommendations to one name, please, or if you can’t, it’s best not to recommend anyone at all.

Deadline: There is no single deadline. We intend to publish a first draft of the list in the next two-three weeks, so earlier submissions are more likely to be processed in time for the draft list. Our goal with The TechCrunch List is to make it an up-to-date and living product, and so we intend to update it regularly with new information as we learn it. So it’s a rolling deadline.

Founders only: While we certainly appreciate VCs offering to humbly submit their own names for consideration, we really want to hear from the founders themselves who did the fundraise. Feel free to reach out to your founders to submit — many firms have already done so if our early data is any indication.

People not firms: We are obsessed about moving beyond firm brand names and instead identifying individual partners on recommendations, since ultimately, founders work with a person and not a brand.

Weighting: We’ve been asked how we are “weighting” the submissions. The simple answer is that we are (mostly) not weighting them. In addition to fact-checking and verifying each submission, our main consideration is a basic assessment of a startup’s quality — what was the size of the round, has it raised any follow-on financing and any other public displays of performance. The TechCrunch List isn’t assessing investor quality (there are plenty of other lists in our industry for that), but rather assessing the willingness of an investor to write a “first check.”

Keep submitting those names, and reach out to us if you have any questions.

In a filing this week, connected speaker maker Sonos noted plans to cut 12% of its workforce, in addition to closing some of its smaller offices and its garish showroom in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood.

The move follows a letter to shareholders sent last month that acknowledged struggles stemming from a combination of closed retail storefronts and a broader lowering of demand for its luxury audio products.

“Our second quarter was challenging, as we experienced a 17% year-over-year decline in revenue,” the company wrote. “Coming off a strong first quarter, we had expected some softness in the second quarter and we did see challenges primarily from a large retail partner in the US rebalancing inventory as well as some weakness in our German market from inventory rebalancing at our distributor. In March, our total revenue declined 23% year-over-year as the typical replenishment order cycle in the majority of our end markets was disrupted due to the softer global demand environment and broad-based physical retail closures stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

CEO Patrick Spence confirmed the move in a statement sent to TechCrunch, placing much of the blame at the feet of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the pandemic hit, we took immediate action to review our investments for the year and made changes to reduce operating expenses and preserve liquidity,” Spence wrote. “The pandemic and resulting economic impacts have caused us to have to make some hard choices, including reductions to our workforce, and the closure of some of our smaller offices and our storefront in New York City. These changes are necessary in order for us to emerge from this period ready to take advantage of opportunities we see in the future.”

The chief executive says staff were notified during multiple all-hands meetings over the course of the day yesterday, adding that the hardware maker will be offering up severance, healthcare and career coaching for those impacted by the decision.

The company’s board has also agreed to a 20% cut in Spence’s base salary, effective July 1 through the end of September.

The DOJ’s opposition to Facebook and Google’s 8,000-mile cable to Hong Kong highlights how physical infrastructure is as contentious as the virtual world.

When students head back to class this fall, they may find themselves isolated from each other and wearing masks. This isn’t biosafety—it’s pandemic theater.

You’re probably using less cellular data while you shelter in place. Here’s how you can temporarily pause your account—or switch to a cheaper network.

Ever wish you could smash a tablet and smart speaker together? These devices try to offer the best of both worlds.

Today a Senate committee will hear about a bill that would help farmers adopt practices to release less carbon from the soil, reducing planetary warming.

Its creators said they could use facial analysis to determine if someone would become a criminal. Critics said the work recalled debunked “race science.”

When permafrost thaws, sea ice disappears, and wildfires rage in the north, the consequences extend to the rest of the world.

The businesses that will survive after the pandemic are the ones who give us back our time.

While the company touted generous severance packages for its terminated employees, it offered unequal help to its shadow workforce.

The game has plenty to teach about making decisions with the cards we’ve been dealt—on and off the table.