DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Inside a C.E.O.’s Bold Claims About Her Hot Fintech Start-Up
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Erin Griffith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ms. Yahyaoui’s compelling background helped her stand out among entrepreneurs when she moved in 2018 to San Francisco, where she founded a student aid start-up called Mos. The app hit the top of Apple’s App Store and Ms. Yahyaoui raised $56 million from high-profile investors, including Sequoia Capital, John Doerr and Steph Curry, according to PitchBook, which tracks start-ups. In podcasts, TV interviews and other media, Ms. Yahyaoui, 39, frequently discussed Mos’s success. But internal company data viewed by The New York Times showed that as of early last year, only about 30,000 customers had paid for Mos’s student aid services. Less than 10 percent of Mos’s roughly 153,000 bank users had put their own money into their accounts, the data showed.

Persons: Amira Yahyaoui, Yahyaoui, John Doerr, Steph Curry, Mos Organizations: Sequoia Capital, The New York Times, TechCrunch Locations: Tunisian, Algerian, San Francisco

☆ Sergey Brin once hosted a bizarre baby shower where big-name guests wore oversized diapers and onesies, book says
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Sergey Brin once hosted a bizarre baby shower featuring oversize diapers and adult onesies. Brin, who stepped back from Alphabet in 2019, has returned to help shape Google's AI strategy. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementGoogle cofounder Sergey Brin once hosted a bizarre baby shower where guests wore oversized diapers and adult-sized onesies.

Persons: Sergey Brin, Kara Swisher's, Brin, —, Kara Swisher, San Francisco soiree, Swisher, Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch, Anne Wojcicki, Gavin Newsom, Newsom, Larry Page, John Doerr, she'd, Page Organizations: Service, San, Francisco, Business, Microsoft Locations: San Francisco

☆ Biden calls Putin a ‘crazy S.O.B.’ and criticizes Trump’s Navalny comments during fundraiser
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Samantha Waldenberg | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a crazy S.O.B.” in a fundraiser Wednesday in San Francisco, according to the pool reporters traveling with the US president. But the existential threat to humanity is climate,” Biden told those gathered at the fundraiser. Biden also criticized former President Donald Trump’s comments likening his legal troubles to the death of Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. Where the hell does this comes from,” Biden said, according to reporters in the room. These guys do not believe in basic democratic principles,” Biden said according to the pool traveling with him.

Persons: Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin “, “, Putin, ” Biden, Biden, Donald Trump’s, Alexey Navalny, ”, Navalny, …, Trump, ” Trump, Dmitry Peskov, Strom Thurmond, “ I’ve, I’ve, “ You’ve, ‘ You’ve, Nancy Pelosi, John Doerr, CNN’s Kate Sullivan, Kaanita Iyer, Anna Chernova Organizations: CNN, Republican, NATO, Putin, Russia, Kremlin, Republicans, ”, White Locations: San Francisco, United States, Russia, U.S, United States of America, South Carolina, Los Altos Hills , California

☆ VCs Marc Andreessen, John Doerr among attendees at Schumer's next AI forum
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Technologists and advocates are again set to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss with Senate leaders the perils and promises of artificial intelligence. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, and John Doerr, chair of Kleiner Perkins, will be among the 21 attendees at the second AI Insights Forum hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., according to a spokesperson for his office. The session is a continuation of the Majority Leader's effort to get the chamber up to speed on AI to determine how best to approach AI regulation. For example, Future of Life Institute President Max Tegmark is also set to attend. Other tech leaders such as Micron Executive Vice President Manish Bhatia, Revolution CEO Steve Case, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez will be in attendance.

Persons: Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz, John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins, Chuck Schumer, Andreessen, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Manish Bhatia, Steve Case, Patrick Collison, Aidan Gomez, Derrick Johnson, Amanda Ballantyne, Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman Organizations: Capitol, Senate, China, Life, Life Institute, Tesla, Space X, Micron, NAACP, AFL, Technology, Microsoft, Google, CNBC, YouTube Locations: coders, India

☆ A company that counts billionaires Marc Andreessen and Laurene Powell Jobs as investors says it's bought 50,000 acres of land to build a new 'walkable' city in northern California. Here's everything w
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

California Forever says it wants to build a "walkable" city with new jobs, surrounded by an agricultural greenbelt. The company, Flannery Associates, has been quiet until now, but its parent company California Forever just launched a new website detailing its master plan. Solano County sits between Sacramento, San Francisco, and Napa Valley, and has a population of around 450,000 across just over 900 square miles. Sramek founded California Forever in 2017 and recently bought a family home there. "Now that we're no longer limited by confidentiality, we are eager to begin a conversation about the future of Solano County," it says.

Persons: Goldman Sachs, Marc Andreessen, Laurene Powell Jobs, Flannery, Jan Sramek, he'd, Jan, Sramek, it's, Who's, Chris Dixon, John Doerr, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz, Andreessen Horowitz, Patrick, John Collison Organizations: Goldman, Service, Flannery Associates, California Forever, Travis Air Force Base, California Forever's, California Delta, California Locations: San Francisco, California, Wall, Silicon, Solano County, Sacramento, Napa Valley, Solano, Fairfield, Rio Vista, walkable

☆ Meet Reed Jobs, the Apple cofounder's son who just launched a VC fund to invest in cancer treatments
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Reed Jobs, the son of Steve Jobs, launched Yosemite, a VC firm that will invest in cancer treatments. Reed Jobs, Steve Jobs's oldest son, is striking out on his own. Jobs, one of three children of the Apple cofounder and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, is launching Yosemite, a venture capital firm that will invest in new cancer treatments, according to a press release. The 31-year-old was inspired by his father to start the fund after Steve Jobs died from complications of pancreatic cancer in 2011, he told The New York Times. Jobs's latest business venture will build on his previous work as a managing director at the Emerson Collective, the mission-driven corporation founded by his mother.

Persons: Reed Jobs, Steve Jobs, Jobs, mother's Emerson, Steve Jobs's, Laurene Powell Jobs, John Doerr, Emerson, —, Walter Isaacson, Yosemite Organizations: VC, Apple, New York Times, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, Times, Emerson, Emerson Collective's, Stanford Locations: Yosemite, Hawaii

May 1 (Reuters) - Longtime Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh is leaving the Silicon Valley venture capital establishment to start a fund with backing from the firm and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), sources told Reuters. Hsieh is in advanced talks to raise $200 million from limited partners including Kleiner Perkins and TSMC for the new fund called Matter Ventures. A Kleiner Perkins spokesperson confirmed Hsieh's departure and the firm's participation in the fund. Hsieh, with two PhDs from the California Institute of Technology, has worked at Kleiner Perkins for 17 years, leading investments in Chinese drone maker DJI and 3D printing company Desktop Medal (DM.N). He will remain on the boards of companies he invested in at Kleiner Perkins, including orthodontic brackets maker LightForce.

☆ Swiss company that counts Microsoft as a customer says it's removed CO2 from the air and put it in the ground
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

It the first time a company has successfully taken carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, put it underground to be locked away permanently and delivered that permanent carbon removal to a paying customer. They have been scaling the technology for direct carbon removal, wherein machines vacuum greenhouse gasses out of the air. The cost of carbon dioxide removal and storage for these corporate clients is confidential and depends on what quantity of carbon dioxide the companies want to have removed and over what period of time. Climeworks' largest carbon dioxide removal facility is located in Iceland, where it partners with CarbFix, which stores the gas underground. CarbFix dissolves carbon dioxide in water then intermingles that mixture with basalt rock formations.

☆ Arun Majumdar's mom cooked over a coal stove on the floor, and now he's the first leader of Stanford's new climate school — here is his story
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Building a successful climate school that both educates people and scales up technological solutions in its accelerator arm requires thinking beyond the bubble of Silicon Valley. Majumdar's understanding of the importance of a global perspective for the climate school is also personally informed. He was also a professor, did research, and worked at Google for a stint before eventually getting the opportunity to lead the launch of the Stanford climate school. The lessons he learned at ARPA-E are helping form the foundation for the accelerator arm at the Stanford climate school. Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBCSo far, the sustainability school at Stanford seems to be popular with students.

☆ Investor Vinod Khosla says focusing on 2030 climate targets is the wrong approach
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Why Khosla thinks short-term goals are a mistakeFocusing on "short term goals will force us to deploy suboptimal technology," Khosla told CNBC. And if it doesn't do that, it's the wrong technology," Khosla told CNBC. Nuclear fusion is one example of the kind of breakthrough technology Khosla considers critical, but which will not be commercialized by 2030. "But I'm not interested in today's geothermal, because it is such a niche — it doesn't scale," Khosla told CNBC. And that's what we need," Khosla said.

☆ Feds commit $50 million to for-profit nuclear fusion companies, chasing the 'holy grail' of clean energy
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The United States government is putting money behind private-sector nuclear fusion companies for the first time, and that's an indication of how momentum is building behind the "holy grail" of clean energy. At the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh on Thursday, the Department of Energy officially announced $50 million will go towards private fusion companies in public-private partnerships. Nuclear fusion is when two heavier atoms slam together to form a heavier atom, and is the way stars are powered. But it will help bolster U.S fusion companies and give them credibility. The private sector fusion industry has attracted almost $5 billion in venture and other funding according to the Fusion Industry Association.

Search resuls for: "John Doerr"

11 mentions found