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☆ It’s Home to Coachella Valley’s Most Expensive Real Estate (And No, It’s Not Palm Springs)
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jessica Flint | Photographs Natasha Lee For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

This week, The Wall Street Journal’s Mansion section is rolling out stories from our special desert living issue. On the western end is Palm Springs, known for its old Hollywood glamour, stylish resorts, and significant architecture. But more mid-to-east valley, about 30 minutes from Palm Springs, is Indian Wells, which has the area’s priciest residential real estate as ranked by median listing price, according to Realtor.com. It also has some of the most expensive desert real estate in the United States. “To say you live in Indian Wells has cachet,” says Scott Ehrens, a Compass real-estate agent.

☆ Microsoft and Google promised to invest in these communities. Now they’re backtracking
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Hyosub Shin/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/ZUMA Press WireFacebook-parent Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Snap have each shuttered offices or announced plans to cut back on real estate, according to recent corporate announcements, filings and local news reports. But residents also had cautious optimism about the benefits Microsoft promised to the community, according to Hope. Hope’s community isn’t alone in confronting the whiplash of Silicon Valley’s real estate pullback. An office sits vacant on October 27, 2022 in San Francisco, California. The US Census Bureau reports an estimated 35% of employees in San Francisco and San Jose continue to work from home.

☆ Silicon Valley’s Newest ‘It’ Couple Is Going Big on Real Estate. Here’s How They’ve Spent $140 Million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

They are one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent power couples. He is the co-founder of Slack, the messaging app that has helped redefine workplace communication and that was acquired by Salesforce in July 2021 for $27.7 billion. She is the co-founder and chief executive of Away, the trendy luggage manufacturer and retailer that was valued at $1.4 billion in a funding round in 2019. Now, Stewart Butterfield and Jen Rubio are developing a reputation outside of Silicon Valley circles—as collectors of trophy homes.

☆ Silicon Valley’s Newest ‘It’ Couple Is Going Big on Real Estate. Here’s How They’ve Spent $140 Million
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Google and Microsoft’s AI arms race could have ‘unintended consequences,’ an AI ethicist warns
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Google is officially set to confront OpenAI’s ChatGPT — and soon. Ammanath said that “unintended consequences” accompany every new technology and reluctantly expressed confidence that it too will occur with AI chatbots, unless significant precautions are taken. Ammanath stressed that computer scientists working on AI have yet to solve for bias, a years-long problem, as well as other worrisome issues that plague the technology. And in its wake, other outlets like BuzzFeed, are already embracing the robot-writing technology to help it generate content and quizzes. “This is a new dimension that generative AI has brought in,” Ammanath added.

☆ Stripe Sets One-Year Timetable to Decide on Going Public
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Peter Rudegeair | Corrie Driebusch | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Stripe’s last fundraising nearly two years ago valued the company at $95 billion. Stripe Inc. , one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable startups, is moving closer to what could be one of the biggest public-market debuts in recent memory. Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison told employees Thursday that executives set a goal of either taking the company public or allowing employees to sell shares in a private-market transaction within the next 12 months, according to people familiar with the matter.

☆ Jan. 6 Committee failed to hold social media companies to account for their role in the Capitol attack, staffers and witnesses say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan Audrey Ash Zachary Cohen | Donie O'Sullivan | Audrey Ash | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

But now these witnesses, along with some committee staff, are frustrated, saying the committee failed to adequately hold major social media companies to account for the role they played in the worst attack on the Capitol in 200 years. They also said the final report outlines structural issues across social media and society that need to be studied further. Jeremy Moorhead/CNNDisagreement about social media companies’ role in the Jan. 6 attack comes as 2023 looks to be a pivotal year for Silicon Valley firms in Washington, DC. “Indeed, the lack of an official Committee report chapter or appendix dedicated exclusively to these matters does not mean our investigation exonerated social media companies for their failure to confront violent rhetoric,” they wrote. “History has taught us what happens when political speech on social media companies is allowed to fester unchecked.”

☆ Microsoft could bring back Clippy, but make him smart
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —This week, Microsoft confirmed it’s planning to invest billions in OpenAI, the company behind the viral new chatbot tool ChatGPT. The prospect of Microsoft, maker of software that people mostly hate, getting involved with ChatGPT, a product people generally like, is raising a lot of eyebrows. Almost immediately, people began joking on social media that ChatGPT could be used to revive the broadly maligned, big-eyed goon known as Clippy. “There is a kernel of truth to the Clippy comparison,” David Lobina, an artificial intelligence analyst at ABI Research, told Sam. All of the above suggestions were generated by asking ChatGPT various forms of the question, “How could Microsoft integrate ChatGPT into its products?”Argh, Samantha, you scamp!

☆ How Microsoft could use ChatGPT to supercharge its products
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

For Microsoft, integrating the chatbot tool could make its core software products more powerful. All of the above suggestions were generated by asking ChatGPT various forms of the question, “How could Microsoft integrate ChatGPT into its products?” Microsoft, for is part, has said little on possible integrations beyond recently announcing plans to add ChatGPT features to its cloud computing service. “Microsoft will deploy OpenAI’s models across our consumer and enterprise products and introduce new categories of digital experiences built on OpenAI’s technology,” Microsoft said in a press release this week, announcing the expanded partnership. For Microsoft, that could make integrating the tool into specific products problematic. Integrating ChatGPT too quickly into Microsoft’s products could run the risk of schools rethinking their use of that software.

☆ Lincoln, Douglas and Netflix
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Andy Kessler | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

I just finished streaming the latest season of “The White Lotus.” And “House of the Dragon,” “The Peripheral,” “The Crown,” “Andor,” “The Rings of Power” and too many more. What a change from May 1961, when Newton Minow , chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called television a “vast wasteland.” Or 1992, when Bruce Springsteen sang “57 Channels (and Nothin’ On).”Many shows exist only because computer-generated imagery can create otherworldly landscapes and gravity-defying creatures. Like it or not, Silicon Valley owns Hollywood. Well, not literally, but clearly today’s Hollywood wouldn’t exist without Silicon Valley’s streaming technology and high-end graphics. As these two industries continue to merge, which will become more dominant driving society and culture?

☆ Facebook considering whether to allow Trump to return, decision expected in ‘coming weeks’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Facebook’s parent company Meta is considering whether to allow former President Donald Trump back on to its platforms and is due to announce its decision in the coming weeks, a company spokesperson told CNN on Monday. Trump was banned from Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram after the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said he is overseeing the decision. In a blog post in June 2021, Clegg explained how the company would consider allowing Trump back on its platforms. “Based on Meta’s own statement on standards for allowing Trump back on the platform, his account should continue to be restricted.”

☆ The Craziest Moments From the Longest Tech Boom (So Far)
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Christopher Mims | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It’s been a singular year for tech, one that marked the apparent end to a heady, madcap boom that changed how we think about the industry. Over the past dozen or so years, a tidal wave of money poured into a collection of technologies—from cloud computing and artificial intelligence to smartphones and two-sided marketplaces—that transformed whole industries and changed many aspects of how we live and work. Major businesses were born or grew into global giants, proving the durability of Silicon Valley’s underlying inspiration: that ideas that seem crazy or unworkable at first may yet prevail.

☆ The year that brought high-flying Silicon Valley back down to earth
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The tech industry, already dominant, only seemed destined to grow even bigger at the start of this year. The spread of the Omicron variant suggested a continued pandemic-fueled demand for digital goods and services, which had buoyed many tech companies. The result was a bloodbath unlike anything the tech industry has seen in the past decade. For years, Silicon Valley has held up its founders as visionaries who can see far into the future. “I do not think venture is cratering, or the tech industry is cratering as an industry.”But for now, at least, there appears to be no end in sight to the pain for Silicon Valley and those who work in it.

As the cost of signing up new customers rises, “lifetime value” is set to become must-use jargon for technology executives, investors and analysts in 2023. The concept of lifetime value is not new, but a common definition remains elusive. The problem is that everyone seems to have a different definition of lifetime value. But lifetime value isn’t a silver bullet, as Gurley noted a decade ago. As with previous buzzwords, investors may find that references to lifetime value do more to confound than clarify.

☆ Are You ‘Extremely Hardcore’ or Not? How Elon Musk Is Dividing Silicon Valley’s Elite
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Christopher Mims | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk has sometimes seemed like the person Silicon Valley would create if venture-funded engineers figured out how to build humans in a lab: the bold innovator fearlessly disrupting one industry after another with a nerdy verve. And yet these days, Silicon Valley’s investors, leaders and commentators are profoundly divided about tech’s billionaire icon, in ways that are revealing about Mr. Musk and about the state of the industry.

☆ Washington moved fast to crack down on TikTok but has made little progress with Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

But in fast-tracking the bill, Congress can’t help but draw attention to its notable lack of progress on regulating American tech giants more broadly — despite years of reports, hearings and proposed legislation. Washington finds a different tech villainThe tech industry’s largest players have faced a kitchen sink of allegations in recent years. The central allegation against TikTok is that the company poses a potential national security risk. But earlier this year, it acknowledged that China-based employees can access TikTok user data and declined to commit to cutting off those data flows in general. “We’re disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices—a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests—rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a TikTok spokesperson.

☆ Silicon Valley’s Talent Spotters Are Now Looking for Jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Katherine Bindley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Companies couldn’t hire enough recruiters to help fill all of the open technology positions they had a year ago. Now many tech-talent seekers are job-hunting themselves. Few other professionals have felt the whiplash more as big tech’s long-running hiring boom fizzles out. It is a sharp reversal for a field in which even inexperienced tech recruiters could earn low six figures. At Meta Platforms Inc., CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that recruiting staff would be disproportionately hit in the 11,000 layoffs it announced this month—the result, he said, of too much hiring and spending during the pandemic.

☆ Sequoia Capital Apologizes to Limited Partners for FTX Investment
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The collapse of FTX has placed Sequoia Capital in an unfamiliar position: damage control mode. The early backer of Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Airbnb Inc.—and one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture-capital firms—apologized to its fund investors in a conference call Tuesday for its $150 million loss on the crypto exchange FTX and vowed to improve its due diligence process for future investments, said people familiar with the matter.

☆ Elizabeth Holmes Is Sentenced to More Than 11 Years for Fraud
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Erin Griffith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the failed blood-testing start-up Theranos, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison on Friday for defrauding investors about her company’s technology and business dealings. The sentence capped a yearslong saga that has captivated the public and ignited debates about Silicon Valley’s culture of hype and exaggeration. Judge Edward J. Davila of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sentenced Ms. Holmes to 135 months in prison, which is slightly more than 11 years, followed by three years of supervised release. Ms. Holmes, 38, who plans to appeal, must surrender to custody on April 27, 2023. In the courtroom on Friday, Ms. Holmes — who appeared with a large group of friends and family, including her parents and her partner, Billy Evans — cried when she read a statement to the judge.

Persons: — Elizabeth Holmes, Holmes, Edward J, Davila, Holmes —, Billy Evans — Organizations: JOSE, Calif, U.S, Northern, Northern District of Locations: Northern District, Northern District of California

☆ Big Tech layoffs are dystopian job-market fiction
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

After years of falling U.S. unemployment, it might seem like Silicon Valley is foreshadowing the beginning of a dystopian future for workers. Yet there’s a good chance that what happens in Silicon Valley won’t spill over into the rest of the economy. Silicon Valley is ahead of the curve on firing too. That’s particularly burdensome for tech firms that rely heavily on innovation to drive growth. Job listings for restaurant workers were up 38% from the pre-crisis levels as of Nov. 10, according to Indeed.

☆ Is the economy improving? Days before the midterms, no one has a good answer
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

By aggressively hiking interest rates, the Fed has sought to introduce some slack into a tight labor market. Inflation remains high, but now it’s also far more expensive to take out loans or pay off credit cards. Wages are up, but not enough to take the sting off high prices of necessities like food, fuel and shelter. Economists will get fresh insight into the state of inflation next week with the October CPI reading on Thursday. But if there’s good news in that report, it will have come two days too late to sway voters one way or another.

☆ Andreessen Horowitz Went All In on Crypto at the Worst Possible Time
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As cryptocurrency prices soared last year, no investor bet more on the sector than Andreessen Horowitz. The storied venture-capital firm had developed a reputation as Silicon Valley’s greatest crypto bull, thanks largely to a 50-year-old partner named Chris Dixon who was one of the earliest evangelists for how the blockchain technology powering cryptocurrencies could change business. His unit was one of the most-active crypto investors last year, and in May announced a $4.5 billion crypto fund, the largest ever for such investments.

☆ Blame Lockdowns on Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Andy Kessler | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

I blame Silicon Valley. Yet policy makers implemented lockdowns only because they could—because Silicon Valley provided the tools to lock people in their homes without completely imploding the economy. You couldn’t force lockdowns without laptops, Zoom, Amazon deliveries, cloud computing, Slack, QR codes or Netflix. Instead, we took the Faucian bargain of technology-enabled yearlong lockdowns because it was doable. Silicon Valley’s tools became shackles.

☆ Silicon Valley’s post-Covid brain drain: podcast
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution, speaks during the SALT conference in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 13, 2022. REUTERS/David 'Dee' DelgadoLONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Before the pandemic, 75% of venture capital was invested in California, New York and Massachusetts. In this Exchange podcast, AOL co-founder Steve Case explains that a hybrid working revolution is reversing that trend and encouraging permanent investment away from the coasts. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterEditing by Thomas Shum and Oliver TaslicOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Over the last decade, the rise of internet giants like Tencent (0700.HK) exposed the flimsiness of the stereotype. “Influence Empire: Inside the Story of Tencent and China’s Tech Ambition” by Lulu Yilun Chen tracks the company’s evolution into a $350 billion social media and gaming behemoth. The backlash also undermined confidence in China’s private tech sector. U.S. venture capital investment has dwindled, and even Chinese tech investors are now venturing abroad. Follow @ywchen1 on TwitterCONTEXT NEWS“Influence Empire: Inside the Story of Tencent and China’s Tech Ambition”, by Lulu Yilun Chen, was published by Hodder & Stoughton on July 14.

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