Journals

Tim Copeland / The Block: Telegram launches an ad revenue sharing system for channel owners in nearly 100 countries, with a 50/50 split with channel owners, paid out in toncoin  —  – Telegram is introducing ad revenue sharing and will… Read More »Telegram launches an ad revenue sharing system for channel owners in nearly 100 countries, with a 50/50 split with channel owners, paid out in toncoin (Tim Copeland/The Block)

Angel Au-Yeung / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Stripe and some investors agreed to buy $1B+ of current and ex-employees’ shares, valuing it at $65B, up from $50B in 2023, but down from $95B in 2021  —  The fintech giant’s employees… Read More »Sources: Stripe and some investors agreed to buy $1B+ of current and ex-employees’ shares, valuing it at $65B, up from $50B in 2023, but down from $95B in 2021 (Angel Au-Yeung/Wall Street Journal)

Financial Times: A detailed look at the modern chip manufacturing process, involving more than a thousand precisely controlled steps to create a single integrated circuit  —  After coming up against the limits of physics, scientists are rethinking chip architecture like… Read More »A detailed look at the modern chip manufacturing process, involving more than a thousand precisely controlled steps to create a single integrated circuit (Financial Times)

Crunchbase News: Venture funding to Black-founded US startups in 2023 totaled $705M across 191 deals, or less than 0.5% of all venture funding, down from $2.4B in 2022  —  Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on… Read More »Venture funding to Black-founded US startups in 2023 totaled $705M across 191 deals, or less than 0.5% of all venture funding, down from $2.4B in 2022 (Crunchbase News)

Karissa Bell / Engadget: President Biden signs an EO that aims to limit the mass-sale of Americans’ personal data like geolocation to “countries of concern”, including China and Russia  —  The bulk sale of geolocation, genomic, financial and health data… Read More »President Biden signs an EO that aims to limit the mass-sale of Americans’ personal data like geolocation to “countries of concern”, including China and Russia (Karissa Bell/Engadget)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Thrasio, which raised $3B+ in equity and debt to acquire third-party Amazon sellers, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and secures $90M in emergency funding  —  Thrasio, the U.S. start-up that raised billions of dollars and popularized… Read More »Thrasio, which raised $3B+ in equity and debt to acquire third-party Amazon sellers, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and secures $90M in emergency funding (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Financial Times: Klarna reports 2023 revenue up 22% YoY to ~$2.28B, a $241M net loss, down from $1.01B in 2022, with credit losses falling by 32% in 2023 to $369M  —  Klarna has reported a fifth straight annual loss as… Read More »Klarna reports 2023 revenue up 22% YoY to ~$2.28B, a $241M net loss, down from $1.01B in 2022, with credit losses falling by 32% in 2023 to $369M (Financial Times)

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Baidu reports Q4 revenue up 6% YoY to ~$4.9B and net income down 48% YoY to ~$366M, as chatbot Ernie, which has 100M+ users, began to augment its ads business  —  Baidu Inc.’s revenue rose 6%… Read More »Baidu reports Q4 revenue up 6% YoY to ~$4.9B and net income down 48% YoY to ~$366M, as chatbot Ernie, which has 100M+ users, began to augment its ads business (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)

Joyce Lee / Reuters: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with LG executives in South Korea to discuss a stronger partnership on XR devices as well as a potential collaboration in AI  —  Meta (META.O) CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrived in South… Read More »Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with LG executives in South Korea to discuss a stronger partnership on XR devices as well as a potential collaboration in AI (Joyce Lee/Reuters)

Bloomberg: Sources: Gemini’s image generation tool had a technical fix to reduce bias in its outputs but Google didn’t anticipate the overcorrection and wasn’t transparent  —  Google tried using a technical fix to reduce bias in a feature that generates… Read More »Sources: Gemini’s image generation tool had a technical fix to reduce bias in its outputs but Google didn’t anticipate the overcorrection and wasn’t transparent (Bloomberg)