The value of cryptocurrencies might be down in the dumps, but demand for blockchain engineers has never been higher. Blockchain engineers are making between $150,000 and $175,000 on average, according to global stats provided to CNBC by Hired, a San Francisco firm that helps clients recruit tech candidates. That’s quite a premium over the $135,000
Month: October 2018
Unlike many Silicon Valley CEOs, 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki is constantly reminding her employees of an uncomfortable truth: “we mess with people’s lives.” “You tell someone that they’re a carrier for BRCA, or you tell someone, ‘You’re a high risk for blood clots.’ Or you tell someone that you’re one-64th Native American,” Wojcicki said on the
Joe Horowitz is a venture capital traditionalist. He believes in best practices, business fundamentals and calculated bets. But as megafunds and hundred-million-dollar rounds balloon valuations and flood the space, the Icon Ventures managing general partner finds himself fighting money with money. “If we don’t adjust to the reality of the implications of what the megafunds
When the Jeff Bezoses and Jack Dorseys of the world leap from the bow of the ships they’re sailing forth, what will happen to them? Where will they go? When Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft who died this week at age 65, left the business he started, he traveled the world. He collected paintings
At one point this summer, Brian Amerige seemed destined to become the next James Damore. Like Damore, the Google engineer who wrote a manifesto protesting the company’s “ideological echo-chamber” last year, Amerige also authored a controversial memo accusing his employer, Facebook, of being a “political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views.” Like Damore, who argued
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves berated Wall Street analysts and investors betting against his stock during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call on Friday, saying they “can’t read numbers.” Referring to an unspecified individual, he added that the company’s stock buybacks “are going to screw this guy so badly that … they will have to commit
For more than a decade, online restaurant reservations pioneer OpenTable was seemingly the only place you could go to book a table online. Now, in four years, its upstart rival Resy has managed to bite off some of OpenTable’s market share, particularly among newer and trendier restaurants. Recode researched the reservation system used by hundreds
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was upbeat Monday when he told WIRED about internal tests of a censored search engine designed to win approval from Chinese officials. It will take more than a government nod for Google to succeed, however. That’s not only because of the political tensions raised by President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods,
Peter Thiel has made his biggest political contribution since his divisive bet on Donald Trump in 2016, investing $1 million into a conservative advocacy group that is backing key Republican candidates before November. The donation to the Club for Growth, revealed Thursday in a new campaign finance disclosure, could be a signal that Thiel plans
Twitter dropped an almost unfathomably large archive of tweets connected to two alleged influence campaigns on Wednesday. The trove included over 9 million tweets associated with 3,841 accounts connected to Russia’s notorious Internet Research Agency, or IRA, as well as more than a million tweets attributed to a network of 770 Iranian propaganda-pushing accounts. Twitter
Acadia Healthcare shares soared Thursday after Reuters reported that the U.S. behavioral health centers operator is in talks with private equity firms about selling itself. Acadia, which operates a network of nearly 600 behavioral health-care facilities with approximately 17,800 beds in 40 states, has been approached by private equity firms by KKR and TPG Global,
Netflix‘s cash burn just hit a new record. In its third quarter earnings report on Tuesday, the company reported negative free cash flow of $859 million, the biggest figure in its history. Netflix continues to increase spending on original content as it seeks to compete with other players like Hulu, HBO and planned streaming services
The new hot thing in the land of the mega wealthy: Do-gooder investments they can write off on their taxes. Expect big boasts from Silicon Valley titans next year about how their money is changing the world, thanks to a little-known part of the tax code called “Opportunity Zones” — a.k.a. “O-zones” — low-income areas
On Monday, at WIRED’s 25th anniversary summit, I spoke with Jack Dorsey about some of the biggest questions he confronts running Twitter and Square. How has his position on free speech evolved? Was it inevitable that Twitter would become a tool of international diplomacy? Can the company counter filter bubbles? Should individuals have complete control
The men and women who serve as financial aides de camp to Silicon Valley’s billionaires are brimming with phone calls from curious clients. “Hey, I was talking to my buddy about this. It sounds too good to be true. Can you help me understand?” That’s how tax accountant Mike Bernier describes his conversations this fall
Iconic tech-company founders often come in pairs: Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The world lost half of one such duo Monday when Paul Allen, who cofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, died from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 65. For the last three decades
The multiplying power of size makes it easy to save big money on little changes. Imagine saving millions of dollars just by changing light bulbs and floor wax. It’s exactly what Walmart is doing. “We are in the process of a multiyear rollout of replacing all fluorescent fixtures with LEDs in our stores, clubs and
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos isn’t just focused on selling you everything you’ve ever wanted, or on winning another Emmy. Bezos, who also runs Blue Origin, a rocket company he called the “most important thing I’m working on,” is also focused on sending people into space on what he called a “tourism mission.” Bezos wants to
“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Monday, defending government contracts amid a wave of employee protests. Bezos spoke at the WIRED25 summit, where Steven Levy, WIRED editor at large, asked his view of
Evercore ISI upgraded shares of McDonald’s to outperform from in-line on Monday, saying the company is well-positioned to ride out the trade war between the U.S. and China. “[McDonald’s] is the most defensive restaurant stock, it has less exposure to emerging economies, and the stock will likely outperform should equity volatility related to trade persist,”
This weekend is WIRED’s 25th Anniversary festival. We started it off with three conversations with brilliant CEOs about the future of work: Patrick Collison of Stripe, Stacy Brown-Philpot of TaskRabbit, and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn. Here is the transcript of my talk with Weiner. Nicholas Thompson: One thing that I love about you is that
On the latest episode of Recode Decode, 2U CEO Chip Paucek said the idea of taking college courses online has turned a corner. Starting with USC, Georgetown and UNC Chapel Hill, his company struck deals with name-brand graduate schools to get some distance from the connotation of “online college” as a huckster’s playground. “The great
Investors in fintech company Square don’t seem to approve of the departure of CFO Sarah Friar, but CEO Jack Dorsey certainly does. On Thursday, Square’s stock plunged by as much as 16 percent before rebounding with a 7.2 percent gain on Friday, as markets reacted to the news that Friar was departing to become CEO
“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” That old truism from the Watergate affair also applies to the scandals plaguing some of the world’s biggest tech companies, says NYU professor Scott Galloway. On the latest episode of Pivot, he and Recode’s Kara Swisher talked about the Google+ hack that the company sat on for months
Steve Jurvetson, the high-flying investor and Tesla board member ousted from his venture capital firm almost a year ago, is making moves as part of his attempted comeback, Recode has learned. Jurvetson is searching for co-founders to join Future Ventures, his new investing firm, and one likely hire is Maryanna Saenko, a former DFJ associate,
It’s no secret that the world is growing accustomed to the business of cannabis, but for $9.6 billion Canadian medical marijuana producer Canopy Growth, the future is approaching faster than many expect. On Tuesday, Canopy — which has gained traction on news of several-billion-dollar investments from Corona parent Constellation Brands — announced that it had
In recent years, the Saudi Arabian monarchy has poured billions of dollars into Silicon Valley, promoting the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a savvy reformer, eager to modernize the country. But after recent allegations that Saudi agents killed journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi, some of those companies and investors are tentatively backing
The machines are coming for us — or at least for our jobs. From a bot that’ll whip you up the perfect cheeseburger, to a flurry of cameras and scanners designed to make checkout lines a thing of the past, automation is already chipping away at middle-skill jobs in multiple industries. So is it time
Technology stocks moved sharply higher Friday, after a two-day slaughter saw the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fall briefly into correction territory, down 10 percent from its recent highs. Technology Select SPDR Fund, which tracks the S&P 500 technology sector, rose 2.4 percent in premarket trading. Tech stocks were led by Netflix and Amazon, up 3.7
Just as companies like Facebook this year have begun to grapple with their corporate responsibility, Silicon Valley investors this week began to confront what could be called their geopolitical responsibility. The proximate cause: The alleged murder of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi on orders from Saudi Arabia leaders, in an event that could put