Year: 2019

President Trump is expected to sign into creation the Space Force today, as a special branch of the military overseen by the Air Force Department, according to a report in The Washington Post.

The President’s decision is considered a win for the Air Force and Defense Department broadly, which had argued against setting up an independent military department based on their concerns that it would add new layers of bureaucracy, according to the Pentagon .

Speaking at an event at The Brookings Institute, Air Force chief of staff Gen. David L. Goldfein discussed the decision-making process around the creation of the Space Force — saying that Defense Department officials had discussed a range of options from creating an entire department to establishing a smaller, professional core of personnel, like the Army’s Medical Corps.

With the decision, the Trump Administration is likely to establish a service that looks more like the Marine Corps, which is part of the Navy but unique within it, than an entirely new branch of the military. The Space Force will be led by a four-star general who will have a set on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it will not have a secretary-level post, according to the Post report.

These days, those operations consist of communications, surveillance and satellite defense, but as plans continue to set up more permanent bases on the Moon and eventually Mars, these efforts could expand to protect personnel as well.

The U.S. disestablished the Space Command in 2002 under the George W. Bush administration. Created in 1985 during the Reagan administration’s second term when the “Star Wars” missile defense program was in full swing, the Space Command was tasked with defining strategic objectives for the U.S. in space, and executing them.

When President Trump announced the new Space Command in December, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said that the surge in threats to America’s space program warranted the resurrection of the program.

“We are shifting to a war fighting culture at the explicit recognition that it is a war fighting domain,” Wilson was quoted by Space News as saying at the time. “Adversaries are developing capabilities to deny us the use of space in crisis or war. The creation of a unified command puts focus on the ability to protect our assets on orbit and prevail if called upon.”

Over the past few years, Amazon -owned Audible has been expanded beyond audiobooks to include more original content, like the short-form audio programming offered through Audible Channels, for example. Today, the company announced a new partnership for original comedy projects, in collaboration with Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video. The first production from this effort is “Heads Will Roll,” a program created, produced by and starring Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne.

The production itself is a workplace comedy about an evil queen in search of peace and quiet. It will also feature performances by Meryl Streep, Tim Gunn, Peter Dinklage, Andrea Martin, Carol Kane, Audra McDonald, Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffat, Heidi Gardner, Chris Redd, Steve Higgins, Bob the Drag Queen, Esther Perel and “Queer Eye’s” Fab Five.

Following “Heads Will Roll,” the next production will be “63rd Man,” from senior SNL writer Bryan Tucker and Zack Phillips. WWE Superstar John Cena will star as Billy Foster, a college football star who’s just barely not good enough to play in the pros.

The two new shows will join Audible’s collection of original content which today includes programming in areas like journalism, literature, theater, romance, sci-fi and fantasy, and kids. Last year, Audible announced plans to partner with Reese Witherspoon’s media empire, Hello Sunshine, on original content in addition to the Reese Book Club on Audible, but those originals haven’t yet arrived, it seems.

Though its operates as a separate business unit from Amazon, the retailer leverages Audible’s programming to serve as another perk for Amazon Prime subscribers. Audible Channels, for example, are available to Prime members for free.

In addition, Audible content now ties into Amazon’s Alexa business, too. In addition to offering Audible’s audiobooks and originals on its Amazon Echo devices, the company recently launched choose-your-own-adventure stories on Alexa.

The launch dates for the new comedy series have not yet been announced.

For the first time later this week, a privately developed moon lander will launch aboard a privately built rocket, organized by a private launch coordinator. It’s an historic moment in space and the Israeli mission stands to make history again if it touches down on the Moon’s surface as planned on April 11.

The Beresheet (“Genesis”) program was originally conceived as an entry into the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful Google Lunar Xprize in 2010, which challenged people to accomplish a lunar landing, with $30 million in prizes as the incentive. The prize closed last year with no winner but as these Xprize competitions aim to do, it had already spurred great interest and investment in a private moon mission.

SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries worked together on the mission, which will bring cameras, a magnetometer, and a capsule filled with items from the country to, hopefully, a safe rest on the lunar surface.

The Beresheet lander ahead of packaging for launch.

The launch plan as of now (these things do change with weather, technical delays, and so on) is for takeoff at 5:45 Pacific time on Thursday — 8:45 PM in Cape Canaveral — aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. A live stream should be available shortly before, which I’ll add here later or in a new post.

30 minutes after takeoff the payload will detach and make contact with mission control, then begin the process of closing the distance to the Moon, during which time it will circle the Earth six times.

Russia, China, and of course the U.S. are the only ones ever to successfully land on the Moon; China’s Chang’e 4 lander was the first to soft-land (as opposed to impact) the “dark” (though really only far — it’s often light) side and is currently functional.

But although there has been one successful private lunar flyby mission (the Manfred Memorial probe) no one but a major country has ever touched down. If Beresheet is a success it would be both the first Israeli moon mission and the first private mission to do so. It would also be the first lunar landing to be accomplished with a privately built rocket, and the lightest spacecraft on the Moon, and at around $100M in costs, the cheapest as well.

Landing on the Moon is, of course, terribly difficult. Just as geosynchronous orbit is far more difficult than low Earth orbit, a lunar insertion orbit is even harder, a stable such orbit even harder, and accomplishing a controlled landing on target even harder than that. The only thing more difficult would be to take off again and return to Earth, as Apollo 11 did in 1969 and other missions several times after. Kind of amazing when you think about it.

Seattle’s Spaceflight coordinated the launch, and technically Beresheet is the secondary payload; the primary is the Air Force Research Labs’ S5 experimental satellite, which the launch vehicle will take to geosynchronous orbit after the lunar module detaches.

Although Beresheet may very well be the first, it will likely be the first of many: other contenders in the Lunar Xprize, as well as companies funded or partnering with NASA and other space agencies, will soon be making their own attempts at making tracks in the regolith.

Audi has added a new feature to the vehicle-to-infrastructure technology embedded in its newer models that’s designed to help drivers catch every green light.

The tech, called GLOSA or Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory, is part of the automaker’s built-in traffic light-reading technology. And Audi says it’s the first automaker to include this GLOSA feature in its cars.

It all began in 2016 when Audi launched traffic light information, a system that enables the car to communicate with the infrastructure in certain cities and metropolitan areas across the United States. 

It was rather limited at the time, but in principle, the car would receive information from the sensor on a traffic light (via a 4G LTE hot spot) and be able to tell the driver how long before it turned from red to green. 

GLOSA builds on this by advising drivers what speed they should drive to catch a green light. The system is able to do this by combining traffic signal information, the current position of a vehicle as well as other important data such as the distance to stop, the area’s speed limit and signal timing plans.

It then displays a speed recommendation intended to help drivers pass traffic lights on green. The end goal is to slash the number of stops at red lights, and in turn, the amount of time stuck in traffic. This helps reduce emissions and boosts fuel savings. For the average American driver, nearly 300 hours are spent behind the wheel, according to AAA.

Today, there are more than 4,700 intersections that support the “time to green” feature as well as this GLOSA function in 13 metro areas that include Dallas, Denver, Gainesville, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. and northern Virginia.

The feature is still somewhat limited, despite the expansion to more cities. Traffic Light Information is an Audi connect PRIME feature (a paid subscription) that is only available on select 2017, 2018 and newer models.

Audi says it intends to roll out more V2I-capable features in the future and could include integration with the vehicle’s start/stop function — which would reduce emissions — optimized navigation routing, and other predictive services.

Macquarie Capital Venture Studio, the infrastructure-focused accelerator affiliated with the nearly $500 billion-dollar investment firm, Macquarie Group, has added three companies to its portfolio.

The companies, AirMap, Envoy Technologies, and Teralytic, provide services in airspace management for drones; electric vehicle sharing services; and soil analysis, respectively.

Through the venture studio, Macquarie tries to bring the companies into new markets through its connections with infrastructure and development projects around the world.

The Sydney, Australia-based investment firm has already invested in six companies for its accelerator program, launched in conjunction with R/GA.

Other companies in the Macquarie portfolio include the developer of redesigned solar axis trackers, Sunfolding; a company that produces water from condensation, Zero Mass Water; and a drone inspection company, Hangar Inc.

Envoy marks the second investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and services for Macquarie, since the company also invested in FreeWire Technologies. The venture program is also interested in the internet of things — backing the control system cybersecurity company, Mission Secure; and T-REX Group which provides data services and software for markets. 

“These companies have developed solutions that significantly optimize infrastructure and real assets and have the potential to transform their respective end markets,” said Stephan Feilhauer, Senior Vice President at Macquarie Capital, in a statement. “With their participation in MCVS, they will not only receive growth capital, but also access to Macquarie Capital’s global network of expertise, assets and clients at the intersection of infrastructure and technology.”

The Macquarie program includes a small equity investment and consultation with R/GA on a product development and marketing plan.

“R/GA is excited to collaborate with an industry leader like Macquarie Capital to launch this innovative Studio, leveraging our creative capital and network to create value for the participating companies,” said Stephen Plumlee, Global Chief Operating Officer of R/GA and Managing Partner of R/GA Ventures, at the time of the partnership announcement. “Rolling admissions and the module structure will enable R/GA to offer the participating companies an increased level of engagement and support.”

Samsung’s promised a much better look at its foldable phone at tomorrow’s big S10 event. We already caught a glimpse of the product late last year at the company’s developer conference, but among the many uncertainties with the product is what the hell the company will name the thing.

After all, the device essentially represents an entirely new category for Samsung, so older naming conventions could be out the window. The “Galaxy F” name has been floated, but, well, nobody wants that.

Perennial leaker Evan Blass (who’s most recently help expose the S10 to the world in recent months) says the handset will be the Galaxy Fold. Not bad, I guess. Probably one to go on — certainly a step up from the Galaxy F, which is, frankly, a bit too easily mocked.

So we have a name — and we should be getting more information on the thing tomorrow. And not a moment too soon, as we expect numerous foldable handsets to get some serious stage time next week at Mobile World Congress. 

Last week, California governor Gavin Newsom announced that he was intending to aggressively scale back plans for the state’s high-speed rail system, which in its most ambitious routing would have connected Sacramento to San Diego. The immediate cause was ballooning costs, which have risen from $33 billion to $77 billion and looked likely to exceed 1.6 Zuckerbergs within a couple of years (the local CA currency, otherwise known as $100 billion).

Unlike other megaprojects, Newsom — and California — were fortunate on the timing. The costs of the project skyrocketed so much and so early, that Newsom still had the credibility and political capital to kill the project. And while a short route from Bakersfield to Merced remains on the table, I don’t expect even that route to be ultimately constructed, since no one knows where either of those cities are.

Why can’t we (i.e. America) build anything? High-speed rail isn’t Silicon Valley whizbang magic technology, it’s definitely not Hyperloop. It’s pretty standard in a bunch of industrialized nations around the world. Clearly that question was on the minds of reporters, because we have been inundated with autopsies on HSR. Yet, the hot takes don’t seem to be adding up to anything meaningful (surprise).

So, we are going to explore this question over the coming weeks, as one of our newest obsessions here at Extra Crunch.

This weekend, I read a book called “Politics across the Hudson: The Tappan Zee Megaproject.” In the book, Philip Mark Plotch chronicles the forty years of planning that led to the reconstruction of the Tappan Zee bridge, which connects Rockland and Westchester Counties north of New York City over the Hudson River. If you want to read about the weeds of government dysfunction around infrastructure, this is your book. It’s a telling tale of patterns we see repeatedly when trying to build great things in the United States:

• No one wants to talk about finance: Politicians love selling the value of a megaproject without actually discussing the ways they are going to have to pay for it. Yet, paying for it is the project, since it will ultimately affect how citizens enjoy the infrastructure.In the Tappan Zee case, politicians wanted to avoid talking finances because finances meant tolls, and increasing tolls meant losing elections. New York’s current governor Andrew Cuomo ends up avoiding this conversation through luck, as the state received huge indemnities from Wall Street banks related to Iranian money laundering and sanctions that helped fund the bridge (which one planner called “manna from god”).That avoidance has led to the “Willie Brown” model of infrastructure, named for the former San Francisco mayor who wrote about how to get infrastructure projects done:

News that the Transbay Terminal is something like $300 million over budget should not come as a shock to anyone.

We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost. Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project. So get off it.

In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved.

The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.

Of course, that model can lead to situations like Boston’s Big Dig, where the final ticket price for a project is so high, that it effectively bankrupts an entire city and its transportation system for years to come.

Infrastructure finance may not be a sexy topic, but it is absolutely critical to getting a project done. It’s hard to tuck tens of billions of dollars in a line item in the state’s budget, and it is hard to get the different funding levers of government involved when a project’s finances aren’t clear.

• Lack of direction / lack of leadership: Building infrastructure is hard. It’s even harder in the U.S., where a patchwork of regulatory bodies and all levels of government are involved in infrastructure decision-making. In the Tappan Zee bridge case, there were nearly two dozen agencies involved, all with their own agendas and fiefdoms. A dedicated bus lane on the bridge was cut to avoid bringing in the Federal Transit Administration. The Tappan Zee is built at one of the widest points of the Hudson River rather than the narrowest since planners wanted to avoid the jurisdiction of the Port Authority.Here’s the thing though: there were real differences of opinion about the project and what it should accomplish. Some people wanted a rail line, some wanted bus rapid transit, some wanted carpool lanes, and still others wanted more lanes of vehicular traffic. Nothing got done because there was absolutely no consensus either from the communities involved or from their elected leaders.

  One might call a 40-year planning process dysfunctional, but another view would say that this is exactly government working as intended. Things don’t get built if there is no consensus, and that’s the value — and price — of democracy.The challenge though is that you can end up in these counter-veto game theoretic morasses (the book uses “wicked problems”), where no progress will truly ever get made because everyone has an incentive to block a project to get their vision included. Here is where leadership makes such a difference. A leader in these contexts can find points of compromise, build coalitions, set agendas and a vision, and create the momentum required to get these projects moving. Unfortunately, finding leaders in American politics is excruciatingly difficult.

• Impossibly high expectations / feature creep: Every tech product manager knows the challenges of feature creep. Another person swings by, and they have a choice feature they want added that is going to take time and resources, and has limited benefit to the rest of the user base of the product. Unfortunately, infrastructure projects face many of the same challenges.

  When a megaproject looks like it has built up momentum, everyone tries to glom on to it, adding their pet project. What starts as a bridge replacement project soon morphs into a bridge replacement with a new 30-mile railroad, multiple train stations, a new bus rapid transit system, and a complete zoning overhaul for multiple counties. Yet, those extra “features” also add additional veto points and complications to the original project. They are effectively barnacles on the hull of an already slow-moving ship.

  Big projects galvanize our imaginations, but they shrink under the weight of their own mass. Better to down scale these projects into more bite-sized chunks with clear goals and deliverables rather than being all things to all people.

One thing I was surprised reading about the Tappan Zee bridge is that the actual construction phase was relatively uneventful. The bridge was built mostly on time and on budget, mostly due to extreme attention from the NY governors’s office to not allow deviations (except to stop construction on July 4th so that construction wouldn’t mar riverfront BBQs).

Four years and billions of dollars to rebuild a bridge might be ridiculous, but so were the 36 years of planning that proceeded the reconstruction. Maybe that pattern isn’t true for every project, but the lesson of Politics across the Hudson is that once the government had a plan and timing on its side, it was (relatively) smooth-sailing to the finish line.

Lawyers!

Classen Rafael / EyeEm via Getty Images

Startups need attorneys to succeed, and today, Extra Crunch is pleased to start helping you find the most helpful ones in the industry.

Extra Crunch managing editor Eric Eldon has published his deep-dive package into startup law and startup attorneys today. The package will include profiles of leading attorneys who have been identified by founders as the most helpful to their startups (today’s profile focuses on Cynthia Hess). We also have attorney Daniel McKenzie writing about “How and why you should work with a startup lawyer.” Finally, Eric and his team created a comprehensive overview of all the legal issues that come with building a startup that they compiled into a handy A-to-Z guide.

Our hope is that some of the thornier issues of building a startup can be made just a bit easier if you are armed with the right, vetted information. Let us know your thoughts.

“Mo Money, Mo Problems” for SoftBank

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

SoftBank’s voracious spending habits might be starting to catch up to the company. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Vision Fund’s two largest investors — the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company — are growing increasingly frustrated with the fund’s investment process, governance structure, and the exorbitant valuations and prices paid.

Apparently, dishing out billion dollar checks like Halloween candy doesn’t make you popular with the people who give you those billions of dollars.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard angry whispers from Vision Fund investors, with previous reports suggesting SoftBank significantly pared down previous investments in WeWork and other portfolio companies after facing serious LP pushback on the check size.

Part of the LP concern over SoftBank’s laissez-faire attitude towards check writing comes down to issues of governance. As we’ve previously discussed in our attempts to unravel SoftBank’s beast of a corporate structure, SoftBank often invests in companies at the SoftBank holding company level before selling the ownership to the Vision Fund at a later date. In the follow-on transactions, the Vision Fund often ends up paying more — in some cases billions of dollars more — than the initial investment. Now, LPs are concerned that they’re getting fleeced for billions on the back end as SoftBank drives up those investment valuations.

The ownership transfer process is just one aspect of the reportedly more general investor concerns around an opaque, complex, and disorganized investment process where SoftBank figurehead Masayoshi Son can overrule any investment decision with a “Gladiatoresque thumbs-up, thumbs-down”. According to the WSJ:

Concerns about valuation of the fund’s investments are closely linked to concerns about its investment process, in particular the power wielded by Mr. Son. In recent weeks, Mr. Son overruled objections from partners within SoftBank to a Vision Fund investment valued at as much as $1.5 billion into Chehaoduo Group, a Chinese online car-trading platform, according to people familiar with the matter. Chehaoduo was accused of fraud in recent weeks by a competitor.

And as LPs are growing concerned on how money is flowing out of the Vision Fund, SoftBank is also facing pressure from regulators on the money it is bringing in. While we’ve touched on SoftBank’s “love for leverage” before, credit agencies are once again expressing concern over the Vision Fund and SoftBank’s frothy debt levels, even noting that the company’s already junk-rated credit ratings have a better chance of getting downgraded further rather than improving.

All this goes to say that while sexy headlines and frequent nine-figure-plus deals make it easy to think SoftBank has a blank check to dish out to any unicorn they please, the clock may be striking midnight for SoftBank as they face the reality of their enormous spending, which may not bode well for their hopes for a second Vision Fund.

The Overlooked Element of the Amazon HQ2 Battle

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Amazon’s decision last week to halt plans to bring a second headquarters to New York City’s Long Island City neighborhood brought passionate responses from two completely schools of thought.

Some celebrated the breakup as a defeat of unjust corporate tax breaks, subsidies, and gentrification, while others threw up their hands in outrage over the disappearance of tens of thousands of jobs and future economic value that an Amazon presence would bring.

While these two arguments have been beaten to death, the remaining half of Amazon’s HQ2 development in Northern Virginia highlights an aspect of the controversial process that often gets overlooked.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post highlighted how Amazon’s pending arrival in Crystal City has helped accelerate large infrastructure projects that have long been in limbo, including public transport expansions, roadway expansions, and the construction of a new bridge to the Airport.

On top of financial investments into these projects from Amazon, the operational dates for the new HQ2 creates a timeline and has forced urgency to actually finalize plans and get these projects completed.

A huge but often overlooked political benefit of Amazon’s HQ2 process is this ability to catalyze action around public projects that otherwise may face the purgatory of public infrastructure development. While many have criticized Amazon for its auction-style selection process, many mayors and representatives from other cities that participated in the HQ2 process actually viewed the process in a positive light because they were able to unlock economic value and incentives for the city that would have been much tougher to realize otherwise.

Obsessions

• More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”
• We are going to be talking India here, focused around the book “Billonnaire Raj” by James Crabtree
• We have a lot to catch up on in the China world when the EC launch craziness dies down. Plus, we are covering The Next Factory of the World by Irene Yuan Sun.
• Societal resilience and geoengineering are still top-of-mind
• Some more on metrics design and quantification

Thanks

To every member of Extra Crunch: thank you. You allow us to get off the ad-laden media churn conveyor belt and spend quality time on amazing ideas, people, and companies. If I can ever be of assistance, hit reply, or send an email to danny@techcrunch.com.

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

Google today announced that you can now register .dev domain names. Google acquired the .dev top-level domain when ICANN opened up the web to new generic top-level domains (gTLD) a few years ago. At the time, Google acquired gTLD’s like .app, .page and .dev (for some reason, Google also owns .soy).

Right now, the .dev domains are still in an early access program, though. That means you’ll have to pay an additional fee that decreases every day until February 28 — and that early access fee is pretty steep.

Registering a new domain on GoDaddy, which is one of the many resellers that offer the new domain names, will set you back over $12,500 in extra fees today. Tomorrow, that price drops to just over $3,100. Come February 28, you can register any available domain and it’ll just cost you about $20 per year. The idea here, of course, is to manage demand (and to extract a few extra dollars from the companies that really need to have a given domain name).

Some of the companies and organizations that are already using the new gTLD are Google itself, as well as the likes of GitHub. Women Who Code, Jetbrains, Codecademy and Salesforce. And because this is 2019, there’s also Kubernetes.dev.

Like its .app domains, .dev domain will require HTTPS connections to protect users from ad malware, tracking injections and WiFi snooping.

“We hope .dev will be a new home for you to build your communities, learn the latest tech and showcase your projects—all with a perfect domain name,” Google explains in today’s announcement.

I never got the sense that there was all that much demand for non-.com or country-level domain names (does the world really need .ninja domains?), but if you always wanted a .dev domain, now would be a good time to get our your credit card.

Are you a student within striking distance of Berkeley, California? Do you have a burning passion for robots and artificial intelligence? We have great news for you. We’re offering deeply discounted student tickets to TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics + AI 2019, which takes place at UC Berkeley on April 18.

Immerse yourself in our day-long event featuring interviews, demos, workshops and networking with some of the industries’ greatest thinkers, makers and heavy-hitters. Apply for a student ticket — they cost $45 — and save more than $200 on admission. Once we verify your student status, we’ll release your ticket.

If you’re looking for an internship or a job in robotics or AI, you won’t find a better networking opportunity anywhere. More than 1,000 attendees consisting of technologists, founders, researchers and investors will be on hand to learn, teach, meet and greet. It’s a full day focused on exploring the future of robotics and, as students, you represent that future. You never know who you’ll meet and where that chance connection might lead.

What else can you expect at TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics + AI? You’ll hear speakers like Marc Raibert — founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, maker of online sensation Big Dog, the humanoid Atlas, the wheeled robot Handle and quadrupeds Spot and SpotMini. Spoiler alert: Marc’s bringing another special guest with him this year.

We’re lining up even more speakers to join the awesome roster of notable experts that we have on tap thus far: Anca Dragan, Alexei Efros, Hany Farid, Melonee Wise, Peter Barrett, Rana el Kaliouby, Arnaud Thiercelin and Laura Major. You’ll also enjoy workshops aplenty and lots of demos along the lines of this gem — about building stronger humans — from last year.

Speaking of demos. If you’re a student founder, why not apply to demo your robot onstage? Spaces are limited, so don’t sit on this opportunity to show your stuff in front of a huge and hugely influential crowd.

TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics + AI takes place on April 18 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. We believe students are vital to the future of tech, and the proof is in the pricing. Apply for your $45 student ticket today. We’ll see you in Berkeley!