Year: 2019

Everyone has to have a podcast, apparently. Even Facebook . The social network this week launched its second-ever original podcast series, and its first one in the U.S. An arm of Facebook’s business operation, the new show “Three and a Half Degrees” will focus on entrepreneurship – specifically the lessons learned, challenges faced, and other insights from successful business leaders.

The name is a reference to how technology has made it easier to connect – today, people are no longer six degrees apart, but only three and a half degrees, the company says.

“I consider it part of our mission to help the businesses we work with learn from one another,” explains David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of Business and Marketing Partnerships. “One way we’re doing this is with the new podcast ‘Three And A Half Degrees: The Power of Connection.’ Through the podcast, we hope to celebrate the journeys of entrepreneurs and business leaders on our platform, and scale their inspiring life lessons and learnings to other entrepreneurs and leaders,” he says.

Facebook today has over 90 million businesses using its platform, so it makes sense that it wants to further establish itself as a place where established businesses can share their knowledge with newcomers. Those smaller businesses could then grow to become a more active part of Facebook’s larger business network, which keeps the cycle – and the ad dollars – flowing.

Fischer will serve as podcast host, and kicks off the first episode with an interview with the creator of TOMS,  Blake Mycoskie, who is introduced on the show to Bryan and Bradford Manning. The Mannings say they were inspired by TOMS to start their own charitable business, Two Blind Brothers. The overall focus for the episode is on brands that prioritize their social mission over profit and growth.

Future episodes will include Monique & Chevalo from Charleston Burger Co. & Chris Kempcziski from McDonald’s (ep 2); Stephanie McMahon from WWE & Gary Vaynerchuk from Vayner Media (ep 3); ictor Lezama from PC Landing Zone & Jake Wood from Team Rubicon (ep 4); Suzanne Gildert from Sanctuary and Kindred AI & Beth Comstock, formerly with GE (ep 5); Antionette Carroll from Creative Reaction Lab & Jonathan Mildenhall from TwentyFirstCenturyBrand (ep 6); Ben Rattray from Change.org & Advisor Chip Conley (ep 7).

This first season includes just these seven episodes and fourteen guests, with new episodes arriving every two weeks.

It’s not a long season, and Facebook hasn’t yet confirmed plans to do another, we understand. That makes the “podcast” a bit more like a marketing initiative rather than a serious attempt at entering the podcasting market.

The podcast is also not monetized. The company has no plans to sell ad space within the podcast, either.

Though this is the first time Facebook has done a podcast in the U.S., it has experimented in this space previously. Last summer, it tried a similar effort in Australia where leading marketers talked about connecting with consumers, in a podcast called Face 2 Face. That one seems to have even more of a tie to Facebook’s own bottom line. (Connect with consumers? Social ads, of course!).

This one is takes a step back from the nitty-gritty of reaching consumers through spending on marketing and ads, but rather on the business leaders themselves.

The vibe of the podcast is one of a highly-produced effort. It doesn’t begin as a sit-down, informal back-and-forth chat, but one where pre-recorded interviews are intercut with host narration and storytelling. It’s not until nearly halfway through before the introduction between Mycskie and the Mannings is made. At that point, it shifts from being a sort of NPR-Lite style effort, and one where you’re listening to a conversation – albeit one with a polished, media-trained exec like Mycskie.

The new U.S. podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn.

Airbnb, which is expected to go public this year, announced today a number of milestones. For starters, Airbnb says it was profitable on an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis for the second year in a row in 2018.

In Q3 2018, Airbnb said it had its strongest quarter ever, where it saw “substantially more” than $1 billion in revenue. The following quarter, Airbnb found a replacement for former CFO Laurence Tosi, who left amid tension between him and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. To lead the home-sharing giant into its next phase, Airbnb brought on Dave Stephenson, a long-time Amazon executive.

“He will use his experience in growing large businesses quickly at scale to ensure we are investing for both growth and long-term profitability,” Airbnb wrote in a press memo today.

Airbnb also announced it expects to hit 500 million arrivals by the end of Q1 2019.

The week following CES is probably as good a time as any to launch a Kickstarter campaign for your strange new smartphone. After all, a company like Doogee’s going to have difficulty rising above the din during a CES or MWC, even with an idea as interesting as the rugged, modular S90.

The Chinese manufacturer has no shortage of interesting concepts, of course. And while the S90 appears to be a bit of a niche, it’s already surpassed its (admittedly modest) goal several times over.

The product modular concept is pretty in line with Motorola’s Moto Z offerings, with a series of plates that snap onto the back of the handset, delivering different hardware features through a multi-pin connector.

Many of the mods should prove familiar, too, including an extra battery (5,000mAh) and a gamepad. Though, in addition to the rugged handset, you’ve also got some add-ons specifically tailored to those looking for a device to use in the field. Among those listed are a night vision camera and a walkie-talkie, which extends the handset’s communication abilities where cellular networks don’t reach.

Doogee is shooting for a February delivery for the new handset.

Meal kit company Blue Apron expects to achieve profitability this quarter, the company said ahead of its Q4 2018 and fiscal year 2018 financial results. Blue Apron will release its earnings January 31, but said today that, “based on its current view of the business, Blue Apron plans to reaffirm confidence in achieving profitability” on an adjusted EBITDA basis in Q1 2019, as well as for the entire fiscal year.

Blue Apron defines EBITDA as its net earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Simply put, it’s a measure of Blue Apron’s operating profitability as a percentage of its total revenue.

This comes a couple of months after Blue Apron laid off four percent of its staff as part of its path to profitability. At the time, Blue Apron said it expected to spend about $1.6 million in employee-related expenses — mostly severance payments. That, however, will lead to an estimated $16 million in savings this year.

Meanwhile, Blue Apron recently formed an exclusive direct-to-consumer partnership with Weight Watchers. As part of the deal, Blue Apron has the rights to sell and deliver Weight Watchers meal kits to its customers.

Blue Apron also teased an update on its partnership with Jet to bring same-day and next-day delivery Blue Apron meals to New York City, as well as its new product designed for online and brick-and-mortar retail stores.

In Q3 3018, Blue Apron reported a loss of $33.9 million compared to $87.2 million last year during this time. Meanwhile, revenue declined to $150.6 million compared to $210.6 million in the year-ago period.

Blue Apron is currently trading up 34 percent at $1.4 per share.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here:

1. Netflix will raise prices for US subscribers, with its most popular plan going up to $13 per month

For the most popular plan (which includes high-definition streaming for up to two devices simultaneously), the price will increase from $10.99 to $12.99 per month. Meanwhile, the one-device plan will go up to $8.99 per month, while the four-device plan goes to $15.99.

It seemed inevitable that Netflix would have to raise prices to fund its continually growing bill for original content. At the same time, companies like Disney, AT&T/WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal all plan to launch competing services, which probably means they’ll be less interested in licensing their content to Netflix, and will charge a heftier fee when they do.

2. German court tosses Qualcomm’s latest iPhone patent suit

The chipmaker had argued Intel -powered iPhones infringed a transistor switch patent it holds. But in an initial verbal decision the court disagreed. Qualcomm has said it will appeal.

3. Turns out the science saying screen time is bad isn’t science

The paper, by Oxford scientists Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski, amounts to a sort of king-sized meta-analysis of studies that come to some conclusion about the relationship between technology and well-being among young people. Their concern was that the large data sets and statistical methods employed by researchers allowed for anomalies or false positives to be claimed as significant conclusions.

4. 23andMe updates its ancestry reports, but they’re still not perfect

Starting today, customers will be able to see more granular ancestry results from more than 1,000 regions, as well as 33 population-specific pages about cultural information.

5. Facebook says it will invest $300M in local news

The company says the investments will go into two broad areas — supporting journalists and newsrooms in the newsgathering process, and helping them build sustainable business models.

6. Pandora launches a personalized voice assistant on iOS and Android

The feature will allow you to not only control music playback with commands to play a specific artist, album, radio or playlist, but will also be capable of delivering results customized to you when responding to vague commands.

7. TikTok is giving China a video chat alternative to WeChat

ByteDance, the world’s most-valued startup, just launched a new social media product under its Douyin brand in what many people see as a serious attempt to challenge WeChat.

We’re looking for the best lawyers who are working with startups today, and we’d like your recommendations.

Right now, it’s hard to find the sort of attorney who can help you see around corners as a young company, negotiate tricky situations, and connect you to other legal experts when you need to go deep on a topic.

Help us by filling out this two-minute survey.

If you’re like me, you’ve spent hours researching online, working your network for word-of-mouth recommendations, and going through a trial-and-error process. TechCrunch is trying to save you time and money here by publishing a list of lawyers who other founders have had great experiences with.

Since we began the project last month, we’ve already heard from nearly 600 founders and early startup leaders about lawyers they recommend, across booming local startup scenes and top Silicon Valley companies. We’ve also gotten great feedback about lawyers who people work with through the new generation of online legal services, like Atrium and UpCounsel, so please tell us about your experiences if you’ve gone that route.

So far, it feels like we’re solving a real problem. But we know there are many more stories to hear — and lawyers who should be on the list — so we want your recommendations, too.

If you’re a lawyer reading this, please note that we strongly encourage you to share this survey with your clients. We’ve found that when they’ve had good experiences, they are more than happy to give you a strong recommendation.

Any questions? Email me at eldon@techcrunch.com. This project is part of a new thing TechCrunch is working on, that we’ll have more to share about soon.

Madrona Venture Group has long been one of the premier early-stage venture firms in the Pacific Northwest and in recent years, it has done a good job of recruiting former industry executives. In recent years, those included the former Microsoft developer tools chief S. Somasegar, now a managing director, and former Windows and Xbox exec Terry Myerson, currently a venture partner. In 2017, the firm also announced that former King Digital and Clearwire CFO Hope Cochran had joined its venture partner ranks and today Madrona announced that Cochran is now joining its team of managing directors.

During her time as a venture partner at Madrona, Cochran led the firm’s investment in the female-forward co-working startup The Riveter. She is also the first woman Managing Director at Madrona.

“I have to say that I’ve often been the only female at every executive table I’ve been at,” she told me. “It’s a pretty normal situation for me. I’m happy to be that person. I think with that role comes great responsibility, so I have worked hard throughout my whole career to help mentor women in the organization. I try and really pay particular attention to all levels of the organization and where there is a drop-off.”

Like many executives who join venture firms, Cochran didn’t arrive with a lot of preconceived notions about VC. Indeed, she told me that she only started developing her investment philosophy once she joined the firm. “I don’t know that I came in with some concrete themes. I came in with the desire to be helpful, meaning to help the existing portfolio and if I found things that were interesting, to be able to have the opportunity to work with them.”

In her new role, Cochran will be responsible for investing out of Madrona’s latest $300 million fund. Given her background, it’s no surprise that she expects to gravitate toward B2B and FinTech companies, though. She also noted that while King Digital was obviously a gaming company, internally the team often looked at it more as a data company. “You’re data is everything,” she explained and noted that she loves working with companies that make it eaiser to use all the data that companies now generate.

It’s worth noting that Cochran also sits on the board of three public companies (MongoDB, NewRelic and Hasbro) and has also worked with Madrona portfolio companies like Smartsheet, Rover, Gawkbox and Matcherino as they plan their way forward.

“I have now done the CFO role at various large and small companies about five different times and it just felt like I was ready for a new perspective on companies in a different role,” she said when I asked her why she was interested in working with a venture firm.

“As investors, we seek to attract the best entrepreneurs and the best company-building team that are eager to roll up their sleeves to help companies when they need us,” the Madrona team wrote in today’s announcement. “Having an investment team that is diverse in terms of experience, expertise, company background, gender, age, culture, and points of view enables us to build better companies faster.   We are excited to have Hope on board and look forward to years of investing and working with companies from day one for the long run including all the key decision moments along the journey.”

In addition to Cochran’s new role, Madrona also today announced that Troy Cichos has been promoted from CFO and administrative partner to COO and partner, while former fund administrator Jennifer Chambers is now an administrative partner and Ted Kummert has taken on the role of the firm’s chief product officer in residence, in addition to his previous role as venture partner.

DuckDuckGo has a new, unlikely partner in search: Apple.

The privacy-focused search engine that promises to never track its users said Tuesday it’s now using data provided by Apple Maps to power its map-based search results. Although DuckDuckGo had provided limited mapping results for a while using data from open-source service OpenStreetMap, it never scaled its features to those of its search engine rivals, notably Google and Bing.

Now, DuckDuckGo will return addresses, businesses, geographical locations, and nearby places using Apple Maps by default. (When we tested, directions and transit times open up in Apple Maps on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad — but on non-Apple devices, the directions defaults to and opens in Bing.)

In using Apple’s mapping data, DuckDuckGo will become one of the biggest users of Apple Maps to date, six months after Apple said it would open up Apple Maps, long only available on Macs, iPhones and iPads, to the web.

“We’re excited to work closely with Apple to set a new standard of trust online, and we hope you’ll enjoy this update,” said the search engine in a blog post.

DuckDuckGo in the Tor browser, using the new Apple Maps feature. (Screenshot: TechCrunch)

In reality, the partnership isn’t that unsurprising at all.

Apple faced flak for ditching Google Maps in iOS and rushing its overhauled Maps service out to the market, prompting a rare mea culpa from chief executive Tim Cook, apologizing for the disastrous rollout. At its most recent Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple promised a do-over, offering reliability and stability — but more importantly, privacy.

Where Google tracks everything you do, where you go and what you search for, Apple has long said it doesn’t want to know. Any data that Apple collects is anonymous, said Eddy Cue, Apple internet software and services chief, in an interview with TechCrunch last year. “We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” said Cue. By anonymizing the data, Apple doesn’t know where you came from or where you went, or even who took the trip.

DuckDuckGo finally brings a much-needed feature to the search engine, while keeping true to its privacy-focused roots as a non-tracking search rival to Google.

“At DuckDuckGo, we believe getting the privacy you deserve online should be as simple as closing the blinds,” the company said. “Naturally, our strict privacy policy of not collecting or sharing any personal information extends to this integration.”

“You are still anonymous when you perform map and address-related searches on DuckDuckGo,” the search engine said.

In a separate note, DuckDuckGo said users can turn on their location for better “nearby” search results, but promises to not store the data or use it for any purposes. “Even if you opt-in to sharing a more accurate location, your searches will still be completely anonymous,” said DuckDuckGo.

“We do not send any personally identifiable information such as IP address to Apple or other third parties,” the company said.

DuckDuckGo processes 30 million daily searches, up by more than 50 percent year-over-year, the company said last year.

If you haven’t snagged a ticket to the 2nd Annual TechCrunch Winter Party on February 8, listen up and listen good. We just released the third round of our first-come-first-serve tickets, and the first two batches sold like proverbial hotcakes. Buy your ticket while you still can, because you don’t want to miss out on a ton of fun and opportunity.

The festivities take place at Galvanize in San Francisco, a multi-level venue that’s roomy enough for nearly 1,000 of the Valley’s finest founders, investors, developers, marketers and makers to get comfy and celebrate the spirit of this remarkable startup community. Plus, you’ll nosh on plenty of yummy appetizers and enjoy top-notch cocktails.

It’s a convivial environment to talk, network and connect — or reconnect — with like-minded people. You never know who you’ll meet and what opportunities a chance encounter might produce.

It’s also an opportunity to check out interesting early-stage startups showing their stuff at the demo tables. Hold on a minute — you might own an early-stage startup, so why not buy a demo table and place your baby smack dab in front of a highly influential audience? Genius! The $1,500 price tag buys your table and three tickets to the party.

Here’s the lowdown on logistics:

• When: Friday, February 8, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Where: Galvanize, 44 Tehama St., San Francisco, CA 94105
• Ticket price: $85

TechCrunch parties always include a big dose of fun, games and prizes. Who doesn’t love prizes? Along with spectacularly sweet swag, you might win tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2019.

Tickets to the TechCrunch Winter Party at Galvanize are available right now, but who knows for how long? Go buy a ticket now and join us at Galvanize for a night of fabulous fun and awesome opportunity.

Amazon is giving its Fire TV Stick an upgrade. The company announced today it will now ship the Fire TV Stick with the new version of the Alexa Voice Remote launched last fall. The remote allows users to control other devices besides their Fire TV, thanks to its support for both Bluetooth and multi-directional infrared. However, the upgraded remote won’t impact the Fire TV Stick’s price, which remains $39.99.

The new Alexa remote was arrived alongside the $49.99 Fire TV Stick 4K in October. It’s capable of controlling the TV, soundbar and other AV equipment, and can do things like switch inputs or tune to a channel on your cable box. As a standalone purchase for older Amazon Fire TV devices, the remote was retailing yesterday for $29.99. But today, Amazon is slashing the price by 50 percent, it says.

The voice remote also includes the ability to speak to Alexa with a press of a button, which can help you find shows and movies, control smart home devices, get the news and weather, stream music and more.

Amazon notes the inclusion of the next-gen remote makes the Fire TV Stick the only streaming media player under $40 that includes a remote capable of controlling other AV equipment besides the TV. This could be a selling point for Fire TV Stick versus Roku, whose high-end voice remotes are focused on controlling power and volume on TVs, or its own Roku wireless speakers.

At CES this year, Amazon said its Fire TV platform as a whole had now topped over 30 million active users, which seemed to put it just ahead of Roku’s 27 million. By swapping in a better remote with the flagship Fire TV Stick device, Amazon is looking to solidify its lead gained by steep discounts on its devices over Black Friday and the larger 2018 holiday shopping season.

The updated Fire TV Stick will also be the first to ship with Amazon’s just launched, free streaming service IMDb Freedive included. Announced at CES, the service offers a range of free, ad-supported movies and TV shows – a challenge to its rival’s service, The Roku Channel. It will come to other Fire TV devices by way of a software update.

The Fire TV Stick with the new Alexa Voice Remote goes on pre-order today for $39.99 (or £39.99 in the U.K.), and will be available in a bundle with the Echo Dot for $69.98.