Year: 2020

Over the past week, one thing has become painfully clear for U.S. residents: COVID-19 is going to permeate every aspect of our lives for a long time to come. Those of us in and around tech have been noticing this for months now. First through the impact on our friends and colleagues in Asia, who have been facing fallout from the pandemic head-on for some time, and then through the domino effect on tech conferences.

First there was MWC, then Facebook’s F8, E3, WWDC. The list goes on and on. Yesterday, TechCrunch announced that we would be postponing a pair of our own events. It was the right thing to do, and increasingly not really a choice, to be honest, as more and more cities have banned large gatherings.

Tech has been keenly aware of COVID-19’s impact for a while now because being a tech company is being a global company almost by default. Now, however, the virus’s threat has come to nearly everyone’s back door. If you don’t yet know someone who has been infected with the virus, odds are good you will soon. This is our reality, for now, at least.

If there’s hope to be mustered from this event, it’s in the prospect of people helping people. Coming together, separately, at a safe social distance. The response of the current administration leaves much to be desired at the moment. As yesterday’s press conference involved praise of the “private sector” and a parade of high profile executives, the reality is that many of us may have to rely on corporates and execs to help fill in the gaps of gutted government departments.

There will be plenty of time to call out the inevitable opportunism of corporate America (and it looks like I’m going to have a lot more free time on my hands in the coming months to do exactly that), but for now, let’s note some of the folks who are pitching in by donating supplies or easing some of the burden on a strained and uncertain population.

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma today released a statement noting plans to donate 500,000 test kits and one million face masks. The donation follows similar ones to Japan and Europe, following the devastating impact on his own country.

“Drawing from my own country’s experience, speedy and accurate testing and adequate personal protective equipment for medical professionals are most effective in preventing the spread of the virus,” Ma said in a statement. “We hope that our donation can help Americans fight against the pandemic!”

Yesterday, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan announced that his video conferencing platform would be available for free to K-12 schools in Japan, Italy and the U.S. The move comes as the service is seeing a massive spike in downloads as many businesses and schools are attempting to adapt to working and learning remotely.

Earlier this week, Bill Gates, who recently left his position on Microsoft’s board, announced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was teaming up with Wellcome and Mastercard to fund treatments to the tune of $125 million. Yesterday, Facebook announced it was committing $20 million in donations to support relief efforts. Apple announced a similar $15 million in donations, along with letting customers skip the March payment on their Apple Cards without risking interest payments. IPS like AT&T, Charter, CenturyLink, Comcast, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and Cox, meanwhile, have promised not to overcharge, charge late fees or terminate service, in an attempt to keep people connected.

Likely we’ll continue to see more such announcements in the coming weeks and months as companies struggle with impact to their workforces and bottom lines. Some will no doubt be more crass that others, but there’s little doubt that such gestures will be a big part of our ability to emerge from one of the scariest and most surreal moments in recent memory.

Apple today put in place more COVID-19-related safeguards — this time centered on its App Store. In a note posted to its developer community, the company explains that it will take steps to vet submissions of apps focused on the global pandemic that has begun to impact nearly every aspect of life across the globe.

“To help fulfill these expectations, we’re evaluating apps critically to ensure data sources are reputable and that developers presenting these apps are from recognized entities such as government organizations, health-focused NGOs, companies deeply credentialed in health issues, and medical or educational institutions,” the company explains. “Only developers from one of these recognized entities should submit an app related to COVID-19.”

In addition to assessing content and restricting the number of developers who can submit, the company is also barring the release of entertainment apps and games looking to capitalizing on the ubiquitous and life-threatening subject matter.

Apple has also asked developers to tick the “Time-Sensitive Event” option, in order to help expedite the submission, given that some may be aimed at helping users in time of crisis. The company will also be waiving some annual membership fees for non-profit orgs and government agencies looking to develop apps related to the outbreak.

A cursory search of “COVID” and “coronavirus” finds a number of apps using the terms, ranging from case trackers, news applications, a reminder to wash hands and some gaming titles.

Given its name, you might expect “Devs” — which launched earlier this month on the new FX on Hulu — to be a “Silicon Valley”-style sitcom about the tech industry. And there are indeed some delightful moments where “Ex Machina” writer-director Alex Garland pokes fun at San Francisco and tech culture.

But the prevailing mood is one of mystery and dread. The show takes place largely at a fictional quantum computing company called Amaya, run by its brooding CEO Forest (played by Nick Offerman), which employs Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) and her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman) . Amaya is also home to a division known as Devs — a group that’s mysterious enough that most employees don’t even know what the team is working on.

On the latest installment of the Original Content podcast, TechCrunch Events Director Emma Comeau joins us to discuss the three episodes that have aired thus far.

While it’s too early to evaluate how the show will answer its big questions, we’re all fans, thanks to its eerie visuals, impressive performances (particularly from Offerman and Mizuno) and the tantalizing way that it lays out its mysteries — during the spoiler discussion, we spent most of our time puzzling over clues about the ultimate goal of the Devs team.

And although the show is certainly tense, it’s actually something of a relief to spend a few hours worrying about sinister tech companies, rather everything else happening in the world outside.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

If you want to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:

0:00 Intro
3:26 “Devs” review (mild spoilers)
26:20 “Devs” spoiler review/speculation

[Editor’s note: Want to get this weekly review of news that startups can use by email? Just subscribe here.] 

Some startup investors are so uncertain about the current economic environment that they are hesitating to give us their forecasts on the record (this never happens). But others tell us they see the huge market gyrations and all the downstream effects of the novel coronavirus creating a great environment for long-term bets in the coming weeks. Why?

“Because with other investors departing the market, deal terms are getting better, the competition is less keen, [many investors] can do more due diligence and there are a lot of companies being built that have great growth prospects and are going to survive this global pandemic,” Danny Crichton detailed on Extra Crunch after calling around to his sources. “It’s the VC equivalent of buy (actually) low and sell high.”

Founders should expect big haircuts on valuation (the 20-30% range), he concludes, but should find plenty of investors considering the explosion of VC funding in recent years — provided the company fundamentals show a path to long-term success. That’s what many other investors told Sarah Buhr on the record in a followup report.

Still trying to understand the economic big picture of the virus and its global impact? Danny teamed up with Alex Wilhelm to put together this primer on TechCrunch covering the last few months in the markets.

Looking to try remote-first fundraising? Natasha Mascarenhas talked to a range of VCs about how they are approaching deals through Zoom (hint: it’s mostly for early-stage investing, if at all).

On that point, the consensus from what our staff hears this week is that most investors are ultimately going to want to meet you in person before making the big decision, still. Because they’ll be working with their portfolios long after this pandemic lasts.

Will the coronavirus lead to uncapped data for all? 

Some ISPs today are ready to temporarily ease pricing and lift data caps to avoid shutting the public off during emergencies — and they’re widely expected to do so without overloading their networks and destroying their businesses models. So, once the public sees that the large monopolies/duopolies in the biz can easily handle all of the additional traffic without the aggressive pricing scheme included, will they stand for going back to the old caps?

That’s the intriguing argument made in TechCrunch this week by Devin Coldewey, who believes that the pandemic may end up ushering in a more accessible and connected world for all. Indeed, at least one FCC commissioner is thinking about the same thing.

Zapier and YouNeedABudget share key tactics for the remote-first startup

“What we noticed was that product was getting shipped, customers seemed to be happy, more customers were coming in, revenue was coming in and the team was happy. All the things you kind of look for, to say ‘yeah, this is good…’ none of it seemed to be hindered [by the lack of office]. So we looked at that and said, ‘you know what? I think this remote thing… we should just do it.'”

That’s Zapier CEO Wade Foster sharing the backstory of how the web-app integration company has grown to 300 people. In a detailed interview on Extra Crunch with Greg Kumparak, he breaks down the evolution — and shows off an internal tool that they built to be like Slack, but for over weeks not minutes to help solve remote-first strategic communication problems. It’s called, fittingly, Async.

Greg also caught up with YouNeedABudget’s Jesse Mecham about his 115-person remote team. “You get talent,” was the big selling point to him. “You get the best talent. It’s such a game-changer; we get to compete with large companies that have much larger hiring budgets because we accommodate peoples’ locations. It’s such a win for us, and I really hope the big… you know, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and the like, they have lots of different offices, but I really hope they never embrace being remote completely because it gives us smaller teams with less cash an opportunity to be appealing on a different factor as far as work/life balance goes. Yeah. It’s the hiring, by far.”

We have more tips out this week, including a general guide to considering how to help employees make the remote transition, and a security guide for remote workers.

Stay tuned for ongoing coverage. TechCrunch’s editorial team has been remote-first all decade long, and we’ve been making it a focus as the industry moved in this direction overall more recently.

Yes, TechCrunch events are affected

For those who have been looking at attending our in-person events, and wondering what we’re gonna do….

• TC Early Stage (San Francisco, originally April 28) has been rescheduled for July 21 at the Hilton Union Square.
• TC Sessions: Mobility (San Jose, originally May 14) has been rescheduled for October 6 at the San Jose Theater.

Disrupt is still slated for September 14-16 in SF, too. But we are considering all the options that you can imagine we are considering.

However, we are actively accepting applications from startups for Mobility’s Pitch Night event.

We hope to see you in person later this year! See this page for regular updates to event plans based on the course of the pandemic.

Across the week

Extra Crunch

Edtech startups prepare to become ‘not just a teaching tool but a necessity’

How to buy back your startup from a tech giant like WeWork

Why so many robotic startups fail, and what can be done about it

Dear Sophie: Should I marry, or immigrate based on my accomplishments?

Startup founders are building companies on WhatsApp

TechCrunch

All the startups threatened by iOS 14’s new features

China Roundup: Enterprise tech gets a lasting boost from coronavirus outbreak

How the information system industry became enterprise software

Equity Monday: Circuit breakers, seed rounds and startup valuations

How the coronavirus outbreak will stress-test startups

#EquityPod

From Alex:

Here’s what we went over:

• The 11-year bull market is over, and Uber and Lyft suffered from the fallout.
• What might be ahead for startups as the public markets fall apart.
• New funds from NEA and Felicis.
• How to raise money in the current remote-work climate.
• The Sequoia-Finix dustup.

After President Trump announced that the government was working with Google to build a coronavirus screening site that was at the core of the administration testing process, Google quickly corrected this and said that it was actually Verily, Alphabet’s health division, that was working on this and that the site wasn’t ready for a nationwide rollout yet.

Today, Vice President Pence provided a bit more detail, tough he didn’t removes all of the confusion around this. A pilot of this screening site will launch for the Bay Area on Monday, March 16, he said, and direct people to local drive-through testing sites if necessary.

He reiterated that the government is working with Google on this (though my guess is that the VP, just like most people, isn’t all that clear on the complicated company structure that is Alphabet) .

“I know Google issued a statement that they are planning to launch a website,” Pence said. “I think they gave a date of Monday, March 16th and we’re working literally around the clock and I know that our whole team is working on the public and private partnership. Couldn’t be more grateful to all at the hard-working people at Google who are helping to put this website together.” He added that the White House will have more to share about this tomorrow, Sunday, at 5pm ET.

Debbie Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, noted that this is not just a simple “checkbox website” but that it actually goes through “critical symptoms and that’s why we’re giving ourselves the weekend to get it put up.”

Separately, the White House also told us that the administration is indeed working with Google to develop this site and most of this lines up with the statement we received from Verily yesterday. Hopefully, we’ll know more details after tomorrow’s briefing.

Our earlier coverage:

NASA has completed the testing process meant to simulate performance in in-space conditions for its Orion crew spacecraft, developed by Lockheed Martin and designed to carry crew on the agency’s Artemis missions, which aim to return the next American man and deliver the first American woman to the surface of the Moon. It reportedly “aced” the tests according to NASA, which include thermal vacuum and electromagnetic interference performance checks.

Obviously, it’s not business as usual at NASA amid the ongoing coronavirus situation (it isn’t business as usual anywhere), but NASA still managed to finish up the testing it needed to do at its Glenn research facility in Ohio. Glenn is the site of world-leading testing facilities that simulate flight conditions, including wind tunnels and vacuum chambers, and Orion’s testing completion at the facility means it’s now ready to move on to NASA Kennedy and Florida.

It’ll fly to Kennedy aboard NASA’s Super Guppy aircraft, which is a specially-built cargo aircraft with an extremely wide body designed for the purposes of transporting larger than normal cargo just like the Lockheed-built Orion capsule.

NASA in general appears to be progressing with its preparations for both Artemis, as well as for other ongoing key programs like its Commercial Crew program, which will see privately-operated rockets fly astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time. It has taken additional precautions to ensure the health of its astronauts meant to fly on the first crewed Commercial Crew mission, however, and its NASA Marshall facility also announced today that it’s limiting access to “mission-essential personnel” after one staff member tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday night.

Startups have done some wild things to get the attention of VCs. In fact, Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta sent YC partner (at the time) Garry Tan a six-pack of beer through the service after missing the deadline for Y Combinator by two months.

Yesterday, the ingenuity of startups struck again.

Tadabase.io, an enterprise startup that offers no-code tools to help businesses automate their processes, has had an ad running that was… well, hyper targeted.

ProductHunt founder and WeekendFund investor Ryan Hoover discovered the ad and shared it on Twitter.

Hoover told TechCrunch he was Googling Mark Suster to facilitate an introduction between Suster and one of Hoover’s portfolio companies. Instead, he found a Google ad directed squarely at Suster from Tadabase.io.

“Mark Suster, you haven’t invested in nocode” read the paid listing. “Therefore, we put this ad here to get your attention. If you’re not Mark, please don’t click here and save us some money.”

I reached out to Suster, managing partner at UpFront Ventures, to see what he thought of the ad. He told me he “loved it” and has already contacted the CEO to set up a call for next week.

Whether this clever Google ad will result in an actual investment is yet to be determined. Also unclear: will Ryan Hoover get in on the deal?

I reached out to Tadabase founder and CEO Moe Levine via email to ask about the ad, how they went about targeting, and how he feels about his upcoming phone call next week. He hasn’t responded yet. I’ll update if/when he does.

In a press conference yesterday, featuring a parade of executives from companies like CVS and Target, Trump hinted at the possibility of adding the U.K. and Ireland to a growing list of countries banned from U.S. travel. During a followup presser today helmed by Presidential COVID-19 point person, Mike, Pence, the additions were made official.

The Vice President noted that the decision was made following “unanimous recommendation” from health officials. “The President has made a decision to suspend all travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland, effective midnight Monday, EST,” Pence announced, adding, “Americans in the UK and Ireland can come home […] but they will be funneled through specific airports and processes.”

Those are the usual caveats for the recent string of bans. In many cases, returning citizens have been subject to screenings to ensure that they’re not harboring the virus. The moves are intended to reflect the spread of the virus.

“If you look at what was formally the main feeder of this outbreak. They have 80,000 cases but only 11 new cases and seven new deaths,” immunologist Anthony Fauci said, following Pence. “Things have switched over from China now and that is what has switched over the travel restrictions. You will see a curve of how the coronavirus outbreak evolved…we’ve seen it already with China and we’re starting to see it with Korea.”

The U.K. and Ireland were previously spared from the 30 day European travel ban. The list previously included,

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads in 2019 and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie’s recently released “State of Mobile” annual report. People are now spending 3 hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.

This week we’re taking a look at several stories related to the coronavirus outbreak, including the cancellation of WWDC in San Jose, as well as other app industry events that are going online. We’re also discussing the iOS 14 leak, the exposure of Sensor Tower’s app network, a potential ban on TikTok for government workers and more.

Coronavirus Special Coverage

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are continuing to play out on app stores and across the industry. This week, we’re leading with these stories followed by the other — and yes, still important — news.

Apple finally cancels its WWDC event in San Jose

Late Friday night, Disney said that it would be making Frozen 2 available this Sunday, March 15.

The accelerated release date, a full three months ahead of its planned date, comes as all sorts of release schedules, premieres, and even entire new seasons of television shows are canceled or paused as Hollywood crafts its own response to the CoVID-19 outbreak.

“‘Frozen 2’ has captivated audiences around the world through its powerful themes of perseverance and the importance of family, messages that are incredibly relevant during this time, and we are pleased to be able to share this heartwarming story early with our Disney+ subscribers to enjoy at home on any device,” said Disney’s new CEO Bob Chapek in a statement.

Disney (along with Fox, which it owns) has pushed back the release of anticipated films like the live action version of “Mulan”, the Marvel superhero movie, “The New Mutants”, and the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror film, “Antlers”.

Pushing up the release date on “Frozen 2” makes sense, given that Disney is now basically a television, streaming and gaming company — much like every other studio struggling to adapt to the need for social distancing is prompting movie theaters to either close or dramatically reduce their capacity. At the same time, there have been reports that Disney has had issues producing original shows and movies for its streaming service.

The company previously pushed up the streaming release date of “Avengers: Endgame” to coincide with the launch of Disney+.

Internationally, the company is making “Frozen 2” available on Disney+ in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday, March 17.

U.S. audiences wanting to watch the movie on Sunday will only be able to stream it in high def. Ultra HD video playback isn’t going to be available until Tuesday.