Author: azeeadmin

EngineEars today announced a $1 million raise. The company’s first round of funding features investments from Kendrick Lamar, DJ Mustard, Roddy Rich and Slauson and Co. “Quality of sound is still important in music,” Lamar said in a quote provided to TechCrunch. “Ali has always been a progressive thinker. Engineers will transcend the culture.”

The service was launched in 2018 by Grammy winner Derek “MixedByAli” Ali, who has worked on a slew of high-profile tracks from artists including Lamar, Jay Rock, SZA, Nipsey Hussle and Snoop Dogg.

The educational courses turned into a touring curriculum, with 15 workshops in four countries, where Ali says he was able to determine what the community most needed.

“During that time, we really learned what the problem is,” says Ali. “All of the problems entailed tracking payments, being credited, the antiquated business model of file transfers and essentially just helping an independent audio engineer sustain and create a business for themselves.”

Source:  Claima Stories 

EngineEars has since branched out into something more akin to a marketplace for audio engineers. Independent mixers can offer their services and connect with artists and labels, get credit for the tracks they’ve worked on and — perhaps most importantly in the world of freelancing — get paid.

The platform launched an alpha version in January and since has 120 engineers verified by an existing vetting process. The invite-only service has another 2,000 people on its waiting list, according to Ali.

The service is currently working on a feature roadmap based on the requests of existing users and looking toward potential additions like the ability to buy beats, going forward. Other suggested features include contract negotiations for work-for-hire, but much of this is still very much in early stages.

Once the design, manufacturing and certification of electric aircraft is complete, urban air mobility companies face a cascade of logistical issues, including building an app that connect customers to rides and finding dedicated take-off and landing areas.

A new partnership between autonomous air taxi developer Wisk Aero and air mobility ride platform Blade Urban Air Mobility aims to provide a solution.

Under the terms of the agreement, Wisk will own and operate up to 30 aircraft on Blade’s network of dedicated air terminals along short-distance routes. Wisk will be compensated based on flight time, along anticipated minimum flight hour guarantees, the companies said in a news release Wednesday.

It’s a smart move for both companies. Blade does not own aircraft itself, but instead brokers private air travel service through a digital platform. However, the craft they offer are conventional rotorcraft, such as helicopters and seaplanes. The partnership will help “accelerate Blade’s transition from conventional rotorcraft to safe, quiet, emission-free Electric Vertical Aircraft,” Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade, said in a statement.

Wisk, born out of a joint venture between Kitty Hawk and Boeing, will be able to benefit from Blade’s experience as an air mobility service provider. Once Wisk achieves certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, it will be able to immediately ramp up via Blade’s network.

The companies say they are committed to an “open-network” approach to Urban Air Mobility, with Wisk providing aircraft to multiple customer platforms and likewise Blade using many different electric aircraft developers for its ride services. Not all electric vertical take-off and landing companies will likely take the partnership route. Joby Aviation CEO JoeBen Bevirt has stated publicly that the company intends to be vertically integrated between its vehicle development and air taxi operations.

Blade is one of a suite of air mobility companies, including Joby, that have announced its intention to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. In December 2020 Blade said it would merge with SPAC Experience Investment Corp at a valuation of $825 million. The deal includes $400 million in gross proceeds and $125 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE).

As the oldest of 12 children, Bunim Laskin spent much of his teen years looking for ways to help keep his siblings entertained. Noticing that a neighbor’s pool was often empty, Laskin reached out to ask if his family could use her pool. To make it worth her while, he suggested that they could help cover her expenses for maintaining the pool.

Soon after, five other families had made the same arrangement with her and the pool owner had six families covering 25% of her expenses. This meant that the neighbor was actually making money off her pool. The arrangement sparked a business idea in Laskin’s mind. At the age of 20, he founded Swimply, a marketplace for homeowners to rent out their underutilized pools to local swimmers, with Asher Weinberger.

The Cedarhurst, New York-based company launched a beta in 2018, starting with four pools in the New Jersey area. 

“We used Google Earth to find houses, and then knocked on 80 doors with a pool,” Laskin recalls. “We got to 100 pools organically. Word of mouth really helped us grow.” The site was pretty bare bones, he admits, with potential customers only able to view photos of the pools and connect with the pool owner by phone.

That year, Swimply did around 400 reservations and raised $1.2 million from friends and family.

In 2019, Swimply launched what he describes as a “proper” website and app with an automated platform. It grew “4 to 5 times” that year, again mostly organically. In an episode that aired in March 2020, the company appeared on Shark Tank but went home without a deal.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Swimply, Laskin said, pivoted right into the pandemic.

“We were the perfect solution for people when the world was falling on its head,” he said. The company restructured its offering to ensure that pool owners did not have to interact with guests. “It was the perfect, contact-free, self-serve experience to hang out and be with people you quarantined with.”

The CDC then came out to say that it was safe to swim because chlorine could help kill the virus, and that proved to be a big boon to its business.

“On one end, it was a way for people to have a normal day and on the other, it helped give owners a way to earn an income, at a time when many people were being affected financially,” Laskin told TechCrunch.

Business took off in 2020 with revenue growing 4,000% and now Swimply is announcing a $10 million Series A round. Norwest Venture Partners led the financing, which also included participation from Trust Ventures and a number of angel investors such as Poshmark founder and CEO Manish Chandra; Rob Chesnut, former general counsel and chief ethics officer at Airbnb; Ancestry.com CEO Deborah Liu and Michael Curtis. 

Swimply is now operating in a total of 125 U.S. markets, two markets in Canada and five markets in Australia. It plans to use its new capital in part to expand into new markets and toward product development.

Image Credits: Swimply

The way it works is pretty straightforward. Swimply simply connects homeowners that have underutilized backyard spaces and pools with those seeking a way to gather, cool off or exercise, for example. People or families can rent pools by the hour, ranging in price from $15 to $60 per hour (at an average of $45/hour) depending on the amenities. New markets that Swimply has recently expanded to include Portland, Oregon; Raleigh, NC and the California cities of Oakland, San Luis Obispo and Los Gatos. 

“The shifting mindset from younger generations about ownership is a huge contributor to increased growth of the Swimply marketplace,” said co-founder Weinberger, who serves as Swimply’s COO. “Swimming is the third most popular activity for adults and number one for children, and yet no other company has tackled the aquatic space to make swimming more affordable and accessible…until now.”

While the company declined to provide hard revenue figures, Laskin said Swimply was seeing “7 digits a month in revenue” and 15,000 to 20,000 reservations a month. Families represent the most popular reservation.

“People can book and pay through our platform, and only 20% of hosts ever meet their guests,” Laskin said. “We’re enabling a new kind of consumer behavior with what we’re doing.”

The company is planning to use its new capital to also rebuild much of its tech infrastructure and boost its customer support team to be more “readily available.”

It is also now offering a complimentary up to $1 million worth of insurance per booking for liability as well as $10,000.

Swimply has a little over 20 employees, up 10 times from 2 people in December of 2020. It plans to double that number over the next few months.

The company’s model has proven quite lucrative for some owners, according to Laskin.

“Last year, there were some owners who earned $10,000 a month. One owner in Denver earned $50,000 last year and he had signed up toward the end of the summer. He should make over $100,000 this year,” Lasken projects.

Its only criteria is that owners offer a clean pool. Eighty five percent of hosts offer restrooms as well. If they don’t, they are limited to one-hour reservations with a max of five guests. Swimply has also partnered with local pool companies, and if they pay one of its owners a visit and certify that pool, that owner gets a badge on the site “so guests get an additional level of security,” Laskin said.

Ed Yip of Norwest Venture Partners admits that when he first heard of the concept of Swimply, he “didn’t know what to make of it.”

But the more he heard about it, the more excited he got.

“This is the holy grail for a consumer investor. We’re not changing consumer behavior, but rather productize the experience and make it safer and easier on both sides,” Yip told TechCrunch.

What also gets the investor excited is the potential for Swimply beyond just swimming pools in the future.

“We’re seeing a ton of demand from hosts wanting to list hot tubs and tennis courts, for example,” Yip said. “So this can turn into a marketplace for shared outdoor resources and that’s a huge market opportunity that adds value on both sides.”

Indeed, the concept of monetizing underutilized space is a growing concept. Earlier this year, we reported on Neighbor, which operates a self-storage marketplace, raising $53 million in a Series B round of funding. Neighbor’s unique model aims to repurpose under-utilized or vacant space — whether it be a person’s basement or the empty floor of an office building — and turn it into storage.

At the same time as it’s cracking down on the advertising businesses run by rivals, Apple is introducing a new way for developers to advertise on the App Store. Previously, developers could promote their apps after users initiated a search on the App Store by targeting specific keywords. For example, if you typed in “taxi,” you might then see an ad by Uber in the top slot above the search results. The new ad slot, however, will reach users before they search. This can expose the app to a wider audience.

This new and more prominent ad placement is found on the App Store’s Search tab, which sees millions of visits from Apple device owners every month. Today, the Search tab offers two sections below the search box itself: a “Discover” section that highlights current App Store trends, and a “Suggested” section with recommended apps and games to try. The ad will appear in the latter section at the top of the list of Suggested apps.

These new ad placements, which Apple calls “Search tab campaigns,” are being made available as part of Apple’s Search Ads Advanced service, and can take advantage of the assets that developers have already uploaded to their App Store product page — like the app’s name, icon, and subtitle. Because developers are buying a direct placement on the App Store, they don’t need to submit keywords as they would for other App Store ads, nor any other creative assets.

Image Credits: Apple

Like the existing Search results campaigns, there’s no minimum spend required for a Search tab campaign. Developers can spend as little or as much as they want, then start, stop or adjust the campaign at any time, says Apple. Ad pricing is based on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) model. The actual cost is the result of a second price auction, which calculates what the developer will pay based on what the next closest bidder is willing to pay. Impressions are counted when at least 50% of the ad is visible for one second, Apple notes.

Apple’s decision to expand its advertising business appears to be a calculated move timed with the launch of iOS 14.5, the latest version of the iPhone’s operating system. Through a feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT), rolling out in iOS 14.5, Apple is cracking down on apps that track users’ data without permission. After updating, users will see a new pop-up box appear in each app, where the developer will ask permission to collect and share the user’s information with data brokers and other third parties, if they previously collected this information without users’ consent. Users can also go into their iOS Settings to turn on or off app tracking for individual apps at any time.

The change is shaking up the $350+ billion digital ad industry, led by Facebook and Google. Facebook has argued the impacts of the change will hurt small businesses, who have historically relied on highly targeted, personalized ads that allow them to reach potential customers without spending a lot of money. Advertisers, meanwhile, have suggested that Apple’s changes will benefit its own bottom line at the expense of their own.

But Apple’s response, to date, has simply been that the changes were necessary to protect consumer privacy. People should have a right to know “when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites,” the company said, “and they should have the choice to allow that or not.”

According to early data by Flurry Analytics, only around 11% of users are opting in to being tracked after the iOS 14.5 launch. For app publishers looking to acquire new users, that could make this new ad slot look more appealing than it would have, had it launched before ATT rolled out.

Apple’s plans to launch the new ad slot were reported by the Financial Times in April, which noted that ultimately, the changes may be more about money — they could also be about control. In years past, getting featured on the App Store could boost a company’s valuation as new users flooded in. Apple may want to shift that power away from third-parties and back to itself and its own App Store both in terms of app discovery and anointing the next hit apps.

Peloton today announced that it will be cooperating with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), agreeing to two voluntary treadmill recalls for the Tread+ and Tread versions of its home treadmill system.

Those who have purchased the systems can contact the connected fitness company for a refund. CEO John Foley offered a contrite statement to go along with the news, after initially pushing back on the CPSC’s decision to go public with its findings.

“The decision to recall both products was the right thing to do for Peloton’s Members and their families,” Foley says. “I want to be clear, Peloton made a mistake in our initial response to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s request that we recall the Tread+.  We should have engaged more productively with them from the outset. For that, I apologize. Today’s announcement reflects our recognition that, by working closely with the CPSC, we can increase safety awareness for our Members.”

Developing…

It’s an entrepreneur’s market in digital health today, with startups raising record-breaking funding at soaring valuations and debuting on public markets to eager investors.

According to CB Insights, as of March 3, 2021, there are 51 healthcare unicorns — “startups” — worth $1 billion or more around the world. Global venture capital funding, including private equity and corporate VC, into digital health was the highest ever in the first quarter 2021 at $7.2 billion, according to Mercom Capital Group.

The massive influx of capital to healthcare should not be surprising; the pandemic has made it starkly clear that digital health is the future of healthcare. To that end, we should anticipate additional healthcare exits worth more than $1 billion in the near term. Which again, is great for entrepreneurs — as long as they understand how hard it is to build a unicorn in healthcare. Today, becoming a unicorn requires founders who are long on vision and operational experience.

Company founders most often turn to veteran investors for help with grand-slam strategies to create the next healthcare unicorn. That’s why many of them seek counsel from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund: Because we have the experience, resources, successful track record and networks to build real scale in digital health.

During the pandemic, lots of investors jumped in to invest in digital health for the first time. But we’ve been investing for more than a decade. Two of our portfolio companies, Preventice Solutions and Livongo, exited last year as unicorns, rounding out the $6.2 billion in digital health market value MGHIF has exited over the last two years. And we are expecting two more unicorn exits in 2021. But we’re not stopping there; we’ll be investing our $500 million fund in drone-supported supply chain technologies, telehealth, AI, digital pathology, remote clinical trials and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).

Given our success, here are four instrumental strategies to building a unicorn in digital health that we know work.

Raise the “right amount” of capital to build the right company

We often ask entrepreneurs: Would you rather own 20% of a $50 million company or 5% of a $1 billion company? To most, the answer is obvious. In our experience, too many entrepreneurs worry about dilution and never raise the right amount of capital.

It’s well known that companies with rapidly growing revenues are valued at a premium — but it’s important to remember that this is hard to do in healthcare. Getting to scale takes time because healthcare is so complicated and involves so many stakeholders.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into the world of the IPO. Not just the numbers and the metrics and the calculations of valuations at diluted, and non-diluted share counts. No. We wanted to talk about the morality and efficacy of going public.

So to round out our conversation we enlisted Steve Cakebread, the CFO of Yext and Garth Mitchell, the CFO of Latch. Cakebread is known for being aboard the Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext’s IPOs. Mitchell has sat on both sides of the table during the IPO process, and is currently helming the money equations as Latch approaches the public markets via a SPAC.

For more context, Yext, a company that first launched at a Techcrunch event back in 2009, provides data tooling and search software to businesses, while Latch builds software and hardware for rental-focused buildings. Yext is public. Latch will be in a few months.

Back to our topic, we asked Cakebread to talk about his thesis on why going public earlier than later can help a company’s maturity process and can help provide greater returns to the general public. The CFO has written a rather good book about the IPO process more generally and what it means for a company’s internal processes, but his morality notes especially stood out because its an argument far less noisy than the POP critics. Baked beans comes up, somehow!

We also asked Mitchell to talk about Latch’s choice to go public, and what opportunities and challenges the SPAC route brings for the company. Of course, there’s a SPAC joke in there (or two), but we get into broader “what’s next” debates about if more companies will start to leave the private world, venture capital’s role in this whole mess, and the financial lift of going to the public market.

Hope you enjoyed the show, and get excited: Equity is going to have more guests on from time to time, and we welcome any suggestions you want to throw at us. 

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 AM PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

I’ve been working for a large tech company on an H-1B visa for about a year and a half. I’d like to establish my own company while maintaining my current, secure job.

Can I keep working on the H-1B, found my own company, and then have my startup sponsor me for an H-1B or another visa?

— Scrappy in Santa Clara

Hi Scrappy,

You need to be very careful while navigating this process because there are many different legal requirements that you need to pay careful attention to so you comply with U.S. immigration laws. But yes, it is possible for you to own a portion of a business on H-1B, and it is possible for a founder to obtain an H-1B transfer to work at the startup.

Take a listen to a recent podcast episode in which I discuss having two H-1B jobs — or concurrent H-1Bs. Concurrent H-1Bs enable your second employer — in this case, your startup — to avoid having to go through the H-1B lottery process because you have already gone through that process with your current employer.

Consult with experienced attorneys

Be kind to your attorneys — you will need their support to navigate this process! Before you embark on creating your startup, you should review and discuss your employment contract and NDA with an employment lawyer.

Big companies often require employees to obtain their consent prior to forming a startup. You should also consult with an experienced immigration attorney when considering embarking on this path and determining how to structure your startup. The H-1B has specific requirements that you and your startup must meet to qualify.

Employer-employee requirement

As you probably already know, the H-1B visa allows you to work for a specific employer in a specific job at a specific location. That means you cannot work for or at your startup under your current H-1B. Therefore, we often advise clients not to found any startup as a sole proprietorship. There will probably need to be a corporation or a limited liability company.

You may be advised to find a co-founder or two. One of the key requirements for the H-1B that you need to keep in mind is your startup and you must have an employer-employee relationship. That means someone at your startup, such as a co-founder, must have the ability to hire you, supervise you, hold you accountable for poor job performance, and fire you, according to the terms and conditions of the H-1B.

Also, you may need to work with a corporate attorney to draft certain bylaws, and it can be helpful if you personally own less than 50 percent of your startup. All of these things depend on the specific details of your situation, so definitely talk to experienced attorneys to guide you through, step by step!

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

Salary requirement

Your position and your startup must meet other requirements for an H-1B. To qualify for an H-1B, the future position must meet the definition of a “specialty occupation.” That means your position requires theoretical and practical application of highly specialized knowledge.

It also means you must have at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in a field that’s directly related to the position.

Moreover, your startup must be able to pay you the prevailing wage for the position and for the location where your startup or the position is based. Prevailing wages, which are determined by the U.S. Department of Labor, are broken down into four levels based on experience, with Level I being an entry-level position and Level IV being the most experienced.

Before filing an H-1B petition on your behalf to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), your startup’s immigration attorney will have to first submit a Labor Condition Application (LCA) for certification by the Labor Department of Labor. An LCA seeks to ensure that the wages and working conditions of American workers are not negatively impacted by an H-1B position.

Equity in a company and stock options are not considered wages in the H-1B context. Therefore, your startup will need to show that it can afford to pay you the prevailing wage as well as support business operations.

If you’re pre-revenue, this can be shown by a business plan plus your bank statements showing your runway from an initial investment. The amounts required depend on the details of your company’s situation.

Other things to keep in mind

There are no restrictions on the number of hours an individual on an H-1B must work. An H-1B position can be full-time or part-time or involve working just a few hours a week. Take a listen to my podcast on best practices for submitting a strong H-1B petition.

Concurrent H-1B employment can last as long as the original H-1B with your large tech employer. If you want to remain permanently in the United States, you or one of the companies sponsoring your H-1B should apply for a green card at least a year before your sixth year on the H-1B. (If you apply for a green card before your sixth year on an H-1B, the sponsoring employer can continue to extend your H-1B beyond six years until you receive your green card so you don’t have to leave the United States to apply at a U.S. embassy in your home country).

If you want to apply for a green card on your own, consider the EB-1A green card for individuals with extraordinary ability or the EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) for individuals with exceptional ability.

Other employment-based green cards, such as the EB-2 green card for professionals holding advanced degrees and EB-3 for skilled workers and professionals, require an employer to sponsor you as well as the PERM process, which can be challenging if you own substantial equity in the company.

Check with your current employer to find out if the company is willing to sponsor you for a green card. Depending on the timing, you might be able to bypass a second H-1B completely, avoiding the employer-employee relationship restrictions with your startup venture.

The work permit that comes in the I-485 adjustment of status process is unrestricted as to the type of employment in which you can engage!

Wishing you the best on your journey,

Sophie

Have a question for Sophie? Ask it here. We reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and/or space.

The information provided in “Dear Sophie” is general information and not legal advice. For more information on the limitations of “Dear Sophie,” please view our full disclaimer. You can contact Sophie directly at Alcorn Immigration Law.

Sophie’s podcast, Immigration Law for Tech Startups, is available on all major platforms. If you’d like to be a guest, she’s accepting applications!

Timescale, makers of the open source TimescaleDB time series database, announced a $40 million Series B financing round today. The investment comes just over two years after it got a $15 million Series A.

Redpoint Ventures led today’s round with help from existing investors Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Icon Ventures and Two Sigma Ventures. The company reports it has now raised approximately $70 million.

TimescaleDB lets users measure data across a time dimension, so anything that would change over time. “What we found is we need a purpose-built database for it to handle scalability, reliability and performance, and we like to think of ourselves as the category-defining relational database for time series,” CEO and co-founder Ajay Kulkarni explained.

He says that the choice to build their database on top of Postgres when it launched 4 years ago was a key decision. “There are a few different databases that are designed for time series, but we’re the only one where developers get the purpose-built time series database plus a complete Postgres database all in one…,” he said.

While the company has an open source version, last year it decided rather than selling an enterprise version (as it had been), it was going to include all of that functionality in the free version of the product and place a bet entirely on the cloud for revenue.

“We decided that we’re going to make a bold bet on the cloud. We think cloud is where the future of database adoption is, and so in the last year, […] we made all of our enterprise features free. If you want to test it yourself, you get the whole thing, but if you want a managed service, then we’re available to run it for you,” he said.

The community approach is working to attract users, with over 2 million monthly active databases, some of which the company is betting will convert to the cloud service over time. Timescale is based in New York City, but it’s a truly remote organization with 60 employees spread across 20 countries and every continent except Antarctica.

He says that as a global company, it creates new dimensions of diversity and different ways of thinking about it. “I think one thing that is actually kind of an interesting challenge for us is what does D&I mean in a totally global org. A lot of people focus on diversity and inclusion within the U.S., but we think we’re doing better than most tech companies in terms of racial diversity, gender diversity,” he said.

And being remote first isn’t going to change even when we get past the pandemic. “I think it may not work for every business, but I think like being remote first has been a real good thing for us,” he said.

Facebook’s content decision review body, a quasi-external panel that’s been likened to a ‘Supreme Court of Facebook’ but isn’t staffed by sitting judges, can’t be truly independent of the tech giant which funds it, has no legal legitimacy or democratic accountability, and goes by the much duller official title ‘Oversight Board’ (aka the FOB) — has just made the biggest call of its short life…

Facebook’s hand-picked ‘oversight’ panel has voted against reinstating former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Facebook account.

However it has sought to row the company back from an ‘indefinite’ ban — finding fault with its decision to impose an indefinite restriction, rather than issue a more standard penalty (such as a penalty strike or permanent account closure).

In a press release announcing its decision the board writes:

“Given the seriousness of the violations and the ongoing risk of violence, Facebook was justified in suspending Mr. Trump’s accounts on January 6 and extending that suspension on January 7.

However, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose an ‘indefinite’ suspension.

It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored.”

The board wants Facebook to revision its decision on Trump’s account within six months — and “decide the appropriate penalty”. So it appears to have succeeded in… kicking the can down the road.

The FOB is due to hold a press conference to discuss its decision shortly so stay tuned for updates.

This story is developing… refresh for updates…

It’s certainly been a very quiet five months on mainstream social media since Trump had his social media ALL CAPS megaphone unceremoniously shut down in the wake of his supporters’ violent storming of the capital.

For more on the background to Trump’s deplatforming do make time for this excellent explainer by TechCrunch’s Taylor Hatmaker. But the short version is that Trump finally appeared to have torched the last of his social media rule-breaking chances after he succeeded in fomenting an actual insurrection on U.S. soil on January 6. Doing so with the help of the massive, mainstream social media platforms whose community standards don’t, as a rule, give a thumbs up to violent insurrection…