Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Since the launch of its IPO in mid-April, Zoom stock has skyrocketed, up nearly 30% as of Monday’s open. However, as the company’s valuation continues to tick up, analysts and industry pundits are now diving deeper to try and unravel what the company’s future growth might look like.

TechCrunch’s venture capital ax Kate Clark has been following the story with a close eye and will be sitting down for an exclusive conversation with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on Wednesday at 10:00 am PT. Eric, Kate and Extra Crunch members will be taking a look back at the company’s listing process and Zoom’s road to IPO.

Tune in to join the conversation and for the opportunity to ask Eric and Kate any and all things Zoom.

To listen to this and all future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.

Twitter on Monday afternoon disclosed a bug that resulted in an account’s location data being shared in certain conditions with a Twitter partner — even if the user had not opted in to sharing that data. The bug only affected a portion of Twitter’s iOS user base, the company says, and they’ve since been notified of the issue.

Affected users had more than one Twitter account on iOS, and had chosen to share their precise location using the optional feature in one account. Twitter says it may have accidentally collected location data for the other account or accounts on the same mobile device, as well, even when those accounts were not similarly opted in to location data sharing.

This information was then shared during the real-time bidding process with an unnamed Twitter partner, which meant they received the unauthorized location data. Twitter notes that none of this was “precise” location data, because the data was already “fuzzed” to be only a zip code or city (5km squared).

That means the data “could not be used to determine an address or to map your precise movements,” the company noted.

In terms of those worried about their location being disclosed or generally being doxxed, Twitter assured impacted users that the partner receiving the location data didn’t also receive their Twitter handle or a unique account identifier. They wouldn’t have been able to determine your identity, the company says. And the location data was not retained by the partner, Twitter says.

According to the company’s announcement:

We have confirmed with our partner that the location data has not been retained and that it only existed in their systems for a short time, and was then deleted as part of their normal process.

We have fixed this problem and are working hard to make sure it does not happen again. We have also communicated with the people whose accounts were impacted to let them know the bug has been fixed. We invite you to check your privacy settings to make sure you’re only sharing the data you want to with us.

It’s unclear at this time when this location sharing took place, or for how long, as Twitter didn’t disclose this in its post announcing the bug. Nor did it name the partner who had possession of the data, or explain how such a bug came to be in the first place. It only said that it failed to remove the location data.

Reached for comment, Twitter tells TechCrunch none of that information is going to be disclosed.

Twitter does say affected users have been notified, and anyone with questions can fill out a form to contact Twitter’s Data Protection Officer with more questions. It’s unclear to what extent the bug will result in a GDPR fine at this time, given the lack of specifics on hand.

The well-known tech startup routine of coming up with an idea, raising money from VCs in increasing rounds as valuations continue to rise, and then eventually going public or getting acquired has been around for as long as the myth of Silicon Valley itself. But the evolution of MailChimp — a notable, bootstrapped outlier out of Atlanta, Georgia, that provides email and other marketing services to small businesses — tells a very different story of tech startup success.

As the company closes in on $700 million in annual revenues for 2019, it has no intention of letting up, or selling out: No outside funding, no plans for an IPO, and no to all the companies that have tried to acquire it. As it has grown, it has been profitable from day one.

This week, the company is unveiling what is probably its biggest product update since first starting to sell email marketing services 20 years ago: It’s launching a new marketing platform that features social media management, ad retargeting, AI-based business intelligence, domain sales, web development templates and more.

I took the opportunity to speak with its co-founder and CEO, Ben Chestnut — who started Mailchimp as a side project with two friends, Mark Armstrong and Dan Kurzius, in the trough of the first dot-com bust — on Mailchimp’s origins and plans for what comes next. The startup’s story is a firm example of how there is definitely more than one route to success in tech.

Ingrid Lunden: You’re launching a new marketing platform today, but I want to walk back a little first. This isn’t your first move away from email. We discovered back in March that you quietly acquired a Canadian e-commerce startup, LemonStand, just as you were parting ways with Shopify.

Ben Chestnut: We wanted to have a tool to help small business marketers do their initial selling. The focus is not multiple products. Just one. We’re not interested in setting up full-blown e-commerce carts. This is about helping companies sell one product in an Instagram ad with a buy button, and we felt that the people at LemonStand could help us with that.

Luckin Coffee is the most energizing IPO in recent memory, and not just because it sells caffeine.

Most venture-backed startups can take a decade to reach the public markets. Luckin cut that time down to about 18 months. Founder Jenny Qian Zhiya opened a trial coffee shop in Beijing, with a focus on rapid coffee delivery and mobile app ordering. Fast forward to today, and the company’s 2,370 stores conducted nearly 17 million transactions in the most recent quarter ending March 31.

Now Luckin — which can barely offer year-over-year comparables — intends to list its American depository shares (ADSs) on Nasdaq in the coming weeks, hoping to raise over $500 million through the IPO.

Understanding and going long or short on this company requires that we drop the facile analogies (aka it’s Starbucks!), understand the context of startup growth in China, and take a (rare) bet on a high-flying growth company in the public markets.

The incredibly useless Starbucks analogy

Lonely Planet via Getty Images

There is nothing in the United States that compares to Luckin. But that hasn’t stopped journalists, financial analysts, and what I suspect is Luckin’s own PR folks from making the obvious coffee chain comparison.

A new feature rolling out to Uber drivers offers a semi-customized look at their “journey” with the company. On the face of its, the video is similar to sort offered up by Facebook on the occasion of anniversaries. Here, it pairs a driver’s stats with jaunty music and animation, highlighting how long they’ve been driving and when they started with the service.

The video pulls other journey metrics that it’s already begun sharing with riders through the app, including fun stats like the number of sunrises and sunsets they’ve “driven through,” the total of five-star trips and the longest streak of five star trips.

Uber shared the feature with drivers, who can opt into making it visible in the app. Doing so will show passengers on a prompt upon the driver’s arrival to provide additional insight with the person with whom they’ll be sharing a car. A number of drivers have also begun to share the feature through social media like Twitter, which can be easily accessed with a search.

The feature appears to have arrived for many over the weekend, rolling out to all drivers and Uber Eats partners globally who have made more than 100 trips. It arrives in the wake of the company’s (admittedly underwhelming) IPO. It also also debuts in the face of last week’s strikes by taxi worker advocacy groups protesting the company’s role in the growing gig economy.

Facebook has been repeatedly (and rightly) hammered for its treatment of the content moderators who ensure the site doesn’t end up becoming a river of images, videos and articles embodying the worst of humanity.

Those workers, and the hundreds (if not thousands) of other contractors Facebook employs to cook  food, provide security, and transportation for the social media giant’s highly compensated staff, are getting a little salary boost and a commitment to better care for the toll these jobs can take on some workers.

“Today we’re committing to pay everyone who does contract work at Facebook in the US a wage that’s more reflective of local costs of living,” the company said in a statement. “And for those who review content on our site to make sure it follows our community standards, we’re going even further. We’re going to provide them a higher base wage, additional benefits, and more supportive programs given the nature of their jobs.”

Contractors in the U.S. were being paid a $15 minimum wage, received 15 paid days off for holidays, sick time, and vacation; and received a $4,000 new child benefit for parents that don’t receive paid leave. Since 2016, Facebook also required employees assigned to the company to be provided with comprehensive healthcare.

Now, it’s boosting those wages in San Francisco, Washington, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area to a $20 minimum wage, and $18 in Seattle.

“After reviewing a number of factors including third-party guidelines, we’re committing to a higher standard that better reflects local costs of living,” the company said. “We’ll be implementing these changes by mid-next year and we’re working to develop similar standards for other countries.”

Those raises apply to contractors that don’t work on content moderation. For contractors involved in moderation, the company committed to a $22 per hour minimum wage in the Bay Area, New York, and Washington; $20 per-hour in Seattle; and $18 per hour in other metro areas outside the U.S.

Facebook also said it will institute a similar program for international standards going forward. That’s important since a bulk of the company’s content moderation work is actually done overseas, in places like the Philippines.

Content moderators will also have access to “ongoing well-being and resiliency training.” Facebook also said it was adding preferences to let reviewers customize how they want to view content — including an option to blur graphic images by default before reviewing them. Facebook will also provide around-the-clock on-site counseling, and surveying moderators at partner sites about what reviewers actually need.

Last month, the company said it convened its first vendor partner summit at its Menlo Park, Calif. offices and is now working to standardize contracts with its global vendors. To ensure that vendors are meeting their commitments, the company is going to hold unannounced onsite checks and a biannual audit and compliance program for content review teams.

Boost Mobile, a virtual mobile network owned by Sprint, has confirmed hackers have broken into an unknown number of customer accounts.

The company quietly posted a notification of its data breach almost exactly two months after March 14 when Boost said the breach happened.

“Boost.com experienced unauthorized online account activity in which an unauthorized person accessed your account through your Boost phone number and Boost.com PIN code,” said the notification. “The Boost Mobile fraud team discovered the incident and was able to implement a permanent solution to prevent similar unauthorized account activity.”

It’s not known exactly how the hackers obtained customer PINs — or how many Boost customers are affected. The company also notified the California attorney general, which companies are required to do if more than 500 people in the state are affected by the same security incident.

Boost Mobile reportedly had 15 million customers in 2018.

The hackers used those phone numbers and account PINs to break into customer accounts using the company’s website Boost.com, said the notification. These codes can be used to alter account settings. Hackers can automate account logins using lists of exposed usernames and passwords — or in this case phone numbers and PIN codes —in what’s known as a credential stuffing attack.

Boost said it has sent a text to affected customers with a temporary PIN.

A spokesperson for Sprint did not immediately comment. We’ll have more when we get it.

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. Amazon offers employees $10K and 3 months’ pay to start their own delivery businesses

Amazon’s partner program, first announced last year, includes access to the company’s delivery technology, hands-on training and a suite of other discounts for assets and services.

Now, the company says it also will fund former employees’ startup costs up to $10,000, as well as the equivalent of three months of their last gross salary.

2. Uber launches PIN feature to cut wait times at US airports, starting in Portland

Uber first developed the PIN feature — where it gives riders a one-time six-digit numeric code in an effort to speed up pickup times — to serve high-volume, high-density event venues.

3. CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415 parts per million for the first time in human history

Congratulations, humanity!

4. Friend portability is the must-have Facebook regulation

Josh Constine argues that the FTC needs to create an escape route for users from Facebook, so that worthy alternatives become viable options.

5. Hotstar, Disney’s Indian streaming service, sets new global record for live viewership

Around 18.6 million users simultaneously tuned into Hotstar’s website and app to watch the deciding game of the 12th edition of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

6. AWS remains in firm control of the cloud infrastructure market

Cloud infrastructure is a huge, growing market, and the companies behind Amazon are growing even faster. Yet it seems no matter how fast they grow, Amazon remains a dot on the horizon. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The team at Equity looks at Uber’s disappointing first day of public trading. Meanwhile, over at Original Content, we reviewed Netflix’s Ted Bundy film, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.”

Spotify has launched a more slimmed-down version of its streaming music app in India, only months after its public debut in the country. The Android-only app, Spotify Lite is only 11 MB in size compared with 30 MB for the main app — a change that’s common to apps targeting emerging markets where bandwidth and storage space are concerns.

The company had already tested Spotify Lite in other areas, including Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil, and others. The app has a similar look as the main app, and offers the same key features in terms of being able to play music on demand, discover new music you might like, and save songs for offline listening. However, it also lets you keep track of your mobile data by showing you how much you’ve consumed during the month, and set a monthly limit for Spotify Lite’s use of that data.

The app can be used as an alternative or alongside the main Spotify app, depending on the users’ needs.

The first version of Spotify Lite launched in Brazil in June 2018, so it’s still a relatively new app. Today, the app is publicly available in 22 countries including, now India. It has around 2.1 million installs, according to data from Sensor Tower. India has only produced a few thousand downloads for Spotify Lite so far, as it’s just gone live.

That said, India will be a key market for Spotify Lite going forward, given the heated competition for streaming music services in a region where millions of internet users are coming online for the first time. Already, Apple, Amazon, and Google are running their own music services in India, where they face competition from local players Gaana, JioSaavn, and others. Catering to the unique needs of the Indian market’s user base will help Spotify better compete with these rivals.

“Lite” apps are now a common way to reach Indian users. Google offers a handful of lightweight “Go”-branded apps, like Google Go, Gmail Go, Files Go, YouTube Go, Google Maps Go and Google Assistant Go in the country. There’s also Facebook Lite, Instagram Lite, Messenger Lite, Twitter Lite, Uber Lite, TikTok Lite, and, as of last week, Tinder Lite, too.

The news of Spotify Lite’s Indian launch was first reported by a newswire report featured on news site The News Minute. The report quoted Amarjit Batra, Managing Director for Spotify India, as saying the Lite app was a big step towards better localization of Spotify’s service as it “enables users to play millions of songs for free, takes up less space on phones, and saves data when used on the go.”

Reached for comment, Spotify confirmed the launch to TechCrunch, but referred to it as a test and noted its “beta” labeling.

“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests, including the Spotify Lite Beta, in an effort to improve our user experience,” a Spotify spokesperson said. “Some of those tests end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We aren’t going to comment on specific tests at this time,” they added.

Slack this morning disclosed estimated preliminary financial results for the first quarter of 2019 ahead of a direct listing planned for June 20.

Citing an addition of paid customers, the workplace messaging service posted revenues of about $134 million, up 66 percent from $81 million in the first quarter of 2018. Losses from operations increased from $26 million in Q1 2018 to roughly $39 million this year.

In addition to filing updated paperwork, the Slack executive team gathered on Monday to make a final pitch to potential shareholders, emphasizing its goal of replacing email within enterprises across the world.

“People deserve to do the best work of their lives,” Slack co-founder and chief executive officer Stewart Butterfield said in a video released alongside a livestream of its investor day event. “This desire of feeling aligned with your team, of removing confusion, of getting clarity; the desire for support in doing the best work of your life, that’s universal, that’s deeply human. It appeals to people with all kinds of roles, in all kinds of industries, at all scales of organization and all cultures.”

“We believe that whoever is able to unlock that potential for people … is going to be the most important software company in the world. We aim to be that company,” he added.”

Slack, valued at more than $7 billion with its last round of venture capital funding, plans to list on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “SK.”

The business filed to go public in April as other well-known tech companies were finalizing their initial public offerings. Following Uber’s disastrous IPO last week, public and private market investors alike will be keeping a close-eye on Slack’s stock market performance, which may determine Wall Street’s future appetite for Silicon Valley’s unicorns.

Though some of the recent tech IPOs performed famously, like Zoom, Uber and Lyft’s performance has served as a cautionary tale for going out in poor market conditions with lofty valuations. Uber began trading last week at below its IPO price of $45 and is today down significantly at just $36 per share. Lyft, for its part, is selling for $47.5 apiece today after pricing at $72 per share in March.

Slack isn’t losing billions per year like Uber but it’s also not as close to profitability as expected. In the year ending January 31, 2019, Slack posted a net loss of $138.9 million and revenue of $400.6 million. That’s compared to a loss of $140.1 million on revenue of $220.5 million for the year ending January 31, 2018. In its S-1, the company attributed its losses to scaling the business and capitalizing on its market opportunity.

Workplace messaging startup Slack said Monday, February 4, 2019 it had filed a confidential registration for an initial public offering, becoming the latest of a group of richly valued tech enterprises to look to Wall Street. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo credit should read ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images)

Slack currently boasts more than 10 million daily active users across more than 600,000 organizations — 88,000 on the paid plan and 550,000 on the free plan.

Slack has been able to bypass the traditional roadshow process expected of an IPO-ready business, opting for a path to Wall Street popularized by Spotify in 2018. The company plans to complete a direct listing, which allows companies to forgo issuing new shares and instead sell existing shares held by insiders, employees and investors directly to the market, in mid-June. The date, however, is subject to change.