Category: UNCATEGORIZED

In a tweet today, MacKenzie Bezos noted that her 26 year to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been formally dissolved. She added that she will be giving the executive all interest in the Bezos-owned Washington Post and privatized space company, Blue Origin.

The deal also finds MacKenzie giving her ex 75 percent of their joint Amazon stock, with Jeff also retaining voting control in her remaining 25, “to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”

She explained that she is “grateful” at having finalized the dissolution process, adding “Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.” MacKenzie Bezos is an accomplished writer, releasing her debut novel The Testing of Luther Albright in 2005. The book went on to win an American Book Award. 

It was Jeff who announced the couple’s pending divorce on Twitter three months prior, following a trial separation, noting that they would “continue our shared lives as friends.”

Amazon stock is presently trading at $1,813.02, making their combined stock worth $143 billion. MacKenzie’s share works out to around $35.6 billion, with Jeff’s at $107.4 billion.

In a tweet today, MacKenzie Bezos noted that her 26 year to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been formally dissolved. She added that she will be giving the executive all interest in the Bezos-owned Washington Post and privatized space company, Blue Origin.

The deal also finds MacKenzie giving her ex 75 percent of their joint Amazon stock, with Jeff also retaining voting control in her remaining 25, “to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”

She explained that she is “grateful” at having finalized the dissolution process, adding “Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.” MacKenzie Bezos is an accomplished writer, releasing her debut novel The Testing of Luther Albright in 2005. The book went on to win an American Book Award. 

It was Jeff who announced the couple’s pending divorce on Twitter three months prior, following a trial separation, noting that they would “continue our shared lives as friends.”

Amazon stock is presently trading at $1,813.02, making their combined stock worth $143 billion. MacKenzie’s share works out to around $35.6 billion, with Jeff’s at $107.4 billion.

Tesla is adding 2048 and Atari’s Super Breakout to the list of games that drivers and passengers can play on the company’s dashboard display.

The company added Atari games to its slate of apps and services last August via a software update. At the time, the initial slate of games included Missile Command, Asteroids, Lunar Lander, and Centipede.

Contrary to our speculation at the time, Pole Position was not offered with the steering wheel as an input. 

Customers will see the update with new games available as soon as today, but some updates may take longer to reach the entire fleet. For folks with a jones to play Super Breakout on their $45,000 car now now now they can connect to Wi-Fi to get the update sooner.  

A live action version of the anime series “Cowboy Bebop” has been in and out of development for years, but it looks like Netflix is actually going to make it a reality.

The streaming service announced last fall that it would be producing a live action “Cowboy Bebop” series. Today, it revealed some key casting: Star Trek star John Cho will play the lead character Spike Siegel, a bounty hunter who travels the solar system with his partner Jet Black (played by Mustafa Shakir).

In addition, Daniella Pineda will play bounty hunter Faye Valentine, while Alex Hassell has been cast as Spike’s nemesis Vicious.

This casting feels like a refreshing contrast with the live action movie that never got made, which would have starred Keanu Reeves, not mention the recent movie version of “Ghost in the Shell,” which helped prompt a broader conversation about diversity and of Hollywood’s tendency to “whitewash” Asian characters.

One of most enjoyable parts of that conversation? A hashtag reimagining studio movies as titles #StarringJohnCho. So Cho taking the lead in a big-budget science fiction series feels long overdue.

The first episode of the 10-episode series will be written by Christopher Yost (who co-wrote the last two “Thor” movies), with Alex Garcia Lopez directing and Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg serving as showrunners/executive producers. Original “Cowboy Bebop” director Shinichiro Watanabe will also be involved as a consultant.

Captain Marvel has crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide ticket sales, according to a report in Variety.

It’s the seventh movie based on Marvel Comics’ intellectual property to hit that milestone, indicating that Disney may be the house that Mickey Mouse built, Marvel’s comic empire is adding a few more stories.

Captain Marvel’s success also underscores the notion that superheroines can perform just as well at the box office as their male counterparts.

It’s also a blow to the online trolls who sought to derail the movie early on with a concerted effort to post negative reviews and drive down audience ratings for the film upon its release.

“We’re breaking beta from alpha. That doesn’t exist anywhere. We’re literally saying, ‘Only pay us for alpha and define beta. Nobody has done that.” That’s an energized quote from legendary Wall Streeter Peter Kraus. For those not familiar with the lingo, I’ll translate: Kraus’s new company Aperture, which has just launched a new mutual fund offering (yes, you read that right: a new financial start-up is launching mutual funds in 2019), is seeking to create a true blue pay-for-performance model that emphasizes beating a market benchmark, not just tying it to an index as most passive funds do.

Why not offer a slick ETF, give it a cool name and make it “smart” so as to add some spice? If you have to ask that, then you don’t know Kraus. In breaking bread with him last year at a dinner held by Marstone (where he is chairman), I was given a first-hand education as to why ETFs — which have assumed their place in the millennial hall-of-fame alongside toast points, craft beer and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj — are not always the right answer for investors.

Who is Kraus to say that? Well, Kraus worked at Goldman Sachs for 22 years (several of which were before Goldman’s 1999 IPO), ultimately co-heading the firm’s investment management division and chairing its strategy committee. He has also served as chairman and CEO of AllianceBernstein, and while he’s had his triumphs and challenges, one thing is beyond dispute: Kraus doesn’t need the money. As such, his consistent banging of the drum about the structural considerations of ETFs isn’t a case of a heavy-hitter talking their own book for economic gain. With Aperture, Kraus is looking to re-energize mutual funds and passionately push back against the idea that investors can’t beat the market. If you can pick talented managers, incentive them properly and target the right area, alpha, says Kraus, is still there for the taking.

Here’s my recent conversation with Kraus in Aperture’s New York office:

Gregg Schoenberg: What was the overarching thesis that led you to start Aperture?

Peter Kraus: I took a step back and looked at the financial ecosystem that’s been created over 50 years and the changes in that ecosystem. Then I asked myself the question of whether that system makes sense for the next 50 years, or if there was something that we’re missing.

“We’re breaking beta from alpha. That doesn’t exist anywhere. We’re literally saying, ‘Only pay us for alpha and define beta. Nobody has done that.” That’s an energized quote from legendary Wall Streeter Peter Kraus. For those not familiar with the lingo, I’ll translate: Kraus’s new company Aperture, which has just launched a new mutual fund offering (yes, you read that right: a new financial start-up is launching mutual funds in 2019), is seeking to create a true blue pay-for-performance model that emphasizes beating a market benchmark, not just tying it to an index as most passive funds do.

Why not offer a slick ETF, give it a cool name and make it “smart” so as to add some spice? If you have to ask that, then you don’t know Kraus. In breaking bread with him last year at a dinner held by Marstone (where he is chairman), I was given a first-hand education as to why ETFs — which have assumed their place in the millennial hall-of-fame alongside toast points, craft beer and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj — are not always the right answer for investors.

Who is Kraus to say that? Well, Kraus worked at Goldman Sachs for 22 years (several of which were before Goldman’s 1999 IPO), ultimately co-heading the firm’s investment management division and chairing its strategy committee. He has also served as chairman and CEO of AllianceBernstein, and while he’s had his triumphs and challenges, one thing is beyond dispute: Kraus doesn’t need the money. As such, his consistent banging of the drum about the structural considerations of ETFs isn’t a case of a heavy-hitter talking their own book for economic gain. With Aperture, Kraus is looking to re-energize mutual funds and passionately push back against the idea that investors can’t beat the market. If you can pick talented managers, incentive them properly and target the right area, alpha, says Kraus, is still there for the taking.

Here’s my recent conversation with Kraus in Aperture’s New York office:

Gregg Schoenberg: What was the overarching thesis that led you to start Aperture?

Peter Kraus: I took a step back and looked at the financial ecosystem that’s been created over 50 years and the changes in that ecosystem. Then I asked myself the question of whether that system makes sense for the next 50 years, or if there was something that we’re missing.

“We’re breaking beta from alpha. That doesn’t exist anywhere. We’re literally saying, ‘Only pay us for alpha and define beta. Nobody has done that.” That’s an energized quote from legendary Wall Streeter Peter Kraus. For those not familiar with the lingo, I’ll translate: Kraus’s new company Aperture, which has just launched a new mutual fund offering (yes, you read that right: a new financial start-up is launching mutual funds in 2019), is seeking to create a true blue pay-for-performance model that emphasizes beating a market benchmark, not just tying it to an index as most passive funds do.

Why not offer a slick ETF, give it a cool name and make it “smart” so as to add some spice? If you have to ask that, then you don’t know Kraus. In breaking bread with him last year at a dinner held by Marstone (where he is chairman), I was given a first-hand education as to why ETFs — which have assumed their place in the millennial hall-of-fame alongside toast points, craft beer and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj — are not always the right answer for investors.

Who is Kraus to say that? Well, Kraus worked at Goldman Sachs for 22 years (several of which were before Goldman’s 1999 IPO), ultimately co-heading the firm’s investment management division and chairing its strategy committee. He has also served as chairman and CEO of AllianceBernstein, and while he’s had his triumphs and challenges, one thing is beyond dispute: Kraus doesn’t need the money. As such, his consistent banging of the drum about the structural considerations of ETFs isn’t a case of a heavy-hitter talking their own book for economic gain. With Aperture, Kraus is looking to re-energize mutual funds and passionately push back against the idea that investors can’t beat the market. If you can pick talented managers, incentive them properly and target the right area, alpha, says Kraus, is still there for the taking.

Here’s my recent conversation with Kraus in Aperture’s New York office:

Gregg Schoenberg: What was the overarching thesis that led you to start Aperture?

Peter Kraus: I took a step back and looked at the financial ecosystem that’s been created over 50 years and the changes in that ecosystem. Then I asked myself the question of whether that system makes sense for the next 50 years, or if there was something that we’re missing.

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. Apple’s HomePod gets a $50 price cut

Announced in mid-2017 and released in early 2018, the Siri-powered product brought a very Apple approach to the category dominated by Amazon and Google, with premium sound and design at a premium price of $349.

The $50 price drop puts the product under $300 — though it’s still pretty steep, so far as the category goes. Apple has confirmed with TechCrunch that this is a permanent price cut.

2. Researchers find 540M Facebook user records on exposed servers

According to the researchers’ write-up, Mexico-based digital media company Cultura Colectiva left more than 540 million records — including comments, likes, reactions, account names and more — stored on the Amazon S3 storage server without a password, allowing anyone to access the data.

3. Yahoo spin-out Altaba is selling its entire Alibaba stake and closing down

Bye-bye, Altaba. The Yahoo spin-out created to house Yahoo’s lucrative stake in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan announced today that it will sell its shares and shut up shop.

Photo: Hero Images/Getty Images

4. Amazon Alexa launches its first HIPAA-compliant medical skills

Following a trial of Amazon’s smart speakers in patients’ rooms at Cedars-Sinai, the company announced an invite-only program allowing select developers to create and launch HIPAA-compliant healthcare skills for Alexa.

5. GrubMarket raises $25M more for its farm-to-table food delivery service

GrubMarket works with smaller farms and other suppliers to sell and deliver their items by way of its online store both to consumers and to businesses — including restaurants, stores and food startups.

6. MIT cuts working relationship with Huawei and ZTE over alleged sanction violations

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it will suspend collaborations, including research projects and funding, with Huawei Technologies and ZTE, two Chinese tech companies fighting with the U.S. government over alleged sanction violations.

7. SiriusXM and Pandora launch Pandora NOW, the first Pandora station that streams on both services

On Pandora, the new experience will appear as an interactive station and playlist, while SiriusXM subscribers will be able to access Pandora NOW on Channel 3. This is the first time a music experience has launched on both platforms.

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. Apple’s HomePod gets a $50 price cut

Announced in mid-2017 and released in early 2018, the Siri-powered product brought a very Apple approach to the category dominated by Amazon and Google, with premium sound and design at a premium price of $349.

The $50 price drop puts the product under $300 — though it’s still pretty steep, so far as the category goes. Apple has confirmed with TechCrunch that this is a permanent price cut.

2. Researchers find 540M Facebook user records on exposed servers

According to the researchers’ write-up, Mexico-based digital media company Cultura Colectiva left more than 540 million records — including comments, likes, reactions, account names and more — stored on the Amazon S3 storage server without a password, allowing anyone to access the data.

3. Yahoo spin-out Altaba is selling its entire Alibaba stake and closing down

Bye-bye, Altaba. The Yahoo spin-out created to house Yahoo’s lucrative stake in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan announced today that it will sell its shares and shut up shop.

Photo: Hero Images/Getty Images

4. Amazon Alexa launches its first HIPAA-compliant medical skills

Following a trial of Amazon’s smart speakers in patients’ rooms at Cedars-Sinai, the company announced an invite-only program allowing select developers to create and launch HIPAA-compliant healthcare skills for Alexa.

5. GrubMarket raises $25M more for its farm-to-table food delivery service

GrubMarket works with smaller farms and other suppliers to sell and deliver their items by way of its online store both to consumers and to businesses — including restaurants, stores and food startups.

6. MIT cuts working relationship with Huawei and ZTE over alleged sanction violations

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it will suspend collaborations, including research projects and funding, with Huawei Technologies and ZTE, two Chinese tech companies fighting with the U.S. government over alleged sanction violations.

7. SiriusXM and Pandora launch Pandora NOW, the first Pandora station that streams on both services

On Pandora, the new experience will appear as an interactive station and playlist, while SiriusXM subscribers will be able to access Pandora NOW on Channel 3. This is the first time a music experience has launched on both platforms.