Yearly Archives: 2021

News: Elon Musk praises Chinese automakers amidst regulatory scrutiny

• September 17, 2021
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An unusually scripted Elon Musk issued conciliatory and complimentary comments to Chinese automakers during a pre-recorded appearance at China’s World New Energy Vehicle Congress, striking a pose that is worlds away from his commentary style in the United States. “I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers for driving these [EV

An unusually scripted Elon Musk issued conciliatory and complimentary comments to Chinese automakers during a pre-recorded appearance at China’s World New Energy Vehicle Congress, striking a pose that is worlds away from his commentary style in the United States.

“I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers for driving these [EV and AV] technologies,” he said, the reflection of a ring light just visible in the window over his left shoulder. The entire tableau was enough to make one suspect that there was a crisis communications expert just out of frame, urging him to continue with his prepared remarks.

Then again, perhaps Musk doesn’t need any external coaxing; China is one of the most lucrative markets for electric vehicles in the entire world, accounting for around one-fifth – or $6.66 billion – of Tesla’s overall sales last year, according to regulatory filings.

While the United States continues to be one Tesla’s largest market, the company has aggressively pursued expansion in China, including opening Gigafactory Shanghai in 2019 to manufacture the Model 3 and Model Y. Tesla faces competition from Chinese automakers, including electric car startup Xpeng and the search giant company Baidu.

“My frank observation is that Chinese automobile companies are the most competitive in the world, especially because some are very good at software, and it is software that will most shape the future of the automobile industry, from design to manufacturing and especially autonomous driving,” Musk said in the message.

The company’s entrance into the EV market of the world’s most populous nation was bumpy at first, but Tesla managed to turn it around. Last year, the Tesla Model 3 was the best-selling EV in China. Tesla has also received unprecedented autonomy in the region, especially as it is the only non-Chinese automaker allowed to wholly own its local subsidiary. It’s a fact that Musk’s noted in past public appearances.

“I think something that’s really quite noteworthy here is, Tesla’s the only foreign manufacturer to have a hundred percent owned factory in China,” Musk said during the company’s Battery Day event last year. “This is often not well understood or not appreciated, but to have the only hundred percent owned foreign factory in China is a really big deal, and it’s paying huge dividends.”

But it hasn’t all been roses: the company has faced a flurry of negative media from both consumers and regulators this year, beginning in February when Chinese government officials summoned company executives for a meeting over vehicle safety concerns.  (To which Tesla said, “We sincerely accepted the guidance of government departments and deeply reflected on shortcomings in our business operations.”)

Then, in April, a woman who said she was a Tesla owner protested the company at the Shanghai auto show in April. Bloomberg reported a few months later that Tesla was attempting to build relationships with Chinese social media influencers and auto-industry publications to combat all the bad PR.

A female Tesla owner climbed on top of a car’s roof at the Tesla booth to protest her car’s brake malfunction at the Shanghai auto show Monday. The booth beefed up its security after the incident. pic.twitter.com/ct7RmF1agM

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 19, 2021

In his pre-recorded remarks, Musk also responded to a question on self-driving vehicles and data security, calling it “not only the responsibility of a single company but also the cornerstone of the whole industry development.” This issue is especially sensitive after news emerged that the Chinese military banned drivers from parking their Tesla’s at its facilities. Last month, China released new regulations aimed at bolstering data security in connected automobiles, Tech Wire Asia reported. Tesla and other automakers, including Ford and BMW, moved to establish local data storage centers in China.

“Tesla will work with national authorities in all countries to ensure data security of intelligent and connected vehicles,” he added.

News: Gingko Bioworks, valued at $15B, begins trading today: Here’s how their business works

• September 17, 2021
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Gingko Bioworks, a synthetic biology company now valued at around $15 billion, begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange today. Gingko’s market debut is one of the largest in biotech history. It’s expected to raise about $1.6 billion for the company. It’s also one of the biggest SPAC deals done to date — Gingko

Gingko Bioworks, a synthetic biology company now valued at around $15 billion, begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange today.

Gingko’s market debut is one of the largest in biotech history. It’s expected to raise about $1.6 billion for the company. It’s also one of the biggest SPAC deals done to date — Gingko is going public through a merger with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp., which was announced in May. 

Shares opened at $11.15 each this morning under the ticker DNA — biotech dieharders will recognize it as the former ticker used by Genentech. 

The exterior of the NYSE is decked out in Gingko décor. The imagery is clearly sporting Jurassic Park themes, as MIT Tech Review’s Antonio Regalado pointed out. It’s probably intentional: Jason Kelly, the CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, has been re-reading “Jurassic Park” this week, he tells TechCrunch. 

The décor also sports a company motto: “Grow everything.”

Ginkgo was founded in 2009, and now bills itself as a synthetic biology platform. That’s essentially premised on the idea that one day, we’ll use cells to “grow everything,” and Gingko’s plan is to be that platform used to do that growing. 

Kelly, who often uses language borrowed from computing to describe his company, likens DNA to code. Gingko, he says, aims to “program cells like you can program computers.” Ultimately, those cells can be used to make stuff: like fragrances, flavors, materials, drugs or food products. 

The biggest lingering question over Gingko, ever since the SPAC deal was announced, has centered on its massively high valuation. When Moderna, now a household name thanks to its COVID-19 vaccines, went public in 2018, the company was valued at $7.5 billion. Gingko’s valuation is double that number. 

“I think that surprises people to be honest,” Kelly says. 

How is Gingko going to make money? 

Ginkgo’s massive valuation seems even starker when you look at its existing revenues. SEC documents show that the company pulled in $77 million in revenue in 2020, which increased to about $88 million in the first six months of 2021 (per an August investor call). The company has also reported losses: including $126.6 million in December 2020 and $119.3 million in 2019. 

Gingko is aiming to increase revenue a significant amount in 2021. SEC documents initially noted that the company aimed to draw about $150 million in revenue in 2021, but the August earning call updated that total for the year to over $175 million. 

Gingko aims to make money in two ways: first it contracts with manufacturers during the research and development phase (i.e. while the company works out how to manufacture a cell that spits out a certain fragrance, bio-based nylon or meatless burger). That process happens in Gingko’s “foundry,” a massive factory for bioengineering projects. 

This source of money is already starting to flow. Gingko reported $59 million in foundry revenue for 2020, and anticipates $100 million in 2021, per the August investor call. 

This revenue, though, isn’t covering the full costs of Gingko’s operations, according to the information shared by the company in SEC documents. It is covering an increasing share, though, and as Gingko scales up its platform, costs will come down. Based on fees alone, Kelly projects Gingko will break even by 2024 or 2025. 

The second type of revenue comes from royalties, milestone payments or, in some cases, equity stakes in the companies that go on to sell products, like fragrances or meatless burgers, made using Gingko’s facilities or know-how. It’s this source of income that will make up the vast majority of the company’s future worth, according to its expectations. 

Once the product is made and marketed by another company, it requires little to no more work on Gingko’s part — all the company does is collect cash. 

The company is often hesitant to incorporate these earnings into projections, because they rely on other companies bringing products to market. That means it’s hard to know for sure when these downstream payments will emerge. “In our models, we are very sensitive that, at the end of the day, they’re not our products. I cannot predict when Roche might bring a drug to market and give me my milestones,” says Kelly. 

Kelly says there’s evidence this model will start to work in the near-term. 

Gingko earned a “bolus” milestone payment of 1.5 million shares of The Cronos Group, a cannabis company, for developing a commercially viable, lab-grown rare cannabinoid called CBG for commercial use (there are seven more in strains development, says Kelly). These milestone payments (in cash or shares) are earned when a company achieves some predetermined goal using Gingko’s platform. 

Gingko has also worked with Aldevron to manufacture an enzyme critical to the production of mRNA vaccines, and plans to collect royalty payments from that relationship — though no foundry fees were collected from this project. 

Finally, Gingko has negotiated an equity stake in Motif Foodworks, a spinout company based on its technology. That company has so far raised about $226 million, and will aim to launch a lab-grown beef product developed at Gingko’s foundry, paying Gingko the aforementioned foundry fees already for this contribution.

“The biggest value driver” of Gingko, according to Kelly

This rich source of cash will depend a lot on the outside contractor’s ability to manufacture and sell products made using Gingko’s platform. This opens the company up to some risk that’s beyond its control. Maybe, for instance, it turns people don’t want bio-manufactured meat as much as many anticipated — that means some types of downstream payments may not materialize. 

Kelly says he’s not particularly worried about this. Even if one particular program fails, he’s planning on having so many programs running that one or two are bound to succeed. 

“I’m just sorta like: some will work, some won’t work. Some will take a year, some will take three years. It doesn’t really matter, as long as everybody is working with us,” he says. “Apple doesn’t stress about what apps are going to be the next big app in the app store,” he continues.  

One key metric to watch for Gingko going forward will be how many new cell programs they’re managing to close. So far, Gingko has added 30 programs this year, says Kelly. Last year, there were 50 programs. 

Remember: Some of the projects are Gingko spinouts, like Motif Foodworks, not customers that come to the platform on their own. And historically, the number of companies Gingko has partnered with has been a point of criticism. Per SEC documents, the majority of revenue came from two large partners in 2020 — though Kelly told Business Insider that this was a pandemic-related downturn. 

The more programs Gingko has, the more it becomes insulated from the success or failure of any one product. Plus it’s a sign that people are at least using the “app store” for biology. 

“The biggest value driver of Gingko is how quickly we add programs,” Kelly says. 

News: Tesla will open controversial FSD beta software to owners with a good driving record

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will use personal driving data to determine whether owners who have paid for its controversial “Full Self-Driving” software can access the latest beta version that promises more automated driving functions. Musk tweeted late Thursday night that the FSD Beta v10.0.1 software update, which has already been pushed out

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will use personal driving data to determine whether owners who have paid for its controversial “Full Self-Driving” software can access the latest beta version that promises more automated driving functions.

Musk tweeted late Thursday night that the FSD Beta v10.0.1 software update, which has already been pushed out to a group of select owners, will become more widely available starting September 24.

Owners who have paid for FSD, which currently costs $10,000, will be offered access to the beta software through a “beta request button.” Drivers who select the beta software will be asked for permission to access their driving behavior using Tesla’s insurance calculator, Musk wrote in a tweet.

“If driving behavior is good for seven days, beta access will be granted,” Musk wrote.

Tesla vehicles come standard with a driver assistance system branded as Autopilot. For an additional $10,000, owners can buy “full self-driving,” or FSD — software that Musk has repeatedly promised will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities.

FSD, which has steadily increased in price and has added new functions, has been available as an option for years. However, Tesla vehicles are not self-driving. FSD includes the parking feature Summon as well as Navigate on Autopilot, an active guidance system that navigates a car from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp, including interchanges and making lane changes.

The latest FSD Beta is supposed to automate driving on highways and city streets. However, this is still a Level 2 driver assistance system that requires the driver to pay attention, have their hands on the wheel and take control at all times. Recent videos posted showing owners’ experiences with this beta software provide a mixed picture of its capability. In some videos, the vehicles handle city driving; in many others, drivers are seen taking control due to missed turns, being too close to the curb, failure to creep forward and, in one case, veering off suddenly toward pedestrians.

News: Grab your free Disrupt Expo Pass to access these breakout sessions at Disrupt next week

• September 17, 2021
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As we get closer to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, the list of our special breakout sessions just gets bigger and better. The wide range of tech startups is on full display in these sessions hosted by our partners. What’s more, these smaller, interactive gatherings pack a lot of advice, insight and value — with plenty of

As we get closer to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, the list of our special breakout sessions just gets bigger and better. The wide range of tech startups is on full display in these sessions hosted by our partners. What’s more, these smaller, interactive gatherings pack a lot of advice, insight and value — with plenty of time to get answers to your pressing questions.

A note from the home office: Get a free Expo Pass to access all of these session and more for a limited time here.

Here’s the latest round of breakout sessions you can join on September 21-23. Check out the Disrupt 2021 agenda for the exact dates and times and save room in your schedule to expand your mind and your opportunities.

Using Visual Communication to Build Your Startup’s Brand

In today’s increasingly visual world, visual communication is the new currency between brands and their customers. So what are the opportunities startups and their clients can use to enhance brand connection? Join Canva’s Strategic Account Executive, Spencer Llewellyn, to learn how the visual economy has transformed the tech industry and powered the evolution of branding and customer experiences. Presented by Canva.

The $49B Developer Landscape

Over the past 20 years, IT has witnessed a power shift from CIOs to developers. Any developer with an idea has been given empowerment and authority to innovate. This has led to the creation of a 1,000 companies that create products used, influenced or bought by software development teams. In this session, we’ll discuss the 17 landscape segments, the CIO transition from decision maker to governor, and the developer “pay for value” mentality causing the emergence of product-led growth (PLG) businesses. Presented by Dell for Entrepreneurs

The Dark Matter of Workflows: Business Technology’s Big Opportunity

According to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, we’re only familiar with 5 percent of matter and energy in the universe. The rest is dark. The same can be said about the nature of work. Organizations only have visibility into a small percentage of the actual work taking place because the complexities surrounding it have been growing exponentially. With enormous amounts of data, systems, applications, workflows and more floating around, leaders and employees feel the gravitational mass of work in their stress levels, yet there’s no clear unified system of record for it. The most successful startups will be the ones that seek to understand, uncover and harness the dark matter of work now — before they launch into hypergrowth mode. Andrew Filev, founder of a leading collaborative work management platform that went from bootstrapping to billion-dollar acquisition, will discuss how he’s helping startups bring to light the dark matter of work and harness workflows for operational efficiencies. Presented by Wrike.

Thrive with an Untethered Workforce

Shark Tank investor and cybersecurity leader, Robert Herjavec chats with Ben Wright, founder and CEO of Velocity Global, about how to thrive with an untethered workforce. The mindsets of employers and talent has converged to work with anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Choice is paramount: employers engage all types of talent from full-time to project freelancers; people live anywhere, work for anyone, in a work-life balance. When priorities align, the possibilities are endless. Presented by Velocity Global

TTA Taiwan Pavilion Pitch-off Session: Healthcare and Enterprise

Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) champions entrepreneurship and innovation to build a vibrant global startup ecosystem in Taiwan. Twenty out of 40 promising TTA startups will unveil their latest innovation related to Healthcare and Enterprise solutions. Presented by Taiwan Tech Arena.

How to Approach Fundraising from Corporate VCs

Global CVC funding hit an all-time high of $73B in 2020. Corporations are increasingly investing in the startup community and can be a valuable resource beyond capital. But not all corporate VCs are the same. Understanding a corporate investor’s strategy, mandate and processes can improve how startups successfully fundraise from corporate VCs. Intuit Ventures recently invested in Clearco, a $2B+ startup that is disrupting traditional VC with founder-friendly, equity-free capital. Join Shveta Mujumdar (VP of corporate development at Intuit), Andrew D’Souza (co-founder and CEO at Clearco), and Michele Romanow (co-founder and president at Clearco) to learn what corporate VCs look for in an investment and how to best position your company and showcase how you are solving your customers’ biggest problems. Presented by Intuit.

TTA Taiwan Pavilion Pitch-off Session: Smart Tech

Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) champions entrepreneurship and innovation to build a vibrant global startup ecosystem in Taiwan. Twenty out of 40 promising TTA startups will unveil their latest innovation related to Smart Tech. Presented by Taiwan Tech Arena.

The Moore’s law of software – onboarding time

For software companies, onboarding is the single barrier to scaling. For software buyers, the time it takes to adopt products stifles innovation regardless of industry. David Boskovic, CEO and Co-Founder of hyper-growth startup Flatfile, dives into the fundamental economics of data exchange and how it’s the Moore’s law of software. One prediction: Boskovic expects that onboarding time will halve every year, driving exponential growth in software innovation over the next decade. Presented by Flatfile

Electric Generation: The Next Frontier For American Business

This session will explore the ways in which smart electric mobility impacts businesses, and what a transition to electric will look like for commercial fleets. Host Chuck Nice will be joined by TechCrunch panelist Tim Cannis, CEO of Ford Pro, and Sam Abuelsamid, longtime engineer in the automotive industry-turned auto industry journalist. Nitty-gritty car talk will blend with discussion of sustainability and imagery to elaborate on the future of the topic. Presented by Ford

Accelerating your direct-to-consumer business

The direct-to-consumer landscape has radically accelerated over the past few years, becoming an even more critical lever for brands to build relationships with customers than ever before. This is a new era in which brands must understand the shifts in the customer journey to drive transformational business growth to be ready for what’s next. Join Google and Lenovo to understand key strategies to enable business success and delight customers in 2022 and beyond. Presented by Google

Top Japanese Startups pitch their exciting new tech live

Top Japanese Startups pitch their exciting new tech! Come watch the live JETRO pitch session 9/23 at 1PM PST. Learn about the latest advancements from Japan in fields like Environment, Entertainment, Wellness, and Fitness. Companies include AC Biode, AMATELUS, everblue, hemVR, NeuralX, PJP Eye, R’s KOSO, Samaria, SpoLive Interactive, and XPAND. Presented by JETRO

Accelerate your growth using agile market research throughout the product lifecycle

Conducting market research at each stage of your product lifecycle is a critical component to a successful product launch and sustained growth in an increasingly competitive market. While traditional market research can be costly and require a specialized team, agile market research software makes it possible for anyone on your team to get the insights you need fast. Join Momentive.ai to learn how to conduct your own market research to identify what kinds of products and features users value most, get insight into the competitive landscape, and track your brand’s awareness and shifting perceptions over time. Presented by Momentive.ai

How to build a remote-first engineering culture

How do you build culture with globally dispersed engineers? Marcelo Lebre, COO and co-founder of Remote and former VP of Engineering at Unbabel, understands better than anyone the challenges of scaling an international workforce of engineers. In this talk, Marcelo will teach you how to adopt a remote-first mindset and how to scale a distributed team of engineers while retaining your culture. Presented by Remote

Scaling Businesses and Creating Value with the Everywhere Workforce

As startup founders scale their companies, increase velocity and eye potential exits, flexibility in talent that can execute a lean, mean go-to-market strategy is quickly becoming not only a necessity but a differentiator. Join Insight Partners’ Hilary Gosher and Ivanti’s Melissa Puls in conversation with Upwork’s Tim Sanders about how hybrid workforces are the new cloud when it comes to accelerating revenue, value creation and businesses overall. Presented by Upwork

How Netflix Saved Cybersecurity – Roundtable

We’ve all heard that membership has its privileges, right? In fact, the membership Economy has forever changed why and what we buy…until we go to work. For many of us, the tools we buy at work are still tied to old-school ownership models: The millions of dollars we spend on technology solutions and services tied to multiyear licensing agreements effectively hold us hostage regardless of product efficacy. In cybersecurity specifically,, the transactional nature of such purchases has not and cannot keep pace with the growing costs of breaches or the ease with which hacks can be executed. We’ll show how membership–the Netflix model–can successfully replace ownership and usher in a whole new taxonomy of cybersecurity defense. Presented by Cyvatar

CISO2CISO: On the Wrong Side of Disruption – Roundtable

Disruption isn’t always a good thing. Often, we fear it. We resist prioritizing even necessary change out of fear that the disruption it may bring will be more detrimental than beneficial. Are we wrong? Are we right? Cyvatar Co-Founder and ex-global CISO Craig Goodwin and Alteryx CISO Billy Spears debate both possibilities as they look at the ways we prioritize risk and disruption at work. Presented by Cyvatar

Why Can’t We Stop Ransomware? – Roundtable

This will be an open discussion with participation from audience members about the challenges and consequences of our current approaches to defending against ransomware attacks. The reemergence of REvil over the Labor Day weekend and the uptick in ransomware attacks on schools and universities remind us that hacks for ransom are still among the most attractive and lucrative threats around. Our open forum will uncover ways to combat malicious actors better and thwart the successful execution of ransomware. Presented by Cyvatar

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place September 21-23. Don’t miss the big value in our smaller breakout sessions. Grab your free Expo Pass and, tune in and take away insight to help you build a better business.

News: Web host Epik was warned of a critical website bug weeks before it was hacked

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Hackers associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous say they have leaked gigabytes of data from Epik, a web host and domain registrar that provides services to far-right sites like Gab, Parler and 8chan, which found refuge in Epik after they were booted from mainstream platforms. In a statement attached to a torrent file of the

Hackers associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous say they have leaked gigabytes of data from Epik, a web host and domain registrar that provides services to far-right sites like Gab, Parler and 8chan, which found refuge in Epik after they were booted from mainstream platforms.

In a statement attached to a torrent file of the dumped data this week, the group said the 180 gigabytes amounts to a “decade’s worth” of company data, including “all that’s needed to trace actual ownership and management” of the company. The group claimed to have customer payment histories, domain purchases and transfers, and passwords, credentials, and employee mailboxes. The cache of stolen data also contains files from the company’s internal web servers, and databases that contain customer records for domains that are registered with Epik.

The hackers did not say how they obtained the breached data or when the hack took place, but timestamps on the most recent files suggest the hack likely happened in late February.

Epik initially told reporters it was unaware of a breach, but an email sent out by founder and chief executive Robert Monster on Wednesday alerted users to an “alleged security incident.”

TechCrunch has since learned that Epik was warned of a critical security flaw weeks before its breach.

Security researcher Corben Leo contacted Epik’s chief executive Monster over LinkedIn in January about a security vulnerability on the web host’s website. Leo asked if the company had a bug bounty or a way to report the vulnerability. LinkedIn showed Monster had read the message but did not respond.

Leo told TechCrunch that a library used on Epik’s WHOIS page for generating PDF reports of public domain records had a decade-old vulnerability that allowed anyone to remotely run code directly on the internal server without any authentication, such as a company password.

“You could just paste this [line of code] in there and execute any command on their servers,” Leo told TechCrunch.

Leo ran a proof-of-concept command from the public-facing WHOIS page to ask the server to display its username, which confirmed that code could run on Epik’s internal server, but he did not test to see what access the server had as doing so would be illegal.

It’s not known if the Anonymous hacktivists used the same vulnerability that Leo discovered. (Part of the stolen cache also includes folders relating to Epik’s WHOIS system, but the hacktivists left no contact information and could not be reached for comment.) But Leo contends that if a hacker exploited the same vulnerability and the server had access to other servers, databases or systems on the network, that access could have allowed access to the kind of data stolen from Epik’s internal network in February.

“I am really guessing that’s how they got owned,” Leo told TechCrunch, who confirmed that the flaw has since been fixed.

Monster confirmed he received Leo’s message on LinkedIn, but did not answer our questions about the breach or say when the vulnerability was patched. “We get bounty hunters pitching their services. I probably just thought it was one of those,” said Monster. “I am not sure if I actioned it. Do you answer all your LinkedIn spams?”

News: Rolls-Royce’s all-electric aircraft completes 15-minute maiden voyage

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Rolls-Royce, best known in aviation for its jet engines, has taken an all-electric airplane on its maiden voyage. The “Spirit of Innovation” completed a 15 minute flight.

Rolls-Royce, best known in aviation for its jet engines, has taken an all-electric airplane on its maiden voyage. The “Spirit of Innovation” completed a 15 minute flight, marking “the beginning of an intensive flight-testing phase in which we will be collecting valuable performance data on the aircraft’s electrical power and propulsion system,” the company announced.

Rolls Royce said the one-seat airplane has “the most power-dense battery pack every assembled for an aircraft.” The aircraft uses a 6,000 cell battery pack with a three-motor powertrain that currently delivers 400kW (500-plus horsepower), and Rolls-Royce said the aircraft will eventually achieve speeds of over 300 MPH.

The flight comes about a year after the originally scheduled takeoff and about six months after taxi trials. Rolls-Royce is also developing an air taxi with manufacturer Tecnam, with the aim of delivering an “all-electric passenger aircraft for the commuter market,” according to the companies. It has previously teamed with Siemens and Airbus on another e-plane concept.

Aircraft companies have been exploring electric airplanes for a number of years, as air travel and cargo accounts for an increasing amount of greenhouse gases. The World Wildlife Foundation has called it “currently the most carbon intensive activity an individual can make.”

Weight is a much bigger problem for airplanes that it is for cars, however. Ford’s all-electric Lightning pickup weighs 1,800 pounds more than the gas-powered model, and offers a range that’s slightly under half. However, if you added 1,800 pounds to to a Cessna 206 Turbo Stationair, you’d exceed its useful load by 500 pounds before you even loaded passengers (or the pilot) — so it wouldn’t even get off the ground.

The project was half funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute and UK government, with the aim of eventually creating all-electric passenger planes. “This is not only about breaking a world record; the advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme has exciting applications for the Urban Air Mobility market and can help make ‘jet zero’ a reality,” said Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on Engadget.

News: Choices and constraints: How DTC companies decide which strategy to follow

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In DTC, how companies decide omnichannel strategies depends on how well they know what their customers’ choices are and what their ideal strategy will be.

Companies typically have to settle on strategies that align with their customers, employees, investors, and regulators. The more they know about how the other side will decide, the clearer their own strategies become.

If regulators always prefer choice for consumers, then it is easy for a platform to allow multiple payment choices: Shopify allows multiple payment options from its partners, Apple doesn’t.

By regulatory intervention, it will have to now.

Nash equilibrium and Netflix time

Nash equilibrium is a fascinating, post-facto explanation for some of the interesting decisions you will often see in business.

In simple terms, Nash equilibrium states that if you have clarity on the other side’s decision, you can make yours without regret. In other words, there is no incentive to change strategy once each side knows what the optimal position of the other side is, in their combined transaction.

I see this playing out every weekend at home. I don’t mind reading a book alone or watching Netflix with my kid, but when I am available for Netflix and my kid decides to read a book, it is a bummer.

DTCs, DNVBs and game theory

In DTC, how companies decide their omnichannel strategy depends on how well they know what their customers’ choices are and what their ideal strategy will be. In many transactions, constraints are actually good forcing functions — they narrow down choices and help you arrive at an equilibrium faster and cheaper.

The marketing and public-market filing languages make for a fascinating read into the minds of companies.

When Warby Parker filed its IPO prospectus last month, the company referred to its digitally-native status in the past tense. The model was effectively flipped in 2020, as its share of online sales to total sales dropped from 65% to 40%. Meanwhile, its physical store count increased from 126 to 145.

News: WarnerMedia’s Andy Forssell will discuss HBO Max at Disrupt 2021

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In May 2020, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max into a crowded streaming landscape. In spite of early struggles, the timing couldn’t have been better. When the world was stuck at home, struggling to find new sources of entertainment amid a global pandemic, HBO’s latest attempt at an app-based platform rose in the ranks alongside fellow newly

In May 2020, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max into a crowded streaming landscape. In spite of early struggles, the timing couldn’t have been better. When the world was stuck at home, struggling to find new sources of entertainment amid a global pandemic, HBO’s latest attempt at an app-based platform rose in the ranks alongside fellow newly launched service, Disney+.

The platform builds on HBO’s much-loved original prestige programming, while taking advantage of a day and date approach to streaming films, which many studios have opened up to amid worldwide theater shutdowns. In particular, its sister studio Warner Bros. has premiered a number of big-budget films on the service — including “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Space Jam: A New Legacy” — as the pandemic has shown no sign of slowing.

The past year has brought plenty of channels for the service, as well. Not everyone is thrilled about the pandemic trend of bypassing the theater. Sopranos creator David Chase was recently quoted as being “extremely angry” about the HBO Max release of the prequel — news that followed Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney over its own streaming release of “Black Widow.” The company has evolved strategies, removing its offering from Amazon Prime Channels and adding a lower-cost ad-based tier to Max.

WarnerMedia EVP and head of business operations for HBO Max Andy Forssell will be joining us at our virtual TechCrunch Disrupt next week on September 21-23 to discuss the service’s launch during a turbulent time, as well as what the future holds for the app, and video streaming in general. Prior to joining WarnerMedia in 2019, Forssell served as the COO of Otter Media and Fullscreen, Inc. and was the acting CEO and SVP of Hulu.

Disrupt starts next week. Get your ticket now for less than $100 before the price goes up in a few short days.

News: Boston Dynamics owner Hyundai deploys Spot for factory safety monitoring

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Back in June, Hyundai completed a deal for controlling interest in Boston Dynamics. The Korean automotive giant no doubt has some grand plans for integrating the Massachusetts-based firm’s technology into a lot of their forward-looking concept mobility vehicles — for now, however, it’s more about putting existing robots to work. Hyundai today announced the arrival

Back in June, Hyundai completed a deal for controlling interest in Boston Dynamics. The Korean automotive giant no doubt has some grand plans for integrating the Massachusetts-based firm’s technology into a lot of their forward-looking concept mobility vehicles — for now, however, it’s more about putting existing robots to work.

Hyundai today announced the arrival of the drably-named “Factory Safety Service Robot.” It immediately began referring to the unit as “the Robot” for reasons of brevity in the announcement release, and I’m inclined to do the same, because who has the time to type out “Factory Safety Service Robot” a dozen times?

The Robot (see?) is essentially a modded up version of Spot designed for safety inspections at factories. Naturally, Hyundai is starting close to home, rolling out its first pilot at a Seoul plant for subsidiary, Kia.

The Spot, er, Robot, comes equipped for lidar and a thermal camera, which scan the space for high-temperatures, fire hazards and open doors. If it senses something off, it will send an alert through a secure site. It shares images and data in real time, and like Spot, can either operate autonomously or be controlled remotely.

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“The Factory Safety Service Robot is the first collaboration project with Boston Dynamics. The Robot will help detect risks and secure people’s safety in industrial sites,” Hyundai’s Dong Jin Hyun said in a release. “We will also continue to create smart services that detect dangers at industrial sites and help support a safe work environment through continuous collaborations with Boston Dynamics.”

On the whole, if you know what Spot can do, you pretty much get the gist with Robot here, albeit with additional mounted sensors. Earlier this week, Boston Dynamics announced additional data collecting features for the robot.

News: Former Instacart CFO Sagar Sanghvi joins Accel as its newest partner

• September 17, 2021
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Instacart‘s chief financial officer Sagar Sanghvi has departed from the on-demand grocery delivery company after nearly six years and is returning to his investing roots. Specifically, Sanghvi has joined Accel as a partner focused on global growth-stage consumer and enterprise investments. Prior to becoming CFO of Instacart, Sanghvi served as the company’s vice president of

Instacart‘s chief financial officer Sagar Sanghvi has departed from the on-demand grocery delivery company after nearly six years and is returning to his investing roots. Specifically, Sanghvi has joined Accel as a partner focused on global growth-stage consumer and enterprise investments.

Prior to becoming CFO of Instacart, Sanghvi served as the company’s vice president of finance and strategy. Interestingly, when he became CFO of Instacart in 2019, he was succeeding Ravi Gupta, who left the company to join Sequoia Capital as a partner on its growth team.

Sanghvi and Gupta worked together as investors at KKR (after Sanghvi had worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs), so it is notable they are following similar career paths of first working in finance and then becoming operators before transitioning into VC roles. Both joined Instacart in 2015. And Gupta is the one who introduced Sanghvi to Accel’s Miles Clements years ago.

When Sanghvi joined Instacart, it had approximately 300 employees. By the time he’d left earlier this year, it had more than 1,500.

“I’ve been through quite the roller coaster of ups and downs along the way. It was the classic Silicon Valley journey. During my time there, a few crazy things happened,” he told TechCrunch. “ Amazon bought Whole Foods. We experienced the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, which led to an amazing wave of demand. It was an interesting time to be navigating the company.”

And while Sanghvi says he would definitely rather see a business be smaller “than have COVID happen to the world,” it was a time where he learned a lot in helping grow the company.

One of the things Sanghvi worked on during his time at Instacart was a $200 million venture round in October 2020 that valued the company at $17.7 billion. (Since then it raised another $265 million at a $39 billion valuation.) In fact, during his tenure, the company raised more than $2 billion.

But now, Sanghvi will be the one investing in other companies’ rounds — out of Accel’s Palo Alto office.

While his Instacart experience is clearly relevant to the consumer space, Sanghvi said he’ll be working with not just consumer-focused startups, but also a lot of enterprise solutions.

“One of the things that drew me to Miles and the team was the experience and success Accel as a firm has had investing in all different types of companies within the technology sector and so I’m hoping to diversify my experience,” he told TechCrunch.

Clements praised what he described as Sanghvi’s “humility and versatility.”

“He’s done everything from raising $2 billion of capital to being in the minutiae of evaluating back office automation software. He has led a company that is on its way to being an iconic consumer brand, but he’s also been a media investor at KKR,” Clements said. “He guided Instacart through some massive recent fundraises but only because he has also helped navigate through some previous existential challenges. So he brings a lot of natural empathy to founders and entrepreneurs.”

For his part, Sanghvi is eager to start investing as part of the Accel team.

When deciding to move to the venture world, he said, he was looking for a “very well-known brand” that invested across at all stages. He found that in Accel, he said.

“One of the things that was important to me was to find the type of people who really care about the success of companies, and in every person I met at Accel, I could see they took that responsibility very seriously,” Sanghvi told TechCrunch.

He officially started in his new role last week, so he’s actively scoping out investments as I type.