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| | | Because each TechCrunch reporter is free to follow their interests, Extra Crunch’s premium coverage is incredibly diverse. Last week, Connie Loizos attended a conference at Stanford that brought VCs together with antitrust officials from the U.S. Department of Justice. The feds wanted to know whether investors thought FANG companies were starving startups of the oxygen they need. “Most of the invited panelists acknowledged there is a problem, but they also said fairly uniformly that they doubted if more regulation was the solution,” she wrote. If you weren’t able to attend, this recap puts you in the room. Arman Tabatabai writes about startups, VC and urban tech, while Brian Heater is TechCrunch’s hardware editor. Together, they surveyed seven leading investors about where they’re finding opportunities in manufacturing/warehouse automation robotics. If you’re watching this space — or if you’re planning to attend our March 3 Robotics+AI sessions event — this is a must-read. Frederic Lardinois’ expertise in developer tools, cloud and all things enterprise led him to interview Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, where he learned an interesting metric — Google Cloud Certified Architect is now one of the highest-paid jobs in IT. "That's reflective of the demand for our capabilities," said Kurian, who has presided over a period of growth since taking the reins a year ago. We make a point of putting public-interest news stories on TechCrunch where they’re accessible to everyone. But the extended interviews, analysis and guest posts you’ll find on Extra Crunch go deeper and offer information that can help you make better-informed decisions. If we’re not covering the topics you’d like to see, please email ec_editors@techcrunch.com and let us know. Thanks for reading! Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist Read more | | | |
| |  | | Media columnist Eric Peckham is looking for opinions from readers for two upcoming articles he’s working on. If you have relevant expertise, please click the links below to respond: Read more | | | |
| |  | | Africa has one of the world’s fastest-growing tech regions, even if the continent’s startup ecosystem is “performance-light,” Jake Bright writes. To put together this basic primer on VC in Africa and the opportunities that abound, he spoke to several investors who make the case that “Africa is becoming a startup continent.” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: thecrazyfilmgirl / Flickr under a CC BY 2.0 license. | | A panel of Silicon Valley VCs at Stanford recently acknowledged that they aren’t competing on a level playing field with entrenched giants like Facebook and Google, but more regulation isn’t the solution they’re seeking. Despite the dominance of a few major players, most investors said they’d rather play David to the FANG Goliaths, as “there's still room for innovation around the edges,” reports Connie Loizos. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Michael Short/Bloomberg / Getty Images | | A year after stepping into the CEO role at Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian’s focus on enterprise customers has seen the operation chart a new course that’s opening up new markets. "Long-term, a platform that wins is differentiated not by just a solution that the cloud provider builds, but by the ecosystem of partners around it,” he told us. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images | | Apple removed apps associated with tobacco and cannabis vaping from the App Store after a nationwide health scare last fall, a move that left several manufacturers no choice but to adjust their product strategies. One company reworked its device's onboard processing capabilities to create an app-like user experience on an external screen, while others have pivoted to Android-only or offering web-based apps. It’s clear that vaping isn’t going out of fashion, so it’s unclear what Apple’s long-term strategy will be, reports Matt Burns. Read more | | | |
| |  | | One of the main reasons why cryptocurrency hasn’t yet replaced traditional cash or banking: For the most part, you can’t pay bills with it. Using smart contracts, developers are bringing the ability to offer financial services to blockchains. Romain Dillet looks at the advantages — and inherent risks — associated with decentralized finance, which already has $1.17 billion tied into smart contracts associated with DeFi projects. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Thiwakorn Promprai (EyeEm) / Getty Images | | Former employees of SpaceX have launched so many new companies, they’re shaping the region’s startup scene, reports Jonathan Shieber. Besides Relativity Space and Hyperloop One, a slew of startups — many still in stealth — are attacking delivery robots, software development, metal 3D printing and other bleeding-edge challenges. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Hiroshi Watanabe / Getty Images | | Every tech company must invest in security, but there’s no magic formula for deciding how much to spend; each startup has a different threat model. TechCrunch security editor Zack Whittaker spoke with a security entrepreneur, a cybersecurity fellow and a head of security to get a better sense of how startups can reduce their security overhead without leaving themselves exposed. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Banking giant Morgan Stanley announced plans to purchase online brokerage E-Trade this week for around $13 billion, an announcement that drove E-Trade shares up more than 23%. Senior Editor Alex Wilhelm is a student of the public markets, so he pored over E-Trade’s financial performance and pricing to see what he could learn about finservices unicorn Robinhood — which supports almost twice as many customers. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: RIch Vintage / Getty Images | | This week’s Growth Reports column offers three salient pieces of advice for frustrated marketers, Tip number one: no one wants your $25 referral bonus. Read more | | | |
| |  | | "I really don't think that there's a bigger area and a more inefficient area today than healthcare," said Mark Tluszcz, co-founder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners. "One of the things that that whole space is missing is just good usability. And that's something that Internet entrepreneurs do very well." In an extended interview, Tluszcz explains why he’s excited about “mHealth” and describes some of the challenges he’s identified while building a data-led AI businesses. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Teera Konakan / Getty Images | | Robotics and automation is widely used in factories and warehouses, but Crunchbase and Pitchbook data shows that there were 800-900 venture backed fundraising rounds last year alone in companies that focus just on manufacturing, machinery and automation. To learn more about these opportunities, we interviewed seven VCs who are active investors in one or more robotics sub-verticals. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: PM Images / Getty Images | | AI startups are a very well-funded category, but a recent post by Andreessen Horowitz's Martin Casado and Matt Bornstein suggested that the jury’s still out on whether these firms “will resemble traditional software companies” in terms of gross margins. To find out, Alex spoke with several investors representing firms with AI investments to get their feedback: Rohit Sharma of True Ventures, Jeremy Kaufmann of Scale Venture Partners, Nick Washburn of Intel Capital and Ben Blume of Atomico. Read more | | | |
| |  | | No one has launched a successful folding smartphone yet — past devices were plagued with quality control issues that made them unreliable and insufficiently durable. But that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from trying to bring foldables to market. Phones don’t really *need* to fold, writes Greg Kumparak. But if companies are going to jump-start flagging smartphone sales, they’ll need something special to engage bored consumers. Read more | | | |
| |  | | In today’s digest: Google Play kicks a spying app out for the second time, HQ Trivia signs off with a messy, memorable final game, updates about Google Stadia, a look at the App Store book Apple really doesn’t want you to read, and much more. Read more | | | |
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