Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
CalPERS, the $360 billion California’s state pension fund, just announced plans to increase its investments in private equity. It’s not hard to see why. Despite the high fees charged by private equity funds, CALPERs claims there are huge payoffs. Its private equity portfolio returned 16.1% in 2017, compared to just 11.5% for its stock portfolio, and…
Airbnb, once a saviour from overpriced hotels, has become the new overpriced hotels since becoming the short-term accommodation staple. But with the rise of community living and workcations, an alternative might be to just sleep where you cowork. That’s the idea behind PodShare, a coworking space with beds, which has three locations in Los Angeles….
The authenticity of the following anonymous op-ed has been verified by Medium’s editorial staff. I am an Uber employee and I support the drivers’ strikes. The strikes called on Monday by Rideshare Drivers United (RDU) in Southern California and Gig Workers Rising in San Francisco are a sign of the deep frustration many ride-share drivers…
Talks continued over the weekend to avert a programming blackout that would affect more than 24 million customers of AT&T’s DirecTV, U-verse and WatchTV services. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News Updated March 24, 2019 2:29 p.m. ET Carriage deals between pay-TV distributors and programmers typically hinge on price. In the negotiations between AT&T Inc. T…
Visitors want fast websites, but advertisers want brand safety and viewable ads. In the end, ad concerns often end up winning at the expense of the user experience. According to data ad tech consultancy RedBud — examined for Digiday across 15 of the top 20 U.K. publishers — brand safety, viewability and verification tags represent…
Tuesday afternoon, a contingent of Kickstarter employees went public with their intention to unionize under the name Kickstarter United. According to an email provided to Gizmodo, however, senior staffers at the crowdfunding company are already attempting to push back against the plan to make Kickstarter the first major tech firm to have a union. “The…
As Amazon steps up its effort to show Wall Street it can generate profits, the e-commerce giant is aggressively blocking money-losing products from advertising on its site. In recent months, Amazon has been telling more vendors, or brand owners who sell their goods wholesale, that if Amazon can’t sell those products to consumers at a…
Founded in 2014, Omni is a startup that offers users the ability to store and rent their lesser-used stuff in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. Backed by roughly $40 million in venture capital, Omni proclaims on its website that they “believe in experiences over things, access over ownership, and living lighter rather than…
Business Insider has posted an insanely interesting article about the lengths Facebook’s internal security teams go to protect Mark Zuckerberg. The social media giant has previously reported that it spends upwards of $10 million a year on Zuck’s personal security, and, thanks to some loose-lipped current and former workers at Facebook’s Global Security organization, now…
The adtech industry was unable to muster even a single speaker to fill a 10-minute slot to discuss the security implications of programmatic advertising at a much-anticipated event yesterday. The talks were run by the Information Commissioner’s Office at an undisclosed location in central London as part of efforts to dig into the murky depths…