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Investment company SoftBank is having trouble finding investors for the second wave of their “Vision Fund”. The company has taken heavy criticism for their investment strategies that some financial experts attribute to the over-valuation of companies like Uber and WeWork.
With less capital investments available, will the over-valuation of unprofitable tech companies end or will something or someone else fuel the next bubble?
Meanwhile Jeff Weiner is stepping down as LinkedIn CEO (he is still staying with the company) and Seeking Alpha is questioning why IBM didn’t select Jim Whitehurst as their next CEO.
Acquisitions/Investments
Koch Industries acquires Infor in deal pegged at nearly $13B
Infor, which makes large-scale cloud ERP software, has been around since 2002 and counts Koch as both a customer and an investor, so the deal makes sense on that level. Koch was lead investor last year in a $1.5 billion investment, wherein the company indicated that it was a step before going public.
It’s not clear if that is still the goal, as sources suggested that staying private might provide the company with more capital flexibility in the future. Daniel Newman, founder and principal analyst at Futurum Research, says staying private longer could benefit Infor in the long run.
New SoftBank Tech Fund Falls Far Short of $108 Billion Fundraising Goal
Hailed by SoftBank last summer as a $108 billion sequel to its $100 billion Vision Fund, the new pool could end up being less than half that size, with nearly all of its capital coming from SoftBank itself, the people said.
A failure by SoftBank to raise a big new fund would reverberate across the tech startup world. Dozens of companies from ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies to food delivery company DoorDash Inc. got big boosts from the fund’s nearly $90 billion two-year spending spree.
Less money to invest could mean cuts to SoftBank’s 500-person investing staff.
Elliott Management Builds More Than $2.5 Billion Stake in SoftBank
Elliott Management Corp. has quietly built up a more than $2.5 billion stake in Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. 9984 7.13% and is pushing the sprawling technology giant to make changes that would boost its share price, according to people familiar with the matter.
Founded by billionaire Paul Singer, New York-based Elliott is known as a formidable activist investor, often seeking to influence company management. SoftBank is one of Elliott’s largest bets, according to people familiar with the matter. At current prices, the investment would be equivalent to about 3% of SoftBank’s market value.
HPE announced today that it has acquired Scytale, a cloud native security startup that is built on the open-source Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone (SPIFFE) protocol. The companies did not share the acquisition price.
Specifically, Scytale looks at application-to-application identity and access management, something that is increasingly important as more transactions take place between applications without any human intervention. It’s imperative that the application knows it’s OK to share information with the other application.
Laszlo Bock Thinks Machine Learning Can Make Work Better
“There are seven billion people on this planet, and work sucks for most of them,” Mr. Bock adds. “How do you make it better without waiting 200 years for it to get better? What if you could actually drive business outcomes while also making work better?”
His answer to that what-if is Humu Inc., a behavioral-change startup whose mission is to “make work better everywhere through machine learning, science and a little bit of love.” Mr. Bock, 48, serves as Humu’s CEO. He started the company in 2017 with two of his former Google colleagues, Wayne Crosby and Jessie Wisdom. Based in Mountain View, Calif., Humu seeks to expand the kind of data-driven approach to personnel management that Mr. Bock developed during his 10 years as Google’s head of human resources (or as Google calls it, “people operations”).
Oracle Adds Data Centers in Five New Countries to Its Cloud Platform
This week Oracle announced the addition of five new regions to its Generation 2 cloud platform across the globe. This brings the number of Oracle cloud data center availability regions to 21, with a total of 36 to be available by the end of the year, which is when the company has said it will have more global data center hubs than Amazon Web Services.
The new regions are in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Melbourne, Australia; Osaka, Japan; Montreal, and Amsterdam.
Researcher: Backdoor mechanism still active in many IoT products
According to Yarmak, the backdoor can be exploited by sending a series of commands over TCP port 9530 to devices that use HiSilicon chips and Xiongmai firmware.
The commands — the equivalent of a secret knock — will enable the Telnet service on a vulnerable device.
Yarmak says that once the Telnet service is up and running, the attacker can log in with one of six Telnet credentials listed below, and gain access to a root account that grants them complete control over a vulnerable device.
Apple fined $27 million in France for throttling old iPhones without telling users
A couple of years ago, Apple released an iOS update (10.2.1 and 11.2) that introduced a new feature for older devices. If your battery is getting old, iOS would cap peak performances as your battery might not be able to handle quick peaks of power draw. The result of those peaks is that your iPhone might shut down abruptly.
While that feature is technically fine, Apple failed to inform users that it was capping performances on some devices. The company apologized and introduced a new software feature called “Battery Health,” which lets you check the maximum capacity of your battery and if your iPhone can reach peak performance.
And that’s the issue here. Many users may have noticed that their phone would get slower when they play a game, for instance. But they didn’t know that replacing the battery would fix that.
Some users may have bought new phones even though their existing phone was working fine.
It seems like most people are expecting factories to open on 2/10 as planned. However, the expectation is being set that production will take two weeks to ramp back up to normal. And, there is some concern that larger companies will likely exert pressure to be at the front of the line.
Another problem at this point is movement into and out of China. The Chinese border with Hong Kong is only open at a few places and many are afraid to enter China right now for fear that they won’t be able to leave.
Everyone anticipates a big logistics clog once things start shipping, which will introduce delay and cost, although the magnitude of this is unknown.
Finally, the downstream (or upstream – I never get that right) impact of long lead time items will add another wrinkle once people understand the volume and timing constraints when things settle down.
Yes – I posted this video twice. Watch it. Subscribe. I might make more.
Other
Status Quo For IBM Is Unsustainable. An Acquirer Would Treat Its Assets Better
The fact that Jim Whitehurst was given the consolation prize of President is all you need to know about where the board is, in regard to a sense of urgency about the going forward. Whitehurst was the erstwhile CEO of Red Hat; he is not some “wet-behind-the-ears” naive tech company founder. Before Red Hat, Whitehurst was the COO of Delta in what was very trying times going into the teeth of the great recession. Whitehurst understands how to perform while playing hurt. Whitehurst also knows how to grow a tech business. Red Hat was an admired company before IBM scooped it up by paying top dollar. I am sure that during the courtship Rometti whispered in Whitehurst’s ear all kinds of promises including the fact that she will retire soon and IBM may very well be his realm. That is what a lot of people who grew up in technology, in earlier more genteel times, hoped. IBM would finally get its footing by reaching outside and putting its house in order. This “business-as-usual” coronation, promoted a 40-year IBMer, who has no corporate leadership experience, no experience in restructuring, no experience in building a tech company. His claim to fame is that he bought Whitehurst’s company for top dollar? Really?
IBM, Marriott and Mickey Mouse Take On Tech’s Favorite Law
An unusual constellation of powerful companies and industries are fighting to weaken Big Tech by limiting the reach of one of its most sacred laws. The law, known as Section 230, makes it nearly impossible to sue platforms like Facebook or Google for the words, images and videos posted by their users.
The companies’ motivations vary somewhat. Hollywood is concerned about copyright abuse, especially abroad, while Marriott would like to make it harder for Airbnb to fight local hotel laws. IBM wants consumer online services to be more responsible for the content on their sites.
But they all see an opening as both Democrats and Republicans increasingly raise their own concerns about the power of the tech industry and the law.
Jeff Weiner will step down as CEO of LinkedIn June 1, product head Ryan Roslansky steps up
There is a major change ahead for LinkedIn, the social network for the working world, now with 675 million members. Jeff Weiner, who has been leading the company as CEO for the past 11 years, is stepping down on June 1, 2020. His new role will be executive chairman. Ryan Roslansky, who is currently head of product, will be stepping up to the role of CEO, while Tomer Cohen, who had been under Roslansky, is stepping up to lead the product team.
Big Tech is trying to make good on promises like leaving acquisitions alone and not using your personal data for evil things. But when the pressure to earn rises to unbearable levels, will those words still hold true?
California is trying to hold these companies responsible and give consumers more control over the data collected about them, but will these laws help or confuse an already complicated situation?
Finally, since we are on the topic of privacy, you might want to think twice before sending your cheek swab to one of those DNA companies… there isn’t much governance on what they are (and what the authorities) are doing with that data.
Acquisitions/Investments
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner: ‘Satya Has Made Good’ On Microsoft’s Acquisition Agreement
One of the biggest reasons why Microsoft is taking its time on pushing integrations is to avoid making mistakes. LinkedIn is Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date so it has to move with caution.
Microsoft wants to avoid making integration mistakes that it made in the past. In 2012, Microsoft had written off the $6.2 billion acquisition of digital ad company aQuantive. And Microsoft also saw a quarterly loss in 2015 due to $8.3 billion in charges related to the restructuring of its phone hardware operations following the $9.5 billion acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business.
Microsoft CFO Amy Hood pointed out that one of the goals of the LinkedIn acquisition was to accelerate the growth of the professional social network along with Office 365 and Dynamics 365.
A cursory look at this year’s batch of companies doesn’t find any story quite as spectacular as last year’s big Theranos flameout, which gave us a best-selling book, documentary, podcast series and upcoming Adam McKay/Jennifer Lawrence film. Some, like MoviePass, however, may have come close.
And for every Theranos, there are dozens of stories of hardworking founders with promising products that simply couldn’t make it to the finish line. There’s also room for debate about what is and isn’t a startup. For our purposes, we’re focusing here on independent startups, not digital initiatives from larger companies — though in at least one case, the startup was acquired by a larger company before shutting down.
GDPR was just a warmup. CCPA will arrive with a bang.
“We’ve already talked to some companies who either have decided or are considering to pull their marketing programs from California. So there may be some fallout. It might just be a temporary thing for them to see where the cards fall,” said Rachel Glasser, global chief privacy officer at Wunderman Thompson.
Even if only temporarily, advertiser pullback would put publishers’ and ad tech companies’ businesses in a bind. But those companies are also facing more permanent predicaments.
Any company that sells California residents’ personal information under the law’s broad definition of sale is required to put a “clear and conspicuous” link on its homepage titled “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” for people to request the company to stop selling their information.
“Companies have different interpretations, and depending on which lawyer they are using, they’re going to get different advice,” said Kabir Barday, the chief executive of OneTrust, a privacy management software service that has worked with more than 4,000 companies to prepare for the law. “I’ll call it a religious war.”
The new law has national implications because many companies, like Microsoft, say they will apply their changes to all users in the United States rather than give Californians special treatment. Federal privacy bills that could override the state’s law are stalled in Congress.
The California privacy law applies to businesses that operate in the state, collect personal data for commercial purposes and meet other criteria like generating annual revenue above $25 million. It gives Californians the right to see, delete and stop the sale of the personal details that all kinds of companies — app developers, retailers, restaurant chains — have on them.
What You’re Unwrapping When You Get a DNA Test for Christmas
But is using one of these kits also opening the door to letting the police use your DNA to arrest your cousin? The answer in this rapidly evolving realm depends largely on which sites you join and the boxes you check off when you do. And even if you never join any of these sites, their policies could affect you so long as one of your 800 closest relatives has.
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To identify a suspect’s blood, for example, investigators do not need to find the person who cut his hand smashing through a window. They just need to match to a couple of his second or third cousins in a DNA database. From there, a genetic genealogist can puzzle out how these cousins are related to one another and the suspect by building out a series of family trees. Often this leads to an arrest.
IBM is essentially announcing a potential alternative to lithium-ion batteries – and not just an alternative to some of the main ingredients. What’s more, IBM states the batteries perform even better than current lithium-ion batteries. Citing greater efficiency, faster charging, as well as higher power and energy density. These batteries are not just environmentally sound, but are also more capable in general. Further adding to their appeal, IBM states they are cheaper to produce thanks to their lack of heavy metals.
The issue is that they are currently far from being in a finished state. IBM’s announcement does not even suggest the company intends to build the batteries itself. Instead, the collaboration with the other vested companies is intended to flesh out the technology and create an environment where it becomes easier for other companies to produce the seawater-sourced batteries in the future.
Huawei reportedly got by with a lot of help from the Chinese government
Huawei reportedly had “access to as much as $75 billion in state support,” according to a piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Christmas Day.
That massive figure is culled from poring over various forms, including grants and tax breaks. Huawei, for its part, isn’t denying any government support, but said in response that what it received was “small and non-material,” in line with the usual variety of grants awarded to tech startups and companies.
Per WSJ’s accounting of public records, Huawei got around $46 billion in loans and other support, coupled with $25 billion in tax cuts used to accelerate tech advances.
Accenture: Remaining Bullish And Raising Target Price Post Earnings
Per our industry-wide analysis and Accenture’s favorable fundamentals, and given the company’s strong top-line growth, we believe that ACN shares merit ~29x P/E multiple on 2019 earnings. When we apply it to our 2019 EPS estimate of $8.65 (up from $8.49), we get the target price of $251 (up from $245). We note that this P/E multiple is contingent on the S&P multiple of ~18x, and may expand/contract together with the multiple.
Risks:
While Accenture strives to make the pricing structure attractive to its core clients and, henceforth, attract greater business, we see a number of Indian players, such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy, and Wipro, potentially lowering prices in the foreseeable future. In addition, there are smaller players that are threatening Accenture in Europe, such as Epam and Luxoft.
The company heavily relies on H1-B and L-1 visas; over the last several years Congress attempts to heavily regulate the number of visa works each company can hire. Should the H1-B and L-1 visas become even more limited, there could be a 40-60 bps negative impact to Accenture’s margin.
Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Departs Board, Sells All His Shares
The exit punctuates a decade in which Silicon Valley investors pumped startups with extraordinary sums of money and granted their founders vast power and a mandate to grow at breakneck speeds.
Uber and Mr. Kalanick were the archetype of this model, as Mr. Kalanick raised over $14 billion in equity and debt from outside investors who bought into his expansive vision and energetic approach. At its peak, Uber was the most valuable startup in the U.S., with a valuation of about $68 billion.
The move by Mr. Kalanick to sell his shares was set in place multiple months ago, said people familiar with the matter, and called for him to sell shares daily until his holdings wound down to zero.
China using big data to detain people before crime is committed
Chinese police theorists have identified specific “extremist behaviours, which include if you store a large amount of food in your home, if your child suddenly quits school and so on,” she said. Train a computer to look for such conduct, and “then you have a big data program modelled upon pretty racist ideas about peaceful behaviours that are part of a Uyghur identity,” she said.
The report “adds some pieces to the puzzle” over what is happening in Xinjiang, where it became clear over the last year “that tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs were disappearing without having done anything illegal,” said Rian Thum, a historian at Loyola University in New Orleans who has travelled extensively in Xinjiang.
This One Aspect of Your Office Design Is Wasting a Lot of Time and Money
Meetings are expensive — the rent of the office space combined with the wages of each attendee — but a lot of that investment is wasted. A UCLA and University of Minnesota study finds that executives spend up to half of their working hours in meetings and that as much as 50 percent of that time is unproductive. With 17 million business meetings in the United States every day, there are a lot of frustrated workers: 88 percent of people are annoyed by technology problems in meeting rooms, and 20 percent of meetings run late due to those issues, wasting 2.83 working days a year for the average employee.
Also:
Making meeting rooms more interactive and easier to navigate is part of a movement to upgrade our office spaces to better reflect how we work today. Real estate executives acknowledge updating is needed with 86 percent saying they are remaking or adapting offices and another 51 percent are planning to reinvent shared workspaces this year, according to the CBRE’s 2017 Americas Occupier Survey. Employing technology to more efficiently use meeting space is a vital part of those efforts and can make a big impact on a company’s bottom line.
Can DIY Solar Panels Solve Puerto Rico’s Power Crisis?
Everyone on LinkedIn is a “passionate, experienced, motivated” leader
While it’s awesome that we’re all so “experienced,” “passionate,” and “creative,” these labels won’t help any of us stand out. Slinging around the same generic language as everybody else is among the worst strategies for getting ahead.
The number one sign Marco Montinari, a recruitment consultant at Mason Frank International, sees repeatedly is LinkedIn users trying to be philosophers or motivational speakers. “It usually involves reflecting on their own successes while also advising people to stay humble,” Montinari says. While there’s nothing inherently bad about trying to deconstruct common professional issues or trying to uplift people through motivational words, unless you actually are, you know, a philosopher, what you think is deep or uplifting often comes across as simply trite or self-congratulatory. As Montinari points out: “A lesson in self-awareness is often needed for people who spend time telling others how to live their lives.”
Science Says Money Does Buy Happiness If You Spend it the Right Way
The reason that money demonstratively increases happiness levels up until a point is that it takes a certain salary to feel financially secure.
Having enough money means no anxiety when shopping at the grocery store, going out to eat or paying your rent. This type of security is overlooked when you are used to it.
Remembering and being appreciative of the fact that you are free to purchase things, though, will make you happier even after it has settled in as normal amount of your finances. Fundamentally, having enough money to buy these basic necessities will no-doubt increase your happiness levels.
