Tag: Chamath Palihapitiya
Calendly CEO Tope Awotona is joining us at Disrupt 2021
It all seems so simple. Instead of the dreaded back-and-forth on email, what if there was a solution that helped two parties (or multiple parties) schedule a call or a hangout? Calendly was born out of that question. Today, the company is worth more than $3 billion, according to reports,…
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Um, where is the SEC when it comes to SPACs and conflicts of interest?
Today, my colleague Kirsten Korosec reported that the autonomous vehicle startup Aurora is close to finalizing a deal to merge with one of three blank-check companies that have been formed to date by renowned entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus and a third partner in these deals, Michael Thompson, who…
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Max Q: Starship’s good landing (and less good post-landing)
Max Q is a weekly newsletter from TechCrunch all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Mondays in your inbox. Sometimes even the biggest successes look like failures on video. That’s the theme of this week, because the biggest news by far was SpaceX’s test launch of…
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Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya sells off remaining personal stake in the space company
The man who arguably ushered in the current SPAC rush with the merger of Virgin Galactic with his Social Capital Hedosophia holding company has divested the remainder of his personal holdings in the space tourism company. Chamath Palihapitiya, who serves as the Chairman of Virgin Galactic’s board, still holds 6.2%…
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As the SPAC frenzy continues, questions arise about how much the market can absorb
Another week and the biggest story in a sea of big stories continues to center on SPACs, these blank-check companies that raise capital through IPOs expressly to acquire a privately held company and take it public. But some industry watchers as starting to wonder: Is this party just getting started,…
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Extra Crunch roundup: Edtech VC survey, 5 founder mistakes, fintech liquidity, more
Edtech is so widespread, we already need more consumer-friendly nomenclature to describe the products, services and tools it encompasses. I know someone who reads stories to their grandchildren on two continents via Zoom each weekend. Is that “edtech?” Similarly, many Netflix subscribers sought out online chess instructors after watching “The…
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