Latest from Josh Constine
With world events overtaking the tech world’s preferences to meet for coffees and convene at events, Y Combinator skipped its famous two-day live Demo event and went for a radical…
You have to actually get work done, not just video call all day, but apps like Zoom want to take over your screen. Remote workers who need to stay in…
The world is vulnerable to a new type of trolling as people turn to Zoom video calls to feel connected amidst quarantines. Jerks are using Zoom’s screensharing feature to blast…
Facebook suffered from a massive bug in its News Feed spam filter, causing URLs to legitimate websites including Medium, Buzzfeed, and USA Today to be blocked from being shared as…
All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part IV: Healthcare, Biotech, Fintech and Nonprofits
With YC’s W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we’ve decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. These are the Healthcare/Biotech, Fintech, and Non-profit…
All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part III: Hardware, Robots, AI and Developer Tools
With YC’s W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we’ve decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. These are the hardware, AI/ML, and developer-focused…
With YC’s W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we’ve decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. Here are this cohort’s consumer-focused companies
Y Combinator’s Demo Day was a bit different this time around. As concerns grew over the spread of COVID-19, Y Combinator shifted the event format away from the two-day gathering…
While companies might pay for a CEO coach, lower level employees often get stuck with lame skill-building worksheets or no mentorship at all. Not only does that limit their potential…
We need to go hands-off in the age of coronavirus. That means touching fewer doors, elevators, and sign-in iPads. But once a building is using phone-based identity for security, there’s…
Instagram is embracing its potential as a news source, employing its ubiquity to distribute coronavirus prevention techniques through a new call-out at the top of its homescreen feed. In some…
Augmented reality headset maker Magic Leap has struggled with the laws of physics and failed to get to market. Now it’s seeking an acquirer, but talks with Facebook and medical…
Some Libra Association members like Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures are double-dipping, backing a competing cryptocurrency developer platform. Launching today with over 50 partners, non-profit The Celo Foundation’s ‘Alliance For…
Fitness, wallpaper, and lost item-finding startups could have a big new competitor baked into everyone’s iPhones. Leaks of the code from iOS 14 that Apple is expected to reveal in…
In the age of coronavirus, we all have to resist the urge to touch our faces. It’s how the virus can travel from doorknobs or other objects to your mucus…
Facebook’s latest colonization of Instagram has begun. Facebook is testing the option to cross-post Stories to Instagram, instead of just vice-versa. Hopefully, that means the two apps will finally sync…
SXSW has officially announced it will cancel its tech and music conference slated for March 13th to 22nd in Austin, Texas due to concerns around coronavirus, though it’s exploring rescheduling.…
Social networks are in for a rude copyright awakening. A new European Union law called Article 17 essentially eradicates safe harbor and requires that they’ve made their “best effort” to…
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey might not spend six months a year in Africa, claims the real product development is under the hood and gives an excuse for deleting Vine before…
The Chinese government has been removing criticism of its coronavirus response from apps like Weibo, the local equivalent of Twitter. But before it can, that content is being saved, decentralized…
It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs write…
Justin Kan’s hybrid legal software and law firm startup Atrium is shutting down today after failing to figure out how to deliver better efficiency than a traditional law firm, the…
Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Did Trump call coronavirus the Democrats’ “new hoax”? Those are the big questions emerging from a controversial “false” label applied to Politico and NBC News stories…
Chat bots were central to Facebook Messenger’s strategy three years ago. Now they’re being hidden from view in the app along with games and businesses. Facebook Messenger is now removing…
Featured Article
Teen hit Yolo raises $8M to let you Snapchat anonymously
It wasn’t a fad. Yolo became the country’s No. 1 app just a week after launch by letting teens ask for anonymous replies to questions they posted on Snapchat. But nine months later, Yolo is still in the top 100 iOS apps and has 10 million active users. Now it’s…
TechCrunch has learned that $28 million-funded crypto startup Tagomi will be the newest member of the Libra Association that governs the Facebook-backed Libra stablecoin. A formal announcement is slated for…
Featured Article
Tempo reveals $17M-funded $2000 weight lift training screen
Tempo wants to be the Peloton of barbells. It’s a 42-inch tall screen with 3D machine vision that tracks and teaches you as you workout. The giant upright HD display makes it feel like your personal trainer is right there with you while you compete with others in live and…
Allowance is going digital. Venmo has been spotted prototyping a new feature that would allow adult users to create for their teenage children a debit card connected to their account.…
After eBay, Visa, Stripe and other high-profile partners ditched the Facebook-backed cryptocurrency collective, Libra scored a win today with the addition of Shopify. The e-commerce platform will become a member…
Before it was worth $7.6 billion, the original idea for Robinhood was a stock-trading social network. At my kitchen table in San Francisco in 2013, the founders envisioned an app…