BardTech

The post Uber’s chief diversity officer is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 appeared first on BardTech . At TechCrunch Disrupt 2018, Uber’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Bo Young Lee will be joining us to talk about the ride-sharing company’s efforts to put detoxify its corporate culture and promote a more inclusive environment for employees. Lee was hired as the company’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer this past January, after leaving insurance company Marsh LLC where she held a similar role. Uber has obviously had its fair share of issues with fostering an inclusive culture, they’ve made some public efforts to showcase that the company was making active efforts to promote internal change and they seem to at least be having a more peaceful 2018 than 2017 — in terms of news surrounding the company’s culture. Nevertheless, there has still been plenty of movement surrounding diversity at the company even after Lee’s hire. Uber has hired a chief diversity off...

The post Tesla’s drama, China-based companies are listing in the U.S., and SurveyMonkey is (finally) going public appeared first on BardTech . Hello and welcome back to Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week, we were a man down, with the excellent Alex Wilhelm of Crunchbase News on a vacation that someone seems to have sanctioned, though it was not us, as we don’t believe in vacations. (Wilhelm, get back here.) We did, happily, have the very knowledgeable Kirsten Korosec of TechCrunch join us on the line; we were also joined by this week’s personable in-studio guest: Lauren Kolodny , a partner at the San Francisco-based, early-stage venture firm Aspect Ventures. It was the perfect mix to talk about car makers and more car makers, including Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s seemingly ill-planned plans to take the publicly traded company private, then vacillating a bit before changing his mind again, much to the ...

The post Skip and Scoot are the only companies awarded scooter permits in SF appeared first on BardTech . The great San Francisco scooter decision has been made. And Skip and Scoot have claimed the prize. The  San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency  (SFMTA) issued one-year permits to Skip and Scoot on Thursday, a decision that ends months of waiting for 12 companies that applied to operate within the city. JUMP, which  Uber acquired in April , as well as  Lyft,  Skip, Spin, Lime, Scoot, ofo, Razor, CycleHop, USSCooter and Ridecell all applied for permits in San Francisco. The permits will allow a maximum of 625 scooters for each company in the first six months. Scoot and Skip may have the potential to increase their number of scooters in months seven to 12 to a cap of 2,500, at the SFMTA’s sole discretion. “The SFMTA’s decision is based on the strength of the proposals submitted by the two companies, combined with their experience of owning, ...

The post SF and Santa Monica expected to award official permits to scooter companies today appeared first on BardTech . The day has arrived. After more than two months of waiting,  the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency  (SFMTA) is poised to determine which of 12 companies will successfully procure one of the city’s five permits.  The permits are hot commodities for those competing for scooter market dominance, which includes Uber and Lyft, which applied for permits to operate e-scooters despite not yet having any. San Francisco is a key market for e-scooters; for some of these companies, failing to receive a permit could mean the end of the road. Santa Monica, where Bird is headquartered, is also expected to award four permits for its electric scooter and bike pilot program today. Bird is the most valuable scooter startup; it hit a $2 billion valuation in June after raising hundreds of millions in venture capital funding.  Bird, Lime and Spin...

The post DFINITY raises $102M from a16z and Polychain for a decentralised ‘Internet Computer’ to rival AWS appeared first on BardTech . Since blockchain technology appeared, there has been a persistent problem in its development: how to make it scale to billions of users. Bitcoin was famously never really designed for this, and today other platforms like Ethereum are also struggling. If you could crack this problem, the thinking goes, you’d end up with the hottest property in blockchain right now. That, a very healthy dose of ambition, and a bench of strong computer science talent are some of the big reasons why investors are gathering around  DFINITY , a startup based out of Zug, Switzerland and Palo Alto that is also a foundation , and has a very lofty goal to build what it calls the “Internet Computer”: a blockchain-based, decentralised and non-proprietary network to run the next generation of mega-applications. DFINITY aims to launch an initial version of its pub...

The post Toyota invests $500 million into Uber appeared first on BardTech . Toyota is investing $500 million into Uber. Under the agreement, Toyota vehicles will be equipped with Uber’s self-driving technology, an unnamed source familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. The investment was first reported by the WSJ . TechCrunch confirmed the Toyota-Uber agreement with a source familiar with the deal. Uber declined to comment on the deal. Unlike Uber’s partnership with Volvo, the ride-hailing company will not own these vehicles, according to the source. It’s unclear if Toyota will operate these autonomous vehicles or if another third-party, such as a fleet operator, will. Toyota already has a relationship with Uber, albeit not as closely as under this new arrangement. Toyota announced at CES in January that it is working with  Amazon , ride-hailing companies Uber and Didi, automaker Mazda, and Pizza Hut to develop an electric autonomous shuttle that can be used to deliver peop...