The nation state has survived wars, plagues, and upheaval, but it won’t survive digital nomads, not if people like Karoli Hindriks have something to say about it. Hindriks is the founder of Jobbatical, a platform that allows digital nomads to find work in other countries and helps with the logistics of getting there. The company also embodies a new world of highly-skilled, global… Read Morehttp://ift.tt/2HqBhzZ Digital nomads are hiring and firing their governments http://ift.tt/2o7sivv
French startup Sqreen recently launched a Security Hub with dozens of plugins to put you in control of the security of your web app. In many ways, it feels like enabling tasks on popular automation service IFTTT. Sqreen participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield and Y Combinator’s current batch. The vision of the product hasn’t changed. Sqreen lets you protect your…
At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms…
Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos apologized for spam texts that were incorrectly sent to users who had activated two-factor authentication. The company is working on a fix, and you won’t receive non-security-related text messages if you never signed up for those notifications. Facebook says it was a bug. But calling it a bug is a bit too easy — it’s a feature that…
A mapping startup based in Missoula, Mont., which allows users to download sophisticated offline topographic maps outlining public and private lands and a number of other features geared towards hunting, fishing and camping, has pulled in its first major outside funding. onXmaps has closed a $20.3 million Series A round led by Summit Partners. Bessemer Venture Partners, Millennium…
On Friday, Twitter announced that it would abandon its lesser loved Mac app, directing users to Twitter.com instead. The company declared that it will refocus its efforts on “a great Twitter experience that’s consistent across platforms” rather than continuing development for Twitter for Mac, a message that doesn’t sound great for TweetDeck lovers. The Twitter for Mac…
A recent ruling by a New York federal judge could have significant implications for how copyright laws are enforced. The ruling was made in a case where Justin Goldman accused publications including Breitbart, Time, Yahoo, Vox Media, and the Boston Globe of violating his copyright by embedding tweets with his photo of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Broady into their stories. Goldman…
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has just handed down a set of indictments, charging 13 Russian citizens and three Russian organizations with interference in the U.S. presidential election in efforts dating back to 2014. The indictment names the Internet Research Agency, a bot farm and disinformation operation based out of St. Petersburg as one of the sources of the fake accounts meant to…
Uber is preparing to sell its Southeast Asian business to Grab in exchange for a stake in the Singaporean ride-sharing company that has a big presence in that region, according to a new report from CNBC. This wouldn’t be an unfamiliar story for Uber, which was handily beaten by Didi in China before eventually caving and selling the company to the dominant ride-sharing startup in China.…
Home Made, which is focused exclusively on London lettings for properties in the £500,000-plus range, has raised £850,000 in seed funding. The round is led by private equity firm Tethys Equity and is said to give the young company a £4.3 million post-money valuation.
The Essential Phone is currently in the midst of being rolled out in a range of new colors, including three that will be released excessively on Essential’s own website, with a staged release schedule that began Thursday. On Friday, however, Essential revealed a surprise fourth new color, “Halo Gray,” which will be exclusive to Amazon and which is now available to…
Fandor has expanded its executive team, promoting General Counsel and Chief Distribution Officer Felice Oper to the role of COO, and appointing TS Ramakrishnan as its Chief Product Engineering Officer. Felice joined the company in 2015, around the same time that Larry Aidem took over as CEO. Aidem, who previously worked with Felice at HBO, said that her role at Fandor has expanded…
H-E-B has acquired Favor, the on-demand delivery service out of Texas. Favor will continue to operate as an independent wholly-owned subsidiary of the grocery chain. The company first launched in 2014 at SXSW, bringing a Texas-tailored approach to on-demand delivery. While many on-demand services, such as Postmates, focus on high-density areas like NYC and San Francisco, Favor built a product…
Instagram has taken down content posted by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny under pressure from a government agency, while YouTube has yet to do so. Navalny and others have criticized Instagram for complying to what they call a politically-motivated move to silence him.
When I first heard of Blinkist, a service that breaks down recent nonfiction books to easily digestible snippets, I was afraid it would turn out to be some machine-learning-driven auto-summary thing. But in talking to co-founder Niklas Jansen, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the company is still very much people-powered — and in fact, that may be the root of its continuing success.
Game streaming site Twitch today is debuting an always-on chat room feature it’s simply calling “Rooms.” The addition was first announced at its developer event TwitchCon back in October, and was expected to launch before year-end. That timing shifted a bit, but the feature is going live today across both web and mobile for Twitch users worldwide. Rooms are custom chat…
Failure doesn’t usually happen “to” startups. It happens when founders rationalize problems until it’s too late. Attack problems early and the startup will advance. Rationalize that the problems don’t exist and you’ll just be another depressing startup post-mortem.

