SF Politics Mark Farrell’s ‘Most Successful’ VC Investment at Risk of Being Delisted From NASDAQ SF mayoral candidate Mark Farrell touted his business success during his failed run for mayor, but the company he described as his “most successful” venture capital triumph is now facing tough times and a potential delisting from the NASDAQ exchange.
Business & Tech Cruise Fined $500,000 for Filing False Reports to Feds After Pedestrian-Dragging Incident Yet another hefty fine for the self-driving robotaxi company Cruise for sweeping things under the rug after one of its cars dragged an SF pedestrian 20 feet, as the US Department of Justice has hit them with a $500,000 fine for falsifying reports on the incident.
Business & Tech UC Berkeley Chemists Announce Potentially Massive Discovery: A Powder That Captures Carbon From Air Chemists at UC Berkeley have just published details of a yearslong project to create a material that will effectively, sustainably remove carbon dioxide from the air, in what is potentially a major, Nobel-worthy breakthrough.
SF News Tuesday Morning Topline: 23andMe Lays Off 40% of Workforce Alameda County is getting set to open its first CARE court next month; 23andMe is laying off 40% of its workforce; and a light storm is on the way tomorrow.
Business & Tech AI Flub May Be Behind Mattel’s ‘Wicked’ Dolls Promoting Porn Website on Packaging Something bad happened that made Mattel’s new line of dolls for the upcoming film “Wicked” accidentally promote a link to a porn website. Funny, this happened just months after Mattel started designing its packaging with an AI tool from San Jose-based Adobe.
Business & Tech Zoox to Begin Testing Their Funny Looking Robotaxis In SoMa Amazon-owned robotaxi concern Zoox, which is the only autonomous vehicle company to date that has put purpose-built taxis on the road that don't have steering wheels or driver's seats, is rolling out more test vehicles on the streets of SF.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Uber and Lyft Offering Half-Price Rides to Polling Places; Uber Eats, Others Offering Election Night Discounts Too Rideshare companies Uber and Lyft are both offering 50%-off rides to polling places all day today, so you should take advantage if you're feeling lazy and still haven't voted. And you can score discounts and freebies on GrubHub, Uber Eats, and at Krispy Kreme.
Business & Tech Russia Fines Google $20 Decillion For Blocking Channels on YouTube A Russian court has ordered Google/Alphabet to pay two undecillion rubles in fines — that's a two followed by 36 zeroes — in an obviously symbolic ruling expressing the government's wrath over YouTube continuing to block pro-Russian channels.
Business & Tech 21+ Best Movers / Moving Companies in San Francisco (2024) The moving process in San Francisco can make for an adventure sometimes welcomed and often challenging, reflecting the singularity of the city itself. With its famous hills, and narrow, winding streets, and its
SF Politics Elon Musk Was In US as an Illegal Immigrant In 1995, According to Washington Post Report While born-again Trumper Elon Musk regularly rails against illegal immigrants, a new Washington Post analysis finds that Musk worked in the US illegally in 1995 when he overstayed on a student visa.
Business & Tech Airbnb Is Staying Put at 888 Brannan, Ending Year of Speculation Airbnb will not be exiting the Showplace Square headquarters that was built out for it a decade ago, and has now signed a lease to stay in the building until 2037.
Business & Tech Feds Probing Tesla ‘Full Self-Driving’ Mode After Pedestrian Killed, Plus Multiple Other Crashes Amidst several reports of Teslas in “Full Self-Driving” mode having crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one crash that killed someone, a federal road safety agency is now investigating whether the Tesla technology might be to blame.
Business & Tech Hilton Taking Over Mid-Market's Line Hotel After only two years as the boutique Line Hotel, the 12-story hotel portion of the building at 950 Market Street that also houses the Serif condo development is going to become a Hilton property as of December.
Business & Tech Now the Metreon Is Up For Sale Too, In Latest SF Real Estate Shocker Another signature San Francisco mall is up for sale in the Metreon, but in this case, the sale is not being forced by owners surrendering the property to a lender, and the place has a bustling 92% occupancy rate.
Business & Tech Walgreens Closing 1,200 More Stores Nationwide, So This Is Not Just a San Francisco Thing After years of finger-pointing at San Francisco over a small handful of local Walgreens closures, the company now admits it just has way too many stores, and will be closing 1,200 more of them across the US.
Business & Tech Shocker: California Leads the Nation in Cryptocurrency Fraud, According to FBI More than 20% of all cryptocurrency fraud happened right here in California last year, and the FBI San Francisco Field Office was kept busy, dealing with a staggering $260 million in crypto scams in 2023 alone.
Business & Tech California Joins 13 Other States in Suing TikTok for Alleged Harm It Causes to Teen Users A new lawsuit from 14 state attorneys general goes after TikTok for those “challenge” videos that have killed teens nationwide, and even alleges an economy of underage nude videos that have created a "virtual strip club" on the platform.
Business & Tech Tech Bros Try to Help Waymo Entangled With Muni Bus, Leave Behind Stalled Waymo A new viral video shows a stalled Waymo getting entangled with a Muni bus this weekend, and when a gaggle of tech bros coming from an industry party try to help, they seem to just make things worse.
Business & Tech SF-Based Weed Delivery Service Eaze, Once Valued at $700 Million, Shutting Down By Year’s End The company that called themselves “the Uber of Weed” is going up in smoke, having blown through $250 million in venture capital but now announcing they’ll likely cease operations on December 31.
Business & Tech OpenAI Raises All-Time Record Largest VC Round Ever, But Still Hemorrhaging Money Like Mad Is it a “success” when your company rakes in an all-time record $6.6 billion venture capital round, but expects to lose nearly that same amount of money this year? Welcome to SF’s new AI economy, where OpenAI just raised the largest VC round of all time.
SF News SF Amazon Workers at Bayview Warehouse Vote to Unionize, Ball Now In Amazon’s Court More than 100 workers at Amazon’s Toland Street warehouse in SF’s Bayview District have voted to unionize, though the hard part will be getting Amazon to recognize or negotiate with the union.
Business & Tech Woman In Driverless Waymo Harassed By Bros Wanting Her Phone Number It’s the second incident in two weeks where misbehaving pedestrians effectively held someone hostage in an SF Waymo, as two bros stood in front of the self-driving car and persistently demanded the phone number of the woman riding it.
Business & Tech Feds Issue Consent Order to Cruise With $1.5 Million Penalty Stemming From Last October's Injury Crash Almost exactly one year after a high-profile crash on San Francisco's Market Street in which an automated Cruise vehicle dragged a woman for 20 feet before stopping, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a fine and a consent order to the GM-backed company.
Business & Tech Of Course a Waymo Got In the Way of Kamala Harris's Motorcade on Nob Hill Friday Night You can't even get a (vice) presidential motorcade through the streets of San Francisco these days without tripping over a self-driving taxi.
Business & Tech Meta Actually Paying Celebrities Like Judi Dench and Awkwafina to Use Their Voices For Its AI Tool Unlike OpenAI, which just went and hired an actress who sounded like Scarlett Johansson after ScarJo declined to voice an AI model for them, Meta appears to be actually paying some big-name celebrities to lend their voices for its new AI voice tool.
