Business & Tech OpenAI’s Latest Hire Is… 95-Year-Old Labor Activist Dolores Huerta? Yes, artificial intelligence company OpenAI just hired longtime rabble-rouser Dolores Huerta as a member of their temporary philanthropic advisory board, though it could be a PR move to butter up regulators as OpenAI restructures to a for-profit company.
Business & Tech Waymo Eyeing Expansion Into San Jose, and Also Much of the South Bay You might soon be able to take a Waymo all the way from SF to San Jose, as the self-driving robotaxis are apparently already halfway through their bureaucratic quest to win approval to operate in San Jose, plus much of Santa Clara County.
Business & Tech Federal Judge Rules Against Google In Second Antitrust Case, This One About Its Ad Network For the second time in less than a year, a federal court has dealt a blow to Google's business model, ruling that it holds an illegal monopoly in a key sphere of its operations.
Business & Tech Meta Faces the Antitrust Lawsuit Mark Zuckerberg Never Wanted The FTC's antitrust lawsuit against Meta, focusing on Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp over a decade ago, kicked off in federal court Monday morning, and Mark Zuckerberg is testifying.
Business & Tech Hackers Reprogram Peninsula Crosswalk Signals to Mock Elon Musk and Zuckerberg Pedestrians expecting to hear normal crosswalk commands in Silicon Valley are instead hearing prank voices of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg saying things like “F***, I'm so alone,” as some joker has hacked those cities’ crosswalk systems.
Business & Tech Tech Updates: Nokia Brings 200 Tech Jobs to San Jose With Sustainable Chip Plant Bay Area companies are leading the charge in sustainable tech: Nokia expands its semiconductor hub to San Jose; Lightmatter unveils an energy-efficient AI processor; Savor Foods introduces carbon-based butter; and Longshot Space develops a low-cost cargo space launch system.
Business & Tech Arnold Schwarzenegger Now a Billionaire, According to Forbes’ Latest List There’s a few show biz types who just appeared for the first time on this year’s annual Forbes billionaire list, like Bruce Sprinsteen, Jerry Seinfeld, and the former ‘Governator,’ Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Business & Tech OpenAI's Feud With Musk Escalates With New Court Filing OpenAI has asked a federal court to get estranged billionaire co-founder Elon Musk to stop publicly bad-mouthing the company — which, they say, is unlawful and is doing harm to the company.
Business & Tech Sonoma-Serving Budget Airline Avelo Shuts Down Flights, Becomes Trump Deportation Contractor A budget airline that made a hub of Santa Rosa's Charles M. Schulz Airport is closing that hub and turning its attention to providing charter flights for deported migrants out of Arizona, under contract with the federal government.
Business & Tech Trump Extends TikTok Ban/Sale Another 75 Days, as Tariffs Blow Up Current Deal Just as a deal to place TikTok in the hands of US owners was almost in place, China pulled ByteDance out of that deal in response to our tariffs, though Trump is selling this as him just extending the deadline.
SF News Steph Curry’s Company Abruptly Kills Off Plans to Build His Business Headquarters In Dogpatch A stunning reversal after Steph Curry’s off-court business Thirty Ink made the splashy $8.5 million purchase of a new Dogpatch headquarters, as Curry’s people now say they’re backing out of the deal over some bizarre squabble over union carpenters.
SF News The Removal of the Formula Retail Ban on Van Ness Just Got One Step Closer to Reality SF’s formula retail ban might be removed from a 23-block stretch of Van Ness Avenue, as the SF Planning Commission just unanimously passed a recommendation to exempt Van Ness from limits on large chain stores.
Business & Tech Bay Area Tech Stocks Get Destroyed By Trump Tariffs, SF CEO Screams Obscenity on Live Earnings Call Remember when all those Bay Area tech CEOs cuddled up to Trump with $1 million inauguration donations? Boy did that just blow up in their faces! They lost billions today, and one yelled “Oh sh*t!” when he checked his stock on a live earnings call.
Business & Tech Amazon and Founder of OnlyFans Put In Last-Minute Bids to Buy TikTok A deadline is approaching with the expiration of Trump's executive-order reprieve for TikTok, and several last-minute bidders have emerged.
Business & Tech ‘Monster in the Mission' Developer Now Faces Monstrous Debts, Salacious Sexual Harassment Lawsuit The developer behind the infamous “Monster in the Mission” project has recently lost two major Bay Area properties to loan defaults, and its founder is embroiled in a sexual assault lawsuit that has some wild allegations involving cocaine and pornography.
Business & Tech The Sad Saga of How New Operators of the AMC 1000 Van Ness Theater Blew $54 Million In Just 18 Months We always figured that the former AMC Van Ness movie theater went under because of how the pandemic wrecked movie theaters. But court filings show a behind-the-scenes battle after new operators managed to burn $54 million on the place in a year and a half.
Business & Tech Billionaire's Row Mansion Sells For $26.5 Million After Nine Months On Market Those in the luxury real estate business in San Francisco are excited that one of the highest-end properties on the market just traded hands for the first time, and for a relatively high price.
Business & Tech The Old Twitter Building Bird Logo Sign Is Up for Auction, But You Have to Pay for the Shipping The very large, old Twitter bird logo that used to be attached to the building's former Market Street headquarters is on the auction block and hoping to fetch $40,000, but you’ll have to pay the shipping on the 12-foot, 560-pound piece.
Business & Tech All-Day Internet Outage Affecting Comcast Customers Across SF Xfinity/Comcast customers lost internet, phone, and TV service Monday morning around 10 am. And an initial promise of service restoration by 1 pm has now been updated to 8 pm.
Business & Tech Meta Playing Hardball to Prevent Sales of Ex-Employee’s Tell-All Book Well well well, Mark Zuckerberg suddenly wants less free speech and more content moderation when it comes to a former Facebook employee who’s written a book exposing what it was like to work there, and they’ve hauled the publisher to court.
Business & Tech Waymo Just Expanded Service to Offer Rides In Silicon Valley, the Company's Birthplace The newest places you can catch Waymo robo-rides are the Silicon Valley cities of Los Altos, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, which makes sense, as Waymo was born in Mountain View.
Business & Tech Musk Blames 'Massive Cyberattack' For X/Twitter Outages Monday Morning Tesla owners have been under attack as billionaire Elon Musk continues to wield destructive, job-slashing power in Washington, so why wouldn't Twitter come under attack as well?
Business & Tech AI Company Databricks Declares It Will ‘Invest Over $1 Billion’ in Downtown SF With Big Conference, New HQ Flush with their latest $10 billion fundraising round, the cloud-based AI platform firm Databricks recently signed a 150,000 square-foot lease at One Sansome, and is now committing to keeping their annual conference in SF for five more years.
SF News New Plans Announced for Steph Curry’s Splashy New Offices In Dogpatch Warriors all-star Steph Curry is getting ready to say night-night to his playing career, and the new company he’s started just released their plans for a giant, fancy headquarters on 20th Street out at Pier 70.
Business & Tech Bing Crosby’s Former Home in Hillsborough on the Market for a Record-Breaking $40 Million Asking Price Purchased for a song at just $175,000 in 1965, the French chateau-style former home of pop crooner Bing Crosby is now on sale again for $40 million, a price that would break the Hillsborough real estate record that currently belongs to Elon Musk’s old house.
