Business & Tech You Might Be Able to Buy and Own Your Own Self-Driving Waymo Someday If you’ve ever wanted to own your own self-driving Waymo vehicle, and are willing to shell out a great deal of money for it, parent company Google/Alphabet says it may eventually start selling those vehicles to the public.
Business & Tech Be Wary of Putting Stuff In the Trunk of a Waymo — Sometimes They Drive Off There have been a few stories about Waymos driving off with people's luggage still in the trunk, and now a San Francisco tennis instructor has filed a lawsuit over some lost tennis equipment.
Business & Tech Yep, Now Saks Is Closing Its Union Square Store As has been pretty widely predicted, Saks Fifth Avenue has officially announced the closure of its Union Square store — which has been operating on an "appointment only" basis since last summer.
Business & Tech Tesla Settles Racial Discrimination Lawsuit From Fremont Factory Worker, Still Has More Discrimination Suits Pending One former Fremont Tesla factory employee has received a settlement in a three-year-old lawsuit over alleged racially charged workplace incidents. But there are still more big lawsuits against Tesla looming, including a class-action suit from 16,000 Black workers.
SF News Supervisors Lift Formula Retail Ban on Van Ness, Add the Fillmore Safeway Property to That Exemption Too Big-chain formula retail stores might soon be welcome again on Van Ness Avenue, plus there’s now an added a carve-out to include the shuttered Fillmore Safeway too, after the SF Board of Supervisors eliminated these formula retail restrictions.
Business & Tech Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Shutting Down Two Bay Area Schools It Launched In 2016 The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has decided to shut down two tuition-free private schools it started for low-income students in 2016, giving no explanation, though kicking down $50 million to help with the students’ transition to new schools.
Business & Tech SF AI Startup Founder Dethrones Taylor Swift as World’s Youngest Self-Made Female Billionaire You may not have heard of Scale AI co-founder Lucy Guo, but she just passed Taylor Swift as the youngest self-made billionaire woman, though that’s all based on her ownership stake in a company she no longer works for, and might not even be profitable.
Business & Tech Entrepreneur Who Left Ukraine in 2024 Opens Second Bay Area Nail Studio in Less Than a Year Anastasiia Arabadzhy left Ukraine in January 2024 and has already opened two Alphora Nails locations in SF and Sausalito, capitalizing on the Bay Area's obsession with Russian manicure techniques that actually last longer than three days.
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.
