Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the
Technology
Samsung chairman dies at age 78
Lee Kun-hee, the long-time chairman of Samsung Group who transformed the conglomerate into one of the world’s largest business empires, died today at the age of 78, according to reports from South Korean leading news agency Yonhap. The story of Samsung is deeply intertwined with the history of its home country,
Facebook and Twitter CEOs to testify before Congress in November on how they handled the election
Shortly after voting to move forward with a pair of subpoenas, the Senate Judiciary Committee has reached an agreement that will see the CEOs of two major social platforms testify voluntarily in November. The hearing will be the second major congressional appearance by tech CEOs arranged this month. Twitter’s Jack
Uber drivers sue company alleging coercive Prop 22 advertising
Uber is facing a class-action lawsuit over Proposition 22 that alleges the company is illegally coercing its drivers to support the ballot measure that seeks to keep workers classified as independent contractors. The suit was brought forth by two Uber drivers, Benjamin Valdez and Hector Castellanos, as well as two
AOC’s Among Us stream topped 435,000 concurrent viewers
Trilo lets merchants offer rewards to customers choosing bank-to-bank payments
Open banking enables bank-to-bank payments, meaning that (in theory) merchants should be able to accept payments without having to hand over fees to Visa or Mastercard or other payment providers, such as Stripe. The challenge, however, isn’t just implementing open-banking based payments as a checkout option — there are are
VCs reload ahead of the election as unicorns power ahead
Solve the ‘dead equity’ problem with a longer founder vesting schedule
Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here. The four-year vesting schedule that the typical startup uses today is a problem waiting to happen. If one founder ends up quitting a year or two before the
IAB Europe’s ad tracking consent framework found to fail GDPR standard
A flagship framework for gathering Internet users’ consent for targeting with behavioral ads — which is designed by ad industry body, the IAB Europe — fails to meet the required legal standards of data protection, according to findings by its EU data supervisor. The Belgian DPA’s investigation follows complaints against the
WizVille Local Monitor helps small shops track Google Maps ratings of competitors
French startup WizVille is launching a new product called Local Monitor to help restaurant owners, haircut places, bakeries and all kinds of small shops track their Google Maps ratings and the ratings of their competitors. While there are plenty of ratings services to compare places around you, such as Foursquare, Yelp