Month: June 2019

FedEx will not renew a contract with Amazon to provide express delivery for the e-commerce giant’s packages in the United States.

FedEx, which made the announcement Friday, said in a statement the change would not affect other existing contracts with Amazon or international services.

Amazon has not responded to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if the company provides new information.

FedEx tempered the news by stating that Amazon is not its largest customer. The percentage of total FedEx revenue attributable to Amazon.com represented less than 1.3 percent of total FedEx revenue for the 12-month period ended December 31, 2018, according to FedEx.

The decision follows an explosion in e-commerce, a trend that is expected to continue. FedEx estimates that e-commerce  is expected to grow from 50 million to 100 million packages a day in the U.S. by 2026.

That growth, along with the logistical gymnastics required to make, not lose, money pursuing the opportunity, has led FedEx and Amazon and others to look for efficiencies in their businesses as well as develop and deploy new technology.

For instance, FedEx unveiled in February an autonomous delivery device called SameDay Bot. The bot, which will be tested this summer in select markets, including FedEx’s hometown Memphis, is being developed in collaboration with DEKA Development & Research Corp. and its founder Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway  and iBot wheelchair.

The initial test will involve deliveries between selected FedEx Office locations, the company said. Ultimately, the FedEx bot will complement the FedEx SameDay City service, which operates in 32 markets and 1,900 cities.

Amazon has made its own moves from investing in electric vehicle company Rivian and developing a fully electric delivery drone to acquiring urban delivery robot startup Dispatch and warehouse robotics startup Canvas Technology.

Source: Tech Crunch

Jessica Powell, Google’s former head of PR from 2012-2018 (years in which Google required a not-insignificant amount of PR leadership), is now a rock star writer whose 2018 debut book, The Big Disruption: A Totally Fictional But Essentially True Silicon Valley Story, was the first novel published by Medium.

I recently spoke with Powell for this series on the ethics of technology, because The Big Disruption, for all its manic energy and a playfulness at times bordering on sci-fi sitcom level-absurdity, should be viewed as a key work in the emerging field of tech ethics. In scenes like the one that begins below, her comic timing and characters help us see how “disruptive” technologies may not so much change humanity, as reveal it.

As a product manager, you are tasked with leading a team and bringing an idea to life. You are the visionary who must direct not just engineers but also marketers, sales teams, lawyers, and others. You are a mini-CEO, the ruler of your product!

“Just like king!” Arsyen shouted to the empty stalls.

It’s part Dave Eggers’ The Circle; part “Coming to America” (the classic 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy about an African prince’s incognito sojourn in New York City); and part dystopian Tarzan. In this rather amazing sequence from an early chapter in The Big Disruption, Arsyen Aimo, an exiled prince from the fictional backwater country of Phyrria who has been working in Silicon Valley as a janitor, has accidentally convinced executives at the tech behemoth Anahata to hire him as Project Manager for the company’s disruptive new project – a car slash social network. Now, Arsyen has locked himself in the bathroom to scroll his phone for info on what Project Managers at tech companies actually do.

Of course, there is one important difference: You have no direct authority over anyone, and you must lead through influence.

“Hmmph, more like queen,” Arsyen grumbled. But then he reconsidered: Other than the receptionists, he had yet to meet any women at Anahata. He probably didn’t need to worry about being treated like one of them.

Jessica Powell, of course, was a woman you might well have met at Google, if you’d been working at the highest levels in or around the real-life tech giant over the past decade. While she joins others who’ve left Big Tech to write important philosophical books shedding light on the political and social implications of their industry (James Williams, Chamath Palihapitiya, Tristan Harris, and others come to mind), no one has yet succeeded like Powell in illuminating our current culture of technology. And if we can’t see our own culture, how can we change it?

After the short scene below, you’ll find part one of my two-part conversation with Powell, where we discuss the importance of satire in ethics, and how her background may have led her to become one of Silicon Valley’s most interesting and important class traitors.

Arsyen skimmed a few more blogs, trying to memorize the P.M.’s language — words like “action items,” “B2B solutions,” and “use cases,” and then something mystic called a “roadmap,” which as far as Arsyen could tell had little to do with either roads or maps. There was an even greater obsession with “alignment,” a concept Arsyen struggled with as his translation app told him that the equivalent word in Pyrrhian was pokaya, meaning to place the chicken coop parallel to one’s home.

Suddenly there was a banging on the stall door.

“Arsyen? You in there?”

It was Sven.

“Listen, you’ve been in there long enough. Only senior engineers get to work in the bathroom. Roni has some sort of roadmap question for you, so come on back.”

Arsyen washed his hands and returned to the cubicle, armed with his new vocabulary.

When Roni asked Arsyen about prioritization, Arsyen asked, “Is this on the roadmap?”

When Sven suggested adding images of attractive women to the car dashboard, Arsyen rubbed his chin.

“Does this align with our strategy?”

When all three looked to him for an opinion in how best to implement Symmetry Enhancement, Arsyen stood and put his hands on his hips.

“Does this align with the strategy on our roadmap?”

No one seemed to notice anything was amiss. If anything, it seemed like product managers just asked questions that other people had to answer.

Jessica P.: When you first reached out to me, I knew your name. Then I looked you up, and ended up reading your Wikipedia page and being intimidated.

There’s this amazing line in there, and because it’s Wikipedia, it’s written so straight…something to the effect of, he went to Asia, discovered that actually no one has enlightenment, so he came back to the US and became a rock star. And it was like, “Oh, wait. I can talk to this guy.” It was just so funny.

Greg E.: That made me more relatable?

Source: Tech Crunch

The FCC voted at its open meeting this week to adopt an anti-robocall measure, but it may or may not lead to any abatement of this maddening practice — and it might not be free, either. That said, it’s a start towards addressing a problem that’s far from simple and enormously irritating to consumers.

The last two years have seen the robocall problem grow and grow, and although there are steps you can take right now to improve things, they may not totally eliminate the issue or perhaps won’t be available on your plan or carrier.

Under fire for not acting quick enough in the face of a nationwide epidemic of scam calls, the FCC has taken action about as fast as a federal regulator can be expected to, and there are two main parts to its plan to fight robocalls, one of which was approved today at the Commission’s open meeting.

The first item was proposed formally last month by Chairman Ajit Pai, and although it amounts to little more than nudging carriers, it could be helpful.

Carriers have the ability to apply whatever tools they have to detect and block robocalls before they even reach users’ phones. But it’s possible, if unlikely, that a user may prefer not to have that service active. And carriers have complained that they are afraid blocking calls by default may in fact be prohibited by existing FCC regulations.

The FCC has said before that this is not the case and that carriers should go ahead and opt everyone into these blocking services (one can always opt out), but carriers have balked. The rulemaking approved today basically just makes it crystal clear that carriers are permitted, and indeed encouraged, to opt consumers into call-blocking schemes.

That’s good, but to be clear, Wednesday’s resolution does not require carriers to do anything, nor does it prohibit carriers from charging for such a service — as indeed Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon already do in some form or another. (TechCrunch is owned by Verizon Media, but this does not affect our coverage.)

Commissioner Starks noted in his approving statement that the FCC will be watching the implementation of this policy carefully for the possibility of abuse by carriers.

At my request, the item [i.e. his addition to the proposal] will give us critical feedback on how our tools are performing. It will now study the availability of call blocking solutions; the fees charged, if any, for these services; the effectiveness of various categories of call blocking tools; and an assessment of the number of subscribers availing themselves of available call blocking tools.

A second rule is still gestating, existing right now more or less only as a threat from the FCC should carriers fail to step up their game. The industry has put together a sort of universal caller ID system called STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited / Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), but has been slow to roll it out. Pai said late last year that if carriers didn’t put it in place by the end of 2019, the FCC would be forced to take regulatory action.

Why the Commission didn’t simply take regulatory action in the first place is a valid question, and one some Commissioners and others have asked. Be that as it may, the threat is there and seems to have spurred carriers to action. There have been tests, but as yet no carrier has rolled out a working anti-robocall system based on STIR/SHAKEN.

Pai has said regarding these systems that “we [i.e. the FCC] do not anticipate that there would be costs passed on to the consumer,” and it does seem unlikely that your carrier will opt you into a call-blocking scheme that costs you money. But never underestimate the underhandedness and avarice of a telecommunications company. I would not be surprised if new subscribers get this added as a line item or something; Watch your bills carefully.

Source: Tech Crunch

Alongside today’s news that Walmart will soon introduce in-home grocery delivery in select markets, the company today announced another new effort similarly aimed at saving customers’ time. But this time, the focus was on Sam’s Club members, and specifically addressed the long process involved with buying car tires. To address that challenge, the company is rolling out a new “Sam’s Garage” app across the U.S. in July that will turn what used to take half an hour into a 5-minute process, the company claims.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon recounted a fun anecdote about his tire-buying experience at a Sam’s Club, which prompted the creation of the new app.

“A few months ago, I ran over a nail and ruined a tire, so I went to Sam’s Club for help. It was a Saturday, and we were busy. At one point, I’m third in line with two members behind me. Our associates are working hard, but the process is time-consuming,” McMillon said. “As we’re all waiting there in the Bentonville club, I can tell that one of the members has recognized me. He doesn’t say anything – but he doesn’t have to. His facial expression says it all: ‘How does it feel to wait in line, dude? Surely you can do something about this,’” he recalled.

He later suggested to Sam’s Club CEO John Furner to re-evaluate the tire buying experience, and the new Sam’s Garage app is the result.

Typically, tire buying can be a longer process, and one that can even involve archaic systems like paper catalogs. The same was true at Sam’s Club, which McMillon said relied on “multiple systems, paper catalogs and a large desk” to service its tire buying customers.

Nine months after the CEO waited in line, there’s a new app for tire shopping aimed at helping Sam’s Club members. The app, Sam’s Garage, will run on mobile tablets and can do things like scan the customer’s membership card to pull up their associated vehicles. It then helps the Sam’s Club associate filter possible tire options based on their conversation with the customer about their tire needs.

For example, there are buttons to tap for things like “responsiveness,” “winter traction,” “wet road handling,” “offroad,” “ride comfort,” and more.

As they continue, more filters appear allowing the associate to narrow down the tire options based on other factors like in-store availability, special offers, brand, load index, speed rating, mileage warranty, and many more options. They can even do side-by-side comparisons of different factors.

They can then tap a button to get an estimate, email estimates or place an order.

“This is what it looks like to be a digital company. Sam’s Garage will be rolled out nationwide in July. From concept to design to rollout in fewer than nine months from that Saturday when I was buying tires,” McMillon said.

Source: Tech Crunch

Voatz, the four-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based voting and citizen engagement platform that has been at the center of debate over the merits and dangers of mobile voting, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Medici Ventures and Techstars, with participation from Urban Innovation Fund and Oakhouse Partners.

Voatz, which current employs 17 people, is modeled after other software-as-a-service companies but geared toward election jurisdictions, working with state and local governments to conduct elections and provide related election management and cybersecurity services.

As we’d reported back in March, the city of Denver agreed to implement a mobile voting pilot in its May municipal election using Voatz’s technology, an opportunity that was offered exclusively to active-duty military, their eligible dependents and overseas voters using their smartphones.

The company hasn’t yet shared how many people wound up using the platform. As Voatz cofounder and CEO Nimit Sawhney told us late yesterday, “Our most recent election in Denver CO finished last night on June 4th and the post election audit will be beginning shortly.”

Denver was not the company’s first pilot program. Rather, Voatz had conducted more than 30 pilots previously, including two in West Virginia last year that had attracted the financial backing of Tusk Philanthropies, the philanthropic operation of investor and strategist Bradley Tusk.

As for where Voatz will be used next, Sawhney says to “stay tuned. The next phase of our pilot programs will be announced by the relevant jurisdictions a bit later in the summer.”

Voatz has become the best-known mobile voting app, which has also made it the target of some unflattering attention, including last summer, when numerous security experts criticized it roundly in a Vanity Fair piece. One said it was “going to backfire.” Another warned that the “United States needs some form of vetting process for online voting in elections.” A software expert separately called Voatz an “horrifically bad idea.”

Apparently, investors, along with growing number of city and state governments, are still willing to bet that it’s better than what’s currently available.

Voatz had previously raised $2.2 million in funding led by the venture arm of Overstock.com.

Source: Tech Crunch

At its re:Mars conference, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage today to be “interviewed” by Jenny Freshwater, Amazon’s director of forecasting. As any AWS machine learning tool could have forecasted, having an employee interview her boss didn’t lead to any challenging questions or especially illuminating answers, but Bezos did get a chance to talk about a variety of topics, ranging from business advice to his plans for Blue Origin.

We can safely ignore the business advice, given that Amazon’s principle of “disagree and commit” is about as well known as it could be, but his comments about Blue Origin, his plans for moon exploration and its relationship to startups were quite interesting.

He noted that we now know so much more about the moon than ever before, including that it does provide a number of resources that make it a good base for further space exploration. “The reason we need to go to space is to save the Earth,” he said. “We are going to grow this civilization — and I’m talking about something that our grandchildren will work on — and their grandchildren. This isn’t something that this generation is able to accomplish. But we need to move heavy industry off Earth.”

Building up the infrastructure for this is obviously expensive, though. “Infrastructure is always expensive,” he said. “Amazon was easy to start in 1994 with a small amount of capital because the transportation system already existed.” Similarly, the payment system, in the form of credit cards, was already in place, as was the telecom network.

“You cannot start an interesting space company today from your dorm room. The price of admission is too high and the reason for that is that the infrastructure doesn’t exist,” Bezos noted. “So my mission with Blue Origin is to help build that infrastructure, that heavy lifting infrastructure that future generations will be able to stand on top of the same way I stood on top of the U.S. Postal Service and so on.”

The obvious follow-ups here would have been about how Amazon is now building its own logistics network and replacing the U.S. Postal Service with its own delivery services.

Once the Amazon space station opens, Bezos expects that the first deliveries will be of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. “It’s going to be a small selection but a very important one,” he joked.

Either way, though, it’s clear that Bezos does see Blue Origin as having a vital mission for the future of mankind. In that, he shares his passion with Elon Musk and other space entrepreneurs.

It’s worth noting that Amazon already offers satellite ground stations as a service and is looking to offer space-based internet access with Project Kuiper.

Bezos’s fireside chat was briefly interrupted by a protestor, who urged the billionaire to “save the animals.” As far as conference protests go, this one was pretty mild, though the fact that the protestor made it onto the stage probably means that Amazon will step up security at its next events and that somebody on the security team is going to have to disagree and commit.

Source: Tech Crunch

Thumbtack, one of the first players in what is now known as the gig economy, has hit the fundraising circuit once again.

The online services marketplace that matches customers with nearby professionals is raising up to $120 million in Series H shares, according to a Delaware stock authorization filing uncovered by the Prime Unicorn Index. Thumbtack did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At more than 10 years old, the business has previously raised nearly $300 million in a combination of debt and equity funding. The upcoming round comes at a flat valuation to its 2015 Series G funding of $125 million, which valued Thumbtack at $1.3 billion. Scottish asset manager Baillie Gifford led that round, which increased its valuation roughly 60 percent from $804 million, according to PitchBook.

Thumbtack’s funding history

June 2009: $650,000 Series A | $3.3M valuation

Jan. 2012: $4.4B Series C | $16.5M valuation

June 2013: $12.5M Series D | $46.5M valuation

May 2014: $30M Series E | $230M valuation

Aug. 2014: $100M Series F | $804M valuation

Sept. 2015: $125M Series G | $1.3B valuation

June 2019: ~$120M Series H | ~$1.3B valuation

Source: PitchBook

As Thumbtack has worked its way through the fundraising alphabet, the business has sought acquisition offers, TechCrunch has learned. Ahead of filing to raise another 9-digit round, we’ve heard Thumbtack was exploring M&A opportunities with a competing or complimentary companies.

Raising venture capital at a flat valuation is typically a sign a company’s investors are dubious of the business’s future prospects. It’s possible an acquisition deal fell through and Thumbtack, not yet prepared for an initial public offering, turned back to its investors for a necessary capital infusion.

Founded by Marco Zappacosta, whose parents were the founders of Logitech, Thumbtack helps professionals find work close by from home maintenance, to gardening, to DJing a party. The business is supported by investment firms such as CapitalG, Sequoia Capital and Draper Associates, as well as individual investors Scott Banister, Cyan Banister and Jason Calacanis, among others.

Here’s a full look at Thumbtack’s Delaware stock authorization:

Source: Tech Crunch