Fusion
Senior editor and co-executive producer at Fusion, the ABC-Univision joint venture; San Francisco-based former business and technology reporter for New York magazine and its Daily Intelligencer blog; former Wall Street reporter for the New York Times; author of Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits
Snapchat Branches Out Turning to a different Silicon Valley story, Snapchat is seeking another round of funding from venture capital firms. The company is reportedly valued at $19 billion: a lot of money for an app that’s ephemeral, literally. Snapchat lets you share pictures and short videos that disappear once they’re watched. Now, however, it’s trying to extend its impact by branching out into news and other media content.
Who Hacked Sony? Sony Pictures is still reeling from an attack by hackers last week. The damage so far: five new or upcoming movies have been leaked to torrent sites, along with a trove of information about the company and its employees, including the salaries of top Sony executives. Was it the North Koreans, angry about Sony’s upcoming release of “The Interview,” a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, which takes aim at North Korea’s leader? Was it an inside job? We speak to a journalist who’s been following the leaks that came out of the attack.
Alidaba: The Biggest Company You've Never Heard Of There’s a tech company that did more business last year than Amazon and eBay combined. You’ve probably never heard of it, but chances are you will soon. Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, is about to go public in the United States, and it could be the biggest tech IPO of the year. It could even generate more than the $16 billion that Facebook raised from investors when it went public in 2012.
Young Money Even after Wall Street exploded in 2008, young people continued to join the ranks of firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase. Their experiences, from the debauched parties to 100-hour workweeks, are the subject of Kevin Roose’s new book, Young Money : Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits.
How Much Are 140 Characters Really Worth? Shares in Twitter were initially priced at $26 during yesterday's stock-market launch. They immediately jumped by 73% to $45 and today they're down in the low $40's — with market capitalization of about $25 billion. That's bigger than half the firms in Standard & Poor's 500 — even though the digital social network has never turned a profit. So where does the value come from for shareholders, for users and for a culture that lives in the present and has an ever-declining attention span? Advertising will be Twitter's means to make money. Could it make even more, with a board including minorities and women?
JP Morgan Chase: A Record Penalty or a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card? What does it take to get America's biggest bank to agree to what looks like the biggest civil penalty in American history? Four hours before the Justice Department was planning to announce civil charges against JP Morgan Chase, the CEO Jamie Dimon called an aide to Attorney General Eric Holder. After five direct phone calls and a personal meeting, Dimon and Holder worked out a deal. America's biggest bank agreed to the biggest civil penalty in American history for its role in the Great Recession: $13 billion. But critics say it's not what it seems. Pension funds, retirees with 401(k)'s and even bank shareholders may not see a penny. The government still has the option of criminal prosecution, but will the real masters of Wall Street fraud ever be held accountable?
Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Most people have never heard of biotcoins , but the virtual currency is the latest rage of the financial media. Kevin Roose, who writes on business for New York magazine, admits he should have known better. He succumbed to the urge to buy a bitcoin — on a red phone at a CVS Pharmacy. We explains how he did it and what he got when he sold it.
JP Morgan Loses $2 Billion Since the financial crisis began, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase has been called "The King of Wall Street." But yesterday, Jamie Dimon made a public mea culpa over the unexpected loss of more than $2 billion, which he called an "egregious" mistake. Kevin Roose reports about Wall Street for the New York Times .
Why is the U.S. so tied to Saudi Arabia? Reports of Jamal Khashoggi’s torture inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul are disturbing, but the Trump administration is still siding with the Saudis. We talk about how Saudi Arabia became so important to the U.S.
Immigrant in LA recreates Persian recipes of her youth When Naz Deravian was 8 years old, she and her family fled their home in Iran as the 1979 revolution threw their country into chaos. She spent most of her childhood in Canada. As an adult, she lived in LA, and yearned for her mother’s Persian home cooking. She turned her food -- and the memories it evoked -- into an award-winning food blog and new cookbook.
First Man Here’s the radical notion behind Damien Chazelle’s “First Man”: Tell the story of mankind’s boldest adventure thus far, the Apollo 11 mission that reached the moon nearly a half-century ago, but tell it through a taciturn, emotionally closed-off hero, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the lunar surface.
Netflix gets into the billboard business There’s renewed competition for your attention on the Sunset Strip, where entertainment companies go to show off their latest shows and biggest stars. The strip’s huge billboards are seen by millions of tourists each year – and soon, that prime real estate is going to be harder to come by. The reason? Netflix.
