10 Things In Tech You Need To Know This Morning
1. Uber is reportedly looking to raise more funding, this time at a whopping $10 billion valuation. Most people seem to think this is a smart deal for whoever is in it. Uber is seen (from the outside, at least) as a can't miss company right now.
2. Pinterest is raising $200 million, this time at a $5 billion valuation. It's the same story with Pinterest, everyone loves this company.As an aside, weren't we just reading about how startups need to be careful raising at big valuations? And wasn't there gossip that investors were warning startups that the good times were going to crash after we saw tech stocks like Twitter have hiccups?
3. Steve Ballmer did a Q&A with the Wall Street Journal. He sounds like he's pretty happy. He's working on getting down to a single digit handicap in golf, he has interest in buying the Los Angeles Clippers, and he's thrilled to see Microsoft thriving.
6. Rackspace, the data center hosting company, has hired bankers to explore strategic options (like a sale). The stock popped 9% on the news.
7. Google's Glass division is changing a bit. Ivy Ross, a marketing exec is now leading it. And the top engineer on Glass has left to work at Oculus. Glass was hot a year ago, but is now seen as a dud. We'll see if Google can turn it around.
8. Carl Icahn is a serious believer in Apple. He bought 2.8 million more shares, raising his total to ~$4.5 billion in the company.
9. Foursquare released Swarm, its new check-in only app.
10. Amazon has a giant orange box right in the middle of San Francisco. It's a locker that's big enough to hold a car. Apparently, it's planning on filming people using it, and it will be giving out promotional codes so that people who unlock it can get stuff that's inside.