Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.
- Airbnb has raised $1 billion in debt and equity from Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners, the company announced Monday. Airbnb has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which has all but halted travel globally, and was reportedly losing money even before the outbreak.
- Renters and deposit insurance startup Jetty laid off roughly 35 employees on Friday, or 40% of total staff. The cuts come days after Jetty, and its reinsurer Munich Re, paused the sales of new policies as the coronavirus creates underwriting challenges.
- SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son predicts that 15 of the companies that the SoftBank Vision Fund has backed will go bankrupt. In an interview with Forbes, Son said that the fund has become more careful with cash installments after investing over $10 billion in WeWork that seems unlikely to pay off.
- SoftBank-backed travel marketplace GetYourGuide told Business Insider that it has reduced employee working hours and that its founders have committed to 50% pay cuts so the firm can survive the coronavirus downturn. The company says it has enough cash to last up to two years.
- YouTube will block videos on its platform that groundlessly link 5G technology to the spread of COVID-19. Conspiracy theorists have connected the emerging mobile technology to the pandemic, with people in the UK reportedly setting mobile phone masts alight.
- Microsoft extended its work-from-home guidance to employees in the US and asked that they work remotely "until further notice." The company had previously asked employees in the Seattle and San Francisco Bay areas to work remotely through April 7.
- The coronavirus has stalled Google's 'choice screen' on Android phones, which lets people pick a rival default search engine. Rival search engine providers, including privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo, say they haven't seen any benefit from the new screen thanks to tanking phone sales.
- Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island are planning to go on strike on Monday, walking off the job for the second time in two weeks. It's a defiant move given Amazon fired an employee who organized a protest at its Staten Island warehouse last week.
- The DoJ is scrutinizing Google's $2.1 billion Fitbit acquisition because of how much personal information it will get. The New York Post reports that the deal has been put under a second request review, asking both companies to provide more documents for the DoJ to sift through - and giving more time to the investigation.
- Apple is reportedly in the process of acquiring virtual-reality video-streaming service NextVR for $100 million. According to 9to5mac, NextVR is a VR streaming service provider that aimed to revolutionize the way we watch sports and entertainment.
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