Last Friday marked our 5th annual Hustle Con, and as always, it was absolute insanity in the best way possible.
We got to meet over 2k of you in the flesh and have our minds melted by story after story of entrepreneurs wading through the good, the bad, and the ugly of building a successful business.
It was also the culmination of months of hard work for our events team (Kera and Grace), and a fantastic reason to get our whole crew under one roof. Needless to say, we feel like Santa the day after Christmas (tired, jolly, and full cookies).
But, we know you need your news fix, so we’ve got a weekend roundup that’ll go down smoother than a glass of milk down a chimney.
So, to all of you who came out to hang with us in the Paramount Theatre, thank you — you make every year better than the last. And, to those who couldn’t make it, see you next Hustle Con.
— The Hustle Crew
Fighting the ’Gram for creators, YouTube debuts ways to pay for vids
To steal creators back from Instagram — which rolled out a long video platform called IGTV last week to poach producers — YouTube is rolling out new tools for video-makers to charge monthly subscription fees for access to their content and sell merch directly.
Michigan researchers created a computer smaller than a grain of rice
After IBM claimed to have the world’s smallest computer recently, researchers at the University of Michigan said “hold-my-beer” — and designed a computer 1/10th the size of IBM’s. At 0.04 cubic mm, a fraction of the width of a grain of rice, it can measure small groups of cells.
Blue Origin to start selling private space flights in 2019
Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff: All you space cowboys and cowgirls will be able to buy a suborbital space flight (aboard one of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rockets) starting in 2019. If you’re willing to wait, catch a ride with Elon — who plans to send tourists around the moon by 2022.
$2.5B wildfire cost starts a financial fire at PG&E
After being faulted for equipment causing 16 California wildfires, PG&E is feeling the heat — the company’s stock dropped 40% and they stopped issuing dividends. PG&E will take a $2.5B charge against potential damages, but the company says they won’t be able to pay for future fires unless liability law changes.
Jay-Z’s latest surprise release? A Silicon Valley VC company
The hip-hop-preneur partnered with venture-veteran Larry Marcus to launch a VC shop called Marcy Venture Partners. Despite Jay-Z’s business successes at Def Jam, Roc Nation, and Puma, his previous VC biz Sherpa Capital never got off the ground.
After 3 years and a lawsuit, Apple admits its MacBook mistake
After “reinventing” its laptop keyboard in 2015, Apple received thousands of complaints (and a class-action lawsuit) from customers with stuck keys — but denied a design problem and saddled owners with repair fees. Now, 3 years later, the company is finally offering a free repair program.
Stay smart about smart homes, warns a disturbing new study
A report from the NYT shows smart appliances (locks, doors, cameras, and thermostats) can be used by domestic abusers to control victims remotely. In 2017, 29m homes were “smart” — making it more important than ever for all partners to have access to smart home technology.
9k barrels of bourbon crashed in a Kentucky warehouse
Barton 1792 Distillery is in crisis after one of its Kentucky warehouses collapsed, containing 20k barrels of bourbon. About half of the barrels (9k), each containing 53 gallons of brown gold, tumbled into the wreckage — so much that the EPA worried it might seep into the groundwater.
Reddit launches a more traditional ‘front page’: Reddit News
Internet aggregator Reddit is testing a “News” tab to make it easier for users to find “newsworthy” stories in one place. The page will pull top posts by news publications across various news-related subreddits (after catching up on current events, we recommend r/eyebleach).
Scooters in Paris: Lime hits the City of Love
Lime made a big jump across the pond on Friday, introducing its electric scooters in Paris. Last week, Lime also debuted in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Zurich, but according to Lime’s France director, Paris is their first “big-scale deployment in Europe,” so this is une grosse affaire.