Re/code Daily - Yes, They're Still Making New Unicorns - Dec 22, 2015

Read Now  • In April, Gusto (then known as ZenPayroll) raised a $60 million round led by Google Capital. Less than nine months later, the recently christened Gusto has closed another $50 million in funding from existing investors, and the company says it's now worth a billion dollars. [William Alden | BuzzFeed News] • On Friday, the network technology company Juniper Networks disclosed that two secret backdoors were built into the company's firewall. Researchers say that hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities likely created by the NSA. The scandal has prompted major tech companies like Cisco to reexamine their own code for such backdoors, a move that experts say is long overdue. [Kim Zetter | Wired] • Former Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie has sold another company to Microsoft. This time, it's his voice-messaging company, Talko. The deal is a straight-up "acquhire," as Talko didn't have much traction, and Skype (the unit that bought Talko) said that it will shut the service down. [Peter Kafka | Re/code] • Six months ago, SpaceX's last rocket blew up in the sky. Yesterday, the company not only launched a new rocket without incident, but also managed to land it back on the ground. The goal of shooting something into space and landing it? Drastically reducing the cost of commercial space travel. [Kenneth Chang | The New York Times] • Ericsson and Apple have resolved their long-running patent dispute, reaching an agreement that's making investors very happy about Ericsson; the company's stock rose almost 6 percent, its biggest single-day gain in almost a year and a half. [Sven Nordenstam and Olof Swahnberg | Reuters]  Top Stories from Re/code  Social Facebook ‘Accidentally’ Asks U.S. Users to Support Free Basics in India By Kurt Wagner Oops. Culture Report: Venture Capital Is a Big Reason Tech IPOs Slowed in 2015, and It’ll Likely Stay That Way By Noah Kulwin Why take public money when you can take private money? Social Apple Live Photos Now Work on Facebook, Which Gives Facebook More Videos By Kurt Wagner Facebook now supports one of Apple's new photo features. Commerce Alibaba Hires Ex-Apple, Pfizer Executive to Tackle Big Countfeit Problem By Jason Del Rey Matthew Bassiur is Alibaba's new head of global intellectual property enforcement. Mobile Kik Messenger Buys Fashion App Blynk to Build More Chat Bots By Kurt Wagner All chat apps want you talking to a computer. Commerce Jet.com Misses Last-Minute Christmas Sales and Shows Downside of Its Model By Jason Del Rey The e-commerce startup began notifying customers 10 days before Christmas that it could not guarantee delivery by the holiday. Mobile Is Your Messaging App Encrypted? By Kurt Wagner Most companies could still read your messages if needed.  This Is Cool  BoneGate? BoneGhazi? Inside the Best (Worst) Tumblr Meme Crisis of 2015 A woman who identifies as a witch posted in a closed Facebook group about visiting a cemetery and stealing some bones to be used in spellcraft, and it blew up on Tumblr. This really happened, and it was vicious. There were memes made about it. Digg sums it up smartly and tidily. Read more Re/code Daily here! Your friends can also receive Re/code Daily! They can sign-up for FREE here. For Reprints and Permissions, click here. |  News  |  Podcasts  |  Events  | Follow Us: You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Re/code Daily. If you would like to unsubscribe, click here. Mailing Address: Re/code – PO Box 1830, Morgan Hill, CA 95038 Copyright © 2015 Vox Media, Inc.

 

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