Silicon Valley revs up for a ‘hot startup’ summer

PLUS: The latest stories on how we move, work, and live. View this email in your browser  |   Manage newsletter subscriptions 04.12.21 Predicting startup success can be like forecasting the weather. It's hard to know, months in advance, whether it'll be rain or shine. But every now and then, a weather event pops up—a hurricane, a flood—that leaves a torrent of destruction in its wake. The startup world just had one of those storms. It lasted almost a year, and not every company survived. But now? Venture capitalists are preparing for the "Roaring '20s for consumer spending." The storm has lifted, and the hot startup summer is ahead. "There are huge markets to seize right now," says Kim-Mai Cutler, a partner at Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture firm. Some of those markets experienced growth during the pandemic, like grocery delivery. Others—travel, entertainment, fashion—have been dormant in the last year, but are well-positioned for the months ahead. Like many Americans, VCs are getting ready to let loose this summer. Things could get wild. Arielle Pardes | Senior Writer, WIRED   Silicon Valley Revs Up for a 'Hot Startup' Summer "Now is the time to start stepping on the gas," as one prominent VC firm put it to founders. Signal Adds Payments—With a Privacy-Focused Cryptocurrency The encrypted messaging app is integrating support for MobileCoin in a bid to keep up with the features offered by its more mainstream rivals. What Really Caused Facebook's 500M-User Data Leak? The company's explanations have been confusing and inconsistent, but there are finally some answers. Biden Announces His Broadband Plan—and ISPs Will Hate It The $100 billion proposal will probably be met with fierce resistance by telecom companies, but there's a lot to like for internet users. How to Log In to Your Devices Without Passwords You can use your face, fingerprint, or a wearable to get access to your gadgets. It saves you some typing—and makes you feel like a spy. The Foundations of AI Are Riddled With Errors The labels attached to images used to train machine-vision systems are often wrong. That could mean bad decisions by self-driving cars and medical algorithms. Oh Look, LinkedIn Also Has a 500M User Data Leak Plus: A bad Zoom bug, a billion-dollar cocaine bust, and more of the week's top security news. Hackers Hosed by Google Were a Counterterrorism Operation Plus: Fox News gets sued for its election coverage (again), a record ransomware attack, and more of the week's top security news. Social Media CEOs Can't Defend Their Business Model Everyone knows Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube make money by keeping users engaged. Why won't their executives admit it to Congress? GET WIRED Save 66% on your subscription to WIRED. Get 1 year of WIRED for less than $1 per month, plus, get a free tote! You can't see into the future, but you can subscribe to WIRED. Subscribe now.             This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions   Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.