Snap Inc. files for its +$25 billion IPO, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quits Trump’s advisory council and the tech industry reacts to Trump’s immigration ban. These are the biggest tech stories of the week.
1. Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, officially filed publicly for its massive IPO. It will be listed on the NYSE as SNAP. While this is just another small step in the process of going public, the world finally got a look at the financial inner-workings of the company that is expected to go public at a valuation of more than $25 billion in March. What we know so far is this; Snap reportedly hit 160M daily users (but slowed user growth) and $400 million in revenue in 2016. Snapchat was flying high in early 2016, but growth slowed 82% after the launch of Instagram’s Stories feature clone. Snapchat paid $114.5 million to acquire mobile search engine Vurb , acquired animated lens product Looksery for around $150 million, and shelled out $64.2 million for Bitstrips, the creators of Bitmoji. Word is that Snap will also expand distribution of its Spectacles hardware product in 2017.
2. President Trump signed an executive order that temporarily halted the admission of refugees and stopped citizens of several Muslim countries from entering the U. S. Tech companies spoke out in opposition to Trump’s order by donating to the ACLU, protesting and recalling employees from abroad. Google pledged $4 million to support U. S. immigration organizations, and employees at many of its offices rallied in protest. A number of tech executives matched ACLU donations as well. Mark Zuckerberg released a statement defending immigrants threatened by Trump. “We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually post a threat,” he wrote. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky tweeted that Airbnb is providing free housing to people stranded by the immigration order.
