Tech

In this articleBAAIR-FRReliable Robots and Xwing are two Bay Area start-ups working on planes that can fly themselves — no pilot required. Rather than building new aircraft, both companies have retrofitted Cessna Grand Caravans. The planes can fly autonomously while a remote operator monitors the flight, taking control if needed.Both companies said they are working with major logistics companies to deliver cargo as a first use case once FAA approval happens.Xwing took CNBC up for a test flight where the pilot didn’t touch the controls once. Watch the video to see how the technology works and learn when self-flying planes could become the norm.

Marqeta Headquarters in Oakland, Calif.Yalonda M. James | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers via Getty ImagesMarqeta has become one of the hottest businesses in digital commerce, even though few consumers have ever heard of it.Its name is about to become much more familiar. On Friday, the company filed to go public and, in its prospectus to investors, disclosed annualized revenue growth in the first quarter of 123% to $108 million, while its net loss narrowed to $12.8 million from $14.5 million a year earlier.in 2020, annual revenue more than doubled to $290.3 million, and the company recorded a loss of $47.7 million.Founded in 2010 and based in Oakland, California, Marqeta sells payment technology that’s designed to detect potential fraud and ensure that money is properly routed. The company issues customized physical cards, which look like credit and debit cards, which contractors from DoorDash or Instacart use to make point-of-sale purchases from restaurants or supermarkets.Many of Marqeta’s top customers are coming off record years as the pandemic pushed commerce to mobile devices. In addition to meal-delivery companies, Marqeta powers Square’s debit card for small business owners and its popular Cash App for peer-to-peer payments. Affirm and Klarna, which provide small-dollar

Les Moonves, CEO, CBSMike Blake | ReutersFormer CBS CEO Les Moonves, who left the media company in 2018 amid sexual harassment and assault allegations, has dropped an attempt to recoup a $120 million severance award.The money, which has been held in a grantor trust, will revert back to the company, which is now ViacomCBS after the 2019 merger with Viacom. Both CBS and Viacom are controlled by Shari Redstone, who is chairman of ViacomCBS.”The disputes between Mr. Moonves and CBS have now been resolved, and on May 14, 2021, the parties dismissed the arbitration proceeding,” ViacomCBS said in a company filing released Friday.Moonves had filed arbitration in Jan. 2019 for the money after the CBS board of directors determined Moonves had violated company policies, and thus was fired for cause. The CBS board determined in Dec. 2018 Moonves breached his contract and intentionally didn’t cooperate with an internal investigation.”With regard to Mr. Moonves, we have determined that there are grounds to terminate for cause, including his willful and material misfeasance, violation of Company policies and breach of his employment contract, as well as his willful failure to cooperate fully with the Company’s investigation,” CBS’s board of directors said in a

In this articleGDRXGoodRx co-CEO Doug Hirsch expressed confidence Friday in the company’s outlook, telling CNBC recent acquisitions help expand its business offerings as it approaches a post-pandemic health-care landscape.A day earlier, GoodRx reported a 20% increase in first-quarter revenue, rising to $160.4 million from $133.4 million a year earlier. Net income came in at $1.7 million, down sharply from $27.3 million in net income in Q1 2020. However, the company — which offers prescription drug coupons to customers — said the most-recent figure was impacted by $46.5 million in stock-based compensation expenses.Shares of GoodRx were up around 10% Friday.”We’re transitioning from the Covid crisis into the other health-care crisis, which is that people simply just cannot afford their care,” Hirsch said in an interview on “The Exchange.” “We feel like our business is rock solid and just getting better,” he added.Two recent deals improve GoodRx’s position, Hirsch said. The first is RxSaver, which also offers users prescription coupons. Hirsch said that acquisition — reportedly for $50 million — brings in a “complementary business to ours.” It also provides marketing advantages, he said.The other acquisition was HealthiNation, which makes informational videos on health topics. The content is created by doctors and health-care

In this articleFBFacebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency Libra, how his company will handle false and misleading information by political leaders during the 2020 campaign and how it handles its users’ data and privacy.Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesDespite a policy banning anti-vaccine messaging on its platform, as of Friday afternoon, Facebook continued to host profile picture borders that allow users to promote their anti-vax opinions.After CNBC reached out for comment about one such frame claiming, “MY IMMUNE SYSTEM WORKS BETTER THAN THE” followed by a graphic of a syringe, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the image had violated its policies and was removed. However, CNBC was quickly able to find at least a dozen other examples of profile picture frames that touted similar messages or at least toed the line of Facebook’s policy.The spokesperson said Facebook is working to remove variations of the message from its frame options, which appear on top of users’ profile pictures. Hours after CNBC’s initial outreach, many of the frames are still available for

A woman fills gas cans at a Speedway gas station on May 12, 2021 in Benson, North Carolina. Most stations in the area along I-95 are without fuel following the Colonial Pipeline hack.Sean Rayford | Getty ImagesThe Colonial Pipeline hack was not the first domino to fall in a world-ending spate of sudden attacks on America’s critical infrastructure, according to several cybersecurity experts who spoke to CNBC. It was more likely the product of sloppy internal security practices and a textbook hack-and-pay gone wrong. The FBI says that DarkSide, a group relatively new to the ransomware scene, is behind the attack. Signs point to this being a case of a bungled extortion plot, rather than the coordinated work of hackers intent on compromising America’s energy grid. Whatever the motivation, the impact was real.The federal government issued an emergency declaration for 17 states and D.C. after the country’s largest fuel pipeline went down. Gasoline price hikes and shortages were reported across the U.S., though the supply crunch is likely more to do with panic buyers heading to the pump, rather than the attack itself. Colonial paid nearly $5 million as a ransom to unlock its systems. While the episode has laid bare how vulnerable America’s critical infrastructure

People wear protective face masks outside Salesforce Tower in New York City.Noam Galai | Getty ImagesCloudera exited its downtown San Francisco office early last year with plans to sublease the space and move its employees south to the software company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.But the pandemic left the company with nobody to take over the office, forcing it to take a substantial real estate write down.At DoorDash’s nearby former headquarters, a tenant defaulted on rent a month into lockdown, resulting in lost income for the food delivery company, which was doubling as a landlord.Airbnb said in its earnings report on Thursday that it took a $113 million impairment in the first quarter “related to office space in San Francisco that we deemed no longer necessary.”Combined, those three companies have recorded nearly $200 million in real estate impairments in the past year after Covid-19 turned the Bay Area office market into a dead zone. That dollar figure swells to almost $1 billion when adding in lease-related write downs from large tech employers Salesforce, Dropbox, Uber, PayPal, and Zendesk.While software and internet companies continued their stratospheric ascent in 2020, the plush offices they call home sat dormant, leaving San Francisco’s commercial real estate

In this articleINTCArizona has rapidly become an epicenter for electric vehicle and self-driving tech, and it’s now the site of three big new semiconductor factories as the U.S. struggles to increase production during the global chip shortage. The Arizona Commerce Authority says it helped 634 companies relocate or expand in Arizona between 2015 and 2020. Big names include Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and electric vehicle companies Lucid Motors, ElectraMeccanica, Nikola and Atlis Motor Vehicles.In 2020, Phoenix attracted more residents than any other U.S. city for the fourth year in a row, as highly skilled remote workers flocked to the lower cost of living and wide open spaces of the Grand Canyon State. Watch the video to hear from Gov. Doug Ducey, big companies, and Arizonans about why the tech boom is happening and how it’s changing the state.

In this articleAMZNGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai testifies during a remote video hearing held by subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on “Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation” in Washington, March 25, 2021.U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee | Handout | via ReutersGoogle is leading an effort to maintain work authorization for tens of thousands of people whose spouses hold H-1B visas, the high-skilled visa that’s common in the tech industry.Companies across the tech industry, which has been historically vocal in fighting for increased immigration rights, submitted an amicus brief Friday in a case known as Save Jobs USA v. Department of Homeland Security. A Washington district court is considering the plaintiff’s challenge to a DHS rule that allows so-called H-4 visa holders to work legally while their spouses on H-1B visas await green cards.Google, which organized the effort, and more than two dozen signatories said in the filing that invalidating the rule that allows some H-4 visa-holders to work “would result in these talented individuals being barred from the workplace, forcibly severing tens of thousands of employment relationships across the country.” They wrote that 90,000 H-4 visa-holders would be impacted, 90%