Latest news with #Sequoia-backed
Business Insider
27-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
The CEO of $6 billion payments company Airwallex says he made 3 mistakes in the early days of the company
The CEO of Tencent and Sequoia-backed payments startup Airwallex said that if he had to start over, there are three things he would do differently. Jack Zhang said his mistakes include not outsourcing to a good recruiter in the early days, expanding overseas too quickly, and not prioritizing company culture. The Airwallex cofounder and CEO spoke on an episode of the "20VC" podcast aired on Monday. "I hired the first 100 people in Airwallex by myself on LinkedIn," Zhang said of his first mistake. "Obviously, there's a lot of benefit of doing that, but I could have hired a good recruiter just to help me to do the outreach and then give them access to my LinkedIn password." Zhang cofounded Airwallex with four friends in Melbourne in 2015. The Singapore-based fintech company provides cross-border payments and financial services through its banking network and protocols that allow different software components to communicate with each other. Last week, the company announced that it raised $300 million in a series F funding round at a valuation of $6.2 billion. Zhang said that his second mistake was that Airwallex overinvested in international expansion without having a product-market fit. He said the company got lucky, but doing this carried a lot of risk. The CEO said the last thing he would change would be investing in company culture early. "In the early first four, five years, we hired a lot of people with a lot of great experience — they're from a bank, they're from Citibank, they've built a Swift network before," he said. "They join, they're telling you, 'you guys know nothing, what you're going to do doesn't work.' None of those people worked." He said that experience matters less than other characteristics. "We should just have hired those curious, determined, optimistic people from early on," Zhang said. "But we didn't, so we had to fire all of them," he added, speaking of his challenging early hires. Zhang is among tech CEOs who have looked back on their companies' early days and said they waited too long before delegating. Earlier this month, Luis von Ahn, the cofounder and CEO of language-learning app Duolingo, said that he micromanaged 50 employees in the early days of the company. He said he only learned to spread the responsibility once it became "impossible" to manage that many people. "At this point, I also have learned that most of my job is culture carrier, mascot, and just making some of the kind of tough philosophical decisions," von Ahn said in a talk at Stanford University. "Two of my executive team are sitting here — head of people and head of finance. I am neither good at those things nor do I get energy from them, so they have all the freedom in the world," he said. Microsoft's former CEO, Bill Gates, is also outspoken about delegation and how he learned that he could not be involved with every project or team member as the company grew. "I had always been the taskmaster, the one who incessantly worried about losing our lead, and fearing that if we weren't careful, we'd be sunk," Gates wrote in his memoir.
Mint
02-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Mint Primer: Why Sebi wants investors to skip opinion trading
This week, the markets regulator issued a note advising investors to stay away from 'opinion trading' platforms, warning that it does not regulate these entities. Why is the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) unhappy about opinion trading? Mint explains. Also Read | Mint Primer: US GDP contracts 0.3% in Q1—why the IMF still sees no recession Sebi told investors that 'opinion trading' platforms use the terminology and structures taken from regulated markets, including terms such as 'profits', 'stop loss', and 'trading'. These phrases make opinion trading platforms seem like they are similar to regular trading platforms allowing trade in stocks, bonds, and other financial securities. However, Sebi warned, an opinion or a Yes/No prediction to a question is not considered a financial security and cannot be legally traded like a stock. Sebi does not regulate these platforms and they operate in a legal grey area. In short: 'opinion traders' are on their own. Also Read | Mint Primer: What IT companies' Q4 show means for investors Opinion (or event) trading apps allow users to place bids on the outcome of an event, such as the outcome of a cricket match, the value of assets such as Bitcoin. Globally, 'prediction markets' consider the answer to the question as a 'contract', much like a futures or an options contract. However, India's securities law does not recognise outcomes of events such as cricket matches as a valid contract. Therefore apps like Nandan Nilekani-backed Probo and Sequoia-backed MPL Opinio are not regulated by Sebi. With no specific laws, they are largely considered to be a subset of real money gaming. Also Read | Clicks & growls: Why AI's hearing the call of the wild Yes, in the US. Kalshi is an opinion trading platform that is regulated by the US's Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is legal for all US residents. However, other global firms such as Polymarket are illegal in the country. An older venture named iPredict ran in New Zealand between 2008 and 2016, but shut down following legal challenges. Opinion trading is neither legal nor illegal. But trading apps are making a case to recognise it as skill-based gaming, and not betting. Last week, two papers made this argument; the first was written by a professor from IIT Delhi and commissioned by trading firm Probo, and another by law firm Evam Law and Policy. They used mathematical evidence to show that successfully taking positions on the outcome of events—such as a cricket match—is determined by a user's skills and knowledge, and not by chance. If they can prove it, they could be recognised as real-money skill-based games, much like fantasy cricket or online poker. But that may not resolve their regulatory problems. Last year, India imposed a 28% GST on real money gaming apps. This is applicable on their prize pool (the total amount users spend) and not on the companies' revenue. Taxation has hurt many real-money gaming companies. But Y-Combinator backed opinion trading app Better Opinions pivoted to real-money gaming after the new taxation kicked in.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app
Instagram Threads, Meta's newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website to The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying posts for resharing, finding your favorite creators from X on Threads, and more. Meta had initially launched its new social app in July 2023 on the URL as a Sequoia-backed Slack alternative startup had owned the domain at the time. (That startup sold to Shopify last year.) In September 2024, Meta acquired the domain name and later began redirecting the URL to Starting today, Meta explains that users will no longer be redirected from the .com to the .net; it will be the other way around. Going forward, if you type in in your browser, you'll go directly to your Threads home screen without being redirected. Meanwhile, those who type in will be redirected to the URL The change gives Meta a more prominent and better-remembered URL for its social app that now reaches over 320 million monthly active users, as of Meta's last public earnings announcement in January. The rebrand of sorts may allow the app to better compete with its rival X, which also has a memorable (and simple!) domain name. In addition to this change, Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Thursday announced a few other minor updates coming to the Threads web app, which is often used by creators. He said users will now see their custom feeds appear in the web app in the same order as they appear on the mobile app. Plus, users will now be able to access their liked and saved posts via the main menu instead of having to create a pinned column to see them. Another new addition allows users to copy a Threads post as an image instead of having to screenshot it. This will make it easier to share Threads posts in other apps, like Instagram, Meta thinks. Threads users will also now be able to add a column by clicking a new column icon on the right side of the screen. And they'll be able to click a plus "+" button in the bottom right to open a new window and compose a post. There's also a new feature that allows people to find and follow the same creators they previously followed on X. This feature was introduced earlier this month and works by having users download an archive of their X data, which is uploaded to Threads. Those who previously had access to the feature were shown a pop-up saying they could now "Find popular creators from X." The feature remains in testing, Meta says. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app
Instagram Threads, Meta's newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website to The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying posts for resharing, finding your favorite creators from X on Threads, and more. Meta had initially launched its new social app in July 2023 on the URL as a Sequoia-backed Slack alternative startup had owned the domain at the time. (That startup sold to Shopify last year.) In September 2024, Meta acquired the domain name and later began redirecting the URL to Starting today, Meta explains that users will no longer be redirected from the .com to the .net; it will be the other way around. Going forward, if you type in in your browser, you'll go directly to your Threads home screen without being redirected. Meanwhile, those who type in will be redirected to the URL The change gives Meta a more prominent and better-remembered URL for its social app that now reaches over 320 million monthly active users, as of Meta's last public earnings announcement in January. The rebrand of sorts may allow the app to better compete with its rival X, which also has a memorable (and simple!) domain name. In addition to this change, Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Thursday announced a few other minor updates coming to the Threads web app, which is often used by creators. He said users will now see their custom feeds appear in the web app in the same order as they appear on the mobile app. Plus, users will now be able to access their liked and saved posts via the main menu instead of having to create a pinned column to see them. Another new addition allows users to copy a Threads post as an image instead of having to screenshot it. This will make it easier to share Threads posts in other apps, like Instagram, Meta thinks. Threads users will also now be able to add a column by clicking a new column icon on the right side of the screen. And they'll be able to click a plus "+" button in the bottom-right to open a new window and compose a post. There's also a new feature that allows people to find and follow the same creators they previously followed on X. This feature was introduced earlier this month and works by having users download an archive of their X data, which is uploaded to Threads. Those who previously had access to the feature were shown a pop-up saying they could now "Find popular creators from X." The feature remains in testing, Meta says. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app
Instagram Threads, Meta's newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website to The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying posts for resharing, finding your favorite creators from X on Threads, and more. Meta had initially launched its new social app in July 2023 on the URL as a Sequoia-backed Slack alternative startup had owned the domain at the time. (That startup sold to Shopify last year.) In September 2024, Meta acquired the domain name and later began redirecting the URL to Starting today, Meta explains that users will no longer be redirected from the .com to the .net; it will be the other way around. Going forward, if you type in in your browser, you'll go directly to your Threads home screen without being redirected. Meanwhile, those who type in will be redirected to the URL The change gives Meta a more prominent and better-remembered URL for its social app that now reaches over 320 million monthly active users, as of Meta's last public earnings announcement in January. The rebrand of sorts may allow the app to better compete with its rival X, which also has a memorable (and simple!) domain name. In addition to this change, Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Thursday announced a few other minor updates coming to the Threads web app, which is often used by creators. He said users will now see their custom feeds appear in the web app in the same order as they appear on the mobile app. Plus, users will now be able to access their liked and saved posts via the main menu instead of having to create a pinned column to see them. Another new addition allows users to copy a Threads post as an image instead of having to screenshot it. This will make it easier to share Threads posts in other apps, like Instagram, Meta thinks. Threads users will also now be able to add a column by clicking a new column icon on the right side of the screen. And they'll be able to click a plus "+" button in the bottom-right to open a new window and compose a post. There's also a new feature that allows people to find and follow the same creators they previously followed on X. This feature was introduced earlier this month and works by having users download an archive of their X data, which is uploaded to Threads. Those who previously had access to the feature were shown a pop-up saying they could now "Find popular creators from X." The feature remains in testing, Meta says.
