Ryan Mark | Vox

How the tech unicorns of 2019 are doing on the stock market

2019-09-26T13:26:58-04:00

After years of only sporadic tech IPOs, the spigot has opened. 2019 will likely be a banner year for multibillion dollar companies hitting public markets.

Tech companies have stayed private longer than they have in the past, and they’re worth more than ever. As of mid June, the US has 177 active tech unicorns — the term for startups valued at more than a billion dollars — according to financial data software company PitchBook. A decade ago, there were only nine. Additionally, tech companies like Uber, WeWork, and Airbnb have become household names — meaning people outside the tech community are more likely to invest in them, and by extension have more to lose if these unproven companies fail.

Failure is a distinct possibility. Some 84 percent of US tech companies that went public last year did so without turning a profit. The last time unprofitable tech companies went public at this rate was in 2000, the year the dot-com bubble burst. In 2019, these companies are riding high on venture capital money and investors’ hunger for growth above all else.

Even more concerning, these companies are going public at a time when economists are predicting a new recession may hit within the next couple of years. An economic slump isn’t good for anyone, especially newly public companies like Uber and Lyft with lots of debt. This new crop of IPOs in 2019 will be canaries in the coal mine for the economic prospects of other technology companies, as well as the economy at large — which is increasingly dominated by tech.

To help keep an eye on things, we’ve built an IPO tracker that will update stock prices every few minutes. So far, we’re tracking Lyft, Zoom, Pinterest, Uber, Fiverr, Slack, and Peloton, which are listed in order of IPO date. In the coming year or so, we can also expect WeWork and Airbnb to go public. This tool is meant to give you a quick visual perspective on how these tech companies are performing in the stock market compared to their debut prices (what the companies first traded at on the public market).

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Of the public stocks on our tracker, only Zoom is making a profit. The other companies, like most tech companies going public lately, are in the red. As of publication, Lyft is trading below its debut price while Uber is slightly above its debut price. We’ve also listed the offer price for each stock — the usually less expensive price at which large-scale investors get to purchase the stock before it begins trading.

We’ll update our tracker as other tech companies go public throughout the year.

Recode and Vox have joined forces to uncover and explain how our digital world is changing — and changing us. Subscribe to Recode podcasts to hear Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka lead the tough conversations the technology industry needs today.

A visual guide to the key events in the Trump-Russia scandal

2018-01-08T12:17:48-05:00

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI. It’s the biggest development yet in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

Flynn admits to lying about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions and about a United Nations vote when interviewed by the FBI earlier this year. He’s expected in court at 10:30 am on Friday.

But getting to this point took a long time, and trying to follow the Trump-Russia scandal can feel intimidating, if not impossible. The key events take place over the course of about an entire year, and include dozens of different players and secret meetings. Figuring out which dates and events are genuinely important, and which are likely to be red herrings, can be a struggle.

What follows is a timeline that pares down the saga to its most vital moments and explains how each one fits into the fundamental question looming over them all: whether team Trump colluded with Moscow to swing the 2016 election.

Hurricane Irma: where the storm is and where it’s heading

2018-09-11T08:42:06-04:00

Close on the heels of Harvey, Hurricane Irma tore through the Caribbean on its way to Florida. After making landfall in the Florida Keys Sunday morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast the storm will continue into the southeast US.

The hurricane has weakened to a tropical storm, but is still a dangerous event that will bring record coastal flooding, high winds, and many inches of rain to Florida and then Georgia and the Carolinas.

This map below charts the course the storm has taken so far and shows NOAA’s National Hurricane Center’s best available forecast for where it’s heading. The map will update automatically when new forecasts are published.

But also know: Wind speed is just one factor that makes a hurricane dangerous. Much of South Florida is at risk for coastal flooding (which is usually the deadliest aspect of a hurricane). Five to 10 feet of storm surge is expected along the coast. Check out NOAA’s storm surge estimation tool to see where the risk is greatest.

How to follow Hurricane Irma:

The National Hurricane Center has a page updating every few hours with the latest watches and warnings for Irma. Check it out.
Follow the the Miami branch of the National Weather Service on Twitter and the Florida Keys branch too.
Follow the Capital Weather Gang’s Twitter account. These folks tend to live-tweet storm updates.
Here’s a Twitter list of weather experts via meteorologist Eric Holthaus. These experts will give you up-to-the second forecasts and warnings.

A solar eclipse is coming to America. Here’s what you’ll see where you live.

2022-02-28T18:39:15-05:00

Today, a solar eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” — the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon — is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.

This is what you’ll see, and the time you’ll see it, in your zip code.

We recommend punching in a few different ones to see how the eclipse experience will vary across the country. Salem, Oregon (97301), is going to see a total eclipse. Downtown Los Angeles (90012) will see 62 percent of the sun blocked at the peak. In Lake Charles, Louisiana (70601), it’ll be 71 percent.

The eclipse animation relies on data provided by The United States Naval Observatory and uses entering and exiting vertex angles along with the maximum obscuration percentage to calculate the trajectory of the moon across the sun. Maximum obscuration percentages in the animation are depicted using the nearest whole percent. The map obscuration data was provided by NASA.

To get the bird’s-eye view of all the different shapes the eclipse will make against the sun around the country, check out this short video, also from NASA.

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Just be careful: Even on eclipse day, it’s not safe to stare directly into the sun without special viewing glasses.

Which states do you think are in the Midwest?

2019-03-05T19:38:50-05:00

No topic provokes as much of an impassioned (and polite) discussion from our dear Midwestern friends and colleagues as which states are part of the Midwest. Is Ohio too far east to count? Is Oklahoma too far south? Does Kansas belong, or is it part of the Great Plains? Is that even a region?

If you grew up in Los Angeles, like I did, you might consult Google. Sitting at the top of the search results, you’ll find a Wikipedia article citing the US Census Bureau as the ultimate arbiter of Midwestern boundaries. You’ll also find that FiveThirtyEight ran a survey in 2014, in which self-identified Midwesterners defined the borders of their region. (Illinois definitely made the cut, while Wyoming clung desperately to the region’s edges.)

But places are defined as much by outsiders as by insiders. So we’re asking you, reader, to tell us which states you think belong to the Midwest. ~~After you submit your selection, we’ll show you which states other readers have picked so far. Be careful — you only get one chance to make your vote.~~ Update: We’ve now closed the poll, but if you haven’t submitted your selection, you can still see how your Midwest compares to 34,522 other readers.

Our scale is based on how many times each state was picked, not the percentage of readers who selected the state, so the highest count sets the baseline. All the states that generated more than half the highest count will be displayed back to you as a reader-generated Midwest. A big shout-out to my colleague Ryan Mark, a self-identified Chicagoan, who showed me how to set up and write the program to power the initial results tally.

You can also make your most impassioned defense of why Nebraska should or shouldn’t be part of the Midwest in the comments section below.

If you want to know more about the Midwest, here are 41 maps and charts to get you started. And here’s a terrific read on “Midwestern nice” that inspired me to create this map.

VIDEO: 220 years of population changes in one map

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