Daily Crunch: Disney CEO Bob Iger steps down
Yesterday was a big day for executive moves, with Bob Iger stepping down as Disney CEO and Keith Block stepping down as Salesforce co-CEO. Meanwhile, Facebook has acquired another VR game studio and the owner of The Players' Tribune has raised more funding. Here's your Daily Crunch for February 26, 2020.
1. Disney CEO Bob Iger immediately steps down from CEO position
The Walt Disney Company announced yesterday that Robert Iger, the company's long-time CEO who ushered in the company's lush franchise and entertainment platform profits, will step down immediately as chief executive. Bob Chapek, a long-time senior exec at the company who most recently held the position of chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, will succeed him.
In an email to employees, Iger pointed to the successful launch of Disney's flagship streaming service, and its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, writing, "With these key endeavors well underway, I believe it's the right time to transition to a new CEO and I believe Bob is absolutely the right person to assume this role and lead our company in this next pivotal period."
2. Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block steps down
Block stepped into the co-CEO role in 2018, after a long career at the company that saw him become vice chairman, president and director before he took this position. His departure leaves company founder Marc Benioff as Salesforce's sole CEO and chair.
3. Facebook acquires the VR game studio behind one of the Rift's best titles
Facebook announced that it has acquired Bay Area VR studio Sanzaru Games, the developer of "Asgard's Wrath," considered by many enthusiasts to be one of the Oculus Rift's best games. Facebook says the studio will continue to operate its offices in the U.S. and Canada, with "the vast majority" of employees coming aboard post-acquisition.
4. Minute Media raises $40M more for its user-generated, syndication-based sports publishing platform
Minute Media - which owns 90min.com, FanSided, The Players' Tribune, Mental Floss and other online properties - brings in user-generated content across its largely sports-focused sites, which it then syndicates to third-party publishing partners.
5. Twilio 2010 board deck gives peek at now-public company's early days
Recently, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson shared a company board deck from March 2010. Now we've analyzed it for you, using the snapshot of Twilio's history to illustrate how far the company has come in the last decade. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
6. On-demand tutoring app Snapask gets $35 million to expand in Southeast Asia
Founder and CEO Timothy Yu said Snapask will expand into Vietnam and focus on markets in Southeast Asia, where there is a high demand for tutoring and other private education services. It also will open regional headquarters in Singapore and develop video content and analytics products for its platform.
7. D-Wave launches Leap 2, the next version of its quantum cloud service
At the core of Leap 2 is D-Wave's new hybrid solver that can handle complex problems with up to 10,000 variables. As a hybrid system, D-Wave uses both classical and quantum hardware to solve these problems.
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