All posts tagged: cofounder

Ramón Fonseca, Cofounder of Panama Papers Law Firm, Dies

Ramón Fonseca, Cofounder of Panama Papers Law Firm, Dies

Published by Sam

Ramón Fonseca, who co-founded the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers leak, died Wednesday night, his lawyer confirmed, while awaiting the verdict in his money-laundering trial in Panama. Mr. Fonseca, 71, died after complications from pneumonia, his daughter, Raquel Fonseca, told the Spanish news agency EFE. Both Mr. Fonseca and Jürgen Mossack, who together founded the Mossack Fonseca firm, stood trial in Panama last month in relation to an explosive investigation published in 2016 by a coalition of news outlets that looked at 11.5 million confidential documents from the firm. The files, leaked by an anonymous source, identified international politicians, business leaders, criminals and celebrities involved in webs of suspicious financial transactions that concealed their wealth and avoided taxes. During the trial, which began April 8 and lasted 10 days, prosecutors alleged that the firm had created shell companies with the purpose of hiding money that came from illicit activities. A total of 29 people — former employees of the now-shuttered firm and alleged conspirators — were accused of money laundering. Since …

Neuralink Cofounder Says He Quit Because of Safety Concerns

Neuralink Cofounder Says He Quit Because of Safety Concerns

Published by skeptic

Image by Nikolas Kokovlis / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism During a recent interview, a cofounder of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup said that he left due to safety concerns. That cofounder, Dr. Benjamin Rapoport, made this stunning admission as an aside when speaking to the Wall Street Journal‘s “The Future of Everything” podcast. A neurosurgeon by training, Rapoport joined up with Musk and a team of fellow scientists in 2016 to found Neuralink, but as Bloomberg reports, he ended up leaving just a few years later and founding his own brain-computer interface (BCI) startup, Precision Neuroscience. “I’ve pretty much devoted my entire professional life to bringing neural interfaces from the world of science to the world of medicine,” Rapoport told the WSJ‘s Danny Lewis. “But I felt that in order to move to the world of medicine and technology, safety is paramount.” As the neurosurgeon went on to suggest, there seemed to be disagreements at Neuralink about how invasive a BCI needed to be. “For a medical device, safety often implies minimal invasiveness,” he explained. “And in the …

Ethereum’s Cofounder Says SEC Is ‘Gaslighting’ Everyone About Crypto

Ethereum’s Cofounder Says SEC Is ‘Gaslighting’ Everyone About Crypto

Published by skeptic

Joe Lubin is in a fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Not only is the financial regulator waging war against Ethereum, he claims, but making a grab for jurisdiction over the future of the Internet. So Lubin has decided to punch back. In 2015, Lubin was part of the team that created Ethereum, the computer network home to the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, known as ETH. Later that year, Lubin founded Consensys, with the loose ambition to support the development and adoption of Ethereum and built software products on top of the network. In April, Consensys received an unwelcome missive—known as a Wells Notice—from the SEC, informing the company that it was about to be sued. The regulator’s grievance, Consensys was told, had to do with one of the software products in its stable: MetaMask, a crypto wallet that lets users store crypto coins and interact with Ethereum-based apps. Consensys claims that the SEC notice, which has not been made public, states that MetaMask has made the company into an unregistered securities broker. Specifically, …

Area man, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, buys The Onion

Area man, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, buys The Onion

Published by skeptic

Jeff Lawson, the co-founder and recently departed CEO of enterprise infrastructure software company Twilio, is the proud new owner of satirical online newspaper The Onion. “Alright, the news is out — yes, I bought The Onion,” Lawson wrote in a LinkedIn post late Thursday, after it first emerged in The New York Times Thursday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Onion, regarded by many as “America’s finest news source,” is a digital media institution, serving satire by the spoonful for more than three decades, first as a weekly print edition starting in 1988, then as an online outlet from 1996 with the physical publication ceasing in 2013. Its spoof stories have often been conflated with real news, but The Onion has become a staple part of the digital media landscape for its “alternative” take on some of the world’s biggest events — some real, others completely made up — spawning memes such as “Area Man” while aping the reporting style of more traditional news outlets. “Our Dumb Century” The Onion has counted several …

Facebook Cofounder Says Tesla Has Committed “Consumer Fraud on a Massive Scale,” Will End in Jail

Facebook Cofounder Says Tesla Has Committed “Consumer Fraud on a Massive Scale,” Will End in Jail

Published by skeptic

“This is Enron now, folks.” Heads Will Roll Amidst a chaotic month for Tesla — even by its continuously plunging standards — Facebook cofounder and multi-billionaire Dustin Moskovitz has made some pretty dire predictions for the automaker, accusing it of committing “consumer fraud on a massive scale.” “This is Enron now, folks,” Moskovitz wrote on Threads, referring to the corporation that went bankrupt in 2001 after it was exposed for one of the biggest accounting frauds in history. “It may keep going, but people are going to jail at the end.” His concerns stem from a graph Tesla shared to mark a key milestone: one billion miles driven using Full Self-Driving, the company’s highly fraught advanced driver assist system. He then compares it with a new graph released during Tesla’s latest earnings call — an event that came with its own eyebrow raising moments. The point of the side-by-side is this: according to Moskovitz, the automaker is wrongly recognizing its deferred revenue — revenue for a product that hasn’t been delivered, like an annual subscription …

Dickey Betts, legendary Allman Brothers co-founder and guitarist, dies at 80

Dickey Betts, legendary Allman Brothers co-founder and guitarist, dies at 80

Published by skeptic

Dickey Betts, the singer-musician whose versatile compositions helped define the apogee of Southern Rock in the ’70s and ’80s, died at age 80 in his Osprey, Florida home. The news was announced by his family on Instagram. “Dickey was larger than life, and his loss will be felt world-wide,” the post said. His manager David Spero told Rolling Stone that Betts had been suffering from ill-health for several years, including cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Betts spent most of his musical career in the Allman Brothers, a band founded by brothers Duane and Gregg Allman and whose sound emerged from a fusion of rock, country, and electric blues. Though Duane died in a 1971 motorcycle accident, the band continued to surge in popularity, helped in no small part by Betts’ natural musicality and ardent mastery of voice and Gibson Les Paul guitar alike. Betts represented country’s strongest influence in the band’s musical style—his big hit “Ramblin’ Man” sets the lyrics of a man “born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rollin’ down …

Dickey Betts, co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, dies aged 80

Dickey Betts, co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, dies aged 80

Published by Sam

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Guitar legend and Allman Brothers Band co-founder Dickey Betts has died. He was 80. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, who wrote the band’s biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man”, died on Thursday (18 April) morning at his home in Osprey, Florida, his manager of 20 years, David Spero, confirmed. According to Spero, Betts had been battling cancer for more than a year and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Betts’ family announced his passing on Instagram, writing: “It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that the Betts family announce the peaceful passing of Forrest Richard ‘Dickey’ Betts (December 12, 1943 – April 18, 2024) at the age of 80 years old. The legendary performer, songwriter, bandleader and family patriarch passed away earlier today at his home in Osprey, FL, surrounded by his family. Dickey was larger than life, and his loss will be felt world-wide.” Betts shared …

Allman Brothers Band co-founder and legendary guitarist Dickey Betts dies at 80

Allman Brothers Band co-founder and legendary guitarist Dickey Betts dies at 80

Published by skeptic

Guitar legend Dickey Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man,” has died. He was 80. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer died at his home in Osprey, Florida. David Spero, Betts’ manager of 20 years, confirmed Betts’ death and said he had been battling cancer for more than a year. He also had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Spero said. “He was surrounded by his whole family and he passed peacefully. They didn’t think he was in any pain,” Spero said by phone. Betts shared lead guitar duties with Duane Allman in the original Allman Brothers Band to help give the group its distinctive sound and create a new genre — Southern rock. Acts ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Kid Rock were influenced by the Allmans’ music, which combined the blues, country, R&B and jazz with ’60s rock. Founded in 1969, the Allmans were a pioneering jam band, trampling the traditional notion of three-minute pop songs by performing lengthy compositions in concert and on record. The band was …

Dona Manis Cake Shop’s co-founder sets up rival banana pie shop next door

Dona Manis Cake Shop’s co-founder sets up rival banana pie shop next door

Published by skeptic

AUNTIE PENG’S SON SAID THEIR PIES TASTE DIFFERENT FROM DONA MANIS’ Ee Hsing clarified that while “it’s possible that Mr Tan gave her the recipe, the fact is that the banana pies taste different”. He explained: “Everybody can have a recipe – just go to YouTube, and it’ll teach you how to make a (copycat) Dona Manis banana pie. The only thing is – can you make it taste the same as ours, which captured so many people’s hearts and taste buds?”  But he laughed it off and said: “It’s an open market, anybody can sell anything. Whose banana pies will capture more people’s taste buds? It used to be my mum’s (at Dona Manis), now there’s one more version to try – isn’t that a good thing also?”  ON SETTING UP SHOP NEXT TO DONA MANIS Both Aunty Peng Banana Pie and Dona Manis sell pretty much the same items, with both shops’ banana pies going for S$33 for a whole pie (10 slices); S$3.30 a slice, and their chocolate tarts similarly costing S$6 for five pieces.  …

FBI subpoenas Brink co-founder for CoreDev Atlanta attendee data

FBI subpoenas Brink co-founder for CoreDev Atlanta attendee data

Published by skeptic

Mike Schmidt, the co-founder of Brink, recently disclosed that he received a subpoena from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last year, requiring him to submit personal information of attendees from the CoreDev Atlanta event held in October 2022. The subpoena was part of the ongoing investigation into the theft of Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr’s cryptocurrency holdings. The guy who wants to tell you how to use Bitcoin couldn’t even secure his own Bitcoin and, as a consequence, got everyone at a conference he attended doxxed by the FBI. ???? Good job, Luke! ???? pic.twitter.com/QQGdJ7AnaT — Mike In Space (@mikeinspace) April 10, 2024 Due to a non-disclosure order, Schmidt was unable to share details about the subpoena until the order expired. In his social media post, he explained that the FBI initially requested a significant amount of information, but after some pushback, the agent agreed to a more limited subset of data. Schmidt provided the FBI with the full names, GitHub usernames, and email addresses of the event attendees. He emphasized that he does not …