This week in Silicon Valley, two companies agreed to the largest tech merger of all time, Twitter picked a Google executive to lead its board and we learned more about YouTube’s new video subscription service. A bunch more stuff happened, too! Here are the headlines that powered Re/code:
Re/wind: The Biggest Tech Deal of All Time, Square Files for IPO, Twitter’s New Chairman and More
Also, the video battle between Facebook and YouTube.
Justin Sullivan / Getty via Thinkstock
- Dell, the privately-held enterprise tech giant, agreed to purchase fellow enterprise biggie EMC in a deal that’s worth about $70 billion. It is the biggest transaction of its kind in the history of Silicon Valley. Dell had previously offered up its PC business for sale to multiple buyers, but no one wanted it.
- Square filed to go public with the SEC this past week, and its S-1 revealed a whole mess of details about the company’s core business. Aside from a disastrous partnership with Starbucks, the company appears to be on a track to profitability. Moreover, some smaller units within Square offer some insight into what new revenue streams the payments technology firm plans to tap in the future.
- Twitter added a new major shareholder and a new chairman this week. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought a 4 percent stake in the company, and it brought on former Google business chief Omid Kordestani as its board chairman. One thing about Kordestani — he doesn’t tweet a whole lot. But that shouldn’t be considered a problem.
- On Wednesday, YouTube is going to announce a bunch of original programming that will only be available to people who pay for its premium subscription package. And what’s going to be in those subscriptions? Well, we already know what the gaming packages look like.
- YouTube is pushing out its subscription service just as Facebook is ramping up its own video efforts. The social network plans to launch a dedicated video hub with multiple channels (like YouTube), though Facebook will likely lean a lot more heavily on algorithmically generated content.
- The past couple weeks have been rough for daily fantasy sports services, especially the two big ones — DraftKings and FanDuel. The two companies are being investigated by federal and state authorities, and this past week the Nevada Gaming Control Board banned all daily fantasy games from the state, calling them unlicensed gambling operators.
- Banks are releasing their own tap-to-pay apps, and they pose a big threat to Samsung and Google’s Android Pay. Apple Pay is the only option that’s offered on iOS, and banks don’t want to lose out on the revenue they can generate from fees on such transactions.
- On Wednesday, AT&T said it was about to release a feature that allows people to use the same phone number across multiple phones. Shortly after, T-Mobile said it’s working on the same thing.
- In an interview with Re/code, Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad talks about his company, its long-term plan and why he’s not bothered by all the bearish talk about unicorn valuations. He offered a reason for why they’re sky-high: “Valuation is a very important tool for recruiting, particularly in the markets for software engineering, where the market is really tight.”
- Here are three of the folks coming to Code/Media in Dana Point, Calif., next February: Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins, Vevo CEO Erik Huggers and MLB Advanced Media chief Bob Bowman. Sign up now to get an early registration discount.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
