Good morning! Let's get you informed:
- TechCrunch is experimenting with "crowdfunded journalism."It asked readers (not its parent company AOL) to pay $3,000 for a writer to fly to Vietnam and track down the Flappy Bird creator. TechCrunch has already exceeded that goal and raised $5,000.
- Google has taken over one-tenth of Mountain View in terms of the property it leases and the number of people it employs. And it's only expanding. Here are some of the repercussions of Google's growth in the town.
- Uber sent a "poorly-worded" text to drivers about surge pricing that alarmed a passenger. The text read: "UberX is very close to SURGE. It's Valentine's Day! People will be out all night and we didn't activate new drivers to make earnings even higher this weekend."Here's Uber's explanation of the text.
- Mark Zuckerberg reportedly tried to invest $250 million in WhatsApp at an $8 billion valuation before making the $19 billion acquisition offer.
- A Silicon Valley founder who became infamous for bashing homeless people is being sued by his co-founder for allegedly misusing company money and tampering with company accounts.
- Google Vice President Sundar Pichai says his company never bid $10 billion for WhatsApp."WhatsApp was definitely an exciting product," Pichai said at World Mobile Congress. "We never made an offer to acquire them. Press reports to the contrary are simply untrue."
- Video company ZEFR has raised $30 million from IVP.
- Indian shopping site Snapdeal has raised $133.7 million, largely from eBay.
- An early prototype of Google's smartwatch can be seen here.
- Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz is on the cover of Fortune Magazine for being a "CEO whisperer."