Axios

TPG Capital and Uber have finally agreed on a new board member for the ride-hailing company: partner David Trujillo, as Bloomberg and first reported and Axios has also confirmed from a source.

Last Tuesday, TPG Capital chairman and founding partner David Bonderman resigned from Uber's board after he made a sexist remark toward fellow board member Arianna Huffington during a company meeting. As Axios pointed out then, Trujillo was the most obvious replacement as he brokered TPG's original investment in Uber.

Axios has also learned that TPG Capital was aware of the letter a group of investors planned to send to CEO Travis Kalanick asking for his resignation. Though the firm declined to participate in order to maintain its independence, it did feel the company's leadership needed a change, and Kalanick's eventual resignation accelerated TPG Capital's move to fill its board seat.

The story has been updated to reflect that Bloomberg first reported the news.

John Lagerling, who ran business development and mobile partnerships at Facebook until earlier this month, is joining Mercari, a Japanese consumer-to-consumer e-commerce company that is expanding in the U.S. Like OfferUp and LetGo, Mercari wants to make it easier to sell your stuff from your phone. But while those companies are more like mobile versions of Craigslist, Mercari is more akin to eBay, focusing on shipping goods anywhere rather than meeting up with a local buyer.

Lagerling told Axios that as the company's Chief Business Officer, he will be leading its effort to continue growth in Japan and jumpstart business in the U.S. Before Facebook, Lagerling spent eight years at Google, working with Andy Rubin on the Android team.

Snapchat debuted its latest feature Wednesday for its global iOS and Android users: Snap Map. The map is an entirely new screen on the app, and shows users, in real time, the location of where their friends are and what other Snapchatters are doing all over the world.

The goal: The company said they have seen "strong evidence" that Snapchatters have been wanting a way to see where their friends are and what they're doing, as well as share that information in return. And the company says Snap Map could work like Twitter, breaking news on the app before it hits the mainstream media.

Sprint is trying to remake its Virgin Mobile prepaid brand, focusing on the iPhone and perks tied to the broader Virgin brand, including discounts on Virgin airlines, hotels and wines. The company announced plans for a new "Inner Circle" offering that offers those who buy an iPhone six months of wireless service for just $1 (and an additional six months free for those who sign up by July 31.)

Virgin Group head Richard Branson was on hand at an event in San Francisco where Sprint announced the move.

"We're committed to innovating," Branson said, rattling off a list of Virgin's current efforts ranging from electric race cars to space travel. Branson said he challenged Sprint two years ago to make better use of the Virgin brand and is pleased to see the company doing so.

Why it matters: Sprint has been looking for some time to reposition Virgin, one of two prepaid brands it has. (It also sells service under the Boost Mobile moniker.) Competition in that space has been tough since T-Mobile bought MetroPCS and AT&T purchased Cricket, not to mention just generally brutal price pressure in the cell phone market.

One of the great current dramas is the global competition for artificial intelligence: machines that will think for themselves and, one day, many think, be smarter than humans. That forecast inflection point — the time of super-human intelligence — worries a lot of people, since no one knows what machines can or will do once they are smarter than their inventors.

A key question is, if super-human intelligence is invented, in which country and which lab will it take place, since it could be the most powerful technology ever invented. "Artificial intelligence in the wrong hands can transition from being a tool to being a weapon," the inventor Dean Kamen tells Axios.

• Kamen is one of four experts we queried about the geopolitics of AI: Andrew Moore, dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, said China will make the AI breakthrough. So did entrepreneur Azeem Azhar. Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer told us that it will be the U.S.
• Adding uncertainty is that much of the work is taking place in private labs, uncontrolled by a country. "If it's private companies — as I expect it will be — it's far from clear that any government would be able to effectively regulate it," Bremmer said.

Moore doesn't think inventors are anywhere close to inventing "strong AI," as super-human intelligence is called. Indeed, nothing that researchers are currently working on anywhere will get there, he said. "We will need a wild new idea to make that happen. I'd guess there's a 5 percent chance that someone will make this kind of breakthrough in any decade," he said.But an AI war is on nonetheless. Why does Bremmer think the breakthrough will come in the U.S., when China is spending far more money on AI? He said"The U.S. has the best universities, the most innovative private sector, and the biggest lead on the most important technologies at the moment," he said. "And while China may soon be the world's largest economy, truly groundbreaking AI is likely to come from combining the insights from many disparate fields and making them work together — something Beijing will struggle with."

As Pinterest continues to bolster Lens, its image recognition feature, it aims to help fashionistas with outfit ideas. This way, users can point the Pinterest app's Lens feature at an item (or outfit) in their closet, and get recommendations of what to pair it with. Pinterest previously rolled out to Lens the ability to recognize food and recommend recipes.

Why it matters: Pinterest's lofty ambition is to become the "Google of images" and is investing heavily into its image recognition tech. However, it's also competing with major tech players like Microsoft and Google, the latter of which recently unveiled its own tool competing with Lens (and with the same name). Pinterest recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investors, upping its valuation to $12.3 billion, which it says will help it continue to advance its technology.

More: Pinterest's Lens feature is also getting a new design, as well as new features such as zooming in and out, and analyzing photos previously saved.

As you've probably heard by now, Travis Kalanick has resigned as CEO of Uber after a group of investors yesterday sent a letter asking for his resignation.

• Uber's troubled COO search now becomes its gold-plated CEO search: Some possible candidates that come immediately to mind include Jeff Immelt, Meg Whitman, Mark Fields, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Bain.
• Why it matters: Venture capitalists once had a reputation for canning CEOs, but that was left behind in this "founder friendly" era. Each of the participating firms took a big reputation risk here when it comes to future deal-flow, despite how the chattering class seems to think removing Kalanick was a no-brainer.
• I'm still a bit unclear on how this went down: Remember that Kalanick technically controlled Uber's board of directors, so long as Garrett Camp (Uber's founder and chairman) and Ryan Graves (Uber's first employee and SVP of global ops) remained in his corner. (More below the fold)

Axios business editor Dan Primack texted me instantly on the news of Uber parting ways with CEO Travis Kalanick: "This is shocking. It's this generation's version of Steve Jobs being kicked out of Apple. (I know — not apples/apples since he's staying on the board, wasn't the founder, etc.)"

• Why it matters: "Uber being uber (the German version) is largely due to Travis' drive and vision. For all of the [bro] stuff, he changed global transportation."
• One more thing: "They've struggled to hire a COO. But now that it's top job, expect them to talk to both [Silicon Valley] names and Fortune 500 types."
• Earlier, Dan had the scoop on the revolt, which came "as Uber has dealt with months of scandals and just one week after Kalanick voluntarily took an indefinite leave of absence from the company."

Travis Kalanick, who took a leave of absence last week, resigned as Uber CEO on Tuesday evening. The move, first reported by the New York Times, came after a group of significant investors in the ride-hailing company had been seeking his ouster, as Axios reported earlier on Tuesday night.

Garrett Camp, Uber's co-founder who came up with the original idea and is the board's chairman, is finally breaking his silence on the ride-hailing company's recent string of controversies in a Medium post:

"[T]he answer is that we had not listened well enough to those who got us here… our team and especially our drivers. In a highly competitive market it is easy to become obsessed with growth, instead of taking the time to ensure you're on the right path."

Camp, who previously founded StumbleUpon and now runs a startup studio named Expa, also emphasized the company's size and impact on transportation. "Which is why we must now hold ourselves to a higher standard going forward," he added. "We've formed a new executive leadership team, and the board is actively recruiting new directors and talented executives."

Amazon's apparel division has a new experiment: letting customers pick out a box of clothes, try the items on, and return what they don't want—all for free. Through Amazon Prime Wardrobe, which has yet to launch, customers can pick up to 15 items and get discounts depending on how many they choose to keep.

Why it matters: The retail giant recently debuted its Echo Look device, a version of its digital assistant that's equipped with a camera and lets customers get feedback on their outfits. Amazon had the most online fashion sales to "millennials" in 2016, according to data by e-commerce company Slice published by Recode.

Competition: There are already a few startups offering this "try-and-return" approach to shopping, including Stitch Fix, Le Tote, and Dia & Co. Unlike them, Amazon Prime Wardrobe doesn't charge any upfront fees, mostly because there's no stylist picking out the outfits.

The United States carries less weight than it once did in international affairs. Now, the country's formerly fawned-over multi-national companies and their once-deified CEOs are on the wane, too.

Recent weeks have seen the shockingly unceremonious dethroning of once baronial CEOs Jeff Immelt of GE, Mark Fields of Ford, and Mario Lognhi of U.S. Steel, reports the New York Times. Their companies, once viewed as having all-but unlimited industrial potential, are scrambling next to Apple, Google and Facebook.

A level deeper: The shift of fortunes doesn't connote an economic advance. Given the ubiquity of their products, the tech giants seem ultra-important to society. But that's only on the level of gadgetry. In 1990, the big three Detroit carmakers racked up about $250 billion in revenue and employed 1.2 million people. In 2014, today's big Silicon Valley three made the same revenue but employed only about a tenth of the people -- just 137,000.

Continental, a German company and one of the biggest automotive parts suppliers, said on Tuesday that it's joining an alliance — made up of BMW, Intel, and Mobileye — that is working on a self-driving car platform. Continental will handle integrating the components and software, and commercializing the platform.

The other companies announced their partnership last year, which they hope will produce the platform by 2021.

Why it matters: While Silicon Valley companies like Uber and Alphabet's self-driving car units are making headlines for developing autonomous driving technology, traditional automotive companies are also investing heavily in the area to make sure they don't fall behind. Other similar partnerships include Daimler's recent teaming up with Bosch to work on self-driving cars.

Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, an advanced prosthetic arm for Darpa, and numerous medical devices freeing up the lives of diabetics, says the next big thing is not robots or artificial intelligence, but engineered organs that will not be rejected by the body.

• People with a diseased liver, heart or kidney will receive a new one, fashioned from their own cells. Kamen tells Axios that such organs will be somewhat available in five years, and widely used within a decade. "You won't need immunosuppressants, because it will be your organ," he said.
• Between the lines: Kamen said engineered organs will be relatively cheap, and will be made as easily as an iPhone. "People think the big stuff is the cloud and artificial intelligence," he said. "I think the next big thing is regenerative medicine."
• Kamen has raised about $300 million, including $80 million from the U.S. Defense Department, for a consortium of researchers working on regenerated organs.

Tm Farnum, an anesthesiologist and father of 5, founded the non-profit, Parents Against Underage Smartphones (PAUS) in February and has proposed a bill (ballot initiative no. 29) preventing cell phone companies from selling smart phones to children under 13 in Colorado, the Washington Post reports.

Background: Farnum founded PAUS after two of his children become "moody, quiet and reclusive" from overusing their smart phones and he researched the effects of screen time on young children, he told the Post. He says smart phones can be just as dangerous as cigarettes, alcohol and pornography — which all have legal age limits. But some Colorado politicians have argued that it's a challenge for parents, not the government.