Asana, which makes an important tool for the shift to remote work, got a $40 million loan in April for construction of a new San Francisco headquarters

• Asana, the productivity startup that filed to go public on Monday, is building a new corporate headquarters in San Francisco, and entered into a $40 million loan agreement from Silicon Valley Bank for its construction.
• The new HQ is a 12-story, 265,890 square foot building near Second Street in San Francisco, and Asana signed the lease in February 2019. 
• The company has started construction on the building and expects to start occupying it and paying rent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, which is February 2021.
• Like most other tech companies, Asana has temporarily closed its offices and asked employees to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a cloud software company focused on productivity, it's tools are uniquely positioned to help enable remote work.
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The coronavirus outbreak has driven Silicon Valley employees out of their offices and into the new world of remote work, as tech companies figure out the future of the workplace. 

But Asana, the maker of project collaboration software that remote workers are increasingly turning to, is betting that the office isn't going away. The company disclosed on Monday that it got a $40 million loan in April for construction of its San Francisco headquarters.

Asana, which filed paperwork to go public on Monday, disclosed the loan from Silicon Valley Bank in its S-1 filing. 

The lease agreement for the new HQ was signed in February 2019 and located at 633 Folsom St, a 12-story, 265,890 square foot building near Second Street in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, as first reported by the SF Chronicle.

In its S-1 paperwork for its planned direct listing, Asana said the lease started in May, and the company expects to start occupying it and paying rent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, which is February 2021. Asana says it has started construction on the space. The lease ends in October 2033. 

Asana, like most other tech companies has temporarily closed its offices and asked employees to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a cloud software company focused on productivity, its tools are uniquely positioned to help enable remote work, which the company touts in its paperwork to go public. 

However, unlike other software companies that enable remote work, like Slack and Box, Asana hasn't announced formal plans to give employees more remote work options even after the pandemic ends. That might have something to do with its pre-existing plans for a new HQ.

The $40 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank is meant to to be used for the construction of the new HQ, according to Asana's S-1.  Asana says it expects to incur a minimum of $475 million in costs associated with the lease, plus another $3.9 million because in April 2020, it added more space and amended the lease. 

Asana had 701 employees as of January 31, 2020, growing its headcount 65% in a single year. It expects to continue hiring more employees, and it also has outposts around the world in cities like London, Munich, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, and Vancouver. The new HQ can house up to 1,500 employees, according to the SF Chronicle. 

"We intend to procure additional space in the future as we continue to add employees and expand geographically," Asana wrote in its S-1. "We believe our facilities are adequate and suitable for our current needs and that, should it be needed, suitable additional or alternative space will be available to accommodate our operations."

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Facebook reportedly plans to sue Thailand's government over its demand that the company block users within the country from accessing a group critical of its king (FB)

• Facebook is planning to sue Thailand's government after it demanded the company prevent users from accessing a group that criticized the country's king, CNN reported Monday.
• Facebook has complied with the request in the meantime, blocking users in Thailand from seeing posts from the group, "Royalist Marketplace," which has around 1 million users, Reuters reported Monday.
• Pavin Chachavalpongpun, the group's creator and critic of the monarchy who is living in self-imposed exile in Japan, told Business Insider that Facebook's decision to comply "detrimental both to the right to express freely and democracy in this region."
• In the US, Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have repeatedly attempted to position the company as a defender of free speech, but overseas it has typically been more deferential to autocratic governments.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported this week that Zuckerberg lobbied Trump and members of Congress to take action against rival TikTok on the grounds that its rival wasn't committed to free expression.
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Facebook is preparing to take unprecedented legal action against the government of Thailand after it demanded the social media giant block access to a group that had criticized the country's king, CNN reported Monday evening.

Reuters reported earlier in the day that Facebook had heeded the demand to block users within Thailand from accessing the group after the government threatened to take Facebook to court.

"After careful review, Facebook has determined that we are compelled to restrict access to content which the Thai government has deemed to be illegal," a Facebook spokesperson told CNN.

The group, "Royalist Marketplace," has one million members and was created by Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an academic and critic of the monarchy who has been living in self-imposed exile in Japan.

"By suing the Thai government over its request to block my group, I see it as the right step. Freedom of expression is something that we are all entitled too, particularly in Thailand where such thing is a rare commodity," Chachavalpongpun told Business Insider, while also criticizing Facebook's compliance.

"For Facebook to accept the request of the Thai government to block its access in Thailand, Facebook has become a part of obstructing democratisation in my country and promoting the information censorship. Facebook's decision is detrimental both to the right to express freely and democracy in this region," he said.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

In Thailand, pro-democracy protests have been raging for more than a month, with citizens publicly criticizing the country's king, Rama X — notable because of strict lèse-majesté laws that make it illegal to insult, defame, or threaten any member of the royal family.

But a diverse coalition of Thais have been openly defying those laws to question its monarchial system, push for reforms, and condemn Rama X, who has spent large amounts of time in Europe and fled the country for Germany to wait out the coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook's decision to block the Royalist Marketplace group comes less than a week after The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook's top public policy executive in India let politicians from the country's ruling party off the hook for breaking its rules on hate speech out of fear of backlash.

But even as Facebook wrestles with how much deference to show to governments overseas, it has repeatedly attempted to position itself as a defender of free speech in the US, where it has refused to take stronger action against misinformation and hate speech spread by politicians on the grounds it would stifle speech.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Mark Zuckerberg lobbied President Trump and members of Congress to take action against TikTok, a growing rival to Facebook, because it didn't support American values of free expression.

"On TikTok, the Chinese app growing quickly around the world, mentions of protests are censored, even in the U.S. Is that the internet we want?" Zuckerberg said in a speech in October.

Facebook and other American tech companies, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Airbnb and have frequently run into similar dilemmas around the world in countries with more autocratic systems of government, often siding with governments' demands instead of risking losing access to users there.

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Snowflake's IPO will likely lead to a hefty payday for investors like Sutter Hill Ventures, ICONIQ and Sequoia — and for the $12.4 billion cloud startup's execs, including ex-CEO Bob Muglia

• Snowflake's upcoming IPO is bound to be a big payday for its investors, including Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ and Sutter Hill Ventures.
• The Silicon Valley startup's IPO will likely also benefit its current and former executives, including former CEO Bob Muglia, who left suddenly last year and was replaced by current CEO Frank Slootman.
• Slootman, who led the successful IPOs of such tech names as ServiceNow and Data Domain, has a 5.9% stake in the cloud startup which was last valued at $12.4 billion and is said to be aiming for an IPO valuation of $20 billion.
• Despite his sudden departure last year, Muglia has kept a 3.3% voting stake in the company.
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Snowflake is finally going public, which could mean a hefty payday for its top investors and executives.

Snowflake filed IPO papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying it intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "SNOW." The Silicon Valley cloud data warehousing startup was last valued at $12.4 billion after it raised $479 million in a Series G round. The company was reportedly aiming for a valuation of as high as $20 billion.

Snowflake has raised a total of $1.4 billion from investors, including Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ Capital, Altimeter Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Sutter Hill Ventures, one of Snowflake's early investors, appeared poised for a big return on investment with a 20.3% voting stake in the company, according to the filing. 

"Sutter's stake is sizable and they are presumably looking to exit when they can to realize gains for their limited partners," Stephen Diamond, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, and an expert on Silicon Valley startups, told Business Insider. 

Sutter's stake was followed by Altimeter Partners with 14.8% voting power, ICONIQ, Mark Zuckerberg's money manager, with 13.8%, Redpoint Ventures with 9%, and Sequoia with 8.4%.

Among Snowflake's current and former executives, CEO Frank Slootman controls a 5.9% stake. Slootman was the former CEO of ServiceNow and Data Domain, two tech companies which had successful IPOs unders his leadership. Snowflake co-founder and president of products Benoit Dageville has a 3.4% voting stake.

Slootman took over as CEO last year after the sudden departure of former CEO Bob Muglia. It was reported that Muglia was ousted because he had downplayed the idea of going public soon. In an interview with Business Insider last year, Slootman called the speculation about Muglia's exit  "the dumbest I've ever heard," though he said Snowflake could go public in two to three years.

Muglia, however, still received $17 million in compensation last year, and retained a 3.3% voting stake in the company, according to the filing.

The terms Muglia got are "consistent with the market for departing executives," Diamond said, adding, "Three percent is not a surprise given his relatively long tenure as CEO at six years." However, Muglia is subject to the same restrictions as employees and other insiders, which would limit his ability to exercise his shares for a certain period after the IPO. That lockup period usually lasts for 30 to 45 days.

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Apple has backed down in its latest developer fight, apologizing to WordPress after it tried to force the website-builder to add in-app payments

• Apple has apologized after it tried to force WordPress to add in-app payment options to a free app.
• WordPress' founder said on Friday that Apple was refusing to allow any updates to the WordPress iOS app until the website builder added in-app purchases, from which Apple takes a 15-30% commission.
• Apple is in a fierce fight with developers including Fortnite maker Epic Games and Spotify over its rules on in-app purchases.
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Apple has backed down in its latest skirmish with a developer over its App Store rules.

The tech giant on Sunday issued a rare apology to WordPress after it pressured the website builder to add payment options to its free iOS app, or else be blocked from updating.

"We believe the issue with the WordPress app has been resolved," an Apple spokesman told The Verge. "Since the developer removed the display of their service payment options from the app, it is now a free stand-alone app and does not have to offer in-app purchases. We have informed the developer and apologize for any confusion that we have caused."

WordPress' founding developer Matt Mullenweg tweeted on Friday that Apple had locked the app out from making any updates until the website-builder added in-app purchases. Mullenweg later told the Verge he had been forced to add in-app purchases as an option, meaning Apple would get a 30% cut of any payments made.

Mullenweg tweeted about Apple's U-turn on Sunday, saying WordPress is no longer being forced to include in-app purchases.

I am very grateful that folks at Apple re-reviewed @WordPressiOS and have let us know we do not need to implement in-app purchases to be able to continue to update the app. Bad news travels faster than good, usually, so please consider sharing that they reversed course.

— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) August 23, 2020

Mullenweg did not address whether WordPress had removed any display of premium payment options, as suggested in Apple's statement. The Verge's Sean Hollister writes that while the app shows no payment options, it's possible WordPress removed references to its premium services weeks ago.

Apple's rules on in-app payments are at the center of an ongoing fight with developers. Developers are obliged to use Apple's payment system, which automatically takes a 15-30% cut.

Apple is currently engaged in a fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games, after Epic introduced its own payment system into the mobile versions of Fortnite, circumventing Apple's commission. In response, both Apple and Google pulled the game from their app stores. Epic then filed for a temporary restraining order against Apple to try to block it from removing the app.

Last year, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the EU about Apple's cut of payment, claiming Apple uses it to artificially inflate prices. The EU opened a formal investigation into Apple in June because of Spotify's complaint.

WordPress is open source, meaning users don't have to pay when using it to build their websites. Roughly 35% of the internet uses WordPress, according to Who Is Hosting This.

WordPress.com is the commercial arm of the business, which sells premium domain names and offers web hosting services. These options were not on offer through the free WordPress app, and so Apple's demand was seen by some as forcing WordPress to monetize a free-to-use app so as to take a cut of the payments.

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Here's the pitch deck deep tech firm Apheris used to persuade Twitter chair and ex-Google CFO Patrick Pichette to invest

• Berlin-based deep tech startup Apheris raised funding from institutional investors and angel investors, including Twitter chair Patrick Pichette, in a $3 million seed fundraising round.
• Apheris helps private companies navigate the complexities of local data privacy laws, allowing them to extract insights from datasets through the use of AI technology. 
• We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Apheris used to bring investors on board. 
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Patrick Pichette, the chair of Twitter's board of directors and Google's ex-CFO, has backed deep tech startup Apheris in a $3 million seed funding round alongside other investors. 

Founded in 2019, Apheris helps clients analyze data without risking privacy infractions. The free flow of internal data can be a minefield for private businesses, with large bulks of valuable information remaining unusable or unshareable due to privacy, compliance, legal or security concerns.

Apheris is a software-as-a-service company and CEO and cofounder Robin Rohm told Business Insider its pricing structure depended "on the use case and the data ecosystem that it's empowered". 

"There are other companies that focus on federated machine learning to enable computing on static and structured data, but they do not enable a data scientist to do data science on third-party data," he added.

"Apheris provides an interface to data scientists that allows them to do real R&D and data science while preserving data privacy and ownership."

The firm said that, less than one year after launch, it had worked with around seven clients, including "top pharmaceutical, chemical, telecommunication, and manufacturing companies."

Seed investor LocalGlobe led the round alongside Dig Ventures and Pichette. Additional investors include another.vc, System.One, and angel investors Charles Songhurst, NaturalMotion founder Torsten Reil, and Songkick founder Ian Hogarth.

Check out the pitch deck that brought them on board below: 

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