Investing

Keith Rabois successfully took on the finance and recruiting industries as an early executive at PayPal, LinkedIn and Square. A newly minted venture capitalist, Rabois’s next target is the similarly entrenched world of health care. After an alleged improper relationship,...

Techies are trumpeting a so-called virtual currency called Bitcoin that they say could revolutionize global trade. Financial wonks are shouting from various corners of Wall Street about the regulatory pitfalls and the volatility, highlighted by a tumble in valuation that...

True to T-Mobile USA’s new “uncarrier” branding, John Legere is not your average telecom chief executive officer. For one, he tends to do away with niceties. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Legere described AT&T’s wireless network as “crap.”...

Simon Roy prefers computers to professional money managers because machines don’t work on commission. The dark truth about the financial services industry is that brokers such as those found at a big bank branch or a strip mall often receive...

Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky still crashes on couches. The difference is that now, Chesky, the co-founder of the service that lets people rent out rooms and homes online, doesn’t have to. Before the 6-year-old company took off, Chesky...

For the second time in nine days, a high-ranking executive at the payments startup Square has landed in venture capital. This time, it’s Jared Fliesler, who served as a vice president of user acquisition and business operations at Square, the...

Over the past half-decade, venture capitalists have been retreating from biotech and energy, burned by bad bets and turned off by excessive costs. Meanwhile, one firm with former executives from Pfizer and the Central Intelligence Agency is doubling down. Lux...

As major banks grapple with layoffs, fewer bonuses and expensive legal bills from mortgages gone bad, financial startups are gaining momentum. Three announcements out of Silicon Valley today illustrate how hot this industry is. Prosper Marketplace, a provider of personal...

Startups and investors are going global in a big way next year, according to a study released today. About two-thirds of chief executives from venture-backed U.S. companies expect to expand activity abroad in 2013, according to a survey by the National...

Russia’s richest man, a billionaire named Alisher Usmanov, wasn’t one of the unlucky investors squashed by Facebook’s belly-flop of an initial public offering. An early backer of Facebook, Usmanov managed to propel himself to the very top of the ranks...