HSFC_2017_01_11

(Jacob Rumans) #1
SanFranciscoChronicle and SFChronicle.com|Wednesday,January 11, 2017|Section C xxxxx

BusinessReport


Building blockchain
The world’s biggestbanks havetaken the first steps
toward moving a significant pieceof financial infra-
structure onto a blockchain — thetechnology intro-
ducedtotheworldbyvirtualcurrency bitcoin.The
DepositoryTrust and ClearingCorp. willreplace one
of itscentral databases, usedbythelargestbanks in
theworld,with new softwareinspiredbybitcoin.The
NewYork organization playsa roleinrecording and
reporting nearlyeverystock and bond trade in the
UnitedStates,as well asmostvaluable derivatives
trades.IBM, which has been making a big push into
blockchaintechnology,willleadthe project, scheduled
tobe fully functioningbyearly 2018.

Chooseyourtokens
Hasbro, maker of the boardgame Monopoly,isasking playersto
vote for theirfavorite pieces tobe part of a future eight-token line-
up. Inadditiontoperennial selectionsScottie Dog,Top Hat,Thimble
and others,candidates include more than 50 new options — there
arefour emoji options, along with a TV, aT.rexand aPenguin.The
winners will be announcedonWorld MonopolyDay,March 19. Vot-
ingcontinues through Jan. 31atwww.votemonopoly.com.

Buffy rings the bell
In what might seem an odd choiceforNasdaq,Sarah Michelle
Gellar, whostarredin the TV series “Buffy theVampire Slayer,” will
ring the closing bell from its EntrepreneurialCenter inSan Francisco
onWednesday.Gellar has astartup,Foodstirs, which produces
organic baking mixesand kits,availableatgrocerystoresand
through itswebsite,http://foodstirs.com. She andco-foundersGalit
LaibowandGregFleishmanare also promoting the Milestone Mak-
ers programfor startups runbythe EntrepreneurialCenter.

Compiled from SanFrancisco Chronicle staff and news services. See
more items and links at http://www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techb riefing

DAILY BRIEFING


Steven Senne /Associated Press 2013

Bloomberg
Market
Report
More onC4

-31.85 (-0.16%) 19,855.53 +20.00 (+0.36%) 5,551.82 0.00 (0.00%) 2,268.90

Standard&Poor’s 500

Oct. Nov. Dec. Oct. Nov. Dec.

Nasdaqcomposite

Oct. Nov. Dec.

DowJones industrialaverage

In just 140characters or less
on Twitter, President-elect
DonaldTrump hasdemon-
strated that he can wipe out
billions ofdollars in market
valu e of a company that cross-
es him.But whatseems be-
yond his poweris boosting the
bottom line of the service he’s
so fond of using.
The SanFrancisco company
has sofar failed to exploit the
enormous impact of serving as
the almost-exclusive mouth-
piece for the soon-to-be leader
of the freeworld. If anything,

Trump’sTwitter addiction
shines aneven harsher spot-
light on the company’s impo-
tence ingenerating profitor
significantly expandingits
user base.
If the most powerful man on
Earth conducts market-mov-
ing policy onTwitter — the
grandest sort of celebrity en-
dorsement there is — and if
that can’t help the company
make money, thenwho can?
SinceTrump launched his
once-quixotic campaign for
president inJuly 2015,Twit-

ter’s stock price hasactually
fallen 52 percent;it closed
Tuesdayat $17.37.
But surely, all of the media
talk about Trump tweets
means people areflocking to

Twitter, right? Not really. At
the end of September, the com-
pany reported 317 millionac-
tively monthly users, just a 3.2
percentgain from the previous
September.By contrast, in the
same time period,Facebook
increasedits number of users
by 15.7 percentto 1. 78 billion.
The la ck of a Trump jump
among usersdemonstrates the
inherentflaws in Twitter’s
business model — mainly the
lack of ex clusivity, saidNeil
Doshi, seniorInternet analyst
with Mizuho SecuritiesUSA.

Anyone can seeTrump’s
tweets, especiallywhen every
single media outlet reports on
them. And 140characters
doesn’t take up muchspace in
print, online or on television.
“You canget his tweets any-
where,” Doshi said. “Media
outlets willshow it in real
time.It just goes to show you
that Twitter had longago gi ven
away its mostvalu able asset.
It’s not a meaningfulvehicle
for monetization.”
Exclusivity is important.

Not even Trump’s Twitter habit can help company


Leecontinues on C3

THOMAS


LEE
MindYour
Business

EllenPao, who gained notoriety
aftershe sued her former employer for
gender discrimination and turned
nationalattention on the disparities in
SiliconValley, will continue her fight
for diversity and inclusion in techby
returning to her roots as astartup
investor andoverseeing diversity
effortsat the Kapor Center for Social
Impact in Oakland.
Pao may be best
known for her 2012
lawsuit againstven-
ture capital firm
KleinerPerk ins
Caufield &Byers —
which she ultimately
lost after a three-
year battle — but
she has since
served as interim
CEO ofReddit
and was one of
the founders of ProjectInclude, which
pushes techstartups to make meaning-
ful commitments to diversity.
That effort, announced late lastyear,
also tried to enlistventure capitalists
to nudge thestartups they fund to-
ward being more inclusive and equita-
ble.
Joining theKapor Center for Social
Impact andits in vestment arm,Kapor
Capital,Pao said, feels like a natural
progression.
“It’s been this interesting journey,”
Pao said in an interview Tuesday.
“When Istarted in tech, Ifaced some
obstacles and then Istartedsharing
my story about theobstacles I faced,

Pao back


in VC, still


focused on


diversity


By Marissa Lang

Paocontinues on C5

EllenPao

Jini Kim’s relationship
with Medicaid is business
and personal.
Her SanFranciscostart-
up, Nuna, while working
with the federalgovernment,
has built an online database
of the nation’s 74 million

Medicaid patients and their
treatment.
Medicaid,which provides
health care to low-income
people, isadministeredstate
by st ate. In California,it is
known asMedi-Cal. Extract-
ing, cleaning and collating
the information from so
many disparate and dated

computersystemswas an
extraordinaryachievement,
health and technology spe-
cialists say. This new collec-
tion of data could inform the
comingdebate onMedicaid
spending.
AndrewSlavitt, acting
director of the Centers for
Medicare andMedicaid

Services,described thecloud
database as“near historic.”
Largely becauseMedicaid
information resides in so
manystate-le vel computing
systems, he explained,
“We’ve ne ver had asystem-
wide viewacross the pro-
gram.”

Jason Henry / NewYorkTimes
Nuna co-founderJini Kim sits inthe officethat has a SesameStreet theme because herautistic brother likesthe show.
The company hasbuilt an online database ofthe nation’s 74 millionMedicaid patients andtheir treatment.

S.F. startup builds


Medicaid database


Nuna continues on C2

By Steve Lohr

For the second time in a
year, a tinyoil field near the
AltamontPass has become a
flash point in California’s heat-
ed politics ofoil andwater.
State regulators will hold a
hearingWednesdayin Li ver-
more on a proposal to let the
company that operates the

field pumpits drillingwast e-
water back into a broader
swat h of the same under-
ground formation that produc-
es theoil.
The company, E&B Natural
Resources,runs sixactive
productionwells on the site,
just east of Livermore and
south ofInterstate 580.The
operation also contains one

well that already disposes of
wastewater underground, a
common practice in theoil
industry.
The proposal to be dis-
cussedat a hearing of the
state’ s Division of Oil,Gas and
GeothermalResourceswould
expand thesubsurface area
where the company could

Hearing on wastewater


from oil field drilling


By David R. Baker

Wells continues on C3

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LAS POSITAS RD.
PATTERSONPATTERSON PASS RD.PASS RD.

LUPLUPIN WAYINWAY

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San JoseSan Jose

SFSF DETAILDETAIL

0

Source: CaliforniaDepartmentofConservation John Blanchard/The Chronicle

Lawrence
Livermore
Nat’l
Laboratory

Lawrence
Livermore
Nat’l
Laboratory

Sandia Nat’l LaboratorySandia Nat’l Laboratory

Patterson
Reservoir

Active oil
wells in
Livermore
Oil Field

580

(^580580)
880
5
(^80680)
205
101
Oil and aquifers
Operators of Alameda County’s only active oil field want to expand
the underground zone where they can inject their wastewater.
Environmentalists fear
contaminating nearby
drinking-water wells, even
though the injections
would happen 1,500 feet
deeper than those wells.
Livermore

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