Katie Roof
@Katie_Roof
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Roof, like the Fiddler. Venture capital reporter for Bloomberg @technology. LA again via SF and NYC. [email protected] Opinions are my own
Joined January 2010
Just found a WhatsApp message to my friends from 2014 when I was living near Central Park. Little did I know it was a Kennedy
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I experienced antisemitism at an Ivy League a while back. An acquaintance of mine didn’t know I was Jewish & started to complain about a student being “a JEW!” I told her I was also Jewish & she thought it was a joke. She couldn’t believe that I was Jewish because she liked me.
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Appalled at the racist abuse @sriramk is experiencing on here. Ok to disagree with someone on policy, not ok to attack someone on the basis of their race/national origin. Sending my support to the Indian American community.
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Cell phone data shows that as of April, downtown SF still only has 29% of the foot traffic from 2019
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Liquid Death is now valued at $700 million for its water in a beer can
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Tough day for Silicon Valley.
News: @Patagonia will no longer authorize the addition of corporate logos added to its products.
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SCOOP: Sources tell us SpaceX is now likely to be valued about $350B in a new tender offer, $100B MORE than what was discussed last month and would make it the most valuable startup in the world, surpassing Bytedance w/ @gilliantan
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97% new Covid cases among people who haven’t gotten the shots
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CNN reporting all the synagogue hostages are safe and alive ❤️.
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San Francisco has two seasons: Patagonia vest and Patagonia jacket.
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San Francisco didn’t have fresh air for 45 days in 2020. Can you imagine how big of a news story this would have been if it happened in New York? We’d still be talking about it.
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Last week: Proud investors of FTX.This week: It was a *tiny* check for us.
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What is the term for a startup that’s no longer a unicorn 🦄 but still exists? Horse? 🐴.
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Wiz turning down $23B from Google > Discord turning down $12B from Microsoft > Clubhouse turning down $4B from Twitter.
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“Art and capitalism can be friends, it’s just about how it happens” - @ladygaga at Upfront Summit
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Moderna joining S&P 500. Used to be a tiny venture-backed startup just getting off the ground a decade ago.
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Scoop: @SpaceX has settled on a price for its tender offer at $112 per share, valuing the company at close to $210 billion, surpassing its own record for a U.S. private company. The company was last valued at about $180 billion in December.
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Horrible day in SF. 75 degrees and terrible views. Why would anyone want to live here?
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That’s also why I don’t have any gold medals.
Suni Lee says she lost gold on the uneven bars because she's been on social media too much after her big win. She said she's deleting Twitter. via @thisisinsider.
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After 4 years on Bloomberg Deals, I’m thrilled to announce I’ve accepted a role on the VC/tech team, the team most people thought I was on! Excited for the new opportunity & I’ll still be doing plenty of venture-backed deal scoops (large fundings, IPOs, M&A) along with other.
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Prediction: not everyone will permanently leave San Francisco
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Scoop: Sequoia looking to lead investment in Robinhood that could value it at about $8B pre-money.
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It’s always been there but some of these recent reports threatening violence etc are quite scary.
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Luckiest unlucky person? She survived both the Holocaust and Hamas.
Yaffa Adar, 85, a Holocaust survivor was taken hostage from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, on Oct 7th. The image of her on the golf cart being taken to Gaza, shocked the world. Today, Yaffa is home in Israel, with her beloved family.
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I’m speaking up because I’m tired of the gaslighting and people turning a blind eye to what was already a *real* problem. Antisemitism is not limited to colleges, but everywhere around the world, across the political spectrum, ethnicities and religions.
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Covid isn’t over. I lost a relative to it today. He was 68, no known health conditions. Please be a little extra careful today in his honor. 🙏🏻.
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OpenAI has now agreed to buy Windsurf formerly Codeium for about $3 billion, its largest acquisition yet. Bloomberg first broke the news of talks several weeks ago. Win for Kleiner, General Catalyst, Greenoaks. Scoop with @rachelmetz .
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That $1.5b investment Anduril is raising? Sources say they were oversubscribed by billions of dollars, with investor demand totaling **over $5 billion** The @palmerluckey company’s valuation including investment is $14 billion, as defense tech becomes 🔥
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They said Twitter didn’t have enough employees to last more than 1 day but it’s lasted more than 8 days 🕎.
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I'm thrilled to return to Bloomberg, where I got my start in business news as a grad student. This time, I'm a reporter, covering venture-backed/tech deals! Still based in SF.
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You can root for Miami (or any other tech scene) without rooting against SF.
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After just recovering from cancer, Robinhood, Canva & Plaid backer @weschan is leaving Felicis to launch a new venture firm with Morgan Stanley alum Pegah Ebrahimi. It’s $450m for a first time fund, which is a lot in any environment, especially this one.
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The last thing we need is for it to get worse. Regardless of what Israel is doing, or regardless of anything else Jews are doing, individual Jews are not to blame for your grievances.
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Ok here’s something else that happened to me on the topic of college antisemitism, but way worse. When I was in undergrad, not an Ivy but a school with 4.0 students, I was sexually assaulted by a “friend” of mine. He hurled antisemitic slurs during it.
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One positive: office workers will no longer be judged on whether they can stay seated at a desk from 9-5 and instead may be evaluated on actual productivity.
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I never forget if a CEO or a comms person from a startup has lied to me, even like 7 years later. If you can’t talk about it, no comment is always better than dishonesty. I’ve talked to many reporters who feel the same.
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Hate to activate IPO pop Twitter, but. I’ve never seen a VC tweet that a startup “left money on the table” when its private valuation skyrockets shortly thereafter 🧐.
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I’m hearing a lot of founders are in denial about the extent of the market correction.
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Why hasn’t anyone tried to move Silicon Valley to San Diego?
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My mom's 67-year-old friend says she has helped book 120 vaccine appointments for her less tech-savvy friends. She wakes up at 3:30am everyday and knows all the tricks.
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Btw it starts young. I recall experiencing antisemitism at age 7. The little girl next to me on the bus spent the ride telling me I was bad and was going to hell for being Jewish. I unsuccessfully tried to convince her that I was a good kid. 😢 I’m worried about today’s children.
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And I always thought I was *lucky* because compared to some of my ancestors/relatives, I was never beaten up or murdered. I had equal rights in America which felt like a privilege compared to what other Jews have endured. But even as a “lucky” Jew it can be bad. Please care.
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I debated sharing this personal one- I’ve unfortunately had a handful of traumatic experiences related to antisemitism over the years. (I once had a very antisemitic coworker who tried to sabotage me. I even once had an antisemitic therapist!).
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I’m “prominent” 🤣.
Ran into a prominent journalist at an event last night who remarked that she observed more interesting stuff going on in Miami in the last 48 hours than the last 2 years in the Bay Area.
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One of the misconceptions about venture capital is that it’s simply the rich getting richer. While that’s certainly part of it, there are also many foundations, pensions, healthcare systems and other organizations that invest as limited partners and benefit people of all classes.
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Am told some startups are re-opening the last round to save face rather than do a new flat round.
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One year ago today I pulled an all nighter to break Adobe’s plans to acquire Figma. Deal has still not closed.
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Once upon a time, VCs and startups used to meet in this SF area known as South Park. Journalists came by to get the scoop. Now it’s a ghost town surrounded by for lease signs
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SCOOP: Twitter held talks to acquire Clubhouse for about $4 billion (prior to the potential fundraise at that price)
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11.5 months at Bloomberg and I still haven’t met any of the coworkers I didn’t already know before the pandemic. Soon they will realize I am not tall.
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Believe it or not, vandalizing a random ice cream shop in San Francisco isn’t an effective way to help the children of Gaza.
Smitten, a Jewish-owned ice creamery on Valencia Street, was vandalized last night. Several windows were smashed and one was tagged with pro-Palestinian graffiti. It remains unclear whether the vandalism will be investigated as a hate crime.
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@KevinRamsay5 Not only have I spoken up multiple times saying I am rooting for *all* civilians regardless of whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, it’s not ok for you to try to present bigotries like it’s some kind of contest. I can only speak from personal experience with antisemitism.
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Want: a walkable big city like New York in a ☀️ year-round weather climate like LA. Why doesn’t this exist in the US?.
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Published 3 stories with female founders today. The next generation of public companies will include more women.
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SCOOP: The NBA star formerly known as Metta World Peace and Ron Artest is targeting a $1 billion investment fund for Beverly Hills-based Artest Management Group. The fund would invest in sports, real estate, healthcare, web3, across the U.S. and Asia.
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In other Michael Lewis news, his book Liar’s Poker literally saved my face when I was in college. I was reading it when a big rig hit the car I was a passenger in. The window shattered & glass shards cut the top of my head, but my face was protected because the book shielded it.
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Smiledirectclub had a market value of $9 billion when it went public in 2019. someone needs to do a case study about what went wrong.
Dental aligner company SmileDirectClub filed for bankruptcy four years after raising $1.35 billion in an initial public offering
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Got a tip from a dating app. a guy's profile says his startup plans to go public within the next two years 👀.
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It is dishonest to announce a venture funding round total and not disclose that much of it is debt. Stop doing that.
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After the Spanish Flu, came the Roaring Twenties. It all makes sense now.
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I got ahold of Pinterest financials in 2015. Back then, they forecast $2.8 billion in revenue by 2018 and 329 million active users. Today’s filing shows they’ve fallen short on both metrics with $756 million in revenue and 265 million MAUs
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The SoCal tech scene is much bigger than many realize. Snapchat, SpaceX, Rivian, TikTok US all here. Over 40 unicorns. And many Bay Area tech companies/startups have offices down here, or at a minimum a large employee base moved down here and work remote in the same time zone.
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Masks no longer required in SF but it seems like no one got the memo.
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Scoop: Stripe in talks to raise financing at a substantially higher valuation than its last round of $36B
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When people are surprised that they face consequences for public displays of antisemitism, it suggests that they exist in social circles where antisemitism is so normal, so acceptable, that they can’t fathom that their views are seen by many others to be reprehensible.
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A guy seemed like he was about to attack me in SF, on my walk to work. I poured water on him and it took him by surprise and scared him off! Not sure if this is normally a good idea but PSA if you don’t have pepper spray handy….
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It’s 🤯 how many people don’t realize that most early stage venture-backed startups end up shutting down.
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I’m on the venture capital team at WSJ, which means if there’s no VC angle, don’t pitch me! Thanks 🙏🏻.
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This is the same narrative the Nazis had about Jews. Antisemitic stereotypes about successful Jews led them to believe that harming Jews would help the little guy. Proven wrong & yet the same bigoted tropes are widespread again.
67% of people aged 18-24 in this Harvard-Harris poll view JEWS—not Zionists, not the Israeli government, but specifically Jews, all Jewish people—as a class of OPPRESSORS!!. This is the new form of antisemitism. 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️.
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Somebody just replied to a Facebook message I sent. 11 years ago.
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How long before venture firms announce that they’ve hired their second female partners?.
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Hanging out on Sand Hill Road reminds me why VCs love to invest in food delivery. Where do you eat?? (Besides the Rosewood).
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It occurred to me that some babies born in 2020 will live to 2121.
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Scoop: ServiceNow buying Moveworks AI platform for almost $3 billion. Backed by Bain, Lightspeed, Kleiner
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It’s been clear to me for some time that many (most?) people know very little about what led to the Holocaust, whether they are uninformed or misinformed. They know the methods in which Jews were killed, but not the nature of the rhetoric that led to it. That needs to change.
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Well at least the San Francisco exodus means I was able to upgrade to a bigger apartment for less $.
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The “pro-Israel” vs “pro-Palestine” rhetoric has created a false dichotomy. i.e. You can be anti Netanyahu without being pro Hamas. You can be pro Israeli civilians without being anti Palestinian civilians.
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Just 12 people are behind most vaccine hoaxes on social media. The “disinformation dozen”
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Atlanta-based Mailchimp never raised outside funding and could be valued at over $10B in a sale
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When reporters are asking for a quote, they want candid opinions, not a regurgitation of facts. Quotes should add perspective.
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Every startup CEO thinks they are “great,” “incredible” and the “leader” in their space. Stop using superlatives. If you want to be quoted, be better at articulating why you’re different.
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Uber driver to me: Traffic is terrible, you should have taken a scooter.
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Four years ago today, I boarded a one-way flight from New York to SF.
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.@rabois tells me Founders Fund's SF HQ and shorter commute was a factor in his decision to leave Khosla. The “wave of the future is in SF, not Menlo Park.".
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Sequoia invested in all 3. And also Xoom. 🤨.
This week I wrote about Loom and Noom while using Zoom
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