Shoes.com just dropped Ivanka Trump’s collection

All Ivanka Trump products were removed from the Shoes.com warehouse last Friday, according to a representative from the company. The official reason for dropping them was that, "they were not selling well." 

It's unclear whether there were other political reasons for Shoes.com to dissociate from the Trump brand. 

[Image: Caitlyn Wilson via Unsplash]  ES

MS

Indiegogo has attracted nearly $1 billion for causes and projects in the eight years since its founding—an impressive tally, but less impressive compared to GoFundMe's $3 billion in contributions and Kickstarter's $2.7 billion in pledges. As crowdfunding has become more competitive, Indiegogo has been losing share.

Now the platform is looking to a new source of growth: equity crowdfunding, a form of investment that became available to the general public in May as a result of the JOBS Act (shorthand for "Jumpstart our Business Startups"). Through Indiegogo and partner MicroVentures, entrepreneurs will be able to raise up to $1 million in equity financing from small-time investors like you and me. Early offerings include a craft distillery and a video game company. 

Kickstarter, which remains focused on creative projects, does not plan to introduce an equity option.  AOC

GE's longtime CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, didn't exactly ingratiate himself with Donald Trump during the campaign. He strongly criticized Trump statements seen as hostile to certain ethnic and religious groups. Nor is GE—a company earning nearly 65% of its revenue overseas, and widely criticized for using creative accounting to avoid U.S. taxes—on the "nice" list of a populist president who wants to rein in free trade and U.S. multinationals. But not so fast, says Immelt, in a chat with Fast Company at GE's Minds+Machines conference in San Francisco:

We're the country's second biggest exporter. Between our employees and our suppliers, there's a million people in the U.S. that depend on GE, that go to work every day. These are people in all of the Trump districts, all of the red states, all of those counties—probably everyone has some connection to G.E.

Don't mess with that, Immelt seems to say, or you'll hurt your own supporters. SC

Walmart is reportedly telling its employees to not download an app that allows them to talk to each other.

The app, called WorkIt, offers advice for employees on their legal rights and workplace policies and gives workers the opportunity to chat among themselves about workplace issues. It was created by the group OUR Walmart, an employee advocacy organization. 

The app is not affiliated with Walmart, and the Wall Street Journal reports that the company has instructed store managers to tell employees that it's a scam designed to collect their personal information. The app launched for Android devices on Monday. It requires users to sign up using an email address to access some functionality; however, it just can be used to ask questions anonymously without any personal information exchanged. EP

A report from the Department of Homeland Security said internet-connected devices like security cameras and baby monitors pose "substantial safety and economic risks," and recommended that tech companies figure out ways to strengthen their security. The report, obtained by the Associated Press, said urgent action was needed, but stopped short of saying it would penalize companies that did not comply. 

Hacked "internet of things" devices were cited as the cause of a major DDoS attack last month that left much of the internet inaccessible for hours. CZ

Reuters is reporting that Snapchat has filed a confidential IPO. This information comes via this tweet:

BREAKING: Snapchat has filed confidentially for its IPO – sources pic.twitter.com/1bMj5j6tfy

— Reuters Tech News (@ReutersTech) November 15, 2016

Here's what we know so far:

 • Anonymous sources spoke with Bloomberg News in October saying Snapchat aims to raise as much as $4 billion, giving the company a valuation in the range of $25 billion to $25 billion.

 • Bloomberg adds that one source said the "valuation could reach as much as $40 billion."

We'll update as more information comes in. CW

Of a Kind, a platform that sells apparel from a curated list of emerging designers, has launched it's own apparel line called Permanent Collection. The clothes in this line elevated basics designer to complement the sometimes avant-garde pieces sold on the site. They are manufactured in Brooklyn.  ES

Direct-to-consumer luxury bedsheets brand Brooklinen got its start on Kickstarter and has been bootstrapped from the beginning. Since its launch in October 2014, it has grown 10 times year-over-year, hitting the $25 million revenue mark this year and amassing 50,000 customers. It is among a new flock of online brands—including Crane and Canopy, and Boll and Branch—that are disrupting high-end bed linen market. It sells high thread count sheets for between $100-$200, a fraction of the price of Frette or Sferra sheets of equal quality. 

Brooklinen is now expanding its product range to include lifestyle products like candles as well as wooly winter blankets, which launch today. 

ES

Who doesn't love a good aerial shot in a movie? And who wouldn't love to get shots like that without having to hire a helicopter? That's drone giant DJI's pitch with its latest flying cameras, the new Inspire 2 and Phantom 4 Pro.

Announced today, the Inspire 2 shoots 5.2K video at 4.2 Gbps for Adobe CinemaDNG RAW videos and can fly at up to 67 miles an hour for up to 27 minutes. It starts at $3,000. The Phantom 4 Pro, which starts at $1,500, is capable of capturing slow-motion 4K video at up to 60 frames per second at a maximum bitrate of 100 mbps, and also offers H.265 video compression.

DT

Google said today it will open a 650,000-sq-ft London headquarters, a move that will bring 3,000 new jobs to the city over the next four years.

In an interview with the BBC, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the UK has been a tremendous market for the company and is one where Google sees big opportunities in the future.

In the wake of Brexit, there was some concern that foreign investment in the UK would diminish. Pichai acknowledged that the referendum was a consideration in Google's plans, but remarked that the company is optimistic about its ability to bring in talent from anywhere in the world into the UK in the future. EP

Tinder just redesigned its gender field to make online dating more trans-inclusive, but that's apparently just the beginning. According to CEO Sean Rad, Tinder's trans-friendly update is part of a broader quest to prioritize social good and crack down on harassment against all users. 

Today's update includes some under-the-hood tweaks designed to make harassment easier to detect and quash. The company also worked with the transgender community to train its customer support staff on how to deal with abuse directed at trans users. And as many groups face an anxious and uncertain future under a Trump presidency, Tinder says its doubling down on its commitment to social good.

"A year ago, an idea around user growth would be more celebrated than an idea around the optimization of community management. Now the whole engineering and product team knows that ideas around making our community a better, more inclusive place are things that are going to be prioritized and celebrated." says Rad. It makes sense: moves to make Tinder a better experience for more users can only help the company grow as its competition proliferates. JPT

In my new profile of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, I wrote that his vision for the company involves AI being everything and everywhere. Machine learning is core to that goal. And now Google has hired a couple of serious computer scientists to lead a machine-learning group within Google Cloud, the arm of the company that provides web services to business customers.

At an event at Google's San Francisco office, Google Cloud honcho Diane Greene made the announcement, noting that she was especially pleased that both of the hires were women. Fei-Fei Li was formerly the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. And Jia Li was head of research at Snap, the company formerly known as Snapchat. HM