This Week in Startups - Video

Yves Béhar is the world's best-known industrial designer. In Jason's words, "The man Steve Jobs couldn't hire." He designed a chair for Herman Miller, the Jambox, Jawbone UP wearable, and is the cofounder and designer behind the August smart lock. Plus, the notebook used in One Laptop, One Child and much more. In his fireside chat at LAUNCH Festival, Béhar told Jason about some of the objects and brands that inspire him most.

It almost goes without saying that Uber has been one of the most successful startups of the past 5 years: disrupting transportation infrastructure around the country, making better-than-expected weekly revenues, and ushering in a suite of on-demand companies in its wake. "Uber for ______" is now its own category. When Jason sat down with cofounder and CEO Travis Kalanick they looked at what's ahead for the company. From its expansion plans, concerns over high periods of surge pricing to the announcement that customers will now be notified when surge periods have ended. Their last interview was in 2010. So much has changed. Don't miss this incredible chat from the 2014 LAUNCH Festival stage.

"I'm a pro gamer." That's just what you say to justify all that time spent playing League of Legends, when your mom or partner asks, right? Not so says Battlefy's Jason Xu. Think: South Korean stars with their posters plastered around Seoul. Sold out in-person tournaments at LA's Staples Center, where the Lakers and Kings play. Tens of millions of worldwide television viewers. And this isn't just for Korean audiences. Leagues are sprouting up around the U.S. as well. Enter Battlefy, a platform that helps players organize tournaments of many styles.

Scientific research is what will cure cancer, right? Not at this rate, says Richard Price. The peer review process is arduous, but doesn't scrutinize papers closely. It takes 12-18 months for a potential breakthrough to get published. And many results thought to be game-changing can't be reproduced in labs. Enter his company Academia. It's a platform for academics to publish their research, and for members of the public to find it. That's what most researchers want anyway, for their work to be freely accessible to drive innovation. Jason got mad when he sat down with Richard and learned about the many hurdles that stand in the way of publishing and sharing new ideas in science, engineering and more.

Gchat, IRC, even AIM, does anyone at your company use just one platform for instant messaging? Like email, it seems like first-wave technology that has the same old problems. Pete Curley and friends from college got so fed up trying to pull devs, designers and sales teams into one place, they made a product that's easy to use for everything from project collaboration to lunch orders. Sound boring? Wait until you try it. This is the kind of product that has instant evangelists, and coexists right alongside Yammer and other enterprise-focused networks. It's taken off like wildfire at Netflix, Expedia, and here at LAUNCH HQ.

What does the relative obscurity of Microsoft's reported new CEO - Satya Nadella - say about the company's place in the tech pantheon? What was Tom Perkins thinking with his Wall Street Journal op-ed that compared hatred for the 1% to the Holocaust? And between a pocket-sized PC, Facebook's Paper and a faceless watch that vibrates every 5 minutes, which is the Bing Launch of the Week? Sarah Lacy of Pando Daily and Gabriel Snyder of Inside.com join Jason for the news roundtable.

Stewart Alsop knows where the bodies are buried in the technology industry. A venture capitalist, he was the editor of Inc Magazine and InfoWorld. He started the Agenda and DEMO conferences. And was a model of success and mentor to a scrappy young Jason Calacanis. When Stewart sat down with Jason for this interview, he went deep on tech's titans: from how he pissed off Steve Jobs (over and over) to his long-standing friendship with Bill Gates, to testifying before Congress at Microsoft's antitrust trial. As if that weren't enough, his big wins as a VC (including TiVo and Sonos) and misses (think: early Twitter).

Will Google win everything, and should they? What the acquisition of Nest could mean for its future forays into hardware. Jason predicts they'll acquire other hot companies, even Tesla. Plus in the Bing Launch of the Week, circuits in your contact lenses, augmented 3D TV and Spotify as record label? Molly Wood joins us fresh off her announcement that she's joined the New York Times, and Liz Gannes, in her first appearance since the departure of AllThingsD and the rise of its successor, Re/code.

Twitter wouldn't exist without the chaos of its early days. Nick Bilton doesn't hate Jack Dorsey, he just talked to 400 people and 390 said they didn't like him. Jeff Bezos is the most innovative CEO today. Snowden should be ready to face prosecution if he returns to the U.S.

"I cheat on my bf while he's deployed. Girls have needs too." Normally that's the kind of thing you'd read in the most honest, confessional text from a best friend. But it's commonplace on Whisper, where people can anonymously share secrets overlaid on an image. Like Snapchat, the app has captured the imagination of teens and technologists.

Mogl's concept is simple, even though it touches upon big consumer tech trends from mobile to gamification, loyalty to social entrepreneurship. Like Tom's Shoes--which donates a pair of shoes for each pair sold-- Mogl donates a meal for a meal. Users punch in their credit card info. When they pay with that card at Mogl member restaurant, an alert pops up their phone with 10% cash back. She can then decide to take the cash back or donate it to a local food bank. Founder and CEO Jon Carder also gets honest about his past stumbles as an entrepreneur, and how Google can better partner with companies that rely upon its tools. Plus, on Ask Jason, how to get noticed as a remote developer and balancing home life with startup life.

What's the future of tech journalism? Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg's launched their new site, Re/code, with undisclosed amount of backing from NBC and Terry Semel's Windsor Media. An editorial in PandoDaily intended to satirize callous tech workers in San Francisco, and new subscription news site The Information omitted one word in a Paul Graham quote about the low rates of women working as developers. Did it substantially change his meaning? The New York Times editorial board wants the White House to show clemency for Edward Snowden, whom they call a "whistleblower." And in Bing Launch of the Week, we hit on two of the big technology trends blossoming in 2014: cryptocurrency and smart homes. You choose among the jokey Coinye West, Ninja Blocks' new central home sensor, the Ninja Sphere, and a Bitcoin ATM machine called Robocoin. Panelists Kara Swisher and Robert Scoble kick off the new year with a bang.

Venture capitalists don't always talk about regret. Especially when, like Josh Stein, you got in early on companies like Box, Chartbeat, AngelList, Redfin, Path and Twilio. But when Jason sat down with Josh, who's been a VC for 10 years with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, he opened up about some of the big deals he and the firm missed. Facebook, for one.

We start at the beginning. What's a bitcoin? Then quickly move into where it could go: micro payments on your car? (No coin in your virtual wallet, car doesn't start?) What about electronic voting? Whether virtual currencies could replace everything from credit card payments to the way we vote. A look at three companies in the space for Bing Launch of the Week: Andreessen Horowitz-backed Coinbase, talent-rich but mystery product payment system Circle, and Cointerra, a company that sells mining rigs. And what are the chances that Bitcoin crashes below $100 in the next year? Our panel weighs in: Howard Lindzon of StockTwits, Tom Longson of GogoCoin, and cryptocurrency blogger Charles Amadeus. Never miss an episode! Subscribe in iTunes: Audio (http://bit.ly/TwiStA (http://bit.ly/TwiStA)) || Video (http://bit.ly/TwiStV (http://bit.ly/TwiStV)) ============= Thanks to our great partners -- show your love for the show by thanking them on Twitter! http://ctt.ec/fKTcf (http://ctt.ec/fKTcf) (http://clicktotweet.com/O4Ecy) Snapterms (http://snapterms.com) provides customizable Terms of Service and privacy policies for your website. Without it, you're risking costly litigation. Go to Snapterms.com and check out with the offer code TWIST to save 10% on your order. Audible, the leading provider of audiobooks with over 150,000 titles. Get your free audiobook at audible.com/twist (http://audible.com/twist). Jason's picks of the week are Emotional Equations by Chip Conley (http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/Emotional-Equations-Audiobook/B006P55F40/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1387590384&sr=1-1) and The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin (http://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/The-Bully-Pulpit-Audiobook/B00DEKZOKE/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1387590443&sr=1-1). ============= Follow on Twitter: @jason (http://twitter.com/jason)@TWIstartups (http://twitter.com/TWIstartups) (http://twitter.com/jason)@howardlindzon (http://twitter.com/howardlindzon) @charlesamadeus (http://twitter.com/charlesamadeus) @nym (http://twitter.com/nym) LAUNCH: Launch Ticker: http://launch.co  (http://launch.co ) Launch Events (Mobile, Hackathon, Festival): http://events.launch.co (http://events.launch.co) Special thanks to the members of the TWiST Backchannel Program! Highlights 3:30 - Intro Tom Longson 5:12 - JC intro Charles Amadeus. What’s your story? 8:35 - JC, Tom could this be a viable market? 10:12 - JC, Charles what’s causing the massive fluctuations? 12:30 - 13:45 - Thank you http://Snapterms.com! Use the promo code TWIST when you checkout for 10% off. 13:50 - JC Tom what’s important about this in big picture? 14:48 - JC charles, what’s the big picture? 5 years from now? 15:18 - CA, I can imagine getting into my leased car and when I turn it on, it sends a little payment to the dealer. You’re making car payments to drive your car. Make the internet of things more concrete. 15:55 - JC You just terrified ½ of America 18:14 - JC how do I “own” a bitcoin? 19:35 - TL: How does the credit system work? People don’t know or care. Everything Charlie said is true, but it gets complicated… blockchain allows people to send money 21:35 - JC what are the odds that NSA has their hands in this technology? 25:21 - Winner of iPad mini is Fares Nimri. 26:50 - JF: FBI has biggest bitcoin wallet in the world 30:00 - TL, Satoshi can’t spend his bitcoins w/out giving away identity. If he spent them, reporters would converge on wherever he spent them SPECULATION: who do you think it is? 31:20 - JC what are the chances this is more than one person? 35:21 - JC, What’s the US government’s position here. What have they said so far? 36:35 - Bing launch of the week 37:00 - Coinbase 37:30 - TL, interesting company. A16z. Coinbase is trying to rise to the level of service that bank offers. Growing pains. Brian of Coinbase has refunded me on a problem transaction. I bleieve they’re trying to do the right thing in general. 28:15 - CA, they have potential.

Chip Conley shook up the hotel industry in the 80s, starting with his rock'n'roll hotel, The Phoenix, in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. lso an author of books that look at our psychology in the workplace, Chip is now the Head of Global Hospitality at Airbnb.Chip also goes deep about the stresses of being an entrepreneur that can lead to dark moments, including one when he contemplated suicide. And how he recovered from it.