Connect with us

Published

on

FILE PHOTO: Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and executive chairman of dot.LA, speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Match Group announced on Tuesday that Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff will serve as its new CEO.

Rascoff, who has served as a member of the online dating company’s board since March 2024, will replace Bernard Kim in the role, Match said.

“During his time on the Board, Spencer has demonstrated a strong strategic perspective and deep understanding of Match Group’s brands and opportunities,” said Match Group Chairman Tom McInerney, in a statement. “We are confident in his ability to drive the company’s next phase of innovation and growth.”

Along with the leadership change, Match announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter results but lackluster guidance. Match posted earnings per share of 59 cents on $860 million in revenue. That topped the 54 cents per share in earnings and $859 million in revenue expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

However, the parent of Tinder and Hinge issued disappointing revenue guidance for the first quarter. The company forecast sales of $820 million to $830 million for the quarter, falling short of the $853 million estimate from LSEG.

The shares sank 7% in extended trading after the report.

Rascoff, 49, is best known for his role at Zillow. He co-founded the real estate technology company nearly two decades ago and served in various roles, including CEO, before departing in 2019. The Harvard University graduate also founded online travel website Hotwire, which Expedia bought for nearly $700 million in 2003.

Match was fully spun out of Barry Diller’s IAC Group in 2020, but has had a tough run as an independent public company. Its market cap was about $30 billion at the time of the transaction and has since shrunk below $10 billion, reflecting a dramatic slowdown in revenue growth.

Last month, IAC said its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement market place the company acquired in 2017.

WATCH: How I built my $400 million-a-year dating app Hinge

How I built my $400 million-a-year dating app Hinge

Continue Reading

Technology

Micron shares jump on earnings beat, rosy guidance as data center revenue triples

Published

on

By

Micron shares jump on earnings beat, rosy guidance as data center revenue triples

Signage outside the Micron offices in San Jose, California, on Dec. 17, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Micron shares popped 6% in extended trading Thursday after the company reported second-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates and offered better-than-expected guidance.

Here’s how the company did:

  • Earnings per share: $1.56, adjusted vs. $1.42 expected by LSEG
  • Revenue: $8.05 billion vs. $7.89 billion expected by LSEG

Revenue increased 38% from $5.82 billion during the same period in 2024, Micron said in a press release. The memory and storage solutions company reported net income of $1.58 billion, or $1.41 per share, up from $793 million, or 71 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Data center revenue tripled, the company said.

Revenue for the fiscal third quarter will be about $8.8 billion, Micron said, topping the $8.5 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings will be roughly $1.57 a share, the company said, beating the $1.47 average estimate.

Prior to Thursday’s close, Micron shares were up 22% for the year, while the Nasdaq is down more than 8%.

Micron will host its quarterly call with investors at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Continue Reading

Technology

BlackRock’s head of digital assets says staking could be a ‘huge step change’ for ether ETFs

Published

on

By

BlackRock’s head of digital assets says staking could be a ‘huge step change’ for ether ETFs

Omar Marques | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Appetite for ether ETFs has been tepid since their launch last July, but that could change if some of the regulatory wrinkles holding them back get “resolved,” according to Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock.

There’s a widely held view that the success of ether ETFs has been “meh” compared to the explosive growth in funds tracking bitcoin, Mitchnick said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York City Thursday. Though he sees that as a “misconception,” he acknowledged that the inability to earn a staking yield on the funds is likely one thing holding them back.

“There’s obviously a next phase in the potential evolution of [ether ETFs],” he said. “An ETF, it’s turned out, has been a really, really compelling vehicle through which to hold bitcoin for lots of different investor types. There’s no question it’s less perfect for ETH today without staking. A staking yield is a meaningful part of how you can generate investment return in this space, and all the [ether] ETFs at launch did not have staking.”

Staking is a way for investors to earn passive yield on their cryptocurrency holdings by locking tokens up on the network for a period of time. It allows investors to put their crypto to work if they’re not planning to sell it anytime soon.

But Mitchnick doesn’t expect a simple fix.

“It’s not a particularly easy problem,” he explained. “It’s not as simple as … a new administration just green-lighting something and then boom, we’re all good, off to the races. There are a lot of fairly complex challenges that have to be figured out, but if that can get figured out, then it’s going to be sort of a step change upward in terms of what we see the activity around those products is.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has historically viewed some staking services as potential unregistered securities offerings under the Howey Test – which is used to determine whether an asset is an investment contract and therefore, a security. But a more crypto friendly SEC is moving swiftly to reverse the damage done to the industry under the previous regime. Its newly formed crypto task force is scheduled to kick off a roundtable series Friday focused on defining the security status of digital assets.

Ether has been one of the most beaten up cryptocurrencies in recent months. It’s down more than 40% year to date as it has struggled with conflicting and difficult-to-comprehend narratives, weaker revenue since its last big technical upgrade and increasing competition from Solana. Standard Chartered this week slashed its price target on the coin by more than half.

Mitchnick said the negativity is “overdone.”

“ETH … at the second grade level is easier to define … but at the 10th grade level is a lot harder,” he said. “Second grade level: it’s a technology innovation story. … Beyond that, it does get a little more vast, a little more complicated. It’s about being a bet on blockchain adoption and innovation. That’s part of the thesis as we communicate it to clients.”

“There are three [use cases] that we focus on that have a lot of resonance with our client base: it’s a bet to some extent on tokenization, on stablecoin adoption, and on decentralized financing,” he added. “It does take a fair bit of education, and we’ve been on that journey, but it’s going to take more time.”

BlackRock is the issuer of the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF. It also has a tokenized money market fund, known as BUIDL, which it initially launched a year ago on Ethereum and has since expanded to several other networks including Aptos and Polygon.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Technology

Tesla to recall 46,000 Cybertrucks, citing exterior panel that can increase ‘risk of crash’

Published

on

By

Tesla to recall 46,000 Cybertrucks, citing exterior panel that can increase 'risk of crash'

A Tesla Cybertruck is parked in front of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 11, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Tesla is recalling more than 46,000 of its Cybertrucks due to a cosmetic exterior trim panel that it said can “delaminate and detach from the vehicle,” potentially becoming a road hazard and “increasing the risk of a crash.”

The recall covers an exterior part of the vehicle, known as a cant rail, and it will affect all Cybertruck vehicles manufactured from November 2023 to February 2025, Tesla wrote in a filing to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Cybertrucks’ recall comes at an already-challenging time for the embattled EV maker, whose value has dropped by more than 40% as CEO Elon Musk continues his role as a top advisor in the Trump administration.

Owners of affected vehicles can take their Cybertrucks to Tesla’s service department for free replacement of the cant rail, the company wrote in its filing.

Both Tesla and The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Following the recall filing, The Information reported that the company plans to introduce a new innovation to the Cybertruck’s battery this year that would “sharply decrease battery manufacturing costs,” citing a senior executive.

Continue Reading

Trending