The Roundup

Last week, Michael Seibel, Y Combinator CEO and guest on the illustrious Product Hunt Radio podcast, revealed the top 100 YC companies by valuation.

“Most people know that Dropbox and Airbnb are YC companies, but they might be surprised by many of the other companies on the list.”

More than 28K jobs and $100B in enterprise value was created from these 100 companies. Impressive. Top of the list:

1. Airbnb. The $30B traveling platform continues to expand globally and introduce new features like Experiences.

2. Stripe. Earlier this year the company raised another $245M and introduced Issuing to make credit card issuing easy.

3. Cruise. Acquired by GM in 2016, the autonomous vehicle company may have sold too soon, considering their most recent valuation puts it at $14B.

Explore the full list here. 💥

Night mode is the best when burning the midnight oil in front of the LCD. Unfortunately, most sites don’t offer this option to night owls.

The rumors are true. Facebook just launched its first hardware device: Portal.

Portal looks a bit like Amazon's Echo Show, but with a focus on helping you connect with people (as you might expect from the social network).

“Connecting through Portal feels like being together in the same room, even when you’re far apart. And Portal makes it easier to connect more regularly with the most important people in your life.”

The device sits in your kitchen, living room, or bedside. Use it to video chat your long-distance boo, family back home, or start a Houseparty-like group call with your buddies using its smart camera. Unlike other video chat apps you might use on your mobile, Portal is activated with your voice, hands-free.

While much of Facebook's marketing have fixated on video chatting, its audio/voice functionality might be the real killer app. As audio and voice eats into our screen time, Facebook needs a voice play. Other members of the FAANG already have theirs (except for Netflix... that we know of). Amazon has spread Alexa everywhere, integrated into all Echo devices and even their new microwave. Apple has Siri and AirPods. Google continues to roll out different variations of Google Home, including an adorable “donut”.

Funny note: because Facebook hasn't launched their own assistant yet, the Portal is powered by Alexa. Another win for Jeff Bezos. 😮

This is why Facebook Portal is so important for them. However, the device has been met with skepticism:

“Most of us already own more convenient, portable video calling devices. They’re called smartphones. Quality not as great, but will do the job for most people.” – Kurt Wagner

“You can’t watch YouTube; there’s no web browser; WhatsApp and Instagram are nowhere to be found; and you can’t send or receive normal Facebook messages, even if they’re video recordings. If you buy the Portal, you have to really want to video chat with other people on Facebook, and do so from one room in your home, on something other than the phone or laptop or tablet that you likely already have.” – Jacob Kastrenakes

Less than two weeks ago the company announced 50M accounts were compromised amid ongoing concerns about user privacy. It's also rare to see a software-first company successfully expand into hardware. Facebook's smaller archenemy, Snap, attempted this with Spectacles which resulted in a $40M write-off in 2017 (although v2 is looking fresh 😎).

Are you going to buy a $199 Portal? Add your thoughts in the discussion.

The new iPhone Xs costs over $1,000. It doesn't even come with AirPods. 😿

We solved your problem. Enter to win a brand new iPhone Xs and AirPods, courtesy of our friends at Elevator, Men's Health, and more:

😮 Apple's most stunning OLED screen ever.
📷 A camera that can adjust the depth of field *after* a picture is taken
😅 Picture-perfect Memoji that work inside Facetime
💃 Dance anywhere with Apple's "best cordless product ever."

New phone, new headphones, new you. Boom. 💥

Google's had a terrible, horrible, no good very bad few months.

First, the new Google Chrome update automatically began logging browsing history in perpetuity if you logged into any Google-owned service, like Gmail or YouTube. They quickly backtracked, promising a more secure version with next month's release. They've also been caught secretly tracking your location data... even if you've opted out.

Google also began development of a censored search engine in China and took part in buliding Pentagon-funded AI tools to improve targeting for unmanned drones. Over 3,100 employees signed a petition to dissuade Google from taking the contract.

To top it all off: the EU fined Google $5 billion dollars for antitrust violations earlier this summer. That's a lot of Google Home Minis. 😮

Users are beginning to fight back. Launched yesterday by serial-builder Pieter Levels, No More Google curates the best apps to replace your Google-owned tools. Came in #1 on PH with 850+ upvotes. 🏆

Replacing Chrome? Try Firefox Quantum or Brave.
Replacing Google Search? Try DuckDuckGo.
Replacing YouTube? Try Dlive.
Replacing Google Docs and Sheets? Try Notion and Airtable.

It's community driven, so you can even upvote or add your favorites. Share your thoughts about No More Google in the comments. 🔒

Jeff Bezos had a biiiiig week.

First, they quietly launched Amazon Scout, a Pinterest competitor powered by machine learning to help you discover (and purchase) your next favorite product based on what you 👍 and 👎.

Right now, most everybody visits Amazon with specific intent to purchase something – AA batteries, new socks, or maybe a case of LaCroix. But nobody browses Amazon just for fun. Their next big opportunity is window shopping, encouraging consumers to discover and buy things they weren’t necessarily looking for.

Pinterest started with this use case (of course, broadly focused on imagery but a large portion of pins are product-specific) and are now attempting to close the loop with buyable pins.

This isn't the first attempt to create a browsing experience by Amazon. They launched Interesting Finds and Launchpad a few years ago. We'll have to wait and see if Amazon Scout is as sticky as Pinterest, which pulls users back into the site with friends, messages, and notifications.

Next... Amazon launched a ton of new Alexa devices. The first, an Alexa-integrated subwoofer called the Echo Sub, is an attempt bolster the audio quality of the Amazon Echo, which some say can sound a bit "thin." Just like a Sonos system (which launched their developer platform a few weeks ago) or Apple's HomePod, the new Echo Sub can pair with up to 2 different Echos.

They also launched an AmazonBasics Microwave that has Alexa built-in, an Echo Auto designed to sit in your car, the new Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Show, and a new Echo Input mic that turns literally any speaker into an Alexa-enabled device.

Last week, Microsoft acquired a small AI startup less than 6 months after their launch. That was fast. 😮

Lobe launched in May to make building machine learning models easy. Backed by Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital (and others), the small team is making machine learning as easy as putting together LEGO bricks.



Their app is super simple to use:

1. Label your training set with your desired results. For instance, you could upload pictures of dogs labeled with their breed, or houses listed with their architectural style.

2. Watch as the algorithm builds itself, automagically.

3. Ship it. Export your model into Google's TensorFlow, Apple's CoreML, or directly into your app on iOS or Android.

"A holy shit moment in tech from our company Lobe. Full AI capabilities that you can put in your app but without having to write any of your own AI code! Watch the demo. It's bananas." – Chris Sacca

It's absolutely bananas. Lobe’s landing page might be the best product landing page we’ve seen since Muzzle. 🤐

A new Google Chrome has arrived.

The browser loved by 55%+ of the world has a completely new design, focused on productivity and security:

• Tabs have been completely redesigned to let you quickly scroll through your open windows. Tab hoarders everywhere rejoice.
• The in-browser password, address, and credit card number manager is rebuilt to make it easier to spend all your money while surfing the internet.
• Answers now appear directly in your omnibox (where you'd typically enter a URL). Instead of having to Google a question, Chrome will pull the answer up automatically without loading a full web page.

Up next on Google's to-do list? Killing the URL. 😬

"They’re hard to read, it’s hard to know which part of them is supposed to be trusted, and in general I don’t think URLs are working as a good way to convey site identity. We want to challenge how URLs should be displayed." – Adrienne Porter Felt, Chrome's engineering manager

They've tried this before: in 2014, the team tested the "origin chip", a feature that only displayed the main domain on your current tab. It was quickly deprecated and never launched publicly. We'll have to wait and see what their next iteration looks like. AOL Keywords were farrrr ahead of their time. 😂

The new Google Chrome is live for Mac, PC, Android, and iOS today. Do you like the new design? Share your thoughts with the community.

The new iPhone has been LEAKED.

9to5Mac leaked an unreleased photo of the two new iPhone XS models, set to replace the iPhone X this fall. The leak is timely: Apple announced their their annual keynote late last week, slated for September 12th.

The iPhone XS will come in two sizes: a 5.8in model identical to the current iPhone X, and a larger 6.5in model like the 7 and 7+ from 2016.

Our biggest question: how is the "iPhone XS" pronounced? Is it the "iPhone 10 S," "iPhone Excess," or the "iPhone Extra Small"? Is the larger model called the "iPhone Extra Small Plus"? We're here to ask the most important questions.

To keep yourself distracted until September 12th, here's a list of our favorite productivity-killing apps:

👾 The Internet Arcade (900+ classic arcade games, no quarters required)
🐍 Snake on a Chrome: The classic game, now in your browser
🖥 Giphy Tab: Ridiculous GIFs in every new Chrome tab
😎 Netflix Super Browse: Let's you pick Netflix's secret genres
😡 Annoisli: Listen to screaming babies and sirens at work

We apologize in advance for all the time that will be lost. For more, check out the Anti-Productivity collection on Product Hunt. 😜

"Omg... I can use OG Paint again!" –Dani Olympi

"This is a flash from the past. Reminds me of the days of sitting in the laundry room playing computer games on our family PC." –Gabriel Lewis

You can now run Windows 95 on your Mac, PC, or Linux. It's exactly how you remember it, complete with Wordpad, MS Paint, and Minesweeper.

From the maker, Felix Rieseberg: "This only works by accident and was mostly a joke. I myself am surprised at how well this worked." 😂

Nostalgia is a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. It’s one of the reasons for Pokemon GO’s massive success and why Netflix’s retro show, Stranger Things, was so well-received by 80’s babies.

So, we went back in time on Product Hunt to pull out some of our favorite nostalgic products:

👾 The Internet Arcade 900+ classic arcade games (no quarters required)
💻 Cathode is the vintage terminal you've always wanted
📺 My 90's TV lets you relive TV shows from your childhood
🎶 The Nostalgia Machine plays your favorite tunes by year
🔊 Endangered Sounds Museum plays nostalgic sounds from the past
👌 The Restart Page is Geek nostalgia at its finest
🐶 Hatchi is a virtual Tamagochi-like pet to take care of
📱 Great Apps Timeline shows how today's great apps evolved over time

Lastly, the Time Machine lets you jump back in time and re-discover the best products on Product Hunt. 🙂