Conflict in the Middle East threatens global economic growth

Iguodala is moving from the hardwood to the boardroom

Over the course of nearly two decades, Andre Iguodala has built a reputation as one of the NBA’s most versatile players, an Olympic gold medalist and four-time All-Star with the Golden State Warriors.

Now, Iguodala exclusively tells DealBook that he’s retiring from professional basketball to focus on his other career: startup investor. He will manage Mosaic Fund, a $200 million venture capital fund he just raised with his longtime business partner, Rudy Klein Thomas.

Iguodala’s revelation ends years of speculation. The 39-year-old had indicated that last year’s season would be his last, but it did not Shoot down rumours About it earlier this year. But now is the time to hang up his sneakers. “It’s been a blessing to play for a long time,” he told DealBook. (He hasn’t fully figured it out yet: “I don’t know if it’s really hit me yet,” he said.)

He’s embracing his next act. Although he and Kline-Thomas began buying technology stocks in 2010, the two dove deep into startups when he joined the Warriors in 2013. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” Iguodala said off the court. “I’ve thought about how to get there.”

This led to meetings with venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, and then taking stakes in startups, including Zoom and cybersecurity provider Cloudflare.

It is a model now followed by many professional athletes, From the NFL’s Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers to Iguodala’s longtime Warriors teammate Steph Curry. “Athletes are becoming smarter and smarter,” Iguodala said, stressing that their competitiveness and ability to speak to audiences helps sell and expand products.

Mosaics are now the focus of his interest. The company will focus on seed and early-stage investments in enterprise software, healthcare, fintech and sports companies. Iguodala and Klein Thomas closed Mosaic’s first fund — whose investors included endowments, foundations and founders of companies they already backed — last May.

Mosaic’s investments include Vessel, a builder of modular multifamily homes, and Athletes First, the NFL’s talent agency and management company.

Sports franchise ownership is another focus. Iguodala is co-owner of English football club Leeds United. Bay Area FC, a National Women’s Soccer League team; and, along with former teammates Curry and Klay Thompson, the San Francisco chapter of TGL, the junior golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Iguodala’s highest ambition? Owning an NBA team. “The timing has to be right, but that’s definitely the ultimate goal,” he said.

“The disruption to an already difficult business model is real. … This is a post-social network.

— Adrien LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic. Media executives have realized that traffic to their websites from tech giants like Google and Meta’s Facebook is declining sharply and probably won’t rebound.

A new push for net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission has revived a plan to restore so-called net neutrality rules, igniting a fight over how Washington should regulate Internet services and whether the Web should be treated as a utility.

The Democratic-led agency voted along party lines. Commissioners voted 3-2 to revive Obama-era regulations that prevented broadband providers, such as Comcast, Charter Communications and AT&T, from blocking or slowing down services like Google and Netflix that compete with them. The Trump administration rescinded the rules, saying they were an example of regulatory overreach.

The rules allow the FCC to treat the Internet as a utility, such as a water or electricity provider. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the importance of internet access has been demonstrated during the Covid pandemic. She said access to broadband had become a necessity for work and education, but the regulator was unable to monitor service providers to ensure quality of service.

The agency will be able to monitor companies for net neutrality violations, consumer harm and security vulnerabilities. This may include forcing ISPs to lower prices that the FCC deems unreasonable.

Republicans and cable companies have vowed to fight the move. Brendan Carr, the Republican commissioner of the FCC, said the rules were counterproductive and that Internet service improved for consumers when the rules were not in place.

USTelecom, a cable industry trade group, warned of the FCC’s “mission creep” in cybersecurity. ISPs said they would challenge the policy change, including by filing lawsuits all the way to the Supreme Court.

fast reading

deals

• Video game publishers are sitting up $45 billion in cash, which could lead to further consolidation in the industry after Microsoft completed its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. (CNBC)

• Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm led by Josh Kushner, is reportedly leading talks on the deal Buy OpenAI shares With a value exceeding $80 billion. (the information)

• The American banking giants have given up on… Combined 20,000 jobs So far this year. (CNBC)

• Investors in the United States and Europe have Selling shares worth $5.1 billion In major Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba and Tencent, over the past two months. (Bloomberg)

Policy

• The Securities and Exchange Commission will Drop lawsuits Against two cryptocurrency executives over trading of the digital token XRP. (Wall Street Journal)

• Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is the latest author to sue technology companies, including Meta and Microsoft, for training artificial intelligence tools on their published works without compensation. (the edge)

• Peter Thiel was a Confidential FBI informant? (inside)

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