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Pluralsight prices its IPO at $15 per share, raising over $300M

Published May 17, 2018

Pluralsight priced the shares in its IPO at $15 this afternoon, above its previously set target range of between $12 and $14, and will raise as much as $357 million ahead of its public debut tomorrow morning.

Pluralsight offers software development courses, specifically ones targeting employees that are looking to advance in their careers by acquiring new skills in order to transition to higher-level roles. As knowledge workers become increasingly valuable, especially in larger enterprises with sprawling workforces, companies like Pluralsight have found a sweet spot in building tools that enable companies to help identify talent in their own workforce and train them, rather than have to aggressively search outside the company to satisfy their needs. The company has raised $310.5 million in its IPO, with underwriters having the option to purchase an additional 3.1 million shares and bring that up to $357 million.

The company is one of a continuing wave of enterprise IPOs this year, including multiple successful ones like zScalar and Dropbox — the latter of which was more of a flagship as both a hotly-anticipated one and as a company that possesses a unique business model. But nonetheless, it’s shown that there’s an appetite for enterprise startups looking to go public, which offers those companies a way to raise capital in addition to offering their employees liquidity.

Pluralsight will be another of an increasing pack of unicorns in the Utah tech scene that are on their way to going public. Founded in 2004, Pluralsight was largely bootstrapped until its first financing round in 2013 where it raised $27.5 million from Insight Venture Partners. That firm is the company’s largest shareholder, and since then Pluralsight has raised nearly $200 million in financing.

Its The company’s IPO tomorrow will once again test the appetite for fresh IPOs among public investors. Enterprise companies generally offer a more stable batch for venture portfolios, with predictable and reliable growth that eventually carries it to an IPO with varying levels of success. They’re smaller than blockbuster consumer-ish IPOs, but they are the ones that can provide a stable return for funds like IVP.

This jolly little robot gets goosebumps

Published May 16, 2018

Cornell researchers have made a little robot that can express its emotions through touch, sending out little spikes when it’s scared or even getting goosebumps to express delight or excitement. The prototype, a cute smiling creature with rubber skin, is designed to test touch as an I/O system for robotic projects.

The robot mimics the skin of octopi which can turn spiky when threatened.

The researchers, Yuhan Hu, Zhengnan Zhao, Abheek Vimal and Guy Hoffman, created the robot to experiment with new methods for robot interaction. They compare the skin to “human goosebumps, cats’ neck fur raising, dogs’ back hair, the needles of a porcupine, spiking of a blowfish, or a bird’s ruffled feathers.”

“Research in human-robot interaction shows that a robot’s ability to use nonverbal behavior to communicate affects their potential to be useful to people, and can also have psychological effects. Other reasons include that having a robot use nonverbal behaviors can help make it be perceived as more familiar and less machine-like,” the researchers told IEEE Spectrum.

The skin has multiple configurations and is powered by a computer-controlled elastomer that can inflate and deflate on demand. The goosebumps pop up to match the expression on the robot’s face, allowing humans to better understand what the robot “means” when it raises its little hackles or gets bumpy. I, for one, welcome our bumpy robotic overlords.

How ZTE became the focal point of US/China relations

Published May 16, 2018

Here in the States, ZTE has been content with a kind of quiet success. The Chinese smartphone maker has landed in the top five quarter after quarter (sometimes breaking the top three, according to some analysts), behind household names like Apple, Samsung and LG. Suddenly, however, the company is on everyone’s lips, from cable news to the president’s Twitter account.

It’s the kind of publicity money can’t buy — but it’s happening for one of the worst reasons imaginable. ZTE suddenly finds itself in the eye of a looming trade war between superpowers. Iranian sanctions were violated, fines levied and seven-year international bans were instated.

It’s like a story ripped from the pages of some Cold War thriller, though instead of Jason Bourne, it’s that one budget smartphone company that you’ve maybe heard of, who maybe makes that weird Android phone with two screens.

So, how did we get here?

ZTE began U.S. operations in 1998, a little over a decade after forming in Shenzhen (and a year after going public in China) as Zhongxing Semiconductor Co., Ltd. The change of name to Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment reflects the newfound focus for the company, which employees around 75,000 and operates in 160 countries.

While ZTE has flirted with premium and sometimes bizarre devices, in the smartphone world, the company is primarily known for its budget hardware. It’s no coincidence that the company was tapped by google to be the first to run Android Oreo Go Edition (nee Android Go). The manufacturer has found particular success in the developing world, while making significant gains in the U.S. by releasing dozens of low-cost devices targeted at prepaid users.

In recent years, however, the company has come under increased scrutiny on two fronts. First, there’s the issue of the company’s perceived ties to the Chinese government. It’s the same thing that’s tripped up fellow Chinese handset manufacturer Huawei in its pursuit of the U.S. market.

In Huawei’s case, multiple warnings from top U.S. security agencies has severely hobbled any chance of making significant headway in this country. The company kicked off the year with the one-two punch of having AT&T pull out of a deal last minute, only to have Best Buy stop restocking its product on store shelves. ZTE, on the other hand, has run into less headwind there.

In February, top officials at the FBI, CIA and NSA all warned against buying product from both companies over remote surveillance concerns and later ending their sale at military bases. But after making significant inroads through non-contract carriers like Boost, Cricket and Metro PCS, the warnings appear to have had little impact on the company.

The same, however, can’t be said of a seven-year ban.

In 2016, the U.S. Commerce Department found the company guilty of violating U.S. sanctions. The department disclosed internal documents from the company naming “ongoing projects in all five major embargoed countries — Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Syria and Cuba.” That’s a big issue when selling a product that contains, by some estimates, a quarter of components created by U.S. companies — not to mention all of the Google software.

The following year, the company pleaded guilt and agreed to a $1.19 billion fine, along with the stipulation that it would punish senior management for the transgression. Last month, however, the DOC said ZTE failed to live up to the latter part of the deal, issuing an even steeper fine as a result.

“ZTE misled the Department of Commerce,” the department said in a statement to TechCrunch at the time. “Instead of reprimanding ZTE staff and senior management, ZTE rewarded them. This egregious behavior cannot be ignored.”

The new punishment bans U.S. component manufacturers from selling to ZTE for seven years. A few days later, the company told TechCrunch that the export ban would “severely impact” its chances of survival. And then, last week, the company ceased major operating activities.

“As a result of the Denial Order, the major operating activities of the company have ceased,” it wrote in an exchange filing. “As of now, the company maintains sufficient cash and strictly adheres to its commercial obligations subject in compliance with laws and regulations.”

In the meantime, the company was reportedly meeting with companies like Google in hopes of figuring out a workaround, while China was said to be meeting with U.S. officials to discuss the steep ban. For some, the ZTE ban was seen as a political move amidst a potential trade war, and a major roadblock toward negotiations.

President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018

That leads us to Sunday, when Trump tweeted, “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

Job loss in China seems like an odd motivator for any U.S. president, let along Trump, but things make significantly more sense when you consider the sheer size of a company like ZTE. If a U.S. trade ban caused the company to fold, it’s easy to see how that could severely impact already tenuous relations between the two countries.

“The Chinese have suggested that ZTE was a show-stopper,” international studies expert Scott Kennedy succinctly told NPR, “if you kill this company, we’re not going to be able to cooperate with you on anything.”

The Washington Post and CNN have typically written false stories about our trade negotiations with China. Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal. Our country has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year with China…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2018

And that brings us to this morning — and other Trump tweet. “The Washington Post and CNN have typically written false stories about our trade negotiations with China,” Trump writes. “Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal. Our country has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year with China[…]…haven’t even started yet! The U.S. has very little to give, because it has given so much over the years. China has much to give!”

Those tweets, it should be noted, were most likely posted in reaction to bipartisan concern about Trump’s focus. “#China intends to dominate the key industries of the 21st Century not through out innovating us, but by stealing our intellectual property & exploiting our open economy while keeping their own closed,” Marco Rubio tweeted earlier this week. “Why are we helping them achieve this by making a terrible deal on ZTE?”

So things are weird. And it’s 2018, so expect that it will only get weirder from here.

The SEC creates an educational ‘token’ to stop scammers

Published May 16, 2018

“Travel is expensive, but we are at the cusp of a revolution that will democratize travel and leisure for everyone,” reads the breathless whitepaper for HoweyCoins. “The Internet was the first part of the revolution. The other part is blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.”

“I’m all about HoweyCoins – this thing is going to pop at the top!” writes @boxingchamp1934, an official celebrity backer of the token. The website is full of beautiful beaches, features a handsome team of international men and women and the technology is nowhere to be seen, buried under a sea of excitement. The whitepaper is complete and well-written, focusing on the upside that is to come. Riches await if you invest in HoweyCoin, the latest ICO opportunity from trusted folks.

Or do they?

They don’t. All that breathless optimism is a site created by US Securities Exchange Commission to warn investors of scams and issues associated with token sales. The site features all the trademarks of a scammy security token, including tiered pre-sale pricing and an urgent countdown clock.

The site features a number of red flags that the SEC encourages users to watch out for, including, most importantly, claims that tokens can only go up in value. They write:

Every investment carries some degree of risk, which is reflected in the rate of return you can expect to receive. High returns entail high risks, possibly including a total loss on the investments. Most fraudsters spend a lot of time trying to convince investors that extremely high returns are “guaranteed” or “can’t miss.”

The SEC also notes that “it is never a good idea to make an investment decision just because someone famous says a product or service is a good investment,” and that it is never a good idea to invest with a credit card.

They also warn against pump and dump language found on many ICO pages. “Our past two pumps have doubled value for the period immediately after the pump for returns of over 225%,” wrote the HoweyCoins “creators,” a giant no-no in the world of investing.

You can read the rest of the red flags here.

While the site is fairly comical, it is sufficiently complete and would fool the casual observer. The SEC also posted a real-looking whitepaper that makes it clear that anyone can string together a few buzzwords and write a passable investment prospectus. That this is now a service available to anyone — for a price — makes things even scarier.

The site is part of the SEC’s outreach efforts to help investors understand ICOs.

“Strong investor protection is part of what makes American markets so strong…and striking the balance, [between innovation and investor protection] is very important,” said Chief of the SEC Cyber Unit Robert Cohen at Consensus this week. During the same panel the SEC claimed its doors were always open for questions.

Ultimately there is little separating the scams from the real token sales. This is a problem. The SEC is framing this problem in their own way based on decades of dealing with pink sheet pump and dumps and bogus get-rich-quick schemes. While HoweyCoins may not be real, there are plenty of scammers out there, and at least something like this bogus website makes it easier to spot the warning signs.

Coinbase’s first investment, Compound, earns you interest on crypto

Published May 16, 2018

Compound wants to let you borrow cryptocurrency, or lend it and earn an interest rate. Most cryptocurrency is shoved in a wallet or metaphorically hidden under a mattress, failing to generate interest the way traditionally banked assets do. But Compound wants to create liquid money markets for cryptocurrency by algorithmically setting interest rates, and letting you gamble by borrowing and then short-selling coins you think will sink. It plans to launch its first five for Ether, a stable coin, and a few others, by October.

Today, Compound is announcing some ridiculously powerful allies for that quest. It’s just become the first-ever investment by crypto exchange juggernaut Coinbase’s new venture fund. It’s part of an $8.2 million seed round led by top-tier VC Andreessen Horowitz, crypto hedge fund Polychain Capital and Bain Capital Ventures — the startup arm of the big investment bank.

While right now Compound deals in cryptocurrency through the Ethereum blockchain, co-founder and CEO Robert Leshner says that eventually he wants to carry tokenized versions of real-world assets like the dollar, yen, euro or Google stock. That’s because Leshner tells me “My thesis is that almost every crypto asset is bullshit and not worth anything.”

How to get Compound interest on your crypto

Here’s how Compound tells me it’s going to work. It’s an “overnight” market that permits super-short-term lending. While it’s not a bank, it is centralized, so you loan to and borrow from it directly instead of through peers, alleviating you from negotiation. If you loan, you can earn interest. If you borrow, you have to put up 100 percent of the value of your borrow in an asset Compound supports. If prices fluctuate and your borrow becomes worth more than your collateral, some of your collateral is liquidated through a repo agreement so they’re equal.

To set the interest rate, Compound acts kind of like the Fed. It analyzes supply and demand for a particular crypto asset to set a fluctuating interest rate that adjusts as market conditions change. You’ll earn that on what you lend constantly, and can pull out your assets at any time with just a 15-second lag. You’ll pay that rate when you borrow. And Compound takes a 10 percent cut of what lenders earn in interest. For crypto-haters, it offers a way to short coins you’re convinced are doomed.

“Eventually our goal is to hand-off responsibility [for setting the interest rate] to the community. In the short-term we’re forced to be responsible. Long-term we want the community to elect the Fed,” says Leshner. If it gets the interest rate wrong, an influx of lenders or borrowers will drive it back to where it’s supposed to be. Compound already has a user interface prototyped internally, and it looked slick and solid to me.

“We think it’s a game changer. Ninety percent of assets are sitting in people’s cold storage, or wallets, or exchanges. They aren’t being used or traded,” says Leshner. Compound could let people interact with crypto in a whole new way.

The Compound creation story

Compound is actually the third company Leshner and his co-founder and CTO Geoff Hayes have started together. They’ve been teamed up for 11 years since going to college at UPenn. One of their last companies, Britches, created an index of CPG inventory at local stores and eventually got acquired by Postmates. But before that Leshner got into the banking and wealth management business, becoming a certified public accountant. A true economics nerd, he’s the chair of the SF bond oversight committee, and got into crypto five years ago.

Compound co-founder and CEO Robert Leshner

Sitting on coins, Leshner wondered, “Why can’t I realize the time value of the cryptocurrency I possess?” Compound was born in mid-2017, and came out of stealth in January.

Now with $8.2 million in funding that also came from Transmedia Capital, Compound Ventures, Abstract Ventures and Danhua Capital, Compound is pushing to build out its product and partnerships, and “hire like crazy” beyond its seven current team members based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Partners will be crucial to solve the chicken-and-egg problem of getting its first lenders and borrowers. “We are planning to launch with great partners — token projects, hedge funds and dedicated users,” says Leshner. Having hedge funds like Polychain should help.

“We shunned an ICO. We said, ‘let’s raise venture capital.’ I’m a very skeptical person and I think most ICOs are illegal,” Leshner notes. The round was just about to close when Coinbase announced Coinbase Ventures. So Leshner fired off an email asking if it wanted to join. “In 12 hours they researched us, met our team, diligenced it and evaluated it more than almost any investor had to date,” Leshner recalls. Asked if there’s any conflict of interest given Coinbase’s grand ambitions, he said, “They’re probably our favorite company in the world. I hope they survive for 100 years. It’s too early to tell they overlap.”

Conquering the money markets

There are other crypto lending platforms, but none quite like Compound. Centralized exchanges like Bitfinex and Poloniex let people trade on margin and speculate more aggressively. But they’re off-chain, while Leshner says Compound is on-chain, transparent and can be built on top of. That could make it a more critical piece of the blockchain finance stack. There’s also a risk of these exchanges getting hacked and your coins getting stolen.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of peer-to-peer crypto lending protocols on the Ethereum blockchain, like ETHLend and Dharma. But interest rates, no need for slow matching, flexibility for withdrawing money and dealing with a centralized party could attract users to Compound.

Still, the biggest looming threat for Compound is regulation. But to date, the SEC and regulators have focused on ICOs and how people fundraise, not on what people are building. People aren’t filing lawsuits against actual products. “All the operations have flown beneath the radar and I think that’s going to change in the next 12 months,” Leshner predicts. How exactly they’ll treat Compound is up in the air.

One source in the crypto hedge fund space told me about forthcoming regulation: “You’re either going to get annihilated and have to disgorge profits or dissolve. Or you pay a fine and you’re among the first legal funds in the space. This is the gamble you take before asset classes get baptized.” As Leshner confirmed, “That’s the number one risk, period.”

Money markets are just one piece of the financial infrastructure puzzle that still needs to emerge around blockchain. Custodians, auditors, administrators and banks are still largely missing. When those get hammered out to make the space safer, the big money hedge funds and investment banks could join in. For Compound, getting the logistics right will require some serious legal ballet.

Yet Leshner is happy to dream big despite all of the crypto world’s volatility. He concludes, “We want to be like Black Rock with a trillion under management, and we want to have 25 employees when we do that. They probably have [tens of thousands] of employees. Our goal is to be like them with a skeleton team.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to talk the future of cryptocurrency at Disrupt SF

Published May 16, 2018

Coinbase has come a long way since its launch in 2012. The company has raised more than $225 million and paved the way for cryptocurrencies to enter the mainstream by providing a digital currency exchange. Which is why we’re absolutely thrilled to have Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong join us on the main stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September.

Armstrong worked as a developer for IBM and consultant at Deloitte before joining Airbnb as a software engineer in 2011. At Airbnb, Armstrong focused on fraud prevention, giving him the opportunity to learn about payment systems across the 190 countries Airbnb serves.

In 2012, Armstrong co-founded Coinbase and gave a budding demographic of cryptocurrency enthusiasts the opportunity to trade in their USD for bitcoins, and later the digital currency of their choice. Coinbase currently serves over 10 million customers across 32 countries, providing custody for more than $10 billion in digital assets.

In fact, Coinbase was valued at $1.6 billion following a $100 million funding round in August 2017.

In April, the company unveiled an early-stage fund for cryptocurrency startups, and acquired Earn.com for $100 million. As part of the acquisition, the company brought on Balaji Srinivasan as its first CTO.

There were also reports that Coinbase approached the SEC to become a licensed brokerage firm and electronic trading venue, which would allow the company to expand beyond the four coins (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin) that trade on the platform now.

Just yesterday, Coinbase announced that it would offer a new suite of services aimed at institutional investors, who are beginning to warm up to cryptocurrencies.

There is plenty to discuss with Armstrong come September, and we’re absolutely thrilled to have him join the stellar Disrupt SF agenda. You can head over here to buy yourself tickets. See you there!

OpenClassrooms raises another $60 million

Published May 16, 2018

French startup OpenClassrooms is raising $60 million from General Atlantic, with existing investors Citizen Capital, Alven and Bpifrance also participating.

OpenClassrooms is the most popular massive open online course platform in France. But the startup has evolved beyond on-demand courses to provide full-fledged degrees. You can now get a degree certified by the French state by studying full time on OpenClassrooms.

Every month, 3 million users access OpenClassrooms. Many of them just want to learn something and maybe get a certification. But more and more people are following one of the 30 bachelor and master degrees. You can study many things from web and mobile development to data management and marketing.

But OpenClassrooms isn’t just leaving you with a big pile of courses to study. The company has created a community of mentors who will regularly check with you to see how you’re doing. There are 600 mentors working for OpenClassrooms.

These paths aren’t cheap as you’ll need to pay around €300 per month ($350). But it’s still cheaper and more flexible than attending a traditional engineering school right after the baccalauréat. For instance, if you want to work on the side and live in a cheap city, you can do that as you just need a computer and an internet connection.

The company will even guarantee that you’ll find a job after that. If you can’t find a job within six months, OpenClassrooms will pay you back for the degree.

And OpenClassrooms recently unveiled the next step. As OpenClassrooms students easily find a job after getting a degree, the startup started working with companies directly.

IT service company Capgemini is always looking for new people as there’s usually a high turnover in IT service companies. That’s why Capgemini is hiring trainees with OpenClassrooms.

Students learn a new skill and then work part time for Capgemini. OpenClassrooms charges Capgemini directly, students don’t have to pay for their studies and get a job instantly. It’s a win for everyone.

When I first learned about this program, I thought OpenClassrooms had finally found a highly profitable business model. Now, the company has signed deals with Orange and Google.org.

With today’s funding round, the team is going to double in size. “Within a year, OpenClassrooms will provide a hundred digital degrees, including a third of them in English,” co-founder and CEO Pierre Dubuc told me.

Many will focus on digital skills, such as data science, computer science and cybersecurity. But there will also be non-technical degrees around HR, management, accounting, marketing and communication. OpenClassrooms could end up becoming one of the biggest universities in the world.

Deliveroo employees are getting shares, riders are getting nothing

Published May 16, 2018

Food delivery startup Deliveroo is feeling generous today. The company is handing out equity to all full-time staff members. In other words, 2,000 employees are going to receive the equivalent of $13.5 million in Deliveroo shares.

“Our phenomenal growth and success has been made possible thanks to the hard work, commitment and passion of the people who make this company what it is,” co-founder and CEO Will Shu told Reuters. “And that deserves recognition which is why I want all employees to be owners in Deliveroo and to have a real stake in the company’s future as we expand and grow.”

This is a great way to prove that you care about your employees. And yet, there are a few caveats.

First, the company is currently worth over $2 billion. In total, Deliveroo is just handing out 0.675 percent of the company to its employees. I’m sure plenty of early employees already have equity.

But those who joined more recently aren’t likely to get rich over this — it represents a $6,750 equity bonus per employee on average. And shares usually vest after a certain amount of time.

Second, this is the perfect example of the gig economy. In addition to the usual benefits, full-time employees are getting rewarded once again. If you’re a self-employed rider, Deliveroo doesn’t want to thank you.

Arguably, Deliveroo still thinks that riders are disposable. They might be the ones who pick up food in restaurants and hand it to customers, but they will never be full-time employees.

Sure, Deliveroo and Uber Eats are now providing free accident insurance coverage, but it mostly covers hospital bills. Riders have been asking for better rights, and this insurance package is just a good way to ease the pressure.

Working with contractors at scale is the backbone of Uber, Deliveroo and many other on-demand startups. This way, startups don’t have to pay the minimum wage or expensive benefits. Startups can also terminate their relationships with their ‘partners’ without any consequence.

It’s a great way to pressure your contractors in working more for less money. And today’s move by Deliveroo is further proof that riders are just an afterthought.

Circle raises $110 million (or 13,300 BTC)

Published May 16, 2018

Cryptocurrency startup Circle has raised a $110 million funding round, which values the company near $3 billion. Cryptocurrency mining company Bitmain is leading the round.

Existing investors IDG Capital, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Digital Currency Group and Pantera are investing more money. Blockchain Capital and Tusk Ventures are investing in Circle for the first time. Goldman Sachs also invested in the company in a previous round.

It’s hard to describe Circle in a few words because the company has been active on all fronts. For a really long time, the company pitched itself as a social payment company, a Venmo and Square Cash competitor. But Circle is more focused than ever on cryptocurrencies.

The company has been operating one of the largest over-the-counter trading desks for big cryptocurrency investors and exchanges. Circle Trade manages more than $2 billion a month in transactions and is able to fulfill large orders and provide liquidity.

More recently, the company launched Circle Invest, a really simple mobile app for the U.S. market. It lets you buy and sell Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Zcash and Monero in just a few taps. It’s a good way to get started with cryptocurrencies without learning about exchanges and order types. It could become a good Coinbase competitor for small cryptocurrency investors.

And Circle also acquired Poloniex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S.

But the most interesting projects right now are probably CENTRE and a new tokenized USD coin. There are so many different cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, exchanges and wallets that it has become hard to make everything work together. Cryptocurrencies still suffer from price volatility, so bitcoin can’t be the common denominator.

That’s why Circle is creating a token that is pegged to the U.S. dollar. The USD Coin is based on an open source framework developed by CENTRE and everything should be audited regularly.

CENTRE is a Circle initiative to create a common framework to connect all electronic wallets. This protocol could let you send money to an Alipay user with your Square Cash balance.

It’s clear that Circle wants to build the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency industry. The company will need to convince multiple industry players to work with Circle, but it could help the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.

To make Stories global, Facebook adds Archive and audio posts

Published May 16, 2018

Facebook’s future rests on convincing the developing world to adopt Stories. But just because the slideshow format will soon surpass feed sharing doesn’t mean people use them the same way everywhere. So late last year, Facebook sent a team to India to learn what features they’d need to embrace Stories across a variety of local languages on phones without much storage.

Today, Facebook will start rolling out three big Stories features in India, which will come to the rest of the world shortly after. First, to lure posts from users who don’t want to type or have a non-native language keyboard, as well as micropodcasters, Facebook Stories will allow audio posts combining a voice message with a colored background or photo.

Facebook Stories will get an Archive similar to Instagram Stories that automatically saves your clips privately after they expire so you can go back to check them out or re-share the content to the News Feed. And finally, Facebook will let Stories users privately Save their clips from the Facebook Camera directly to the social network instead of their phone in case they don’t have enough space.

Facebook Stories Archive

“We know that the performance and reliability of viewing and posting Stories is extremely important to people around the world, especially those with slower connections” Facebook’s director of Stories Connor Hayes tells me. “We are always working on ways to improve the experience of viewing Stories on all types of connections, and have been investing here — especially on our FB Lite app.”

Facebook has a big opportunity to capitalize on Snapchat’s failure to focus on the international market. Plagued by Android engineering problems and initial reluctance to court users beyond U.S. teens, Snapchat left the door open for Facebook’s Stories products to win the globe. Now Snapchat has sunk to its slowest growth rate ever, hitting 191 million daily users despite shrinking in March. Meanwhile, WhatsApp Status, its clone of Snapchat Stories has 450 million daily users, while Instagram Stories has over 300 million.

Stories are about to surpass feed sharing. Now what?

As for Facebook Stories, it was initially seen as a bit of a ghost town but more and more of my friends are posting there, in part thanks to the ability to syndicate you Instagram Stories there. Facebook Stories has never announced a user count, and Hayes says “We don’t have anything to share yet, but performance of Facebook Stories is encouraging, and we’ve learned a lot about how we can make the experience even better.” Facebook is hell-bent on making Stories work on its own app after launching the in mid-2017, and seems to believe users who find them needless or redundant will come around eventually.

My concern about the global rise of Stories is that instead of only recording the biggest highlights of our lives to capture with our phones, we’re increasingly interrupting all our activities and exiting the present to thrust our phone in the air.

That’s one thing Facebook hopes to fix here, Facebook’s director of Stories Connor Hayes tells me. “Saving photos and videos can be used to save what you might want to post later – So you don’t have to edit or post them while you’re out with your friends, and instead enjoy the moment at the concert and share them later.” You’re still injecting technology into your experience, though, so I hope we can all learn to record as subtly as possible without disturbing the memory for those around us.

Facebook Camera’s Save feature

The new Save to Facebook Camera feature creates a private tab in the Stories creation interface where you can access and post the imagery you’ve stored, and you’ll also find a Saved tab in your profile’s Photos section. Unlike Facebook’s discontinued Photo Sync feature, here you’ll choose to save imagery one at a time. It will be a big help to users lacking free space on their phone, as Facebook says many people around the world have to delete a photo just to save a new one.

Facebook wants to encourage people to invest more time decorating Stories, and learned that some people want to re-live or re-share their clips that expire after 24 hours. That’s why its built the Archive, a hedge against the potentially short-sighted trend of ephemerality.

On the team’s journey to India, they heard that photos and videos aren’t always the easiest way to share. If you’re camera-shy, have a low-quality camera, or don’t have cool scenes to capture, audio posts could get you sharing more. In fact, Facebook started testing voice clips as feed status updates in March. “With this week’s update, you will have options to add a voice message to a colorful background or a photo from your camera gallery or saved gallery. You can also add stickers, text, or doodles” says Hayes. With 22 official languages in India and over 100 spoken, recording voice can often be easier than typing.

Facebook Audio Stories

Some users will still hate Stories, which are getting more and more prominence atop Facebook’s feed. But Facebook can’t afford to retreat here. Stories are social media bedrock — the most full-screen and immersive content medium we can record and consume with just our phones. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself said that Facebook must make sure that “ads are as good in Stories as they are in feeds. If we don’t do this well, then as more sharing shifts to Stories, that could hurt our business.” That means Facebook Stories needs India’s hundreds of millions of users.

There will always be room for text, yet if people want to achieve an emotional impact, they’ll eventually wade into Storytelling. But social networks must remember low-bandwidth users, or we’ll only get windows into the developed world.

For more on Facebook Stories, check out our recent coverage:

Facebook and Instagram Stories open to sharing from other apps

Facebook won’t retreat from Stories as it adds desktop posting