Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, September 2

• SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral - Destroying Facebook Satellite: A spectacular explosion of a SpaceX rocket on Thursday destroyed a $200 million communications satellite that would have extended Facebook’s reach across Africa, dealing a serious setback to Elon Musk, the billionaire who runs the rocket company. The blast is likely to disrupt NASA’s cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, exposing the risks of the agency’s growing reliance on private companies like SpaceX to carry materials and, soon, astronauts. The explosion, at Cape Canaveral, Fla., intensified questions about whether Mr. Musk is moving too quickly in his headlong investment in some of the biggest and most complex industries, not just space travel but carmakers and electric utilities. This is not the first problem Mr. Musk has suffered as he tries to create space travel that is cheap and commonplace. Each of his companies, including Tesla and SolarCity, has hit major stumbling blocks recently. Theowner of a Tesla car died in May in a crash using the company’s autopilot software, and SolarCity faces major financial challenges. The explosion was particularly painful news for Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, who is touring Kenya, promoting a program reliant on the satellite, known as Amos-6, with entrepreneurs in the country. He had promised them connectivity. Just hours after the news of the explosion broke, Mr. Zuckerberg expressed disappointment on his Facebook page “that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite,” a swipe at Mr. Musk and his team, who were still trying to figure out what went wrong.

• Google shelves plan for phone with interchangeable parts - sources: Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build what is known as a modular smartphone with interchangeable components, as part of a broader push to streamline the company's hardware efforts, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which announced a host of partners for Project Ara at its developer conference in May and said it would ship a developer edition of the product this autumn. The company’s aim was to create a phone that users could customize on the fly with an extra battery, camera, speakers or other components.Axing Project Ara is one of the first steps in a campaign to unify Google’s various hardware efforts, which range from Chromebook laptops to Nexus phones. Former Motorola president Rick Osterloh rejoined Google earlier this year to oversee the effort. Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo Group in 2014.“This was a science experiment that failed, and they are moving on,” he said. Project Ara was one of the flagship efforts of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, which aims to develop new devices, but it had various stops and starts. Last year, the company shelved plans to sell the modular phone in Puerto Rico with Latin American carriers.

• When Things Go Very Wrong at a Start-Up: For many young engineers and business people, Silicon Valley is their version of Hollywood. If you want to make it big, go there, create your own company or sign on with a start-up on the way up, and get ready to make a fortune. Maybe you will even become famous. But Hollywood, it turns out, is not the only California destination with a boulevard of broken dreams. Last week, a Medium post about how things went south — badly — at an unnamed tech start-up drew attention to a side of Silicon Valley not many people talk about. For all the Googles and Facebooks and Oracles, there may be hundreds of companies that never make it. And in some cases, the employees who sign on may walk away poorer financially for their effort. As Katie Benner writes, it wasn’t long before online commenters figured out that the company in the Medium post was called WrkRiot. The unraveling of this company is, of course, a cautionary tale about the many things that can go wrong at a start-up, like questionable bosses and plain old bad ideas. Is it indicative of a larger problem in Silicon Valley? Industry veterans would probably say no. Some people view working for a dud of a start-up as a rite of passage — like a bad relationship that teaches you a lesson about what to avoid in a partner. Others figure that even if things go bad, there are so many good jobs in the area, you won’t be down on your luck for long. But just in case, do a little extra homework before you move across the country to take a start-up job.