Acclaimed filmmaker Ryan Coogler, best known for writing and directing such smash hits as “ Black Panther ,” “Creed” and “Fruitvale Station,” has been making waves recently with his new movie “Sinners.” For those who don’t know, “Sinners” has already garnered over $70 million at the box office , despite having just released on Apr. 18. The film also had a very modest marketing push and very little studio support, making its success even more impressive. While “Sinners” has been drawing plenty of eyes from the general public, the behind-the-scenes story of Coogler’s Warner Bros deal has also enraptured creators, filmmakers and Hollywood film buffs alike. In fact, financial analysts have predicted that the “Sinners” deal could be worth millions for generations to come, while some studio insiders have expressed concern that the deal will destabilize the future of the industry if other filmmakers attempt to replicate it. In order to understand exactly what terms are established by Ryan...

Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, has placed a bid to acquire TikTok. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, the app owned by ByteDance is facing a ban in the United States due to its association with China — although TikTok states it is not tied to the Chinese government. The app will only avoid a ban if it is sold to a company based in the United States. At the time of this writing, ByteDance has shown no interest in selling TikTok, which reaches over 170 million users in the United States, despite the ban’s looming deadline of April 5. The target date was extended by 75 days after Donald Trump signed an executive order upon assuming office on Jan. 20. “We have been fighting to protect the constitutional right of free speech for the more than 170,000,000 Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover, and achieve their dreams,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said on the platform. “On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I wanna thank President...

Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian Sr. has his eyes on a new application. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, TikTok had been temporarily banned as a result of not adhering to a U.S. mandate requiring the China-based app to be sold to a U.S. company. On April 24, 2024, former President Joe Biden had signed a law mandating the sale due to concerns about national security and data safety for U.S. citizens . Owned by ByteDance, TikTok was offline just hours before the ban was to go into effect on Jan. 19, 2025. However, users were able to access the app shortly because President Donald Trump affirmed he was looking to save it. Trump took office on Jan. 20 and extended the ban by 75 days allowing more time for a deal to be made. Since then, many individuals have stepped forward to express their interest in buying TikTok. This includes content creator MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, who has more than 115 million followers on the platform (at the time of this writing). @mrbeast TikTok check your...

Wall Street day traders found themselves shocked and confused last week when Reddit’s stock price climbed to heights of 58 percent, surpassing the expectations of even the most liberal investors on r/WallStreetBets. The social media site , which is primarily used for sharing opinions, discussing niche topics and delivering daily news to millions of user-generated in-groups, reported $348.4 million in Q3 revenue according to data on Yahoo Finance . While these sky-high figures would be a bit surprising to most financial analysts, they were especially shocking to Wall Street insiders , who were reportedly planning to short the RDDT stock based on their expectation that the site would lose money during the most recent earnings report . In order to understand why and how the Reddit stock was able to surpass expectations, we’ll have to take a brief look at what’s changed in the site’s business model in recent months, watch similar stocks such as META and NVDA, and study the industry...

Colin Kaepernick is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to help storytellers. Kaepernick has been pouring into new ventures following his departure from the NFL, which came after he started kneeling in 2016 during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice, TIME reports. Kaepernick last played for the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 1, 2017, and when he became a free agent he was not signed by a new team, per ABC-7. Since then he has focused his attention in areas that include venture capital. As AFROTECH™ mentioned, he joined KINLÒ, tennis star Naomi Osaka’ s skincare company, serving as an investor and board member. He also is a children’s author and released “I Color Myself Different,” in April 2022, which depicts his experience of embracing his Blackness as an individual adopted into a white family. Kaepernick’s latest endeavor focuses on supporting other storytellers, and he is utilizing AI to achieve this goal. TIME mentioned he raised $4 million...

Serena Williams has positioned herself for a lifetime of success. However, as a mother, her children’s well-being also defines true victory. Williams and her husband, Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian, have two daughters: Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., who is now 6 years old and was born on Sept. 1, 2017, and Adira River Ohanian, born in August 2023. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) Early on, Williams and Ohanian began making moves to establish wealth for their daughters. When Olympia was 2 years old, she made history as the youngest professional sports team owner. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, she became part-owner of the women’s soccer team Angel City FC (Los Angeles, CA), along with her parents. “As someone who spends hours kicking around a football with my two-year-old daughter, I want her to have a front-row seat to this revolution,” Ohanian said in a National Women’s Soccer League news release at the time. “I’m personally investing on...

Pharrell Williams’ winning streak continues. This time the legendary producer has been tapped to lead as the chief brand officer of the Doodles NFT project. The news comes on the heels of a successful second installment of his Something in the Water festival during the Juneteenth holiday weekend. It was also just a week after he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside his partner of The Neptunes, Chad Hugo. Now, Decrypt reports that the “Happy” singer will help to build the larger Doodles team “from the core community outward.” Pharrell shared a video statement in which he expressed that he is a “big fan” of Doodles and is happy to also join the company’s board along with his new role.    

Realtime, an invitation-only social media app created by Vernon Coleman and Kevin Robinson just closed a $4 million seed round — making Coleman reportedly one of the youngest Black entrepreneurs to raise venture capital funding. We did it Joe…. 🤗 Excited to Announce @useRealtime has raised a $4M Seed Round led by @alexisohanian @sevensevensix Realtime won’t just change the way people connect and interact… We will redefine what it means to be a social network! https://t.co/P9yI5tr3k4 — Vernon (@VernTheLegend) December 18, 2020 According to a Medium post, the investment round led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six also included other big tech investors such as Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI and former president of YC; Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup; Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter; Nick Caldwell, VP of Engineering at Twitter; and several others. Business Insider reports the co-founders dropped out of the University of California Santa Cruz, in what was supposed to be...