Airbnb is proving itself to the quite the political operator. In an ethics complaint filed today in San Francisco, Airbnb has been accused using off-the-books lobbyists to help push legislation that legalized the startup.

If a rising tide lifts all boats, then Google rising up as corporate landowner of Santa Clara County has lifted all housing prices. A tipster directed us to this cracked-on-the-outside, hoarder-on-the-inside home in Palo Alto going for $1.8 million.

Steve Ballmer defends Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: "Actually he allowed good karma to happen and good things happened to him and he was very fortunate, and that's his genuine belief in life." Yo Steve-o, no one doubted that Nadella was genuinely clueless.

Authorities have charged a San Francisco UberX driver with battery, malicious mischief, and vandalism after "forcibly" pulling a female passenger out of the car and throwing her iPhone down the street. The victim claims it took Uber 20 hours to call her back.

Years before Jan Koum sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $22 billion, a California court granted his ex-girlfriend a restraining order against the future tech CEO. After court documents surfaced today, Koum apologized telling Bloomberg, "I am ashamed of the way I acted."

For many, strolling around San Francisco is a pleasure. But for the optimization-obsessed elites of Silicon Valley, traveling through a world-class city is just laboring tax on their time. Now one former Facebook boss realizes his "soul-crushing" shuttle bus commute out of town was a blessing in disguise.

During the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit—a gathering of "the world's brightest young game changers" and the middle-aged men who are obsessed with them—Tinder CEO Sean Rad announced that his dating app will start offering a paid premium option in early November.

Faced with sagging ad sales, Yahoo has decided to keep trying to same failing strategy: gobbling up fledgling startups to reinvigorate the aging behemoth. An activist investor already slammed this approach as a money-burning fuck up. But CEO Marissa Mayer is undeterred. She plans to squander profits from Yahoo's stake in Alibaba on more youthful startups.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is better prepared for his apology tour than he was for his panel at the Grace Hopper conference for women in computing. He gave CNBC and USA Today the same line explaining why he encouraged women to rely on "karma" and the "have faith in the system" rather than ask for a raise.

The oversized brain of Silicon Valley star Marc Andreessen can hold a lot of insight, but every once in a while, it still overflows: a new interview reveals he still clings to the fantasy of meritocracy.

Today Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel joins the grand tradition of tech CEOs who trashed talked ads in ways they later came to regret. In a blog post announcing new ads for American users, the company said it wants to harken back to the days before ads "got creepy and targeted."

ModCloth, the fashion retailer with $63.7 million in funding from some of Silicon Valley's biggest investors, has announced another round of layoffs. According to TechCrunch, "around 40 or 50" jobs were axed yesterday.

Adrianne Jeffries had a simple dream: to "hack lunch" by ordering a week's supply of Soylent, the food of the future for people who have better things to do than eat. It took five months for her order to arrive and now Jeffries, managing editor for Motherboard, can't get rid of it.

Here's an idea: if you are a tech CEO who was once hit with over 160 misdemeanor charges for planning booze-filled parties for high schoolers, maybe your startup shouldn't offer to ship devil water to strangers.

Bay Area rents keep climbing thanks to the tech boom. According to the Contra Costa Times, rental costs across the region have hit a new record: "Bay Area apartment rents have jumped 11.4 percent from last year to an average of $2,234 a month."

Earlier this afternoon, Uber driver Christopher J. Ortiz posted the email above informing him that he would be "permanently deactivated" because of a single tweet. "I think that's pretty much fired—for a 'independent contractor,'" Ortiz told Valleywag.

The Atlantic has embarked on a new quest, dubbed the Silicon Valley Insiders Poll, in which they survey 50 of tech's foremost "executives, innovators, and thinkers." Their findings proved something we already knew: many believe the tech industry is in a bubble.

The corporate clown car that is LivingSocial faced another meltdown yesterday. According to the Washington Post, the daily deal site's Chief Marketing Officer was convicted of assaulting a woman in a D.C. Four Seasons bar. The 52-year-old executive, Barry Judge, faces up to 180 days in jail.

While San Francisco is rolling over for Airbnb, New York's attorney general is going after the so-called "home sharing" startup. After subpoenaing records from thousands of Airbnb's New York users, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has issued a report on the $10 billion rental site's impact on the city. What he found isn't pretty.

With all the tech money being flung around the Bay Area, everyone is grabbing for a piece—especially real estate developers. In San Francisco's south-east corner, a Miami-based development company is looking to reinvent a government Superfund site into a techie "innovation center," complete with usual Silicon Valley amenities.