Slack’s $120M raise was big news this week. Learn why selective wipe on mobile devices is not enough on its own. Of course, Tim Cook, CEO of arguably the most admired company in the world, delivered a significant message.

I. Tim Cook Speaks Up

In an essay in Business Week Apple CEO, Tim Cook, @tim_cook, wrote, “I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.” Cook decided that the potential good of his message on human rights and equality out-weighed his own valued privacy. Beautifully written.

II. Selective wipe: The secret to getting users to report lost mobile devices

Employees are often reticent to report a lost or stolen mobile devices to employers for fear of losing personal data if the device is wiped. It is important that IT use a mobility solution which allows selective wipe of data. Selective wipe means, for instance, that only business content on a smartphone or tablet may be wiped, not personal content. The next challenge is that employees need to be informed as to what the company procedure will be when a device is reported lost. In this piece in InfoWorld, Ryan Fass, @ryanfaas, makes the case that transparency and communication when a device is lost need to be part of the company’s mobility policy.

III. Stewart Butterfield explains why Slack is now worth more than $1 billion

What is Slack? One of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in history. The Slack platform was released to the public in February 2014. It is used by 30,000 teams to send over 200 million monthly messages. Slack raised $43M in April and just raised an additional $120M at a $1.12 billion post-money valuation. Writing in Fortune, Dan Primack, @danprimack, interviews founder and CEO, Stewart Butterfield, about Slack, the competition (HipChat and Yammer), and selling his first company, Flickr, to Yahoo.

IV. Following iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Launches, App Marketing Costs Hit an All-Time High

The launches of the new iPhone 6 phones sent an influx of new users to the App Store for mobile apps. Sarah Perez, @sarahintampa, explains in TechCrunch that advertising costs to win them over are up. In addition, the upgrade to iOS 8 caused users to have a free up a lot of storage space on their devices, which lead to users deleting many apps.

–Maureen – I tweet at @mobilehelix

So many articles, so little time. Each week I post a small number of pieces which stood out to me and which were well-worth the time to read. Which of your recent reads do you recommend? Let me know at @mobilehelix on Twitter.

I. Why Public WiFi is a Public Health Hazard

We all know that public WiFi is not secure. Maurits Martijin, @mauritsmartijin, writing in de Correspondent, spends the day visiting cafes in Amsterdam with a hacker who makes child’s play of capturing passwords and spying on personal information. Chilling.

II. In Conversation: Marc Andreessen

The Netscape creator turned Silicon Valley sage on why optimism is always the safest bet.

I don’t know how Marc Andreessen @pmarca, does it. I have a hard time keeping up with simply reading everything that he writes and all of the interviews that he gives. Andreessen sees more new technology than almost anyone else alive. He is very generous with his insights, and yes, optimistic, opinions. Terrific interview by Kevin Roose, @kevinroose, in New York magazine.

III. Silent Benefits of PR

Twice an entrepreneur, Mark Suster, @msuster, is now a General Partner at Upfront Ventures in Los Angeles. He fittingly calls his blog, BothSides of the Table. His perspective is so clearly that of someone who has been there and who has figured out what works when it comes to building a company. Mark’s writing reflects a lot of wisdom and compassion. I always learn something from Mark. Here he points to reasons to do PR beyond customer acquisition, such as fund raising and business development.

IV. Yahoo, Marissa Mayer and the Leadership Question

Yahoo’s stock was up after last week’s earnings call which revealed results which were better than expected and increased revenue at Tumblr. Katie Benner, @ktbenner, in Bloomberg View, writes about Yahoo and Mayer’s leadership, strategy and team building. I just finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, which is terrific.

Contrast Mayer to Steve Jobs. He got away with being a tyrant because of his sheer genius in product intuition and creativity. Jobs was bursting with vision and was a stickler about building teams of A players.

–Maureen

Each week I post a few of my favorite pieces in technology and entrepreneurship. This week’s range from income inequality to the internet of things.

I. Why Inequality Matters

From Bill Gates, @BillGates, thoughts about wealth and income inequity after he read, and spoke with, Piketty.

II. What we’ve learned listening to 6,000+ people complaining about email

What people say is broken about email, from Alice Default, @alice_default, content marketing wiz at email inbox company, Front.

III. Here’s What Hackers Do With Your Data

“…cyber criminals make around 10 times more money hacking someone’s medical information than from stealing their credit card details.”
From Natasha Bertrand, @NatashaBertrand, in Business Insider.

IV. The Key Financing Attributes Of Startups In The Billion Dollar Club

How did Uber, SpaceX and Square get there? Recent WSJ data shows that there have never been as many privately held companies with such high valuations. There are 49 startups with one billion dollars valuations. Ten years ago they would have gone public.

Tomasz Tunguz, @ttunguz, venture capitalist at Redpoint slices the data by sectors (Consumer, Enterprise, etc.) showing how much was raised, valuation and valuation efficiency. Another terrific analysis by Tunguz.

V. How the Internet of things could transform the enterprise

How the IoT has the potential to benefit our lives.

By Sanjay Poonen, @spoonen, the executive vice president and general manager for end-user computing at VMware.

Each week I spotlight a handful of my favorite articles and posts in technology and entrepreneurship.

I. Zingers in Peter Thiel’s conversation at Venture Alpha.

If you are not reading Thiel’s Zero to One you are missing a provocative series of lectures.

Steve Jurvetson, @dfjsteve, captured some of the gems from Thiel’s talk. Example: “VCs overvalue things that they use. Uber is overrated because VCs like to drive around in town cars.”

However, there is no substitute for reading the book.

II. Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Ranked by Pay.

It’s not hard to guess that Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, is ranked number one. Would you have imagined that her total compensation is nearly twice that of the next highest exec?

Charted in Fortune Magazine by Scott DeCarlo.

III. Malcolm Gladwell Says Steve Jobs Became Steve Jobs Because Of This Personality Trait.

I won’t spill the beans, but I strongly believe in the value of this trait.

Business Insider’s Drake Baer, @drake_baer.

IV. U.S. Broadband Speed Ranking: We’re (Down to) No. 14!

You knew that we were not competitive worldwide. Akamai survey shows that the U.S. continues to drop in ranking.

In ReadWrite by Adriana Lee, @adra_la, with graphics.

V. Mobile Web App Checklist.

More than a checklist, this informative post offers terrific tips on UX, UI, performance, homescreen, and offline.

By Zack Smith, @coderzach, and Eugene Butler, @ebutleriv, on the Luster blog.

–Maureen, I tweet at @MobileHelix