Striking Sunrise Over Sherwood Mill Pond
Dramatic colors of orange and gold lit the sky this morning over Mill Pond. Photo by Cami Vynerib.
Four Cars Stolen, Compo Home Burglarized Overnight
Westport Police Department officials released that four vehicles were stolen, several were ransacked, and one Compo neighborhood home was burglarized early this morning.
While investigating, two more vehicles - one from the north side of Westport, and the other from another community - were found parked on the road, with all belongings taken out of them. Both were found to have also been stolen, ransacked, and then left behind.
The owner of two of the stolen vehicles reported that they were unlocked in the driveway with the keys in them. The other two vehicles were stolen after their key fobs were taken from the unlocked home during the burglary. Officers and canines attempted to locate the suspects, but the tracks went unfounded.
“All residents must make it a point to keep their homes and cars locked at all times.” police department officials stated.
Westport Police Department Statement: At approximately 6:10 a.m. on August 20, 2021, Westport Police officers responded to a residence in the Compo Beach section of town on a report of a burglary. It was determined that one or more individuals entered the unlocked home and stole a purse as well as the key fobs for two separate vehicles. Those vehicles were then stolen.
As the officers were checking the area, they located an unoccupied Jeep as well as an unoccupied Toyota 4Runner near the home that was burglarized. It was immediately determined that both vehicles were stolen. The Jeep was taken from a home on the north side of Westport and the 4Runner was stolen in another jurisdiction. Given that it appeared that the two cars had recently been driven, the officers set up a perimeter and began looking for the suspects. With the assistance of a Westport Police K-9, the area was thoroughly searched, but the responsible parties were not located.
During the investigation, officers followed up with the owner of the Jeep. The owner advised that in addition to the Jeep, a Toyota Highlander was also taken from his driveway. He stated that both cars were unlocked with the keys inside.
In total, four cars were stolen, and a home was burglarized during today’s early morning hours. Additionally, officers have responded to several locations on reports of unlocked vehicles being entered.
These crimes are being actively investigated.
The Westport Police Department has said it before, but it certainly bears repeating. All residents must make it a point to keep their homes and cars locked at all times. That will go a long way towards preventing these types of crimes from occurring.
Staples Grad Drops out of College, Builds $44 Million Company Based on App Designed at Staples
Saturn co-founders Max Baron and Dylan Diamond (Staples 2015). Contributed photo from joinsaturn.comFrom Forbes Africa, Alexandra Sternlicht, 08/19/21Forbes Africa: Social Calendar Platform Saturn Raises $44 Million From Benioff, Bezos, And Von Tobel, Among Others
In October 2015, the halls of Westport, Connecticut’s Staples High School looked like those of any other well-to-do American school, abuzz with 1,800 students rushing from class to study hall to extracurricular activities. But while other schools’ teens connected through Snapchat and Instagram, Staples’ entire student body was hooked on what would become Saturn, a social calendar app built by junior Dylan Diamond.
“People would send around pictures of their schedules and say, ‘Hey, are you in my class?’ They’d send around these ad hoc spreadsheets, group chats and posts; there was no coherent solution,” says Diamond, now 22 years old. “So I created a Web app just for my school that showed me where my friends were and what was going on in the community.” That app became Saturn, named after the Roman god of time. High schoolers use Saturn to manage their calendars, learn about community happenings, chat with friends, see their calendars and real-time whereabouts.
Diamond graduated from Staples in 2017 and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied engineering and business. On the side, he developed Tesla Toolbox, an app for Tesla drivers to control their vehicles from Apple Watches and share drive data—he describes this as Strava for the Tesla community. Tesla discovered the app and hired Diamond as the company’s youngest full-time employee. Though his weekly commutes from Philadelphia to San Francisco prevented Diamond from having much of a social life, fellow Whartonite Max Baron, who was similarly running a full-time social media consultancy with buy-in from Dr. Dre and Snapchat, messaged Diamond on LinkedIn to connect about business opportunities.
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Over coffee on Penn’s campus, Diamond showed Baron Saturn—which he’d subsequently turned in a mobile app-—and Baron was floored. “It was very obvious to me that the slope of whatever we could build together was much higher than whatever I could find in either a classroom or commercial setting.” With Baron as COO and CSO and Diamond as CEO, in 2019 the two closed a $9 million seed round from TQ Ventures, General Catalyst and Ashton Kutcher, propelling their pre-revenue company to a $40 million valuation. After Diamond won a Thiel Fellowship in 2020, the two dropped out of college to build Saturn into what they say will be the next Facebook.
Today, the company announced it’s raised an additional $35 million, bringing total funding to $44 million, led by General Catalyst, Insight Partners and Coatue, with participation from Bezos Expeditions, Marc Benioff, Dara Khosrowshahi, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, Inspired Capital, Mike Vernal, TQ Ventures, SV Angel, Dick Costolo and Adam Bain’s 01 Advisors, Robert Downey Jr., Elad Gil, Jerry Murdock, Hadi Partovi and Dylan Field.
“Dylan [Diamond] is a prodigy in many ways,” says Alexa von Tobel, founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital. “When you see data like Saturn’s, it honestly reminds me of my days as a Harvard undergrad—Mark Zuckerberg was a classmate—and I remember what the early adoption of Facebook felt like, when the user base is not only demanding, but thirsty for the product.”
Though Saturn declined to share metrics on its user base, at present, a few hundred schools use Saturn to manage their social and academic calendars, message students and work through homework and extracurricular to-do lists within the platform. Saturn brings high schools into its orbit by hiring unpaid student ambassadors, a strategy meant to make it feel by and for students, rather than administrators.
Though the cofounders have attracted a slate of blue-chip investors, the company has no monetization model—or plan to move beyond high school users—at present. “There are a lot of things in play, but to be honest, [monetization] is not our immediate priority at the moment,” says Baron, who is more focused on retention and engagement. Investors are banking on Saturn becoming the next great social network, and in such a reality, monetization is light-years away. For context, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2004, but did not attempt to generate revenue until 2012.
“When you invest in things like Twitter, which I did when it was only 30 people, we had no idea how we’re going to make money,” says Insight Partners’ cofounder Jerry Murdock, who led the round, but invested as an individual. “Within something that has a high degree of engagement, and you see there’s a lot of utility, there’s an implied sense that monetization will be there when you need to get there.”
The SoHo, New York-based company plans to use much of its $44 million injection to pay its 30 employees and hire to fill 13 new roles. “If we double down on performance and make sure that Saturn can scale flawlessly to thousands of schools,” says Diamond. “There’s a lot of work ahead, but we’re excited about where we are.”
Morning Weather Report
Today
Mostly cloudy, with a high near 86. West wind around 7 mph.
High Tides: 9:23 AM/9:44 PM
Low Tides: 3:27 AM/3:37 PM
Tonight
A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Tomorrow
A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 84. East wind 3 to 8 mph.
Tomorrow Night
A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Patchy fog. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 69. Northeast wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%.