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Week 44, 2020
Surveillance and law enforcement
Surveillance Startup Used Own Cameras to Harass Coworkers
VICE - October 26, 2020 - 9 min
"Employees at Verkada, a facial recognition and security camera startup, abused their company's own surveillance cameras to monitor and harass women colleagues, making a Slack channel with their faces and sexual comments"
Baseline to succeed at work:
Do not abuse the privileged tools you have access too.
Be nice to coworkers.
A higher level takeaway:
"The big picture for me having worked at the company is that it has opened my eyes to how surveillance can be abused by the people in power."
Grayshift, The Startup That Breaks Into iPhones For The Feds, Raises $47 Million
Forbes - October 26, 2020 - 2 min
This company finds vulnerabilities (or buys them from security researchers) in the iPhone, then productises and sells them to law enforcement. It's believed the iPhone 12 and iOS 14 have been heavily reinforced, so the company will need the funds to find (or buy) its way into newer phones.
Crime and courts
Music industry forces widely used journalist tool offline
Freedom of the Press - October 26, 2020 - 6 min
"The popular free software project “youtube-dl” was removed from Github on Friday following a legal notice from the Recording Industry Association of America claiming it violates U.S. copyright law."
Despite what the name of the tool might lead you to believe, it can download audio and video from numerous sources, including some that might contain copyrighted material. Reminds me of the legal battles against CD/DVD ripping software, and P2P software.
Remote working
Reddit will allow employees to work from anywhere, going forward
TechCrunch - October 27, 2020 - 1 min
One more big tech company announcing a permanent remote working policy and a revamp of their offices into something that resembles a coworking space. Notably, it's one of the few companies that will not tie the employee salary to their geographical location.
TikTok
TikTok partners with Shopify on social commerce
TechCrunch - October 27, 2020 - 6 min
Following in Facebook's footsteps, TikTok is adding e-commerce features to its platform to let users purchase goods without leaving the app. Shopify notably also lets customers sell goods in Facebook and Instagram, positioning themselves as more than a simple storefront: a CMS for companies that want to sell products in social media platforms.
ByteDance announces its first gadget in a big education push
TechCrunch - October 29, 2020 - 2 min
It's a lamp. A lamp with a camera. It's marketed as an education product for kids and will be initially available only in China.
Still interesting to see one more big tech company venturing into hardware.
Funding rounds, acquisitions and IPOs
Ant Group to raise $34.5 billion, valuing it at over $313 billion, in biggest IPO of all time
CNBC - October 26, 2020 - 2 min
Ant Group, formerly known as AliPay, is the fintech spinoff of AliBaba. The company was spun off in 2010 due to regulatory issues in China, and is now worth roughly half of its former parent company.
One-click housing startup Atmos raises another $4M from Khosla, real estate strategics, and TikTok star Josh Richards
TechCrunch - October 29, 2020 - 1 min
Home prices around the world keep raising and the process to purchase a home is cumbersome. It might soon be cheaper and easier to purchase land and build your own home, and this company wants to capitalise on that.
Insider Inc. buys majority stake in Morning Brew in all-cash deal
Axios - October 29, 2020 - 4 min
The media is not having the best of times lately, revenue-wise, so a podcast and newsletter company being purchased for $75M by an Axel Springer subsidiary is big news.
This year, Morning Brew expects to bring in over $20 million in revenue, and $6 million in profit.
Apple Buys Self-Learning AI Video Company to Improve Apps
Bloomberg - October 27, 2020 - 3 min
Vilynx, with offices in Barcelona, is the first Spanish company acquired by Apple.
AMD Acquiring Xilinx In Bold, $35B Semiconductor Mega-Deal
Forbes - October 27, 2020 - 7 min
One more acquisition to the list, in the big consolidation of the semiconductor industry that's been going on for a few years. Xilinx may not be a widely known name to consumers, but they invented FPGAs, which have many applications in accelerating machine learning. NVIDIA, AMD's rival in the graphics card market, acquired ARM a few weeks ago.
Self-driving cars
Battery Day
Ramblings from Jessie - September 29, 2020 - 24 min
A month ago, Tesla held an event named "Battery Day" to present their latest advances in battery technology. The article gives an overview of the event, the current estate of the art in battery technology, and what might come in the future, from a very technical perspective. Worth a read.
Waymo pulls back the curtain on 6.1 million miles of self-driving car data in Phoenix
The Verge - October 30, 2020 - 10 min
"Over 21 months in Arizona, Waymo’s vehicles were involved in 18 crashes and 29 near-miss collisions, none of which resulted in injuries"
Waymo has released interesting data on their testing operations in Phoenix.
Other
The Hummer is making a comeback -- and this time, it's all-electric
CNN - October 21, 2020 - 3 min
How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet
Protocol - October 29, 2020 - 18 min
Another worthwhile profile of Discord. I already included a Discord profile in last week's issue, so allow me to quote myself:
"Discord has been able to modernise the IRC experience, keeping the product free, and monetising by selling “status” upgrades to its users, while funding the communities it hosts. It’s really a genius product, last valued at $3.5 billion."
Auction: An original first iteration "blue box" populated circuit board made by Steve Wozniak and marketed by Steve Jobs and Wozniak in 1972
bonhams.com
This could be considered the first Apple product, before Apple even existed. Wikipedia has more info on these amazing devices called "blue boxes"
Superwhite paint can cool buildings even in hot sunlight
New Scientist - October 21, 2020 - 2 min
"Compared with existing, commercial heat-reflective paints that reflect about 80-90 per cent of solar energy, the new one managed 95.5 per cent."
Crews vacuum 'murder hornets' out of Washington nest
Associated Press - October 24, 2020 - 2 min
Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Dies at 78; Built an Electronics Titan
The New York Times - October 25, 2020 - 6 min
South Korea has a 50% inheritance tax, which means his estate will be on the hook for around $10B of Lee Kun-hee's $20B fortune. This could mean big troubles for Samsung as the heirs might need to sell part of their ownership to pay for the taxes.
Epic says its PC game store now has more than 100 million users
The Verge - January 14, 2020 - 2 min
Competition seems to be healthy in the PC game store, as Valve's Steam had 90 million users as of January of last year.
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Week 43, 2020
Antitrust
U.S. to Accuse Google of Protecting Illegal Monopoly
The New York Times - October 20, 2020 - 2 min
“Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising and general search text advertising — the cornerstones of its empire.”
Google has the dubious privilege of being the first one getting sued, amidst investigations of monopolistic behaviour into four big tech companies. It’s expected that Facebook will be the next in line, with Amazon’s and Apple’s cases following later.
Foxconn
Inside Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin
The Verge - October 19, 2020 - 49 min
Long and well-researched story on the massive factory the Taiwanese electronic’s manufacturer promised to build in Wisconsin, but failed to do so after raking in billions in tax incentives.
Apple iPhone maker Foxconn wants to become the Android for electric cars with new vehicle platform
CNBC - October 16, 2020 - 2 min
“Foxconn introduced what it is called the “MIH Open Platform,” a set of tools that would allow a company to design almost an entire electric car that would be manufactured by Foxconn.”
As cars become iPads with wheels, their supply chain and manufacturing will look more like the electronics industry, where OEMs produce devices that are designed and sold by other brands.
Remote working
Startup founders set up hacker homes to recreate Silicon Valley synergy
TechCrunch - October 15, 2020 - 4 min
“Similar to Sway House [a residence for TikTok personalities], we will be making fun and dramatic dope bro content, centered around launching startups. We all live exciting lives, and there’s plenty of drama, so we’re excited to showcase that”
Plenty of drama? Sounds like they’re serious about recreating the tech office atmosphere.
An unused Carnival cruise ship could soon become a floating office where techies, YouTube influencers, and ‘digital nomads’ can live and work remotely
Yahoo News - October 19, 2020 - 5 min
“Just like the man-made island of Venice Italy became an important center of commerce in the old world, we believe this could be the start of a modern floating Venice of the Americas and an important hub of innovation in the world,”
They’re calling it “The Crypto Cruise Ship”.
Public Companies
Intel Agrees to Sell Storage Unit to SK Hynix for $9 Billion
Bloomberg - October 20, 2020 - 3 min
South Korea’s Hynix is already one of the biggest memory (SSD, NAND flash, RAM, etc) manufacturers of the world, so this is a market consolidation move. Intel is not having a good time as their CPUs are being consistently outperformed by AMD’s in recent years.
Snap stock rockets up after surprise earnings beat
CNBC - October 20, 2020 - 2 min
“The adoption of augmented reality is happening faster than we had previously anticipated, and we are working together as a team to execute on the many opportunities in front of us,”
Despite fierce competition from Instagram and TikTok, Snap’s numbers keep growing and they plan to use AR as a multiplying factor.
PayPal to open up network to cryptocurrencies
Reuters - October 21, 2020 - 3 min
PayPal launches its own cryptocurrencies walled and goes head to head with Coinbase.
Airbnb announces multi-year partnership with Jony Ive, a year after leaving Apple
9to5Mac - October 21, 2020 - 1 min
Jony left Apple a year ago to start a design consultancy with other big names in the industry. There are no further details of what this partnership will entail, but one can only expect mandatory white rooms and aluminium furniture in every Airbnb.
Product Launches
This app makes editing videos as easy as editing text
Fast Company - October 21, 2020 - 3 min
Groupon’s founder is expanding its new startup’s tool from audio to video. The product lets you edit video as easily as editing text. The product launch video is a masterpiece.
Facebook adds hosting, shopping features, and pricing tiers to WhatsApp Business
TechCrunch - October 22, 2020 - 8 min
Facebook wants to capture more of SMBs money. They seem to be going after Shopify and Amazon market share. Instagram and WhatsApp are the centrepieces of the strategy, which revolves around getting users to complete transactions without ever leaving the Facebook ecosystem. It’s becoming clear Facebook’s plan for monetising WhatsApp is to transform it into occident’s WeChat.
Photoshop’s AI neural filters can tweak age and expression with a few clicks
The Verge - October 20, 2020 - 7 min
Practical applications of machine learning keep emerging in photography and image editing. Don’t miss the video.
Windows apps now run on Chromebooks with Parallels Desktop
The Verge - October 20, 2020 - 3 min
“It’s designed for businesses, which means only enterprise customers will be able to purchase the app for $69.99 per user.”
Microsoft added the ability to run Android apps in Windows a while back, so Chrome running Windows apps seems like the logical next step. Businesses will be able to run those pesky .docx files at last.
ClipDrop Is Copy and Paste for the Real World
Gizmodo - October 23, 2020 - 4 min
Back in May, a proof-of-concept AR cut & paste tool for Photoshop made the rounds on Twitter. The creator has just launched the public beta.
Crime
Twitter Investigation Report
Department of Financial Services - - 50 min
More details have emerged on the Twitter that hack affected many prominent accounts back in July. The hackers tricked a Twitter employee into entering their VPN credentials into a fake site by pretending to be IT support on the phone.
The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark
VICE - October 22, 2020 - 45 min
A 2-year investigation into a Canadian secure phone company that that commercialised a privacy-focused phone and ended up working for the Sinaloa Cartel before being shut down by the FBI.
Other
Quibi is shutting down
The Verge - October 21, 2020 - 2 min
The short-form video streaming service raised $1.75 billion and launched only 6 months ago. What a waste.
How a Malaysian Immigrant in Idaho Became the Go-To Expert on Podcasting
Marker - October 21, 2020 - 20 min
Interesting profile of Nick Quah, who writes the popular podcast newsletter Hot Pod. Lots of good info about the podcasting and newsletter industries too.
2,000-Year-Old Cat Etching Found at Nazca Lines Site in Peru
The New York Times - October 19, 2020 - 3 min
How a tiny peanut butter company grew to $500k per month in sales
The Hustle - October 17, 2020 - 12 min
Very interesting case study of the tactics of a DTC peanut butter company which leveraged TikTok to grow.
How Discord Won
Ian Vanagas - October 19, 2020 - 6 min
“Discord allows people to talk and chat online. Servers are created by anybody to talk about anything, usually, it is a friend group or a shared interest. They contain chat channels (kind of like Slack) and voice channels that are always on and allow people to join and leave whenever they want.”
Discord has been able to modernise the IRC experience, keeping the product free, and monetising by selling “status” upgrades to its users, while funding the communities it hosts. It’s really a genius product, last valued at $3.5 billion.
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Week 42, 2020
Exits
Twilio confirms it is buying Segment for $3.2B in an all-stock deal
TechCrunch - October 12, 2020 - 5 min
Segment is a B2B SaaS widely used at companies to move customer and analytics data between different providers and storage solutions. This is Twilio's biggest acquisition ever.
Stripe acquires Nigeria’s Paystack for $200M+ to expand into the African continent
TechCrunch - October 15, 2020 - 7 min
"The biggest startup acquisition to date to come out of Nigeria, as well as Stripe’s biggest acquisition to date anywhere"
Paystack is Stripe but for Africa. Stripe invested $8 in the company back in 2018.
Celonis acquires Czech startup Integromat to accelerate move to process automation
TechCrunch - October 14, 2020 - 2 min
A lesser known member of the no-code and automation SaaS industry, but revered by insiders as one of the most powerful ones, has been sold for over $100 million. A win for the European startup ecosystem.
Remote working
Dropbox is the latest San Francisco tech company to make remote work permanent
CNBC - October 13, 2020 - 2 min
Dropbox is announcing a switch to fully remote for its 2,800 employees.
Microsoft is letting more employees work from home permanently
The Verge - October 9, 2020 - 3 min
Bigger companies like Microsoft are also expanding their remote work policies.
Yes, people are leaving San Francisco. After decades of growth, is the city on the decline?
San Francisco Chronicle - October 10, 2020 - 6 min
The switch to remote working means an exodus from big cities that concentrate the greatest part of knowledge workers.
Zoom launches its events platform and marketplace, brings apps to your calls
TechCrunch - October 14, 2020 - 2 min
Zoom held a virtual conference where they announced an events platform called OnZoom (RIP Eventbrite) and a marketplace for 3rd party apps called "Zapps". Diversifying revenue streams and morphing from product to platform.
Apple
Apple’s October 13, 2020 Keynote: By the Numbers
MacStories - October 13, 2020 - 5 min
Six point summary of Apple's HomePod Mini and iPhone 12 event:
The HomePod is smaller and costs $99.
All iPhone 12 models have OLED screens and still have a notch.
The edges are flat instead of round.
There's a smaller model that's just slightly bigger than an iPhone 5.
The cameras are improved and the A14 chip is faster.
There are magnets on the back. You can attach a MagSafe charger and many different accessories.
There's no headphones or charger in the box.
iPhone 12 Event: All The Camera News
Halide - October 13, 2020 - 8 min
The main reason for many to upgrade their phone is to get a better camera. The makers of Halide, an advanced camera app for iOS, have all the technical details on the iPhone 12 camera updates.
The Best Chargers for Your iPhone 12, Tablet, Laptop and Other USB-C Devices
The Wall Street Journal - October 14, 2020 - 7 min
The new iPhones come with only a USB-C charging cable but no power brick. You probably wouldn't want Apple's bulky and single-port chargers anyway. There's a new technology called GaN (Gallium Nitride) used in modern chargers that makes them smaller and more powerful. The video that accompanies the article is one of the best explanations I've seen of this new technology.
Beats Flex replaces BeatsX for $49 with USB-C charging, longer battery life, Apple W1 chip
9to5Mac - October 13, 2020 - 2 min
Apple also silently released a beats-branded affordable bluetooth headphone on their online store. They're an updated version of the Beats X.
PopSockets is working on MagSafe-compatible iPhone accessories
TechCrunch - October 13, 2020 - 3 min
The new magnets on the back of the iPhone 12 will surely create a billion dollar accessory market. PopSockets are just one of the many that will follow.
Apple's T2 Security Chip Has an Unfixable Flaw
WIRED - October 6, 2020 - 6 min
The T2 chip, introduced for the first time in MacBooks with TouchBar, was sold as a way to make Macs more secure..
The good news is the hack requires physical access to the device. The bad news is there is no fix.
Transportation
Car design is about to change forever. This video encapsulates how
Fast Company - October 10, 2020 - 4 min
The core of an electric car can be as simple as 4 wheels attached to a flat chassis. Once that base gets commoditized, we're going to see a slew manufacturers selling the most bizarre customizations on top of it. EVs are a platform.
Split-Second ‘Phantom’ Images Can Fool Tesla’s Autopilot
WIRED - October 11, 2020 - 8 min
"Researchers found they could stop a Tesla by flashing a few frames of a stop sign for less than half a second on an internet-connected billboard."
Machine learning models, and specially artificial vision ones, are vulnerable to maliciously crafted inputs.
Deepfakes
Fake video threatens to rewrite history. Here’s how to protect it
Fast Company - October 3, 2020 - 18 min
"AI-generated synthetic media—like deepfakes—threaten overwhelm the historical record of our era with fabricated artifacts and events, triggering the age of post-history."
"Imagine that it’s the year 2030. You load Facebook on your smartphone, and you’re confronted with a video that shows you drunk and deranged, sitting in your living room saying racist things while waving a gun. Typical AI-assisted character attack, you think. No biggie."
Inside the strange new world of being a deepfake actor
MIT Technology Review - October 9, 2020 - 11 min
We probably won't have to wait until 2030 to see the first meaninful uses of deepfakes, as filmmakers are already polishing the techniques to make them as credible as possible.
Gaming
PS4 DualShock Joystick
Thingiverse
I'm consistently impressed by the designs and mechanical engineering that come out of the 3D printing community
With Nowhere to Go, Teens Flock to Among Us
The New York Times - October 14, 2020 - 6 min
And not only teens. It seems everybody, even non-gamers, is playing this game.
Other
U-2 Dragonlady Photos
Extreme Ross Photography - - 11 seconds
This is what the northern lights look like from inside a U-2 spy plane at 22km.
Audio’s Opportunity and Who Will Capture It
MatthewBall.vc - October 15, 2020 - 44 min
Long essay on the history and future of audio and how technology shapes it. Great read, I couldn't put it down.
Song stuck in your head? Just hum to search
Google - October 15, 2020 - 3 min
Google has released "Shazam but humming" for their iOS and Android apps, a feature that lets you find a song by just humming it.
German authorities raid FinFisher offices
ZDNet - October 14, 2020 - 2 min
"German authorities have raided the offices of FinFisher, a German software company that makes surveillance tools, accused in the past of providing software to oppressive regimes."
"FinFisher's malware had been installed on the devices of activists, political dissidents, and regular citizens in countries with oppressive regimes, countries to which FinFisher would have been prohibited from selling its software."
There's a very fine line between being a surveillance tool vendor and an illegal hacking operation, and it seems FinFisher crossed it.
After decades, room temperature superconductivity achieved
Science - October 14, 2020 - 4 min
"Fulfilling a decades-old quest, this week researchers report creating the first superconductor that does not have to be cooled for its electrical resistance to vanish. There’s a catch: The new room temperature superconductor only works at a pressure equivalent to about three-quarters of that at the center of Earth."
"But if researchers can stabilize the material at ambient pressure, dreamed-of applications of superconductivity could be within reach, such as low-loss power lines and ultrapowerful superconducting magnets that don’t need refrigeration, for MRI machines and maglev trains."
Personal identifiability of user tracking data during observation of 360-degree VR video
Nature - October 15, 2020
"Out of a pool of 511 participants, the system identifies 95% of users correctly when trained on less than 5 min of tracking data per person. We argue these results show nonverbal data should be understood by the public and by researchers as personally identifying data."
Facial recognition systems are struggling because of masks, but researchers have proved a people can be identified by how they move.
Ten designs that reimagine the humble toilet roll holder
Dezeen - October 10, 2020 - 9 min
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Week 41, 2020
Culture
Behind the scenes of the Coinbase controversy
Axios - October 1, 2020 - 3 min
The latest Silicon Valley culture wars controversy comes from the cryptocurrency startup Coinbase.
The CEO wrote a blog post stating the company will not engage in political activism beyond issues that directly impact the company, and that employees shouldn’t engage in political discussions at work.
Employees who do not agree with this policy have a week to accept a severance package that includes four to six months of pay, six months of health coverage, and a seven-year window to exercise stock options.
The CEO posted a follow up post, which among other things shared 60 of its employees (5% of the workforce) took the exit package.
Both the original blog post and the follow up are linked on the Axios articles.
How to get promoted
Defmacro - September 28, 2020 - 12 min
“Almost everyone who does great work and takes performance reviews seriously toils in relative obscurity. Look at the people who occupy positions of considerable authority in your organization. Did any of them get there by following some middle manager’s feedback?”
A brutally honest description of corporate world dynamics.
Being Smart is Not Enough
Farnam Street - September 28, 2020 - 4 min
“When hiring a team, we tend to favor the geniuses who hatch innovative ideas, but overlook the butterflies, the crucial ones who share and implement them. Here’s why it’s important to be both smart AND social.”
Meet the Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have to Pay to Talk to You
ProPublica - October 2, 2020 - 35 min
A ProPublica in-depth investigation on a secretive company that’s the “Uber for customer support reps”.
Big companies like Disney or Airbnb outsource their support phone lines to this company that hires “contractors” and pays them for each completed phone call.
Twitch staff call the company out on sexual assault, racism, more
GamesIndustry.biz - October 8, 2020 - 45 min
Interviews with 16 Twitch employees from throughout its history detail a culture of indifference to inappropriate and abusive behavior.
Privacy
Why Privacy Is the Most Important Concept of Our Time
In Re - 11 min
“Privacy is about control. Without privacy we cannot decide for ourselves how to live our lives. If there is no privacy, all become public. Whoever has more power and an interest can affect your life according to their own rules.”
Interesting reflexion on what privacy is and why it’s important.
Police Want Your Smart Speaker—Here’s Why
WIRED - August 23, 2020 - 8 min
Law enforcement is increasingly using smart speaker recordings, subpoenaed mostly from Amazon, to solve cases.
Ad Tech Could Be the Next Internet Bubble
WIRED - October 5, 2020 - 11 min
”The scariest thing about microtargeted ads is that they just don’t work.”
If (or when) advertisers realise they don’t need ad tech middlemen or microtargeting, Facebook and Google are going to be in trouble.
Amazon will now let you pay with your palm in its stores
Vox - September 29, 2020 - 6 min
It’s interesting how Amazon is increasingly positioning their physical shopping technology as a white label service for 3rd party retailers and something they want to keep as a strategic advantage for their Amazon Go stores and Whole Foods.
Hardware
OB–4 magic radio
Teenage Engineering
The swedes have done it again. This time it’s a portable bluetooth speaker.
When coffee makers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed
Ars Technica - September 26, 2020 - 9 min
A proof-of-concept ransomware attack against a $250 “smart” coffee maker so insecure it lets anybody in the same wifi network replace its firmware and proceed to ask for money in exchange for your morning coffee. Thats why I don’t have any “smart” appliances at home 😬.
Security flaw left ‘smart’ chastity sex toy users at risk of permanent lock-in
TechCrunch - October 6, 2020 - 4 min
“Because the chamber was designed to lock with a metal ring underneath the user’s penis, [it] may require the intervention of a heavy-duty bolt cutter or an angle grinder to free the user.”
“Just because almost every gadget or appliance can be connected to the internet, doesn’t mean they should be.”
Amen.
Duracell’s new coin batteries have a bitter coating that makes them taste terrible
The Verge - September 29, 2020 - 1 min
On the trend of making small, potentially toxic for kids, electronic parts taste awful to prevent accidents. Try licking a Switch cartridge if you want a taste.
These Robots Use AI to Learn How to Clean Your House
WIRED - September 30, 2020 - 4 min
Robotic arms have been used and perfected in the manufacturing industry for decades. Now, enhanced by computer vision and machine learning they could conquer our kitchens.
The joke is on consumers as Liquid Death raises $23 million more
TechCrunch - September 29, 2020 - 2 min
The 3-year old company named like a heavy metal band that sells water in aluminium cans has raised a total of $34 million to date.
Tongue Brush
Gizmodo - October 2, 2020 - 2 min
This is the most disturbing product I’ve come across in a while, and I spend a lot of time on AliExpress.
Apps
Six Figures in 6 Days
tr.af - September 30, 2020 - 7 min
iOS 14 added the ability to set custom app icons via Shortcuts. A designer shares how he earned $100K+ in a week selling custom app icon sets.
Google’s Epic response: Android 12 will make it easier to install app stores
VentureBeat - September 28, 2020 - 5 min
There are no specific details on this change yet, but it will be interesting to know how they implement it. Currently, 3rd party app stores are tolerated but not specifically supported. Users have to disable multiple security measures and hoop through setting menus in order to install them.
IA and Machine Learning
AI researchers use heartbeat detection to identify deepfake videos
VentureBeat - September 3, 2020 - 4 min
We have yet to see a malicious deepfake with worldwide consequences, but researchers are already developing techniques to detect whether a video is indeed a feepfake and even its procedence.
Nvidia says its AI can fix some of the biggest problems in video calls
The Verge - October 5, 2020 - 3 min
Impressive tech from Nvidia that can dramatically reduce bandwidth use in video calls by sending only the position of your face through the internet and generating a realtime video on the destination machine using AI. Don’t miss the video.
Interviews and profiles
A Columnist Makes Sense of Wall Street Like None Other (See Footnote)
The New York Times - October 8, 2020 - 12 min
NYT profile of Matt Levine, author of the popular newsletter Money Stuff.
Daniel Ek
theobservereffect.org - October 4, 2020 - 38 min
In-depth interview with Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek that touches many topics rarely discussed publicly by founders.
Funding and valuations
Instacart Valuation Jumps to $17.7 Billion in Grocery Investment
Bloomberg - October 8, 2020 - 1 min
“Instacart is on track to process more than $35 billion in grocery sales this year.”
The pandemic has meant good business for some.
Secretive High-Speed Trading Firm Hits Jackpot With TikTok
The Wall Street Journal - October 1, 2020 - 7 min
Secretive options-trading giant Susquehanna International has a 15% stake in ByteDance, estimated at $15B+, making it the largest outside investor.
Duolingo CEO explains language app’s surge in bookings
TechCrunch - September 29, 2020 - 2 min
It seems lots of people have turned to language learning during quarantine, as Duolingo hits 42 million monthly active users, up from 30 million in December 2019. Bookings rose to $180 million despite only 3% of its users paying for the service. The company is valued at $1.5 billion.
Crime and courts
SEC Charges Amazon Finance Manager and Family With Insider Trading
sec.gov - September 28, 2020 - 2 min
“Laksha Bohra worked as a senior manager in Amazon’s tax department, where she prepared and reviewed calculations used to finalize numbers included in Amazon’s quarterly and annual earnings that were filed with the SEC.”
“As alleged, the family reaped illicit profits of approximately $1.4 million from their unlawful trading in Amazon securities.”
The Supreme Court is taking on Google and Oracle one last time
The Verge - October 6, 2020 - 7 min
“Ten years after Oracle first sued Google over the code in the Android platform, the two tech giants are finally facing off in the Supreme Court.”
The decision could have overarching ramifications for the software industry, as it will determine if APIs are copyrightable.
Antitrust
China preparing an antitrust investigation into Google
Reuters - September 30, 2020 - 3 min
“China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition”
Google is getting an antitrust probe… in a country where they do not officially operate.
What Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook have at stake in the antitrust fight
The Verge - October 8, 2020 - 11 min
The House Judiciary Committee issued its final report on its antitrust investigation on the big tech four. The Verge summarizes the conclusions it reaches for each company.
Public Markets
Asana up 37% and Palantir up 50% as both direct listings hit the public markets
TechCrunch - September 30, 2020 - 3 min
Good debut for tech’s two newest public companies.
SPACs, explained
The Verge - October 7, 2020 - 13 min
Detailed explanation of the intricacies of this method of taking a company public that’s experiencing renewed interest as of late.
Google
Google introduces Pixel 5, new Chromecast, Nest Audio smart speaker
Axios - September 30, 2020 - 2 min
The Pixel 5 is not a flagship device hardware-wise, as it does not pack Qualcomm latest CPU. But as always with Pixel’s what it what it doesn’t have in raw power it makes up in software.
The new Chromecast comes with yet another take on Android TV with a new UI heavily inspired by its Apple counterpart.
Finally the Nest speaker… looks suspiciously similar to a Homepod.
Google is paying publishers more than $1 billion to create and curate high-quality content
Axios - October 1, 2020 - 4 min
Google has historically refused to pay publishers to feature their content on Google news, so this is a welcomed change. Content is king, and Google knows it.
Android 11 officially drops support for Google’s Daydream VR
The Verge - October 2, 2020 - 1 min
Daydream was Google’s first attempt at VR. Rest assured there will be more.
Ride-sharing and Self-driving Cars
Ford Reports 7.6% Stake In Newly Public Velodyne Lidar
Yahoo Finance - October 6, 2020 - 2 min
Velodyne recently became public (via SPAC) and is trading 30% below its debut.
Waymo finally launches an actual public, driverless taxi service
Ars Technica - October 8, 2020 - 3 min
Until now, all trips on Waymo One, the public ride-sharing service, had a safety driver on board, but Waymo will start offering fully driverless journeys in Phoenix.
Tesla dissolves its PR department - a new first in the industry - Electrek
Electrek - October 6, 2020 - 5 min
“If you’re a reporter who isn’t getting a response from Tesla, don’t take it personally, because it’s due to the automaker having dissolved its PR team.”
Well, that’s one way to deal with press inquiries, I guess.
Uber Reportedly Considers Buying Daimler-BMW Ride-Sharing Venture Free Now
Forbes - September 29, 2020 - 2 min
“Free Now formerly operated as MyTaxi and now owns a series of ride-hailing firms across Europe including Beat, headquartered in Greece but popular in Latin America; Kapten (which has sought to compete with Uber in Europe) and Clever Taxi.”
This would be a big move in the ride-sharing industry. Unclear if the deal would include other Daimler-BMW properties under the “-now” umbrella, like ShareNow, the carsharing service.
Uber Freight raises $500M, valuation rises to $3.3 billion
Reuters - October 2, 2020 - 51 seconds
“Uber Freight operates as a middle man in the fragmented long-haul trucking business, connecting truckers with shippers.”
Uber keeps expanding its long distance shipping service.
Uber’s self-driving car unit has made little progress despite $2.5B price tag
NY Post - September 28, 2020 - 4 min
Uber is failing to make significant progress in their self-driving car efforts. Just like every other company in the industry. Looks like self-driving cars will be 5 years away for a few more years.
Slack
Slack Is Having An Identity Crisis
Gizmodo - October 7, 2020 - 5 min
Slack is getting a series of new features: Instagram-like stories, Discord-esque audio chat rooms and cross-company messages. They hope to turn around the poor public market performance they have experienced since listing.
Cole Haan x slack
Cole Haan
Slack popularized socks as company swag years ago. The logical next step was sneakers.
Gaming
Microsoft is bringing xCloud to iOS via the web
The Verge - October 8, 2020 - 2 min
Apple’s failure to provide a reasonable path for cloud gaming apps on the AppStore is making Microsoft (just like Amazon before) switch to a browser-based solution for their products. After all, it’s just video streaming with some user input, nothing the web can’t do.
PS5 Teardown: An inside look at our most transformative console yet
PlayStation Blog - October 7, 2020 - 2 min
In an unusual move, Sony published an official teardown video of the PlayStation 5. The most surprising components were both heat dissipation mechanisms: a huge heatsink that takes up almost all the volume of the console, and liquid metal used to better channel heat from the CPU/GPU package.
Roblox is the next big games advertising platform
Mobile Dev Memo - September 28, 2020 - 7 min
There’s an interesting paid advertising model in the app store of the innovative games platform Roblox.
Social Media
Say 👋 to Messenger: Introducing New Messaging Features for Instagram - About Facebook
About Facebook - September 30, 2020 - 4 min
Facebook is finally launching the cross-messaging feature between Instagram and Messenger. Let’s just hope they leave WhatsApp alone.
‘The Social Network’ Ten Years Later: Where Are They Now?
morningbrew.com - September 30, 2020 - 5 min
Wanna feel old? The Social Network came out ten years ago.
HOTorNOT: The forgotten website that shaped the internet
Mashable - September 27, 2020 - 29 min
It was the year 2000 when two Berkeley students launched HOTorNOT, the proto-social network where strangers rated your selfies from 1 to 10.
It has influenced every social network ever since, from Facebook and MySpace to Tinder and Instagram.
Energy
The first battery-free Game Boy wants to power a gaming revolution
CNET - September 2, 2020 - 15 min
The DIY device is powered by solar panels and the button smashing during gameplay.
Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from graphene
Phys.org - October 2, 2020 - 4 min
And graphene might be the technology that makes these devices mainstream.
“A team of physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene’s thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.”
“An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors”
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely to Work,’ Studies Suggest
The New York Times - September 29, 2020 - 6 min
And if graphene fails, we can always retrofit them with a small nuclear reactor!
Other
The economics of vending machines
The Hustle - October 3, 2020 - 10 min
“We surveyed 23 vending machine owners with various-sized operations and found that the average operator in our sample owned 13 machines that gross $309 per machine per month.”
All you ever wanted to know about the business of vending machines.
How Excel may have caused loss of 16,000 Covid tests in England
The Guardian - October 6, 2020 - 3 min
“CSV files can be any size, Microsoft Excel files can only be 1,048,576 rows long – or, in older versions which Public Health England may have still been using, a mere 65,536”
Excel 1 - 0 Science. Actually, make it two for Excel.
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Week 39, 2020
NVIDIA to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion, Creating World’s Premier Computing Company for the Age of AI
NVIDIA - September 13, 2020 - 6 min
This purchase will deeply influence the future of computing. We probably won’t see the effects for 5-10 years.
Nvidia’s Integration Dreams
Stratechery by Ben Thompson - September 15, 2020 - 19 min
Great overview of the NVidia-ARM acquisition with historic and industry context.
SiFive hires Qualcomm exec as CEO for RISC-V alternatives to Nvidia-Arm
VentureBeat - September 17, 2020 - 5 min
RISC-V is an instruction set architecture, just like ARM, that companies can use to build chips. The biggest difference is price: while manufacturers need to pay royalties to ARM for using it’s architecture, RISC-V is completely free.
An update for our TikTok family
TikTok - September 20, 2020 - 3 min
The USA-TikTok saga is closer to an end:
“Both Oracle and Walmart will take part in a TikTok Global pre-IPO financing round in which they can take up to a 20% cumulative stake in the company. We will also maintain and expand the US as TikTok Global’s headquarters while bringing 25,000 jobs across the country.”
How a marked-up term sheet and messy rollout threw TikTok deal into disarray
Reuters - September 23, 2020 - 5 min
Some of the terms of the deal are not 100% clear yet:
“ByteDance said it would hold an 80% stake in TikTok Global itself, until it launches an initial public offering in the next twelve months, and that it would then gradually reduce its stake.”
“Oracle said on Monday that ByteDance would not have a stake in TikTok Global, and that it would be ByteDance’s investors who would be awarded the remaining 80% stake.”
Building YouTube Shorts, a new way to watch & create on YouTube
Youtube - 3 min
YouTube is launching their TikTok competitor, called Shorts.
Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features
TechCrunch - September 14, 2020 - 5 min
“The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation.”
The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke… Is Now Officially Broke
Forbes - September 15, 2020 - 7 min
“It took decades, but Chuck Feeney, the former billionaire cofounder of retail giant Duty Free Shoppers has finally given all his money away to charity. He has nothing left now—and he couldn’t be happier.”
Delivery Hero strengthens its global footprint and acquires Glovo’s operations in Latin America
Delivery Hero - September 16, 2020 - 5 min
The deal is valued at €230M.
Will Smith and Airbnb team up so fans can now stay at the ‘Fresh Prince’ mansion
The Loop - September 14, 2020 - 4 min
Stripe Workers Who Relocate Get $20,000 Bonus and a Pay Cut
Bloomberg - September 15, 2020 - 3 min
A classic carrot and stick strategy. Relevant comic strip.
Opendoor, a Leading Digital Platform for Residential Real Estate, Announces Plans to Become Publicly-traded via Merger with Social Capital Hedosophia
Businesswire - September 15, 2020 - 11 min
“The transaction values Opendoor at an enterprise value of $4.8 billion, and is expected to provide up to $1.0 billion in cash proceeds”
Chamath launches SPAC, SPAC and SPAC as he SPACs the world with SPACs
TechCrunch - September 19, 2020 - 2 min
Chamath Palihapitiya is behind last year’s Virgin Galactic and now Opendoor’s SPACs. And he’s planning more.
Buffett-backed Snowflake’s value doubles in stock market’s largest software debut
Reuters - September 17, 2020 - 3 min
“Snowflake shares started trading at $245 apiece on Wednesday, more than double its $120 IPO price, and closed up 111% at $253.93 to value it at over $70 billion.”
Amp It Up!
Linkedin - May 13, 2018 - 17 min
This 2018 essay from the CEO of Snowflake’s reads like an alpha business bro parroting the same old startup advice down to Steve Jobs quotes. You will probably not learn anything new, but it serves as a good primer into the mind behind the biggest software IPO pop ever.
Uber backup driver charged in fatal 2018 self-driving car crash
The Verge - September 16, 2020 - 2 min
Uber is throwing under the bus the backup driver that was overseeing the self-driving car when it hit a cyclist.
The TinySeed Investment Thesis — TinySeed: The Startup Accelerator for Bootstrappers
TinySeed - 15 min
“We believe investing broadly into the earliest stages of the Independent SaaS market — specifically, the set of B2B SaaS companies who are not necessarily reliant on traditional venture capital — can provide venture returns with less than venture risk.”
Zwift, maker of a popular indoor training app, just landed a whopping $450 million in funding led by KKR
TechCrunch - September 16, 2020 - 3 min
The exercise-at-home market is booming, and this Peloton competitor is cashing in.
Affirm Raises $500M Series G Round
Affirm - September 17, 2020 - 2 min
The company, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, offers a point-of-sale (POS), buy now, pay later (BNPL) service.
Klarna raises $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation
TechCrunch - September 15, 2020 - 3 min
“Klarna’s main product is an alternative payment method on e-commerce platforms. It lets you buy now and pay later over three or four installments with 0% interest.”
Evernote’s CEO on the company’s long, tricky journey to fix itself
Protocol - September 16, 2020 - 10 min
Evernote’s CEO on how they had to undergo a 18-month deep code rewrite that was the root of many of the product’s longstanding issues. Technical debt is real and it can undermine your company. Now, they’ll try to take on note-taking newcomers like Roam and Notion.
Chime is now worth $14.5 billion, surging past Robinhood as the most valuable U.S. consumer fintech
CNBC - September 18, 2020 - 4 min
“In this latest round, a Series F that raised $485 million, Chime more than doubled its valuation from December and is worth almost 900% more than just 18 months ago, when it hit a $1.5 billion valuation.”
How does the laser technology in EUV lithography work?
Laser Focus World - August 29, 2019 - 12 min
There’s a new laser technology for semiconductor manufacturing that’s been in the making for quite a while but could signify a big leap in the industry.
The Era of Visual Studio Code
Roben Kleene - September 21, 2020 - 18 min
Great overview of the history of text editors and why Visual Studio might stay at the top for a while.
Nikola shows the tech hype cycle can’t stop worshipping founders
The Verge - September 25, 2020 - 7 min
The founder and CEO of electric truck company Nikola resigned after a report last week suggested the company has overstated the technological capabilities.
The company’s shares fell 33 percent in two weeks.
My semiconductor conspiracy theories
Aishwarya Nagarajan - September 20, 2020 - 8 min
The case for how a semiconductor fabrication company in Taiwan could spark the next world war.
How we used data to design modern record certification plaques
Sony Music Data and Insights - September 21, 2020 - 5 min
“Record labels regularly present their artists with recording certification plaques to celebrate milestones in the journey of a song or an album.”
Sony redesigns the record certification plaques for 2020 using data science.
Microsoft Pledges to Get Gaming Service on iPhones
Bloomberg - September 21, 2020 - 1 min
Following Apple’s AppStore rules, Microsoft said they’s bringing xCloud to iOS. We’ll see what the implementation finally looks like, as the rules estate each game needs to be submitted separately as an independent app.
Microsoft is acquiring Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax
The Verge - September 21, 2020 - 2 min
“Microsoft has agreed to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom and Fallout studio Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in cash”
Zynga co-founder’s Playco is already a mobile gaming unicorn
TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 3 min
I’m always wary of startups with huge valuations pre-launch. Specially if it’s in the gaming industry where it’s virtually impossible to predict what users will like next.
QR codes bring helpful context to the Apple Store experience
9to5Mac - September 21, 2020 - 3 min
There’s a bigger pandemic trend of using QR codes to create contactless experiences. They mainly substitute shared pieces of printed text (e.g. restaurant menus) and, in this case, shared objects.
Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People
Vice - September 21, 2020 - 6 min
“The website also featured a quote, attributed to The New York Times […] A search reveals this phrase hasn’t appeared in the Times. The company did not respond to requests for comment or a source for this quote, but the mention of the Times has since disappeared from its website.”
“At the time of writing, Civvl and OnQall did not return requests for comment, but did appear to block the author’s IP address from visiting OnQall.com. ”
This is what I call culture-market fit.
Creating Your Own Widgets: A New Category of Apps Emerges
Macstories - September 21, 2020 - 16 min
Since iOS 14 was launched, there’s been an outpouring of apps to customize your home screen, and videos to tech you how to. Turns out people like to customize the devices they use for most of the day.
On Widget Shaming – 512 Pixels
512 Pixels - September 23, 2020 - 2 min
On the other side, people are critiquing many peoples home screens as lacking “taste”. But taste is subjective.
Following TechCrunch reporting, Palantir rapidly removes language allowing founders to “unilaterally adjust their total voting power”
TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 2 min
“Palantir has now filed a sixth amendment with the SEC just a few hours after it filed its previous amendment, and the company has removed all references to this special mechanism from its SEC filing.”
Aston Martin reveals first racing simulator: The AMR-C01
Aston Martin - September 14, 2020 - 4 min
If you’ve always wanted to feel like James Bond while driving an Aston Martin from the comfort of your home, this is your opportunity. The experience can be yours for a mere $75k. But be quick, units are limited to 150.
Microsoft says it detected active attacks leveraging Zerologon vulnerability
ZDNet - September 24, 2020 - 2 min
The Zerologon vulnerability is one of the worst in recent times. Update your Windows machines.
Daniel Ek will invest over $1 billion in European moonshots
Protocol - September 24, 2020 - 1 min
More European startups success stories will hopefully help fuel 🤑 the European tech ecosystem.
Anduril among companies tapped to build the Air Force’s ‘internet of things’ for war
TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 3 min
The Ex-Oculus founder military drone company is among the ones chosen by the Air Force as supplier.
Also, “Internet of things for war” is dystopian AF.
How Twitter Survived Its Biggest Hack—and Plans to Stop the Next One
WIRED - September 24, 2020 - 14 min
The most surprising takeaway is many Twitter employees were not using physical 2-Factor authentication (using a physical USB key instead of a SMS or TOTP code).
Spotify, Epic, Tile, Match, and more are rallying developers against Apple’s App Store policies
The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min
They’re calling themselves the Coalition for App Fairness, and their aim is to “create a level playing field for app businesses and give people freedom of choice on their devices.”
Ring’s newest security camera is a $249 autonomous indoor drone shipping in 2021
TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 4 min
Amazon announces new cloud gaming service called Luna
The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min
Amazon is joining Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud in the cloud gaming space.
Expanding to the US
Index Ventures
Index Ventures, one of the biggest VCs in Europe, is launching a guide for European startups to expand to the USA, based on experiences from some of the biggest success stories like Spotify.
Amazon disavows $500 “Prime Bike,” says it has no formal connection to the product
The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 2 min
Not even Amazon can police Amazon for Amazon counterfeit products.
Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%
calpaterson.com - September 22, 2020 - 11 min
Journalists Are Leaving the Noisy Internet for Your Email Inbox
The New York Times - September 23, 2020 - 6 min
I wonder if Substack is simply subsidizing a few tens of creators to build momentum and absorb the long tail of writers that will not make a fulltime income in the platform but will increase their bottom line.
Twitter to start testing voice DMs
The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 1 min
▶ ◉──────── 02:37
Microsoft’s Edge browser is arriving on Linux in beta next month
The Verge - September 22, 2020 - 1 min
This is the first time a Microsoft browser will be officially supported in Linux.
Old television kept wiping out village’s broadband for 18 months
CNN - September 22, 2020 - 2 min
“For 18 months, residents of a village in Wales have been mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed every morning.”
“Now engineers have finally identified the reason: A second-hand television that emitted a signal that interfered with the connection.”
Russia wants to ban the use of secure protocols such as TLS 1.3, DoH, DoT, ESNI
ZDNet - September 22, 2020 - 3 min
Following in China’s steps. This is proof the latest security protocols work well to prevent espionage.
Recurring Revenue: The Rise of an Asset Class
Medium - September 21, 2020 - 15 min
Apple CEO Impressed by Remote Work, Sees Permanent Changes
Bloomberg - September 22, 2020 - 2 min
“Cook said he doesn’t believe Apple will “return to the way we were because we’ve found that there are some things that actually work really well virtually.””
Apple is unique among big tech companies in their adamant reject of remote work. But it looks like hell just froze over.
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Week 37, 2020
Hundreds assemble as John Cage piece changes chord for the first time in 7 years
UPI - September 5, 2020 - 1 min
"The experimental (music composition) piece, which consists of eight pages of music meant to be played very slowly, is intended to last for an entirety of 639 years -- meaning it will end in 2640 if all goes according to plan."
"The organ had been playing the same chord for six years and 11 months before Saturday's chord change."
Snowflake IPO gets vote of confidence as Berkshire, Salesforce agree to buy shares
CNBC - September 8, 2020 - 2 min
You know SaaS stocks are underpriced when Warren Buffer starts hoarding them.
Reed Hastings on New Book, Netflix’s Future — and Why He Fired His Last CFO
Variety - September 7, 2020 - 14 min
Candid and rare interview with Netflix's CEO. A couple takeaways:
"Advertising looks easy until you get in it. Then you realize you have to rip that revenue away from other places because the total ad market isn’t growing, and in fact right now it’s shrinking".
"The key is embracing managing on the edge of chaos. And as long as you are tolerant of managing on the edge of chaos, of course there’s going to be some mistakes — but there’s also going to be a lot of innovation".
Airbnb is experiencing a resurgence while hotels are still suffering
Axios - September 3, 2020 - 1 min
Airbnb spending is 75% higher than this time last year. The company laid off a quarter of its workforce in May.
Disrupting Bloomberg
Net Interest - August 21, 2020 - 13 min
Can the $24000/year Bloomberg terminal, the golden standard for professionals to access real-time financial market data, be disrupted? Marc Rubinstein argues probably not anytime soon.
Why the Taboola-Outbrain deal fell apart and what it means for publishers - Digiday
Digiday - September 9, 2020 - 7 min
You know those "recommended articles" with clickbait headlines that plague the web? They are paid advertisement, and most are served by just two companies, Taboola and Outbrain.
The merger, announced back in October, has fallen apart, as advertisement spend has declined amid the pandemic, and regulator's concerns about competitiveness in the content recommendation space.
Silicon Valley’s new stock exchange opens for business
Protocol - September 9, 2020 - 5 min
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, has launched a new stock exchange aimed at companies with a long term vision. They have yet to convince a company to list, and it's unclear how they will stand out from other exchanges.
Bay Area sky turns bright orange, some areas see 'snowing' ash
San Francisco Chronicle - September 9, 2020 - 2 min
The wildfires ravaging California left apocalyptic scenes in San Francisco, where the atmosphere turned intense orange on Wednesday.
Christopher Michel has published some stunning photos and people are making jokes about Blade Runner 2049.
Massive deal in Madrid: EQT buys online real estate classifieds platform idealista for €1.3 billion - Tech.eu
Tech.eu - September 10, 2020 - 1 min
This is the biggest sale by a Spanish tech company ever.
A private equity fund, Apax Partners, had acquired 80% of Idealista in 2015 for €226M. Founders still controlled 6% of the company.
Facebook reinvents Facebook with the launch of Campus for college students
The Verge - September 10, 2020 - 2 min
Facebook is launching "Facebook 2005 Edition" 🤪
EBay Executive Linked to Alleged Cyberstalk Named Kids Club CEO
Bloomberg - September 10, 2020 - 2 min
A former eBay executive who left the company after being linked to an alleged cyberstalking scheme has a new job: CEO of the Silicon Valley Boys and Girls Club.
The 'brushing' scam that's behind mystery parcels
BBC News - September 7, 2020 - 2 min
The seeds many Americans have been receiving in the mail from China in the past months are probably part of a scam campaign to fake reviews in e-commerce sites. Despite alerts from authorities, many have planted them.
Epic says ‘Sign In with Apple’ will keep working for Fortnite after all
The Verge - September 10, 2020 - 2 min
In true Apple fashion, they backed down in the decision after Epic had already communicated users they will need to migrate to email and password login.
Elizabeth Holmes May Pursue ‘Mental Disease’ in Her Defense
Bloomberg - September 10, 2020 - 1 min
First they think you're crazy, then... you say you're crazy?
Nikola Motor labeled "an intricate fraud" by Hindenburg Research
TESLARATI - September 10, 2020 - 3 min
The analyst firm has published a report accusing the electric automaker of fraud.
Nikola Shares fell 9% because of the news and its $20 billion public valuation fell to $14.24 billion in a matter of hours.
Apple’s new App Store guidelines carve out loopholes for xCloud, Stadia, and other apps that Apple had blocked
The Verge - September 11, 2020 - 4 min
Three main updates:
Game streaming services are allowed on the store as long as each game is submitted as a separate app to be reviewed by Apple. Then, a single "game catalog" app that links to the individual apps can be submitted.
This is the same response Apple gave to Microsoft's xCloud service a few weeks ago, now baked into the official guidelines. Sounds like a recipe for bad user experience.
Regarding digital fitness or tutoring classes: “one-to-one experiences” do not have to be billed through the App Store, but “one-to-few or one-to-many services” do require the usual in-app purchase.
The margin in one-to-one experiences is typically lower, so it makes sense to not take a cut from those, otherwise they'd become impossible to offer via app.
“free apps acting as a stand-alone companion to a paid web based tool”, like VOIP, cloud storage, email services, and web hosting applications, are now exempt from having to use Apple’s in-app purchase for subscriptions, but they cannot offer purchases inside the app itself or include a call to action to purchase elsewhere.
This is a broadening of the "reader app" rule that was originally created for the Kindle app and later taken up by Netflix.
How TikTok knows you'll love the next video it shows
Axios - September 10, 2020 - 4 min
TikTok has revealed some more details of its algorithm to reporters in a virtual tour of its new "transparency center" in Los Angeles. No technical details have been shared, only that it's a typical filter-bubble producing algorithm. This is all an obvious PR move to gain USA regulators trust.
The Woman Taking Over TikTok at the Toughest Time
The New York Times - September 11, 2020 - 8 min
Profile of TikTok's interim CEO. The previous CEO resigned last month after only four months at the company. I personally don't envy her position and don't blame him for leaving...
Exclusive: China would rather see TikTok U.S. close than a forced sale
Reuters - September 11, 2020 - 3 min
We're approaching the mid-September deadline and negotiations are turning nuclear.
Apple Design Teams Develop Special Face Masks for Employees
Bloomberg - September 9, 2020 - 2 min
It comes packaged like you'd expect from any other Apple product.
Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
The Verge - September 9, 2020 - 2 min
Last week Amazon said the job posting to hire an Intelligence Analyst to track "Labor Organizing Threats" was a mistake.
Today, they add the former head of the NSA, involved in the widespread surveillance systems revealed by the Snowden leaks, to the board of directors.
Amazon's Alexa for Landlords Is a Privacy Nightmare Waiting to Happen
Gizmodo - September 3, 2020 - 6 min
"My landlord would be able to hear or, in if the device is an Echo Show, see into my home — my home that I am paying them to rent, which should afford me privacy from remote viewing."
Weird Seattle retailer Archie McPhee hit with even weirder PayPal security glitch
GeekWire - September 11, 2020 - 4 min
PayPal is blocking all transactions that include the word "tardigrade" because "Tardigrade Ltd" is a sanctioned company linked to an arms dealer from east Europe.
It just so happens this company sells tardigrade-related merchandise (apart from being the original creators of the famous horse mask and other ridiculous items).
Fraud Prevention Startup NS8 Lays Off Hundreds, CEO Departs Amid SEC Fraud Investigation
Forbes - September 11, 2020 - 3 min
Just months after raising over $100 million, fraud prevention startup NS8 laid off hundreds of employees after informing them it was under investigation for fraud.
Inside Pinterest, more tales of workplace discrimination
The Verge - September 11, 2020 - 9 min
More allegations of discriminations and pay disparity two months after Françoise Brougher, former Pinterest COO, sued the company for alleged sexual discrimination.
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Week 36, 2020
SoftBank unmasked as ‘Nasdaq whale’ that stoked tech rally
Financial Times - September 4, 2020 - 5 min
It seems some of the recent rise of tech stocks has been fueled by huge public market investments by SoftBank.
Wirecard and me: Dan McCrum on exposing a criminal enterprise
Financial Times - September 2, 2020 - 25 min
The backstory of the Wirecard investigation. There will surely be a book and possibly a movie about this saga.
Guardian VPN developers successfully challenge App Store rules after Apple threatened rejection
9to5mac - August 29, 2020 - 3 min
This is the first case that I know of a developer challenging specific App Store guidelines and succeeding in convincing Apple to change them.
Apple announced this new appeals process back in June, and also said that bug fixes would no longer be delayed over guideline violations.
Robot Boats Leave Autonomous Cars in Their Wake
WSJ - August 29, 2020 - 7 min
We will see widespread fully autonomous planes and boats way before Tesla achieves level 5 autonomous driving technology.
One of the Brains Behind Tesla May Have a New Way to Make Electric Cars Cheaper
WSJ - August 29, 2020 - 11 min
Tesla’s former CTO is building a lithium-ion battery recycling company.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is Mario Kart for the real world — and Nintendo Switch
Polygon - September 3, 2020 - 2 min
This is such a great tech demo for AR, but we'll see how well it actually works in practice.
The 300,000-year case for the 15-hour week
Financial Times - August 28, 2020 - 7 min
”For more than 95 per cent of Homo sapiens’ history, people enjoyed more leisure than we do now.”
”The economic trauma induced by the pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to reimagine our relationship with work and to re-evaluate what jobs we consider really important.”
Elon Musk's new plane
Protocol - August 25, 2020 - 1 min
"It looks like Elon Musk recently took ownership of a 2008 Gulfstream G550, for what we're hearing is about $14.3 million."
Check out the interior photo gallery from the broker.
All IKEA catalogues in PDF from 1950 to 2020
Podcasts Are Getting Shorter
Medium - July 15, 2020 -5 min
Interesting insights from the podcast industry by analyzing the top 200 Apple podcasts.
Apple Pay Was Not Disruptive But Apple ID Will Be
Forbes - August 29, 2020 - 5 min
The logical next step after Apple Pay is for Apple to introduce some kind of global identity verification infrastructure. It would be wise for Apple to partner with governments and Google/Android to make it really trusted and really global. And the Covid Exposure Notifications technology is one hell of a test run.
Preaching Equality, Start-Up Didn’t Practice It With Employees
The New York Times - August 30, 2020 - 11 min
More details emerge on the problematic internal culture at Carta, after Emily Kramer, former vice president of marketing sued the company for discrimination.
Also, WTF?!:
A young female employee staying in Carta’s corporate apartment told her in 2017 that she had woken up to discover a male co-worker, who was senior to her, in her room naked. The woman reported the incident to the company, Ms. LeCrone and two others with knowledge of the situation said. Carta excused it as sleepwalking.
The Building in Public How-To Guide
Medium - August 10, 2020 - 5 min
Gaby Goldberg making the case for building your company in public, which is a different thing from being a transparent company by sharing salary and revenue numbers, or publishing a simplified roadmap.
Startup Names Are Still Getting Less Silly
Crunchbase - August 31, 2020 - 5 min
On the latest trends in startup naming.
How a Powerful Nissan Insider Tore Apart Carlos Ghosn’s Legacy
Bloomberg - August 27, 2020 - 25 min
Details of the fugitive ex-Nissan CEO saga are surfacing, and it's looking more and more like an inside job in a really complex game of thrones.
The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened'
Vice - September 2, 2020 - 17 min
Have you ever heard the term "get-out-of-jail card"? Well, the cards do, in fact, exist. Kinda.
Nearly 200 current and former Uber employees sue over stock price decline since IPO
CNBC - August 28, 2020 - 3 min
Uber employees are angry because they will have to pay taxes on stock grants at IPO prices, despite the stock being down at the time the lockup period expired and they were allowed to sell shares. Here's an interesting Twitter thread with more context on this phenomenon that's not exclusive of Uber.
Start-up factory Rocket Internet to delist, six years after going public
CNBC - September 1, 2020 - 3 min
The German venture builder valuation has fallen from €6.7B at IPO to €2.6B, down 15% YTD. It mainly launches companies with business models that have proven successful elsewhere in the world.
Dating App Bumble to Plan IPO at $6 Billion-Plus Value
Bloomberg - September 1 , 2020 - 2 min
Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, also co-founded Tinder. For comparison, Match Group, owner of Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish and other online dating properties, is valued at $30B.
What will a Wish IPO look like? We may know soon
TechCrunch - September 1 , 2020 - 5 min
"Wish, the San Francisco-based, 750-person e-commerce app that sells deeply discounted goods that you definitely don’t need but might buy anyway when priced so low"
They mostly dropship goods from China. You can buy pretty much the same things in Aliexpress for slightly cheaper.
NVIDIA CEO Unveils GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs
Nvidia - September 1, 2020 - 9 min
Nvidia has released their new family of GPUs, that provide a giant leap in performance over the previous one, while being significantly cheaper (RTX 2080ti, Nvidia's most powerful GPU so far, sells for about 1300$):
RTX 3090 (8k 60fps gaming), $1499, Available on September 24th
RTX 3080 (Twice as powerful as the 2080ti), $699, Available on September 17th
RTX 3070 (As powerful as the 2080ti), $499, Available October
Amazon Drivers Are Hanging Smartphones in Trees to Get More Work
Bloomberg - September 1, 2020 - 5 min
"Much the way milliseconds can mean millions to hedge funds using robotraders, a smartphone perched in a tree can be the key to getting a $15 delivery route before someone else."
"One reason Flex contractors do this is to get around the requirements for being a driver, such as having a valid license or being authorized to work in the U.S. Someone who meets the requirements downloads the Flex app and is offered a route earning $18 an hour. He or she accepts the route and then pays someone else $10 an hour to do it"
Patreon Tops $1 Billion Valuation as Pandemic Brings a Surge in Creators to Platform
WSJ - September 1, 2020
"Membership platform Patreon Inc., which enables musicians and other creators to connect with fans, has raised $90 million from investors, bringing its value to more than $1.2 billion, company officials said."
Amazon Is Hiring an Intelligence Analyst to Track 'Labor Organizing Threats'
Vice - September 1, 2020 - 4 min
"After this story was published, Amazon deleted the job listings and [...] said in an email that "the job post was not an accurate description of the role— it was made in error and has since been corrected." The spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions about the alleged mistake."
These Towering Cakes Look Like Avant-Garde Sculptures Straight Out of a Museum
My Modern Met - September 3, 2020 - 3 min
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Week 35, 2020
A stampede of tech IPO filings
Business Insider - August 27, 2020 - 7 min
Five tech companies filed S-1 registrations to go public on Monday: Unity, Sumo Logic, Asana, Jfrog and Snowflake.
Detailed roundup of the companies trying to go public in this bizarre bull market.
SEC Modernizes the Accredited Investor Definition
SEC - August 26, 2020
The SEC is expanding the rules on required qualifications for accredited investors in the USA. Previously, they relied only on income and net worth. Now they're incorporating knowledge and sophistication. Alongside the rise of rolling funds, this means a lot more individuals are going to be elegible to invest in startups.
Nasdaq files with SEC for IPO alternative to raise funds
Reuters - August 25, 2020 - 3 min
Meanwhile, NASDAQ, the second largest stock exchange in the USA, is pushing for a change that would allow companies that go public via Direct Listing to also raise additional capital in the process.
Going Public Circa 2020; Door #3: The SPAC
Bill Gurley - August 23, 2020 - 15 min
Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley on the flaws of the current IPO process, the benefits a Direct Listing offers, and why SPACs could be an attractive alternative.
In Defense of the IPO, and How to Improve It
A16Z - August 28, 2020 - 20 min
Others are still clinging to the old ways.
Antitrust In America
NPR Planet Money - February 23, 2010 - 1h
A three part podcast on the history of antitrust law in the USA. The first chapter talks about the inception of the law during the Rockefeller and Standard Oil days. The second, explains the pendulum swing towards more corporate-friendly ruling in the 80s. Finally, the third part talks about the current misgivings on big tech monopolies.
MelodyVR Buys Napster in Move Toward Virtual Reality Concert Hub
Pitchfork - August 25, 2020 - 1 min
Napster meets VR. The most ambitious crossover event in (tech) history?
Walmart is teaming up with Microsoft on TikTok bid
CNBC - August 27, 2020 - 5 min
Nope, this is The most ambitious crossover event in tech history.
Facebook Says Apple’s Changes to iOS Will Dramatically Hurt Ads
Bloomberg - August 26, 2020 - 3 min
The change? iOS will show a permission alert when apps try to access the device's "Advertising ID" (an ID used to track targets across apps and websites) just like it does for location services, camera, or microphone.
Apple blocks Facebook update that called out 30-percent App Store ‘tax’
The Verge - August 28, 2020 - 2 min
Apple said the update violated an App Store rule that doesn’t let developers show “irrelevant” information to users.
Salesforce will let its employees work from home until August 2021, with 6 extra weeks of time off for parents
Business Insider - August 19, 2020 - 3 min
Another huge (49,000 employees) public tech company extending their remote working policy.
Pinterest cancels huge SF office lease in unbuilt project, citing work-from-home shift
SFChronicle - August 28, 2020 - 4 min
And others are already cancelling office leases.
Mozilla signs fresh Google search deal worth mega-millions as 25% staff cut hits Servo, MDN, security teams
The Register - August 14, 2020 - 5 min
More than 90 per cent of Mozilla's funding comes from web search providers that pay for the right to be the default search engine in Firefox in their regions. According to the organization's latest financial figures, $430m of its 2018 total revenue of $451m came from those internet giants – primarily Google
This Video of Germany in 1902 was Taken from a Flying Train and the Quality is Incredible
Twisted Sifter - August 18, 2020
TIL: "Flying" (suspended) trains exist aand many are in use today!
From food to fintech: Stavvy's team is now majority ex-Toast employees
Bizjournals - August 21, 2020 - 4 min
On the phenomenon of early stage startups hiring full teams from bigger companies layoffs.
Margins by Sector
A thorough analysis of margins in different industries. Unsurprisingly, financial services and software come at the top.
Curators Are the New Creators: The Business Model of Good Taste
Gaby Goldberg - August 24, 2020 - 6 min
A bit of a meta-curated link here. Gaby goes through the current state of content overload, why we need curation, and how can curation be profitable.
Windows 95 Is 25 Years Old Today
The Verge - August 24, 2020 - 4 min
Wanna feel old? Enjoy this nostalgia trip to Windows 95 launch day.
Build tools around workflows, not workflows around tools
thesephist.com - August 4, 2020 - 13 min
Too often, we try to shoehorn tools into our workflow. Maybe, we should figure out what our most productive workflow is via manual process, and then see how other existing (or bespoke) tools can help us improve it.
This is what the author has done, and ended up with a nice suite os custom, open source tools that perfectly fit his workflow. Including: A text editor, a personal CRM tool, a email newsletter platform and more.
PS: I'm willing to bet we would find wet don't need any extra tools in many occasions.
Why “no code operations” will be the next big job in tech
David Peterson - August 27, 2020 - 4 min
This article gives one of the best explanations of how, where and when no-code tools fit into a company. You don't necessarily need a person dedicated to that, but a company culture that encourages rapid experimentation and unblocking bottlenecks via no-code tools.
Electronic Plastic
Amazing archive of old handheld consoles.
Tesla employee foregoes $1M payment, works with FBI to thwart cybersecurity attack
Teslarati - August 27, 2020 - 5 min
Fascinating story on an alleged Russian state-sponsored hacking attack of Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory with a positive ending.
Elon Musk demonstrates Neuralink’s tech live using pigs with surgically implanted brain-monitoring devices
TechCrunch - August 28, 2020 - 5 min
Turns it was Musk, not Gates, who wanted to put a chip in our bodies all along! 😬
The Future of American Industry Depends on Open Source Tech
Wired - August 26, 2020 - 6 min
The future of literally every company and government in the world depends on Open Source software.
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Week 34, 2020
Epic says Apple threatens ‘catastrophic’ response in two weeks if Fortnite doesn’t comply with rules
The Verge - August 17, 2020 - 4 min
Apple plans to ban Epic them from the Developer Program. This means Epic could not distribute updates to their macOS app, a games store similar to Steam. The timing is bad for another of Epic's products, Unreal Engine. The graphics engine used in many high end games and cinematographic productions would not get support for Apple Silicon or Apple's new operating systems due this fall.
Publishers Ask Apple CEO for Same App Store Deal Given to Amazon
Bloomberg - August 20, 2020 - 3 min
If Apple had always been uniform in their enforcement of AppStore rules, you could still complain the rules are not fair, but couldn't argue Apple's behavior is arbitrary.
The company, and Tim Cook during the congressional antitrust hearing in July, constantly repeats “We treat every developer the same”. But that is simply not true.
Now, other digital content publishers rightfully wan't the same deal Amazon got: 15% revenue share from the beginning, not 30% during the first year and 15% after that.
WordPress founder claims Apple cut off updates to his completely free app because it wants 30 percent
The Verge - August 21, 2020 - 4 min
In this week's brand new AppStore controversy, Apple is making Wordpress add paid products (taking 30% tax) to their free and open source Wordpress iOS app, because the products are offered in their website, and users could see them by navigating a few pages deep in the customer support documentation.
Not only that, but they are withholding bug fix app updates in the meanwhile, despite promising not to do that back in June
TestFlight forever: Developers are building a better world outside the App Store
Protocol - August 17, 2020 - 8 min
TestFlight is Apple's service for developers to distribute beta versions of their apps to up to 10.000 testers before publishing in the AppStore. Because of the laxer review rules, developers are using it to distribute free apps that would not get approved on the AppStore.
ZTE to launch the world's first 5G smartphone with under-display camera on September 1, 2020
PR Newswire - August 16, 2020 - 1 min
Any device that's the first in introducing a new technology is interesting. With under-display cameras we're one step closed to sci-fi's "glass slab" dream device.
The Custom iPod That Never Existed
TidBITS - August 17, 2020 - 8 min
"Only four people at Apple knew about this secret project. [...] There was no paper trail. All communication was in person."
This article is doubly fascinating: it contains low level technical and supply chain details from the iPod, and a novelesque story about a secret project between the US Department of Energy and Apple. Plus it has been confirmed by the iPod creator himself, Tony Fadell.
Oracle enters race to buy TikTok’s US operations
Financial Times - August 17, 2020
I can't even anymore... this is ridiculous 😐.
Microsoft will bid farewell to Internet Explorer and legacy Edge in 2021
The Verge - August 17, 2020 - 2 min
Next year, ~~Chrome~~ Chromium-based Edge will be the only supported Microsoft browser. Nobody would have believed this 20 years ago watching Bill Gates testify in the antitrust case.
Photoreal Roman Emperor Project
Medium - July 24, 2020 - 3 min
What have you done during lockdown? This dude has created photorealistic images of 54 Roman emperors from 800 bust images using machine learning.
Where Has Your Tween Been During the Pandemic? On This Gaming Site
The New York Times - August 16, 2020 - 9 min
There's already a successor to Minecraft as kid's favorite building game: Roblox, a $4B startup founded in 2006.
Robinhood raises $200M more at $11.2B valuation as its revenue scales
TechCrunch - August 17, 2020 -
"Robinhood, a popular stock trading service, has raised capital multiple times this year, including an initial $280 million round at an $8.3 billion valuation, and a later $320 million addition that brought its valuation to $8.6 billion."
The 2020 San Francisco exodus is real, and historic, report shows
SFGate - August 14, 2020 - 3 min
People are fleeing San Francisco. The available real estate stock has doubled in 1 year.
Tech giant internal cloud spend ranking
Jaime Rodriguez-Ramos | Linkedin - August 17, 2020 - 8 min
An interesting exercise doing back-of-the-napkin calculations on how much each tech giant spends on cloud infrastructure to run their own online services:
Google: ~$15-20B
Facebook: ~$8-10B
Microsoft, Amazon: ~$3-5B
Apple: $2-3B
Saurik on Epic vs Apple
Twitter - August 16, 2020 - 5 min
Saurik is the creator of Cydia, the app store for jailbroken phones and one of the most prominent figures in the jailbreaking scene. He knows a thing or two about Apple's efforts to lock down the iPhone over the years, and does a good round up in the thread.
Origins of Venmo
Andrew Kortina - 11 min
Venmo's co-founder oral history on the origins of the company that popularized P2P payments in the USA.
You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
Our World in Data - January 24, 2020 - 7 min
TL;DR: Eat more vegetables and fruit, and less meat.
Loo with a view: transparent public toilets installed in Tokyo parks
The Guardian - August 18, 2020 - 4 min
“There are two concerns with public toilets, especially those located in parks,” it said. “The first is whether it is clean inside, and the second is that no one is secretly waiting inside.”
The “transparent” toilets [...] are made from coloured “smart glass” that turns opaque when the cubicles are occupied.
Facebook Just Told Oculus Users to Go Get Fucked
Gizmodo - August 18, 2020 - 23 min
Starting this October, a Facebook account will be mandatory for all future Oculus headsets.
Pretty sure the author is a disgruntled Oculus user (and rightly so).
Why Work From Home When You Can Work From Barbados, Bermuda or … Estonia?
The New York Times - August 19, 2020 - 6 min
Tourism-dependent countries (and forward-thinking ones) are issuing special extended visas for remote workers. As working from anywhere becomes prevalent, people will not only move to less populated parts of their countries, but also to other countries.
Apple is now a $2 trillion company
The Verge - August 19, 2020 - 3 min
Apple added $1 trillion in value in the last 6 months. It's like Apple stock is the new safe money storage during uncertain times.
Big Tech’s Domination of Business Reaches New Heights
The New York Times - August 19, 2020 - 6 min
Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook now constitute 20 percent of the stock market’s total worth.
How Hackers Bled 118 Bitcoins Out of Covid Researchers in U.S.
Bloomberg - August 19, 2020 - 13 min
A new reason lo loose hope in humanity: hackers are targeting universities' sensitive coronavirus research and holding it for ransom.
Airbnb has confidentially filed to go public
TechCrunch - August 19, 2020 - 2 min
Airbnb is juggling between a stock market in an all time high, and a travel industry paralyzed because of a global pandemic.
Researchers Can Duplicate Keys from the Sounds They Make in Locks
Kottke - August 18, 2020 - 3 min
Since the advent of home 3D printers, you better not post a picture of your keys online. Now, shouldn't post a video using your keys either.
Former Uber Security Chief Charged With Concealing Hack
The New York Times - August 20, 2020 - 6 min
This is the first time an executive has been charged with hiding a security breach. I bet the reason a lot of companies are disclosing their breaches lately is not because they want to be more transparent with their users, or because hackers are widening their reach, but simply because they fear the legal repercussions.
Japanese Grandparents Create Life-Size Totoro With Bus Stop For Their Grandkids
My Modern Met - August 19, 2020 -3 min
Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
TechCrunch - August 21, 2020 - 5 min
Palantir lists a net loss of roughly $580 million for 2019, which is almost identical to its loss in 2018.
It's a bit disappointing a 17 year old company is still not profitable. Perhaps that's the reason why they are planning to move their HQ from expensive Silicon Valley to the cheaper Colorado.
Jack Ma’s Ant Said to Target $225 Billion Valuation in IPO
Bloomberg - August 21, 2020 - 3 min
Alibaba's massive fintech spinoff is going public in what could be the biggest IPO ever.
Lambda School raises $74M for its virtual coding school where you pay tuition only after you get a job
TechCrunch - August 20, 2020 - 6 min
"CEO Austen Allred [...] said that he hopes that this will be the last funding that Lambda raises, not because it’s planning an IPO but because it’s aiming to become profitable."
These days, publicly stating you want to become profitable is probably the best strategy to fundraise in good terms when you actually fail to become profitable and need more money.
"The startup got approved by California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. [...] But part of the deal for approval involved Lambda no longer offering Income Share Agreements to students"
ISA's are the most appealing part for these companies. Without them, they are just another expensive coding bootcamp.
Google fixes major Gmail bug seven hours after exploit details go public
ZDNet - August 20, 2020 - 4 min
"The bug could have allowed a threat actor to send spoofed emails mimicking any Gmail or G Suite customer."
"The bug also allowed attackers to pass the spoofed emails as compliant with SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), two of the most advanced email security standards."
Google took 137 days to patch the bug after being notified, and only did it because the security researcher publicly disclosed the details of the bug.
It's a good thing almost no companies use G-Suite for corporate email. 🤦🏻♂️
A typo created a 212-story monolith in ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator’
Engadget - August 20, 2020 - 2 min
Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's
Reuters - August 20, 2020 - 2 min
Wondering how many successful startup acquisitions over the years have been driven by executives choosing an offer based on how much they'll personally gain over other shareholders, like employees with stock options.
Trinity Cube
Trevor Paglen - 2015
Irradiated broken glass collected from inside the Fukushima Exclusion Zone forms the outer layer of this sculpture. The work’s inner core is made out of Trinitite, the mineral created on July 16, 1945 when the United States exploded the world’s first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico, heating the desert’s surface to the point where it turned surface sand into a greenish glass.
Trinity Cube was created by melting these two forms of glass together into a cube, then installing the cube back into the Fukushima Exclusion Zone as part of the Don’t Follow the Wind project. The artwork will be viewable by the public when the Exclusion Zone opens again, anytime between 3 and 30,000 years from the present.
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Week 33, 2020
Microsoft’s Surface Duo arrives on September 10th for $1,399
The Verge - August 12, 2020 - 5 min
Foldables are the future of smartphones, whether it's a normal-sized phone that unfolds into a tablet, like the Samsung Z Fold 2, or a normal-sized phone that folds to become smaller in your pocket, like the Samsung Z Flip.
However, the Surface Duo is a little different. It's not a foldable screen, but two screens joined by a hinge and some software glue.
As positive things, its multitasking story seems easier to grasp than the one on iPadOS, and at 4.8mm it's the thinnest smartphone in the market (when unfolded).
You probably only want to buy it if:
If you've been waiting for a Courier successor for the past 10 years.
You replace your Surface every generation.
You're still clinging to the latest Nokia Lumia Windows Phone released.
Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store
The Verge - August 13, 2020 - 7 min
Corporate trolling of Epic proportions. Let's review the steps:
Submit an update of the most popular mobile game to the AppStore and Play Store.
Pass app review and release the update.
Trigger a secret switch to swap in-app purchases to your own payment system, keeping 100% of the proceeds.
Force Apple and Google to remove your app from the stores.
Release parody video of Apple's famous 1984 spot.
Turn basically every teen in the world against Apple and Google.
Sue Apple and Google.
?????
Profit?
Apple Readies 'Apple One' Subscription Bundles to Boost Services
Bloomberg - August 13, 2020 - 4 min
Apple plans to launch an Amazon Prime-like bundle of services this fall, including Music, TV+, Arcade, News+, iCloud storage and a new Peloton-like virtual workout service together at a lower price
Bundling is the new unbundling? At least unsubscribing is now easier than it used to be with cable TV 🤷🏻♀️
Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination
WSJ - August 8, 2020
Viners are going to be mad.
Tech, Financial Firms Discussing Ways to Save TikTok's U.S. Operations from Trump Ban
WSJ - August 9, 2020
Juicy bit of the article: Sequoia owns 10% of Bytedance, which is worth over $10B as per the latest approximated valuation of over $100B.
ByteDance in talks with India’s Reliance for investment in TikTok
Techcrunch - August 12, 2020 - 4 min
TikTok is banned in India since June 29, so it's trying to raise money from Reliance, the most valuable company in India, in order to try and get un-banned.
Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever
CNBC - August 7, 2020 - 2 min
Atlassian informed its nearly 5,000 employees this week that it’s going further by not asking them to come back to offices.
Software company Atlassian isn’t getting rid of its offices. It’s just telling employees they don’t have to return to them.*
In 2021, it will become increasingly difficult for smaller tech companies to not become fully remote if they want to hire and retain employees.
KOMORU
Panasonic - August 3, 2020
Do you miss your office cubicle? Panasonic will sell you one specially designed for your living room!
SpaceX Starlink speeds revealed as beta users get downloads of 11 to 60Mbps
ArsTechnica - August 14, 2020 - 5 min
I'm obsessively against cables, so I, for one, welcome our new satellite internet overlords.
Ottawa plans to retaliate after Trump imposes tariffs on aluminum
The Globe and Mail - August 6, 2020 - 4 min
Only including this article because of the EPIC quote:
Say what you will about Nero, but at least he was a hell of a fiddler. This guy’s burning it all down without a soundtrack.
Here's the explanation for those who have never pirated a CD-ROM.
The lonely life of a yacht influencer
MEL Magazine - February 5, 2019 - 9 min
Yes, it's as bad as any job whose title contains the word "influencer".
How Kristi Noem, Mt. Rushmore and Trump Fueled Speculation About Pence’s Job
The New York Times - August 8, 2020 - 9 min
Wondering if they'll paint it orange.
Russia's secret space shuttles have been sitting in plain sight for 22 years
Business Insider - June 16, 2015
You will be impressed by the photos and the story, and you'll get sucked into a Wikipedia black whole for a few hours. Guaranteed.
Amazon and Mall Operator Look at Turning Sears, J.C. Penney Stores Into Fulfillment Centers
WSJ - August 9, 2020
Bankrupt and downsized mall chains means mall real estate owners need something to fill their spaces with. Who has a lot of physical inventory and wants to own fast, last mile delivery? Amazon.
China is now blocking all encrypted HTTPS traffic that uses TLS 1.3 and ESNI
ZDNet - August 8, 2020 - 3 min
The new encryption protocol hides the domain name of the request, and the Great Firewall has no way to know if the user is accessing a censored site... so they are censoring the whole protocol 😬
Wireless Charging Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen
OneZero - August 5, 2020 - 9 min
Wireless charging is really inefficient. At the micro level, it's not a big financial issue in terms of electricity bill or environmental impact, but at the macro level:
If all of a sudden, the 3 billion[-plus] smartphones that are in use, if all of them take 50% more power to charge, that adds up to a big amount. So it’s a society-wide issue, not a personal issue.
Changing World, Changing Mozilla
Mozilla - August 12, 2020 - 5 min
Mozilla is laying off 250 people, or 25% of its workforce. They already laid off 70 people back in January this year.
New focus on economics. Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges.
Reminder that ~95% of Mozilla's revenue ($450M in 2018) come from the money Google pays to be the default search engine in Firefox.
The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity
Medium - August 12, 2020 - 17 min
Françoise Brougher, former Pinterest COO, is suing the company for alleged sexual discrimination.
What Is MasterClass Actually Selling?
The Atlantic - August 12, 2020 - 20 min
The company refers to its target customers as CATS: “curious, aspiring 30-somethings.” CATS are old enough not to be planning to return to school, but young enough, in theory, that they need help advancing in their career. A CAT is a person whose life has become complicated, who has had to put aside some of the things they loved to do, who isn’t exactly doing the thing they dreamed of doing
Masterclass is selling impossible dreams.
End of Summer Sleepover at The Last BLOCKBUSTER
Airbnb - August 12, 2020
Airbnb's latest publicity stunt: renting the last remaining BLOCKBUSTER store to have a 90s movies sleepover.
The Friendship That Made Google Huge
New Yorker - December 10, 2018 - 30 min
Fascinating profile of Google's two top engineers:
To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world’s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows—the company’s first and only Level 11s.
Hashflag Gallery
A comprehensive archive of Twitter's "like" button animations and custom emoji hashtags.
Broken Cable Damages Arecibo Observatory
ACF - August 11, 2020 - 2 min
One of the auxiliary cables that helps support a metal platform in place above the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, broke on Monday (Aug. 10) causing a 100-foot-long gash on the telescope’s reflector dish.
2020 is not even sparing the radiotelescope famous for the movie Contact and the SETI project.
The millions being made from cardboard theft
BBC - February 7, 2020 - 5 min
It was estimated that almost half of all cardboard put into recycling in Madrid was being stolen
[The thieves] are accused of stealing and shipping more than 67,000 tonnes of waste a year since 2015, at an average value of €10m ($11.8m; £9m) per year.
Niches can be more profitable than you think.
Chrissy Meyer's stories from shipping the Apple Watch and Square Reader.
MachinePix - August 10, 2020 - 9 min
Interest interview with ex-Apple hardware Engineering Project Manager Chrissy Meyer:
I like new products, but you’ll never find me waiting in line for a new generation of hardware. That’s because I’ve seen first hand in factories how crazy and chaotic the first few months of production are. If you wait a few months after a product is released, you’ll probably have a better looking product: tolerances, offsets, etc will be better.
GM’s Chief Financial Officer Resigns to Join Fintech Startup Stripe
Calling Stripe a "startup" might be a bit of a stretch tho:
GM market cap: $39B Stripe latest valuation: $36B
China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip leadership
Nikkei - August 12, 2020 - 6 min
"Hongxin offered some amazing packages, as high as two to 2.5 times TSMC's total annual salary and bonuses for those people"
There are very few semiconductor manufacturers. Wikipedia literally has a list of all the semiconductor fabrication plants in the world. Taiwan is one of the leading countries (how they got there is fascinating story on itself) and TSMC is by far largest company in the industry.
N26 facing staff unrest in Berlin, as employees say confidence in management at “all time low”
Sifted - August 13, 2020 - 3 min
"[G]rievances are believed to be centred around uneven workers’ salaries, triggered by a loophole that meant N26 employees could look up their colleagues’ wages"
And that's why companies don't want employees sharing salaries.
Mini Raspberry Pi Boston Dynamics–inspired robot
An Oral History of the Making of ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’
The Ringer - August 30, 2019 - 20 min
Great read for those of us who spent hours playing the games, with the upcoming launch of the remastered version of the first two games early next month.
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Week 32, 2020
Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the United States
Microsoft - August 2, 2020 - 2 min
Microsoft will move quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event completing these discussions no later than September 15, 2020.
The TikTok saga continues this week. Apart from confirming the bizarre M&A situation between both companies, I had never seen a deadline for an acquisition publicly discussed.
Microsoft expands TikTok takeover ambitions to entire global business
Financial Times - August 6, 2020
Despite Microsoft's press release stating they intent to buy only TikTok's USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand business, it will make more sense from an operational sense to just purchase the whole company (except the China business).
Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China
The New York Times - August 7, 2020 - 8 min
USA companies have 45 days to cut all ties with both companies. This mean, among other things, the apps will need to be removed from the Android and iPhone app stores.
It's not clear what will happen with WeChat's parent company (Tencent) multiple investments in American companies.
Announcing the Expansion of the Clean Network to Safeguard America’s Assets
US Department of State - August 5, 2020 - 2 min
Really bizarre announced that sounds a lot like USA's version of China's "Great Firewall".
Instagram Reels launches globally in over 50 countries, including US
Techcrunch - August 5, 2020 - 5 min
Extremely well-timed release of Facebook's TikTok clone.
Snapchat to take on TikTok with a new music-powered feature rolling out this fall
Techcrunch - August 3, 2020 - 3 min
And it looks like Snapchat will launch their's in the fall.
‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy
The Atlantic - July 30, 2020 - 8 min
I don't know who needs to hear this but:
The first step is an admission that as successful as you are, were, or hope to be in your life and work, you are not going to find true happiness on the hedonic treadmill of your professional life. You’ll find it in things that are deeply ordinary: enjoying a walk or a conversation with a loved one, instead of working that extra hour, for example.
The Battle to Invent the Automatic Rice Cooker
Atlas Obscura - July 31, 2020 - 11 min
All you wanted to know about the history of automatic rice cookers. It definitely convinced me to get one!
The rise, fall, and rise of the status pineapple
BBC News - August 2, 2020 - 9 min
A single fruit was worth thousands of pounds and often the same pineapple would be paraded from event to event until it eventually went rotten.
Buying surplus seats, made easy
Aviationgate
Even wanted to have your own Boeing 747 seats in the living room? Now you can (for a price)!
Facebook Signs Lease at Vornado’s Farley Building in Manhattan
Bloomberg - August 3, 2020 - 2 min
Facebook is leasing 730,000 square feet of office space... after announcing they estimate half of their employees will work from home in the next 10 years 🤷🏻♀️.
Blackstone to acquire Ancestry.com for $4.7 billion
Reuters - August 5, 2020 - 2 min
The biggest landlord in the world is acquiring the biggest DNA database in the world. I'm sure they'll only use it for good 🙄
And if you think you're safe because you've never used a DNA testing service, are you sure none of your relatives have?
Microsoft condemns Apple’s App Store policies
The Verge - August 6, 2020 - 3 min
Another week, another AppStore controversy. This time, Microsoft is discontinuing their xCloud streaming gaming service on iOS because Apple will not allow it in the AppStore.
Samsung announces the Galaxy Z Fold 2 with bigger screens and better cameras
The Verge - August 5, 2020 - 2 min
This is the real 1.0 product. The "HingeGate" was proof the previous Galaxy Fold was a 0.5 product at best. But I have to admit this new device is almost perfect in terms of design, Samsung hasn't cut any corners this time. We'll see how the software holds up.
Pinduoduo: Vertically Integrated Social Commerce
Turner Novak - August 6, 2020 - 35 min
Complete profile of the $100B, 5 year-old, Chinese group buying ecommerce platform.
Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates
The Verge - August 6, 2020 - 6 min
The scientific body in charge of standardizing the names of genes has officially changed the names of genes whose symbols Excel insisted in converting into dates, like MARCH1 or SEPT1.
Software is eating... science.
Microsoft integrates Android apps into Windows 10 with new Your Phone update
The Verge - August 5, 2020 - 2 min
They're adding an Android emulator inside Windows. I hope it runs better than the one developers use to test apps, of you'll need a pretty powerful machine to run them somewhat smoothly.
Google Career Certificates
Google
Google is launching a $300, 6 months certificate program in multiple areas (Data Analyst, Project Manager, UX Designer...) and they will consider it equivalent to a 4 year degree when applying for a job at Google.
Subsidized bootcamp to grow the hiring pipeline? 🤔
What Just Blew Up In Beirut?
Bellingcat - August 4, 2020
Bellingcat is one of my favorite things on the internet. They so open-source investigations of real-world events via public data and online tools. This time, they investigate the Beirut explosion.
Apple veteran Phil Schiller transitions to new ‘Fellow’ role, Greg Joswiak promoted to SVP of marketing
9to5mac - August 4, 2020 - 3 min
With this departure, Eddy Cue is the only remaining member of the leadership team that launched the iPhone.
Anthony Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new $4B lawsuit against Uber is filed
Techcrunch - August 4, 2020 - 8 min
I hope the new lawsuit somehow makes public the last piece of the puzzle: the terms of the Uber-Waymo settlement.
Apple updates 27-inch iMac with new 10th-gen Intel CPUs, T2 chip and a 1080p webcam
9to5mac - August 4, 2020
This will likely be the last Intel iMac ever released. A completely new design is expected for the Apple Silicon iMac released in the next 2 years.
Mulan is heading to Disney Plus on September 4th for $30
The Verge - August 4, 2020 -
This movie will be the canary in the coal mine for the future direct-to-streaming blockbuster releases.
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels
designedbycave - August 4, 2020 - 9 min
Can Killing Cookies Save Journalism?
Wired - August 5, 2020 - 13 min
What if there was a way out of the privacy-violating hole a lot of tech companies have dug for themselves? A not-so-revolutionary idea could be the solution: context-based advertising. This is type of advertising, that's been in use by (physical) newspapers for centuries, could even convert better than privacy-invasive ads, and leave more revenue for publishers by cutting middlemen.
Digital Revenue Exceeds Print for 1st Time for New York Times Company
The New York Times - August 5, 2020 -
Headline has the good news. Small print has the bad ones:
[A]d revenue fell 32 percent in the digital part of the business and 55 percent in print compared with the equivalent period last year
Uber ride-sharing revenue plummets, food delivery more than doubles
CNBC - August 6, 2020 - 2 min
Uber shared their Q2 financial updates: ride bookings dropped 73% versus the same quarter last year, food delivery more than doubled (113%), but the company still lost $1.8B.
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Week 31, 2020
Documents from the Hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google
House Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee - July 29, 2020
Tech news were eclipsed this week by the antitrust hearings. The CEO depositions were what we expected: a lot of empty words and half truths. But more revealing was the trove of internal documents, mostly emails, from the past 10+ years released by the committee.
The verge has a series of articles dissecting the documents but I want to highlight this conversation from 2012 between Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and one of his investors at Benchmark talking about a possible acquisition by Facebook. Talk about value-add investors!
Three people have been charged for Twitter’s huge hack, and a Florida teen is in jail
The Verge - July 31, 2020 - 7 min
A 17-year-old in Tampa, Florida, a 22-year-old in Orlando and a 19-year-old in the UK were responsible for wreaking havok on Twitter last week hacking the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden and more to spread a Bitcoin scam.
TikTok's new CEO says company will reveal how its algorithms work
Axios - July 29, 2020 - 3 min
TikTok will launch a Transparency and Accountability Center in Los Angeles for moderation and data practices that will house all of its data flows and code moving forward. The center will host online tours of its data during the pandemic.
I have absolutely no idea what any of that means, but looking forward to taking that online tour, I guess 🤷🏻♂️.
ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50 billion in takeover bid
Reuters - July 29, 2020 - 4 min
The investors’ bid values TikTok at 50 times its projected 2020 revenue of about $1 billion
If the online tours don't satisfy US regulators, a $50B exit would not be a bad outcome either.
Microsoft Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok, as Trump Weighs Curtailing App
The New York Times - July 31, 2020 - 4 min
And if investors can't come up with the 💸, Microsoft might be ready to integrate TikTok into their 365 subscription 🤡.
Trump says he's banning TikTok in the U.S.
NBC News - July 31, 2020 - 3 min
I really don't know what to think anymore 🤷🏻♂️.
From Education App to Global Video Phenomenon
Medium - November 15, 2019 - 19 min
If you’re not in the Gen Z age group and have never used TikTok, this is the best rundown of TikTok’s history I’ve read so far and your best chance at understanding what all the fuzz is about.
The Concorde, the Space Shuttle and Space Shuttle Bus at the Paris Air Show in 1983
Airbus' self-flying plane just completed successful taxi, take-off, and landing tests, opening the door for fully autonomous flight
Business Insider - July 26, 2020 - 5 min
Fully automous commercial planes sound very plausible in 5 years. Cars on the other hand... not so much.
SAP to spin out Qualtrics via an IPO
Axios - July 26, 2020 - 1 min
SAP plans to have a majority stake after the IPO, while Qualtrics co-founder and CEO Ryan Smith will be the largest individual shareholder.
Imagine selling your company for $8B, then taking it public and still be the largest individual shareholder 😳.
Everyone’s a Day Trader Now
The Wall Street Journal - July 25, 2020 - 11 min
But when she couldn’t work, her unemployment checks weren’t enough to pay her bills. Her boss suggested she try day trading. She read “Trading for Dummies,” watched YouTube videos, opened an E-Trade account and dove in.
Day trading is starting to look like the new sports betting epidemic.
Intel Makes Changes to Technology Organization
Intel - July 27, 2020 - 2 min
Intel is not having a good time, after AMD surpassing them as leaders in x86 CPUs and Apple transitioning to their own ARM-based chips. As a result of deep internal reorganization, Murthy Renduchintala, Intel's Chief Engineering Officer, is leaving the company.
How an Irish Beer Became the Authority on World Records
How Stuff Works - October 24, 2016 - 4 min
Did you know the Guiness World Records and Guiness Beer are one and the same Guiness? Me neither, but the story behind it is quite... Irish.
Tech CEOs Deserve an Apology
The Wall Street Journal - July 28, 2020 - 4 min
Sure, there are screw-ups: Amazon favors its own products, Apple its own apps, Google its own YouTube videos; Facebook collects too much personal data. Yet none of these habits necessarily harm consumers and all could be easily fixed without decadeslong antitrust inquisitions.
I just sent my apology letters, what are you waiting for? 🤣
The Pandemic-Era Appeal of Getting Lost in a Labyrinth
Bloomberg - July 29, 2020 - 5 min
Lars Howlett is one of the country’s foremost labyrinth makers.
TIL: Labyrinth maker is an actual job title!
Google to Keep Employees Home Until Summer 2021 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
The Wall Street Journal - July 27, 2020
Do they know something that we don't? 😬
You really don't need to work so much
New Yorker - August 21, 2015 - 6 min
The irony is that the people at the top are often as unhappy and overworked as those at the bottom: it is a system that serves almost no one
Translation of The instructions of Shuruppak
The instructions of Shuruppak is a 4600-year-old Sumerian text, one of the oldest in the world, and possibly the first self-help book.
It’s Not Debt, It’s Better
Alex Danco - July 28, 2020 - 19 min
Pipe creates a new asset class to sell: the software subscription. Founders can now sell the recurring revenue from a cohort of software customers, as an easily tradable asset, and fund their growth without taking dilution.
Remember when coding bootcamps started securitizing future revenue from cohorts of students? Turns our any SaaS can do it now. But should they? 🤔
Our Series E Funding
Stack Overflow - July 28, 2020 - 10 min
Stack Overflow, the Q&A site used by every programmer to be able to do their jobs, is raising an $85 to push their enterprise SaaS product.
Introducing the Slack Certified program
Slack - July 16, 2020 - 7 min
Are you really an enterprise IT company if you don't have certification courses for your product? If you ask Slack (or Cisco) the answer will be a resounding No.
Mischief managed
The Verge - July 27, 2020 - 15 min
A profile of MSCHF, the viral product company that's like if SUPREME and TikTok merged. Their latest creation: the $1200 Jesus Shoes. A $200 pair of Air Max 97 sneakers with water from the River Jordan injected in the soles 🤷🏻♂️.
States Issue Warnings About Seed Packets From China
The New York Times - July 26, 2020 - 5 min
Americans have been receiving mysterious unsolicited packages from China containing seeds.
Turns out it's probably sellers buying their own products in e-commerce platforms with real USA addresses, then shipping a cheap product, all to boost their ranking and reviews in the platform.
Inside the World’s Only Sourdough Library
Atlas Obscura - May 16, 2018 - 7 min
Unlike books, the starters need to be fed regularly
Have you boosted your baking game during quarantine? Then you might be interested in this library.
Apple Buys Startup to Turn iPhones Into Payment Terminals
Bloomberg - July 31, 2020 - 2 min
There already are multiple products in the market to accept credit card payments with your phone, Square being the most notorious, at least in the US market.
This deal means Apple could become a merchant account provider, offering business a way to accept payments with any iPhone. B2B is the next step after shipping their first B2C product with the Apple Card last year.
How I Growth Hacked Instagram to Drive $13,000 of Card Game Sales
David Kemmerer - June 16, 2020 - 9 min
I growth-hacked the College Cards Instagram page with fake followers, fake engagement, and fake everything to make it look like the game was all the rage.
Great overview of social media tactics many DTC (Direct To Consumer) companies use... applied to selling a card game to college students!
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Friday, July 24, 2020
Elon Musk's SpaceX in talks to raise funds at $44 billion valuation: Bloomberg News
Reuters - July 23, 2020 - 2 min
The company is in talks with investors for raising about $1 billion at a price of $270 a share
Talkdesk Worth $3 Billion With Franklin Templeton, Och Backing
Bloomberg - July 23, 2020 - 2 min
Talkdesk Inc., which makes cloud-based customer service software, has raised $143 million in a new funding round
B2B SaaS 🦄 with Portuguese founders and engineering offices in Portugal 🇵🇹
wantshowasyoung
Instagram
This 83 and 84 year old couple, owners of a laundromat in Taiwan, pose with the clothes clients abandon in their store.
Nubank acquires US company Cognitect, the team behind Clojure and Datomic
Nubank - July 23, 2020 - 5 min
Nubank also acquired Brazilian software consultancy Plataformatec, the company behind the Elixir programming language, earlier this year.
Garmin services and production go down after ransomware attack
ZDNet - July 23, 2020 - 5 min
It's bad when any company gets hit by a ransomware attack, but it's specially scary when that company stores user's location data history...
No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public
The New York Times - July 23, 2020 - 7 min
Mr. Davis, who now works for Aerospace Corporation, a defense contractor, said he gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March about retrievals from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”
Can 2020 get any weirder? 👽
The Value of a Velvet Rope: Effects of Hype and Exclusivity on Launch Strategies
Medium - July 21, 2020 - 11 min
There’s a real, psychological fulfillment of being “in” with the crowd and stoking envy among those around you.
Must read for all marketers, "growth hackers" and creators launching a new project.
Decompressing after a long day
Twitter
Amazon Met With Startups About Investing, Then Launched Competing Products
🔒 The Wall Street Journal - July 23, 2020
Nobody should be surprised, they have a similar tactic with the Amazon Basics brand: find 3rd party popular products and copy them. Even on AWS, as user on Hacker News reveals:
AWS proactively looked at traction of products hosted on its platform, built competing products, and then scraped & targeted customer list of those hosted products. In fact, I was on a team in AWS that did exactly that.
Internal Google Program Taps Data on Rival Android Apps
🔒 The Information - July 23, 2020
Google used internal Android Lockbox project, which collects usage data on non-Google apps, to inform product strategy, like building a TikTok rival
Facebook had a "research program" to collect mobile browsing data using a VPN app to spot new trends. Apple developers even have a term for when their product gets copied by Apple: being "sherlocked".
I Am a Model and I Know That Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job
Vogue - July 21 , 2020 - 7 min
On the rise of CGI fashion models and the moral challenges they bring.
Steve Wozniak sues YouTube over ongoing bitcoin scams
The Verge - July 23, 2020 - 4 min
Scammers using famous people in fake Bitcoin giveaways to steal money is nothing new, it's been happening in social networks for years. And many celebrities have had enough.
The New York Times Company Acquires Serial Productions and Forms a Strategic Alliance with “This American Life”
Business Wire - July 22, 2020 - 8 min
The NYT has acquired the company behind the 2014 podcast Serial that put in motion the recent surge of interest in the genre. They are launching a new podcast about building a better school system.
Intel's 7nm is Broken, Company Announces Delay Until 2022, 2023
Tom's Hardware - July 23, 2020 - 7 min
By the time Intel catches up to 7nm CPUs, Apple and it's chip manufacturer, TSMC, will be on 3nm chips and Apple will have transitioned its entire Mac product line to Apple Silicon 😳
Listen to This Deepfake Audio Impersonating a CEO in Brazen Fraud Attempt
Vice - July 23, 2020 - 3 min
You’d be surprised how many companies are scammed just by impersonating an exec in an email to the finance department asking to pay a fake invoice. This is just a step up in sophistication.
Carlos Ghosn’s $600K Bitcoin Escape Fee Paid via Coinbase
CoinDesk - July 24, 2020 - 2 min
Rivaling the Wirecard COO for the prize of most wanted executive fugitive is the former Renault and Nissan head, who fled Japan last December hidden in a musical instrument case.
PROTIP: If you're going to pay illegal smugglers using Bitcoin, don't use one of the exchanges with stricter KYC policies.
Facebook Employee Leaks Show Betrayal By Company Leadership
BuzzFeed - July 23, 2020 - 26 min
More and more employees are leaving Facebook after growing discontent with leadership policies.
I think Facebook is hurting people at scale
This is the note accompanying the video a now ex-Facebook employee posted in an internal board. The full 20 min audio is embedded in the article.
Exclusive: More than 1,000 people at Twitter had ability to aid hack of accounts
Reuters - July 23, 2020 - 5 min
Flash news: company employees have access to company administrative tools.
It's the companies responsibility to ensure their systems adhere to the principle of least privilege to reduce the risk of attackers gaining access to critical systems by compromising employee accounts.
Twitter reports strong user growth, but ad revenue is down 23%
CNBC - July 23, 2020 - 6 min
More people are using Twitter while sheltering at home, but companies are struggling in a weakened economy, and not spending on marketing.
There are rumors of a new subscription product, but it's unclear what features it would provide users.
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Thursday, July 23, 2020
Cops Are Using Drones to Make Sure People Aren't Nude
Vice - July 17, 2020 - 3 min
Cops in Minnesota flew a drone over a public beach to see if they could spot some exposed boobs—and then sent seven officers down to try to ticket topless sunbathers.
Priorities 🤷🏻♀️
Engineers design a reusable, silicone rubber face mask
MIT News - July 9, 2020 - 5 min
The mask includes an N95 filter, but it requires much less N95 material than a traditional N95 mask
Apple Will Start Sending Special Devices to iPhone Hackers
Vice - July 22, 2020 - 2 min
1 year ago, Apple announced it would be distributing iPhones with special, expanded access to the operating system to security researchers. The program just lunched, but many security researchers are very disappointed about the restrictions Apple imposed. Most hackers will continue to rely on Jailbreaks and stolen device prototypes to continue their research.
📺 Lightning bolt strikes Statue of Liberty
Twitter - July 22, 2020
Twitter says hackers accessed DMs during mass attack
Axios - July 22, 2020 - 1 min
Twitter announced that hackers were able to access the direct messages of 36 of 130 targeted accounts, including an elected official in the Netherlands, as part of a mass hack that targeted notable figures on July 15.
Deep learning to translate between programming languages
Facebook - July 21, 2020 - 9 min
The model correctly translates more than 90 percent of Java functions to C++, 74.8 percent of C++ functions to Java, and 68.7 percent of functions from Java to Python.
SoftBank hires Goldman Sachs to explore sale options for chip designer Arm after getting inbound interest
CNBC - July 13, 2020 - 3 min
SoftBank acquired Arm, the owners of the intellectual property behind most Android and iPhone microprocessors, in 2016 for $32B. Now they want to divest and some companies (and Arm clients) like Nvidia and Apple and showed interest. However, the only option that would likely pass regulatory scrutiny is an independent IPO.
Slack Files EU Competition Complaint Against Microsoft
Slack - July 22, 2020 - 3 min
Microsoft is reverting to past behavior. They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the ‘browser wars.’
Will this be Netscape all over again?
Apple digs in heels over its App Store commission structure with release of new study
Techcrunch - July 22, 2020 - 6 min
Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to testify before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on Monday, July 27.
As developer Paul Haddad poignantly said on Twitter:
Apple releases Apple paid study that clears Apple of any wrong doing.
Twilio: Someone waltzed into our unsecured AWS S3 silo, added dodgy code to our JavaScript SDK for customers
The Register - July 21, 2020 - 4 min
When a company gets their SDK hacked, it's not only a security breach for them, but for all the customers that included the SDK their apps.
AWS S3, Amazon's file storage solution, has been the source of innumerable company breaches in the past because of misconfigurations.
Some of the stunning winners of the 2020 iPhone Photography Awards
Mashable - July 22, 2020 - 4 min
The Navy Says It's Not Recruiting on Twitch. This Handbook Shows It Is
Vice - July 22, 2020 - 8 min
From "video games are the cause of schoolmass shootings" to "the U.S. Navy's esports team is recruiting sailors in the world's biggest video game streaming platform" 😅.
How Ben & Jerry’s Perfected the Delicate Recipe for Corporate Activism
Bloomberg - July 22, 2020 - 19 min
All of its current directors save for two Unilever executives are activists or have extensive experience in the charity sector; at one point, more members of the creamery’s board had been arrested while protesting than not.
JAMF shares soar in debut, as IPO gives investors another way to bet on Apple
CNBC - July 22, 2020 - 3 min
Shares closed up 51% in its first day of trading. JAMF makes enterprise software to manage company-owned Apple devices.
Where banks really make money on IPOs
Reuters - March 11, 2013 - 10 min
TL;DR: Underprice IPO. Allocate stock to clients. Benefit from kickbacks off client profits.
The internet went crazy over cake, but going mainstream can end a trend
NBC News - July 22, 2020 - 5 min
My rule of thumb is a meme dies when a brand tweets about it. Also, Android is cake.
Live Chicken Cam
chickenc.am
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Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Robinhood and How to Lose Money
Margins - July 19, 2020 - 12 min
Naming yourself after the character who stole from the rich to give to the poor, while making a ton of money off of your customers for, again, the billionaire who literally bought the most expensive house in America, could make even Adam Neumann blush.
😬😳
The Adjacent User Theory
Andrew Chen - July 20, 2020 - 26 min
The Adjacent Users are aware of a product and possibly tried using the it, but are not able to successfully become an engaged user. This is typically because the current product positioning or experience has too many barriers to adoption for them.
The case for focusing on so-called "adjacent users" to achieve product-market fit.
Hostage siege ends after Ukrainian president endorses Joaquin Phoenix film
The Guardian - July 21, 2020 - 3 min
“The film Earthlings from 2005. Everyone should watch it,” Zelenskiy said in the video released over Facebook.
2020 is a Black Mirror episode.
Equity for all?
Medium - July 21, 2020 - 12 min
Emily Kramer, former vice president of marketing at Carta, an equity management startup last valued at $3B, and known for its study on the disparity around equity given to women, is suing the company for underpaying her $50k annually and giving her 1/3 the equity of her male colleagues.
Apple’s Promise for 2030
Medium - July 21, 2020 - 3 min
By 2030, Apple will be 100% carbon neutral.
While the goal should be not to pollute at all in the first time, it's unrealistic for now, so being carbon neutral sounds like a good stopgap until we get there.
These Reindeer Really Do Shine, And It's For Their Own Good
NPR - February 20, 2014 - 1 min
Herders in Lapland are spraying their reindeer with reflective paint to help drivers see them in the dark
More women are top VC decision-makers, but parity is a long way off
Axios - July 21, 2020 - 1 min
Nearly 12.4% of decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms are women.
213 of the firms (61%) did not have any female decision-makers.
Photographer Updates Postcards Of 1960s Resorts Into Their Abandoned Ruins
Flashback - July 16, 2020 - 6 min
Some US investors of Bytedance, including Sequoia Capital, are reportedly considering buying a majority stake in TikTok
Business Insider - July 21, 2020 - 1 min
The report comes as Bytedance continues to prepare for a potential US ban on the popular video-sharing app that has played a part in strained US-China relations.
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university that would rival Stanford and MIT and funnel tech workers into government work
Business Insider - July 21, 2020 - 3 min
Schmidt left his role as a technical adviser at Google in February amid his increased involvement in affairs pertaining to military technology.
Yikes.
A Company Backs a Cause. It Funds a Politician Who Doesn’t. What Gives?
The New York Times - July 21, 2020 - 5 min
On the phenomenon of companies funding politicians with opposed views to the ones they publicly defend.
LinkedIn cuts 960 jobs as pandemic puts the brakes on corporate hiring
Reuters - July 21, 2020 - 1 min
Given 960 jobs only represent 6% of its global workforce, it looks more like using the pandemic excuse to get rid of some bloat.
'World's Most Wanted Man' Involved in Bizarre Attempt to Buy Hacking Tools
Vice - July 21, 2020 - 4 min
Jan Marsalek, the fugitive and ex-COO of ill-fated company Wirecard, tried to buy smartphone spyware from also-ill-fated Italian company Hacking Team, using forged government documents of Grenada, a small Caribbean island of around 100,000 people.
This story just gets weirder by the minute.
eBay agrees to sell classifieds business in $9.2 billion deal
Axios - July 21, 2020 - 1 min
Wondering what's the valuation of Craisglist, or even Facebook Marketplace if it was a separate business.
Spotify launches video podcasts worldwide, starting with select creators
Techcrunch - July 21, 2020 - 2 min
I honestly don't understand "video podcasts". Just call them talk shows. The main appeal of podcasts for me is precisely the audio-only format.
VCs, celebrities and athletes are writing a new LA story to bring women’s soccer to the city
Techcrunch - July 21, 2020 - 5 min
Angel City, the new women's soccer team in Los Angeles, backed by a who's-who of VCs, celebrities and athletes
Boom.
Present & Correct - August 12, 2016
A collection of vintage Japanese boom boxes
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Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Microsoft to launch Windows 10X as a web-first OS without local Win32 app support
Windows Central - July 20, 2020 - 5 min
Windows 10X, originally planned for the foldable Surface Neo (whose launch is delayed), will now target low cost PCs to compete with Chromebooks. And lack Win32 API support, instead opting for remote app streaming
Exclusive: Twitter Hackers Could Have Stolen A Whole Lot More Bitcoin
Forbes - July 19, 2020 - 4 min
Twitter hackers could have stolen at least $300k more if bitcoin exchanges like Coinbase didn’t block transactions to the hacker’s address 😬
The brain behind the Google Pixel camera is building a universal camera app for Adobe
The Verge - July 20, 2020 - 1 min
He led the software development of Night Sight, capable of taking amazing low light photos. Adobe just released Photoshop Camera, with a wide range of filters. Sounds like a good match!
The TechCrunch List
Techcrunch - July 20, 2020
TechCrunch has released “a directory of the most active and engaged investors in the VC industry today as recommended by founders”
Lillie Langtry and the 19th Century’s gentlewomen influencers
Crime Reads - June 10, 2020 - 6 min
If you think Instagram invented the beauty influencers and women who are famous for being famous… you’re in for a good read.
ScaleFactor Raised $100 Million In A Year Then Blamed Covid-19 For Its Demise. Employees Say It Had Much Bigger Problems.
Forbes - July 20, 2020 - 9 min
A groundbreaking AI to do the books for small businesses. In reality, humans did most of the work.
Reminder that full automation at scale is usually a myth. Too many edge cases. Easier to just throw money and humans at the problem.
KFC moves to add 3D-printed chicken nuggets with lab-grown meat to its menu
Mashable - July 20, 2020 - 2 min
KYC is on a rush to provide meat alternatives. After announcing the Beyond Fried Chicken, they’re now adding 3D printed nuggets to the menu 🍗
Tinder, Sailor, Hooker, Pimp: The U.S. Navy’s sex trafficking scandal in Bahrain
Military Times - June 16, 2020 - 29 min
USA military personnel stationed in Bahrain were bringing women from Thailand, seizing their passports, housing them at their tax-payer founded appartments and traficking them.
The rise and fall of Adobe Flash
Ars Technica - July 7, 2020 - 16 min
A great account of the history of Flash since before its inception, on the verge of its end of life support on December 2020.
Tech Sector Job Interviews Assess Anxiety, Not Software Skills
North Carolina State University - July 14, 2020 - 4 min
[whiteboard] technical interviews […] test whether a job candidate has performance anxiety rather than whether the candidate is competent at coding. The interviews may also be used to exclude groups or favor specific job candidates.
Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce
Harvard Business Review - July 15, 2020 - 10 min
While weekly meeting time increased by 10% overall […] individual meetings actually shrank in duration. We had 22% more meetings of 30 minutes or less and 11% fewer meetings of more than one hour.
Incredibly detailed data on how work has changed at Microsoft after the sudden shift to full remote.
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Monday, July 20, 2020
Why Companies Lose Their Best Innovators
Forbes - July 11, 2019 - 4 min
They're not recognized internally.
Even if they are, they are presented with numerous obstacles to succeed.
Even if they do, they are not rewarded adequately.
The World’s Most Technologically Sophisticated Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang
Foreign Policy - July 15, 2020 - 5 min
In 2018, 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang despite accounting for a mere 1.8 percent of China’s population. These IUDs can be removed only by state-approved surgery—or else prison terms will follow.
An Evangelist for Remote Work Sees the Rest of the World Catch On
The New York Times - July 12, 2020 - 7 min
I’ve been to the offices of billionaire C.E.O.s that have their own private bathroom, beautiful art and couches. These are all things you can have in your home. What I love about distributed organizations is every employee can have a corner office.
Mark Zuckerberg surfs in Hawaii with way too much sunscreen
New York Post - July 12, 2020 - 1 min
The Dimming of GE’s Bold Digital Dreams
The Wall Street Journal - July 18, 2020 - 10 min
The CEO wanted GE to be known around the world for more than just jet engines and MRI machines, power plants and nuclear reactors.
The Lincoln Project, the rogue former Republicans trying to take down Trump, explained
Vox - July 17, 2020 - 13 min
The Lincoln Project reported spending nearly $1.4 million through March. Almost all of that money went to the group’s board members and firms run by them.
Henry Ford, Innovation, and That “Faster Horse” Quote
Harvard Business Review - August 29, 2011 - 5 min
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
Turns out Henry Ford never said that sentence 🙄
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