Techmeme
January 20, 2021, 9:35 AM

Top News

Zoë Bernard / The Information:
Sources: Andreessen Horowitz to launch an opinion section on its website that will publish articles related to technology and business from outside contributors  —  Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, which once courted attention from the news media, is ramping up its own media efforts.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
A look at a16z's communication efforts over the years, as the firm expands its own media operations and has largely stopped cooperating with reporters  —  Why media whisperer Margit Wennmachers is going direct.  —  Benedict Evans, Andreessen Horowitz's former in-house analyst …
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Donald Trump pardons ex-Waymo and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski; Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey were among those supporting a pardon for Levandowski  —  Last year Anthony Levandowski pleaded guilty to one count of stealing materials from Google, where he was an engineer for its self-driving car efforts …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Malwarebytes says it was hacked by group that breached SolarWinds, via Azure and Office 365 exploits, but attackers only accessed a subset of internal emails  —  Malwarebytes becomes fourth major security firm targeted by attackers after Microsoft, FireEye, and CrowdStrike.
Bloomberg:
Jack Ma has resurfaced after months out of public view, addressing teachers on an online conference, quashing intense speculation about his fate  —  Alibaba and Ant co-founder Jack Ma has resurfaced after months out of public view, quashing intense speculation about the plight …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue of $6.64B vs. $6.63B est., up 21.5% YoY, and global streaming paid memberships of 203.7M, up 8.5M vs. 6.5M est.; stock up 12%+  —  - Netflix reported fourth quarter 2020 earnings Tuesday that beat analyst expectations on revenue and net subscriber additions but fell below EPS estimates.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Netflix says its “Shuffle Play” feature, which lets Netflix's algorithm choose what you watch next, will roll out globally to all users in H1 2021  —  Netflix is always in search of a better way to instantly connect users to something to watch, instead of having them waste …
Alexandra Alper / Reuters:
Trump signs an executive order that seeks to thwart foreign use of cloud computing products or services for malicious cyber operations against the US  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outgoing President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at thwarting foreign use of cloud computing products …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Brave becomes the first major browser to natively support IPFS protocol, useful for accessing censored content; Wikipedia and other sites offer IPFS versions  —  Brave users will now be able to seamlessly access ipfs:// links.  —  With the release of Brave 1.19 today …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Google is investigating why Margaret Mitchell, who helps lead its ethical AI team, downloaded and shared a large number of files with people outside the company  —  Google is investigating recent actions by Margaret Mitchell, who helps lead the company's ethical AI team, Axios has confirmed.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Instagram head Adam Mosseri on keeping users safe at scale, content moderation, Facebook's actions against Trump, future regulation, Reels, and more  —  Adam Mosseri has a broad view of Facebook, its capabilities, and its challenges.  And Facebook has a lot of challenges right now …
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Biden picks former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler, who taught courses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain at MIT, to head the SEC  —  Gary Gensler's nomination to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange is welcome news for the cryptocurrency industry given his ongoing and deep interest in the technology.
Meagan Simpson / BetaKit:
South Korean search engine company Naver Corp. has acquired online self-publishing platform Wattpad for an estimated ~$600M  —  Wattpad is set to be acquired by South Korean internet company Naver Corp. for an estimated $754 million CAD ($600 million USD).  —  Naver announced the deal early before market open in South Korea.

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Jennifer Smith / Wall Street Journal:
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:

Earlier Picks

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
The Markup:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Douglas Soltys / BetaKit:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: