Techmeme
December 23, 2021, 11:05 AM

Top News

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Marc Andreessen blocked Jack Dorsey on Twitter following his tweets that were critical of a16z and Web3; Dorsey then tweeted “I'm officially banned from web3”  —  The venture capitalist blocked the former Twitter CEO, and Dorsey said he's now ‘banned from Web3’
Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:
Priya Anand / Bloomberg:
Internal docs show Amazon is struggling to retain Alexa device users; in some years between 2018-2021, 15%-25% of new users were no longer active after one week  —  Each holiday season since 2015, Amazon.com Inc. has counted on selling a lot of its Alexa voice-controlled smart speakers.
Bloomberg:
Intel apologizes following backlash after telling Chinese suppliers to avoid Xinjiang labor, saying it only did so to “ensure compliance” with US law  —  - Brand ambassador Wang Junkai cuts ties with the U.S. chipmaker  — Intel asked suppliers not to use labor, products from Xinjiang
Reuters:
Tencent plans to issue nearly all of its shares in JD.com worth $16.37B to shareholders as a dividend, reducing its stake from 17% to about 2.3%  —  Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent (0700.HK) will hand a $16.4 billion JD.com (9618.HK) stake as a dividend to its shareholders …
Ryan Mac / New York Times:
In a note to employees, Andrew Bosworth envisions Meta's deep compatibility with blockchain and predicts “profound impacts on our industry over the next decade”  —  Meta, Facebook's parent company, is aiming for “deep compatibility” with blockchain technology, according to an internal post on Tuesday from a top executive.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Huawei debuts P50 Pocket, a clamshell-style folding device with a circular 1" external display and 6.9" internal display, coming to China starting at ~$1,400  —  The phone launches in China today, but won't be coming to the US  —  Huawei has officially announced the P50 Pocket …
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
How Tobi Lütke led Shopify to becoming an e-commerce giant, helping ~2M merchants run stores as its market cap rose from $46B in early 2020 to $174B today  —  Tobi Lütke transformed the Canadian upstart into an e-commerce giant by being the anti-Bezos.  How long can the formula keep working?
FinSMEs:
China-based TandemAI, which uses AI to speed up the design and optimization of drug candidates, raises $25M in seed and pre-Series A funding  —  TandemAI, a Suzhou, and Shangai, China-based provider of a computational platform to accelerate the design and optimization of drug candidates, raised $25m in Seed and pre-Series A financing.
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Analysis: since 2018, Amazon has opened 153 US facilities in “opportunity zones”, created by a 2017 law, to access tax breaks whose impact is hard to measure  —  The company has located delivery stations, fulfillment centers and even an air hub in regions that qualify for capital gains tax breaks under a 2017 law.

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