Techmeme
December 23, 2021, 7:55 PM

Top News

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Marc Andreessen blocked Jack Dorsey on Twitter following his tweets 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:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Amid COVID-19 concerns, Google, GM, and Waymo cancel in-person plans for CES, following Meta, Amazon, Twitter, and others, while Intel scales back its presence  —  The world's biggest technology show may not be  —  CES, the world's largest technology show, appears to be in jeopardy due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Amazon reaches a nationwide settlement with the NLRB to let its warehouse employees more easily organize, likely affecting over 1M current and former workers  —  The agreement's national scope and its concessions to organizing go further than any previous settlement that the e-commerce giant has made.
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docs show Amazon is struggling to retain Alexa device users; in some years between 2018-2021, 15%-25% of new users were no longer active after one week  —  Each holiday season since 2015, Amazon.com Inc. has counted on selling a lot of its Alexa voice-controlled smart speakers.
Neal E. Boudette / New York Times:
Tesla agrees to release a software update that blocks its Passenger Play gaming feature while the vehicle is in motion, after the NHTSA opened an investigation  —  Tesla has agreed to modify software in its cars to prevent drivers and passengers from playing video games on the dashboard screens …
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
Jeff John Roberts / Decrypt:
As Bakkt's stock drops from $50 to ~$9 two months after its SPAC merger, president and founding executive Adam White says he is leaving the company next week  —  Adam White, a founder and President of the digital assets and rewards platform Bakkt, took to Twitter on Thursday to say he is moving on from the company.
Bloomberg:
Intel apologizes, following a backlash in China, for 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
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Ant Money, which operates three finance apps, including micro-income app ATM and gamer savings app Blast, raises a $20M Series A  —  Serial fintech entrepreneur Walter Cruttenden founded Acorns with his son, Jeff, in 2012 with the goal of helping low- and middle-income households to invest and save responsibly.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Huawei debuts P50 Pocket, a clamshell-style folding device with a circular 1" outer display and 6.9" inner display, available now in 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 …
Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information:
Meta brings back Kevin Martin, a Republican, as its head of US public policy, after failing to find a Democrat to lead its lobbying team  —  Meta Platforms is throwing in the towel on a plan to hire a top Democrat to lead its lobbying team after searching in vain for almost a year for a candidate from the party.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
How Tobi Lütke led Shopify to become an e-commerce giant, helping ~2M merchants run stores as its market cap rose from $46B in early 2020 to $177B today  —  Tobi Lütke transformed the Canadian upstart into an e-commerce giant by being the anti-Bezos.  How long can the formula keep working?

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