Techmeme
February 7, 2022, 9:35 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Meta announces that Peter Thiel, one of Facebook's first institutional investors and longest-serving directors, will step down from Meta's board this year  —  The tech billionaire, who has been on the board of the company formerly known as Facebook since 2005, is backing numerous politicians in the midterm elections.
Alan Rappeport / New York Times:
The IRS says it will transition away from using facial recognition for identity verification, after a bipartisan backlash regarding its use of ID.me services  —  The tax collection agency will transition away from using a service from the authentication service ID.me amid bipartisan backlash.
Michiel Willems / City A.M.:
In its annual SEC report, Meta repeats its warning that it may be forced to shut down “significant” services in Europe if the EU adopts new data transfer rules  —  If Meta is not given the option to transfer, store and process data from its European users on US-based servers …
Financial Times:
Sources: SoftBank's sale of Arm to Nvidia collapses; source says SoftBank will receive a breakup fee of up to $1.25B and plans to unload Arm via an IPO in 2022  —  Transaction had faced scrutiny from regulators and was opposed by rivals  —  SoftBank's $66bn sale of UK-based chip business Arm …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Source: Apple acquires London-based AI Music, which uses AI and royalty-free music to create dynamic soundtracks that change based on user interactions or moods  —  Apple Inc. acquired a startup called AI Music that uses artificial intelligence to generate tailor-made music …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon raises its maximum base pay for corporate and tech employees from $160K to $350K, in line with other tech giants, citing a “competitive labor market”  —  Amazon will boost its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, from $160,000 previously …
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
The Ethereum Name Service DAO, which manages .eth domains, votes to remove Brantly Millegan as a steward over a 2016 tweet; Millegan has refused to apologize  —  A Tweet from Nick Johnson, founder and lead developer of ENS, confirmed Millegan has been removed from both the DAO and as director of operations of True Names Ltd.
Karl Freund / Forbes:
Intel announces efforts to accelerate RISC-V development and adoption, including licensing plans, chip manufacturing partners, and a $1B IFS Innovation Fund  —  This announcement will have a long-lasting impact on the entire semiconductor industry:  —  Intel must fabricate chips …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
A profile of freight logistics startup Flexport, which is raising a $935M+ Series E co-led by a16z and MSD Partners at an $8B valuation  —  Founder Ryan Petersen has positioned himself as shipping's savior, earning Flexport a new $8 billion valuation.  But industry rivals …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Ethereum scaling project Polygon raises $450M, its first major financing round, led by Sequoia Capital India; Polygon has a ~$13B market cap  —  Ethereum scaling firm Polygon has raised $450 million in a new venture financing round as the firm, with a market cap of about $13 billion …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft starts blocking VBA macro scripts by default in Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, and Word, after years of security experts requesting the change  —  In one of the most impactful changes made in recent years, Microsoft has announced today that it will block by default the execution …

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