Techmeme
February 3, 2021, 8:25 PM

Top News

Brian Flood / Fox Business:
In an internal memo, John Matze says he has been terminated as Parler's CEO by its board of directors  —  “The future of Parler is no longer in my hands,” Matze wrote  —  EXCLUSIVE - Parler has terminated CEO John Matze, according to a memo Matze sent to staffers that has been obtained by Fox News.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Jeff Bezos departs as perhaps the best CEO in tech history, having created three huge businesses: Amazon.com, AWS, and Amazon's marketplace/fulfillment services  —  It's the refunds that blow my mind.  —  You may be surprised to know that, despite the fact I live in Taiwan, I have an Amazon Prime account.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
Jeff Bezos's surprise resignation feels natural and even inevitable; the walls of his highly compartmentalized empire have been crumbling for some time  —  Jeff Bezos has a formulation about one-way doors and two-way doors—decisions that are irreversible and permanent and those that can always be unwound.
Amazon Investor Relations:
CNBC:
BuzzFeed News:
Facebook says it will try to protect posts that criticized Myanmar's military and its coup and will remove content that praises or supports the coup  —  After failing to stem the hate speech and misinformation that fueled a genocide in Myanmar, Facebook now says it plans …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Myanmar's new military government has ordered local telecoms to temporarily block Facebook and its family of apps within the country  —  Myanmar's new military government has ordered local telecom firms to temporarily block Facebook in the Southeast Asian nation days after the military seized power in the country in a military coup.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
TikTok will prompt users to seek credible information if they try to share videos flagged as misleading, and disincentivize creators from uploading such content  —  TikTok will begin asking users to seek credible information about a topic if they try to share a video that carries …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
SolarWinds CEO says hackers had breached the company's Office 365 email system for at least nine months starting December 2019  —  Investigators still don't know how the company was breached in attack that will cost millions  —  The newly appointed chief executive of SolarWinds Corp …
Bloomberg:
In an email to staff on February 1, Andy Jassy reaffirmed his commitment to making video games, following a scathing Bloomberg profile of Amazon Game Studios  —  One day before he was named the next chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., Andy Jassy reaffirmed his commitment to making video games …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Box says it intends to acquire Dutch cloud-based e-signature startup SignRequest for $55M and plans to launch Box Sign in summer 2021  —  Cloud storage and collaboration giant Box has announced plans to acquire SignRequest, a cloud-based electronic signature (e-signature) startup based in the Netherlands, in a deal worth $55 million.
Marc Andreessen / Andreessen Horowitz:
a16z names Sriram Krishnan as its newest GP, after roles at Facebook, Snap, Twitter; Krishnan has been consulting for nine months on an a16z “community project”  —  Welcome, Sriram Krishnan, our newest general partner, to Andreessen Horowitz!  —  Sriram is a well-known …
Bloomberg:
Report: Apple plans $3.6B investment in Kia, with a deal on Feb. 17, and aims to start making cars in Georgia, US in 2024, with initial target of 100K cars/year  —  - Local media report says deal may be signed later this month  — Hyundai last month confirmed then backed away from Apple talks
Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
India's IT ministry orders Twitter to block the recently restored accounts of dissidents and The Caravan magazine, or Twitter staff could face fines or jail  —  India's government has threatened to punish employees at Twitter with fines and jail terms of up to seven years for restoring hundreds …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify reports Q4 results: 345M MAUs, up 27% YoY, as paying subscribers grew to 155M, up 24% YoY, topping expectations; revenue was up 17% YoY to €2.17B  —  But streaming giant offers conservative outlook for the current year as new sign-ups could ebb
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Google rolls out an update for Android TV with a refreshed UI that is similar to Google TV on Chromecast  —  A fresh look for Google's (other) smart TV software  —  Google is rolling out a new update for Android TV that gives its smart TV OS a fresh new look — one that's almost identical …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Sony says it shipped 4.5M PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020, and reports revenue of $8.4B in Q3, up 40% YoY, operating profit of $763.3M, up 50%  —  A similar figure to the PS4 launch  —  Sony shipped 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020, as revealed by information published alongside …
Sohini Podder / Reuters:
Shares of ON24, a maker of webinar and virtual event software, jumped nearly 54% in its debut Wednesday after raising $428M+ in its IPO  —  (Reuters) - Shares of Goldman Sachs-backed ON24 Inc jumped nearly 54% in their market debut on Wednesday, giving the webinar-marketing platform a market value of over $3.42 billion.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram confirms it is working on an early prototype of a “Vertical Stories” feed, which is presented in a TikTok-like scrolling fashion  —  Instagram is developing a new feature that could give its app more of a TikTok-like feel: Vertical Instagram Stories.
Matthew Ball / MatthewBall.vc:
Apple's iOS is inhibiting the growth of the future internet but regulators can remedy that by forcing Apple into competition in app distribution and payments  —  Chapter One: The Creation of Today's Internet and the Needs of Tomorrow's  —  One of the neat things about the internet is who created it, why, and how.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon has started deploying AI-powered Netradyne cameras, which are always on and automatically upload footage, in its US delivery vehicles to monitor drivers  —  - Amazon has begun rolling out AI-enabled cameras from Netradyne in vehicles at a handful of contracted delivery partners across the U.S., CNBC has learned.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Rescale, which offers “infrastructure-as-a-service” tools for scientific and engineering simulations, raises $50M Series C, bringing total raised to $100M+  —  Rescale, a San Francisco, California-based startup developing a software platform and hardware infrastructure for scientific …
More: FinSMEs

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Forms for successful Black Friday sales  —  Black Friday is a retail frenzy that can significantly impact your bottom line.  To make the most of this shopping bonanza, you need a strategy that not only attracts customers …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 11/04 - Apple Buying And Investing In Things
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:25 PM ET, February 3, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jill Lepore / New Yorker:
Jay Greene / Washington Post:
Jesse Pound / CNBC: