Tech News
Tech News and Analysis from around the web
Katherine Anne Long / The Seattle Times:
Internal docs: Amazon tries to push 6% of its office staff out of the company each year, calling the loss of low-ranked office workers “unregretted attrition” — Amazon systematically attempts to channel 6% of its office employees out of the company each year …
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google quietly pushed Massachusetts' MassNotify COVID tracking app to Android phones in the state; after debuting last week, the app has 1M to 5M installs — Massachusetts launched a COVID tracking app, and uh, it was automatically installed?! — Over the weekend, Google and the state …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
A timeline of Google's long list of mostly-defunct messaging apps and services, starting in 2004 with Gmail and progressing to Google Talk, Hangouts, and Allo — What a decade and a half of confusing services can tell us about the future — Over the past 15 years, Google has introduced …
Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:
Current and former Google execs say the company suffers from both its size and Sundar Pichai's leadership, marked by delayed decisions and raging culture fights — Despite record profits, a number of them are worried that the company is suffering from both its size and leadership from its C.E.O., Sundar Pichai.
BBC:
How North Korean hackers nearly stole $951M from Bangladesh Bank's New York Fed account in 2016, only to be stopped at the last moment after transferring $81M — In 2016 North Korean hackers planned a $1bn raid on Bangladesh's national bank and came within an inch of success …
Noor Zainab Hussain / Reuters:
Filing: cybersecurity company SentinelOne will sell 32M shares at $26-$29, aiming for a $7B+ valuation and raising $928M at the top end, when it floats on NYSE — (Reuters) - Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne Inc, backed by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb's hedge fund Third Point …
The Information:
Sources: Shopify is rolling out a service that will let BuzzFeed and other content publishers link to merchants in exchange for a cut of transaction revenue — Shopify, which has become a major force in e-commerce by providing online tools to merchants, is rolling out a new service …
Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times:
A look at the huge rise of esports in South Korea, where thousands of young people compete to go pro, and efforts to create sustainable jobs in the industry — Each year, thousands of young South Koreans compete to join pro e-sports teams, but only a few make the cut.
Mary Biekert / Bloomberg:
Securitize, which helps companies issue asset-backed security tokens, raises $48M Series B co-led Morgan Stanley and Blockchain Capital — - Firm gathers $48 million in its Series B fundraising round — Teixeira of Morgan Stanley to join Securitize's board
Patrick Shanley / Washington Post:
A look at the future of E3, once the dominant gaming event, as the pandemic, withdrawal of Sony, and rise of competing events has weakened its impact and appeal — For the video game industry, summer was once a season dominated by a monolithic convention in Los Angeles …
Martin Arnold / Financial Times:
European Central Bank board member says a digital euro will protect consumer privacy and protect the eurozone from the “threat” of competing cryptocurrencies — Fabio Panetta admits some oversight by regulators is necessary to avoid misuse — The introduction of a digital euro …
Julia Fioretti / Bloomberg:
Sources: Full Truck Alliance, a Chinese Uber-like service for trucks, raises $1.6B after pricing at $19, the top of the range; trading begins today on NYSE — - Trucking firm to sell American depositary shares at $19 each — Full Truck Alliance marketed shares in $17-$19 range apiece
Stephanie Findlay / Financial Times:
Sources: Indian payments company Paytm is seeking to raise up to $3B in its forthcoming IPO, targeting a valuation of $29B; the company was last valued at $16B — Proposed share sale comes as company faces fierce competition from western rivals — Indian payments group Paytm has called …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Revolut says it had $361M in 2020 revenue, up 57% YoY, non-adjusted operating loss reached $277M due to staff costs, and retail customers rose 45% to 14.5M — Fintech startup Revolut has filed some financial results and is sharing details with the press. In 2020, the company reported $361 million …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
As China expands its crackdown on cryptocurrency mining farms, analysis shows the price of GPUs has fallen on many e-commerce platforms in the country — Graphics cards from companies including Nvidia and Asus saw prices fall by as much as two-thirds on e-commerce platforms amid China's …
I dislike all the hoopla about Father's Day since I don't have one.
My father died in 2009. As they say "after a long illness." Cancer.
I called the day he died Father's Day. From that moment on I could remember my father the way I wanted to, and try to remember that the things I didn't like were given to him by his father and his father's father, all the way back to the beginning, which in our case was probably a shtetl somewhere in the Ukraine or Belarus or Russia.
The one thing we bonded on was outliners. My father loved ThinkTank. He was a huge evangelist for it, as a college professor in NY, and a consultant to large businesses on marketing and management, he preached the gospel of seeing what you think. I now realize he wanted me to do, then, what I see now that I need to do. I wish he was alive today to use the tools we're creating now.
He didn't understand what I was doing when I was developing it, but he loved it after it was done. This might give tech adventurers some hope. Your parents might not understand what you're doing today, but when it's ready to go, they might become believers.
I say the difference between the Mets and other baseball teams is that the Mets have philosophy. Their philosophy is to have a philosophy, which is this: it ain't about winning. The Yankees, the other NYC baseball team, expect to win every year, which doesn't work most years, because despite how good the Yankees are, there are 29 other teams and in most seasons the Yankees, like all but one team, are losers. Their philosophy is not adaptable. The Mets philosophy only has upside. In the infrequent years they win, well, that's a bonus, an extra goodie. Like some rice to go with your red beans. Like a pack of rolling papers to go with your ounce of weed. Winning for the Mets is a nice thing, soon forgotten, when you revert back to the long-term philosophy of playing baseball, not winning at playing baseball.
People who think sports are trivial haven't really thought it through, imho. Sports teach you how to think about things that are confusing in everyday life in clear terms with almost immediate outcomes. Sports is a training ground for strategic and philosophical intelligence.
The latest version of the basketballl Nets were formed by players who cared not a whit about anything other than winning. They probably need to be reminded what team they're playing for (i.e. the Brooklyn Nets). Kyrie is playing for Team Durant, as is Harden and the others. Durant, who has already won championships, was bored, is a sour person, who on coming to NYC thought it was okay to dis the team that everyone in NYC knows sucks horribly, epicly, a self-sabotaging monster of a basketball team that despite everything NY basketball fans love. Love. We love them KD. But we don't like it when players from Seattle, Oklahoma and "Golden State" (where ever that is) come to NY and tell us our team sucks. You suck you asshole, and the only NYers who are going to root for your Nets are the ones who root for the Yankees. This Nets team was founded to win. Having lost, do they have any reason to exist? So today Knicks fans breathe a sigh of relief. There is a basketball god after all, and the Knicks still rule NY. When the Nets show some hubris, when they commit to a long-term relationship with NY basketball fans, then and only then will the deserve real NY fans, not the fake fairweather fans.
This outcome, losing in the second round, was perfectly predictable. Maybe there should be a rule, once you win two championships you should retire, because from that point on there are no more thrills available to you, and like LeBron, destroyer of humble franchises in Miami and Cleveland (twice!) would do less damage if he just invested in VC-backed tech companies and forgot about bringing his sourness to basketball.
Sports teaches those of us who will never achieve the height of a Kevin Durant to appreciate what we have. This year the Knicks rose off the energy KD fed the team and exceeded all expectations. Next year and the year after I'll root for the Knicks, god willing. But if they ever mortgage their future, as the Nets did, to get three vagabond superstars to try to win a title in one year, I'll be shaking my head and will look for another hopeless cause to identify with until the Knicks come back to earth.