Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 05/22 – I Do A Complete 180 on WFH

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Yeah, mea culpa on my whole work-from-home/remote work skepticism. Also, I was wrong about Magic Leap being a goner. But that subscription aggregator we’ve all been anticipating is showing up right on time, and in the weekend longreads, let me introduce you to the two men who are about to become nerd superstars. Sponsors: Metalab.co Tovala.com/ride Links: MARK ZUCKERBERG ON TAKING HIS MASSIVE WORKFORCE REMOTE (The Verge) Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts (CNBC) IBM Is Latest Tech Giant to Cut Jobs in Midst of Pandemic (Bloomberg) Magic Leap Raises $350 Million, Withdraws Layoff Notices (The Information) Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, court rules (Ars Technica) ScreenHits TV to Launch Streaming Aggregator to Combat "Subscription Fatigue" (The Hollywood Reporter) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans (NYTimes) Copyright bots and classical musicians are fighting online. The bots are winning. (Washington Post) This DIY laptop costs as much as a MacBook Air — How is it selling so well? (Laptop) The State of the Self-Driving Car Race 2020 (Bloomberg) MEET THE FIRST NASA ASTRONAUTS SPACEX WILL LAUNCH TO ORBIT (The Verge) Support what I do every day directly. The ad-free feed is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Techmeme right home for Friday, May 22nd, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Yeah, mea culpa on my whole work from home slash remote work skepticism. Also, I was wrong about Magic Leap being a goner. But that subscription aggregator we've all been anticipating is showing up

right on schedule. And in the weekend long read suggestions, let me introduce you to the two men who are about to become nerd superstars. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Facebook announced late yesterday that it will allow many of its 50,000 employees to work from home permanently, while also aggressively opening up its remote hiring operations, first in the U.S. and then everywhere. Mark Zuckerberg made the interview rounds yesterday, telling various outlets that he wanted Facebook to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work, and that Facebook could get to about half of its staff working remotely within five to ten years time. This follows news that Shopify is another tech company that says it will allow all of its 5,000 employees to work from home indefinitely. So never let it be said that I don't change my opinion on things when presented with new data. As you've heard, especially recently, I've been pretty skeptical about how real this whole

remote work thing will be. But in the last few days, I've been having conversations that have been changing my mind. Just yesterday, I recorded a panel discussion. for the Collision at Home Conference with Jessica Lesson of the information, and she basically straight up told me my skepticism was unwarranted. She said, far from your boss not wanting this to happen. There are simple dollars and cents reasons why major Silicon Valley companies really will want remote work to happen.

It comes down to this. Think about it. So far, when we've discussed working for Facebook but living, say, in Oklahoma, we've been thinking about how you as that person working remotely could live like a king in Tulsa on a Facebook engineer salary. But remember, we also said Facebook would know you were living like a king and they might adjust your salary accordingly. In fact, check out this section from Zuckerberg's press tour yesterday via CNBC, quote, The company will begin allowing certain employees to work remotely full time, he said. Those employees will have to notify the company if they move to a different location by January 1, 2021.

As a result, those employees may have their compensations adjusted based on their new locations, Zuckerberg said. We'll adjust salary to your location at that point, said Zuckerberg, citing that this is necessary for taxes and accounting. Quote, there will be severe ramifications for people who are not honest about this, end quote. Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is going to aggressively ramp up its hiring of remote workers and the company is going to take a measured approach to opening up permanently remote work positions for existing employees.

Zuckerberg made his prediction on his weekly live stream with employees telling them that this decision should help the company improve its employee retention and it will allow Facebook to hire from talent pools that previously wouldn't consider moving to big cities to work for the company. Additionally, this decision will allow Facebook to improve the diversity of its workforce and spread economic opportunity across more places, end quote. Okay, see, I get it. We've also been speculating for years, right, about is Silicon Valley over? because it's gotten too expensive. But at least when I was thinking along those lines, I had always been thinking about it in terms of it being too expensive for new startups. But what if Silicon Valley is going to be killed and it's going to be the incumbents that'll be pulling the plug? Again, what would Facebook's biggest expense be? It's still, for all of the reasons, it's a modern

21st century company, Facebook's biggest expense is still labor. It's still paying top dollar to engineers. Facebook has to pay top dollar to attract talent number one, but also it has to pay top dollar to attract talent to the big cities it is largely based in, to attract people to places like the Valley, where it's pretty darn expensive to live. Well, what if Facebook could slice, say, $50,000 a year off an average engineer's salary? It could do that if engineers can work from anywhere and Facebook can adjust their salaries accordingly. In theory, the engineers would be enjoying the same standard of living, but Facebook could squeeze out cost efficiencies out of its entire workforce while essentially keeping the status quo in terms of its talent systems and

workforce. So you see, sorry to whipsaw you on my opinion on this, but yeah, I can't argue with how this makes a ton of sense and is thus something that is likely to at least be attempted on a large scale. No one ever goes broke by betting on capital's insatiable desire to squeeze out incremental profit, especially at the expense of labor. Big Tech has been outsourcing its factories for decades in order to lower its labor costs, but they could never quite outsource engineering. They could never quite outsource Silicon Valley and tech hubs and the like until now. This is a Twitter thread from Nathan Hubbard, quote, Inhales, whispers, be healthily suspicious of the movement to work from home because it seems to be driven

through the filter of cost savings in physical office liability and localization of salaries instead of a genuine belief in what's better overall for workers, even if it is. And while companies and leaders may indeed be having a moment of epiphany about ways of working, they are almost certainly having an epiphany about how to secure 2021's bonus pools in parallel. So workers would be wise to challenge their leaders in the following three ways on work from home. Number one, how will we invest in my mental health? to counterbalance the downside of physical isolation and distance from human beings, given we are chemically wired to be together with others. Number two, how will we invest in creating opportunities

for in-person interactions with my colleagues if I desire them so I can deepen these relationships, expand my learning and understanding of them, and they of me? And number three, how will we define and measure success as a company in the balance between remote and in-person work? And how can I be sure that I am paid and rewarded per actual unit of performance such that my value is not discounted simply because of my geographic location, end quote. Sources are saying that IBM is the latest tech company to lay off thousands of workers across five U.S. states, including North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, California, Missouri, and New York, quoting from Bloomberg.

Based on a review of IBM internal communications on the Slack corporate messaging service, the number of affected employees is likely to be in the thousands, said a North Carolina-based worker who lost his job along with his entire team of 12. This was far-ranging, and historical employment ratings, age, and seniority did not seem to matter, he said. The person asked not to be identified on concern that speaking publicly may impact his severance package. Another worker who lost his job said the reductions mostly focused on IBM's North American workforce.

Half of his 70-person department were cut on Thursday and told their last day with the company will be June 22nd. The person asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive topic, end quote. And another real quick, Maya Kulpa. If you had asked me to bet about a week ago, I would have told you Magic Leap was probably dead as a doorknail. And yet Lazarus-like, Magic Leap has leaped out of the Deadpool, apparently raising a fresh $350 million from new and existing investors, and as a result is withdrawing its layoff notices for its remaining employees, quoting the information. In a memo obtained by the information, CEO Ronnie Abavitz said it was withdrawing the conditional warrant notices sent to remaining staff on April 22nd. The withdrawal indicates the Florida-based

company does not have imminent plans to lay off more of its remaining employees. We look forward to continuing normal operations, he wrote. Business Insider first reported the news, end quote. There's one thing we should say about Magic Leap, I guess. It's that if there's a Hall of Fame for fundraisers, then Ronnie Abavits should be in it. First ballot voting, no questions asked. Because, I mean, look at the $2.5 billion that Abovitz raised for Magic Leap from some of the world's savvious investors, only to basically release nothing that had any impact on any market. And then when the company seemed doomed, he somehow has gotten another $350 million. to keep the company alive. Like this is goat-level performance here, people.

A court has ruled that turning on a phone to view its lock screen qualifies as searching the phone, even if you don't attempt to unlock it. Thus, such a procedure would require a warrant, as per usual. Quoting Ars Technica, usually when the topic of a phone search comes up in court, the question has to do with unlocking. Generally, courts have held that law enforcement can compel you to use your body, such as your fingerprint or your face to unlock a phone, but that they cannot compel you to share knowledge, such as a pin. In this recent case, however, the FBI did not unlock the phone. Instead, they only looked at the phone's lock screen for evidence. In his ruling, the judge determined that the police

looking at the phone at the time of the arrest and the FBI looking at it again after the fact are two separate issues. Police are allowed to conduct searches without a search warrant under certain special circumstances. The judge wrote, and looking at the phone. phones, lock screen may have been permissible as it, quote, took place either incident to a lawful arrest or as part of the police's effort to inventory the personal effects of the person arrested. The judge was unable to determine how specifically the police acted, and he ordered clarification to see if their search of the phone fell within those boundaries. Basically, he ruled the FBI pushed the button on the phone to activate the lock screen,

qualifying as a search, regardless of the lock screen's nature, end quote. And this is exactly the startup that every one of us has thought of at some point. It's the startup that your uncle probably pitches to you at Thanksgiving every year, like he's the first one to have come up with it. And that is, there are so many subscriptions now, right? So what if you had a company that managed all of your subscriptions? And you paid a subscription for the privilege. Well, screen hits is exactly that.

A streaming video aggregator app that lets users bundle different services like Netflix and Disney Plus altogether into a single app with a subscription for said app starting at $1.99 a month, quoting the Hollywood Reporter. The service creates a one-stop electronic programming guide where users can search the libraries of both free and subscription streaming platforms, as well as live online TV without jumping from platform to platform and without having to repeatedly sign up for new services. Subscribers of streaming video on-demand platforms such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, Mooby, and other streaming services, including BBC IPlayer, can integrate their existing services within the app, which is set to go

live across multiple territories, including the U.S. and the UK, by the end of this month. Entry-level subscriptions to screen hits will start at $1.99 or £1.99 per month, and will initially be available on Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Firesticks, Apple's App Store, Google Chrome, Android and the desktop. Screen hits TV boss, Rose Atkins Hulse, is betting that this increase in streaming supply is creating a pent-up demand for technology to simplify the experience. Quote, with hundreds of streaming services available, the consumer has too much choice and often gets lost in the vast array of content, creating subscription fatigue and content overload, she says. The new app helps to streamline the viewing experience. Customers can curate their channels

and subscriptions, thus only paying for channels they actually want to watch versus contributing monthly to the channels they never watch, end quote. And finally today, it's the weekend long read suggestions. We have spoken about this idea before, and we actually get into this idea a little bit on this weekend's bonus episode. What if AI doesn't actually have to replace human thinking? What if machines and humans can actually work together in tandem for basically the foreseeable future. Well, check out this profile of human computer interaction expert Ben Schneiderman.

Quote, Dr. Schneiderman has sketched out a two-dimensional alternative that allows for both high levels of machine automation and human control. With certain exceptions such as automobile airbags and nuclear power plant control rods, he asserts the goal of computing designers should be systems in which computing is used to extend the abilities of human users, not replace them, end quote. That was from the New York Times. And meanwhile, the Washington Post outlines a battle between bots and humans where the bots are unfortunately winning. Quote, as COVID-19 forces more and more classical musicians and organizations to shift operations to the internet, they're having to contend with an entirely different but equally faceless adversary.

Copyright bots. Or more accurately, content identification algorithms dispatched across social media to scan content and detect illegal use of copyrighted recordings. You've encountered these bots in the wild if you've ever had a workout video or living room lip sync blocked or muted for ambient inclusion or flagrant use of Brittany or Bruce. But who owns Brahms? These oft overzealous algorithms are particularly fine-tuned for the job of sniffing out the sonic idiosyncrasies of pop music, having been trained on massive troves of reference audio files submitted by record companies and performing rights societies. But classical musicians are discovering en masse that the perceptivity of automated copyright systems falls critically short when it comes to classical music,

which presents unique challenges both in terms of content and context. After all, classical music exists as a vast, endlessly revisited and repeated repertoire of public domain works, distinguishable only through nuanced variations in performance. Put simply, bots aren't great listeners, end quote. And here's a bit of a long weekend project suggestion for you. Laptop magazine introduces us to the Do It Yourself laptop that costs as much as a MacBook air, but is actually selling like hotcakes. Quote, for PC fans that claim to be all in on the concept of open source,

the MNT reform has arrived to give them a chance to put their money where their mouth is. The only laptop to fully comply with the Open Source Hardware Association standards, The MNT Reform launched on crowd supply on May 7th and easily surpassed its original funding goal of $15,000. The entire goal with the MNT reform was to create a do-it-yourself laptop for hacking, customization, and privacy, end quote. Check out the article for the specs that make this computer unique, things like removable storage, even removable Wi-Fi chips. But act quickly if you want in on this DIY extravaganza, because, the crowdfunding campaign has less than a month to go. As I'm about to tell you, we're going to talk to the CEO of one of the major players in the self-driving car race this weekend. So in prep for that,

Bloomberg has a timely summation of where all of the various players are in the self-driving sweepstakes. Who are the ones to beat? Who are the followers? And who are the posers? It's a great piece because it breaks everyone down company by company. And finally, let me introduce you to the dudes who are about to become the most famous nerds in the world. If all goes well, SpaceX's crew dragon will launch two astronauts into orbit as soon as this weekend, thereby returning the United States to the status of spacefaring nation for the first time in a decade. The names of the astronauts are Bob Bankin and Doug Hurley. And, well, just get to know them, quoting the verge. Bankin and Hurley will touch down on the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, a week before they board the crew dragon and

blast off to the International Space Station. The duo has been preparing for this moment since NASA assigned them to this mission in 2018. To train, they've been traveling back and forth from their home bases in Houston near NASA's Johnson Space Center to SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Both have flown on the space shuttle twice before, and together they have spent nearly 1400 hours in space. Quote, training for a vehicle has its similarities, whether it's an airplane, a car. Obviously, it's a little easier to drive a car than maybe a spaceship. Bankin told the verge last year. But I mean, you're learning the systems, you're learning how to interact with the vehicle, and then you're also learning to deal with the malfunctions if they occur.

You're learning how to live with that vehicle in space, end quote. Yeah, as I just teased, get ready for one of the biggest weekend bonus episodes we've ever had. We'll be talking to Brian Seleski, the CEO and founder of Argo AI, one of the leaders in the self-driving car space. I really don't have to say anything more than that. This is a conversation with one of the people at the forefront of this entire space. And basically, we just talk about where the technology is at right now. It's a great conversation. I'm super thrilled.

So watch out for that. And maybe savor it because this is a holiday weekend here in the U.S. So there will be no new show on Monday. Maybe save this bonus episode as your Monday listen. And we'll be back to you on Tuesday. Talk to you then.