Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 06/17 – Musk Speaks To The Tweeps!

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Tech meme right home for Friday, June 17th, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. Elon Musk speaks to his soon-to-be employees for the first time at Twitter. Snap is testing a new subscription Snapchat. Microsoft debuts Defender for individuals. Klarna is thinking about raising a massively down round and, of course, the weekend long-range suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Yesterday, Elon Musk addressed Twitter employees for the first time since agreeing to buy the company. back in April, discussing potential layoffs, moderation, all sorts of things. Quoting Bloomberg.

Starting point is 00:01:15 Elon Musk discussed his stance on what types of content should be allowed on Twitter's social network, saying that people should be allowed to say, quote, pretty outrageous things, end quote, but that the platform doesn't have to give those posts reach. Musk clarified on his beliefs Thursday during an all-hands-gathering at Twitter, according to staff who participated in the virtual meeting. It marked the first time the billionaire, who is chief executive officer of Tesla, has addressed Twitter employees since agreeing in late April to buy the company for $44 billion. Twitter needs to allow more space for people to say whatever they want, Musk said, as long as it doesn't violate the law. But he added that the company needs to

Starting point is 00:01:53 balance that by making sure people, quote, feel comfortable on the service, otherwise they won't use it, according to people familiar with the discussion. His goal is to expand Twitter's user base to 1 billion users, he said. The company had about 229 million daily active users as of March. Employees who attended the meeting said Musk, who attended the video call wearing a white button-down shirt and appeared to be joining from his phone, also talked about possible product changes, including the idea that users should have to pay to be verified as a real human user through a tool like subscription service Twitter Blue. He also proposed that Twitter use verification as a way of ranking content on the platform. His goal is, quote, to maximize usefulness

Starting point is 00:02:35 of the service, Musk said. When asked about potential layoffs, Musk didn't dismiss the idea, saying that Twitter, quote, needs to get healthy. Anyone who is a significant contributor should have nothing to worry about, he added. Twitter started allowing full-time remote work more than two years ago, and Musk was asked multiple questions at the meeting about the staff's future ability to keep working from home. Musk said that the priority would be for people to work together in person, but if someone is, quote, exceptional at their job, then it's possible for those people to continue working remotely, end quote. Of course, you'll remember, Musk recently asked everybody at Tesla to come into the office full time, though it certainly looked like he had joined this particular video

Starting point is 00:03:14 conference from a place that wasn't an office. Look like he was calling in from home. Oh, and Reuters Sheila Dang wrote this, quote, when he turned off his video at the end of the Q&A, his avatar appeared to be two hands in the shape of the number 69, an apparent reference to a sex position, end quote. Meanwhile, various outlets were reporting this morning that SpaceX has fired employees who helped write and distribute an open letter calling Elon Musk's behavior, quote, a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment, end quote. Quoting the New York Times. Some SpaceX employees began circulating the letter which denounced Mr. Musk's activity on Twitter on Wednesday. The letter called the billionaire's public behavior and tweeting,

Starting point is 00:03:57 a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment and asked the company to rein him in. Mr. Musk is currently closing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. By Thursday afternoon, SpaceX had fired some of the letters organizers, according to the three employees, and an email from Gwen Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer. In her email, which was obtained by the New York Times, she said that the company had investigated and, quote, terminated a number of employees involved with the letter. The letter, solicitations, and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied and or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that didn't reflect their views. Ms. Shotwell wrote,

Starting point is 00:04:35 We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism, end quote. It was unclear how many employees were fired. James Gleason, a SpaceX spokesman, did not immediately return a request for comment, end quote. Various folks tweeted something similar to what Steve Kovach snarked, quote, free speech absolutist Elon Musk fires employees for writing a letter criticizing his public behavior, end quote. The Verge says Snap is internally testing Snapchat Plus,

Starting point is 00:05:11 a paid subscription service that will give users early access to exclusive experimental and pre-release features, quote. In a statement to the Verge, Snap spokesperson Liz Markman said, quote, we're doing early internal testing of Snapchat Plus, a new subscription service for Snapchatters. We're excited about the potential to share,

Starting point is 00:05:29 exclusive experimental and pre-release features with our subscribers and learn more about how we can best serve our community, end quote. According to screenshots and information posted to Twitter by app researcher Alessandra Paluzzi, Snap is also testing other features for Snapchat Plus, including the ability to pin one of your friends as your number one BFF, which sounds like a recipe for drama. MySpace made it the top eight for a reason. Change the Snapchat icon and see who rewatches your stories. Beluzzi also shows that the price for Snapchat Plus is currently 4 euro 59 per month and 4599 euros a year, which is around $4.84 and $48.50, respectively. Of course, at this stage, many of those prices could just be placeholder prices.

Starting point is 00:06:14 In the wake of Apple's introducing a privacy feature for advertisements with iOS 14.5, allowing users to turn off ad tracking on an app-by-app basis, many free apps have had to reconsider how they make money. Snapchat in particular cited changes to iOS as a reason for missed revenue targets and has said it will slow down hiring this year, end quote. Microsoft has debuted Defender for Individuals, an online security dashboard for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android, part of Microsoft 365 family and personal subscriptions, quoting ZDNet. Microsoft has been testing Defender for individuals for several months under the Microsoft Defender brand. Defender for Individuals, codenamed Gibraltar, is meant to provide consumers with

Starting point is 00:07:00 a centralized dashboard for managing and monitoring their online security. status across PCs, Macs, and iOS and Android mobile devices. If users have other antivirus products from third parties like Norton or McAfee, they will be able to see the status of those protected devices via the dashboard. Microsoft says users will get instant security alerts, resolution suggestions, and security tips designed to help them better secure their devices. Microsoft is including Defender for Individuals for no additional charge to Microsoft 365 Family and personal subscribers. Existing subscribers can download the app and sign in with their personal Microsoft accounts. Those who are not family or personal subscribers cannot purchase this

Starting point is 00:07:38 defender for individuals, officials said, but there is a free 30-day trial for the product, end quote. This is what down rounds look like in the real world, out in the wild, in practice. Sources are telling the journal that FinTech giant Klarna is in talks to raise a new round at a $15 billion valuation, which is down from its $45.6 billion dollar valuation, from June of 2021. A source said the deal could yield Klarna more than $500 million in fresh funds. A $15 billion valuation would be a substantial come down for Klarna which became Europe's most valuable financial technology startup last June when SoftBanks Vision Fund 2 led an investment that valued the company at $45.6 billion. Other investors include Sequoia Capital,

Starting point is 00:08:31 Silver Lake, and Dragonhear Investment Group. Klarna specializes in Buy Now Pay Later Services, a popular type of cash advance that competes with credit cards. The services are offered to customers at the point of purchase, mostly online, and lets them pay for goods and services in installments without paying interest. Klarna makes money by charging a feed of merchants who offer Klarna's services. Klarna's net loss quadrupled in the first quarter to 2.57 billion Swedish krona, equivalent to about $250 million from a year earlier. Klarna said last month it would lay off 10% of its workforce owing to what it called

Starting point is 00:09:04 a volatile economic environment and the need to cut costs. Klarna Chief Executive Sebastian Simatowski founded the company with two friends in 2005. In 2019, investors valued Klarna at close to $3.5 billion, according to the data from Pitchbook. The pandemic helped its valuation soar after several fundraising rounds as consumers and businesses shifted commerce online during lockdowns. Klarna's March 2021 fundraising valued it at $31 billion, while its June fundraising, the same year made it more valid.

Starting point is 00:09:34 valuable than most large European banks. Klarna processed $80 billion worth of transactions in 2021, up 42% from the previous year, end quote. Yeah, this whole segment is basically the last three years in tech startups summed up, complete with Masasan taking another one on the chin, I guess. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up, given down rounds. From our friends at every, some real, timely service journalism for you. The title of the piece is, is what should you do with your options during a downturn? And the piece does exactly what it says. It goes through several tangible scenarios using actual numbers to help startup and tech employees figure out the stock options maze now that valuations are down so much. We are, by the way,

Starting point is 00:10:26 scheduled to talk to the author of this piece, Adam Kiesling, on our Twitter space shortly after this episode posts. So read the piece, hit up the space or the bonus episode recording of the space for hopefully some real useful advice. Then there's a new book. book out called Internet for the People, the Fight for Our Digital Future by Ben Tarnoff. And among other things, it makes a point that I made in my book. In short, the one big internet pioneer that doesn't get the credit it deserves is eBay. Quote, for the most part, eBay's influence was neither conscious nor direct, but the affinities were unmistakable. Omidyar's community market of the mid-1990s's window into the future. By later standards, it was fairly primitive, existing as it did, within the confines of an internet not

Starting point is 00:11:09 yet remodeled for the purpose of profit maximalization. But the systems that would accomplish that remodeling, that more total privatization of the internet, would do so by elaborating the basic patterns that Omidyar had applied. These systems would be called platforms, but what they resembled most were shopping malls. Very little of this vastly complex machinery could be foreseen from the vantage point of 1995, but the arrival of auction web represented a large step toward making it possible. The story of the modern internet is often told through the stories of Google, Facebook, Amazon and the other giants that have come to conquer our online life, but their conquests were preceded and prefigured by another, one that was started as a side project and stumbled into success

Starting point is 00:11:50 by coming up with the basic blueprint for making a lot of money on the internet, end quote. I gave a speech a couple years ago at the eBay campus here in New York City, making this exact point as well. You might be able to find that video on the internet somewhere. then Bloomberg checks in on Axi Infinity amid this recent crypto winner and things are, well continuing not to go well, quote. That Axi was widely viewed primarily as a way to make money has proven a major problem for its virtual economy. The game is designed to offer ways to both earn and spend SLP within the game.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Any tokens spent within the game just disappear. But play to earners instead cash out all SLP by selling them on crypto markets, meaning the total number of tokens increases over time. The additional supply depresses prices in a crypto version of hyperinflation. Players are constantly hounding Sky Mavis to tweak how the game works in ways that would reduce the amount of SLP in circulation. SLP prices peaked last July, but as they dropped, players began hoarding tokens in hopes of a market recovery.

Starting point is 00:12:54 This strategy is self-defeating, according to Lars Doucette, co-author of a detailed and overwhelmingly negative analysis of Axi's economy published by Navick in November. Doucette says, Axy is stuck with the sleeping dragon problem. Every time SLP value begins to rise, the dragons, the people who have been waiting to cash in their SLP, wake up and liquidate their stashes,

Starting point is 00:13:15 pushing the price back down. Even before the broader collapse of crypto, Sky Mavis struggled to address the issues with Axy's internal economy. A financial system consisting of people all hoping to put in a dollar and take out two can last only as long as someone else shows up believing others will come in after them with more fistfuls of cash. Once Axi began looking less profitable, its ability to draw new players decreased, making it even less profitable and setting off a vicious cycle. Quote, Axi has just been this fascinating tale of people learning hard lessons of

Starting point is 00:13:46 economics and monetary policy in microcosm, says Doucet, end quote. Wired has a profile of proton, the company it says, is trying to become Google, but without the part where they strip mine you for your data, quote. Since its founding in 2014, Proton Mail has become synonymous with user-friendly encrypted mail. Now the company is trying to be synonymous with a whole lot more. On Wednesday morning, it announced that it's changing its name to Simply Proton, a nod at its broader ambitions within the universe of online privacy. The company will now offer an ecosystem of linked products, all accessed via one paid subscription.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Proton subscribers will have access to not just encrypted email, but also an encrypted calendar, file storage platform and VPN. This is all part of CEO Andy Yen's master plan to give protons something close to a fighting chance against tech giants like Google. A Taiwanese-born former particle physicist, Yan moved to Geneva, Switzerland after grad school to work at CERN, the nuclear research facility. Geneva proved a natural place to pivot to a privacy-focused startup thanks to both Switzerland's privacy-friendly legal regime and to a steady crop of poachable physicists. Today, Yen presides over a company with more than 400 employees and nearly 70 million users. He recently spoke to Wired about the enduring need for greater privacy,

Starting point is 00:15:01 the dangers of Apple and Google's dominance, and how today's attacks on encryption recall the rhetorical tactics of the War on Terror, end quote. Then, just for fun, I-TripleE Spectrum has a fun explainer of what exactly is quantum entanglement, using an easy-ish to understand analogy of socks. And finally, I'm sharing this piece from fivebooks.com about the best five sci-fi books for beginners, folks new to sci-fi. I'm sharing it because aside from Dune, I've read none of the books on this list. The usual names of Asimov and Arthur C. Clark aren't here. Instead, you get two classics from Ursula K. Le Guin. I've read her Earth-C., but not these two books, though I have heard about the Left Hand of Darkness book for years.

Starting point is 00:15:50 Also, ancillary justice is on here, and that was a big, big hit a few years ago that I've never gotten around to, and also Lord of Light. Roger Zelazni has always intimidated me, but maybe it's time I pull this one off the shelf and actually give it a go. Anyway, like all good five books pieces, Nicholas White is interviewed for it. He's the administrator of the Hugo Awards, and so he not only summarizes these books, but tells you why you should give them a try. So if, like me, you haven't read some of these, check out this piece and maybe by yourself a summer beach read. All right, a whole bunch of housekeeping details. to share with you. First of all, remember, we're doing the Twitter space mere hours from now,

Starting point is 00:16:38 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific. We're going to do that service journalism piece, hopefully sharing some advice about what to do if you have stock options right now. Then we also haven't gotten anyone to talk to us about Dali, but we're going to talk about Dali anyway. So if you have thoughts therein or have used it, please come and raise your hand and we'll bring you up and chop it up. And I think we'll also. also talk about the history of Internet Explorers, so the recording of all that will be out on Saturday as per usual. Though, unusually, it's another summer holiday weekend here in the U.S., so I will be taking Monday off because it's a birthday weekend for several folks in this house,

Starting point is 00:17:19 and my parents are here, and Father's Day, so on and so on. So Monday, instead of a regular show, I'm going to post another portfolio profile episode. Wait a minute, Brian. You invested in a health startup, health care, specifically sexual health? Yes, I did. And you'll hear why I believe Juna can help improve the sexual welfare of society at large. It's a real, I want to make life on this planet better investment, which is very exciting to be able to do. So we'll talk about that on Monday, and that's it. Talk to y'all again on Tuesday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 06/17 – Musk Speaks To The Tweeps!

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