Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 04/11 – Elon DECLINES A Twitter Board Seat

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

By declining a seat on Twitter’s board, does that mean Elon has chosen violence? Plenty of signs of a mixed reality headset in the code of the next version of iOS. Meta tried and failed to design its own chip. China has decided to let some new games launch. And even if drone delivery is moving forward, is Amazon being left behind? Sponsors: ConstantContact.com MasterWorks.io Links: Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. (Parag Agrawal) China Ends Game Freeze by Approving First Titles Since July (Bloomberg) Apple Sets the Date for Another Virtual WWDC—Here’s What to Expect (Bloomberg) Meta Platforms is Struggling to Develop Its Own Device Chips (The Information) Amazon Drone Crashes Hit Jeff Bezos' Delivery Dreams (Bloomberg) 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 Tech meme right home for Monday, April 11th, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. By declining a seat on Twitter's board, does that mean Elon has chosen violence?

Plenty of signs of a mixed reality headset in the code of the next version of iOS. Meta tried and failed to design its own chip. China has decided to let some new games launch. And even if drone delivery is moving forward, is Amazon being left behind. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. There's this guy who follows me around the internet tweeting at me, posting negative reviews on various podcast sites. Every time I do a story on the show about NFTs. Like literally every time he's upset because he believes NFTs are a fad and a scam and he doesn't want to hear news about

them at all. The one time I attempted to interact with him, I was like, that's like being mad at me in 2010 because you think social media is a fad and a scam, and so I should never do stories on Facebook or Twitter. The point I was trying to make was that maybe I don't like doing so many NFT stories, but my job is to tell you what the big tech stories of the day are, and if they are NFTs, then that's what it is. Sometimes, yes, I might decide to highlight some story more than another, because I think it's bigger than other people think it is, but most times there are stories that demand to be discussed because they're the big news, whether I think they're silly or not. And so I talk about them, because that's my job. Which is all my way of telling you that today my job is to tell you

that Elon Musk has decided not to join Twitter's board of directors despite being offered a seat therein. This news was delivered this morning by Twitter CEO Perag Agrawal. Who tweeted, well, tweeted via screencap because even the CEO of Twitter can't get around the character limit yet. Quote, Elon Musk has decided not to join our board. Here's what I can share about what happened. The board and I had many discussions about Elon joining the board and with Elon directly. We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks. We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward. The board offered him a seat.

We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance. Elon's appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4-9, April 9th. But Elon shared that same day that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders, whether they are on our board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder, and we will remain open to his input. There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged. The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else's. Let's tune out the noise and stay focused on the work

and what we're building, end quote. I think one of the keywords there is fiduciary, because again, I'm no Matt Levine, but from where I'm sitting, it sure does look like Elon Musk bought a bunch of Twitter stock because he wants to blow up Twitter, as it is. exists currently, or at least change Twitter to some degree. So in order to limit what he could do, it certainly seems to me like Twitter tried to bear hug him, bring him quite literally on board, because that would mean he would have the fiduciary responsibility not to blow Twitter up. And that whole gambit seems to have failed. Because, and this is again me just speculating, Elon sure does look like he wants to blow Twitter up to one degree or another over the weekend.

Let's see. He tweeted that all Twitter blue subscribers, quote, should get an authentication checkmark, end quote, and that the service should be ad-free for a lower around $2 a month price. So, undermining what seems to be Twitter's biggest new feature in years, biggest new product initiative lately. Also, he asked if Twitter should convert its San Francisco headquarters into, quote, a homeless. shelter since no one shows up anyway, end quote. Obviously, taking a swipe at the remote work culture that Twitter has been a pioneer of. And Elon asked, quote, is Twitter dying, end quote, citing a list of the most followed accounts and pointing out that many of them, quote, tweet rarely and post very little content, end quote. Does not seem like Elon enjoys Twitter as it exists right now. That line about there will be distractions ahead sure seems to be.

prescient hinting at something additional coming. At the very least, Elon doesn't like being told what to tweet. I think we can all agree. And funny enough, maybe it didn't occur to him that he would likely be further unable to tweet negative things about Twitter if he was on the board. And then there's this, quoting Mike Isaac on Twitter. Worth noting Elon's standstill agreement not to purchase more than 14.9% of Twitter's outstanding shares or performance. a hostile takeover of the company was contingent upon his joining the board. Now all bets are off. We'll see what next week brings, end quote. Quoting Alex Stamos on Twitter, having less than 15% and one seat might have been the worst position for Elon since his official power is very limited, and he's

open to shareholder lawsuits when he screws around. Going for greater than 50% is probably his target. Let's see if Twitter's board adopts poison pills this week, end quote. finally, quoting Sridar Ramesh on Twitter, quote, this will all be resolved in a week. Elon will join the board on 420, end quote. Is there a thaw coming in China, a regulatory spring, perhaps? Regulators there have reportedly approved the first batch of video game licenses since such approvals were frozen back in July.

It is unclear if games from Tencent and NetEase were approved in this batch, quoting Bloomberg. The National Press and Publication Administration has distributed to developers a list of approved titles, the people said, asking not to be identified, discussing a private communique. That list will be uploaded to the agency's website soon, they added. It wasn't clear if the approved titles included any games from industry leaders Tencent and NetEase. NetEase rose more than 8% in pre-market trading in New York. An XD representative told Bloomberg News that its Flash Party was among the games approved but didn't elaborate. Developer I Dream Sky Technology Holdings, Watch Out for Candles,

also won a license, founder and CEO Michael Chen said. Beijing's far-reaching tech crackdown, which has ensnared sectors from e-commerce to fintech and even online education, spread to online gaming in August when regulators introduced stringent measures, capping playtime for minors and imposing new requirements aimed at curbing addiction. The media watchdog has also been reviewing new titles to determine whether they meet stricter criteria around content and child protection, an effort that's slowed rollouts, Bloomberg News has reported. Investors who had suffered losses during a 10-month freeze on game monetization licenses in 2018 experienced deja vu in 2021 when a state-backed newspaper accused the industry of peddling, quote, spiritual opium before walking back that

charged description. In September, regulators summoned the top game publishers to discuss further oversights of their titles and the need to de-emphasize profits, the official news agency reported. In November, another news outlet reported game approvals may restart soon, sparking a rally in gaming stocks. But the slowdown has already started to weigh on Tencent's most lucrative division, which is still heavily reliant on the longevity of hit titles, Honor of Kings, and Peacekeeper Elite. Domestic gaming revenue climbed just 1% during the December quarter, lagging the 34% increase in its international business, dragging Tencent's overall sales growth to its slowest pace since 2004, end quote.

Sources are telling Mark German that beta versions of iOS 16, which is co-dust, named Sydney, are chock-full of references to an Apple mixed-reality headset and its interactions with an iPhone. Quote, Apple originally had big plans to use WWDC 2022 as the launch event for its long-in-the-works mixed-reality headset, but I wrote a few months ago that Apple would likely miss that date for the hardware's debut and would instead announce the product at the end of this year or next year. As far as I know, a full-blown introduction of the mixed reality, headset is still probably out of the question in June, but I'm told that beta versions of iOS 16, codenamed Sydney, are chock-full of references to the headset and its interactions with the iPhone.

That indicates that the headset will launch during the iOS 16 cycle, which kicks off in June and will last until iOS 17 comes in the fall of 2023. But it may also suggest that Apple could preview some of its upcoming augmented and virtual reality software earlier. Perhaps we could even get a peek at the headset's ROS, short for. reality operating system. In any case, there could be other hardware news. Apple is gearing up to launch some new Macs in the next few months. What better place to do so than WWDC? That's the same venue where the Max transition from Intel to Apple's own chips was announced two years ago. I'm told there are two new Macs coming around the middle of the year or early in the second half. One of those is likely

to be the new MacBook Air. Other models in the works include an updated Mac Mini and 24-inch IMac, as well as a low-end MacBook Pro to replace the aging 13-inch model. And let's not forget that new Mac Pro and IMac Pro models are in development, end quote. Sources are telling the information that Meta was forced to choose a Qualcomm chip for the second version of its Rayban smart glasses after struggling to develop its own custom chip in-house codenamed Brasilia. The decision was a setback for Meta's in-house silicon unit known as Facebook Agile Silicon Team.

Codenamed Brasilia, the chip was part of a broader effort by META to control key technologies and reduce its reliance on off-the-shelf silicon providers like Qualcomm, which supplies chips for META's Quest VR headsets, portal smart video devices, and the first version of the Rayban glasses. By building its own power-efficient chips to manage its burgeoning stable of augmented and virtual reality devices, meta would have far greater control over the features, size, and battery life of its products, and be better positioned to compete with rivals like Apple. The Brasilia chip design was far enough along that it was ready for trial production. Had it gone

further, Brasilia would have been the first in a line of custom chip designs for a meta-designed consumer device. The flip-flop highlights the tension between Meta's goal to build more of the underlying technology for its hardware devices and its desire to get products out quickly. Meta has also run into challenges on the software side. In recent months, it abandoned an effort to build its own operating system X-R-OS for its forthcoming AR glasses, the information reported. The first version of the AR glasses will instead run on a customized version of Google's Android OS. The stakes are high. AR-VR-VR devices are key to META CEO Mark Zuckerberg's bed on the Metaverse, a type of immersive internet in which people will move through digital environments wearing AR and VR

devices. Qualcomm is supplying the key chips for meta's forthcoming VR headset, externally codenamed Cambria, and internally known as Arcata, which is due to out around September, according to a person familiar with the matter, end quote. And finally, today, remember how I recently said there seems to be so much movement all of the sudden in the drone delivery space that maybe our podcast wagers, at least in regards to drone delivery, might be paying off soonish? Well, what this piece from Bloomberg presupposes is maybe so, but what if the leader in the drone delivery space is falling behind? The article suggests that despite Amazon in particular spending almost a decade and more than $2 billion

developing drone delivery services, sources say it's still beset by technical challenges, safety concerns, crashes, and a lot more. Worth reading the whole thing, but quoting a couple pieces here. Having missed a goal of conducting 2,500 test flights last year, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Amazon has set an even loftier target of 12,000 for 2022, although fewer than 200 had been completed as of late February. The company plans to add new testing locations this year in College Station, Texas, about 100 miles northeast of Austin and Lockford, California, near Stockton. Amazon also hopes to start testing drones beyond the site of flight observers, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, a key step toward proving their ability to fly autonomously. It will be years

before the Federal Aviation Administration approves commercial drone deliveries, although the agency is letting companies conduct test flights in increasingly populated areas so long as they don't pose significant safety risks. Meanwhile, Amazon is under growing pressure to keep up with deep-pocketed rivals. Just last week, Alphabet's Google Wing accelerated its own drone testing program by starting to ferry packages to shoppers from Walgreens in a 90-square-mile suburban area north of Dallas. Walmart and United Person Service have their own drone programs in varying stages of development. Even Amazon's toughest internal critics don't question the technology's potential, but current and former employees say the company is doing what it has done so many times before, putting speed before safety

in the name of beating the competition. Someone is going to have to get killed or maimed for them to take these safety issues seriously, said Chetty Skeet, a former Amazon drone project manager, who says he was fired last month for raising concerns to his managers. How can we bring these tests to more communities when we know we have problems? end quote. An Amazon spokesperson denied Skeet was terminated for speaking up, end quote. The piece goes on to outline the history of Amazon's drone program with what reads like a whole litany of setbacks and missed deadlines, and also crashes, a whole list of crashes. I'll lie over that for now, but I'll

conclude by quoting this, quote. After all those years and all the money invested, you would expect better, says Antoine Do, who was a senior engineer on the drone program for four years before leaving in 2018. He said Amazon's drone is too heavy compared with Google's aircraft, which weighs about 11 pounds. Every time you increase the weight of the load, the drone gets heavier, needs more batteries, Dew said it's a vicious circle, end quote. With crashes proliferating, morale on the team worsened, and employees began departing. Some took jobs at Amazon Web Services, while others left the company altogether. Some who had trouble meeting the pace their managers demanded were offered severance packages. Departures in 2021, Carbin's first full year running the department, exceeded 200 people more than

double the previous year, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, end quote. That's all for today. Talk to you tomorrow.