Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 02/16 – Uber Pulls Back The Curtain On YOUR Ratings

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Forget how’s my driving, Uber lets you know how you’re riding. Meta workers are now formally known as Metamates. Is Paramount quietly doing better in the streaming wars than we thought? So much so, as to warrant a name change too? And what happens when your bionic eye implants are no longer supported by the manufacturer? Sponsors: shop.SiempreTequila.com Promo Code RIDE Links: Uber will now let you see how many one-star ratings you got from drivers (The Verge) Move fast, rename things: Facebook tries to boost morale with new slogans (Washington Post) Facebook rebrands News Feed after more than 15 years (The Verge) ViacomCBS rebrands to Paramount in focus on streaming (The Verge) Coalition of US crypto firms unveils travel rule compliance platform, TRUST (The Block) Google Plans Privacy Changes, but Promises to Not Be Disruptive (NYTimes) THEIR BIONIC EYES ARE NOW OBSOLETE AND UNSUPPORTED (IEEE Spectrum) 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 TechMean ride home for Wednesday, February 16th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Forget how's my driving. Uber lets you know how you're writing. Meta workers are now formerly known as Metamates. Is Paramount quietly doing better in the streaming wars than we thought, so much so as to warrant a name change as well?

And what happens when your bionic eye implants are no longer supported by the manufacturer? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. This is either really interesting news to you or potentially completely frightening news, but Uber is now letting writers see a breakdown of their average ratings starting today. These are the ratings that you got from your drivers over the years. And Uber is also publishing data on the U.S. cities with the highest and lowest rider ratings, quoting the verge. For years, the two-way rating system has fueled Uber's power over its riders and drivers. Low-performing drivers, those with an average of four stars or less, were at risk of deactivation. Even some poorly behaved passengers could get kicked off the platform if they received enough one-star ratings.

Now Uber is offering its customers fresh insights into how they are perceived by drivers. Customers will be able to access a breakdown of their average ratings in the Uber app's new privacy menu, which will be available to customers globally starting today. To access the privacy center and ratings breakdown in the app, go to the settings menu. privacy and then privacy center. Then swipe to the right and click on the Would You Like to See a summary of how you use Uber tile. Scroll down to the browse your data section and tap on View My Ratings to see the breakdown. Uber also publicized its community guidelines, which include a list of awful behaviors that will get you banned from Uber. A lot is pretty self-explanatory.

Don't trash your driver's car. Don't assault or insult your driver. And definitely don't try to have sex with your driver. According to women who drive for Uber, that last rule is often ignored by male passengers. In addition to the new ratings breakdowns, Uber is also publishing data on which cities have the highest and lowest average ratings in the country. As expected, New York City is undefeated in its density of surly attitudes. Number one city in the world, baby. Top 10 highest average writer ratings among large U.S. cities in descending order. Number one, San Antonio, followed by St. Louis, Nashville, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Sacramento, Tampa Bay, Charlotte, Las Vegas, and rounding out the top 10 Portland. The top 10 lowest average writer ratings among large U.S. cities.

Number one, New York City, followed by Seattle, Washington, D.C., Boston, Minneapolis, St. Paul, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Maryland, and Chicago. New name, new mission statement, I guess, in internal all-hands yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg outlined changes to meta's corporate values, including Move Fast Together, Live in the Future, and meta-metes me, quoting the Washington Post. At a virtual all-hands meeting Tuesday, Facebook escalated its attempts to not only rebrand itself, but also manage its demoralized and often adversarial workforce with a new set of corporate values derived from. from a naval slogan. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who renamed the company Meta late last year, held up a slide deck showcasing new corporate values. Employees would be expected to first

prioritize meta, followed by a person's team, their meta mates, followed by the individual, me. He said that the company's corporate values would be live in the future and be direct and respect your colleagues, according to three people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. It was previously, quote, be open. Years ago, the company's slogan of move fast and break things was changed to just move fast. On Tuesday, the company announced it would now be move fast together. The changes to the corporate values were ridiculed by some employees internally, who described them as corporate indoctrination and out of touch, the people said.

Facebook did not immediately have comment. In a tweet, Facebook chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth said that the saying meta, Metamates me, was a reference to to a naval phrase, which Instagram has used for a while. The phrase used by Instagram is ship, shipmates self, he said. His tweet also said that the term metamates was coined by the scholar Douglas Hofstadler after an employee reached out to him for ideas, and quote. This is related to that. Facebook has also rebranded the news feed. It is now just feed, quoting the verge. The newsfeed name had been in place. since the feature was first introduced more than 15 years ago. In some ways, it's a massive change.

Facebook is one of the world's most used platforms, and the feed is its main interface. On the other hand, it is, quote, just a name change to better reflect the diverse content people see in their feeds, end quote, according to an email sent to the verge by Facebook spokesperson, Dami Oyefesso. The change, quote, does not impact the app experience more broadly, end quote. Information about politics and current events, rather than posts from your cousin about their engagement, are the types of things you'd expect to find in something called a news feed. Personally, that makes it hard not to read the name change as a subtle reframing of how seriously I should take the content the algorithm is serving.

The name change could also help clear up potential confusion within the app. Over a decade and a half ago when the news feed was introduced, Facebook also didn't have a news tab that users could mix it up with. In a memo to employees, Meta said the news feed name made people think it was a place for news stories instead of posts from friends, end quote. By the way, let's all get in on this name change thing. Apparently Viacom, CBS is renaming itself to Paramount. Even the stock ticker is changing to reflect this. But I'm sharing this because of the streaming war's angle. Obviously, this is an attempt to focus attention on Paramount's streaming product,

Paramount Plus, which, by the way, might be holding its own in the streaming wars. Quoting the verge. Announcing its fourth quarter 2021 earnings yesterday, Paramount highlighted the rapid growth of its streaming brands. It now has more than 56 million combined streaming subscribers, and streaming revenue is up 48% year-over-year, hitting $1.3 billion in the holiday quarter, while streaming advertising revenue was up 26%. The company intends to hit 100 million streaming subscribers by 2024 up from its previous goal of $65 to $75 million during the same time frame. The company plans to further its international expansion and offer mobile-only plans in some regions to hit its aggressive subscription goals. It'll also start streaming all Paramount movies exclusively on Paramount

Plus, starting in 2024 in the U.S., following their theatrical runs, end quote. Google says it is planning to bring privacy sandbox to Android, which limits data sharing from smartphones, but promises that any changes will be less disruptive than the changes Apple made recently, quoting the New York Times. Anthony Chavez, a vice president at Google's Android division, said in an interview before the announcement that it was too early to gauge the potential impact from Google's changes, which are meant to limit the sharing of data across apps and with third parties. But he emphasized that the company's goal was to find a more private option for users while also allowing developers to continue to make advertising revenue.

Google said it planned to bring its privacy initiative known as Project Sandbox, which had been limited mainly to reducing tracking on the company's Chrome browser, to Android, the world's most widely used software for mobile devices. Google has been forced to revamp its approach to eliminating so-called cookies, a tracking tool on Chrome, while facing resistance from privacy groups and advertisers. Google said it was proposing some new privacy-minded approaches in Android to allow advertisers to gauge the performance of ad campaigns and show personalized ads based on past behavior or recent interests, as well as new tools to limit covert tracking through apps.

Google did not offer much in terms of detail about how these new alternatives would work. As part of the changes, Google said it plans to fly. phase-out advertising ID, a tracking feature within Android that helps advertisers know whether users clicked on an ad or bought a product, as well as keep tabs on their interests and activities. Google said it already allowed users to opt out of personalized ads by removing the tracking identifier. The company did not offer a definitive timeline for eliminating advertising ID, but it committed to keeping the existing system in place for two years. Google said it would offer preview versions of its new proposals to advertisers before releasing a more complete

test version this year, end quote. Brady Dale educated us on those know-your-customer laws on last weekend's bonus episode, and it looks like the crypto industry wants to get ahead of the regulatory status quo, just as Brady suggested. A coalition of crypto companies, including Coinbase Circle and Robin Hood, have announced trust, an anti-money laundering platform for securely sharing customer data, quoting the block. The so-called travel rule universal solution technology, or trust, allows crypto firms to securely collect and transmit customer data in accordance with

the travel rule. Last year, the Financial Action Task Force recommended that participating nations implement a travel rule for virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, essentially entities that facilitate transactions in its finalized guidance. The travel rule seeks to curb money laundering and terrorist financing by requiring VASPs to gather and transmit names, account numbers, and location information for both the sender and the recipient in a transaction. transaction. The travel rule has long been part of the banking world, but until recently, crypto lacked the infrastructure to comply. Coinbase heads up the coalition announcing a white paper for peer-to-peer information networks operated by a governance body of participants. Trust is the result.

Though Coinbase kicked off the effort, members have equal stake and say in the decision-making, according to Anchorage's head of compliance, Jennifer Lee. The solution allows information to be directly transmitted between the platform's members through end-to-end encrypted channels. It allows for proof of address ownership, which lets financial institutions prove they are the intended recipient of the customer's information before that information is transmitted. Former Coinbase Chief Compliance Officer Jeff Horowitz explained the solution was a centralized bulletin board when he unveiled the white paper in 2020. VASPs would post to the bulletin board to see who may own an address in a transaction, and when another institution claims the address

as part of their transaction, the two can engage in a peer-to-peer sharing of the information. To utilize the solution, the VASP must be admitted into trust, a process that will involve a third-party compliance audit, and all current members collectively agreeing that an entity should be admitted, according to Lee. Currently, the group sits at 18 members, but there are plans to expand quickly, including outside the U.S., end quote. Finally today, a terrible story, frankly, paraphrasing a tweet from Glenn Zorpette that turned me on to this story, imagine you've got a high-tech implant in your retina that gives you a crude but effective form of vision. Now, imagine the company that produced the implant suddenly goes out of business and will no longer service or fix your implant. Blind patients with second-site's electronic retinal implants are in danger of losing their artificial vision as the tech becomes obsolete and unsupported. Quoting I-Triple-E spectrum. Neural implants, devices that interact,

with the human nervous system either on its periphery or in the brain are part of a rapidly growing category of medicine that's sometimes called electrocyticals. Some technologies are well established, like deep brain stimulators that reduce tremors in people with Parkinson's disease. But recent advances in neuroscience and digital technology have sparked a gold rush in brain tech with the outsized investments epitomized by Elon Musk's buzzy brain implant company, NeuroLink. Some companies talk of reversing depression, treating Alzheimer's, disease, restoring mobility, or even dangle the promise of superhuman cognition. Not all of these companies will succeed, however, and Los Angeles-based Second Site provides a cautionary tale for bold entrepreneurs

interested in brain tech. What happens when cutting-edge implants fail or simply fade away like yesterday's flip phones and Betamax? Even worse, what if the companies behind them go bust? After SecondSight discontinued its retinal implant in 2019 and nearly went out of business in 2020, a public offering in June 2021 raised $57.5 million at $5 a share. The company promised to focus on its ongoing clinical trial of a brain implant called Orion that also provides artificial vision. But its stock price plunged to around $1.50. And in February 2022, just before this article was published, the company announced a proposed merger with an early-stage biopharmaceutical company called Nanoprecision Medical. None of Second Sites executives will be on the leadership team of the new company,

which will focus on developing NPM's novel implant for drug delivery. Now the question is, will SecondSight continue to service existing customers? Terry Byland is the only person to have received Second Site in both of his eyes. He got the first generation Argus 1 implant in his right eye in 2004, and the subsequent Argus 2 implant in his left 11 years later. He helped the company test the technology, spoke to the press movingly about his experiences, and even met Stevie Wonder at a conference. I went from being just a person that was doing the testing to being a spokesman, he remembers.

Yet in 2020, Bailen had to find out secondhand that the company had abandoned the technology and was on the verge of going bankrupt. While his two-implant system is still working, he doesn't know how long that will be the case. As long as nothing goes wrong, I'm fine, he says, but if something does go wrong with it, well, I'm screwed because there's no way of getting it fixed, end quote. Ross Dore, another second-site patient, doesn't mince words. quote, it is fantastic technology and a lousy company, he says. He received an implant in one eye in 2019 and remember seeing the shining lights of Christmas trees that holiday season. He was thrilled

to learn in early 2020 that he was eligible for software upgrades that could further improve his vision. Yet, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, he heard troubling rumors about the company and called his second site vision rehab therapist. She said, well, funny you should call. We all just got laid off, he remembers. She said, by the way, you're not getting your upgrades. And quote. These three patients and more than 350 other blind people around the world with second sites implants in their eyes find themselves in a world in which the technology that transform their lives is just another obsolete gadget. One technical hiccup, one broken wire, and they lose their artificial vision possibly forever. To add injury to insult, a defunct Argus system in the

eye could cause medical complications or interfere with procedures such as MRI scans and it could be painful or expensive to remove, end quote. Yesterday I recorded our next portfolio profile episode, and I couldn't be more excited to share it with you. This is not just another cool company that I found that I want to tell you about. This is one that I think you in the audience will really be interested in. Devs and designers, I'm talking to you. What if you could Angel invest in the hottest startups, not with your money, but with your time and your talent? What if side jobs you do in your spare time could earn you equity in cool companies. And startups, this is going to revolutionize the access to the best engineering and design talent anywhere, even when you're

just getting started, even when you think you don't have the resources to access the best talent yet. This is going to change the way startups find their engineering and design teams. I can't wait to tell you about this company. And since I actually haven't mentioned it in a while, reminder, this podcast has a venture fund, and you can be an investor in it. It's called the Ride Home Fund. 100% of our LPs right now are listeners to the show, every single one of them, listeners just like you. And the Ride Home Fund is a rolling fund, which means you can invest at any time. You can even come and go with your investing, so you can stop investing, wait a little while, come back, so long as you invest for the minimum of four quarters each time you do. Even though I've only

shared a couple of the companies that we've invested in so far, we have cut 10 checks just since October. You can't believe how cool some of these companies are, though hopefully I'll be able to tell you about them soon. So if you ever thought about it, even a little bit, check out the fund at ridehome fund.com. That very first link on the page for investors will take you to the fund memo and we'll show you how to subscribe and invest. We are approaching our LP limit. Probably we'll hit it by the end of this year. So if you've been thinking about it, Jump in now while you still can. I'd love to have you on board.

Ridehomefund.com. Talk to you tomorrow.