Month: October 2019

10.27.2019

Good to Know: Want to be a good leader at work? A little kindness goes a long way in three ways: (1) inspires greater results, (2) leads to better ideas, and (3) improves relationships. 

THE SKINNY

When You Come Out on Top … Microsoft just landed a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Pentagon for its cloud business called Azure. 

What For? The project is called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure aka JEDI. The project’s focused on getting the U.S. military better at war on account of being able to “store and process mass amounts of classified data” and artificial intelligence. 

When You’re Not Happy About It … The contract has been pretty controversial in the tech world. Earlier on in the bidding process, rumor had it that Amazon would take the ‘W’ on this one. Other tech companies like IBM and Oracle didn’t think it was a fair process. Oracle even took it up in federal court and took the ‘L’ on that challenge. 

When There’s More To It … Oracle and IBM were both ruled out from the process. Google backed out on account of AI ethics concerns. And as for Amazon … well, unfair competition allegations and being generally disliked by the U.S. President probably didn’t help. 

What’s Next … Amazon said it was surprised at the decision but no word yet on whether it’ll appeal the procurement decision. 

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 

When You Want to Stay Ahead of the Curve … China’s government is doubling down on blockchain technology. President Xi Jinping said he wants to “keep our country at the very forefront” of blockchain technology. China’s said it’s almost there in issuing a digital currency. 

THE STREETS ARE TALKING … 

U.S. food delivery company GrubHub seems to be underperforming on account of increased competition from UberEats and DoorDash. The company’s value is down. 

E-Scooter company Lime’s giving freelancers a ‘lucrative’ opportunity to re-fuel their scooters and gather up scooters left on city streets. “Freelance juicers” are making up to $50 per hour. 

Facebook News is coming … this Friday. Newspapers can be happy because the social network “will start paying for their work.” 

Google’s parent company Alphabet has put in a bid to buy FitBit.

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10.20.2019

Good to Know: Many of y’all are saying good morning to everyone except your managers. 64% of workers said they’d trust a robot more than their manager.

THE SKINNY

When You’ve Gotta Watch What You Say  … China’s not into getting its feelings hurt. Who is?

What’s Going On? Earlier this month, the National Basketball Association (NBA) learned that the hard way. Its Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey posted and deleted his tweet supporting Hong Kong protestors. Even Lebron James piped up and said its ‘his belief’ that Morey was ‘misinformed’ before tweeting. After all that, it was too late for Morey and the NBA to say sorry. Chinese tech company Tencent told the NBA and the Houston Rockets to say bye to the company’s digital streaming of Rocket games. The NBA apologized anyway. 

When It’s a Normal Situation … It’s not just the NBA apologizing for saying something China doesn’t like. It happens time and time again – just ask video game company Blizzard Entertainment, Justin Beiber, and Katy Perry. Quartz investigates and says the Chinese market is just too big for foreign companies, organizations, celebrities, etc to risk ruffling China’s feathers. Bottom line? China’s censorship is impacting folks across the globe. Check out the full video. 

When You Need to Jump into Drama … During a Georgetown University speech, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg jumped into the convo to partially defend his company’s political ads policy that we talked about last week. He says he’s not tryna be like China, and none of us should want that either. Political ads are free expression and shouldn’t be censored. Hmmmm, ok Mark – tell us anything.  

When You Want to Learn More … Listen to NPR’s Marketplace with Daphne Keller to learn why free speech on the internet … is complicated.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 

When You Took It a Little Too Far … In his 40 minute speech, Zuck went on to make his free expression argument and mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr to make his point. Bernice King, MLK Jr.’s daughter, took to Twitter to tell Zuck to keep her father’s name out of his mouth. She let him know that her father was the target of disinformation campaigns. She says she’s available to educate Facebook about this. 

Speaking of campaigns … Democratic presidential hopeful for 2020 Elizabeth Warren is continuing with her push to break up Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and companies ‘that earn $25bn or more in global annual revenue.’ She raised it during the last debate and said they’ve got too much power. Andrew Yang disagreed. Yang says he’ll pass on breaking them up but would rather see them more heavily regulated. The Dem candidates then really got into hot topics in tech like data privacy, banning 45 from Twitter, political fundraising etc.

When Income is Anything But Basic … Andrew Yang’s been running on what he calls his ‘Freedom Dividend’ – ‘a universal basic income of $1,000/month, $12,000 a year, for every American adult over the age of 18.’  Universal Basic Income experiments have been going on for some time now. It’s happening right now in Stockton, California. Since February of this year, the city has been running 125 Stockton residents an unconditional $500 check per month. It’s called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED). The 18-month program is halfway over. And, the verdict? Well, people are still working – 45% to be exact are either working full or part-time. People are spending their extra cash money on food (40%), sales and merchandise (25%), and utilities (~12%) according to the recently released data from the program so far.     

THE STREETS ARE TALKING … 

Get you an app that can do both. Video app Tik Tok isn’t just for funsies. It’s also teach English in India via EduTok.

While we’re talking about India, Flipkart wants to be an original – in terms of its content. 

Lebanese citizens said the government tried it. Lebanon attempted to put a tax on voice calls made via Whatsapp. It was the last straw for citizens already royally p*ssed over the government’s handling of the country’s economic crisis. Things got pretty bad so the government said just kidding about that tax. 

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING …

Royals. On Sunday night, British channel iTV aired its documentary with Harry and Meghan where it covered their recent Africa tour. iTV’s Tom Bradby asked Meghan about her well-being. She got emotional and said, “Not many people have asked if I’m ok.” We didn’t cry, but you did. #WeLoveYouMeghan trended.  The documentary airs in the U.S. this Wednesday at 10 PM ET on ABC. We’ll be watching … 

CAREER THINGS …  

Netflix’s looking for product designs and engineers. Hit up product designer Travis McCleery’s DMs for more info or tweet at him (@cleerdesign) 

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Wishing you a happy and productive week!  Tell your friends about us. We’d love for them to sign up and join the community!  Also, got feedback for us? Is there something you want to see but aren’t? Let us know! Drop a note at virtualskinnynews@gmail.com. Can’t wait to hear from you!

10.13.2019

Good to Know: WHEW – What a weekend! Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge did the unthinkable and ran a marathon in under two hours. The next day, Kenyan runner Brigid Kosegi set a world record in the Chicago Marathon. Former U.S. president Barack Obama shouted them out. And, let’s not forget that U.S. gymnast Simone Biles also became the most decorated gymnast – ever! She’s now got 25 world medals. Focus and discipline, folks. Let’s keep raising the bar! Stepping into the week like … Nailed it!

via GIPHY

THE SKINNY

When You’re Ready to Play … U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is playing Facebook’s ad game. Her campaign said “no fact-checking” policy? Fine. 

Wait … But, What Did They Do? Her campaign ran Facebook ads saying that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a Trump supporter for the 2020 presidential race. Warren’s peeved that Facebook continues to act as what she’s calling “a disinformation for profit machine.” She says the social media company is knowingly allowing political ads filled with lies, fairytales, and fallacies!  

When You’re In Good Company … Another U.S. Dem presidential candidate Joe Biden agrees. ICYMI, Biden is at the center of the alleged investigation that Trump may or may not have asked Ukraine’s president to help with back in July. Biden says that Facebook is allowing a Trump ad claiming that Biden promised “Ukraine money for firing a prosecutor investigating a company with ties Hunter Biden.” 

When You DGAF … Facebook says tough sh*t. It’s not taking the 30-second ad down on account of “free expression” on the platform. 

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch … Trump isn’t focused on Facebook. He’s moved onto video streaming platform Twitch to support his re-election campaign. 

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 

When There Are No Tradesies … Chinese AI startups, including video surveillance firm Hikvision and facial recognition company SenseTime Group Ltd and Megvii Technology Ltd.,   are on the U.S.’s sh*tlist blacklist. What does this mean? These companies can’t buy parts or components from U.S. companies unless the U.S. gives the go ahead. Why? The U.S. Department of Commerce says China’s messing up with how it’s treating Muslim minorities – which is badly.  This is separate from ongoing U.S.-China trade talks. 

When You’ve Messed Up … Twitter said, “Whoops, my b.” The social media network had a little personal identifiable information mishap when it used email addresses and phone numbers collected for account security reasons and used it for advertising purposes. Unclear how many people this impacted. Yikes! The good news? Twitter said it was only done internally and not with third party partners.  

THE STREETS ARE TALKING … 

Another week, another media acquisition. Digital media company Group Nine just bought women’s lifestyle mag PopSugar. Sweet!  

UberBoat is now a thing in Nigeria. It’s being piloted in Lagos for a couple of weeks. 

First, it was PayPal. Now, eBay, Stripe, Mastercard, and Visa are saying ‘sayonara’ to Facebook’s cryptocurrency association – Libra Association. Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg plans to show up in front of U.S. Congress early next year to talk about the association. Oh and add Portugal to the list of countries giving this whole thing the side eye. We’ll keep tracking … 

U.S. food delivery startup Postmates is taking its time with a much-anticipated IPO in 2019 on account of “market conditions.” Things aren’t looking good though as Uber, Lyft, Slack, etc. haven’t exactly been killing it in these Wall … streets (see what we did there?) Speaking of Wall Street .. Goldman Sachs says newly public companies haven’t performed this badly in the market since 1995 … 

Whale and dolphin shows are a form of animal cruelty. India, Canada, Brazil, and the UK are on the same page with that. TripAdvisor is now out of the sea animals performing business. The platform no longer offers tickets to those shows even though it’s technically not illegal in the U.S.

Bagless vacuum cleaner inventor James Dyson started working on an electric car project then said never mind. It wasn’t commercially viable venture. BTW, James Dyson’s interview on podcast How I Built This is A1.  

Career Things …

When You’re Just Tryna Be Happy … Remote work is the wave. Remote workers report a better quality of life as well as increased happiness and productivity. A recent LinkedIn survey found that 70% of hiring managers offer work from home opportunity available. You just gotta ask …

What’s Playing? 

Movie director Ang Li and multi-hyphenated Will Smith just brought us Gemini Man. The movie stars Smith and … a younger version of Smith. Thanks motion-capture technology. 

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Wishing you a happy and productive week!  Tell your friends about us. We’d love for them to sign up and join the community!  Also, got feedback for us? Is there something you want to see but aren’t? Let us know! Drop a note at virtualskinnynews@gmail.com. Can’t wait to hear from you!

10.6.2019

Good to Know: Did you learn something new recently? You’ve got about 6 days to put that new info into action; otherwise, you’ll forget about 75% of it. It’s called “the forgetting curve.”

THE SKINNY

When You’re Out … Payments company, PayPal, just told Facebook’s Libra Association, “Ight Imma head out.” They’re leaving the association. 

What Happened?  PayPal said it’s not them, it’s us. They just want to focus on their core business. PayPal wants “to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations.

What’s a Libra? No, we’re not talking Zodiac signs. Libra is a type of cryptocurrency as well as a financial institution led by Facebook and 27 other corporate backers. The association’s mission is for people to be able to “send, receive, spend, and secure their money” in the name of financial inclusion. 

When You Want to Know What’s Next … Even though PayPal is out, Visa and Mastercard could be in. Facebook planned to launch Libra in June 2020. But, there are … challenges.  Governments (U.S., France, and Germany) around the world are giving Libra the side-eye on account of Facebook and others potentially bypassing existing financial regulations. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee wants to hear from Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg at a hearing towards the end of October. Then, the committee wants to hear from Mark Zuckerberg himself in January 2020.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 

When Things Are Rough … Nigeria’s anti-robbery squad aka SARS is targeting members of the Nigerian tech community. Simply being spotted with a laptop could be cause for detaining you as an Internet “fraudster.” You’ve got two options: Pay a bribe or see how things play out via the system. Nigeria’s tech community leaders are leading a crowdfunding campaign to fight against this. 

When Net Neutrality is Back in the News … Last year, the U.S. Federal Communications (FCC) decided that net neutrality (rules that says all Internet communications should be treated equally) isn’t a thing. Many people, including online advocacy groups and 22 state attorney generals, were less than thrilled with the decision and sued the FCC. Earlier this month, a court sided with the FCC with some exceptions – namely, states can do what they want when it comes to how they regulate net neutrality.

THE STREETS ARE TALKING … 

WeWork won’t be doing that IPO after all, but it does plan to layoff thousands of employees. Ouch … 

$300 billion is how large Southeast Asia’s internet economy will grow to by 2025 thanks to online e-commerce and ride-share food delivery. 

Social media video app Tik Tok says no to political ads on its platform. 

Google is in on the White House’s job training initiative. It plans to train 250K people for tech jobs.  

London-based food delivery platform and Europe’s second-fastest growing startup Deliveroo is on the up and up. The company’s sales went up  by £200 million in 2018.

Revolut, British -based digital banking app is on a hiring spree. It’s looking to bring on 3,500 new staff across 24 markets. 

Vice Media just scooped up Refinery 29. 

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Wishing you a happy and productive week!  Tell your friends about us. We’d love for them to sign up and join the community!  Also, got feedback for us? Is there something you want to see but aren’t? Let us know! Drop a note at virtualskinnynews@gmail.com. Can’t wait to hear from you!