• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place

3

Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place

3

Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
TechData Sheet

Data Sheet—Why Fitbit Is Looking So Sickly

By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
and
Adam Lashinsky
Adam Lashinsky
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
and
Adam Lashinsky
Adam Lashinsky
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 27, 2018, 8:33 AM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.

Despite my two decades of covering Silicon Valley I’m neither an early adopter nor besotted with the coolest gadgets. I used a BlackBerry until 2012. I got my first Amazon Echo well after its first holiday retail triumph. And I wrote my book about Apple on a PC.

The advantage of not being in the Wirecutter crowd is that you don’t fall in love with products that break your heart by dying before reaching maturity.

That’s why I’m all the more distressed by the drain-circling behavior of Fitbit, a product I find I love more as time goes by. I characterize my Fitbit obsession as a healthy one. I take walks after dinner to make sure I obtain daily 10,000 steps. I fret if my resting heart rate drifts abnormally high. (Altitude and sleeplessness aren’t helpful.) I get in bed earlier if my weekly average is trending down. Colleagues have come to understand my appearance at their end of the office just before the top of the hour doesn’t mean I’m coming to visit; Fitbit has nudged me to take 250 steps.

Sadly, it appears I’m worse than an early adopter. I’m an outlier.

Fitbit reported a horrid quarter Monday, and its shares swooned. It sold 7 million fewer devices in 2017 than the previous year. It is de-emphasizing fitness trackers—the object of my devotion—for smartwatches. The latter is a crowded category, dominated by far better capitalized global companies. Fitbit even lost money in the quarter. When I profiled the San Francisco company’s erstwhile competitor, Jawbone, in 2015, Fitbit bragged about its tight cost controls. Now it is focusing on “managing down expenses.”

Fitbit isn’t finished, but it’s looking sickly, a sad commentary for a company whose product makes me feel healthier.

***

Calling great leaders. In May Fortune will publish its annual list of World’s Greatest Leaders. We’d like you to nominate outstanding people from all kinds of organizations who’ve demonstrated greatness, both within and without. What type of leaders are we looking for? Here are Matt Heimer and Erika Fry, the editors overseeing the project: “As always, we want to feature people who’ve used their influence and status as CEOs or corporate leaders to make a difference in the wider world. But we’re also seeking outstanding leaders in all sectors of society —government officials, chiefs of NGOs, clergy, coaches, athletes, artists, and more. Great educators can be great leaders; so can scientists, engineers, and physicians who help solve major social and economic problems. Writers, thinkers, jurists, activists—bring ‘em on.”

I’ve written feature stories for the last three lists, in reverse chronological order on Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Apple’s Tim Cook. (We’re open to CEOs whose companies don’t begin with the letter A.) Each profile allowed me to peak into the leader’s extracurricular activities, like Ma’s global philanthropy, Bezos’s support for journalism, and Cook’s focus on civil rights.

Feel free to send nominations directly to Matt.Heimer@fortune.com and Erika_Fry@fortune.com.

Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam_lashinsky@fortune.com

NEWSWORTHY

Not to be overlooked. Ready for the biggest iPhone ever? I know am. In the wake of new phones from Samsung, Sony, and others at MWC this week, Bloomberg reports that Apple will have three new models later this year. One will be much like the current iPhone X with its 5.8-inch OLED screen and another sort of like an iPhone X Plus with a rumored 6.5-inch screen. A third model will be a lower cost variant. Famed investor Warren Buffett is a believer. He tells CNBC that he invested more in shares of Apple than any other stock last year. "Apple has an extraordinary consumer franchise," he says. "I see how strong that ecosystem is, to an extraordinary degree."

Not to be shut out. A U.S. appeals court overturned a controversial ruling from 2016 that had protected telecom companies from enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission over misleading advertising claims. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in an en banc ruling said the FTC did have jurisdiction over AT&T and all so-called common carriers when the companies offered other kinds of services, like Internet connectivity. The FTC sued AT&T in 2014 for falsely claiming it offered "unlimited" Internet service that was limited in download speed.

Not to be deterred. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai signaled that he would like to speed up the deployment of 5G wireless networks by auctioning off more airwave licenses. The agency will look to sell rights covering the 28 GHz band in November and the 24 GHz band later, Pai said in a speech at the Mobile World Congress.

Not to be informed. In an unusual peek behind the curtains, the Securities and Exchange Commission forced Google parent Alphabet to disclose just how much information is supplied to CEO Larry Page on a regular basis and other internal practices. It turns out that while Page gets lots of reports at a high level, he does not regularly receive detailed financial information about any product areas within Google.

Not to be outbid. In a bid that could muck up Disney's efforts to buy many of 21st Century Fox's assets, Comcast offered $31 billion to take over European broadcaster Sky. Fox owns a minority stake in Sky, but was seeking to gain control and include the stake in the package it was selling to Disney for $52 billion.

Not to be underbid. Qualcomm doesn't much like Broadcom's $79-per-share takeover offer. But something like $90 for each share, or a total of $160 billion including assumed debt, would be acceptable, the Financial Times reported.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Digital currencies like bitcoin are in the midst of a long, slow transition from the fringes of finance to the heart of Wall Street. In Boston, a startup called Circle helps investors make big trades ($250,000 and up) in cryptocurrencies, much like the old equities trading desks at shops like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. Fortune's own Robert Hackett has a deep profile of Circle, which made news acquiring crypto exchange Poloniex on Monday, and its CEO Jeremy Allaire. The story is global and futuristic, no surprise:

Allaire knows this. In the fall of 2016, during one of our first in-person meetings, he invited me to a WeChat channel where Bitcoin miners across the world—many of whom live in China—jabber all day long. Allaire told me that he believes the strange mishmash of Mandarin and English concocted there is likely to become the lingua franca of the future, a prediction that reminded me of what sci-fi enthusiasts might have said about a Japanese-English hybrid in the ‘80s, when the cyberpunk aesthetic of Neuromancer and Blade Runner held sway.

Many of Circle’s top executives have a worldly bent too. Marieke Flament, Circle’s lead in Europe, speaks English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin. Rachel Mayer, head of Circle Invest and an alum of Lehman Brothers and J.P. Morgan, is Venezuelan. And Circle Trade’s Jack Liu, born in China, has lived in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. (He’s now building out the trading desk in Hong Kong.) Circle’s 175-person team expects to roughly double its headcount this year—and its composition reflects the border-smashing promise of the digital currencies it holds dear.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Sam's Club Jumps Into Same-Day Grocery Delivery With Instacart's Help By Phil Wahba

Airbus, Delta, and Sprint Are on a Quest for In-Flight Wi-fi That Actually Works By Hallie Detrick

Why You May Pay More for This Year's New Samsung Galaxy Phones By Aaron Pressman

Review: Colgate's New Smart Toothbrush Is Fun for the Whole Family By Don Reisinger

Are You a Coinbase User? Your Data Could Be on Its Way to the IRS By Casey Quackenbush

Commentary: The War Against Bad Bots Is Coming. Are We Ready? By Rami Essaid

BEFORE YOU GO

Billionaire Paul Allen's dream of lofting the biggest airplane ever (measured by wingspan) is moving somewhat closer to reality. Allen's Stratolaunch Systems put its 385-foot wide plane on a runway in the Mojave Desert and drove it at speeds up to 46 mph. Cool video, but still not airborne, yet.

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.
About the Authors
By Aaron Pressman
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
By Adam Lashinsky
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Brown University Professor Roberto Serrano, a man in a suit holding onto a gold trophy--the King Of Spain Economy Award"-- before Spain's King Felipe and a painted wall.
AIEducation
‘Humanity has chosen to become idiots’: This Brown professor switched to take-home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating
By Catherina GioinoJune 29, 2026
2 hours ago
bis
EconomyMarkets
The central bank of central banks just released its flagship annual report — and it sees a $1 trillion AI investment boom headed for a reckoning
By Nick LichtenbergJune 29, 2026
2 hours ago
paralegal
AIdisruption
The most reassuring argument about AI and jobs quietly explains why Gen Z can’t get one
By Nick LichtenbergJune 29, 2026
6 hours ago
This summer’s heat is a live stress test for data centers—here’s what it’s revealing in real time
AIData centers
This summer’s heat is a live stress test for data centers—here’s what it’s revealing in real time
By Tristan BoveJune 29, 2026
6 hours ago
Photo of Jim Farley
AIAutos
Ford realized AI wasn’t capable of taking human jobs years ago—and hired 350 ‘gray beard’ engineers to steer its program
By Sasha RogelbergJune 29, 2026
6 hours ago
‘Cop on your wrist’: Wearables offer tons of data, but people are still going to sleep to Netflix and TikTok
HealthBrainstorm Tech
‘Cop on your wrist’: Wearables offer tons of data, but people are still going to sleep to Netflix and TikTok
By Amanda GerutJune 29, 2026
7 hours ago

Most Popular

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
Success
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
By Sydney LakeJune 25, 2026
5 days ago
Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place
Success
Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place
By Sydney LakeJune 29, 2026
8 hours ago
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
Success
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
By Preston ForeJune 27, 2026
3 days ago
The retired college professor fighting a $313 trespassing ticket in Wisconsin thinks he's part of a national struggle
Environment
The retired college professor fighting a $313 trespassing ticket in Wisconsin thinks he's part of a national struggle
By Catherina GioinoJune 28, 2026
2 days ago
Cristiano Ronaldo is soccer's first-ever billionaire: He went from begging for burgers outside McDonald's to landing a $400 million contract
Success
Cristiano Ronaldo is soccer's first-ever billionaire: He went from begging for burgers outside McDonald's to landing a $400 million contract
By Preston ForeJune 28, 2026
1 day ago
Ex-Google engineer says Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai share the same trait—it's the lesson he swears by as a $7.2 billion AI CEO
Success
Ex-Google engineer says Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai share the same trait—it's the lesson he swears by as a $7.2 billion AI CEO
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJune 28, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.