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On a painful morning in America, after the first night of curfew anyone can remember in San Francisco, the beating heart of Silicon Valley, I wish I could tell you something profound about what this all means for the technology industry.
I can’t.
Corporate leaders, some sincere and others less so, will profess their solidarity with the protesters. Venture capitalists will search their souls, [insert soulless VC joke here] about the lack of diversity among the entrepreneurs they fund. We can debate ad nauseum the different approaches Facebook and Twitter are taking to regulate the hateful and incendiary speech on their publishing platforms.
But it doesn’t add up to much. So-called social media may have provided the fuel, but it didn’t ignite the flames.
The country is ailing. Too few leaders are leading. And even when they do, including mayors who require their citizens to shelter in place to blunt a virus or curb the violence, their constituents can’t calmly agree to disagree about their intentions.
There’s plenty that’s exciting, interesting, new, lamentable, and otherwise noteworthy about what’s going on in tech today. Aaron will summarize a lot of it below.
I’m going to wait just a bit to see if any of it feels nearly as relevant as the public-health and societal tragedies unfolding around us.
Adam Lashinsky
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Somewhere only we know. The nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police moved some tech companies to action. Facebook offered $10 million and Google's YouTube and Intel pledged $1 million donations to social justice and anti-racism organizations. Apple said it would do the same, without naming a dollar amount.
I walked across an empty land. Meanwhile, what is going on with social networks and the president? New Street Research analyst and former FCC official Blair Levin probably had the smartest take on Trump's executive order issued last week: "It is not designed to change the law but rather, is designed to provide the President and the FCC an opportunity to 'work the refs' in the run-up to the November election." At Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke with Trump on Friday and "expressed concerns" but did not request anything specific from the president, Axios reports. Seemingly after the call, though without mentioning it, Zuck posted his own note about the controversy with a weird justification for why Facebook left up Trump's threatening post about Minneapolis. Some other top Facebook officials rejected that view.
I felt the earth beneath my feet. Shifting gears to some truly uplifting news, two NASA astronauts launched from Cape Canaveral on Saturday and arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The journey marked the first launch of humans into orbit by a private company ever and the first such launch from U.S. soil since the last Space Shuttle mission in 2011. In other positive flying news, electric flight startup Magnix successfully flew its all-electric nine-passenger Cessna airplane for 30 minutes last week. The flight marked the largest ever electric plane to make it into the skies.
Simple thing, where have you gone? Which jobs will be eliminated by A.I.? Apparently some in journalism. Microsoft let go about 50 editorial contractors last week and replaced them with an A.I. system to select news and headlines for the popular news section of MSN.com, Business Insider reports.
So tell me when you're gonna let me in. The government of India nixed a plan by Walmart-owned Flipkart to get into the food retail business. The online seller said last year that it wanted to get into food retail by connecting with tens of thousands of small farmers, but government officials said the plan did not comply with regulatory guidelines. Rivals Amazon, Zomato, and Grofers have secured permission to sell food online.
This could be the end of everything. It was the perfect anecdote to encapsulate the rise of online influencers, but it may not have been perfectly true. Forbes says it never should have added Kylie Jenner to its billionaires list because Jenner allegedly misled the magazine about the success of her cosmetics business. Still, after selling 51% the business to Coty for $600 million in January, Jenner is now worth approximately $900 million, the magazine says.
(Today's headline reference explainer video, on a day when we could all use something to rely on.)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
After the successful SpaceX launch on Saturday, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine made a short speech that ended with the thought that the mission could inspire kids to want to become the next Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson. That struck Hackaday contributing editor Jenny List as a wrong-headed suggestion.
I was slightly shocked and saddened to hear this from the NASA administrator, because to my mind the careers of Musk, Bezos, or Branson should not be the ones first brought to mind by a space launch. This isn’t a comment on those three in themselves; although they have many critics it is undeniable that they have each through their respective space companies brought much to the world of space flight. Instead it’s a comment on what a NASA administrator should be trying to inspire in kids.
Ask yourself how many billionaire masters-of-the-universe it takes for a successful space race compared to the number of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, technicians, physicists, et al. From the anecdote of the NASA administrator it takes about three, but if he is to make good on his goal of returning to the Moon in 2024 and then eventually taking humanity to Mars it will take a generation packed full of those other roles.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Trump needs Twitter. Twitter needs Trump. Who needs who more? By Danielle Abril
Phone sales plummet amid the coronavirus lockdown By Aaron Pressman
Why the Upwork CEO believes the pandemic will lead to more work with freelancers By Rachel Schallom
How much of the bear market losses have been recovered? By Ben Carlson
Inside Tulsa’s underdog bid for Tesla’s next big factory By David Z. Morris
A WeWork rival gets ready for an IPO, even as offices stay shut By Lucinda Shen
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
The artist Christo, who installed thousands of orange gates in Central Park and wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in grey fabric, died on Sunday. His final project, wrapping the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, will be completed in September. Amid a world torn by strife and violence, Christo brought beauty and new perspectives everywhere he went. We could all strive to do the same.
Aaron Pressman