Zuckerberg's thoughts

• Mark Zuckerberg announced the freeze, the beginning of a new era for Meta.
• Meta intends to slash the budgets of various teams.
• In July, he cautioned Meta employees that the company was restructuring to cut costs.

Lean and mean

• Zuckerberg made the announcement during a weekly all-hands Q&A session.
• He said the decision was made to keep teams lean in order to make it through the anticipated economic downturn.

No more Stadia

• Stadia struggled to take off after it launched only a few years ago.
• Rumors circulated that Google would be taking the service down after the number of games released on the platform began to slow, and Google shut down the game development studio that fed games to the platform.
• Google denied the rumors but announced today that they are shutting down the platform.

Poor takeoff

• Google will refund users who purchased games or hardware from Stadia through mid-January.
• The company said it decided to end the service because it failed to take off with users.

Pause button

• Lyft is reportedly canceling job interviews scheduled for this week and has frozen hiring across the U.S.
• Bloomberg broke the report and said that sources within the company said the hiring freeze is a response to ongoing market uncertainty.

Are layoffs next?

• Employees at Lyft are worried that the freeze could turn into layoffs in the coming months.
• The news also comes after a series of difficult setbacks for the company, including a driver shortage and a steep decline in the firm's stock.

Pushed to users

• The push notifications came from Fast Company's Apple News account.
• The hack is one of the first, and most significant times that Apple's "walled garden" has been breached.

Not good news

• Fast company called the messages vile and shut down their website until the situation could be resolved.
• The company did not share any details, but the hacker said it was easy to access the system using a default password shared across the company.

Big trouble

• The SEC charged Oracle for the second time with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act between 2016 and 2019.
• The charges allege that Oracle subsidiaries in Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and India used funds to bribe foreign officials.

Pay up

• Oracle will pay $23 million to settle the case, $15 million in a civil fine, and about $7.9 in disgorgement and interest.
• Oracles subsidiaries used the slush funds bribes to win business abroad.

Funding for starters

• The Workers Launchpad Funding Program will provide up to 1.25 billion in financing to startups building on Cloudflare Workers. The computing platform has been used to launch more than 3 million applications since 2017.
• One of the venture partners said that they have seen an increase in the number of startups building applications on Cloudflare Workers and are excited to support the company's growth.

Connecting the dots

• Cloudflare's platform is about five years old, and the promise of access to venture funding will hopefully attract more developers to the platform.
• The partnering venture firms will invest $1.25 billion from their existing funds into the startups.

Kwon on the run

• Do Kwon founded the blockchain startup Terraform Labs, whose two coins, a stablecoin called UST and a cryptocurrency called LUNA, imploded in May. The collapse of the coins lost $40 billion in investor and buyers' money.
• Kwon is facing charges from South Korean authorities for the company's collapse.
• South Korea issued an arrest warrant for Kwon but could not find the Terraform Labs founder.

Raging red

• Interpol issued the red notice for Kwon, asking other law enforcement agencies worldwide to be on the lookout for Kwon.
• Red notices are reserved for fugitives that are awaiting prosecution or are meant to serve a sentence but cannot be found.
• The red notice gives the authority to law enforcement agencies to find and arrest the person, in this case, Kwon.

On the trail

• Police arrested the hacker after an investigation involving the U.K.'s National Cyber Crime Unit, the FBI, and London Police.
• The hacker allegedly participated in the hack into Rockstar Games, which leaked information and footage from Grand theft Auto VI.
• The group that the hacker is a part of, Lapsus$, has targeted other companies like Microsoft and T-Mobile.

At long last

• The 17-year-old was charged with multiple counts of computer misuse.
• London Police have been trying to crack down on the teen hacking group Lapsus$, arresting seven people under the age of 21 in March for connections to the group.
• The suspect was charged for his hacks into Uber and Rockstar Games.

Here we go

• The DART mission is testing the world's first planetary defense system, which aims to prevent a world-ending asteroid collision proactively.
• DART will fly into the football field-sized asteroid at 15,000 miles per hour in a suicide mission. DART is equipped with cameras that will record the collision.

Tiny shift

• The DART mission is testing earth-dwellers' ability to protect the planet from incoming asteroids.
• Even a tiny shift in the asteroid's position can have enormous implications for its path and eventually knock it far off course.
• After the DART craft collides with Dimorphos, scientists will track the asteroid's new path.

Real time access

• The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to grant Police access to private surveillance cameras.
• Police can access the feeds in real-time without the owner's consent.
• The department won't have constant access but will be able to tap into the feeds.
• SF Mayor London Breed said the measure is necessary to curb rising crime.

Privacy concerns

• The vote was split 7-4 and shocked many residents of the predominately liberal city with the ruling.
• Advocates for the measure said that it was high time that the relaxed board passed measures to help curb crime.
• The pilot program will run for 15 months before the supervisors vote again on whether to extend or end the program.
• Police can access cameras for up to 24 hours if a captain signs off that the surveillance is being used for an investigation or in the case of emergencies where lives are at stake.
• The ACLU opposed the program because it violates the privacy of private citizens who own security cameras.

Two parties

• The California Civil Rights Department sued Tesla in February for tolerating widespread race discrimination at its original assembly plant.
• Now, Tesla claims that the CRD filed a lawsuit before notifying Tesla or giving them the chance to settle.

Tesla countersues

• Tesla claims that the CRD used "underground regulations" while investigating the Tesla plant.
• The suit also alleges that the CRD didn't notify Tesla of the racial discrimination at the plant or give Tesla the chance to settle the case outside of court.
• Tesla is also seeking to limit the CRD's authority to sue the company, saying they needed to have completed several steps before escalating to suing.

Bad news for Meta

• The judge ordered Meta to pay Voxer $174.5 in damages for infringing on Voxer's patents.
• Meta incorporated Meta's tech into their Facebook Live and Instagram Live features.
• Meta responded to the decision saying that the ruling was unfair and that it would appeal the decision.

Land amongst the stars

• Videos of users playing the rhythm game Trombone Champ have been taking over Twitter since the game launch.
• The silly videos of people trying in vain to hit the right notes to cover songs have made the launch of the relatively humble game a success.
• The developers at Holy Wow Studios did not anticipate that the game would blow up, and on Twitter, they announced that they intend to keep developing the game after taking some time to get their ducks in a row to cope with the smash success.

Surprise hit

• Trombone Champ launched last week, but thanks to a writer at PC gamer, the game started to blow up on Twitter.
• The writer called the game a contender for the title of "game of the year."

Nine killed

• On New Year's Day 2021, seven children and two adults were killed in a car crash in Avenal, California.
• The conclusion of the investigation into the crash, which a drunk driver caused, resulted in the recommendation for the implementation of in-vehicle technology that would evaluate drivers for the influence of drugs or alcohol.
• The NTSB wants new vehicles manufactured in the U.S. to contain better driver monitoring systems that can tell if a driver is driving erratically and is under the influence. The system would then be able to prevent or limit the driver operating the vehicle.

Call for car monitoring

• The recommendation calls for cards to have passive alcohol detection and/or driver monitoring systems.
• The board wants to incentivize automakers to include the new safety features soon, as the number of fatal car crashes increased in 2022 from 2021.
• There are already driver monitoring systems that track drivers' eye and face movements or keep drivers from drifting out of their lanes.

Change of heart

• Musk previously blamed an overreliance on robots in Tesla factories for problems with the production of Tesla vehicles four years ago in 2018, when robots failed to perform tasks that human hands could.
• He is expected to unveil and deploy thousands of Optimus robots in Tesla factories, even after the "Fluff bot" incident in 2018.
• The humanoid robots will first tackle mundane jobs like moving parts around factories.
• Investors are wary of the robots because there is a high likelihood that scaling up the use of the robots will cause production woes.

Ready for the robots

• The first iteration of the Tesla Bot, a.k.a Optimus, was unveiled in August 2021 during the Tesla AI Day event.
• In the announcement about the upcoming reveal, Musk also said that the robots could eventually be sold for use in homes to perform tedious, repetitive tasks for buyers.

Heavy handed ad push

• Twitch announced they plan to standardize their revenue sharing agreement with all streamers.
• In a blog post, the Twitch president explained that top streamers had a premium revenue deal where they earned 70% of revenue from paid subscriptions, unlike most streamers who made 50% of subscription revenue.
• The new revenue sharing agreement will give premium subscription streamers keep 70% of the first $100,000 in subscription revenue.
• In June, they started piloting the new revenue model related to ads. Streamers receive 55% of revenue for every ad they include, encouraging streamers to run ads instead of relying on subscription revenue to make money on the platform.

Paid less to be paid more

• Twitch justified the pay cuts for top-earning streamers by saying that they could earn more money from ad revenue to offset the pay cut. They also claimed that creators could make more money through ads than subscriptions.
• Streamers who had the 70/30 split deal are unhappy with the platform and the pay cut.
• Since Twitch dominates the live-streaming market, it may get away with the changes because streamers don't have many other options.

Not so short

• Creators who become members of YouTube's Partner Program will be able to earn 45% of ad revenue on Shorts if they get at least 10 million views on their short over 90 days.
• The update to the Partner Program also makes it easier for creators to use music in Shorts.

More money for creators

• By adding ads to Shorts, Creators can earn more money on YouTube than on Tik Tok.
• The Partner Program will pay creators from a pool of funds, like Tik Tok does, but it will make it easier for creators to access that fund. Only the top 4% of videos on Tik Tok are eligible for monetization.

New direction

• Nvidia announced a new flagship GPU as part of its new line of graphics cards.
• The GeForce RTX 4090 will have 24GB of G6X memory and will allegedly be two-four times faster than the previous flagship.
• The RTX 4090 will go for $1,599 and will be released on October 12th.

GPU bounce back

• Both of the new chips are powered by Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture.
• The GPU launch will hopefully help the company recover from the drop in GPU demand after the crypto crash, and Ethereum's merge to proof-of-stake which no longer requires GPU powered computers to mine coins.

Coin drop

• Since the merge four days ago, the value of Ethereum has tumbled over 17%.
• At the time of the upgrade, one coin was priced at $1,600. Some experts believe that the value of the coin will fall further before it bottoms out.

Security or not?

• The chair of the SEC responded to the merge, saying that the proof-of-stake model means that buyers are treating coins as an investment and not as a currency which would classify the coin as a security.
• Ethereum isn't the only coin that is dropping rapidly; Bitcoin, Cardano, and Solana are also falling in value.
• Ethereum dropped 11% in the last twenty-four hours, while Bitcoin fell 8%.

Hello? Interpol?

• Over the weekend, Do Kwon claimed he was not on the run, but South Korean authorities refuted that claim and asked Interpol to issue a red notice.
• South Korean authorities said that Kwon has refused to cooperate with their investigation into the collapse of Terraform Labs and attempts to seize assets to pay off creditors and investors in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

First of its kind

• In March, President Biden signed an executive order that requested federal agencies look into the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies and provide an official report to Biden.
• Now, President Biden pulled together the findings and has released recommendations to lawmakers to regulate the industry.
• The recommendations include measures to fight fraud and the use of coins to hide or participate in illegal activity, as well as a tentative plan to create a stablecoin tied to the value of the U.S. dollar.

Approach to regulation

• President Biden's guidelines called for passing legislation to prevent the misuse of cryptocurrencies as they become more popular.
• Biden will also evaluate whether to ask Congress to pass amendments to the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires lenders to report suspicious withdrawals or deposits to the Treasury. The amendments would require crypto-lenders to do the same.
• The Justice Department will create a new division to investigate digital asset crimes.

Cybersecurity blunder

• The hacker used social engineering tactics to gain access to Slack using employee credentials. He convinced an employee to give him a password that would provide him with access to Uber's main systems.
• After gaining access to Slack, the hacker got into the entirety of the company's main systems.

Is this a joke?

• Uber revealed that they are investigating the hack after the hacker got onto company tools like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
• The hacker posted a message to Slack, revealing they were a hacker and that Uber had suffered a breach.

Bill signed

• The protections take the form of transparency disclosures in which social media companies must publicly declare their policies about disinformation, violence, extremism, and hate speech.
• The companies must also provide data about enforcing misinformation and extremism policies on their platforms.
• Minors are especially susceptible to violent messaging online, and the protections are designed to protect them from the types of hate speech and extremism that run rampant on social media platforms.

Controversial bill

• The bill passed in the state legislature before Newsom signed it.
• The law is controversial and likely to face a challenge from NetChoice, an organization that has built a reputation by successfully opposing social media oversight laws.

Adobe expands

• Adobe announced tdoay that they are acquring the collaborative design software.
• The acquisition comes as investors in Adobe have begun to question the company's dominance in the design market, so Adobe has been looking to expand its offerings to consumers to reassure investors.

Big bucks

• Adobe will acquire Figma in a $20 billion deal.
• Figma is a cloud-based design software that lets teams collaborate on designs at the same time.
• Figma CEO, Dylan Field, will continue to run the company as Adobe integrates some of their software components like Photoshop onto Figma.

Get with it

• Ford has told dealers that if they want to sell electric vehicles, they must meet company selling standards and make changes.
• Dealers will need to invest their money into readying their dealerships by adding fast charging to sell electric vehicles.
• Ford has said they will use the dealers' investments, $500,000 per certified dealer and $1.2 million per elite dealer, to help them build charging infrastructure.

Sky high profit chasing

• Ford is chasing high profits from electric vehicles, and the ultimatum made to dealers reflects their desire to make electric vehicles the company's focus.
• Dealers who invest more of their own money into the infrastructure to sell EVs will be rewarded with access to more electric vehicles and will be deemed "elite" dealers.
• Most of the costs for dealers will come from installing new chargers in order to sell the vehicles.

Idea incubator to destroyer

• Teams at Area 120 were told this week that their projects had either been canceled or reorganized to different groups within Google.
• The team workers whose projects have been canceled or reorganized will need to secure new roles at Google or risk being fired.

Efficiency push

• Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, said that the company is working towards becoming 20% more efficient, which many suggested would take the form of layoffs.
• Area 120 was the incubator site for fourteen projects, which have now been cut down to seven. Employees working on the seven canceled projects have until January to find new jobs within the company or be let go.
• The remaining projects will focus only on AI-led projects.

Arrest him

• The warrant for Do Kwon's arrest revealed that he is wanted for violating the capital markets laws.
• Do Kwon co-founded Terraform Labs, which is a crptocurrency platform. The company's $40 billion collapse kicked off the start of the crypto winter.

Collapse to arrest

• One of Terraform Lab's cryptocurrency coins was an algorithmic stablecoin. When the value of the coin dropped below the $1 amount it was supposed to stabilize at; it caused the platform to collapse and took the value of its sister coin with it.
• The collapse triggered the collapse of other high-profile cryptocurrency platforms like Voyager.
• The warrant comes four months after the collapse and South Korean authorities allege that Do Known violated capital markets laws.

Zatko testifies

• The hearing was scheduled in response to the whistleblower report filed by Peiter Zatko.
• He testified that he was ignored when he brought security vulnerabilities to executives or board members. He also testified that Twitter employed two agents of the Indian government and a Chinese spy.
• The hearing focused on the national security risks posed by Twitter's lack of security defenses associated with user data it collects.

Vulnerable user data

• The testimony from Peiter Zatko claimed that Twitter collects data that it doesn't understand or properly store.
• Zatko also spoke about the potential for foreign actors or governments to gain access to stored data about users, including high-profile users like lawmakers or people of interest to authoritarian regimes.

We are in

• The Twitter shareholders approved Musk's proposed $44 billion buyout today.
• After the approval, the deal's outcome is in the hands of the Delaware court presiding over the court battle between Twitter and Musk after he filed with the SEC to be released from the deal.

Deal details

• The majority of shareholders voted in favor of the buyout's terms which would give the shareholders $54.20-a-share.
• Twitter's board encouraged investors and shareholders to approve the deal.
• In July, Elon Musk filed to cancel the buyout deal over accusations that Twitter misled him about the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform.

Maybe it's Mudge

• Elon Musk's legal team filed their third motion with the SEC, alleging that Twitter agreed to severance payments and paid them out to Zatko after he left the company.
• Zatko filed a whistleblower report about security deficiencies in Twitter's security protocol.
• The motion claims that Twitter agreed not to enter non-ordinary severance or termination agreements with ex-employees. Musk's team claims that they engaged in non-ordinary severance payments by paying out Zatko.

Twitter responds

• Twitter responded to the SEC filing, saying that the payments they made to Zatko did not violate the agreed-upon terms of the acquisition.
• The exact amount of the alleged payment in question is unknown, but sources claim it is around $7 million.
• The judge in the upcoming trial about the acquisition will allow Musk to include information from Zatko's whistleblower report.

Coming soon

• The Starbucks Odyssey platform will give employees and loyal customers a way to buy and earn Starbucks-minted NFTs through purchases at Starbucks stores instead of cryptocurrency.
• The NFTs will take the form of digital collectible stamps, and ownership of the stamps will be secured and logged on the blockchain.

Let's take a journey

• Starbucks will launch Starbucks Odyssey later this year.
• While the platform is built with Web3 and on the blockchain, the experience is designed to be accessible for everyone, not just blockchain enthusiasts.
• After logging into the web app, users can go on "journeys" by playing interactive games or engaging with challenges to learn more about coffee. They will be rewarded for journeys by earning NFTs and eventually earn benefits and real-world rewards.

Mid-flight decision

• As the rocket crossed 28,000 feet into space, the capsule that would carry space tourists ejected from the rest of the rocket system and released its parachutes.
• The capsule, named RSS H.G. Wells, was paired with the New Shepard Booster 3 and successfully disengaged before the rocket caught fire after a failure in the engine.

Early call

• The mission was aborted during the first ascent stage, and the capsule used parachutes to float back down to earth.
• Blue Origin has never encountered an issue with the New Shepard spacecraft before during previous launches and testing. The capsule, which sustained no harm from the rocket-engine failure or the abort process, is designed to carry future space tourists.

Partners with Globalstar

• Apple will partner with the satellite company Globalstar to power their new Emergency SOS feature on the iPhone 14.
• The feature lets users send emergency text messages using satellites from locations where they don't get cell service.
• The feature will be free for two years on iPhone 14s.

Battle in the stars

• Apple's partnership with Globalstar will put the two in competition with companies like SpaceX and land them on a long list of companies that are trying to find ways around dead zones where there is no cell service.
• The feature will only be available in the U.S. and will eventually roll out to other countries.

LAUSD targeted

• The attack occurred this weekend and disrupted schools within the district's access to their IT systems.
• The hackers are part of the Russian-speaking organization Vice Society, which frequently targets schools through a vulnerability in Windows.
• The LAUSD confirmed that hack and said that the credentials that the hackers accessed have been deactivated, and they are working on restoring full access to their IT systems.

Trendy hacking target

• The school district said that the hack was likely criminal.
• The hack temporarily cut off access to employees' emails and forums where teachers post lessons. It also took down the district's website.
• The attack is the 50th cyberattack against the education sector this year, including U.S.-based universities, colleges, and school districts

Apple Watch Updates

• Apple announced the launch of the Apple Watch Series 8 and the Apple Watch Ultra.
• Some new features include temperature tracking, which women can use to track their menstrual cycle. The data about women's cycles are stored privately on the device.
• They also includes a crash detection feature that detects whether the wearer was in a car crash while driving.
• Other improvements include faster charging, longer battery life, and improved durability.

New AirPods

• The AirPods Pro 2 were announced today.
• They will cancel twice as much noise, feature touch controls, and the charging case will give listeners 30 hours of usage.
• Apple also announced that each earbud would be able to play a sound when it is lost to help users track down their missing earbuds.

iPhone14

• The iPhone 14 and the slightly larger iPhone 14 Plus will have the best battery life yet of any iPhone.
• It also includes new camera stabilization features and a larger rear camera.
• The models will also allow users to use satellites to alert people of their whereabouts in emergency and non-emergency situations.

Offering an option

• While Buick wants to transition to selling only EVs, they want to give dealerships the option to opt-out of their only EVs by 2030.
• Buick has offered the option for dealers where the company will buyout Buick cars from dealerships that don't want to sell electric vehicles.
• While those dealerships won't be able to sell Buick vehicles anymore, they can still sell other General Motors vehicles.

Proactive strategy

• About 2,000 Buick dealers will be offered the buyout deal.
• GM is looking to rapidly turn towards selling only electric vehicles, and the buy out is a tried and true strategy that has been employed by General Motors before.

Big time break up

• In a somewhat shocking move, Binance will automatically convert users' holdings in rival stablecoins into the stablecoin issued by Binance.
• Circle is the issuer of USDC, and the coin has a market cap of over $50 billion. BUSD has a market cap of a little less than $20 billion.

Convert tactics

• The "BUSD Auto-Conversion" protocol will automatically convert users' existing holdings or any new deposits in USD Coin (USDC), Pax Dollar (USDP), and True USD (TUSD) into BUSD.
• Users who have saving accounts, DeFi staking subscriptions, or crypto loans tied to alternative stablecoins and hosted on Binance will have their assets closed and liquidated on September 23rd, before the conversion happens.

Premise of the study

• The study showed that YouTube was much more likely to recommend content about election fraud to users who were skeptical about the election. The recommendation algorithm may perpetuate false beliefs or lead people to believe misinformation if they are constantly shown videos with incorrect information in them.
• The researchers conducted the study in November and December 2020, following the presidential election.

Content pushers

• Users who were skeptical of the election were recommended more content about election fraud than users who were not skeptical.
• The most skeptical users were recommended three times as many videos as the least skeptical users in the study.
• The videos that were recommended to skeptics were much more likely to endorse instead of present election fraud claims.

Edit alert

• Twitter said that internal teams are testing an "Edit Tweet" feature.
• After its launch, users will be able to edit tweets within a 30 minute window from when they were posted.
• If a tweet is edited, it will appear with a timestamp and be labeled to let users know that it was modified.

Exclusive feature

• The edit function will be available to users who use the paid Twitter Blue service.
• The function will be rolled out to paid members in the coming weeks after internal teams complete the beta testing of the function.

Cloudflare responds

• Cloudflare has a complicated history with forums that promote hate. The company responded to the backlash with a blog post detailing its criteria for when it bans a site or customer.
• The company did not respond to the backlash by saying they would ban the forum.
• Kiwi Farms was founded with the express purpose of harassing creators that are transgender or female-identifying, and it is one of the biggest messaging boards on Cloudflare.

Racine strikes

• D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed suit against Saylor for evading $25 million in taxes today.
• Michael Saylor is the CEO and chairman of MicroStrategy. He entered the Bitcoin arena in 2020 and spent almost $4 billion collecting coins.
• Saylor claimed that his full-time residence was in Virginia or Florida, but he actually lives in several homes around D.C.

First of its kind

• The D.C. AG is looking to recoup a total of $100 million from Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, which is named as a co-defendant in the suit.
• A whistleblower revealed that MicroStrategy filed fraudulent W2s for Saylor that put his full-time residence in Florida or Virginia.
• The tax evasion stretches back all the way to 2014.
• The case against Saylor is the first to be filed under the newly passed False Claims Act.

No-go

• Truth Social was not approved to be sold on the Google Play Store, which is a significant setback for the app.
• Trump's social media platform is already available to download on the Apple App Store.
• The app was denied for insufficient content moderation. Truth Social's parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, works with a San Francisco-based content moderator called Hive.

Not on Android

• Google rejected the app after they expressed concerns that content that portrays violence or contains calls to violence wasn't being removed from the app.
• Truth Social acknowledged the feedback from Google and said they would work on addressing the issue.

Going global

• Twitter users can now add 150 friends to their Circle to see posts on their private timelines.
• Members of the user's Circle will know they are part of someone's Circle because a tweet from that friend will have a special green badge under it.

Real ones only

• The new feature is similar to Instagram's "close friends" feature.
• Tweets on someone's personal timeline will contain a green banner that reads, "Only people in [usersname] Twitter Circle can see this Tweet."

Backbone of the case

• The DOJ has been investigating whether Apple has abused its dominance in the tech market to choke out smaller hardware and software tech companies.
• Apple has faced increased scrutiny for how they report earnings from its various Services businesses like the App Store.

New report

• According to reporting from Politico, the DOJ is in the early stages of filing the suit against Apple as part of an ongoing effort to reign in the giant tech companies that have historically dominated the market.
• One of the main areas of focus in the suit is Apple's tight-knuckled control of its devices and Services businesses which impacts app developers and other device competitors.

From X to Y

• Garry Tan will take over from current CEO Geoff Ralston next year.
• Garry Tan previously worked at Palantir and co-founded the venture capital firm Initialized Capital alongside Alexis Ohanian.
• The soon-to-be CEO worked at Y Combinator from 2010 to 2015.

Up next

• Tan will stay on with Initialized as an advisor after he transitions to the new role at YC as their fourth CEO.
• Tan got his start at YC and credits the community there for his success. In his annoucement about the transition, he gives kudos to YC and says that he wants to increase opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Launch pending

• The headset, also known as Project Cambria, will launch in October around the time of Meta's annual Connect event.
• The headset will include a high-resolution screen and sensors for eye tracking, and it will also track the user's expressions, which will project onto their avatar.
• It is expected to be much more expensive than the current Meta VR headset, Meta Quest.

Response to conditions

• The price hike will not affect buyers in the U.S., but the new prices could be increased for buyers outside the country by $30-80.
• Sony said its top priority is to continue to manufacture and distribute PlayStations and improve the supply chain.

Invites in the mail

• The September 7th press event will be held on Apple's Cupertino campus in California. It will also stream on Apple's website.
• Apple is expected to debut the new iPhone 14 and potentially introduce new models of the Apple Watch.

Potential launches

• The event will likely feature the new lineup of iPhone 14s. They could potentially introduce four models of the new phone.
• Apple may also introduce new Apple Watches, AirPods, and iPads or a new Mac Pro, which are all currently in development.

Loosen those purse strings

• The top players from the PGA Tour have responded to the efforts by LIV Golf to poach talent by committing to playing in at least 20 events next year.
• The PGA Tour massively increased the potential earnings for 12 of the elevated tournaments, making it possible for golfers to win between $15 and $20 million.
• The announcement follows a meeting of top PGA players hosted by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlory about what the league can change to fight the LIV Golf tournament and keep its top talent.

Virtual golf claps

• The PGA Tour announced the creation of a tech-driven Golf League, TGL Golf, which they will showcase during a primetime TV show established by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlory.
• The new league will stream on Monday nights and feature golfers tackling shots in a custom-built venue aided by advanced tech.
• The show features six teams of three PGA tour players, and they will compete on a virtual course with a live audience. The tech-driven approach to golf will start streaming in 2024.

New flagging system

• After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many tech companies have released updated policies to adapt to the post-Roe era.
• Yelp will add a feature that notifies abortion-seekers that crisis pregnancy centers, which come up when users search for abortion services, do not offer abortions and do not have medical professionals on site who can administer reproductive care.
• Yelp has been working to recategorize thousands of businesses that moonlight as abortion care providers and mislead abortion-seekers about their services since 2018.

Alert!

• Crisis pregnancy centers often present themselves as medical facilities, but they do not provide medical care to patients and instead employ a variety of harmful tactics aimed at encouraging abortion seekers to forgo the procedure.
• In the app, if a user clicks on a crisis pregnancy center listing, a notice will alert them that they have landed on a crisis pregnancy center and not an abortion clinic.

Bombshell report

• Peiter Zatko is the former head of security at Twitter. In a whistleblower report, Zatko revealed that Twitter has serious gaps in its security, privacy, and content moderation policies.
• The report accuses CEO Parag Agrawal and others of lying to investors and users about privacy policies that made the platform vulnerable to interference by foreign actors or hackers.

Thwarted lockdown

• The report references the January 6th Capitol riot as a particularly mismanaged event.
• During the riot, Zatko wanted to lock down internal access to the platform in case one of the 5,000 employees at Twitter supported the rioters and decided to sabotage the platform.
• Zatko was told he was not allowed to seal the production environment for the site to protect it since so many engineers had unfettered access.
• In the report, Zatko says that the open production environment makes the platform extremely vulnerable to internal threats.

Heating up

• Twitter is suing Elon Musk to force him to follow through on the $44 billion buyout he signed on for.
• Musk claims that Twitter misled him about the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform, which is sufficient grounds for him to walk away from the deal.
• Jack Dorsey co-founded Twitter and served as its CEO. Dorsey tweeted in April that he supported Musk's buyout.

Subpoenaed after all

• On October 17th, the trial between Twitter and Musk will start in Delaware. Musk's team asked for a February start date but was denied by a judge.
• Musk and his legal team issued a subpoena to Jack Dorsey, asking him to provide information about the impact of spam/bot accounts on the Twitter platform.

Restructuring effort

• Ford's CEO Jim Farley announced in March that the company would restructure and split its electric vehicle manufacturing and internal combustion vehicle manufacturing into two different units.
• The layoffs are expected to impact both salaried and contract workers in the U.S., Canada, and India.

Memo to staffers

• Ford employees were told of the layoffs via email today from the Chairman of Ford, Bill Ford, and the CEO, Jim Farley. The employees being laid off are expected to be told later this week.
• In the memo, the chairman and the CEO said the layoffs were necessary to keep reshaping the way that Ford approaches vehicle manufacturing and to redistribute resources across the company to remain competitive with other automakers.

Warning, tracking in progress

• A new privacy analysis by a security researcher has warned Tik Tok users that the app can watch their keystrokes if they use in-app browsing.
• In Europe, Tik Tok agreed to pause an app update that would have removed users' ability to refuse to be tracked or receive targeted advertising.

Watchdog reports

• Researcher Felix Krause found the buried code Tik Tok uses to track users' keystrokes.
• He revealed that the app could track what links you click or even messages you send as long as you use in-app browsing.
• Tik Tok responded by saying that the code is not used to spy on users but instead is used to troubleshoot.

End of an era

• After more than four years of partnership between DoorDash and Walmart, DoorDash will stop delivering groceries and goods from Walmart through their app.
• DoorDash decided to call off the partnership because Walmart has been focusing on building out its own delivery service, acquiring the company Delivery Drivers, and it intends to focus on long-term relationships with other clients.

Confirmation comes

• Walmart confirmed the news of the break-up between the two companies saying that they had agreed to part ways with the delivery service and thanked DoorDash for their years of collaboration.
• Shares in DoorDash dropped in value after the news was released.

Sign here

• Six hundred fifty employees at Google signed the petition. The petition asks the company to protect data that could be used by law enforcement to prove someone sought or obtained an abortion.
• The petition also asks Google to cover out-of-state travel costs for contractors with the company seeking reproductive care services.

Provisions in the petition

• One of the requests by the petition signers is for Google to divest itself from Political organizations and stop sending money to politicians or political organizations through Google's Political Action Committee, NetPAC.
• Another request is that Google forms a special task force to enforce and implement the petition's suggestions.
• They also as that Google does not release users' location data or search history to law enforcement.

Crypto.com laid off 260 employees — then quietly let go of hundreds more

• Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency platform that has been hit hard by the downturn in the crypto market. In June, Crypto.com laid off 260 employees to deal with the market downturn.
• The company is allegedly quietly laying off hundreds of additional employees without clear communication to the remaining staff or publicly announcing the new round of layoffs.
• Employees have disappeared from internal slack or scheduled meetings, and others have reported that they have been laid off without any communication from the company.

Employees speak out

• The latest round of layoffs has not been announced publicly. The CEO of Crypto.com told employees that the June layoffs were the last they would see, but that was not the case.
• Employees say that this round of layoffs is much bigger than the round that happened in June.
• The company is cutting staff to the bare minimum to outlast the worsening crypto winter.

Batten down the hatches

• Tik Tok does not allow political advertisements on the platform, but now they will ban influencers from posting content that is paid for by political organizations.
• The posted content related to the upcoming midterms will link to the newly created Election Center.
• The Election Center will contain midterm voting information and results reported by the Associated Press.

Filtering engage

• The Election Center will contain information about state elections and voting instructions. The information will be provided by the National Association of Secretaries of State, which is partnering with the video-sharing platform for the midterms.
• Election content will be reviewed if a user flags the video or if Tik Tok and a third-party partner determine the video is posted by bad actors participating in an attempt to confuse or influence voters.
• Because Tik Tok is a video-sharing app, finding and shutting down videos with misinformations is harder.

Sending stocks

• Shares in Manchester United rose by 17% after Musk tweeted, "Also, I'm buying Manchester Uniter ur welcome."
• Manchester's current owners, the Glazer family, are unpopular with club fans, so many were excited by the prospect of new ownership.
• Musk has a long history of making joking offers to buy companies, including an offer to buy Coca-Cola to add cocaine back in. But he followed through after tweeting that he would buy Twitter.

Fans react

• The tweet sparked reactions from fans who are frustrated with Manchester United's less-than-stellar start to the season.
• Fans are unhappy with the Glazer family, who owns the club, for their lack of forward-thinking ownership. The team has had a terrible open to the 2022-23 season and is sitting at the bottom of the English Premier League.
• Musk's tweet could land him in hot water with U.S. regulators.

Some still qualify

• If automakers want their electric vehicles to be eligible for existing and new tax credits, they must complete the car assembly in the U.S.
• The new regulation means that of the 72 electric vehicle models previously eligible for tax credits, only 70% are now eligible. The excluded models include cars from Toyota, Porsche, Kia, and Hyundai.

Made in the USA

• The bill pushes to incentivize electric vehicle ownership so long as the vehicle is assembled domestically.
• Most available models of electric vehicles no longer qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit that buyers used to afford electric cars.
• The tax credit is still available to buyers below a certain income and as long as the car's battery is manufactured in North America. The new battery requirement will hopefully increase the domestic manufacturing of batteries.

Give it a try

• Motional and Lyft have partnered to launch a network of self-driving cars that visitors and residents of Las Vegas can drive around the city for free.
• The service will let riders hop into an Aptiv-Hyundai, all-electric, newly launched IONIQ 5-based taxi. Riders will be able to take over from the robot taxi in the case of an emergency.
• The routing will take riders to popular destinations on the Las Vegas strip.

Viva Las Vegas

• The car itself was specifically designed with Lyft's ride-hail model in mind.
• Riders will be able to unlock the car through the Lyft app and will be able to start the ride from the car.
• The car is the first fully electric and autonomous vehicle that Lyft offers.

Ahead of schedule

• NASA engineers have given the green light to roll out the Space Launch System containing the Orion spacecraft to the launching pad after completing final tests on the Space Launch System.
• The rollout was expected to happen on Friday. The first launch attempt is scheduled for August 29th.
• The mission, Artemis 1, will test NASA's Orion spacecraft to see whether it can safely carry passengers to the moon and back.

Deep space science

• The launch includes the Orion spacecraft and ten cubesats. One of the cubesats contains the BioSentinel mission.
• The BioSentinel mission is the first long-term biology experiment that will be conducted in deep space.
• The experiment will study the impact of deep-space radiation on yeast cells, which are similar to human cells. The test will help determine the potential effects of radiation on humans in space.

Ad policy

• Meta intends to limit and restrict new ads from running on the platform during the week before the midterm elections, but ads that have been previously approved will be permitted to keep running that week without edits.
• The company plans to implement similar ad policies they employed in 2020 to fight misinformation on their platforms. They will continue to restrict ads containing misinformation and use fact-checkers to ensure the information they post is accurate.

Voting information

• Meta will remove posts that contain misleading election information like fake dates, times, or locations designed to prevent people from voting.
• They will also remove posts that mislead voters about who can vote or posts that call for violent responses to election outcomes.
• Facebook will also post-election notifications in users' feeds. The posts will be available in languages other than English for non-English speakers.

Deal is off

• Galaxy Digital revealed the reason for the termination was BitGo's failure to provide audited financial statements from 2021.
• BitGo's failure to provide the documents broke the acquisition agreements, which the two companies agreed on in 2021.

BitGo sues

• The crypto-custodian BitGo is planning to sue Galaxy Digital for $100 million in damages.
• Galaxy Digital said in the press release announcing the termination that they would not pay the previously agreed upon $100 million fee for terminating the acquisition.

Here we go

• Adam Neumann has bought about 3,000 apartment units across the south in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Nashville. Flow will operate those properties.
• Flow will also offer its management services to new developments the company acquires and third parties who may take Flow on as a property manager.

Cash Flow

• According to Andreessen Horowitz, investing in Flow represents an opportunity to transform the approach to residential real estate.
• Buying a home is becoming more and more expensive, pushing young Americans to rent for longer and increasing the number of people living in urban centers, making rent in cities increasingly expensive.
• Flow is looking to provide a housing experience that is afforable and community centered and driven by technology.

Ring ring

• MGM is developing the show "Ring Nation" hosted by comedian Wanda Sykes. The show will feature videos from the Amazon Ring.
• The show will reportedly feature videos of people falling, proposals, and other shenanigans.
• Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 and has caught significant flack over the use of footage in police investigations. Amazon bought MGM, the company making the show, earlier this year.

Sykes signs in

• Comedian Wanda Sykes will host the show.
• The series will feature videos submitted by users of the Ring camera.
• The show is expected to debut on September 26.