Business, Spoken

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Airbnb and Marriott Each Want What the Other Has May 01, 2019

Show notes

There are few fiercer enemies than Airbnb and the hotel industry. The two have been at each other’s throats practically since the short-term rental giant began back in 2008. Yet they now appear to agree on at least one thing: They could each stand to learn a thing or two from the other. On Monday, Airbnb adopted a strategy from the hotel playbook, announcing a fleet of new apartment-style luxury hotel suites exclusively available for Airbnb guests in New York City.

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How Recommendation Algorithms Run the World Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

This March, a book that advances an outlandish conspiracy theory—a theory whose name I will not mention—soared in Amazon's sales rankings. The book's rise was helped greatly when the ecommerce giant put the book on its carousel of recommended titles, which is shown to shoppers who aren't searching for that particular book. That fueled more curiosity and sales. Which led to more recommendations.

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Twitter Users Are Richer and More Woke Than the Rest of Us Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

It's a feeling familiar to anyone who lives an extremely online life. You spend all day on Twitter watching Howard Schultz get roasted and ratioed or retweeting all of the best definitions of the word "covfefe." Then you log off and enter the real world---the one where your spouse, your friends, your parents, and all the other people in your life who don't spend their days obsessively checking their mentions have precisely no idea what you're talking about, let alone why they should care.

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Huawei Still Has Friends in Europe, Despite US Warnings Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned US allies in February against using technology built by Chinese telecom giant Huawei, going so far as to suggest the US might stop sharing intelligence with countries whose communications infrastructure rely on Huawei’s equipment. Pompeo's remarks during a European speaking tour echoed years of concerns from the US government over the possibility that Huawei might use its products to help China spy on US citizens.

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How the Blockchain Could Protect California's Aquifer Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

California is sinking. In the Central Valley, the most productive agricultural region in the US, some areas drop an inch or two per year. Telephone poles slump, roads crack, canals fail. In time, all that sinking adds up. A recent state survey found one patch of farmland off I-5 near the town of Arbuckle had fallen 2 feet in nine years. The culprit: overdrafted aquifers. The process speeds up during periods of drought, when rivers run dry and farmers scramble to find other ways to water their fields.

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Visa Rejections for Tech Workers Spike Under Trump Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

In November of 2018, Usha and her husband Sudhir received the news they never expected: the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services declined to extend Usha’s work visa, meaning the couple and their daughter would have 180 days to leave the country before the US government would consider their presence to be unlawful. The notice hit the whole family like a punch to the gut.

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Facebook Will Finally Pay—Billions—for Its Privacy Missteps Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

When Mark Zuckerberg turned on Facebook’s News Feed in 2005, his users—exclusively college students at the time—freaked out at the notion that Facebook was automatically sharing their posts with friends. Even digital natives were scared to share much online then. But Zuckerberg waited a few days, explained the product, told his users to “breathe,” and News Feed became one of the most influential ideas of the 21st century.

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The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

If you were on the internet in the late 1990s, you might remember companies like AllAdvantage that promised to pay you to surf the web. You could install a program that tracked your browsing and showed you targeted ads at the top of the screen; then AllAdvantage would give you a cut of the ad revenue you generated. These schemes largely disappeared after the dot-com crash.

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Trump’s Twitter Meeting, an Ethereum Thief, and More News Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

President Trump tweeted insults at Twitter again this morning, but this time Jack took the conversation off platform to the White House. In other news, a controversial Census question creates some strange bedfellows, and a "blockchain bandit" is pilfering millions in cryptocurrency. Here's the news you need to know in two minutes or less.

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Google Walkout Organizers Say They're Facing Retaliation Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

Two employee activists at Google say they have been retaliated against for helping to organize a walkout among thousands of Google employees in November, and are planning a “town hall” meeting on Friday for others to discuss alleged instances of retaliation.

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