Business, Spoken

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Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook—and the World Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

One day in late February of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo to all of Facebook’s employees to address some troubling behavior in the ranks. His message pertained to some walls at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters where staffers are encouraged to scribble notes and signatures. On at least a couple of occasions, someone had crossed out the words “Black Lives Matter” and replaced them with “All Lives Matter.

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Unicorns Are Rare. This Study Suggests They Should Be Even Rarer Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

For startups, achieving unicorn status is a big deal. Companies valued at more than $1 billion look more formidable to competitors, customers, and recruits---and less like the fly-by-night startups they may actually be. Thus, for the past three years, startup founders have asked investors to grant them billion-dollar valuations, regardless of whether they’re worth that by any traditional business metric.

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To Make AI Smarter, Humans Perform Oddball Low-Paid Tasks Feb 09, 2018

Show notes

Tucked into a back corner far from the street, the baby-food section of Whole Foods in San Francisco’s SoMa district doesn’t get much foot traffic. I glance around for the security guard, then reach towards the apple and broccoli superfood puffs. After dropping them into my empty shopping cart, I put them right back. “Did you get it?” I ask my coworker filming on his iPhone. It’s my first paid acting gig.

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Ethical Tech Will Require a Grassroots Revolution Feb 09, 2018

Show notes

Tristan Harris holds his iPhone in the air, so the whole crowd of educators, technologists, doctors, and researchers before him can see the virtual wasteland of his iPhone's home screen. Gone are the cluttered, candy-colored icons that a busy brain sees as digital snacks. In their place are but a few utilitarian apps, all set to the same bleak palette of black and white.

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Should Data Scientists Adhere to a Hippocratic Oath? Feb 08, 2018

Show notes

The tech industry is having a moment of reflection. Even Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook are talking openly about the downsides of software and algorithms mediating our lives. And while calls for regulation have been met with increased lobbying to block or shape any rules, some people around the industry are entertaining forms of self regulation.

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Can Crisis Line Messaging Help Improve Workplace Culture? Feb 08, 2018

Show notes

Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit that offers emotional support through text messaging, has spent four years connecting people in extreme emotional duress with online counselors. Now its founder is creating a startup called Loris.ai to help companies teach employees how to communicate. “There are a lot of companies right now that are fearful of having hard conversations,” says Nancy Lublin, the founder of both Crisis Text Line and Loris.ai.

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Why JP Morgan, Daimler Are Testing Computers That Aren't Useful Yet Feb 07, 2018

Show notes

JPMorgan Chase has plenty of “quants” who hunt profits with computers. In 2018 the bank is adding employees you might call quantums. The computers they’ll use work on data using the intuition-defying processes of quantum mechanics. America’s largest bank by assets is forming a small group of engineers and mathematicians to examine how quantum computers could help in areas such as trading or predicting financial risk.

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The WIRED Guide to the Blockchain Feb 07, 2018

Show notes

Depending on who you ask, blockchains are either the most important technological innovation since the internet or a solution looking for a problem. The original blockchain is the decentralized ledger behind the digital currency bitcoin. The ledger consists of linked batches of transactions known as blocks (hence the term blockchain), and an identical copy is stored on each of the roughly 200,000 computers that make up the bitcoin network.

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The Gawker Archives Aren't Going Anywhere Feb 06, 2018

Show notes

In May of 2017, nearly a year after Gawker shut down, a story mysteriously disappeared from its archives. The 2015 article detailed leaked emails written by Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, which had become public after the company’s servers were breached in 2014. The story was removed as the result of an undisclosed lawsuit—and served as a troubling reminder that journalism on the internet is fragile, and subject to censorship by wealthy and well-connected individuals.

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How Grab Is Giving Uber a Run for Its Money in Southeast Asia Feb 06, 2018

Show notes

Not long after Uber’s pugnacious founders first tested their app among San Franciscans, a pair of Harvard Business School classmates from Malaysia seized upon a similar idea: They wanted to build Uber, but for Asia. In 2012, they launched a ride-sharing service with 40 drivers in Kuala Lumpur. Eventually, they settled on the name Grab. Six years later, Grab dominates the ridesharing market in Southeast Asia, boasting 2.3 million drivers in 168 cities across eight countries.

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