Techmeme: Some on-demand companies hire employees, not contractors, to provide a higher quality service (Farhad Manjoo/New York Times)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

June 28, 2015, 12:50 AM

Top News

Karen Weise / Bloomberg Business:

How Uber used its lobbying force, one of the largest and most successful in the US, to start operating legally in Portland — This Is How Uber Takes Over a City … Charlie Hales, the mayor of Portland, Ore., was running a zoning hearing last December when he missed a call on his cell from David Plouffe …

Tweets: @jwjnational, @paulsingh and @nitashatiku

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

A history of hacker group L0pht, its ignored 1998 warnings to Congress on cyber security, and how it hounded Microsoft in the 90s — Net of insecurity Part 3 — A disaster foretold — and ignored — LOpht's warnings about the Internet drew notice but little action

Tweets: @csoghoian

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Reddit's stance on policing behavior and not ideas is irresponsible because an echo chamber of hateful ideas can incite barbaric behavior — Reddit Is An Incubator Of Hate — Reddit's decision to police “behavior, not ideas” isn't just foolish — it's reckless.

Tweets: @startupljackson. See also Mediagazer

Josh Horwitz / Quartz:

Evernote, LinkedIn, and Uber are succeeding in China by playing by the government's rules — A new wave of US internet companies is succeeding in China—by giving the government what it wants — Facebook found itself shut out from China in 2009. Twitter got blocked the same year.

More: Beyond Search. Tweets: @jonrussell, @greatfirechina and @gabrielsnyder

Eugene Kim / Business Insider:

Profile of Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside, who's charged with making Dropbox a mature company — Dropbox is a $10 billion startup with serious growing pains — and this guy's in charge of saving it — See Also — Other tech companies tried to poach SurveyMonkey employees after former CEO Dave Goldberg's death

Thanks:@mattrosoff

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

Some on-demand companies hire employees, not contractors, to provide a higher quality service — Start-Ups Finding the Best Employees Are Actually Employed — When Ron Johnson was pitching his idea for an e-commerce delivery company to venture capitalists last year …

David Michaels / Bloomberg Business:

SEC allows startups raising up to $50M to tweet about stock or debt offering to gauge interest among potential investors — SEC Approves Tweeting by Startups to Test Investor Interest — Trying to figure out how many investors might want to fund your small business? Go ahead and tweet about it.

Tweets: @rafat, @startupljackson and @peterpham

Gillian Wong / Wall Street Journal:

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial launches online bank MYbank to challenge Tencent's WeBank in China — Alibaba Affiliate Launches Online Bank Despite Regulatory Hurdles — MYbank offers microloans for businesses and consumers but users can't open bank accounts yet

More: Alizila, Reuters, Financial Times, ZDNet, Asia Times, e27, TechCrunch and ValueWalk

Bloomberg Business:

Uber launches UberBOAT ferry service in Istanbul with rides starting at 50 liras, about $19 — Uber Crosses Continents With Istanbul Water-Taxi Service — Ships pass along the Bosphorus strait past the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge between the continents of Europe, top, and Asia in Istanbul.

More: PC Magazine and Ars Technica

Peter Elkind / Fortune:

Instead of hardening security defenses, Sony Pictures focused on offending North Koreans less, and was more afraid of security costs than risks — Sony Pictures: Inside the Hack of the Century, Part 2 — We will take “a merciless counter-measure.” — On June 17, leaked emails show …

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:50 AM ET, June 28, 2015.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.