Techmeme
February 9, 2019, 10:20 PM

Top News

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Spotify's bet on Gimlet and Anchor gives it a foothold into podcasting to apply its listener monetization skills without worrying about sending money to labels  —  Credit Spotify CEO Daniel Ek with honesty; in a blog post announcing a major move into the podcast space, Ek wrote:
Tim O'Reilly / Quartz:
Hoffman and Yeh's “Blitzscaling” offers practical advice for startups but presents a lot of revisionist history and ignores the perils of VC-fueled hypergrowth  —  The pursuit of monopoly has led Silicon Valley astray.  —  Look no further than the race between Lyft and Uber to dominate the online ride-hailing market.
Victor Luckerson / The Ringer:
Following major tech scandals, a look at how Stanford University is reevaluating its role in shaping Silicon Valley's future employees and leaders  —  Stanford has established itself as the epicenter of computer science, and a farm system for the tech giants.
Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg:
DoorDash says it stands behind its pay policy, which uses tips to help cover what it owes delivery drivers, similar to the policy Instacart reversed this week  —  Startups like to test boundaries.  At their best, they push technological ones.  At their worst, they breach legal or ethical limits.
Jeff Bezos:
Jeff Bezos publishes letters from National Enquirer owner AMI that he says show threats to publish his nude photos unless he stops probing AMI's reporting  —  Something unusual happened to me yesterday.  Actually, for me it wasn't just unusual—it was a first.  I was made an offer I couldn't refuse.
More: New York Times, Bloomberg, The Intercept, The Verge, Observer, Bloomberg, Washington Post, The Verge, Fortune, FutureSin, Financial Times, USA Today, CNET, Wired, The Seattle Times, New Yorker, Infosecurity.US, The Hill, Errata Security, Business Insider, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Threatpost, CNBC, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Socialnomics, Android Authority, Politico, The Hill, CNN, Recode, VoIPWatch, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Inquirer, Mashable, YouTube, New York Times, Dictionary by Merriam-Webster, The Daily Beast, Vox, Adweek, Geek.com, Newser, Boing Boing, Bloomberg, Digital Trends, SiliconANGLE, WRAL TechWire, Neowin, BBC, AOL, The Atlantic, Firstpost, Fox News, Associated Press, Fossbytes, Telegraph, TechSpot, BostonGlobe.com, HuffPost, Pocketables, The Register, Gizmodo, Android Central, Ars Technica, WGN-TV, and Above the Law
Nate Oh / AnandTech:
AMD Radeon VII review: at $699, the first 7nm gaming GPU is good value when used as a high-VRAM prosumer card but for pure gamers there are better options  —  For AMD's Radeon Technologies Group, 2018 was a bit of a breather year.  After launching the Polaris architecture in 2016 …
Tweets: @ismh.  Thanks:@iancutress
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Hasty adoption of California's privacy law left many unresolved issues and privacy advocates fear industry lobbying will lead to revisions that weaken the law  —  SACRAMENTO — A landmark law adopted in California last year to rein in the data-collection practices of Facebook …
Kashmir Hill / Gizmodo:
What it's like to get by without using or accessing a single product from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, blocking all five at once for one week  —  Reporter Kashmir Hill spent six weeks blocking Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple from getting her money, data, and attention, using a custom-built VPN.

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Roger Parloff / Yahoo! Finance:
Washington Post:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Dami Lee / The Verge: