Techmeme
February 3, 2021, 12:10 AM

Top News

Jeff Bezos / About Amazon:
In letter to employees, Bezos says his transition is not a retirement and he'll use his time to focus on the Day 1 Fund, Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, and WaPo  —  Fellow Amazonians:  —  I'm excited to announce that this Q3 I'll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO.
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Amazon says Jeff Bezos will transition to the role of Executive Chair in Q3, with AWS CEO Andy Jassy becoming the CEO of Amazon at that time  —  Amazon announced on Tuesday that AWS CEO Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as CEO during the third quarter of this year.  Bezos will transition to executive chair of Amazon's board.
Amazon Investor Relations:
Amazon reports Q4 net sales of $125.6B, up 44% YoY, net income of $7.2B, up from $3.3B YoY, with full year net sales increasing to $386.1B, up 38% YoY  —  Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will transition to role of Executive Chair in Q3, Andy Jassy to become Chief Executive Officer of Amazon at that time
Alphabet:
Alphabet Q4: revenue of $56.90B, up 23% YoY, Google Cloud revenue of $3.83B, up from $2.6B, and YouTube ads revenue of $6.89B, up from $4.7B; stock jumps 5%+  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - February 2, 2021 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2020.
Jesse Pound / CNBC:
GameStop's shares closed at $90, down from a peak of $483 last week, as other Reddit-fueled stock trades like AMC suffer similar reversals  —  - Shares of GameStop skidded further before Tuesday's opening bell, with shares of the volatile retail-trader favorite sliding more than 40%, and then extended those losses during market hours.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Facebook rolls out Messenger for Oculus Quest users, as well as App Lab, letting devs distribute apps outside the Oculus Store without needing to sideload  —  Facebook is continuing to stitch its services more closely together — it's now rolling out Messenger on Oculus.
Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
Reuters:
Sources: Chinese hackers are thought to have hacked a payroll agency inside the US Dept. of Agriculture in 2020 by exploiting another bug in SolarWinds software  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suspected Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in software made by SolarWinds Corp to help break …
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Huawei's new beta of its in-house OS, “HarmonyOS”, is essentially an Android fork, despite Huawei's claim that it is a “completely different” OS  —  No discernible difference between Huawei's “all-new” OS and Android.  —  Huawei is China's—and formerly the world's …
Federal Trade Commission:
FTC says Amazon will pay $61.7M to settle charges that it withheld some customer tips from Flex drivers over 2.5 years; FTC will use the sum to pay the drivers  —  Settlement prohibits Amazon from misrepresenting driver earnings, pay or percent of tips paid to drivers, changing its handling of tips without drivers' consent
Konrad Putzier / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon unveils plans for part of its HQ2 in VA, including three 22-story office buildings and the Helix, a 350-foot building with spiraling outdoor walkways  —  Centerpiece of design is a 350-foot building dubbed the Helix, which features two spiraling outdoor walkways
Dan Primack / Axios:
Uber says it is buying alcohol delivery startup Drizly for $1.1B in cash and stock; Drizly co-founder and CEO Cory Rellas is expected to remain with Uber  —  Uber on Tuesday announced an agreement to buy Drizly, a Boston-based alcohol delivery startup, for $1.1 billion in cash and stock.
Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:
Wikimedia begins work on implementing its first global code of conduct, which addresses harassment, the introduction of false or biased information, and more  —  (Reuters) - The foundation that operates Wikipedia will launch its first global code of conduct on Tuesday, seeking to address criticism …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
From MCP to billing: Updates that accelerate hiring  —  TL;DRConnect your favorite AI tools to Zoho Recruit with Zoho Recruit MCP.Catch up on conversations faster with Zia email summaries.Review candidate context instantly …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Training Data:
Inside Zipline's Autonomous System: 140M Miles, Zero Incidents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Jeremy Giffon - The Billion Dollar PDF
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Big Technology Podcast:
Who Wins The AI Superapp Battle?, Apple's Consumer AI Victory, World Cup Automation Mistake
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:
Fable Ban Reversed + Dr. Dana Suskind on Parenting With A.I. + Prediction Market Drama
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:10 AM ET, February 3, 2021.

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.

More News

Jay Greene / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Chris Velazco / Engadget: