Techmeme
December 9, 2021, 4:20 AM

Top News

C-SPAN.org:
Video of Adam Mosseri's testimony before a Senate Commerce subcommittee examining Instagram's negative effects on teen mental health  —  Instagram CEO testifies on impact of platform on young users before a Senate Commerce subcommittee.
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Instagram plans to bring back “a version” of its chronological feed in Q1 2022, as it experiments with other options for users including a “favorites” feed  —  After more than five years, Instagram plans to bring back “a version” of its chronological feed next year, the company's top executive said on Wednesday.
Bloomberg:
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg apologizes for how he handled firing ~900 employees, 9% of his workforce, over Zoom, as a report says Better.com is delaying its SPAC  —  Better.com CEO Vishal Garg apparently realizes he's done wrong.  —  (As if the barrage of negative publicity wasn't enough evidence of that.)
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
A US appeals court grants a stay in the Epic v. Apple ruling, letting Apple keep its IAP system as the sole source of iOS in-app payments as the case proceeds  —  Apple can maintain its App Store payment monopoly while the case proceeds  —  An appeals court has paused one of the most consequential parts …
Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
Kickstarter plans to transition its crowdfunding site to a newly created blockchain-based protocol in 2022, and will offer tools for others to build on it  —  It's creating a new company to develop and distribute the technology.  —  For more than a decade, Kickstarter PBC has convinced …
Kollen Post / The Block:
At a congressional hearing with six crypto executives, committee members voiced concerns about stablecoins and exchanges but showed a warming up to crypto  —  Quick Take  — Today's hearing before the House Financial Services Committee confirmed: Congress is warming up to crypto.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google confirms a bug preventing some Android users from calling 911 if Microsoft Teams is installed but they are not logged in, says a permanent fix is coming  —  Last week, a user reported that their Pixel 3 was not able to dial 911 (emergency services in the US).
Marietje Schaake / Financial Times:
A look at the impact of data centers in Europe, including high electricity and water usage, as Big Tech gets tax breaks, subsidized energy and agricultural land  —  Meanwhile, companies must be more transparent in their planning applications  —  The writer is international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center
Bloomberg:
A look at the ethical minefield of VCs making personal startup bets ahead of follow-up investments from their VC firms, like at GV, BlackRock, DST, and others  —  Making personal investments in startups is common for VCs but can be an ethical minefield.  —  Consider this scenario …

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.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Zoho Books is now ICAEW accredited  —  Zoho Books, an end-to-end accounting solution trusted by thousands of businesses and finance professionals worldwide, is now officially accredited by the Institute …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
A Sober Conversation About AI Existential Risk — With Nate Soares
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
Box's Aaron Levie: On Reinventing Yourself in the AI Age and Enterprise Diffusion
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Andrew Feldman from Cerebras
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:20 AM ET, December 9, 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

Queenie Wong / CNET:
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Neal E. Boudette / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
Andrew Tangel / Wall Street Journal:
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt: