Techmeme
December 23, 2021, 11:55 AM

Top News

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Marc Andreessen blocked Jack Dorsey on Twitter following his tweets that were critical of a16z and Web3; Dorsey then tweeted “I'm officially banned from web3”  —  The venture capitalist blocked the former Twitter CEO, and Dorsey said he's now ‘banned from Web3’
Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:
Priya Anand / Bloomberg:
Internal docs show Amazon is struggling to retain Alexa device users; in some years between 2018-2021, 15%-25% of new users were no longer active after one week  —  Each holiday season since 2015, Amazon.com Inc. has counted on selling a lot of its Alexa voice-controlled smart speakers.
Bloomberg:
Intel apologizes following backlash after telling Chinese suppliers to avoid Xinjiang labor, saying it only did so to “ensure compliance” with US law  —  - Brand ambassador Wang Junkai cuts ties with the U.S. chipmaker  — Intel asked suppliers not to use labor, products from Xinjiang
Reuters:
Tencent plans to issue nearly all of its shares in JD.com worth $16.37B to shareholders as a dividend, reducing its stake from 17% to about 2.3%  —  Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent (0700.HK) will hand a $16.4 billion JD.com (9618.HK) stake as a dividend to its shareholders …
Ryan Mac / New York Times:
In a note to employees, Andrew Bosworth envisions Meta's deep compatibility with blockchain and predicts “profound impacts on our industry over the next decade”  —  Meta, Facebook's parent company, is aiming for “deep compatibility” with blockchain technology, according to an internal post on Tuesday from a top executive.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Huawei debuts P50 Pocket, a clamshell-style folding device with a circular 1" external display and 6.9" internal display, coming to China starting at ~$1,400  —  The phone launches in China today, but won't be coming to the US  —  Huawei has officially announced the P50 Pocket …
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
How Tobi Lütke led Shopify to becoming an e-commerce giant, helping ~2M merchants run stores as its market cap rose from $46B in early 2020 to $174B today  —  Tobi Lütke transformed the Canadian upstart into an e-commerce giant by being the anti-Bezos.  How long can the formula keep working?
FinSMEs:
China-based TandemAI, which uses AI to speed up the design and optimization of drug candidates, raises $25M in seed and pre-Series A funding  —  TandemAI, a Suzhou, and Shangai, China-based provider of a computational platform to accelerate the design and optimization of drug candidates, raised $25m in Seed and pre-Series A financing.
Jon Caramanica / New York Times:
A look at attempts by TikTok's biggest stars to expand onto other platforms, including Charli D'Amelio's Hulu docuseries, often with mixed results  —  This year, the app's biggest stars — Charli and Dixie D'Amelio, Noah Beck, Addison Rae and others — leapt from the phone screen to other platforms …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:55 AM ET, December 23, 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

Pranav Balakrishnan / The Economic Times:
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Katanga Johnson / Reuters:
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

The Economic Times:
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Ben Dummett / Wall Street Journal:
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
Chris Vallance / BBC:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: