Techmeme
April 18, 2022, 6:05 PM

Top News

Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
A look at corporate raider tactics requiring 51% of a company's stock, which tend to treat remaining minority shareholders poorly, amid Twitter's “poison pill”  —  Poison pills  —  Here are some things you could do 1 :  — Buy 51% of the stock of a public company …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
To unlock its vast potential, Twitter should go private and split into two companies: one for the service and social graph and one for its apps and ad business  —  Elon Musk wrote in a letter to Twitter's board: … The vast majority of commentary about the Musk-Twitter saga has focused …
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Experts say open sourcing Twitter's algorithm will not increase transparency because recommendation engines are complex and use an immense fire hose of data  —  Conservatives have long claimed discrimination by the social network, but there's no one algorithm that could prove it, researchers say
Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
An in-depth investigation into the $12B spyware industry, dominated by Israel's NSO Group, as Citizen Lab finds Pegasus infected a device in the UK's No. 10  —  The inside story of the world's most notorious commercial spyware and the big tech companies waging war against it.
The Citizen Lab:
An investigation finds 65+ Catalans were targeted by Pegasus or Candiru, likely by Spanish authorities, and details Homage, a new iOS zero-click used by NSO  —  Key Findings  — The Citizen Lab, in collaboration with Catalan civil society groups, has identified at least 65 individuals targeted or infected with mercenary spyware.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Report: Microsoft is working on a program to let select brands advertise within free-to-play Xbox games, such as on a billboard, and won't take a revenue cut  —  The ads supposedly wouldn't disrupt gameplay  —  Microsoft is reportedly working on a program that will let brands showcase …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Code on Twitter's site reveals how an upcoming Edit button could work: by making a new tweet with the updated content and listing the old tweets before the edit  —  This month, Twitter announced the ground-shaking news that it was actually going to offer users a way to edit tweets — a longtime user request.
Stacey Higginbotham / Stacey on IoT:
Smart home and IoT company Insteon seemingly shuts down as home hubs suddenly stop working and LinkedIn profiles of top executives show their roles have ended  —  Is your Insteon smart home system down?  I'm getting reports from dozens of Insteon users that as of Friday their smart home hubs have stopped working.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
a16z unveils Start, an accelerator that offers early-stage founders up to $1M in capital from its seed fund, after quietly piloting the program for over a year  —  For more than a year, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has quietly piloted its own take on an accelerator for early-stage entrepreneurs …

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Featured Podcasts

Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Sal Khan is hopeful that AI won't destroy education
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
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The Social Radars:
Founder Mode: Paul Gross, CEO, Remora Carbon
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Grit:
Airtable's AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu
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A.I. School Is in Session: Two Takes on the Future of Education
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.
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Earlier Picks

Ignacio Olivera Doll / Bloomberg:
Kate Kaye / Protocol:
Michael McSweeney / The Block: