Welcome to the start of another week. Today, we're taking you inside Amazon's grand healthcare ambitions, and telling you what you should do with an NFT.
Ready? Let's get to it.
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1. Leaked audio reveals Amazon's ambition to be a "significant disruptor" in healthcare. In a recording of a company all-hands meeting in November, CEO Andy Jassy says Amazon Care is one of the "innovations" that most excites him.
- Amazon Care, the company's new primary-care business, connects patients with doctors over text and video — and in some locations, mails prescriptions and dispatches a nurse to people's homes.
- According to internal documents and seven people familiar with the matter, Amazon is looking to expand its primary-care business through partnerships and new services.
- The company is aiming to combine Amazon Care with its online pharmacy and health diagnostics offerings to ultimately become a one-stop shop for healthcare.
Inside Amazon's bold healthcare vision.
In other news:
2. See what the internet looks like for Russians right now. Eight days after its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has cut off access to foreign news sites like the BBC, as well as to social media like Facebook and Instagram. Insider got a look at what the internet is like for users in Russia — this is the "splinternet" in action.
3. Wag's animal safety troubles could draw scrutiny ahead of its $350 million SPAC deal. Former employees at Wag, an online dog-care service, said the company's policies put dogs at risk. Former "trust and safety" workers said they won't use Wag for their own animals, and that support teams regularly take a day or longer to respond to emergencies. Inside Wag's safety woes.
4. A lawsuit accuses Google of racial bias against Black employees. The lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges the company steers Black workers to lower-level jobs and pays them less because of their race. Get the rundown on the allegations.
5. Silicon Valley runs on the free labor of burnt-out volunteer programmers. Open-source developers work for free on projects that companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix all rely on. But the volunteer developers are burning out, quitting, and even sabotaging their own projects — and it's putting the entire internet at risk.
6. A former Apple employee has been charged with defrauding the company out of more than $10 million. The 52-year-old is accused of having taken kickbacks, stealing equipment, and money laundering when he worked for the
7. A Google employee left her job and soared to TikTok fame — and now makes more than her tech salary. In 2020, Melissa Ong quit her UX design job to become a full-time content creator. Now, with more than 4 million followers, Ong can make her Google salary in a month. She explains how she did it.
8. The photo of a killed Ukrainian woman and her kids has made the war feel painfully personal to many tech workers. Earlier this month, Tatiana Perebeinis — who worked at tech startup SE Ranking — and her two children were killed in Ukraine. Her death, captured in a New York Times photo, brought home the war's brutalities for her colleagues and Silicon Valley peers.
Odds and ends:
9. So you bought an NFT. Now what? One of Insider's tech reporters bought a cartoon pig NFT on OpenSea, the largest online marketplace for digital assets. After hitting roadblock after roadblock to obtain her $103 cartoon pig, she tackles the next big question with NFTs: What do you actually do with them?
10. Pete Davidson isn't going to space. Blue Origin announced earlier this month that the SNL comedian would be on its twentieth spaceflight. Then the company said in a tweet that he wouldn't be coming on the flight, which was delayed by six days, after all. What we know so far.
What we're watching today:
- Nvidia GTC, a global AI conference, starts today.
- Enterprise Connect takes place today through March 24.
- The Game Developers Conference is happening today through March 25.
- Nike is reporting earnings today. Keep up with earnings here.
- Jim Rowan becomes Volvo's new CEO, succeeding Hakan Samuelsson.
Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email jerb@insider.com or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Michael Cogley in London.