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This week: Good news turns tech upside down as Jeff Bezos looks for new friends
In just a few days, the sunny land of tech has been jolted by a series of destabilizing forces. Just as tech investors were sorting out the implications of a Joe Biden presidency, Pfizer's November surprise of a coronavirus vaccine turned everything upside down.
Suddenly, the champions of the stay-at-home era — from Zoom to Netflix to
- Yelp, whose business depends on people going to restaurants, saw its stock surge more than 19% on Monday.
- Lyft, which offers ride-hailing but not food deliveries, enjoyed a 26% pop in its share price.
Even if the celebrations of Pfizer's vaccine results prove premature (the results are based on an ongoing trial with plenty of unanswered questions), some of the major trends and assumptions that have shaped the tech market are now in flux.
The European Commission's antitrust charges against Amazon filed on Tuesday represent the most significant regulatory threat the e-commerce giant has faced in its 26 years.
- If Amazon loses the case, it could be fined 10% of its revenue, which would be about $28 billion. More importantly, Jeff Bezos' "Everything Store" could see its influence and power in commerce severely constrained.
- With Amazon under threat in Europe, Bezos needs a friend: After years of clashing with Trump, Bezos rushed to congratulate Biden on winning the election — but it's not at all clear that Biden has the same warm, fuzzy feelings for Bezos or Amazon. (The president-elect has blasted both, saying they don't not pay enough in taxes.)
China's decision to put the kibosh on Ant Group's $37 billion initial public offering presaged what appears to be a larger clampdown by China on its homegrown tech companies.
- This week, China published draft antitrust guidelines directed at reining in tech platforms like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com. It's a surprising turn of events given China's history of protecting its tech companies.
- What does it mean for the ongoing US-China tech Cold War? If nothing else, China is now in a similarly awkward position as the US, cracking down on its tech companies on the home front, while fighting for their interests abroad.
And Apple's newly unveiled M1 microprocessors carry a symbolic power that could resonate beyond the Mac computers that house them.
- Apple's chip switch underscores the shake-up happening in the silicon industry that powers all our gadgets and apps. Nvidia is about to acquire Arm. And for Intel, the onetime king of the chip realm, there's no more denying the need for a corporate reinvention in the vein of Satya Nadella's Microsoft reboot.
Tech-tonic shifts
On the block: SoftBank is looking to sell Boston Dynamics, the maker of those four-legged robo-dogs, according to Bloomberg.
On the move:
On lockdown: A former Microsoft engineer was sentence to nine years in jail for stealing $10 million worth of digital currency from the company. According to GeekWire, the Ukrainian-born engineer used a "bitcoin mixing service" to cover his tracks — apparently not well enough.
Snapshot: Disney's Magic Kingdom goes Westworld
Theme parks have seen business plunge during the pandemic, so it's no surprise that Disney is eager to show off its latest attractions.
But you have to wonder if these new animatronic robots are the best way to attract back wary visitors.
The nightmarish fellow pictured above belongs to the new generation of Disney's animatronic robots, bearing all the features of a human face, such as eyelids, a nose, and teeth with gums.
Disney says the robot can mimic humanlike actions such as rapid eye movements, blinking, breathing, and tilting its head. In particular, the robot's gaze can convey various humanlike emotions and nonverbal cues during interactions.
Presumably these robots will have a friendlier skin covering their mechanical skeletons when they're set free in the parks. No matter how cuddly the final version looks, though, the robots' lifelike traits might strike some visitors as creepy enough to make them wonder if they bought a ticket to Disney World or Westworld.
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Recommended Readings:
Not necessarily in tech:
OK then, that'll do it for this week. Thanks for reading, and if you like this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it.
— Alexei