Source Code
Source Code: Welcome to a new kind of tech publication
Your five-minute guide to what's happening in tech this Wednesday, from the app that crashed the Iowa caucus to the reasons behind Tesla's remarkable run.
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Your five-minute guide to what's happening in tech this Wednesday, from the app that crashed the Iowa caucus to the reasons behind Tesla's remarkable run.
Good morning, and welcome to Protocol! If you don't know what Protocol is, that's OK. We're a new publication from Robert Allbritton, the publisher of POLITICO, dedicated to covering the people, power and politics of tech. Today is our launch day. Check out protocol.com to see the stories of the day as well as a note from Tim Grieve, our executive editor, about who we are and what we're up to.
But before you do that, let me introduce myself. My name is David Pierce, and I'm Protocol's editor at large. This is Source Code, our daily briefing on the most important stories in tech. Normally, this newsletter won't start with a long preamble from me — it'll be a quick, fun and essential way to start your weekdays. If we do it right, you should be ready to win the day before you finish your coffee. Maybe even before it's done brewing.
I have more to tell you about Protocol and Source Code, but we'll get to that later. Let's get to the news.
Steve Wozniak says he still appreciates his weekly paycheck from Apple—even though it's only $50 or so:
Clearview AI has a right to collect people's photos … according to its CEO, Hoan Ton-That:
The Iowa chaos is a bad sign, Joshua Greenbaum, CTO at the U.S. Vote Foundation, told Protocol's Charles Levinson:
Is Facebook too involved with Libra? Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga thinks so:
Last March, Gerard Niemira, the CEO of a company called Shadow Inc., told Protocol's Issie Lapowsky that Democratic election tech was a "tangled morass." He said this in the midst of talking about how he could fix things.
But Shadow's app was at the center of Monday's Iowa caucus debacle. It took a while, but we now have a much clearer picture of what happened:
The mess up has had immediate consequences. Nevada — which had planned to use Shadow's app for its caucuses in a few weeks — announced that it's changing plans. And the whole idea of using tech in elections is suddenly up for debate (again).
Niemira told Bloomberg that he is "really disappointed that some of our technology created an issue that made the caucus difficult." He blamed the issues on "a bug in the code that transmits results data into the state party's data warehouse."
Read Issie's story to find out why the problem is so, so much deeper than that.
Nasdaq Technology is reshaping the future of global markets by redefining what a marketplace can be.
Every day this week, Tesla's share price has gone on a virtually unprecedented upward journey. It seems impossible, outlandish, ridiculous, overblown. Until it happens again the next day.
The weirdest part is that no one seems to know exactly why it's happening. It's a squeeze on the market's most-shorted stock! It's a bunch of amateur investors who just think Elon Musk is hella cool! It's Saudi Arabia! No, it's China! Maybe listeners just really liked "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe"!
The most compelling explanation I've heard goes like this: Tesla has a long history of getting in its own way, with things like ill-advised tweets and inefficient production lines. But now, Gartner analyst Michael Ramsey told me, Tesla's starting to nail the basics:
Whatever the reason, it looks like Musk's unusual compensation plan is going to work out. There's an increasingly plausible world in which Tesla makes Musk the world's richest person.
Have you bought or sold Tesla stock in the last couple of months? What made you move? How high do you think it's going? Send me a note: david@protocol.com.
In an interview with the WSJ, Larry Kudlow said that the White House is working with American tech companies to build "an American soup-to-nuts infrastructure for 5G." That's what Trump has been asking for, Kudlow said.
The project's focus is on building cloud services and software that can run on top of virtually any company's hardware — because no American company is set up to compete head-on with Huawei in the 5G infrastructure business. Kudlow even allowed for the possibility that the America-first plan might need to include European companies like Nokia and Ericsson.
If you're skeptical, you're still probably not alone. "There were U.S. alternatives [to Huawei], but they essentially went bankrupt," NYU professor Sundeep Rangan told Adam. "Taxpayers would be very confused about the government investing money into an industry that already has low margins and had to consolidate."
This is just the latest in a number of Trump administration moves designed to fight Huawei's 5G dominance. Kudlow echoed the party line on that front, calling the company "a threat to our national security."
As you know, as FedEx and UPS know, and as everyone knows, Amazon is interested in taking more control over deliveries. It's working on drones, adorable robots, and who knows what else, but one of its more interesting plans might be a plain-old van. It's working with Rivian to manufacture 100,000 purpose-built vehicles and showed off some early designs on Tuesday. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the van is … kind of adorable? It pairs some Pixar-cuteness with an electric drivetrain, Alexa-powered smarts, and some seriously complicated ideas about packing efficiency. Coming to your Prime-subscribing curb in 2021.
Nasdaq Technology is reshaping the future of global markets by redefining what a marketplace can be.
That's it for us today. Source Code will come from me every morning, and you can always reach me at david@protocol.com or by replying to this email. (I'd love to see where you're reading this; I'll feature whoever sends a Protocol photo from the most remote location in tomorrow's newsletter.) But every day you'll also be seeing the work of Protocol's newsletter editor Jamie Condliffe and our terrific team of reporters. And I hope you'll see your own contributions here, too! Have a question or a story idea? Get a new job / have a birthday / sell your company / pull off an elaborate hack the likes of which the world has never seen? We want the Source Code community — the business leaders and tech insiders also getting this email — to hear all about it. (If you don't want to get this email anymore, you can unsubscribe below. I'll try not to hold it against you.)
Welcome to Source Code — I'm thrilled you're here, and I'm so excited to do this together.
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to me, david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. See you tomorrow.
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
Funding for Black-owned startups needs to grow. That's just the start.
"There is no quick fix to close the racial wealth and opportunity gaps, but there are many ways companies can help," said Mastercard's Michael Froman.
Michael Froman is the vice chairman and president of Strategic Growth for Mastercard.
When Tanya Van Court's daughter shared her 9th birthday wish list — a bike and an investment account — Tanya had a moment of inspiration. She wondered whether helping more kids get excited about saving for goals and learning simple financial principles could help them build a pathway to financial security. With a goal of reaching every kid in America, she founded Goalsetter, a savings and financial literacy app for kids. Last month, Tanya brought in backers including NBA stars Kevin Durant and Chris Paul, raising $3.9 million in seed funding.
How Stripe, Xero and ModSquad work with external partners and customers in Slack channels to build stronger, lasting relationships.
Every business leader knows you can learn the most about your customers and partners by meeting them face-to-face. But in the wake of Covid-19, the kinds of conversations that were taking place over coffee, meals and in company halls are now relegated to video conferences—which can be less effective for nurturing relationships—and email.
Email inboxes, with hard-to-search threads and siloed messages, not only slow down communication but are also an easy target for scammers. Earlier this year, Google reported more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to Covid-19 scams in just one week and more than 240 million daily spam messages.
Digital verification systems could give people the freedom to work and travel. Here's how they could actually happen.
One day, you might not need to carry that physical passport around, either.
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
There will come a time, hopefully in the near future, when you'll feel comfortable getting on a plane again. You might even stop at the lounge at the airport, head to the regional office when you land and maybe even see a concert that evening. This seemingly distant reality will depend upon vaccine rollouts continuing on schedule, an open-sourced digital verification system and, amazingly, the blockchain.
Several countries around the world have begun to prepare for what comes after vaccinations. Swaths of the population will be vaccinated before others, but that hasn't stopped industries decimated by the pandemic from pioneering ways to get some people back to work and play. One of the most promising efforts is the idea of a "vaccine passport," which would allow individuals to show proof that they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 in a way that could be verified by businesses to allow them to travel, work or relax in public without a great fear of spreading the virus.
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.