What your post-coronavirus office looks like
Image: You X Ventures / Unsplash

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Good morning! This Friday, a look at how the workplace will change when we can all go back, the logic behind Verizon's BlueJeans acquisition, and a coronavirus vocabulary lesson.
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The way we work has changed forever, Larry Ellison said, and Zoom's part of it:
How bad is the ad market going to get this year? Barry Diller put a dollar number on it:
In his annual shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos said Amazon is working on a mass-testing program:
Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook's not going back to the office until at least June:
Like Zuckerberg said, when we'll go back to work is an open and hard-to-answer question. What "going back to work" will even look like might be even more complicated. As Protocol's Lauren Hepler, Matt Drange and Levi Sumagaysay found, there's change coming to an office near you.
The big, immediate question for companies to answer: How do you test employees for coronavirus?
As for the office itself, the days of cramming everyone onto a long workbench may be over. At least for now.
One concept to look out for: the 6 Feet Office, an idea from real-estate giant Cushman & Wakefield that's taking off in China as employees head back to the office.
As for when all this will matter? Nobody knows. Slack's one of the only tech companies that has even floated a date for reopening offices, of June 1.
So you're a wireless carrier. A big one. Very successful. What's in it for you spending hundreds of millions on a video-conferencing tool, like Verizon did with BlueJeans?
The carrier reportedly paid "less than $500 million" for the company, which looks like a steal in this moment of crazy growth and valuations for practically every video platform. BlueJeans co-founder Krish Ramakrishnan said the service saw 300% growth in three months.
Maybe Verizon wanted to buy its way into the future of communication, like Facebook did when it noticed WhatsApp was so popular? But I don't think this is quite that.
Gartner analyst Mike Fasciani told me he's unusually optimistic about the acquisition.
We know it's a challenging time for small businesses.
To help, Facebook created a $100 million Small Business Grants Program to provide businesses with the resources they need.
Learn more about the Facebook Small Business Grants Program.
"I hope you're holding up okay" has become my go-to email opener. I write it probably 100 times a day — it's my contribution to the First Line of Emails I've Received While Quarantining poem that's making the rounds on Twitter.
And it turns out coronavirus has changed more than just the way we email. Protocol's Sofie Kodner found a whole new world of words created in these trying times. Here's your COVID-19 glossary:
I'm guessing Zoombombing ends up in the dictionary first, but quarantini is my favorite of the list. Regardless, your challenge this weekend is to use each of these in a sentence. With a straight face. And no explanation afterward. Tell me how you get on: david@protocol.com.
Megan Quinn is Niantic's new COO. She was previously at Spark Capital, but was actually part of the original Niantic team in 2010. "I believe the opportunity for Niantic is much bigger now than we imagined then," Quinn said in a blog post.
From Protocol: Airbnb laid off contractors and postponed summer internships. CEO Brian Chesky announced the news during his weekly Q&A over Zoom on Thursday, according to a worker who was in the meeting.
GoPro laid off 200 employees — about 20% of the company — and plans to reduce office space and other expenses in an attempt to cut operating expenses by $100 million this year. The company also appointed Aimée Lapic as its chief digital officer, bringing her over from Pandora.
Protocol's Emily Dreyfuss got a surprising email this week. "Hi Emily. We know that the coronavirus crisis is financially impacting many in the Rover community, so we want to make sure you're aware of the money currently in your Rover account," the email read, followed by a prompt to claim her cash. Emily explains: "I used to pet sit for Rover, back when I worked from home full time and Rover was an almost-too-good-to-be-true way to get paid to HANG OUT WITH DOGS while I was writing." She stopped four years ago when her first kid was born — and forgot all about the $416 still in her account. It's not just Emily, either: Rover said it's paid out about $300,000 to sitters in the network in recent weeks, and more funds are sitting unclaimed. Pets: truly the gift that keeps on giving.
We know it's a challenging time for small businesses.
Learn more about Facebook's $100 million Small Business Grants Program.
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to me, david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your weekend, see you Monday.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized EPIC president Marc Rotenberg's coronavirus experience. He says that he has never experienced symptoms of COVID-19. The article was updated April 17.
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