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Biden takes on the chip shortage

Good morning! This Thursday, GameStop's going nuts again, but we're not going to talk about that. Instead, a look at the Biden administration's early plan to fix the chip shortage, how Facebook is learning to plan for the worst, and the tech world's sad farewell to Fry's.
Also, listen to the latest Source Code podcast, with Citizen CEO Andrew Frame. We talked about privacy, security, fighting COVID-19 and what it means to keep people safe online. It was a fun one.
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The last 12 months have made terrifyingly clear how fragile the global supply chain really is, and the U.S. wants more of it on its own shores.
Joe Biden signed an executive order yesterday "to help create more resilient and secure supply chains for critical and essential goods," the White House said in a statement.
The chip shortage seems to have really set alarms off inside the government. This isn't just a problem for wannabe F-150 owners; it's a sign of things to come, and a wake-up call to countries that now know exactly how dependent they are on foreign manufacturing for everything from laptops to cars to mission-critical infrastructure.
Biden never said "this is about China," but he may as well have. Here's what he did say: "We shouldn't have to rely on a foreign country, especially one that doesn't share our interests or our values, in order to protect and provide for our people during a national emergency."
The optimists always win. At least, that's what you hear in tech circles. But if the last few years have taught the industry anything, it's that even optimists should spend more time asking what could go wrong.
Planning for the worst is crucial at the beginning of the development of any product. But that's hard when you're scrambling to keep the lights on. "In the first five years or so at Facebook, honestly a lot of our focus was just trying to keep up with scaling the site," Schroepfer said. But there's a balance to be struck between worst-case thinking and pushing things forward.
Anna Kramer writes: Fry's Electronics has finally passed on from this world, and oh, how Silicon Valley will miss thee. If there's an afterworld for dead businesses, Fry's will have a place of honor there.
Fry's was yet another victim of COVID-19 and the resulting economic crisis, and was forced to close its doors for good because it just couldn't see a path forward. Some of its stores were so random I'm honestly surprised it lasted this long. (If you never knew Fry's, the one in Burbank was sci-fi themed and had a faux UFO crashing into the front.)
Ironically, some of the people who loved the place the most are probably also the ones who helped kill it. All that wonderful technological innovation means we can buy all of our hardware online, making Fry's just another casualty to ecommerce. Thanks a lot, internet.
In 2018, Amazon established a $15/hr start wage for all their U.S. employees, which is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. They've seen the positive impact on their employees and their families. That's why they're calling on Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act.
When the Turkish government asked Facebook to block a Syrian group it didn't like, Sheryl Sandberg sent one of those one-line emails people are going to remember:
On Protocol | Enterprise: Salesforce manager Vivianne Castillo quit, telling colleagues it was down to the company's culture:
Want to build a remote company? Stop your execs from going to the office, Brian Armstrong said:
On Protocol | Enterprise: Companies coming to cloud now need a bit more help than the early adopters, Microsoft's Alysa Taylor said:
The Bitcoin-promoting Twitterverse is a big problem, Klarna's Sebastian Siemiatkowski said:
HP is buying HyperX for $425 million. The gaming-accessory market is nuts right now.
Fidji Simo and Barry McCarthy are both joining Instacart's board, as it beefs up ahead of a likely IPO.
Rick Klau is California's new chief technology innovation officer, after leaving Google last year.
Rajeev Suri is the new CEO of Inmarsat. He previously ran Nokia for more than a decade.
Mike Hanley is GitHub's new (and first) chief security officer. He was previously Cisco's CISO.
Zhu Wenjia is TikTok's new global head of R&D, Reuters reported. Zhu, who was previously head of ByteDance's Jinri Toutiao news app, will report directly to ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming.
Jerry Bruckheimer is joining the board at esports company Skillz. The esports business continues to look less like professional sports and more like entertainment, and this is some serious Hollywood firepower.
It's not just you. Spending all day on Zoom turns out to be legitimately tiring. A Stanford study found four reasons why video chats are more exhausting than face-to-face meetings: too much eye contact, too much seeing yourself, too little movement and too much mental work keeping up with a bunch of boxes on the screen. Can we all just agree to do audio-only meetings by default from now on? Please?
In 2018, Amazon established a $15/hr start wage for all their U.S. employees, which is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. They've seen the positive impact on their employees and their families. That's why they're calling on Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act.
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Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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