August 22, 2022

Photo: Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Good morning! The hottest thing in climate tech right now is carbon dioxide removal, but without any oversight or regulation, researchers worry it’s moving too fast.
Carbon dioxide removal can’t solve all our climate woes, but that’s not stopping big money from pouring into the field. The industry is likely decades away from being ready for prime time, which could make now a perfect time for companies to pump the brakes and answer some ethical questions.
CDR is in uncharted territory. There’s no framework around issues like noise pollution from air capture plants or the ecological impact of carbon removal, Protocol Climate reporter Michelle Ma writes. Researchers have already started calling for a code of conduct.
But ethical guidelines are just a start. It’s one thing for a company to say it’s on board, and it’s another thing for it to hold itself accountable.
There's also the concern that carbon removal's existence simply allows corporations to continue polluting the atmosphere. As Michelle writes, a good carbon removal framework will need to be accompanied by another kind of commitment: a good-faith effort to reduce emissions.
You can read Michelle's full story here.
— Sarah Roach
Businesses are facing an unprecedented talent shortage. So why are half of them also cutting jobs? This push-pull dynamic in the labor market surfaced in PwC’s latest Pulse Survey of over 700 public and private company executives, 14% of whom lead tech, media and telecom organizations. (Most others hail from consumer markets, industrial products and financial services.)
Execs are worried about talent acquisition and retention: They ranked it as the second-biggest risk to their business — right after the top risk, cyberattacks. But many are still cutting staff and withdrawing job offers at the same time.
This all adds up to a “labor market paradox,” Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader of PwC’s People and Organization practice, told reporters. Amid all of the freezes and job cuts, execs cited growth as their top business objective (83%), and only 30% said recession poses a major risk to their companies.
“Specialized” is the keyword in all of this, and skilled workers are still sitting pretty in the labor market. Sethi called this a “workforce mix change” in which many companies are prioritizing certain skills as they rely more on automation and contract workers for other functions.
A version of this item first appeared in our Workplace newsletter. You can subscribe here.
Companies have been increasingly alerting the FBI about prospective employees using real-time deepfake video and deepfake audio during remote job interviews. The equipment needed to pull something like that off isn’t as sophisticated as you might think, and advances in technology means it'll only get easier.
But there are things that companies can do to prevent getting duped: Read our full story here to find out more.
DataRobot's AI Cloud for Financial Services Unlocks the Art of the Possible: DataRobot continues to attract clients in financial services who want to de-risk their AI investments and rapidly scale AI to almost every part of their operations, resulting in improved productivity and higher customer satisfaction.
SoftBank's Yoshimitsu Goto said the company sold Alibaba shares to show investors its finances are fine:
The FDIC asked FTX and other crypto companies to stop misleading consumers about the insurance status of their funds:
The Saleslove 2022 conference starts today and runs through tomorrow in Austin.
Women Impact Tech begins in Boston today and runs through tomorrow.
Java Conf starts tomorrow. It’ll feature speakers from Red Hat, Microsoft and other cloud companies.
Salesforce reports earnings Wednesday after market close.
Tesla’s three-for-one split shares will start trading on Thursday.
Blake Peterson is joining Meta to work on content policy regulation. She most recently worked at the State Department's Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy as acting digital freedom coordinator.
Izzy Santa and Katie Patala joined Qualcomm as senior director and director of public affairs. Santa previously led comms at One Concerns, and Patala comes from Mercury Public Affairs.
NSO Group’s Shalev Hulio is stepping down, and COO Yaron Shohat is taking over as part of a bigger reorganization of the company. Another 100 employees will also be laid off.
Amazon may be in the running to buy Signify Health. CVS is also among the bidders for Signify, and offers are due around Labor Day weekend, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Apple employees don't want to go back to the office. Some launched a petition calling for more flexible work arrangements.
Websites are selling abortion pills that haven’t been approved by the FDA, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Apple supplier Foxconn is investing $300 million in northern Vietnam, generating 30,000 jobs in the area.
Amazon Care’s fast and frugal approach to telehealth can pose risks and is often at odds with medical best practices, The Washington Post reported.
Walmart and DoorDash are ending their four-year delivery partnership in September. The companies say it’s “no longer mutually beneficial.”
Samsung broke ground on a research complex in South Korea, and plans to invest $15 billion in the project by 2028.
Twitter was on fire last week after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Horizon Worlds was coming to France and Spain using a screenshot of his digital avatar standing in front of the Eiffel Tower and (we think?) La Sagrada Familia. Apparently, the criticism got so intense that Zuckerberg needed to say something.
“I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic — it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch,” he said, adding that “major updates to avatar graphics are coming soon.” Still, as The Verge pointed out, what you can do with graphics matters more than the graphics themselves.
DataRobot's AI Cloud for Financial Services Unlocks the Art of the Possible: Banks need to secure a competitive advantage in an increasingly tight race to harness best-in-breed technology. Decision makers need to not just plan a future-ready strategy, but also recognize the value of AI that could boost not just their performance in-house but also their reputation among their global customers.
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to sourcecode@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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