April 12, 2022

Photo by Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance via Getty Images
Good morning! There’s nothing more satisfying than the wind in your hair (or in my case, what remains of it) on a nice spring day. While some folks may dream of rolling through the city with the car windows down or hopping in a convertible, for me, it’s all about the e-bike. And I’m not alone! I’m Brian Kahn, and if my music tastes are any indication, I died as a Victorian teen girl in a past life. 👻
The world’s big climate report landed last week with a thud, forcing all of us to confront just what the hell we’re doing. Everyone (including your very own Protocol Climate editor) spent time diving into the big-picture stuff: Renewables! Speculative carbon removal technology! We love a big climate solution, of course, but something else stood out in the report: the little ones.
We don’t demand enough of ourselves when it comes to fixing the climate. I don’t mean that in the Big Oil victim blame-y way (we see you, BP). I mean it in the "we can do this" way. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report shows using less energy is our secret climate change-fighting superpower. And the ways we can do that are pretty easy compared to, say, sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky with machines that barely exist. Call me crazy, but it feels like we should be talking about this more.
The case for fewer cars has never been clearer. Transportation is the biggest chunk of carbon pollution in the U.S. thanks to the American love of the automobile. Look, I love a good drive up the PCH as much as anyone. And I fully support more EVs on the road. But the IPCC also makes it clear that we have other means to cut individual carbon emissions.
So, too, is the case for more e-bikes. OK, so we’ve established some very important ground rules here. More cars are bad. More bikes are good. I propose a new one: More e-bikes would be best.
We should demand more from policymakers, too. If you, like me, would like to have this feeling of infinite power all the time, then it’s going to mean putting a little pressure on the powers that be. The IPCC is real about this, and we should be too: It’s going to take a wholesale overhaul of society to address climate change. When it comes to e-bikes becoming the norm, there are manifold ways to make that rapid transition even faster.
In fact, Rep. Earl Blumenauer has tried to pass a bill that would do just that for years. He hasn’t succeeded — yet. The odds are long to pass the House, let alone the Senate where Sen. Joe Manchin and 50 Republicans have stood in the way of climate action. The IPCC alone surely won’t convince them, so I invite them all to join me on an e-bike sprint through Midtown anytime. Assuming they’re not too cowardly to accept, I’m confident they’ll see the future is already here: It just needs to be more evenly distributed.
"To win more revenue for your sales teams, start with the customer. Understand what your customers need, and make sure that those needs are aligned to clearly defined internal success criteria. Build trust across the teams that what you sold the customer is what is being delivered." - Pilar Schenk, COO at Cisco Collaboration
Parag Agrawal may have meant something when he said Elon Musk needed a background check, applied ethics leader Ann Skeet said:
Before COVID-19, Eric Schmidt said he was once able to talk to young workers about professionalism in the office:
Susan Wojcicki said YouTube’s NFT push will help smaller creators monetize:
Sonos bought Mayht Holding BV, which works on audio transducers, for about $100 million.
Thoma Bravo is buying SailPoint, which offers identity and access management software, for $6.9 billion.
Epic raised $2 billion in new funding, thanks to investments from Sony and Kirkbi. The new funding will bolster Epic’s metaverse plans.
Ripsy Bandourian is Plaid’s new head of Europe. She last worked at Booking.com as VP of Global Accommodation Partnerships.
Kristen Hines is Activision Blizzard’s new chief DEI officer. Hines is an ex-Accenture exec.
Javier Manzanares is ClimateCoin’s new co-CEO. Manzanares previously worked at the Green Climate Fund as deputy executive director.
Ben Barrett joined Starry as VP of Investor Relations. Barrett most recently led investor relations at Compass.
Google is on board with the Silenced No More Act. The company wrote in a proxy statement that workers who signed NDAs can still talk about harassment, assault and other violations.
Meta’s paying morethan ever before to keep Mark Zuckerberg safe. The company spent $26.8 million on security for Zuckerberg and his family in 2021, a 6% increase from 2020.
iPhone maker Pegatron stopped production at two plants in China because of COVID-19-related lockdowns. Pegatron is waiting on the government’s word to start back up again.
Shopify is planning a 10-for-one stock split and wants a “founder share” for CEO Tobi Lutke to get more voting power.
Twitter called off its AMA with Elon Musk. Employees also got yesterday off as a monthly day of rest. Perfect timing.
Google is suing an alleged puppy scammer, claiming a person took money for basset hounds and other “adorable puppies” that were never delivered. And the company said there will be more consumer-protection lawsuits on the way.
Expect TikTok’s ad revenue to explode this year. A research firm predicted the platform’s ad revenue will triple to more than $11 billion in 2022.
Bored Apes are heading to the big screen. They’re getting a trilogy of short films called “The Degen Trilogy,” which will premiere during NFT.NYC this summer.
Alexa, grow a tree. Amazon customers in the U.S. can now donate $1 to plant a tree using that Alexa command, and Amazon is giving $1 million to the group doing the tree planting.Netflix once thought adding a heart reaction to content would let users show their true love for something. But A/B testing indicated otherwise.
The streaming service has toyed with its rating system for a while. It once used a five-star rating system and played around with an applause icon and shooting stars before deciding between a heart or two thumbs up. The platform thought the heart would win; A/B tests showed that people liked two thumbs better. Who would’ve thought!
"Trying to make every deal as big as possible often adds complexity and extends sales cycles. To accelerate growth, sellers should focus on landing faster, and then expanding, and expanding again. Getting customers into your solution sooner helps you solve their initial problems, then later, you can grow together." - Michael Megerian, Chief Revenue Officer at Yello
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to sourcecode@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referenced Sony instead of Sonos. This story was updated on April 12, 2022.
To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. If you continue browsing. you accept our use of cookies. You can review our privacy policy to find out more about the cookies we use.