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How Kamala Harris feels about Big Tech

Good morning! This Tuesday, Kamala Harris has thoughts on Big Tech, Airbnb might really go public this time, and Walmart has another partner in the fight against Amazon.
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Here's a question: How much sway does a vice president have when it comes to policy, particularly tech policy? Hard to say, but generally speaking … not much? Suffice to say, though, the tech world in general is psyched that Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate.
As for what Harris herself thinks about tech, we do have some evidence:
There's one other way in which Harris is a bit of a tech story: As our friends at POLITICO wrote last year, she's been the subject of a remarkably widespread disinformation campaign.
No doubt the relationship between the tech industry and the Biden-Harris administration would be complicated: The pair is getting huge tech money and tech-exec support, but continues to promise to be hard on tech and to keep looking into antitrust, Section 230 and other issues. And there's a lot of talking left to do between now and Nov. 3.
Biz Carson writes: In April, Brian Chesky described the coronavirus pandemic as a "torpedo" that hit what was once a very nice ship. The $31 billion startup had been on the verge of going public before the pandemic, then it lost $1 billion in bookings and was forced to lay off 25% of its staff.
In perhaps the most remarkable turnarounds of 2020, Airbnb is now not a torpedo-sunk ship but a company that's reportedly filing to go public by the end of the month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Remember: Airbnb has pressure to go public ASAP after two years of imminent-IPO speculation. Some of Airbnb's early employee shares expire as early as November, so it's a tight window.
In its ongoing quest to keep Amazon from taking over the entire shopping industry, Walmart's again choosing to partner rather than build. This time, it signed up with Instacart to do same-day grocery delivery.
This isn't to say Walmart's not also pursuing The Full Amazon, trying to own the whole experience. Walmart+ is reportedly coming soon (it was supposed to be weeks ago, but got delayed), and the company has experimented with all sorts of delivery strategies. It even owned a video service for a while, and made a bunch of crappy tablets, because if you're going to copy Amazon, you might as well do the whole thing.
But by signing up with Instacart, by partnering with Shopify, by opening up its marketplace to third-party sellers, Walmart's also playing nicely with others. Amazon's not known for that. Amazon also has a giant, decades-long advantage over Walmart in digital, but there are worse ways to play catch-up than to find the best, most popular companies in your space and partner with them. It's Amazon vs. The World now, and the world's looking pretty powerful.
During the upcoming 2020 National Political Conventions, Protocol will host a two-event series on the tech and policy needed to enable a diverse future workforce and a strong economy. The events feature Republican and Democrat policy and political leaders and C-Suite leaders from Dropbox, Cognizant, IBM, Adobe, and more. This series is hosted in partnership with ITI.
Françoise Brougher, Pinterest's former COO, sued the company for firing her after she complained of sexist treatment:
Twitter's making it easier to control who can reply to your tweets, and director of product management Suzanne Xie said it's a safer space already for the Twitter-famous:
Floyd Abrams, a well-known First Amendment attorney, is now defending Clearview AI. Why? Because he said it's a story of our times:
Masa Son isn't quite back on offense yet, but he said the Vision Fund's fortunes are looking up again:
Dhivya Suryadevara is the new CFO of Stripe. She joins from GM, where she had the same job, as Stripe continues to round out its executive team. John Stapleton will replace her at GM.
Lisa Lewin is the new CEO of General Assembly. She joins from Ethical Ventures and has a history in education. She's GA's second boss ever and replaces Jake Schwartz.
Kanye West's presidential campaign ran into trouble after it failed to file Wisconsin ballot papers on time. It missed the deadline by 14 seconds, then proceeded to argue that actually, the seconds between 5:00:00 and 5:00:59 are still technically part of 5 o'clock. Best of all, a lawyer for the campaign said that videos of the late arrival couldn't be believed, because they relied on iPhone clocks. Which are, apparently, "notoriously faulty." Good news, friends! Every time you're late for anything, ever, just blame your phone. Can't even tell the time.
During the upcoming 2020 National Political Conventions, Protocol will host a two-event series on the tech and policy needed to enable a diverse future workforce and a strong economy. The events feature Republican and Democrat policy and political leaders and C-Suite leaders from Dropbox, Cognizant, IBM, Adobe, and more. This series is hosted in partnership with ITI.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce. 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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