Image: Quibi / Protocol
What Quibi got wrong

Good morning! This Thursday, Quibi's dead, PayPal likes Bitcoin and Jony Ive is working for Airbnb.
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The thing about Jeffrey Katzenberg's crazy Quibi vision, which came to an abrupt end yesterday? He was kind of right.
The future is short-form, mobile video, some of it of incredibly expensive and of high quality, in an app with a dumb name. Problem is, that name is probably TikTok or Snapchat, or maybe YouTube or Reels. It's definitely not Quibi.
What Quibi got wrong was all in the execution. It never had a hit show, something that leapt out of the app and into popular culture. Quibi didn't own its shows, either, meaning there was little possibility for licensing or ways to make other money from its content. After all his years at Disney, Katzenberg knew better than most the importance of owning IP, but he made a compromise to build the library, and that ultimately became a problem.
But the biggest mistake Katzenberg and Whitman made was assuming that the future of entertainment was just about watching stuff. And it's not. It's about screenshots and memes; remixes and duets; deepfaking yourself into your favorite scenes; watching stuff with your friends; getting to know your favorite creators. Quibi was old-world TV dressed up like the future, while the actual future was happening elsewhere. It never had a chance.
It was like Christmas Day for crypto believers: PayPal announced that it's getting ready to allow users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency from within the PayPal app. And later, it'll extend that feature to Venmo. Bitcoin's value immediately hit a 2020 high and the Bitcoin subreddit became more popular than the sex subreddit. Big day for all the HODLers out there.
PayPal's vote of confidence in crypto here is huge, particularly its promise to let users pay with crypto at PayPal-accepting merchants around the world. That's a big step in taking crypto from "investment asset" to "thing that replaces dollars."
But there are some catches: You can't take your crypto out of PayPal once you've bought it, meaning the money lives in the app until you sell it or use it. You can't send it to other people. And you also have to make all purchases in USD. It's really more like Robinhood: a super easy way to buy and sell things, not so much a brand new way of moving money around.
Now that PayPal, Square and others are starting to get into the crypto-holding game, this market's going to change fast. Can Coinbase, Binance and others keep up with the big players encroaching on their territory? Can someone else beat PayPal to being the most common way to buy and sell crypto? Are we two days from some huge Bitcoin collapse and a lot of people emailing me that crypto is dumb and who cares? The only thing I know for sure is everything could change a million more times in the next five minutes.
One reason that software is great is because it doesn't have to be finished when you ship it. You can update, bugfix and improve things even after people buy it. SaaS all the things! Except sometimes that software is literally the stuff of life and death.
Tesla's starting to roll out a feature it calls "Full Self-Driving," giving Tesla owners even fewer reasons to touch their steering wheels or pedals. As The Washington Post reported, the update's coming even as many critics say the tech isn't ready.
But here's what I want to know: Would you trust the update? Are you going to download it for your own Tesla? And if you were Elon Musk, how would you approach developing and releasing a technology like this with such huge potential but such scary downsides?
I want to hear all your thoughts: Reply to this email or send me a note at david@protocol.com.
Strengthening healthcare interoperability and cybersecurity in the COVID era
A stronger healthcare system means connecting people, data and technology for a frictionless experience across care settings. At Philips, we're developing interoperable solutions that seamlessly transfer data so clinicians can stay focused on what matters most: the patient.
The remote-work world seems perfect for Slack, but Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss thinks it's going to lose:
Jewel Burks Solomon, head of Google for Startups in the U.S., said one way to improve diversity is simply writing checks:
Think Bezos is rich? You ain't seen nothing yet, Chamath Palihapitiya said:
Eric Schmidt said Google shouldn't be hit for monopoly behavior, but thinks social networks need to be regulated:
Jony Ive is now working with Airbnb. The two are in a "special collaboration" to design new products and services, and to build Airbnb's internal design team. I'm excited for every Airbnb to feature much more aluminium and be suddenly very slippery.
Ant Financial got approval for its historically huge IPO. It plans to list both in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and to raise upwards of $30 billion.
Bob Iger is the newest board member of Perfect Day, an alternative protein company. (So far its product is dairy-free ice cream, but it claims to have bigger aspirations). Iger's also investing in the company.
Twitter rolled out that retweet change we mentioned the other week: Now, if you want to retweet something, you're prompted to do a quote-tweet instead. The goal, Twitter said, is to add some friction to the process. But for some artists, it's taking away their chance to reach people, and giving all the likes and RTs to the quote-tweeters instead. Nothing's ever simple in social. (Fun fact: If you don't type anything and just send the tweet, it still does a regular RT. You're welcome.)
Strengthening healthcare interoperability and cybersecurity in the COVID era
A stronger healthcare system means connecting people, data and technology for a frictionless experience across care settings. At Philips, we're developing interoperable solutions that seamlessly transfer data so clinicians can stay focused on what matters most: the patient.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from 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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