David Pierce
Why Basecamp matters

Good morning! This Monday, what you need to know on the first day of Epic v. Apple, what your company should take away from the Basecamp fiasco, the head of Neuralink is out and there's a new browser to save you from your browser.
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One question that has floated around a lot the last few days is, uh, who cares about Basecamp? It makes a couple of quasi-popular apps and has (or had, anyway) 57 employees. Co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have a lot of Twitter followers and are influential thinkers on the future of work, but still. Who cares?
A lot of people do, and the reason is simple: Basecamp's story isn't just about Basecamp. Or about Coinbase from a few months ago. This kind of cultural upheaval and reset is either already happening or coming soon at pretty much every company, everywhere. And in reality, every company should reckon with how companies interact with society, what is and isn't a company's responsibility, and what it means to be a good place to work in a messy, complex world.
This kind of conversation has always happened at work. But when it happens on Slack or in Workplace, in view of the whole company, free of context and stored forever, the conversation has a different effect on the team. And so maybe the rules need to change.
None of the answers are easy or obvious. And I wouldn't take too much advice from me, your friendly neighborhood white dude, on the subject. But I do have one recommendation: Don't try to do it all at once. And maybe find a better way to explain yourself than a punchy blog post. That doesn't seem to work very well.
Epic v. Apple, the only trial I can remember that got its very own animated trailer the first day the case was filed, is kicking off in court starting today. We'll be covering the trial a lot over the course of the next few weeks and have a big preview you can read, but here's what you need to know before the gavel drops:
The cast of characters for this trial is long and involves high-level executives on both sides, but there are a few names you should pay special attention to:
As for how this is going to end, it's hard to even count the possibilities. It could upend the App Store entirely; it could change nothing. Apple could be forced to collect 12% commission, or 8% or 4.36895% or 57%! It could be forced to allow developers to advertise other places to pay, and leave it at that. Epic could help determine the future of the antitrust fight, or make Apple even more powerful against it.
All we know for sure is that we're about to learn a lot more about the inner workings of the largest company on Earth than anyone at Apple Park is comfortable with. It's going to be wild.
"For the developers who strive to bring solutions to market quickly, the challenge to overcome complex requirements, unique connectivity needs and disparate edge infrastructures can impede progress and create delays," says Bill Pearson, VP and GM of developer enabling in the company's Internet of Things Group.
The way to lead in crisis is to "communicate four times as much," Airbnb's Brian Chesky said:
Warren Buffett is not impressed with SPACs:
Streaming is going to take over the TV ad business for one simple reason, Roku's Alison Levin said:
Josh Hawley's book, "The Tyranny of Big Tech," comes out on Tuesday.Early reviews make it sound like it's exactly as angry (and exactly as misguided) as you might expect.
More earnings! Twilio, Match, Square, Roku (someone please ask about YouTube on the earnings call), Dropbox and Cloudflare all report. So do Uber and Lyft, which will be fascinating after Labor Secretary Marty Walsh dropped a gig-economy bomb last week.
Will the Oversight Board finally rule on Donald Trump? Maybe! Or maybe we'll all die wondering because Facebook hates us. Who knows.
One of the more intriguing apps that launched last week was Mighty, which takes Chrome off your computer and turns it into a streamed browser from a supercomputer somewhere else. I've been testing it periodically for a while, and it does exactly what it says on the tin: runs Chrome, only without setting your computer on fire. If you're a tab hoarder, this is one to keep an eye on.
It's still invite-only, but I suggest getting on the waitlist and giving it a spin. We're headed for a generational overhaul in the way web browsers work, and this looks like part of the answer.
"For the developers who strive to bring solutions to market quickly, the challenge to overcome complex requirements, unique connectivity needs and disparate edge infrastructures can impede progress and create delays," says Bill Pearson, VP and GM of developer enabling in the company's Internet of Things Group.
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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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