The scrutiny intensified when Didi elected to list its shares in the U.S. In the eyes of the Chinese government, that raised the possibility that Didi would then share its precious domestic data with U.S. counterparties.
Read moreWhat the EU Gets Right—and the US Gets Wrong—About Antitrust
US regulators have not yet shown all their cards, but they should pause before arguing that too big equals anticompetitive, or seeking to break up or substantially restructure the tech giants. Instead, they might want to look to Europe.
Read moreBest Buy Bucks the Trend That’s Crushing Other Retailers
Far from facing extinction, Best Buy is poised for another year of solid growth. Its relative success stands in sharp contrast to the fate of retail in general, and its formula should serve as a reminder that retailing may be changing, but not everything will be ecommerce.
Read moreWhy We Should Like Facebook’s Cryptocurrency
The ambition is grand: “Reinvent money. Transform the global economy. So people everywhere can live better lives.” So said Facebook last month in unveiling Libra, its new digital payment service. The company heralded it as “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.” If fully launched, Libra would allow Facebook users to buy and sell goods and services around the world and across borders using a digital cryptocurrency…
Read moreBig Tech Can Stay Ahead of Regulators by Breaking Itself Up
Rumblings about the role of Big Tech in American society have coalesced into a storm long coming, with revelations that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are contemplating sweeping antitrust investigations of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple.
Read moreIf China Really Wants to Retaliate, It Will Target Apple
Apple has a Huawei problem. Of the myriad issues raised by the evolving and intensifying US-China trade Cold War, the knock-on effects on Apple have been perhaps least appreciated. And not just Apple, of course, but a slew of American companies that have both shifted production to China over the past two decades and, more vitally, tapped into Chinese middle-class consumers as a source of growth and profits.
Read moreWhy Are We So Surprised by Facebook's Data Scandals?
Surveying the reactions to the latest revelation that Facebook played fast and loose with user data, it was hard not to harken back to what Scott McNally, the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, told a group of reporters, including one from WIRED, in 1999: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
Read moreWhat the Stock Selloff Tells us About the Future of Tech
The past three months have not been kind to large public technology companies. Amid crescendos of criticism about monopolistic power, these companies saw their market value plummet. The rampant selling has leveled off, at least for the moment, so it’s an opportune time to ask: What comes next?
Apple is Ditching the Mass Market and Focusing on Rich People
Peter Thiel is a Flawed Messenger with Crucial Message for Tech
PETER THIEL, NEVER one to keep a low profile, made his most recent set of waves with reports that he is prepared to decamp from Silicon Valley to more benign haunts in Los Angeles along with several of his companies. His rationale, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal, is that the Valley is
Read moreDemonized Smartphones Are Just Our Latest Technological Scapegoat
As if there wasn’t enough angst in the world, what with the Washington soap opera, #MeToo, false nuclear alerts, and a general sense of apprehension, now we also have a growing sense of alarm about how smartphones and their applications are impacting children.
Read moreWhy Tech Giants And Telecoms Should Join to Build an Internet for All
Last week’s repeal of net neutrality regulations by the Federal Communications Commission generated considerable controversy. Many characterized the decision as a win for telecom and cable companies at the expense of both consumers and content companies.
Read moreThe Risks of Demonizing Silicon Valley
For years, the ascent of tech has broadly been viewed as positive, heralding an era of increased productivity and greater communication. But recently, the litany of corporate missteps and a general sense of power accreting to a few extraordinarily rich and powerful companies and the men–yes, largely men–who lead them has triggered a wave of criticisms of the once-Teflon culture of the Valley.
Read moreYes, Bitcoin Has no Intrinsic Value. Neither Does a $1 Bill
Bitcoin: Fad or the future? The question has dogged the digital currency since its inception nearly a decade ago, and recent developments raise it anew. Last week, a new variant of bitcoin emerged via a “fork” in its underlying code, threatening to confuse and divide the still-small world of bitcoin adherents.
Read moreIs FANG Taking Too Big a Bite Out of the Market?
With the S&P 500 up nearly 10% for the year through mid-June, many investors are nervous about what lies ahead. Even more nerve-wracking is that an outsized portion of the total returns have been generated by just a few stocks.
Read moreThe Everything Store Expands
News that Amazon intends to buy Whole Foods Market for more than $13 billion was greeted jubilantly by financial markets, with Amazon’s stock rising 2.5 percent, almost enough to cover the entire purchase. At the same time, the shares of other grocery retailers, ranging from Kroger’s to Walmart,
Read moreA Laptop Ban Leaves Everyone Scared and No One Safer
After this weekend’s attacks in London, President Trump became embroiled in a spat with the city’s mayor, where the president criticized British authorities for not taking the threat of terrorism seriously enough. In its crude way, that confrontation underscored a deeper divide between the United States and much of the rest of the world over what taking terrorism seriously means.
Read moreThe Real Problem With Productivity is Measuring It
When it comes to productivity, only two things are undebatable: that the official rate of U.S. productivity growth has stalled since at least 2007, having started to slow before then, and that there is no consensus about why or what to do about it. There is, additionally, some broad consensus that without stronger productivity growth going forward
Read moreEven if Apple Breaks $1 Trillion, It Won’t Stay on Top Forever
APPLE JUST BECAME the first US company to surpass $800 billion in market capitalization. Speculation quickly followed that Apple would soon become the first $1 trillion company, with a rumored $1,000 iPhone 8 coming at year’s end. The company’s share price has been on a tear since the beginning of the year, and sales of the iPhone 7
Read moreUpworthy’s Quest to Engineer Optimism for an Anxious Age
The world finds itself in an age saturated with anxiety—at least, that’s the sense created by the daily deluge of news portraying a grim present of economic hardship, global tensions, terrorism, and political upheaval. The five-year-old site Upworthy doesn’t want you to see the world that way.
Read more