Please read quietly. Some of us are still sleeping.
Today's Login is 1,598 words, a 6-minute read.
Please read quietly. Some of us are still sleeping.
Today's Login is 1,598 words, a 6-minute read.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
As the big five tech giants face a trifecta of crises over pandemic disruptions, government investigations, and protests against racial inequality, their ages and life stages are shaping their responses, Scott Rosenberg writes.
Between the lines: Companies have life cycles that mirror those of people. And like people, they handle stress in different ways at different stages of maturity.
The big picture: Tech companies recruit and motivate workers with promises of wealth and missions to improve the world. That looks glaringly out of step with a moment in which U.S. society is focused on the painful realities of inequality and injustice.
Facebook — founded in 2004 — is dealing with this dilemma like someone in their late adolescence or 20s, still figuring out its identity.
Google — founded in 1998 — acts like someone in their 30s, beginning to question the future.
Amazon — founded in 1995 — behaves like someone in their 40s, feeling the weight of multiple burdens.
Apple — founded in 1977 — has the questions and doubts of someone in their 50s, as it wonders whether it can add another transformational act to a lifetime of achievement.
Microsoft — founded in 1976 — now plays the role of tech's 60-something grandparent, setting some examples while knowing it can't dictate the future.
The bottom line: Tech giants all face the same problem: They're massive concentrations of power and wealth that have all positioned themselves in their own and employees' minds as agents of change.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Facebook has been hiring seasoned tech investors to help lead a new "multimillion-dollar" investment fund within its experimental apps team, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Starting a formal investing program aimed at startups could bolster the company's ability to spot the next big social app before it becomes big. That visibility is all the more important as antitrust scrutiny has likely closed the door on large acquisitions by Facebook for the near future.
Details: Facebook posted a job opening recently saying it was looking to hire a "head of investments" for its New Product Experimentation (NPE) team, ideally someone with 10 years of tech experience.
Facebook confirmed to Axios that it has hired someone to fill that role but declined to name the person or say how large the fund would be. Also helping manage the new fund is Shabih Rizvi, a Google and Kleiner Perkins veteran who was most recently at Gradient Ventures, one of the corporate venture firms owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company.
Between the lines: A source familiar with the company's plans said the effort is not a general-purpose fund but rather a targeted effort to stay in close touch with the startup world. Facebook characterized the effort as an extension of the work it has done in the past with startup accelerators and hackathons.
The big picture: Facebook has long tried to identify the next big thing in social media and either acquire the pioneer, as it did with Instagram and WhatsApp or match key features, as has been the case with Snapchat (which famously turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer by Facebook).
For more, read on.
Image: Adobe
Adobe is launching Photoshop Camera, a tool designed to offer some of the power of the professional photo-editing software within a smartphone camera app.
Why it matters: Adobe has been trying for years to figure out how best to bring its skills and products to mobile devices. It has managed to bring Photoshop and other programs to the iPad, but smartphone apps like Photoshop Camera offer a way to engage with a far larger number of consumers.
Details: The free app, available for both Android and iOS, looks much like it did in its early test form, which Adobe showed off last year. Among its features:
Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis told Axios the company set out to build the product three years ago, then not sure it was feasible to do this much work, in real time, on a mobile device. "It’s a pretty big moment for us," he said.
What's next: The company wants to add new filters and features every few weeks, and eventually open filter creation to more artists. Logically, Adobe might want to get the software built-in, or at least preloaded, onto new smartphones.
Moderating content is a major challenge for all online platforms, and it's all the harder for smaller companies and apps to enforce standards and protect users from hate and harassment. Enter Sentropy, a startup offering machine-learning-based tools to help companies identify and sort potentially problematic user-posted content.
Why it matters: Quality content moderation requires specialized skills that are in high demand, putting smaller companies in a bind.
What they're saying: "Facebook and Google are going to continue to do this on their own," Sentropy CEO John Redgrave said in an interview. "The rest of the internet just does not have their talent set."
Details: Customers can either use Sentropy Defend, a browser-based moderation tool, or plug into Sentropy through its API, Sentropy Detect.
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