As Amazon hones in on where they will build their second headquarters, the Washington Post is reporting that of the "238 cities and counties that applied for consideration, plenty have the population (over a million)... But if they don’t also have an exceptional art museum — and preferably more than one — those cities didn’t make the cut."
The details: Sebastian Smee of the Post points out that museums come into play in the decision considering that "[p]eople qualified to expect high salaries tend to have the leisure time and surplus cash to pursue cultural aspirations... That’s why, in the competition to secure the best and brightest, Amazon and other big companies care deeply about cultural offerings in the places they’re located." Washington, D.C. and Boston are likely to top Amazon's list.
Facebook spent $3.3 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2018, according to its disclosure form, setting a new quarterly record for the social network by a hair.
The big picture: Big Tech lobbying has soared in the Trump era as criticism mounts about its practices.
Flickr, the online photo-hosting service Yahoo acquired in 2005, has a new owner: photo-sharing site SmugMug, the company announced on Friday.
Why it matters: Flickr is one of Yahoo's most recognizable assets, but its fate has been uncertain for months since Verizon bought its parent company and then merged with AOL last year. SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill says that his company will give Flickr the resources and attention it lacked under Yahoo's stewardship, he told USA Today.
The top researcher for a new non-profit lab called OpenAI made more than $1.9 million in 2016, and two other researchers at the company made hundreds of thousands of dollars despite joining in March and June of that year, The New York Times reports.
Why it matters: The lucrative salaries illustrate the growing demand not only for artificial intelligence but also for those who understand the technology behind it. However, as the NYT points out, the trend also poses a major problem for universities and government agencies who need AI expertise, both to train the next generation and to integrate the technology into everyday life.
Given some of the key factors behind what Amazon is looking for in a city to host its second headquarters — including being in a major metro area with a "strong university system” — the Conference Board’s economic research group determined that Boston and Washington, D.C. are likely to top Amazon's list, per MarketWatch.
Their findings: Conference Board analysts found that Amazon’s job listings for those types of qualities are growing the fastest in Boston and Washington, D.C. Both cities also already have a substantial Amazon presence, which helps reduce the issue of having to recruit and relocate talent from elsewhere. Meanwhile, 236 other North American cities are also hoping for a bite at the West Coast apple.
Electric scooter company Bird is beginning to look a lot like Uber, with an on-demand transportation service that is ubiquitous on San Francisco streets, a business model that gets ahead of local regulations, and a competitive streak that ruffles feathers.
Bottom line: This isn't a coincidence, as Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden is a veteran of both Uber and Lyft.
YouTube has run ads from more than 300 organizations and brands on channels that promote extreme content, such as white nationalist messages, Nazi ideas and pedophilia, according to a CNN investigation.
The details: The report said ads funded by taxpayers through five government agencies may have contributed as well. So far, at least one company — Under Armour — has reportedly pulled its ads from the site following CNN’s investigation. Some of the companies whose ads ran on the channels include Adidas, Amazon and Facebook. YouTube, which has previously been embroiled in similar controversy over ads appearing alongside extremist content, told CNN it has been rectifying the issue.
