Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor will step down from the role on Jan. 31, leaving co-founder Marc Benioff as the sole chief executive of the software giant.
Why it matters: Taylor was promoted to the role just a year ago from his roles as president and chief operating officer. He's also the second co-CEO to depart, after Keith Block held the job from 2018 to early 2020.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday added to the growing chorus of concerns about Apple, arguing that it's "problematic that one company controls what happens on the device."
Why it matters: Zuckerberg has been one of the loudest critics of Apple in Silicon Valley for the past two years. In the wake of Elon Musk's attacks on Apple this week, his concerns are being echoed more broadly by other industry leaders and Republican lawmakers.
Sam Bankman-Fried admits in an interview with Axios that FTX's multitude of licenses were "corporate bullshit," but swears his effective altruism quest was genuine.
Why it matters: Regulators, lawyers, creditors and prosecutors are digging through the rubble of bankrupt FTX trying to determine whether Bankman-Fried was lying or just in over his head.
Roblox has hired 23-year Apple veteran John Stauffer to oversee the engineering team responsible for the virtual world's core engine, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Roblox has big aspirations for the company, many of which center on making its core engine able to run on as many devices as possible.
Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi wants to urgently resume platform withdrawals, so customers can have their funds back.
Why it matters: While that move may seem logical (especially to customers), it would be precedent-in-the-making for future crypto cases, touching on the all-important hierarchy of unsecured creditors.
Kraken, one of the biggest and longest-standing crypto exchanges, said Wednesday it would be reducing its workforce by 30% or some 1,100 people.
What's happening: The reduction would put the team size back to where it was 12 months ago, the exchange said, citing a need to "adapt to current market conditions."
Walt Disney Co. paid $900 million to Major League Baseball for the remaining 15% stake in BAMTech, a streaming video tech company that powers Disney+.
Why it matters: This comes just days before Disney+ is set to launch an ad-supported tier, and ahead of a planned corporate restructuring under reinstated CEO Bob Iger.
The Kindle e-reader has gotten modest refinements over the years, but the new Scribe is the first Kindle in years to take on a significantly new task.
Catch up quick: Announced in September and going on sale Wednesday, the $330 Scribe is the first Kindle that can also be used for handwritten notes. It's also the first large-screen device since the Kindle DX line, which was discontinued more than a decade ago.
New offerings from Amazon Web Services on Tuesday highlight how far the cloud computing business has evolved beyond its roots.
The big picture: AWS pioneered cloud services as a provider of raw computing and storage accessible over the internet, but Amazon and its rivals are increasingly offering services tailored to specific industries or designed to solve one problem for a wide range of businesses.
Federal election regulators are scaling back a major digital ad transparency measure after an effort to speed it through the regulatory process drew intense internal and external pushback, records show.
Why it matters: A little-noticed, two-word change to a proposed Federal Election Commission regulation could exempt wide swaths of digital ads from new rules designed to step up disclosure in a fast-growing segment of political advertising.
A pro-China Twitter-based disinformation campaign is actively targeting a human rights group that exposed a secret Beijing operation, researchers at NewsGuard first tell Axios.
Why it matters: Twitter is struggling to grapple with an influx of Chinese-language accounts spreading disinformation following company staff reductions.
"Stay" by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber is the top global song of the year, Apple Music announced Tuesday.
Why it matters: Apple Music released its top charts and user-listening habits ahead of Spotify, which usually dominates the end-of-year conversation through the Spotify Wrapped tool.
A massive Twitter staff exodusin the first month of Elon Musk's ownership is only exacerbating the company's long list of existing data security problems, experts tell Axios.
Why it matters: While Twitter's list of cybersecurity challenges hasn't appeared to change yet, dwindling staff numbers mean the company could struggle to fix security flaws or respond in the event of a massive hack.
A decade after voice assistant technology captured the world's imagination, Alexa and Siri appear to be on the wane.
Why it matters: Alexa's rise and fall shows that for every winner in the tech industry's neverending game of "dominate the next platform," there are multiple money-incinerating losers.
The "chief metaverse officers" hired at big companies around the world in recent months are spending their days crafting big-picture strategy and evangelizing for the underlying technology, even as the metaverse itself — meaning shared, interconnected virtual worlds — remains a fragmented dream.
Why it matters: Proponents say the metaverse — essentially the internet made immersive, thanks in part to virtual and augmented reality — is the next big thing in connectivity and commerce.
Wordle has an editor now — every day's solution has been programmed by Tracy Bennett, who curates the word list. The result has not made everybody HAPPY (which was Sunday's answer).
Why it matters: Bennett picked themed solutions for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday's answer was DRIVE; Thursday's was FEAST; and Sunday's was HAPPY.
