fortune--2020-02-18--Trump goes on clemency spree, and the list is long

President Donald Trump has gone on a clemency blitz, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and pardoning former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, among a long list of others.
Trump also told reporters that he has pardoned financier Michael Milken, who pleaded guilty for violating U.S. securities laws and served two years in prison in the early 1990s. Trump also pardoned Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former San Francisco 49ers owner convicted in a gambling fraud scandal who built one of the most successful NFL teams in the game’s history.
Blagojevich, who appeared on Trump’s reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” was convicted of political corruption, including seeking to sell an appointment to Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children’s hospital. But Trump said he had been subjected to a “ridiculous sentence” that didn’t fit his crimes.
Kerik served just over three years for tax fraud and lying to the White House while being interviewed to be Homeland Security secretary.
“We have Bernie Kerik, we have Mike Milken, who’s gone around and done an incredible job,” Trump said, adding that Milken had “paid a big price.”
Earlier, the White House announced that Trump had pardoned DeBartolo Jr., who was involved in one of the biggest owners’ scandals in the sport’s history. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony when he paid $400,000 to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards in exchange for a riverboat gambling license.
He also pardoned Ariel Friedler, a technology entrepreneur, who pleaded guilty to accessing a computer without authorization; Paul Pogue a construction company owner who underpaid his taxes; David Safavian, who was convicted of obstructing an investigation into a trip he took while he was a senior government official; and Angela Stanton, an author who served a six-month home sentence for her role in a stolen vehicle ring.
Blagojevich, a Democrat who hails from a state with a long history of pay-to-play schemes, exhausted his last appellate option in 2018 and had seemed destined to remain behind bars until his projected 2024 release date. His wife, Patti, went on a media blitz in 2018 to encourage Trump to step in, praising the president and likening the investigation of her husband to special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — a probe Trump long characterized as a “witchhunt.”
Blagojevich’s conviction was notable, even in a state where four of the last 10 governors have gone to prison for corruption. Judge James Zagel — who in 2011 sentenced Blagojevich to the longest prison term yet for an Illinois politician — said when a governor “goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn and disfigured.”
Blagojevich became the brunt of jokes for foul-mouthed rants on wiretaps released after his Dec. 9, 2008, arrest while still governor. On the most notorious recording, he gushes about profiting by naming someone to the seat Obama vacated to become president: “I’ve got this thing and it’s f—— golden. And I’m just not giving it up for f—— nothing.”
When Trump publicly broached the idea in May 2018 of intervening to free Blagojevich, he downplayed the former governor’s crimes. He said Blagojevich was convicted for “being stupid, saying things that every other politician, you know, that many other politicians say.” He said Blagojevich’s sentence was too harsh.
Prosecutors have balked at the notion long fostered by Blagojevich that he engaged in common political horse-trading and was a victim of an overzealous U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald said after Blagojevich’s arrest that the governor had gone on “a political corruption crime spree” that would make Abraham Lincoln turn over in his grave.
Mueller — a subject of Trump’s derision — was FBI director during the investigation into Blagojevich. Fitzgerald is now a private attorney for another former FBI director, James Comey, whom Trump dismissed from the agency in May 2017.
Trump also expressed some sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 before his first corruption trial started. As Trump “fired” Blagojevich as a contestant, he praised him for how he was fighting his criminal case, telling him: “You have a hell of a lot of guts.”
He later poll-tested the matter, asking for a show of hands of those who supported clemency at an October, 2019 fundraiser at his Chicago hotel. Most of the 200 to 300 attendees raised their hands, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing several people at the event.
Blagojevich testified at his 2011 retrial, describing himself as a flawed dreamer grounded in his parents’ working-class values. He sought to humanize himself to counteract the blunt, profane, seemingly greedy Blagojevich heard on wiretap recordings played in court by prosecutors over several weeks. He said the hours of FBI recordings were the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud.
But jurors accepted evidence that Blagojevich demanded a $50,000 donation from the head of a children’s hospital in return for increased state support, and extorted $100,000 in donations from two horse racing tracks and a racing executive in exchange for quick approval of legislation the tracks wanted.
He originally convicted on 18 counts, including lying to the FBI, wire fraud for trying to trade an appointment to the Obama seat for contributions, and for the attempted extortion of a children’s hospital executive. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 tossed five of 18 convictions, including ones in which he offered to appoint someone to a high-paying job in the Senate.
The appeals court ordered the trial judge to resentence Blagojevich, but suggested it would be appropriate to hand him the same sentence, given the gravity of the crimes. Blagojevich appeared via live video from prison during the 2016 resentencing and asked for leniency. The judge gave him the same 14-year term, saying it was below federal guidelines when he imposed it the first time.
Blagojevich had once aspired to run for president himself but entered the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood in suburban Denver in 2012, disgraced and broke. Court documents filed by his lawyers in 2016 portrayed Blagojevich — known as brash in his days as governor — as humble and self-effacing, as well as an insightful life coach and lecturer on everything from the Civil War to Richard Nixon. Blagojevich, an Elvis Presley fan, also formed a prison band called “The Jailhouse Rockers.”
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fortune--2020-02-18--Frustrations fly as MWC trade show customers seek refunds following last-minute cancelation

SARS treatments could help with the new coronavirus .
Why were they shelved ?

Along with 100,000 other techies, entrepreneurs, and gadget fans, David Rubie had planned to come to Barcelona next week for the Mobile World Conference to see the sights, network with potential investors, and generate buzz for his creation, a wearable device.
The Australian was on the short-list for an IOT innovation award at FYFN—short for “Four Years From Now—MWC’s smaller sister show targeting startups. Rubie’s company, SmartShepherd, was a finalist in the agricultural category. Its smart collars enable livestock breeders to collect pedigree data and track which animals produce profitable offspring.
For Rubie, there was more than pride on the line. A win at this prestigious event, he hoped, would open doors to a new market. And so Rubie, the company’s CEO and lone employee, drew about AUS$5,000 ($3,340) from his business development and travel budget and booked a flight and lodging. “This is a really big deal for us,” Rubie told Fortune. “We sell electronic collars for sheep. We are in a town of 20,000 people where there is very little technology development.”
And then, he learned, the show was cancelled.
Last week, the organizers GSMA, called the whole thing off, citing health and safety concerns related to the coronavirus and its possible spread among attendees, as well as to the host city. The event was becoming untenable when big-name participants, including Amazon, Facebook, Nokia, LG and others, pulled out in the days prior.
Since the bombshell announcement, Twitter has become the main virtual gathering place to vent and commiserate. It’s also become a soap box for macabre jokes and a place for would-be badge-holders to declare their emancipation proclamation from the tech tradeshow grind.
I spent the last few months preparing for #MWC20 only to have it cancelled. While that's disappointing, I'm still going to Barcelona with my wife that week – and will go nuts on all the jambon & Rioja we can handle. Hotel prices are quite reasonable. — Jason Woodmansee (@jasonwoodmansee) February 14, 2020
In Barcelona and beyond, the economic fallout of the abrupt cancellation of the industry’s largest trade show is beginning to emerge.
Roughly 28,000 rooms had been reserved for the Feb. 24-28 MWC conference, according to Hosteltur, a Spanish trade publication covering the hospitality industry. It estimates that hoteliers too will take a big hit, with lost business totaling approximately 112.4 million euros ($121.5 million).
Hotel prices in and around Barcelona notoriously skyrocket during the week of MWC. In 2019, for instance, the average price for a room in a four- or five-star hotel, the ones preferred by MWC attendees, was 800 euros ($865) per night. The toniest rooms reached upwards of 3,353 euros per night, only to crash to 391 euros the following week.
Now, at the height of the low- winter tourism season, hotels are scrambling to deal with the cancellations and recover at least part of the lost revenue. The newspaper Cinco Dias reported yesterday that the Barcelona Hotels Association and Renfe, the Spanish state-owned train operator, agreed to launch combined train-and-hotel travel packages from Feb. 24 to March 1 in an attempt to make up for the losses.
The promotion is being managed through Renfe’s website and is touting “discounts of more than 30%.
Show must go on…next year
In the wake of the fallout, GSMA and city officials are vowing next year the show will go on. But the anger and confusion around MWC 2020 lingers, particularly since most hotel bookings required substantial advance deposits.
New statement from GSMA about the cancellation of #MWC2020 with not even an acknowledgement that a lot of people are angry about the absence of refunds pic.twitter.com/fWpYTEe6g5 — Emmet Ryan has a new book (@emmetjryan) February 17, 2020
Local lawyers have popped up in recent days, promoting their services to assist out-of-pocket parties reclaim money. That’s despite the fact that the days continue to tick by with little clarity about the possibility of any refunds whatsoever.
The city, for example, was washing its hands of the mess. Last Friday, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau told the local Catalan radio station that the city is not liable to pay any of the costs associated with MWC’s cancellation.
As one headline in Spanish summed up: “500 million [euros] leaving Barcelona. Who pays for the MWC?”
Getting an answer to that question has been a challenge. Fortune sought comment from the biggest hotel chains in the city, and Barcelona’s hotel organization, Gremi d’Hotels Bcn, but got no response. Meanwhile, MWC’s official accommodation partner, Barcelona-based bnetwork, referred Fortune to GSMA.
In an email sent to attendees who had booked through the company, bnetwork said it had asked the city’s hotel association for guidance. The association urged member hotels to stick by the original terms of bookings and not give extraordinary refunds, bnetwork wrote. “However we have well registered your request of cancelation of the booked room(s) and will send you a receipt soon,” the email noted.
GSMA’s chief marketing officer, Stephanie Lynch-Habib, in an interview with Fortune, offered little further detail on the refund controversy beyond extending “thoughts and sympathies” to those “affected in China and around the world.” She then added: “We’re committed as an industry association to carry on. It’s a sad day but we’re working hard to to work on next steps and get ready for next year.”
Force majeure
Attendees hoping to recoup some of the expenses shouldn’t expect much solace in the fine-print of their hotel and travel insurance policies. Phrases like “non-refundable,” “cancellation policies offered when booking was made,” and “force majeure”—those unplanned circumstances such as war, terrorist attacks and acts of nature that allow airlines, hotels and even the GSMA to cancel events and contracts—make clear there’s little room for negotiating.
Bnetwork’s own policy states that as of Friday, Feb. 14—two days after the cancellation was announced—all bookings are final.
The trade show has become so big in recent years that hotel cancellations impact business owners well outside the city. Ignasi Ares, who manages Hotels Còsmic’s group of four hotels in Vilafranca del Penedés, a town 50-odd kilometers away from the conference site, said during the week of the conference the group’s 120 rooms are usually at 100 percent capacity, filled with last-minute conference attendees or tourists who cannot find any availability in Barcelona. He said that if he can get 50-60 percent room occupancy next week—at significantly lower rates—he’d be happy.
He added that he is deciding on a case-by-case basis if booking deposits will be refunded to individual guests.
Meanwhile, SmartShepherd’s Rubie says he’s out about AUD$2,000 ($1,340) for the three-night hotel stay he no longer needs.
“The hotel won’t even budge on this. I knew when I booked this through a travel agency in Australia that the hotel had a no-refund policy,” he acknowledged. “Normally, I would be okay with that if I was the one cancelling. However, this is a completely different set of circumstances.”
“I certainly don’t expect to get all of the money back. But, I would like to see if there is some way we can all share the pain.”
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Mobile World Congress was canceled two days after the Bnetwork cancelation policy deadline. MWC, in fact, was canceled on Feb. 12, two days prior to Bnetwork’s Feb. 14 deadline.
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fortune--2020-02-18--Ring adds a vital security feature. Here’s how to beef up your doorbell camera’s security

Ring, the smart-doorbell company owned by Amazon, announced Tuesday that it will require two-factor authentication for all user accounts. In addition to a password, users will need a one-time code sent via email or SMS each time they log in to their accounts.
According to a spokesperson, Ring will begin rolling out mandatory two-factor authentication immediately, and it will be active for all users within the week. The company, best known for its doorbell cams, says any login attempt after the new requirement is activated on an account will require two-factor authentication, also known as “2FA”. That means it’s vital for users to make sure the email address and/or SMS number associated with their account are accurate.
Ring also says customers must have the latest version of the Ring app installed on their mobile device to be able to use two-factor authentication.
Ring, like most digital services, already offered optional 2FA, but did not require it. In a series of incidents late last year, this gap allowed hackers to remotely access cameras to spy on Ring users. In a lawsuit, victims of these hacks argued that Ring should have required two-factor authentication by default because of the extremely sensitive nature of Ring cameras, some of which are positioned to monitor areas within users homes, including children’s rooms.
Ring has apparently decided it agrees. The decision comes less than a week after Nest, a Ring competitor owned by Google, announced that it will require 2FA for all accounts starting this spring, after a spate of similarly bad headlines resulting from its cameras being hacked.
The hackers in prior Ring incidents may have gotten the users’ passwords from a data breach, though Ring said it was not hacked and blamed customers’ re-use of passwords from other sites for the breaches. Security experts strongly recommend creating unique, random passwords for every digital service you use. That may sound daunting, but it is made much easier with a password manager, such as Dashlane or LastPass.
Ring also announced this morning that it was “temporarily pausing the use of most third-party analytics services in the Ring apps and Website.” That follows a late January investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which found that Ring was sharing users’ personally identifiable information, including names and IP addresses, with a number of data collectors, including Facebook and MixPanel. Most of that sharing, which could compromise privacy, was not disclosed to Ring users.
Finally, as part of the same update, Ring said it will allow users to opt out of personalized advertising. Previously, it had not allowed users to stop the sharing of their personal information with Ring’s advertising partners. According to Ring, the opt-out option will be located in the Control Center, the system’s privacy and security dashboard.
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—Airbnb’s bottom line is hurting. New safety efforts could make matters worse
—How businesses lost an extra $500 million from email scams last year
—Antivirus software Avast investigated for selling user browsing histories
—Huawei poses a 5G spying risk, but other options are hard to come by
—Predicting the biggest tech headlines of 2020
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fortune--2020-02-18--Heritage retailer Bergdorf Goodman just opened a bar within its men’s store on Fifth Avenue

Brick-and-mortar retail is tough these days, but there’s one way to set yourself apart: open a bar inside.
It’s not a new idea. For years, major department stores have also been home to a namesake restaurant, a place where ladies can lunch, sip tea after shopping, or socialize with other customers.
That all changed in the past decade. In came branded experiences from retailers like Urban Outfitters and Ralph Lauren as part of their physical stores. Ordering a Ralph’s coffee on Madison Avenue gave plenty of passersby a reason to step into Ralph Lauren’s luxury boutique, and maybe end up buying something else, too.
Retailers learned that if they included alcohol—say handing a complimentary glass of Champagne to a potential buyer—that customer just might throw down the credit card after a few sips. In 2019, New York’s new Nordstrom opened the Shoe Bar, serving sparkling wine near the Manolo Blahniks, and the city’s first Neiman Marcus has Bar Stanley with a hearty list of single malt Scotch.
The latest retailer to adopt the concept? The 119-year-old Bergdorf Goodman in New York City.
Last month, the luxury department store opened Goodman’s Bar, a snazzy, James Bond–esque bar and restaurant inside their men’s store on Fifth Avenue. Pony up to the marble bar and have a bartender sling you a rye Manhattan and dishes from a Michelin-starred chef. You’ll sit your designer-clad suits on chairs by Franz Schuster, and you can partake in a quick game of backgammon on custom tables by Tom Dixon. Want to Instagram it all? Good, because there’s excellent lighting by local design studio, Apparatus.
Bergdorf Goodman bets a bar will attract more customers. Courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman
But the gorgeous space and thoughtful food isn’t just a place to grab a bite; it’s a destination in which Bergdorf Goodman can better engage with its customers and attract new ones.
“The act of shopping takes on a whole new meaning when you can also add having a rare Scotch, an incredible steak tartare, or just relax with a glass of Pinot,” says Matt Marcotte, chief operating officer of Bergdorf Goodman. “We want our customers to spend as much time with us as possible. It’s part of our passion around building deep relationships.”
Marcotte explains that today’s customers are looking for a multisensory experience to connect with brands, and restaurants are a natural—and if done well, authentic—extension of a brand’s experience. For Bergdorf Goodman, restaurants have always been a part of the business, and the time felt right to add another one to the mix. The department store has a well-regarded, Kelly Wearstler–designed restaurant with an excellent afternoon tea service at its women’s store, also on Fifth Avenue. In fact, the men’s store used to have a restaurant as well, but that closed, and since, customers have continually asked for a replacement.
A bartender pours a craft cocktail. Courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman
Beyond satisfying the store’s current customers, Marcotte says Goodman’s Bar is a way for Bergdorf Goodman to attract new ones. To align with people who value food and drink, Bergdorf Goodman wants the venue to be a destination for high-end, hard-to-find wines and spirits accompanied by refined cuisine. “We see Goodman’s Bar as an entry point to learning about Bergdorf Goodman and our product,” he adds. “We really believe we are adding a vehicle for attracting new customers. Hopefully [they] allow us to be part of their lives.”
To aid in that mission, Marcotte cites the store’s partnership with big names in food and beverages. The team at Goodman’s Bar includes Austin Johnson—a Michelin-starred chef who made a name for himself at Frenchie in Paris—and Dustin Wilson, a master sommelier and owner of Verve Wine, a boutique wine retailer with locations in New York and San Francisco. Wilson’s business partner at Verve, David Bruno, is also part of the mix and happens to have once worked at Bergdorf Goodman. The trio have concocted a menu inspired by an aperitivo bar—think riffs of classic cocktails, warm gougères with bacon, caviar-topped potato chips, and Champagne. It’s available to shoppers during the store’s business hours, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, except Sunday, when the store closes at 7 p.m.
Avocado toast Courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman
It’s not lost on Bergdorf Goodman that traditional department stores face a tough environment today. Nearby retailers like Lord & Taylor, Barneys, and Henri Bendel have all closed up shop, and a walk up Madison Avenue is like entering a ghost town. “For Sale” signs hang in many windows, and among the stores that are open, few seem to have a steady flow of shoppers. Bergdorf seems to be banking on aspiration and cocktails to bring people in. Customers could, after all, just shop Bergdorf Goodman’s wares online, but why not walk into an “oasis,” as Marcotte calls it, where they can take a break from their stressful lives? Even if one cannot afford the likes of Tom Ford, Brunello Cucinelli, and Ermenegildo Zegna, one can at least throw down to drink like someone who can—and maybe pick up some socks afterward.
“People want to walk away with both the product and the experience,” Marcotte says. “Retailers understand the more you can provide this to your customer, the more apt they are to come back.”
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—The most anticipated books of 2020, according to Goodreads
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fortune--2020-02-18--Are smart cities a dumb idea?

Are smart cities a dumb idea?

This is the web version of Business x Design, a newsletter on the power of design. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
For designers, cities are the grandest of ambitions. To design a city is not merely to sketch buildings and boulevards, it is to create worlds and shape lives. Think of Periclean Athens, Ming Dynasty Beijing, Haussman’s Paris, Lutyen’s Delhi, or L’Enfant’s Washington D.C.
And yet, if you could live in a so-called smart city—conceived by the most celebrated architects and designers under the direction of a public-private consortium that included one of the world’s most powerful technology companies—would you?
The residents of Toronto aren’t so sure.
Robert Hackett, in a fascinating feature in the new issue of Fortune, explains how mounting public concerns about Big Tech and surveillance capitalism forced Toronto to scale back a bold plan to transform the unused Quayside waterfront site into a tech-driven, eco-friendly, laminated timber utopia.
The project enlisted some of the design world’s brightest stars, including architecture firms Gensler and Michael Green Architecture, as well as Thomas Heatherwick Studios. Their ideas seem truly ingenious.
And yet, as Robert reports, “the project has been mired in controversy, amid an outcry over data mining and objections to the civic encroachment of a powerful corporation.” The corporation in question is Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet’s urban infrastructure company led by former Bloomberg CEO Dan Doctoroff.
Quayside’s boosters (among them prime minister Justin Trudeau) hailed Sidewalk Labs as an ideal partner because technology holds the key to challenges that will vex many cities in years to come: creating jobs, reducing crime, delivering health services, conserving energy, minimizing environmental damage, and eliminating urban sprawl. Detractors said that Sidewalk Labs’ plan to install data sensors in public areas raises privacy concerns and cedes far too much control over municipal governance to an unelected corporation.
The Quayside contretemps highlights the uneasy alliance between designers, technology companies, management consultants, and government planners as they contemplate the future of cities, which are already home to more than half the world’s population. By 2050, an expected 2.5 million more people will live in urban areas.
Urban planners have talked about making cities “smart” for more than a decade. The McKinsey Global Institute defined “smartness” in cities as “using data and technology purposefully to make better decisions and deliver a better quality of life.” International Data Corporation estimates global spending on “smart cities” initiatives will reach $189 billion by 2023.
But some architects and designers have grown wary of the term. Rem Koolhaas famously criticized the concept as a rhetorical ploy used by tech firms to elbow architects out of the conversation about urban life. Why is it, he wondered caustically, that smart city proposals, always seem to depict cities “with simplistic, child-like rounded edges and bright colors” and treat residents like infants? “Why do smart cities offer only improvement? Where is the possibility of transgression?” (Sketches for Quayside are no exception.)
Meanwhile, China is already building smart cities. The current Fortune also includes a vivid—some will say disturbing—essay by Grady McGregor detailing the myriad ways technology, big data, and surveillance commingle in China’s most successful smart city, Shenzhen.
Cities, not to mention journeys to and from them, feel particularly perilous these days with the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. As many of you know, we’ve rescheduled Brainstorm Design 2020 to December 9-10. I’m happy to report that most of our speakers already have confirmed their participation on the new dates. Sign up for your invitation here.
More design news below.
Clay Chandler
@ClayChandler
Clay.Chandler@Fortune.com
VISION, EMPATHY, SCALE
This edition of Business By Design was curated by Margaret Rhodes.
New deals. Frog (styled as frog), one of the design consultancies synonymous with Silicon Valley, announced a new business model. Partnering with venture capital firm Tuesday Capital, frog will now own a stake in the businesses for which it provides services. Frog isn’t new to investments—in 2014 itset up FrogVentures, an early-stage incubator—but this deal augments the firm’s opportunities to earn short-term revenue and work with new clients while cementing the role of design in the business-building process. [Fast Company]
Healthy design. Speaking of frog, its design for pelvic-exam startup Yona Care reflects a trend: The millennial-friendly rebranding of healthcare services, including everything from bubbly visual identities to offices that look good on Instagram. As digitally-native companies (Oscar, Tia) compete with massive, staid institutions like Aetna and CVS, the hope is that this investment in experience design can entice new, young consumers. [AIGA Eye on Design]
Conflicts of interest. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York has ousted its director, Caroline Baumann. The decision follows an opaque investigation into whether Baumann inappropriately leveraged her influence while buying a dress and choosing a venue for her recent wedding—scruples that the Smithsonian, as a government-funded institution, takes very seriously. In solidarity with Baumann, who led the museum’s recent revamp and modernization, six board members have since resigned, putting future donations at risk. [The New York Times]
Courtesy of Yoto
Smart play. Screen-free toys are increasingly hard to come by (remember the Silicon Valley nannies paid to keep phones away from their charges?), but Yoto bridges the gap between Luddism and wired playtime. Designed with help from Pentagram, its clock radio-like audio player uses inserted cards and knobs instead of touchscreens. It’s a clever interaction: Kids can engage with technology without the dizzying distraction of apps and tabs; parents can stop worrying about their children becoming phone-addicted zombies. [Dezeen]
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Why the modern city needs a makeover by Clifton Leaf
Business gets ready to trip: How psychedelic drugs may revolutionize mental health care by Jeffrey M. O’Brien
20 maps charting the rise of the modern megacity by Nicolas Rapp and Brian O’Keefe
Apple’s coronavirus problem by Don Reisinger
5 big ideas for fixing global cities’ most daunting challenges by Lydia Belanger and Emma Hinchliffe
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—AROUND THE WEB
Why “De-growth” Shouldn’t Scare Businesses from Harvard Business Review
Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Lost Notebook from Wired, excerpted from Steven Levy’s Facebook: the Inside Story
The World’s Smartest A.I. is Still Dumber Than a Baby from OneZero
The hidden design failure that’s costing consumers trillions from Fast Company
“GORGEOUSLY LAYERED LEVELS OF DYSTOPIA”
The more new technology becomes part of our lives, the more we'll change to accommodate it.
“Is this a joke? Yes. No. We’re not sure.”
It definitely sounds like a joke: In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, a Bay Area designer started selling N95 respiratory masks printed with a user’s likeness, making it possible to unlock a phone screen while avoiding airborne viruses. “If you enjoy late stage capitalism,” its site reads, the masks cost $40.
Resting Risk Face won’t become a reality any time soon; Danielle Baskin, the designer behind the pseudo-spoof of a project, says that she won’t print prototypes while countries around the world face a mask shortage. Technically, the mask wouldn’t work anyway, because facial recognition technology relies on 3D mapping. (Since the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese facial recognition startup Megvii has actually applied for a loan to develop technology that can identify people wearing masks.)
And yet, Resting Risk Face reveals something interesting: The more we’re conditioned to new forms of technology, the more we’ll go out of our way to make other aspects of our life compatible with them. Take the new prototype for a bracelet that emits ultrasonic signals. Designed by two computer science professors at the University of Chicago, it’s meant to momentarily block Alexa or Siri from recording sensitive information. In The New York Times, journalist Kashmir Hill considers how such devices could force all sorts of shifts in how we interact:
“Rick Osterloh, Google’s head of hardware, recently said homeowners should disclose the presence of smart speakers to their guests … welcome mats might one day be swapped out for warning mats. Or perhaps the tech companies will engineer their products to introduce themselves when they hear a new voice or see a new face. Of course, that could also lead to uncomfortable situations, like having the Alexa in your bedside Echo Dot suddenly introduce herself to your one-night stand.”
Of course, we could just pass up on the convenience of owning a voice-activated speaker in the first place. The total effect of these supplementary devices is perhaps best summed up by food writer Helen Rosner, in a tweet on Resting Risk Face: “gorgeously layered levels of dystopia.”


fortune--2020-02-18--Trump pardons ex-San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former San Francisco 49ers owner convicted in a gambling fraud scandal who built one of the most successful NFL teams in the game’s history.
DeBartolo Jr., who owned the San Francisco 49ers during their 1980s-1990s dynasty, was involved in one of the biggest owners’ scandals in the sport’s history. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony when he paid $400,000 to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards in exchange for a riverboat gambling license.
The White House announced the surprise decision to reporters on Tuesday, with NFL greats Jerry Rice, Jim Brown, Ronnie Lott and Charles Haley in attendance.
“You know what, we all make mistakes and today the president cleared that mistake from him,” said Haley, an NFL Hall of Fame defensive end who played on two of DeBartolo’s Super Bowl winning teams..
DeBartolo, whose San Francisco 49ers won five Super Bowls under his leadership, stepped down as owner in 1997 after two Louisiana newspapers reported he would be indicted for gambling fraud.
He avoided prison, was fined $1 million and was suspended for a year by the NFL. But the episode effectively ended his NFL career.
DeBartolo withdrew from the project after the state gambling board demanded he hand over all documents he gave to the grand jury. The documents included an “unexecuted agreement” between DeBartolo and the former governor’s son, Stephen Edwards.
Rice, an NFL Hall of Famer who played on three of DeBartolo’s Super Bowl-winning teams, said DeBartolo “was like that 12th man” of the great 49ers teams.
“He’s the main reason why we won so many Super Bowls,” Rice said. “So today is a great day for him. I’m glad to be here and be a part of that. It’s just something I will never forget. This man, he has done so much in the community, has done so much in NFL football.”
DeBartolo withdrew from the project after the state gambling board demanded he hand over all documents he gave to the grand jury. The documents included an “unexecuted agreement” between DeBartolo and Stephen Edwards, according to a copy of a grand jury subpoena obtained by the newspapers.
The state gambling board canceled the project after DeBartolo withdrew.
The DeBartolo family built their fortune through commercial real estate – mostly owning shopping malls. The family business was started by DeBartolo’s father, who died in 1994. In addition to the 49ers, the family also owned the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League before selling the team in 1991.
DeBartolo Jr. ran the San Francisco 49ers starting 1977, and his hiring of coach Bill Walsh in 1979 led to the franchise’s most successful era. From 1982 to 1995, the team won five Super Bowls.
After the suspension, DeBartolo gave control of the team to his sister, Denise DeBartolo York.
He never returned to the NFL after his suspension. The team is now run by his nephew, Jed York.
DeBartolo was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—These are the Democratic candidates who qualify for the next debate so far
—2020 candidates’ positions, and records, on economic issues that affect women
—The case for a national primary
—Fortune Explains: The debt ceiling
—Can Amazon convince a federal court to depose Trump over a $10 billion Pentagon contract?
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-02-18--Rob McElhenney on exploring misogyny and censorship in gaming with ‘Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet’

“I build worlds.”
That’s how a creative director at Ubisoft introduced himself to Rob McElhenney when the actor was visiting the company to discuss the possibility of making a show about the video game industry.
With those three words, the idea for Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, Apple TV+’s first comedy series, was born. On the show, McElhenney, best known as one of the stars and cocreators of FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, plays Ian Grimm, the egotistical mastermind of the titular World of Warcraft–style game who’s trying to manage his team of engineers, producers, writers, and monetizers while dealing with trolls, Nazis, employee unionization, the industry’s gender inequality problem, and “time to penis,” a.k.a. TTP, an actual issue in which developers have to account for how long it will take users to turn a new game feature into a phallus.
The nine-episode season, which premiered Feb. 7, combines a genuine appreciation of video games with an unsparing eye toward all its flaws and eccentricities, thanks to a writer’s room filled with avid gamers and comedy veterans, including cocreators and Sunny veterans Charlie Day and Megan Ganz.
The cast of the Apple TV+ show “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet,” from left: David Hornsby, Charlotte Nicdao, Jessie Ennis, McElhenney, and F. Murray Abraham. Courtesy of Apple TV+
Just before the show’s debut, Fortune caught up with McElhenney in New York to discuss his hesitation about working with Apple and what the company chose to censor, the lines between satire and political correctness in Sunny, and working with Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, who plays a George R.R. Martin–like author whose substance abuse has reduced him to writing video game plots.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
So you got the idea from this Ubisoft guy who told you, “I build worlds.” How did the show develop from there?
Well, we knew that we wanted to make a show in the area of the gaming industry, but we weren’t 100% sure of the specifics of it. We also knew that it was important to us to stay away from anything we had seen before, which was mostly popular culture, whether it was movies or television shows, that took a really cruel vantage point and just marginalized what it is to be a part of that community. We wanted to do something that felt fresh and original, and ultimately what that meant was that it celebrated the industry for all its positive elements and then all of its faults. Because if we did anything short of that or if we erred to one side, then it would be pandering in either direction. If we know one thing about the gaming industry, we know that they do not like to be pandered to, and they can smell it a mile away.
So we started just knocking around some different ideas, and we knew that these creative directors were really fascinating personalities because you have to be so driven and so passionate because it’s a five-year-long endeavor. You are building worlds. Even though this guy took such stock in his own vision and ability, he wasn’t wrong—he really is building a world that millions of people across the globe are going to be playing in. That is just a fascinating character because you have the confluence of so many different things. One, extreme talent and ability and passion, which is just fun to watch, and this intense narcissism, which makes them very difficult to deal with. Ultimately, it’s a multifaceted character, very different from the character I play on Sunny.
“The Gang Goes to Hell” episode from the 11th season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Pictured, left to right: Glenn Howerton as Dennis, Charlie Day as Charlie, McElhenney as Mac, Kaitlin Olson as Dee, and Danny DeVito as Frank. Patrick McElhenney—FXX
How much homework did you have to do about the gaming industry?
Quite a bit, yeah, and that was really important to us. You’re always going to have to take artistic license, and I think that the audience has come to expect that. Nobody wants to actually watch the process of game development because that would be essentially boring [Laughs] We have 25 minutes to tell a story, and so you want to just take snippets of it, and yet you also want it to feel as authentic as possible.
So we brought in as many experts as we possibly could, from game devs to lead programmers to creative directors, to people that work in HR to monetization managers from all different studios, and we had our resources with our friends at Ubisoft. We talked to as many people that would talk back to us. It was also important to us to make sure that people who did not play games, who aren’t gamers, could enjoy it as well. That’s why we made a concerted effort to bifurcate the writer’s room, have half hard-core gamers and other people who maybe had never played one in their lives.
McElhenney and Abraham in “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet.” Courtesy of Apple TV+
With Sunny, you have the veteran presence of Danny DeVito. Here you have F. Murray Abraham. How do they compare?
Well, they both bring a certain amount of gravitas and cache and dramatic heft. And Danny obviously, over the course of his career, has leaned a little more heavily into comedy than Murray has, but both of them are obviously deft and incredibly talented comedians and invaluable for so many different reasons. Honestly, it wasn’t a conscious decision. It wasn’t like we were like, “Oh, well we have a formula on Sunny, bringing in somebody like that, so let’s do it.”
We just thought, Wouldn’t it be funny? It was actually less influenced by Danny and more influenced by George R.R. Martin, who I’ve hung out with many times over the last few years because I’m good friends with Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff], who made Game of Thrones. I was always just kind of very fascinated with George, who’s obviously an immensely talented writer and certainly is nothing like [Abraham’s] C.W. in real life. But we were thinking what if after the first in the series of the Game of Thrones books, [George R.R. Martin] just fell into a well of depression and alcohol and cocaine and then found himself writing for a video game company? That was our launching-off point.
A still from season 12, episode six, of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”: “Hero or Hate Crime?” Pictured, left to right: DeVito as Frank, Day as Charlie, McElhenney as Mac, Olson as Dee, and Howerton as Dennis. Patrick McElhenney—FXX
What are the starkest differences between writing this and Sunny? Did you have to sort of recalibrate yourself in a way to write for these characters instead, opposed to Mac, Charlie, Dennis, and Dee?
Definitely, definitely. It’s in season 14, and the characters on Sunny have evolved, or devolved, into ostensibly live-action cartoon characters, and that’s because we can get away with so many different things. People recognize that is an alternative universe. This is not a place that really exists—I hope it doesn’t—and that is how and why we are able to tackle some of the subject matter in the way that we do as satire. Whereas this show, we wanted to build a world that felt real to people’s experiences and that, at the end of the day, you could believe that this is a real studio, albeit taken to the extreme on many levels.
“We have 25 minutes to tell a story, and so you want to just take snippets of it and yet, you also want it to feel as authentic as possible,” says McElhenney of “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet.” Photographed by Spencer Heyfron for Fortune
Here you take a serious, compassionate look at a lot of real-life issues like overworked employees unionizing, the effects of misogyny in the workplace, and the free speech rights of online Nazis. Is that sort of a corrective from what you’ve put into the world with Sunny?
[Laughs] No! I actually think it falls in line with exactly what we’re trying with Sunny. It’s just looking at it through the lens of a different prism. I think that the reason Sunny has succeeded for as long as it has is because people recognize that as abhorrent the behavior is of the characters, we are in no way glorifying that behavior. And that whilst the characters might be misogynistic and homophobic and sexist and racist or what have you, the show is not, and we’re satirizing those very things. That’s why when I hear people complaining now, “Oh, you can’t tell jokes anymore in this PC culture,” I just think it’s bullshit. It’s people who are lazy. They’re just hacks or they’re actually misogynistic, racist, or homophobic, and they don’t realize it. And that’s the truth.
Now, does that mean we haven’t missed the mark on Sunny over the years? Of course we have! Of course we have because we’re always trying to toe that line. Then, in retrospect, we look back and we go, “Man, that wasn’t great.” Our heart was in the right place, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t hurt people. So, we have to go back and retroactively try and fix those things, which we have the benefit of doing because the show is still on the air.
With a show like this, now we have a little bit more maturity and a little bit more experience with that barometer of, “This is getting into an area that needs to be explored, but we need to have a deft touch because if it’s not explored correctly, it can come across in a way that we are not intending to come across.” When we’re dealing with, say, gender parity in the workplace, that’s something that the gaming industry, like a lot of industries, is struggling with. You can’t do a show about the gaming industry without addressing that and having white nationalists in the game. That’s a real issue that games are struggling with, that social media companies are struggling with, and it’s not so simple. While I might personally have a feeling on what should be done about it, it doesn’t necessarily line up with what’s constitutionally the correct thing to do. If you’re going to censor the viewpoints of anybody, whether you believe in what they’re saying or find them repugnant or not, where do you draw that line? Those are things that we want to explore in the show.
A scene from an “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” 2009 episode, “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops,” with Howerton, McElhenney, and Day. “I think that the reason ‘Sunny’ has succeeded for as long as it has is because people recognize that as abhorrent the behavior is of the characters, we are in no way glorifying that behavior,” McElhenney says. Patrick McElhenney—FXX/Courtes Everett Collection
And then you put in swastikas made of penises.
[Laughs] Yes. Well, again, that’s also the nature of the business, which is so fun, is that that TTP [“time to penis”] thing is true. We didn’t make that up. That was something that Ubisoft told us about, and that’s a real thing in the industry. It’s just so funny that you have these billion-dollar enterprises and one of the things that they have to account for is when a new item is placed in the game, how quickly people are using that to make dicks. It’s so unbelievably childish and juvenile and yet it’s just undeniably funny.
On another note, what has the experience of working with Apple been like, especially as the streaming service is still so new?
So, we pitched the show to like the entire town, and we had multiple offers from a lot of streamers and a lot of traditional broadcasts. Apple was one of them, and I remember we really debated, “Should we do this?” Because we didn’t know and we still don’t know—it’s still a brand-new platform, and we weren’t sure how it was gonna work out. We didn’t know what the creative development system would be, what the platform was going to be, how it was going to be launched.
But we knew that if we were gonna do something new, maybe we should do something completely new and jump into the abyss of mystery and not really quite know for sure if it was all gonna work out, which is what you’re doing anyway when you’re making something. And then, if you’re going to bet on somebody, why not bet on a trillion-dollar company [laughs] and the biggest company in the history of humanity? You’re like, “Well, yeah, I’ll put my chips on that.” So, it’s been ideal. I mean, from the creative standpoint, they have literally allowed us to make the exact show we wanted to make, and I’m very proud.
“We didn’t know what the creative development system would be, what the platform was going to be, how it was going to be launched,” says McElhenney of working with Apple TV+. Photographed by Spencer Heyfron for Fortune
But wasn’t it true that they wouldn’t let you do some nudity?
Yeah. They cut that out. So we had full-frontal nudity but it was with a game avatar. It wasn’t a human being. I talked about that with their standards department and the creative execs and kind of went back and forth on it. They were on the fence about it because they recognized where we stood and yet they also just didn’t want to open it up for other shows. From my perspective, if I feel like what we’re doing is pandering to some ridiculous moral authority police, then I’ll fight back. If it feels like it’s hurting the show to not keep it in, then I’ll fight back. But it’s like, really, where am I going to make my stand? Is this the time that I’m going to get up on my ethical high horse and fight anybody and everybody over seeing this dick and balls in the shot? No. So we let it go.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Portrait of a Lady on Fire filmmaker Céline Sciamma on the female gaze and her ‘architecture of desires’
—Contagion writer, scientific adviser reflect on film’s newfound relevance amid coronavirus crisis
—Ava DuVernay on the “radical act” of black love in OWN’s Cherish the Day
—Summertime director and cast on crafting a “love letter” to Los Angeles
—The best movies that came out of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-02-18--This year’s 100 Best Companies to Work For

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
It’s the most wonderful time of the (work) year.
Fortune released its annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For today. Not only is it one of our most popular lists, it’s one that inspires the most chatter among the raceAhead crowd. For one thing, it seeks to measure the underlying spark of inclusive cultures: Employees who feel seen, appreciated, valued, and welcomed as contributors to the company’s broader purpose.
The juice is in the methodology, which is managed by our partners at Great Place to Work (GPTW):
“Employees responded to over 60 survey questions describing the extent to which their organization creates a Great Place to Work For All™. Eighty-five percent of the evaluation is based on what employees report about their experiences of trust and reaching their full human potential as part of their organization, no matter who they are or what they do. We analyze these experiences relative to each organization’s size, workforce make up, and what’s typical in their industry and region.”
The survey reaches companies with more than 4 million collective employees, making it the largest ongoing survey of employee engagement in the workforce.
For the second year in a row, the top spot goes to Hilton, who has been improving benefits across the board for all employees. In the last year, Hilton instituted a new employee stock purchase program available to all regardless of pay grade, and an extended parental leave policy with thoughtful perks, like a partnership with the breast milk shipping startup Milk Stork, so employees can ship or carry breast milk when traveling for work, for free.
Rounding out the top five are Ultimate Software (#2), Wegmans Food Markets (#3), and Workday (#5).
But I must call out, once again, Cisco, who is on the list at #4 this year. The hardware giant has earned a place on every 100 Best Companies to Work For list since it was established in 1998, a feat that no other company has matched. Sure, sometimes they were at the top of the list, sometimes not, but they’ve been there for the duration, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. (I’ve covered why, here.)
You can find the entire list here, or apply to have your company surveyed for next year here. And job seekers take note: The GPTW certified companies have some 91,425 jobs open now. If you’ve been looking to get your engagement on, time to get to work.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
Boris Johnson aide quits after he shared his racist beliefs out loud They were not subtle, either. Andrew Sabisky, a new member of adviser squad to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, had previously stated that Black people have lower IQs than white ones, and recommended that forced contraception would be necessary to prevent “creating a permanent underclass.” After Downing Street refused to comment or disavow, Sabisky stepped down on Monday citing “media hysteria.”
New York Times
The Boy Scouts declare bankruptcy amid crush of sexual abuse lawsuits The century-old organization is facing some 300 lawsuits from men who say they were abused as young scouts, no longer protected by statute of limitation laws on such complaints. Many states have extended the time that victims can sue the people who abused them and the organizations that enabled the abuse, a response to high profile scandals like USA Gymnastics and the Catholic Church. Insurance carriers have been withdrawing coverage that would handle claims, saying that the Boy Scouts organization knew about the abuse. The potential liability is enormous: One 2010 case resulted in a $20 million judgment.
NPR
African American-owned bank issues a Harriet Tubman visa card It was a sincere effort. Last week, OneUnited Bank announced a new limited-edition Black History Month version of its Visa debit card, created by Miami-based artist Addonis Parker. The portrait shows Tubman with her arms folded across her chest, Wakanda-style. The reviews have been… mixed. But Parker, who has been working on the original painting since 2016, says the pose is intended to be the American Sign Language symbol for love. “Her pose is about love. Love is the greatest power in the world, and love is the greatest poverty in the world today,” Parker told Ad Week.
Ad Week (registration required)
On Background
Brandon Taylor is having a moment The Black, queer, scientist-turned-novelist has long been a quietly delightful presence on Twitter, now his debut novel is enjoying a flush of praise for its unique sensibility and powerful prose. Real Life takes place over a weekend in the life of a young Black biochem grad student at a predominantly white school in the Midwest. It was his attempt to insert his own perspective into campus lit, a genre that rarely includes people like him. And he is fascinating: A Montgomery, Ala. native, then a doctoral student in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, now a novelist who took on the task of writing like a problem-solving scientist. “It began in this very mercenary place,” he said, “but it moved to a place of genuine artistic interest,” he told the New York Times. Playwright Jeremy O. Harris reviews the book here, one of Taylor’s short stories below.
O Magazine
Twelve diversity and inclusion terms you need to know Catalyst, the nonprofit focused on gender equity in the workplace, brings us back to the basics with 12 terms that will help you become fluent in the language of inclusion. As a starter set, they’re a helpful window into the worlds they describe. My favorite is equality vs. equity, a distinction that is hard to grasp at first.
Catalyst
A free black woman told the tale on racist abolitionists in 1859 Harriet Wilson’s long-forgotten novel was provocative from the start. Our Nig, a deviation of the racial slur, was the nickname of the book’s protagonist, a mixed-race girl who was the badly treated indentured servant of a Northern white family. There were little clues as to the setting, but the subtitle tells the tale: "Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House, North; Showing That Slavery's Shadow Falls Even There." The book was rediscovered in the 1980s by Henry Louis Gates, then a doctoral student, in a rare bookstore in New York City. Since then, more has been learned about the author. For one thing, there’s reason to believe that Wilson was telling her own story. JerriAnne Boggis, founder and director of The Harriet Wilson Project, believes she’s found the house where Wilson was kept. "That is the story of black history in the country," Boggis tells NPR. "You have to keep telling it, keep telling it, keep telling it, reviving it. Or else it disappears."
NPR
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
“It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs, and roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology. For those determined to miss the point, I deplore the idea of a eugenic policy. I simply said deploring it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher. But heaven forbid that we should do it.”
—Richard Dawkins


fortune--2020-02-18--Elon Musk’s SpaceX officially gets into the space tourism business

SpaceX is going to start carrying a different sort of payload in the not-too-distant future.
The private spacecraft company founded by Elon Musk has struck a deal with Space Adventures to begin offering tourist flights on its first Crew Dragon flight.
Up to four people will have the chance to break the world altitude record for private citizen spaceflight. The flight is expected to take place sometime around late 2021.
The partnership fulfills Musk’s desire to use the Dragon spacecraft as a means to ferry people to and from space. It also presents competition for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which is being built with space tourism in mind.
“This historic mission will forge a path to making spaceflight possible for all people who dream of it,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer at SpaceX in a statement.
Space Adventures has a long history in space tourism, hosting eight missions to the International Space Station since 2001. The Crew Dragon flight will take people to twice the altitude of the ISS, roughly as high as the Gemini space craft flew.
The Crew Dragon made its first unmanned flight to the ISS last March. NASA contracted SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS in the spacecraft after the Space Shuttle was retired.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Airbnb’s bottom line is hurting. New safety efforts could make matters worse
—How businesses lost an extra $500 million from email scams last year
—Antivirus software Avast investigated for selling user browsing histories
—Huawei poses a 5G spying risk, but other options are hard to come by
—Predicting the biggest tech headlines of 2020
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-02-18--Artificial Intelligence and the need for speed

This is the web version of Eye on A.I., Fortune’s weekly newsletter covering artificial intelligence and business. To get it delivered weekly to your in-box, sign up here.
Artificial intelligence’s future hinges on the Internet getting faster for both consumers and businesses.
Networking giant Cisco released its annual report about the Internet on Tuesday, and like in previous years, some of the conclusions were obvious: more people will get online in the coming years using more devices, while Internet speeds increase.
But Cisco executive Thomas Barnett said that the growth—by 2023 there will be 5 billion Internet users (up from 3.9 billion in 2018), 29.3 billion web-connected devices (up from 18.4 billion in 2018), and broadband speeds of 110 mbps (versus 45.9 mbps in 2018)—is significant beyond the fact that numbers are simply getting bigger. To handle the load, telecommunication companies will have to increasingly use machine learning as a traffic controller.
Cisco’s report found that 61% of telecom providers plan artificial intelligence projects for so-called edge computing, a buzzy tech-industry term for crunching data near where the data is generated and used instead of at a cloud data center that is likely hundreds of miles away. Walmart’s experimental Levittown, N.Y. store that’s outfitted with cameras and over 100 servers to better track inventory and customers is one example of edge computing.
But in order for edge computing to gain greater momentum, the Internet must get faster, which is why Cisco predicts that mobile carriers will start upgrading their networks to accommodate the increasing demand. And as these big carriers—AT&T and Verizon, for example—expand their Internet infrastructure, they’ll use machine learning to more efficiently distribute Internet access.
So far, telecommunication companies haven’t yet built the networking infrastructure to accommodate these kinds of futuristic A.I. applications. But Barnett expects that to change, and telecom giants will spend more on 5G and next-generation Wi-Fi.
“Their business depends on it,” Barnett said.
Jonathan Vanian
@JonathanVanian
jonathan.vanian@fortune.com
A.I. IN THE NEWS
Putting the brakes on facial recognition. Senators Cory Booker and Jeff Merkley introduced a bill, the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence Act, that would stop federal agencies from using facial recognition technologies until federal guidelines are created, tech news publication VentureBeat reported. The report said that the “bill is being enacted because facial recognition is being marketed to police departments and government agencies, the technology has a history of less accurate performance for people of color and women.” Then bill joins an increasing number of federal A.I.-related bills that have been introduced since 2018.
Facebook heads to Brussels. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to meet with the European Union's competition chief prior to the EU’s executive arm unveiling new A.I. regulations on Wednesday, CNBC reported. “Zuckerberg’s visit also happens at a time when European regulators are assessing whether Facebook’s data practices have disrespected competition law,” the report said.
More problems for Clearview AI. Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition startup that’s built an enormous database of faces scraped from the public Internet, is being sued again, tech news publication CNET reported. "Clearview has amassed a database of more than 3 billion photographs that it scraped from sources including Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Venmo and millions of other websites," attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. "Users can take a picture of a stranger on the street, upload it to Clearview's tool and instantly see photos of that person on various social media platforms and websites, along with the person's name, address and other identifying information."
Army and A.I. poisoning. The army is funding research to defend against so-called adversarial attacks, in which hackers inject certain kinds of data intended to mistrain or corrupt deep learning systems, government IT publication Fedscoop reported. Although it’s unclear whether the army has experienced actual hackers using such techniques to infiltrate or tamper its A.I. systems, the mere notion of the attacks is enough for the military to work on preventive measures. Some of the software the army is developing is “designed to detect potential backdoors in a database and then instruct the algorithm to unlearn connections it may have picked up from the bad data,” the report said.
TRUST AND A.I. ETHICS
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reflects on the tech industry regaining trust with the public and mentions A.I. as one way companies can regain good will. Nadella tells Fortune:
You are introducing a model that, say, is built on a human corpus of language—it’s going to pick up a bunch of bias based on the data it trained on. The first way to protect against that is by having a diverse team building the model in the first place. Let’s not abdicate control. Do we have the internal processes to ensure more diversity in our teams? We have engineering processes for doing secure code—what is the moral equivalent?
EYE ON A.I. RESEARCH
A guide to deep learning and finance. Researchers from TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara, Turkey published a paper that surveys multiple deep learning research papers pertaining to financial applications like fraud detection, risk assessment, and stock market predicting. The researchers discovered some interesting facts from the survey. For instance, they found out that the python programming language is the most popular developer environment used by A.I. researchers for deep learning finance models and that long short-term memory (LSTM) architecture is popular for A.I. finance researchers because of “its well-established structure for financial time series data forecasting.”
A.I. and the quest to remember. Researchers from Google’s DeepMind unit published a paper and related dataset detailing new software architecture intended for researchers to create more capable A.I. language models. The researchers’ proposed “Compressive Transformer” is partly based on the notion that when people read books they build a “compressed representation of the past narrative” rather than memorizing every single detail in the book in order to understand it.
FORTUNE ON A.I.
Putting politics aside to close the skills gap—By Alan Murray
ARM unveils two new A.I. computer chip designs—Jeremy Kahn
White House proposes big increase in A.I. and quantum spending while cutting other sciences—By Jonathan Vanian
Did the ‘techlash’ kill Alphabet’s city of the future? —By Robert Hackett
BRAIN FOOD
On China, smart cities, and surveillance. As part of Fortune’s special report on “Rethinking the City,” Grady McGregor reports on the China metropolis Shenzhen, which has become a poster-child of sorts for the nation’s push in A.I. and so-called smart city technology. As the report explains, city officials “collect massive troves of data to manage traffic congestion, pollution, and resources like water and electricity” as a way to more efficiently manage city infrastructure. But the constant data gathering and tracking to create “civic efficiency” comes at the price of personal privacy and constant surveillance. Now, even Shenzhen’s city government is reflecting on the tradeoff and is “cosponsoring with Hong Kong an exhibition called ‘Eyes of the City.’”
From the article:
The show, which runs through March, features installations examining the role of technology in urban life. One such work invites viewers to reflect on facial recognition, and asks whether they wish to be tracked with the technology through the exhibition. According to organizers, a large majority of participants opt out—a sign that Chinese citizens may be less comfortable with such tracking than conventional wisdom suggests.


fortune--2020-02-18--With a strong consumer economy, Walmart is on the hook for any slowing sales

Here’s the good news for Walmart: On Tuesday, it reported a 22nd straight quarter of U.S. comparable sales growth in a row, helped by e-commerce business rising 30%.
Here’s the bad news: That strong digital growth is coming at a great cost and not getting a boost from categories where Walmart has made big bets, namely toys and apparel.
Walmart said that comparable sales, a metric that excludes the impact of recently closed or opened stores, in its $340 billion U.S. business only rose 1.9% during the key holiday quarter, below the 3% the retailer had forecast.
The company has poured tens of billions of dollars into strengthening its e-commerce firepower in the last few years hoping to protect its market share from Amazon, and it has gotten good results. But the efforts have been denting its profits for years.
Walmart U.S.’ operating income fell 12.7% last quarter, and finance chief Brett Biggs told Wall Street analysts at its annual investor day at the New York Stock Exchange that this year, that metric will likely fall again slightly or stay unchanged at best.
Biggs, who estimated that online sales would represent half of Walmart’s U.S. sales growth this year, said he was “passionate” about keeping costs in check. That tighter discipline has already been on display by moves such a ending the money-losing Jetblack shopping concierge service last week.
John Furner, the new CEO for Walmart U.S., later said there were opportunities for same-day delivery for general merchandise, a capacity that will cost money to build.
As for the U.S. sales shortfall, the company blamed weak sales of toys, video games, and apparel.
Walmart Inc. chief executive Doug McMillon complained to the analysts about the absence of a hot ‘must-have’ toy during the 2019 holiday period , noting that the closest thing to a blockbuster was a $5 item. That echoed Target’s comments last month when it also reported a lackluster holiday season.
And in a blow to his desire for Walmart to improve its general merchandise performance (groceries generate 56% of U.S. sales) by raising its fashion quotient, sales of apparel, which offers higher profit margins than categories like food, were down, hurt by too much low-priced merchandise.
The numbers showed how much work Walmart, which sells Lord & Taylor products on its site and last year bought women’s fashion brand Scoop, has to do to compete in fashion with Target, whose sales have been bolstered by many new, instantly popular store brands.
Walmart has also been banking on doing a better job with items like video games to reduce its online growth’s reliance on grocery, a major objective McMillon declared in November as he pointed to chronic weakness in online sales of general merchandise where it competes most directly with Amazon. Most of Walmart’s online grocery orders are picked up at any of its 4,600 U.S. stores, something Amazon can’t offer and something that keeps shipping costs in check.
On the whole, Walmart expects more growth in fiscal 2021, which began this month: it forecast U.S. comparable sales will increase at least 2.5%, after rising 2.8% in the year just ended. And U.S. e-commerce growth should come in at 30%, strong though less so than the 37% reported for fiscal 2020.
McMillon told the analysts at its investor day, which is being webcast, that consumers are in good shape with low unemployment and low gas prices. And that, analysts said, shows that any sales shortfall reflects the weakness of a retailer’s individual strategy.
“The American consumer is still reasonably confident,” Neil Saunders, a managing director at GlobalData Retail, said in a note. “Confidence and spending power are there, however, retailers need to work much harder if they want to tap into them.”
Walmart’s forecasts for the whole company don’t include any impact from the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China, though Biggs said the company continues to monitor the situation, and that if it affects its supply chain, as well as stores there, it could end up taking a hit.
Walmart Inc., which also includes Sam’s Club and a massive international business, is also contending with a lot of change in its c-suite as it begins fiscal 2021: a new U.S. CEO in Furner; a new Sam’s Club CEO, Kathryn McLay (who replaces Furner there); and new chief merchandising officer Scott McCall. Total company revenue last year rose 1.9% to $524 billion.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Mall developer Simon’s Taubman purchase shows high-end is the last refuge
—Bernard Arnault was briefly the world’s richest man. Then coronavirus struck
—Land O’Lakes wants to introduce you to the farmer behind your butter
—Why Bud Light gave its new hard seltzer the family name
—WATCH: Inside the algorithm powering Stitch Fix
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fortune--2020-02-18--What happens to leftover campaign funds when a candidate drops out of the presidential race?

So far, 23 candidates—both Democratic and Republican—have dropped out of the 2020 presidential race. Some, like Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, raised north of $30 million. More obscure hopefuls, like former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, didn’t crack $500,000.
But no matter the scale of their fundraising, each candidate is bound by the rules of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) when it comes to spending their leftover campaign funds.
How candidates can’t spend leftover money
When it comes to personal expenses, candidates can’t (legally) spend a penny they earned from the campaign trail.
As Mental Floss notes, this stems from the fact that, for more than a decade, U.S. representatives who took office prior to January 8, 1980, were allowed to pocket leftover campaign cash after retirement. This led to a fiasco where a third of Congress spent donations from failed campaigns on frivolous items and services, leading to this provision being knocked down.
Today, according to the FEC’s website, their jurisdiction covers the subjects of funds raised and spent to influence federal elections, restrictions on contributions and expenditures made to influence federal elections, and the public financing of presidential campaigns.
If the FEC believes that election law is being violated, they can audit campaign committees, review a complaint, have another government agency refer the violation to them, or have a person or entity self-submit themselves if they believe they committed an error.
How candidates can spend leftover money
If a candidate has dropped out, they can simply refund the money to their donors. They can also donate it to political allies, political parties, or (with a $2,000 limit) other candidates.
They can save leftover campaign funds for a future run, and if cash is needed to bring their failed campaign to a close, they can spend it on that, as well.
Also, there are possible exceptions to the “personal use” prohibition, which Myles Martin, public affairs specialist at the FEC, tells Fortune are handled on a “case-by-case basis.”
“The Commission recognizes that certain expenses made by a campaign may present questions as to whether they constitute bona fide campaign activity or would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or duties as a federal officeholder,” he says.
“Accordingly, the Commission will determine… whether certain uses of funds in a campaign account are permissible, including legal expenses, meal expenses, travel expenses, and vehicle expenses.”
For example, when former New Jersey governor accumulated legal fees during the Bridgegate scandal, he was granted permission to use some of his reelection campaign funds to cover them.
Super PACs complicate things
Some candidates raise funds via Super PACs, political committees that may not contribute to campaigns but can accept donations of unlimited size. They’ve only been around since 2010, when the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case paved the way for borderless independent expenditures for political communications by corporations.
As of last month, the second- and third-biggest Super PAC donors are Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, both still in the race.
Beyond not being allowed to fund another federal candidate, Super PACs’ financially borderless nature—and relative newness in the field—means a relative lack of regulation comparative to a regular PAC, which, per year, is limited to contributing $5,000 to a candidate, $15,000 to a political party, and $5,000 to another PAC.
“Super PACs have fairly broad discretion on what they can do with excess funds,” Robert Kelner, chair of the Election and Political Law Practice Group at the law firm Covington & Burling told The New York Times in 2015.
And, he said, the point of any Super PAC is to spend all the money anyway: “Where you see a lot of money left over in the super PAC after the candidate drops out, that will probably tell you something about how seriously the super PAC took the race, to begin with.”
The roots of the FEC
Although its roots date back to President Theodore Roosevelt’s efforts to reform campaign finance law, the FEC was founded partly in response to the financial abuses in the 1972 presidential campaign between George McGovern and incumbent Richard Nixon.
In short, the Campaign for the Re-Election of the President garnered millions of dollars from illegal campaign donors, who were kept on a hidden list by secretary Rose Mary Woods (also made famous for the 18-and-a-half minutes of missing Watergate audio).
After lawyer and campaign finance reformist Fred Wertheimer levied a lawsuit on behalf of the watchdog group Common Cause, the list, which the New York Times called “Rose Mary’s Baby,” was forced into the public.
This resulted in William Keeler, the chief executive of Phillips Petroleum, pleading guilty during post-Watergate prosecutions. In 1974, amendments were made to the Federal Election Campaign Act to set limits on contributions by individuals.
Those amendments included the formation of the FEC to hold those accountable who would send or receive illegal contributions.
In conclusion…
Yang, Harris, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the rest legally have their hands tied in terms of what they can do with their millions in campaign contributions.
The Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) campaign tells Fortune that after paying all outstanding bills, the remaining balance of Swalwell for America’s funds were transferred to Swalwell for Congress. The other 22 candidates’ committees did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
If they choose to not fund their party, political allies, charities or (to a very small limit) other candidates, they’ll have to wait until 2024 for that money to move an inch.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—These are the Democratic candidates who qualify for the next debate so far
—2020 candidates’ positions, and records, on economic issues that affect women
—The case for a national primary
—Fortune Explains: The debt ceiling
—Can Amazon convince a federal court to depose Trump over a $10 billion Pentagon contract?
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fortune--2020-02-18--Are magic mushrooms Silicon Valley’s next big bet?

Advocates hail cannabis for its medicinal benefits. Now venture capitalists are zeroing in on another substance: magic mushrooms.
Some daring investors are funding a psilocybin movement, betting that the psychedelic compound can mend the likes of OCD and PTSD, opioid addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, cluster headaches, and more.
Jeffrey M. O’Brien took a dive into the nascent industry for Fortune, following angel investor Tim Ferriss, an early investor in Uber, Twitter, and Alibaba. Ferriss has poured much money into advancing research into the psilocybin market.
“I view the next five years as an absolutely golden window. There’s an opportunity to use relatively small amounts of money to have billions of dollars of impact and to affect millions of lives,” Ferriss told Jeffrey. “There just aren’t that many opportunities that are so dramatically obvious.”
We’re still in the early innings. On a federal level, distributing psychedelic substances in the U.S. can carry first-offense trafficking penalties of up to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine.
In the venture capital realm, much funding has been raised in Canada, where the cannabis movement took root. Psychedelics-focused funds such as Field Trip Ventures, Numinus, and Tabula Rasa all grew from there. And Compass Pathways, which is testing psilocybin’s impact on depression and raised $55 million from the likes of Thiel Capital and Galaxy Ventures’s Michael Novogratz, is based in London.
Read the full story here.
QUADRICORN ALERT: Or is it a near-Quinticorn alert?
Toast, the Boston-based restaurant management platform, nearly doubled its valuation to $4.9 billion after raising $400 million in Series F funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, TPG, Greenoaks Capital, and Tiger Global Management.
It’s been about a year since the point-of-sales company raised $250 million for a $2.7 billion valuation and shortly thereafter made its first acquisition: HR and payroll software company Stratex.
While Toast’s plan is to ultimately go public, that’s not on the near-term roadmap, according to CFO Tim Barash—thwarting those in pursuit of concrete growth metrics and cash flow statements. The company did, however, tease that revenue grew 109% in 2019, per the press release.
Will Toast make another acquisition? Barash says it’s a possibility.
“There are some companies that want to build everything, and we are a little biased to building when we can,” he said. “We’re always looking at interesting companies, though there’s nothing out there we are actively trying to buy.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the company charts its course as its customer base faces disruption from the gig economy, including ghost kitchens.
Housekeeping: Polina is out until Thursday. Please send Wednesday deals and tips to Lucinda.Shen@fortune.com.
VENTURE DEALS
- Semios, a Canadian-based agriculture tech company, raised $75 million in funding from Morningside Group.
- Innovaccer, a San Francisco-based platform for healthcare data management, raised $70 million in Series C funding. Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Dragoneer, Westbridge, Mubadala and M12 participated.
- Elliptic, a London-based provider of crypto asset risk management, raised an $5 million from Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, for a total of $28 million in its Series B.
- UltraSense Systems, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of touch user interface technology using 3D ultrasound, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Artiman Ventures and Robert Bosch Venture Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Abies Ventures, Asahi Kasei Corporation, Hui Capital, and Sony Innovation Fund.
- iMerit, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based data annotation company, raised $20 million in Series B funding led by CDC Group. Existing investors also participated.
- Carbon Clean Solutions, a London-based carbon dioxide separation technology maker, raised $16 million in funding from WAVE Equity Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures , and Marubeni Corporation.
- Simsim, an Gurgaon, India-based social commerce startup, has raised $16 million across seed, Series A and Series B financing rounds. Accel Partners, Shunwei Capital, and Good Capital are the investors.
- Apos Medical Assets, a New York-based maker of knee osteoporosis devices, raised $11 million in funding. aMoon, company insiders and directors are the main investors.
- MotoRefi, an Arlington, Va.-based auto refinancing platform fintech company, raised $8.6M in Series A funding. Accomplice and Link Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Motley Fool Ventures, CMFG Ventures, Gaingels and others.
- Copper .co , a London-based custodian for digital assets, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Investors include Target Global, LocalGlobe, and MMC Ventures.
- Sharpist, a Berlin-based platform for personalized learning and development, raised $5 million in seed funding. Vorwerk Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including btov Partners and APX.
- Tamatem, an Amman, Jordan-based mobile games publisher in the Arabic speaking market, raised $3.5 million in additional funding to its earlier Series A. Wamda Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Modern Electronics Company and North Base Media.
- Starface, a New York City-based skincare brand, raised $2 million in seed funding. BBG led the round and was joined by investors including Able, Brand Foundry, Amity Supply, NJ Falk, Brian Spaly, and Roth Martin.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
- Platinum Equity acquired Biscuit International, a Paris-based manufacturer of private label sweet biscuits. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Brand Velocity Partners acquired Magma Products, a Lakewood, Calif.-based maker of cookware used in harsh marine and outdoor environments. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Blackstone is in advanced talks to acquire NIBC, a Dutch bank, at 9.85 euros per share. The deal would value NIBC at 1.44 billion euros. Read more.
- symplr, backed by Clearlake Capital Group and SkyKnight Capital, acquired The Patient Safety Company, a Netherlands-based risk management platform for the healthcare industry, from Main Capital Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- ION Investment Group recapped Broadway Technology, a New York-based provider of capital markets solutions. ION will hold a controlling stake alongside Long Ridge Equity Partners and the Broadway founders.
- Gainline Capital Partners invested in Core Health & Fitness, a Vancouver-based commercial fitness equipment manufacturer. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOs
- Cole Haan, Greenland, N.H.-based luxury shoemaker, filed to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company posted revenue of $686.6 million in the year ending June 2019 and income of $33.1 million. Apax Partners backs the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “CLHN.” Read more.
- Vontier, a Raleigh, N.C.-based infrastructure tech company spinning out from Fortive, filed for an $100 million IPO. The company posted sales of $2.8 billion in 2019 and net earnings of $437 million. It plans to list on the NYSE as “VNT.” Read more.
- Passage Bio, a Philadelphia-based biotech focused on rare, monogenic central nervous system disorders, plans to raise $126 million in an IPO of 7.4 million shares priced between $16 to $18. It has yet to post a revenue, and revealed losses of $45.6 million in 2019. Frazier Life Sciences (13.9%), Orbimed (19.6%), and Versant Ventures (14.8%), back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “PASG.” Read more.
EXITS
- EQT Partners and OMERS agreed to acquire Deutsche Glasfaser, a German broadband provider, from KKR. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Boxwood Merger Corp. (Nasdaq: BWMC), a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, acquired Atlas Intermediate Holdings, a professional testing, inspection, engineering, program management and consulting services provider, from Bernhard Capital Partners for approximately $617 million.
F+FS
- Pamlico Capital, a lower middle market private equity firm, closed Pamlico Capital V at its hard cap of $1.4 billion.
- Grove Ventures closed Grove Ventures II with $120 million.
- Riot Ventures is seeking to raise $75 million for its second fund, according to fundraising documents seen by TechCrunch.
- Da Vinci Capital, a mid-market private equity firm, launched its third fund, the Da Vinci Emerging Technologies Fund III. It has raised 30 million euros so far.
PEOPLE
- Laurie Yoler will join Playground Global as a General Partner.


fortune--2020-02-18--What went wrong in San Francisco

What went wrong in San Francisco

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
San Francisco, a real place, is the cultural and commercial heart of Silicon Valley, a made-up place. The former is a mess, even as the latter churns out unprecedented profits and scares the world with its concentration of power. Their ills are inextricably linked: Vast tech wealth has collided with political dysfunction to produce a horrifying state of affairs on the streets of a great American city.
I spent the last couple months stepping outside my lane as a business and technology journalist to investigate how things got so bad and what might be done about it. My article, “Can San Francisco be saved?” appears in the current issue of Fortune, alongside other looks at cities around the world.
It’s tough to summarize what’s wrong, but a few things are obvious. San Francisco hasn’t built enough homes to house the people who’ve come to fill all the jobs it has created. Because there isn’t enough housing, prices have skyrocketed, which is fine for most tech-industry workers and not so good for everyone else. Because it’s tough for working people to find a place to live, it’s really difficult for the working poor, the non-working poor, and those afflicted with mental health and other ailments.
There are solutions to these problems, such as building more housing and spending even more money on the least fortunate among us. But these solutions need political leadership and compromise, two things historically in short supply in San Francisco. Political factions squabble in this city dominated by what elsewhere in the country would be called left-wing liberals as much as Democrats and Republicans do on the national stage.
Since I finished this article, the mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, said she took a gift from the powerful former head of public works, a longtime bureaucrat who has been charged with corruption by the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco. (He paid more than $5,000 for the repair of her 18-year-old car.) Breed is a pro-business centrist by San Francisco standards, and her left-of-the-left, anti-development opponents already have pounced.
Also since my story went to press, I picked up, with serendipitous timing, a new book, “Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America,” by the New York Times economics reporter Conor Dougherty. I interviewed several of the people he writes about in this outstanding book. It is highly readable (a true feat for a book about housing policy). I’m a slow reader, and I read this book in a few days. I recommend it to anyone who wants to go deeper on this important topic.
***
This week also marks the release of Fortune’s 2020 Best Companies to Work For list. You’ll find many tech companies made the cut, including Ultimate Software, Cisco Systems, Workday, and Salesforce in the top 10.
Adam Lashinsky
Twitter: @adamlashinsky
Email: adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
More contagion. The impact of the coronavirus is still unfolding. Apple on Monday warned that it would not meet its financial guidance for this quarter due to factory closures and reduced consumer shopping in China. "Work is starting to resume around the country, but we are experiencing a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated," Apple said. Also, Facebook cancelled its Global Marketing Summit in San Francisco next month due to the outbreak and IBM said it would not attend the long-running RSA cybersecurity conference in the same city. Meanwhile, organizers of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, already cancelled, vowed to return to the city to hold the gathering in 2021.
Attacking the big problems. In news of other calamities, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he'll contribute $10 billion to help fight climate change. "This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world," he explained. In anti-Bezos news comes word that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who funded the Amazon-criticizing effort called the “Free and Fair Markets Initiative,” is holding a fundraiser for another Bezos foe, President Trump, at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Look to the western sky. Internet from space is getting real. SpaceX's Starlink service lofted 60 more satellites on Monday and now has about 300 in its constellation circling Earth in low orbit. CEO Elon Musk says that at 400 satellites, minimal broadband service could begin. Almost there!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
For decades, companies have made software that interacts with software from other companies via triggers known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. But when Google used some APIs in its Android operating system that originated in Oracle's Java programming language, Oracle sued, citing copyright law. The Supreme Court gets the case on March 24 and Fortune's own Jeff John Roberts says one question is whether the simple data labels that make up APIs are even copyrightable at all.
Google and its allies...main argument is instead that the kind of APIs used by Google are ineligible for copyright because they represent an idea or a method—similar to a recipe or a math formula, which can’t be copyrighted. In support of this position, they point to a case from 1880 in which the Supreme Court ruled that a bookkeeper’s wife could not copyright a system of ledger headings in account books.
“It’s an oldie but goodie,” says law professor Pam Samuelson, who adds the argument will likely resonate with the justices because the Supreme Court pays close attention to its own precedents.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Conversation: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on how the tech industry can win back public trust By Andrew Nusca
Did the ‘techlash’ kill Alphabet’s city of the future? By Robert Hackett
Coronavirus recovery: Why it’s so hard for China’s factories to get back to work By Eamon Barrett
5 things Madewell’s CEO always packs when traveling By JP Mangalindan
When innovation doesn’t equal improvement By Sy Mukherjee
4 ways to get your resume noticed by companies like Google By Anne Fisher
BEFORE YOU GO
Among the not-quite-early-adopters of electric cars: Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder was recently on the always excellent YouTube channel of Marques Brownlee and said he'd bought one of Porsche's new Taycan electric models. That apparently annoyed Tesla guy Elon Musk (who has also been interviewed by Brownlee). "My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh," Musk tweeted.
Aaron Pressman
On Twitter: @ampressman
Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com