NEWSWORTHY
Battle of the network stars. Bringing back the ghosts of directors quitting past, Disney CEO Bob Iger resigned from Apple's board on Friday, as the two companies head deeper into the streaming video wars. It was just 10 years ago that Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board as the companies sailed into the mobile wars (and Steve Jobs went ballistic on Android). Also on Friday, Apple rebutted a piece from Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall, who said free trials of the company's Apple+ service would have a negative impact on earnings. Or not: "We do not expect the introduction of Apple TV+, including the accounting treatment for the service, to have a material impact on our financial results," Apple said. And coming up this week, the EU General Court in Luxembourg will hear arguments over whether Apple really has to pay that $14 billion tax levy (the one Tim Cook called "total political crap") imposed by EU regulators in 2016.
Miami vice. Too-good-to-be-true cinema subscription service MoviePass finally closed down on Saturday. But the money-losing offering could be back in some other guise. Owner Helios and Matheson Analytics said it was exploring strategic alternatives, such as selling rights to the MoviePass brand to others.
Who's the boss. In case there was too much goodwill floating around for Amazon, the company decided to trim it back, disclosing on Friday plans to cut healthcare benefits for Whole Foods employees who work less than 20 hours per week. Just last month, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos signed the Business Roundtable's pledge to invest in employees by providing fair wages and important benefits.
The A-Team. Some of the good folk supporting Facebook's Libra digital currency project will meet with officials from 26 central banks, including the Federal Reserve, in Basel, Switzerland, on Monday, the Financial Times reports. The meeting will be chaired by European Central Bank board member Benoît Coeuré, a noted Libra critic.
Moonlighting. Chinese Internet giant Tencent is teaming with private equity firm Hammer Capital to buy car listing website Bitauto Holdings for $1.2 billion.
Cheers. On Wall Street, the IPO market is going gangbusters. Online mouthgear seller SmileDirectClub went public Thursday at $23, plunged below $17, and then rebounded to $18.68 on Friday. Cloudflare, priced at $15 on Thursday night, jumped 20% to $18 on Friday.
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As we get deeper into the streaming wars, it's interesting to recall that the current king, Netflix, began as a crazy idea dreamed up by a couple of guys stuck in traffic on their daily commute. Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings were sick of paying late fees for video tapes rented from Blockbuster. Sam Levin at The Guardian chatted with Randolph, who has a new book about his time at Netflix called That Will Never Work. The co-founder and his buddies had a few run-ins with Blockbuster along the way:
He and his colleagues sat down with Blockbuster in Dallas and proposed the video chain accelerate its entry into DVDs, by purchasing Netflix–for $50m. "In one fell swoop, we might get out of this," he recalls. After they stated the dollar amount, Randolph noticed something strange happening with the Blockbuster CEO John Antioco's face. He was struggling not to burst into laughter.
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Amazon Is Crowdsourcing Alexa's Answers. Smart Tactic or a Questionable Move? By David Z. Morris
This Tiny Bookstore on Wheels Is Currently Toting 3,000 Books Around the French Countryside By Anna Ben Yehuda Rahmanan
The Insurance CEO Who Gives Customers His Cellphone Number By Robert Hackett
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BEFORE YOU GO
Some of the coolest architectural innovations come not on giant projects but on small structures. In Fast Company's annual "Innovation by Design Awards in the Spaces, Places, and Cities category," a bit of a mouthful, there are amazing winners of all sizes. Of course, I was captivated by the new Calgary library, but also by a tiny, new park in Queens and, most surprising of all, the new flagship McDonald's outpost in downtown Chicago. Check them out.
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.
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