NEWSWORTHY
Riding into the sunset. Nadiem Makarim, the founder and CEO of Indonesia's super-unicorn startup Gojek, resigned this week to become the country's minister of education and culture. The $10 billion startup which offers ride hailing, payments, food delivery, and other services named Kevin Aluwi and Andre Soelistyo co-CEOs.
Capitol grilling. It was a tough going over for Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, who went to Washington, D.C., to answer lawmakers' questions about the Libra digital currency project. Actually, it's not a digital currency but a "digital payments system," Zuck explained. While Zuckerberg talked, the world's top cryptocurrency, bitcoin, plunged below $7,500, its lowest level in five months. Elsewhere on the Hill, some senators asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Amazon and its web services unit were culpable in part for the massive Capital One hack.
If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. In an effort to get around state censorship from the likes of China and Iran, the BBC is putting a version of its news web site on the so-called dark web. That will allow people to get around the censors' Internet blocks if they have access to the Tor Network used for private web browsing.
A piece of the action. On Wall Street, Microsoft posted a beat and Tesla boomed, but Twitter, oh Twitter...In Redmond, Microsoft saw revenue rise 14% to $33 billion, even as sales of Surface and Xbox slipped and Azure slowed. Its stock price, up 35% this year, gained 1% in premarket trading on Thursday morning. Electric carmaker Tesla surged to a surprise profit on record vehicle production. Tesla shares, down 23% in 2019, jumped 19% in premarket trading. Twitter missed expectations for revenue, earnings, and users (145 million daily represented growth of 17% from last year). Twitter shares, up 35% in 2019, plunged 19%, erasing more than half of the year's gain.
Lock it down. Remember the story of how you could evade the fingerprint scan security on the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10 with a simple screen protector? Not anymore.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Image recognition, machine learning, recommendation engines–all these A.I. high tech wonders will make the world a better place, maybe. But first, can they help sell more burgers and fries? New York Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany chronicles efforts by McDonald's to harness A.I. for its own uses.
The chain has digital boards programmed to market that food more strategically, taking into account such factors as the time of day, the weather, the popularity of certain menu items and the length of the wait. On a hot afternoon, for example, the board might promote soda rather than coffee. At the conclusion of every transaction, screens now display a list of recommendations, nudging customers to order more. At some drive-throughs, McDonald's has tested technology that can recognize license-plate numbers, allowing the company to tailor a list of suggested purchases to a customer's previous orders, as long as the person agrees to sign away the data.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The World's Largest Lighting Company Is Making Big Promises for a WiFi Alternative—But 5G Awaits By Mark Halper
What's Next for Google After Claiming 'Quantum Supremacy'? By Robert Hackett
Amazon Executive on Fight Over Huge Defense Contract: 'The Process Was Not Rigged' By David Z. Morris
How Best Buy's Corie Barry Went From Being Seen as 'a Risk' at the Company to Its CEO By Phil Wahba
Bozoma Saint John Learned the Importance of Standing Out From Hot Pepper Soup By Aaron Pressman
3 Things Disney CEO Robert Iger Says People Can Expect From Disney+ By Danielle Abril
Who Are the Ultrawealthy? These Charts Will Give You an Idea Where they live, how they got their money, and more. By Nicolas Rapp and Daniel Bentley
BEFORE YOU GO
It feels like it wouldn't be Data Sheet without some laughs at the expense of the company formerly known as WeWork. Start with Matt Levine's gut-busting take yesterday, complete with fictional dialogue of former We CEO Adam Neumann. Also, for a more visual gag, check out the snappy response of Fortune editor Andrew Nusca to Neumann back in 2016, after Neumann live on stage asks him: "Are you going to apologize for choosing us as one of the three unicorns to bet against?"
Aaron Pressman
On Twitter:@ampressman
Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com
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