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The World
Jeff Bezos will step aside as Amazon CEO in 3Q21. He wrote to Amazon employees: “As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition. Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else. As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions. I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have… Keep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1.” (Financial Times, Bezos email to Amazon)
How new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy built an enterprise tech juggernaut: 24 years after he joined a small online bookseller, and 15 years after he launched a small group at that company that would become the most disruptive enterprise tech company of a generation, Andy Jassy is taking over one of the biggest companies in the world. The CEO of AWS will become the second CEO in Amazon history later this year. Jassy is a self-taught technologist who built AWS into an enterprise tech giant, turning the technology infrastructure needed to underpin its retail operation into the most profitable division of the company. (Protocol)
Bezos founded Amazon more than 26 years ago; here’s what he achieved: From selling books to launching space rockets, here’s a look at the executive’s milestones inside and outside the e-commerce giant. (Wall Street Journal)
Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan: What the Amazon founder and CEO wants for his empire and himself, and what that means for the rest of us. (The Atlantic, 2019)
Was the move foreshadowed in 1999? That’s when he explained to 60 Minutes that he lives his life via a “Regret Minimization Framework.”
Peer-reviewed data show that the Russian COVID vaccine called Sputnik V is safe and that it works. The randomized, placebo-controlled phase III trials, done at 25 hospitals and clinics in Moscow included almost 22,000 people. The vaccine showed 91.6% efficacy. Meanwhile, the Oxford vaccine provides about 75% protection against Covid and significantly reduces its spread after only one jab. The single dose eliminates severe illness among those who contract the virus and appears to have a “substantial” effect on transmission of the virus. (BBC News, Lancet, The Times)
The U.S. will start distributing vaccines directly to pharmacies, while Israel is considering allowing its entire public to vaccinate. Germany’s military will send more than 20 doctors and nurses to Portugal, where hospitals are close to being overwhelmed as the country reports the world’s biggest seven-day rolling average of new daily cases per capita. (Washington Post, Times of Israel, The Guardian)
Two new studies contribute to growing evidence of U.S. gaps in Covid-19 vulnerability. An Emory University study found that Black healthcare workers in the Emory Healthcare system were twice as likely to have contracted Covid-19 as their White peers. (JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine)
Italy’s president is expected to ask Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, to begin talks to form a new Italian government of national unity as the country battles against the Covid-19 pandemic. Draghi will meet President Sergio Mattarella today. (Financial Times)
A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony. The court’s decision makes Navalny the most prominent political prisoner in Russia. More than 1,000 people were arrested across Russia in the course of the day. (The Guardian)
As the U.S. decries the Myanmar coup, China remains largely silent. Meanwhile, most U.S. foreign policy leaders and professionals support the use of American troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, but it is opposed by 59% of the U.S. public. (Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post)
A new study of Massachusetts high school students finds that, while many are currently learning remotely full-time, relatively few -- 16% -- say this is their preference. 50% of Massachusetts students say they prefer to learn in person full-time, while 34% say they prefer a hybrid in-person/remote arrangement. (Gallup)
NASA last week quietly delayed its plan to award two high-profile crewed lunar lander contracts, moving the finish line back two months for a crucial program under the Trump administration’s hasty timeline to get astronauts on the moon in 2024. With short funding from Congress and a new administration focused on more pressing national issues, the move was expected. (The Verge)
CA Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval rating has plummeted as the public sours on his pandemic management, underscoring the viability of a campaign to recall Newsom. The poll found that just 46% of California voters approve of Newsom’s job performance — a sharp decline from the two-thirds who backed him in September. A third of voters support a recall. (Politico, Los Angeles Times)
Economy
Apple, Amazon and Microsoft were Forbes’ three most admired companies in 2020. Disney was #4. Apple was #1 for the 14th year in a row. (Forbes)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is calling a meeting of key financial regulators this week to discuss market volatility driven by retail trading in GameStop and other stocks. Yellen will convene heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (Reuters)
What's next for GameStop? Fundamentally, the stock rally doesn't change GameStop's long-term predicament as the gaming industry shifts to digital sales channels: Gaming subscription services are on the rise, which will cannibalize sales of standalone games; Microsoft and Sony are steering gamers to disc-less consoles; cloud gaming services could even restrict GameStop's ability to sell digital downloads. Bottom line: The rise in stock price has some upside for GameStop, but it isn't a magic bullet. (Protocol)
President Biden will issue an executive order requiring the government to review critical supply chains, in an effort to ensure that the U.S. is not too reliant on other countries, including China, for technology and materials. The order will demand government agencies make a broad examination of U.S. supply chains, including procurement. in addition to critical technologies and materials in private-sector supply chains. (Financial Times)
UK private equity deal activity bounced back in the second half of 2020, although a profound slump in transactions in Q2 as lockdown gripped the M&A market meant that total annual deal volumes hit their lowest levels in more than seven years. KPMG’s latest study of UK transactions involving private equity investors indicates that a total of 889 deals completed over the course of 2020, with a combined value of GBP87.2 billion. This was the fewest number of private equity transactions seen in the UK since before 2014, and a fall of 26 per cent on the previous year, which saw 1,199 deals worth GBP107.7 billion. (Private Equity Wire)
Superstar Cities Are in Trouble: The past year has offered a glimpse of the nowhere-everywhere future of work, and it isn’t optimistic for big cities. (The Atlantic)
Technology
Google rode a surge in online holiday spending to record revenue in 4Q20, even though it disclosed for the first time continued losses in its closely watched cloud division. The internet titan’s earnings reflected a continuing recovery in global ad spending that took a hit in early 2020 when people paused travel plans and other purchases in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Alphabet Inc. posted a record $56.9 billion revenue, up from $43.2 billion a year ago. The company’s advertising units pulled in $46.2 billion, up nearly 22% from a year earlier. (Wall Street Journal)
Apple and Samsung have been quietly contributing to a new technology to find and seamlessly unlock your car with your phone, without even pulling it out of your pocket — and Tesla may be one of the first with the tech. Tesla is actively working on building UWB into its cars, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission. On Sept. 9, the company submitted six new “products” for the FCC’s consideration, including two key fobs, a security controller, and a number of “endpoints” that would be installed inside the frame and cabin of a vehicle. (The Verge)
Investors are speeding to 5G: Although 5G has been talked about for more than half a decade, progress has been much slower than many expected. However, with worldwide 5G deployments and device manufacturing on the rise, both strategic and venture capital investors seem to be hedging bets 5G will become a reality for a whole lot more people as early this year. (Crunchbase)
EA Sports announced it is reviving its college football video game series, a beloved franchise that was discontinued in 2013 after EA and the NCAA were taken to court over the unpaid use of player likenesses. Fans of the game have long pushed for its revival, but its return was complicated by the ongoing debate around college players’ legal right to capitalize on their name, image and licensing rights (NIL), which is forbidden by NCAA eligibility rules. (Washington Post)
Business Insider's logo will no longer appear on Insider.com's website. The changes signal CEO and founder Henry Blodget's ambition to grow the publication significantly to reach a broader population, and that includes investing in verticals outside of traditional business coverage, like travel and lifestyle. (Axios)
Smart Links
Pandemic motivates younger people to buy life insurance. (Wall Street Journal)
Clubhouse is blowing up in China. (Protocol)
Court orders Tim Cook to sit for 7-hour deposition in Epic case. (Gizmodo)
McDonald’s is testing the ‘McPlant’ burger in Denmark and Sweden. (The Verge)
Chipotle plans to open 200 stores in 2021. (CNBC)
How Dr. Martens became the most surprising IPO of the pandemic. (Marker)
Learn More (today, 12 pm ET): Examining the SolarWinds Orion Hack: Implications for Government and the Private Sector. The Belfer Center's Intelligence and Cyber Projects for a discussion with David Sanger, Camille Stewart, Priscilla Moriuchi, and Dr. Erica Borghard. (Harvard Kennedy School)
Amazon unveils outdoorsy new HQ2, renewing commitment to offices. (Wall Street Journal)