How is Silicon Valley supposed to stay exceptional when its belief system keeps getting debunked? First empirical evidence proved there's no such thing as a meritocracy. Then they had to add a disclaimer that "change the world" may not mean for the better. Now the shortage of tech workers—a phenomenon used to justify both immigration policies and insane perks—"doesn't really exist."
Facebook's fleet of shuttle bus drivers will vote today on whether to join the Teamsters labor union. The drivers have protested their work conditions, saying their employer requires them to work 15.5 hour-long split shifts, receive pay below the living wage, and say they're "held hostage" for the six hours between shifts when the shuttles aren't running.
Mark Zuckerberg is already paying dozens of kids to hold parking spots overnight outside the construction site for his San Francisco mansion. But he's now taken street occupation a step further: Capp Street Crap tweets that this is a "photo of one of the cranes that shut down [21st Street] to hoist fully mature trees into Zuckerberg's yard."
It's Halloween in Silicon Valley (and presumably everywhere else), which means tech companies are turning their corporate campuses into moderately spookier versions of their normal selves.
Facebook's team of mad data scientists caught flak this summer for experimenting on their users' emotions. But the company has a proud history of turning people into unwitting research subjects. For at least six years, the social network has been mining the political preferences of its users without their consent. The company will pull personal political data for the 2016 election as well, but this time Facebook will share its findings.
Wall Street wasn't happy with Facebook's latest earnings report. TechCrunch thinks it's because Facebook "refused to break out any data about usage levels of teens, which are widely thought to be abandoning Facebook for apps like Snapchat." C'mon, TechCrunch, where's that fist-pumping Facebook apologia when you need it?
In recent months, companies like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo have dialed back their most egregious political donations, pulling support from climate change-denying groups like ALEC and the Chamber of Commerce. But tech firms continue funneling money into right-wing campaigns, and the Silicon Valley liberals who financed them are pissed.
Facebook's habit for blowing app launches has doomed another debut. Rooms, a pseudo-anonymous forum app that appears to be Reddit crossed with 90s-era forums, was supposed to make a big splash in the press today. Instead, people are taking to Twitter to complain the app has been pulled from the App Store.
For many, strolling around San Francisco is a pleasure. But for the optimization-obsessed elites of Silicon Valley, traveling through a world-class city is just laboring tax on their time. Now one former Facebook boss realizes his "soul-crushing" shuttle bus commute out of town was a blessing in disguise.
Tech corporations have perfected the science of the employee perk: a lavish amenity designed to keep workers in the office and fixated on the job. The recent announcement that Facebook and Apple will pay for female employees to freeze their eggs is perhaps the most fascinating example of what's behind America's unbalanced work-is-life mindset.
Facebook sparked a fierce backlash three weeks ago when it began enforcing a "real name" policy against performers and members of the LGBT community. The company initially dug in its heels, refusing to stop requiring people to use their legal names, inciting hundreds of thousands of people to flee to the quasi-anti-corporate network Ello. Now Facebook is feeling the heat and is slated to apologize for the situation later today, sources tell Valleywag.
The extravagant renovation of Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million San Francisco "fixer-upper" has already aggravated neighbors with months of noise and parking concerns. But Zuckerberg's own actions are making the impacts of the ongoing 17 month project worse. According to CBS, the boy billionaire has been paying a squad of squatters to hold parking spots so his construction workers have somewhere to park.
Ello is a bright and clean new social network that promises, in its manifesto, to stay free of ads, never sell your data, and not make anyone use real names. People are paying attention to Ello because other people are paying attention to Ello. It is invitation only. New members were joining at the rate of 4,000 sign-ups per hour yesterday; the site is doubling in size every 3 or 4 days. Ello just notified me that I can't send out invites right now because "Ello has gone viral."
