Edit №63 — Thunder Down Under — Weekly Newsletter on Corporate Innovation & Venture
by Stu Iverson and Clay Maxwell
The Recap
Feb 21, 2021
A fascinating story has developed this week in Australia as new legislation is set to pass that will have two Big Tech companies — Facebook and Google, specifically — pay news publishers for hosted content. Long in the works, things just got very interesting as the two singled-out companies took entirely different tacks in response.
Google, which had briefly balked at the measure, has now entered into a number of arrangements with content producers. Meanwhile, Facebook barred Australians from finding or sharing news from local and international outlets on its platform. Additionally, sharing news links from Aussie publishers is also restricted outside the country.
Facebook says that the law does not “recognize the realities of how our services work” and that indeed it’s the publishers that benefit from Facebook, rather than the other way around.
Quick, broad-sweeping, and undeniably clumsy, the pre-emptive measures Facebook imposed also knocked out access to some emergency services and other government sites.
In response, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, had this to say:
“Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,” Morrison wrote in a Facebook post. “These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behaviour of BigTech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”
Understandably, all of this has been highly controversial. The moves of all parties have been, in fact.
Via recode on the Australian government here:
“While some have cheered Australia’s move, reasoning that anything that gets tech companies to pay news organizations back for the content (or ad dollars) they’ve used to build their own platforms, other media analysts believe the law is a case of the government forcing companies to pay other companies — specifically, those owned by one of that government’s richest and most influential (former) citizens. What was well intentioned may end up only making rich people even richer, with little benefit to anyone else.
Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis called the law a case of “media blackmail” and said Google had “caved” to “the devil Murdoch.” Facebook, on the other hand, either “stood on principle” or just decided news content for Australian users wasn’t worth enough to the company to have to pay for it.”
And here more on Facebook and the news publishers:
“Facebook managed to turn attention away from a flawed piece of legislation and on to its own reckless, opaque power,” wrote Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School. “Even for a company that specializes in public relations disasters, this was quite an achievement.”
Techdirt founder and media analyst Mike Masnick, on the other hand, thought Facebook was perfectly within its rights to do what it did. He even argued that the news ban is in the best interests of a “free and open internet,” as the Australian law will force Google and Facebook to pay a “link tax” that he feels is “inherently problematic.”
“A bunch of lazy newspaper execs who failed to adapt and to figure out better internet business models not only want the traffic, they also want to get paid for it,” Masnick wrote. “If that seems totally nonsensical, that’s because it is. The link tax makes no sense.”
These clashing perspectives reveal the key complication here. Is the central question how to get producers fair pay for their content? Or is it how to help a dying industry survive, maybe even recoup back pay? Is it how to curb Big Tech’s power? Or is it (which in our opinion is missing in everything we’re reading) about what’s best for end-users and gets them the easiest access to the widest array of content, from the largest diversity of sources?
It’s hard to feel bad for any of the “Big” guys in this equation — whether tech, media, or government. We want to see the focus shift away from these entities, bickering and wrestling over a share of the current and potential value, to those who don’t have the power to wield, save from their individual abilities to click, like, read, and post — the end-users and small producers. That’s the David v Goliath story here, not little Aus v Big Facebook, or the impoverished media titans v the nouveau riche techies. What’s next? Hopefully, a genuine focus on the little guys.
Quick Links — Interesting reads from the rest of the market
⛽️ Porsche to begin producing synthetic fuels in 2022.
🚗 Google’s Waymo self driving car unit starts robo-taxis in San Francisco.
🍗 Applebee’s debuts Cheetos-flavored virtual restaurant Cosmic Wings.
💳 Amazon acquires Australia-based Shopify competitor Selz.
📱 YouTube’s quick-video answer to TikTok coming to US in March.
🏦 Visa partners with First Boulevard to launch crypto APIs platform.
👩💻 Westfield introduces on-demand work spaces at Valley Fair.
🚀 9 corporate ventures launched during the pandemic.
The Water Cooler — Conversation starters for around the (virtual) office
Touchdown! NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover safely lands on the red planet. Recreate your favorite bar’s atmosphere while you sit at home waiting for it to reopen. Check out the winners of the 2020 ocean art underwater photo contest. What lengths will Amazon go to stop unionization? Well, Amazon changed traffic light timing during union drive, county officials say. The CIA recruited ‘Mind Readers’ to spy on the soviets in the 1970s.
The Corporate Card — Corporate Venture Deals
GV joined the $120m Venture Round of crypto wallet startup Blockchain.com.
Sapphire Ventures & Silicon Valley Bank UK joined £72.2m Series D of enterprise data startup Matillion.
GV joined the £69.2m Series C of therapeutics startup Evox Therapeutics.
Salesforce Ventures co-led the $96m Series B of DevOps startup Copado.
Tencent Holdings joined the $57m Series A of digital rights startup Pex.
Toyota AI Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, & BMW i Venturesjoined the $48.9m Series B of AI-powered perception chip startup Recogni.
Chevron Technology Ventures & BP Ventures joined the CA$50.7m Venture Round of geothermal energy firm Eavor.
GV joined the $30m Series B of geothermal home heating startup Dandelion Energy.
Apple & Bloomberg Beta joined the $20m Series A of collaborative browser-based coding startup Repl.it.
Verizon Ventures, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital & LG Technology Ventures joined the $9.5m Series A of aerial video augmentation startup Edgybees.
American Express Ventures led the $9m Seed Round of third-party risk management startup Mirato.
Salesforce Ventures & Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab joined the $8m Series A of asset exchange management startup Rheaply.
Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures led the £2.9m Series A of corrosion monitoring startup CorrosionRADAR.
Verizon Ventures joined the $1.5m Seed Round of virtual reality startup Yerba Buena Virtual Reality.
The Bulletin Board — Job openings and opportunities
Fintech Startup Business Development at AWS. AWS is looking for a teammate to put our people and capabilities to work on behalf of Fintech startups and investors. The AWS Startup Business Development team is comprised of exited founders/operators who champion and work alongside the world’s highest-potential startups from conception to exit. We do what is in our power to accelerate their engineering and commercial efforts through people, technology, knowledge, programs, and relationships within and outside Amazon.
Associate, Ventures at Silicon Foundry. We are looking for an Associate to join the team and help scale the company, with a particular focus on growing our deal-making practice, which spans corporate venture capital, private equity, and M&A. Associates work directly with a Partner and gain exposure to all areas of our business, including member servicing, corporate strategy and innovation, diligencing and qualifying startups, developing points-of-view/analyses for senior-level decision-makers, and supporting new business efforts.
