EV

New Energy Bulls

The dot-com era called—it wants its stock market speculation back. Today, let’s focus on one small segment of this market frenzy: companies trying to make transportation decarbonization dreams a reality. 

Part of that pack...

...is Nikola, a Phoenix-based company that’s developing electric and hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks. Last week, the company debuted on the Nasdaq through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Here’s the rub: The company forecasts revenues of $0 for 2020 and cash to start flowing in next year. 

Traders...see the next Tesla? On Monday, Nikola’s third day of trading, shares surged 104%. Yesterday, the stock jumped another 20%, then dropped by the same amount before trading was paused for volatility. I got dizzy. 

• As of this morning, Nikola’s market cap was virtually the same as 117-year-old Ford’s. 

Driving the action: Nikola says non-binding preorders for commercial fleet vehicles have topped $10 billion. And Monday, Founder and Exec. Chairman Trevor Milton announced the company will start taking reservations for the Badger, a fuel cell-powered pickup truck (pictured above). 

Did someone say electric truck? Tesla sales in China jumped by 3x between April and May, according to the China Passenger Car Association. Tesla’s stock hit all-time highs this week, and the company is the world’s second largest automaker by market cap behind Toyota. 

Meanwhile, in private markets

Lilium, a German developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, raised $35 million from Baillie Gifford, the largest Tesla investor not named Elon Musk. The deal vaunts Lilium into the unicorn club. 

• The Lilium Jet is still in the test phase; the startup hopes to start an eVTOL ride-hail service in 2025. 

Bottom line: Nikola and Lilium are in the early innings of a long game, which has high barriers to entry, scaling challenges, and expensive operating costs. Tesla’s already playing the game and successfully bringing products to market.

AI

IBM Exits Facial Recognition

Activists, researchers, and now a large tech company have drawn the battle lines for facial recognition.

On Monday, IBM said it won’t offer, develop, or research facial recognition. IBM also won’t support technologies used for “mass surveillance, racial profiling, [or] violations of basic human rights and freedoms,” CEO Arvind Krishna wrote to Congress.  

• The inside take: IBM made a “business” and “ethical” choice, a source told CNBC.
• The jaded take: The company already fell behind on facial recognition, per former Wired editor Chris Anderson. 

Studies show that facial recognition systems are worse at identifying women and people of color. Even if algorithms edge closer to perfect identification capabilities, critics say the technology could be a tool for widespread surveillance and could potentially perpetuate racial bias. IBM has sidestepped the debate and exerted pressure on other tech companies to clarify their stance. 

Zoom out: On Monday, House Democrats unveiled a policing reform bill that would ban the use of facial recognition in body cameras. The proposal doesn’t go as far as several U.S. cities, which have already banned the use of facial recognition by local government and law enforcement.

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CLOUD

See You in Cloud Court

There’s a neighborhood cloud brawl brewing in Seattle. 

Amazon is suing Brian Hall, a former VP of product marketing for Amazon Web Services, who’s now at Google Cloud. Amazon lawyers say Hall violated his non-compete agreement and could take sensitive trade secrets to a rival. Hall’s lawyers say the non-compete clause is “overbroad, unreasonable, and unenforceable,” and that a colleague assured him it wouldn’t be enforced. 

Two funny details:

1) Hall tweeted “ummm some personal news?” when acknowledging the suit.

2) Google opened its Seattle Cloud campus last October right across the street from Amazon HQ. 

Amazon is the leader in cloud services, but it’s facing strong challenges from Microsoft, Google, and more. Amazon’s lawsuit could have drawbacks for recruiting, making it a less desirable place to work in the eyes of prospective employees. Plus, non-competes are typically not enforceable in California.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Just over half of all “top-tier” AI researchers are immigrants or foreign nationals currently working in a different country from where they received undergraduate degrees, according to new analysis from think tank MacroPolo. 

Quote: “The U.S. federal government...historically exercised minimal oversight to safeguard U.S. telecommunications networks against risks posed by Chinese state-owned carriers.”⁠—a bipartisan group of U.S. senators criticizing regulators’ lax oversight of U.S. networks. 

Read: Drawing on regional Baidu search data and satellite imagery of Wuhan hospital parking lots, researchers from Harvard, Boston University, and Boston Children's Hospital suggest the coronavirus “may have” been spreading in the fall of 2019, well before official accounts. The study underscores the importance of alternative data.

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Reddit named Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel to its board of directors. 
• Apple is set to announce a move away from Intel processors in the Mac product line, Bloomberg reports. 
• Honda has halted production at some factories after being hit by a cyberattack.
• The ACLU is suing Los Angeles over the city’s scooter data-tracking program. 
• A South Korean court rejected an arrest warrant for Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong. 
• Google Meet will soon roll out machine learning-powered noise cancellation.
• Amazon, Google, and Apple updated their voice assistants to express support for Black Lives Matter.

TRIVIA

This week’s trivia quiz is dedicated to the namesake of Nikola and Tesla. Let’s test your knowledge of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor and engineer. 

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FROM THE CREW

We’re hiring a second Emerging Tech writer who will help me create this newsletter and tackle other big projects. You do need to know the who, what, when, and how of new technologies; you don’t need to be a blockchain evangelist. 

Find the full job description and application . Send it to your friends.

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For checking in on Bob and Doug: A 360-degree tour of the International Space Station. 

For a tech throwback: The BBC writes about decades-old music players, TVs, radios, and speakers that are still working. What device do you have and cherish that fits in this category? Respond and let me know.