MARKETS

About Those Extraordinary Market Conditions

Okay, so, we’re going to do this. Today’s top fold is reserved for the r/WallStreetBets situation. That doesn’t sound like an emerging technology story, but we’ll explain how it is. 

Set the scene

This saga, as our theory goes, is a microcosm of what’s happening in the broader tech world. 

Moderation: The r/WSB subreddit briefly went private Wednesday night, with the channel’s mods explaining that they couldn’t handle the influx of new members and posts. Whether it’s enacted by AI or an army of humans, moderation at scale isn’t a new problem in Silicon Valley.  

TOS: Another familiar issue = how terms of service are enforced. Discord, another online home where traders congregate, banned WSB’s server Wednesday night for “hateful and discriminatory content.” Then yesterday, the chat platform unbanned the WSB forum and said it would help the group with content moderation.

• For what it’s worth, we joined the server after it was reinstated. It was mostly dogecoin shilling and an unhealthy dose of . 

Decentralization: Let’s say a platform had perma-banned this powerful online community. What likely would have come next = migration to end-to-end encrypted messaging apps and private groups.

Humans vs algos: The run-up in GameStop, AMC, and other meme stonks has highlighted both the power and the typical role of individual traders vis-à-vis institutional ones. Robinhood and other brokers sell their order flow to high-frequency trading firms who can plug that into their algorithms and front-run retail investors. 

Fighting back with the algo

DoNotPay, an automated legal service we’ve profiled before, launched a new feature yesterday: Users can automatically join class action lawsuits against brokerages that disabled buys on GameStop and other highly shorted stocks yesterday. 

As of last night, 21,000 people had joined the lawsuit via DoNotPay, CEO Joshua Browder told us. The plaintiffs’ average loss was $1,100; the most popular stock purchased was GameStop $215 calls.

Bottom line: The GameStop saga is many things before it is a story specifically about emerging tech. But as we’ve seen this week, online communities and technology have helped reshape the playing field.

AVS

Driverless Diaries: China Edition

While we all had our eyes glued to the GameStop ticker, Chinese autonomous vehicle companies were making big moves. 

Red lights, stop signs 

Now that I've gotten the "Driver's License" lyrics out of the way, here's the news. 

West Coast move: This week, Baidu scored permission to test fully autonomous vehicles on the streets of Sunnyvale, California. 

• Baidu’s AVs are confined to areas with 45 mph speed limits, and in the event of inclement weather—like rain, or Karl the Fog—they’ll be garage-bound. 

Taxi driver(less): AutoX, the Alibaba-backed AV startup, has now opened up its driverless robotaxi service to the general public in Shenzhen. Residents of the city—which has the highest level of population density in China—can now book a robotaxi ride. 

• Although there’s no safety driver involved, customer support agents are available for questions during the ride. 

Raking in the $$: Yesterday, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing announced a $300 million funding round, earmarked for advancing its autonomous driving unit. 

• This comes after the company landed road-testing licenses in California (with safety drivers) and three Chinese cities—and adds to the $500 million it raised last May.

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Taking the Electric Pony for a Spin

Earlier this month, we spent a week behind the wheel of the 2021 Mustang Mach-E. It’s the poster child of Ford’s multibillion-dollar EV embrace—and its first all-electric SUV, no less. Ford tells us it’s expecting to sell ~50,000 units in the first year of production. 

We set out with a handful of key questions: 

• What’s the Mach-E like to drive?
• Are there any pain points related to the car being electric?  
• Does it feel like a Mustang? 
• How does it stack up against Tesla?

To read the full review, head here.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Apple brought in $111.4 billion in Q4, setting a new profitability PR. 

Quote: “Can't wait to explain this week to my therapist.”—Reddit’s Twitter account. 

Read: Nine experts on the single biggest obstacle facing AI and algorithms in the next 5 years. 

Input: A no-code platform that accelerates the innovation of unique processes? Yes, please. See how Quickbase can unite your business and IT teams with all the right tools under one roof.*

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Amazon launched the Mechatronics and Robotics Apprenticeship, a retraining program for employees. The company has committed $700 million to retrain 100,000 employees by 2025. 
• Ant Group is planning a makeover in response to pressure from China: It’ll become a financial holdings company overseen by the country’s central bank. 
• iRobot filed a patent suit against rival robo-vac company SharkNinja. 
• Coinbase confirmed that it will go public through a direct listing. 
• Faraday Future -> SPAC.
• GameStop inspired its very own TikTok sea shanty. 

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GOING PHISHING

Four of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Iran has blamed Bitcoin mining for massive rolling blackouts. 
• Microsoft released its sustainability report as a Minecraft map. 
• AI tried its hand at writing a Bridgerton episode script. 
• Robert Downey Jr. is launching his own rolling venture fund.
• Elon Musk put Bitcoin in his Twitter bio. 

TECH THROWBACK

Ten years ago this month, IBM Watson beat human champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings at Jeopardy! 

Jennings used a line from The Simpsons to admit defeat: “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.” 

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Spin + Tortoise = teleoperated e-scooters 
• Rolling supercomputers face semiconductor shortage
• Upgraded “robot brains”: New research 

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

The Bridgerton writers are all humans...as far as we know.