Daily Crunch - Marco Rubio sides with Amazon workers

A prominent Republican senator weighs in on Amazon’s labor disputes, Microsoft reports a security vulnerability in Exchange and we examine ByteDance’s gaming strategy. This is your Daily Crunch for March 12, 2021.

The big story: Marco Rubio sides with Amazon workers

Senator Marco Rubio published an op-ed in USA Today declaring his support for workers in Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, as they seek to unionize.

It’s surprising for a Republican senator to throw his weight behind a nascent labor union, but it seems that Rubio’s position has as much to do with his feelings about Amazon as his labor politics. In fact, his op-ed warned of the “dangers posed by the unchecked influence of labor unions,” while also arguing that Amazon is guilty of “uniquely malicious corporate behavior.”

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The tech giants

Hackers are exploiting vulnerable Exchange servers to drop ransomware, Microsoft says — This puts tens of thousands of email servers at risk of destructive attacks.

How ByteDance plans to crack the gaming industry — The company’s strategy consists of a genre-spanning portfolio, a hiring spree, a proven monetization scheme, and a focus on both the domestic and overseas markets.

Elon Musk, Tesla board sued in lawsuit alleging ‘erratic’ tweets violate fiduciary duty — A Tesla investor is suing the company board and Musk for continuing to send “erratic tweets” that violate a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of his social media activities.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Assembled, an operating system for support teams, raises $16.6M — The round was led by Emergence Capital, a VC that specializes in enterprise startups.

Eying sustainability gains for its supply chain, BMW backs Boston Metal’s CO2-free iron production tech — The Boston startup had targeted a $50 million raise earlier in the year, and BMW’s addition closes out that round.

Legl gets $7M to help law firms upgrade to digital workflows — The Legl platform offers tools to streamline core business processes such as customer onboarding, due diligence and payments.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How nontechnical talent can break into deep tech — Tactical advice for finding, reaching out to, cultivating relationships with, and working at deep tech companies.

US-listed SPACs have a new target: Latin American tech companies — There has been an unprecedented IPO boom of tech companies in the Brazilian stock exchange.

Why I’m hitting pause on ARR-focused coverage — Alex Wilhelm says that ultimately, he was getting similar notes from each company.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Big Tech companies cannot be trusted to self-regulate: We need Congress to act — Thoughts from Color of Change’s Arisha Hatch.

Here are the new features and upgraded virtual Startup Alley experience at TC Disrupt 2021 — This year, we’re shaking things up a bit to help exhibiting founders make the most of a virtual environment.

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