Apple Has Bought Over 100 Companies Over the Past Six Years, Tim Cook Tells Investors

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook fielded questions on mergers and acquisitions, the impact of Covid-19, and the company’s supply chain during a virtual shareholder meeting on Tuesday. From a report: Narrating a slide show, Cook summarized many of the company’s new products and initiatives announced over the past year. He spoke about the latest iPhones and the growing potential of…

Study Finds The Least-Affordable City for Tech Workers: Silicon Valley’s San Jose

The Bay Area Newsgroup reports:
Despite high salaries and world-class amenities, San Jose is the least affordable place for tech workers to buy a home. [Alternate URL here] A new analysis by the American Enterprise Institute found the typical tech worker and his or her partner — with two incomes totaling $200,000 — can afford just 12 percent of the homes for…

Andrew Yang Proposes a Local Currency, Sees Growing Support for Universal Basic Income

In March Andrew Yang’s nonprofit gave $1,000 one-time grants to a thousand residents in the Bronx. This week a new article in the New Yorker asks one of those grant recipients how they feel about Yang’s newest proposal as he runs to be New York’s mayor: to give the city’s public-housing residents billions of dollars in a “Borough Bucks” currency that…

More Companies Are Joining ‘Tech Exodus’ From California

This week Digital Reality data center services announced it was also relocating its headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Texas, citing factors like a low cost of living and “supportive business climate”. (Though it will still maintain a “significant” presence in the Bay Area.) And Align Technology (makers of the Invisalign orthodontic dental aligners) also announced it had relocated…

Is There a Tech Worker ‘Exodus’ From the San Francisco Bay Area?

The New York Times reports on an “exodus” of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area, where “Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn’t like you” — and your commute could be over an hour. The biggest tech companies aren’t going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring… But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential…

Amazon Pledges $2 Billion To Affordable Housing

Amazon will direct $2 billion in loans and grants to secure affordable housing near three American cities where the company employs thousands of workers, the tech giant announced Wednesday. The Seattle Times reports: In a first step in the Puget Sound region, Amazon is promising $185.5 million, mostly in loans, to the King County Housing Authority to help buy affordable apartments…

Epic Games Buys a Huge Mall

Epic Games is buying an old shopping mall — with nearly one million square feet of space — and plans to convert it into its new global headquarters by 2024. From a report: The deal gives Epic the 980,000 square foot Cary Towne Center for $95 million. Cary Towne Center is about 2 miles from Epic’s current HQ. Epic Games has…

‘Companies Are Fleeing California. Blame Bad Government.’

Bloomberg Editorial Board: Amid raging wildfires, rolling blackouts and a worsening coronavirus outbreak, it has not been a great year for California. Unfortunately, the state is also reeling from a manmade disaster: an exodus of thriving companies to other states. In just the past few months, Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it was leaving for Houston. Oracle said it would decamp for…

What Happened When Finland Tried to Lure the World’s Remote Tech Workers?

As 2020 came to a close, the city of Helsinki, Finland tried offering “City as a Service” to attract new workers to its growing technology hub. “We will provide selected applicants with a free 90-day relocation package for the entire family,” explained the web site for the program (which is now no longer accepting applications). “We’ll arrange your housing, daycare, schooling,…

Verizon Wiring Up 500K Homes With FiOS To Settle Lawsuit

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon has agreed to bring FiOS fiber-to-the-home service to another 500,000 households in New York City by July 2023, settling a lawsuit over Verizon’s failure to wire up the entire city as required in a franchise agreement. “Today’s settlement will ensure that 500,000 households that previously lacked Verizon broadband access because of…