Roger Chen and Rui Max from Harvard Business Review explain how ByteDance became the world’s most valuable startup. What’s the secret? According to the editors, it’s the company’s shared-service platform, or SSP, which it uses to power innovation. From the report: Bytedance uses its SSP platform differently from most companies. The company’s product teams or units don’t control their own operating resources. Instead, many common business, technology, and operating functions (among them HR and legal) are centralized and organized into corresponding teams. The teams are highly specialized, so that the right people can be found and flexibly deployed as needed to each new venture. Cloud and shared operational tools, some of which have been developed in house, allow ByteDance to maintain this seemingly complex organizational setup. Product and related teams still focus on serving customer needs, but they rely on different SSP teams to accelerate development and growth. For example, when ByteDance tasks a new venture team with investigating user needs and market opportunities, the team can go to the user-research specialists at the SSP for data support, saving time on market analysis. In other companies, these tasks are undertaken by the product team, which is rarely best equipped for such information gathering. Subsequently, when a use case has been identified that justifies developing a new app or product feature, the product team is paired with engineers at the SSP level to develop the new product or feature.

In some cases, product teams customize existing technologies that have already been developed by the SSP. Algorithms are a case in point. Product teams at ByteDance work with SSP algorithm engineers to fine-tune their enormously powerful recommendation engines. The SSP has also brought together other important teams: user-growth teams, which help identify and acquire desired users; content teams, which establish partnerships to acquire new content; analytics teams, which help to develop deeper user insights; and sales teams, which drive monetization. As expected, because so many capabilities have been centralized into this large SSP, the actual product teams tend to be small and focused, especially in the exploration stage. Douyin, for example, began with just a handful of employees, and the education team began with just two. Importantly, the relationship between the SSP and market-facing teams is symbiotic and mutually beneficial. It’s this virtuous loop of continued discovery and improvement that has enabled ByteDance’s success.

Relying on its SSP, ByteDance has developed unique innovation and growth strategies. These strategies have five main characteristics: [broad exploration, rapid iteration, selective focus, maximum-capability cross-pollination, and productizing platform services]. […] ByteDance’s SSP strategy — accelerate new projects by providing instant access to best in class technology and operations — has been so successful that one would expect many other companies to have embraced it. Yet few companies have managed to replicate ByteDance’s success with the strategy. Why? Because they have not put in the organizational enablers that helped ByteDance overcome fiefdom mindsets, which inhibit collaboration. Three of these organizational enablers are particularly important: [OKR system, explicitly flattened hierarchy, and data-driven culture]. […]

ByteDance’s SSP-based innovation strategy has clearly played a key role in its first decade of explosive growth. It has allowed the company to incubate rapidly and broadly and to scale efficiently, by using centralized but flexibly deployed technical and operational stacks. This strategy has served the company well in part because of the similarity among its various algorithm-driven products. ByteDance is now exploring other product categories and is refining its strategy to be more suitable for its evolving organizational model and processes, but no matter how the company evolves, its SSP-based innovation strategy is sure to play an important role.

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theodp writes: In the just-published March 2022 issue Communications of the ACM, former CACM Editor-in-Chief Moshe Y. Vardi takes tech companies — and their officers and technical leaders — to task over the societal risk posed by surveillance capitalism in “ACM, Ethics, and Corporate Behavior.” Vardi writes: “Surveillance capitalism is perfectly legal, and enormously profitable, but it is unethical, many people believe, including me. After all, the ACM Code of Professional Ethics starts with ‘Computing professionals’ actions change the world. To act responsibly, they should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting the public good.’ It would be extremely difficult to argue that surveillance capitalism supports the public good.” “The biggest problem that computing faces today is not that AI technology is unethical — though machine bias is a serious issue — but that AI technology is used by large and powerful corporations to support a business model that is, arguably, unethical. Yet, with the exception of FAccT, I have seen practically no serious discussion in the ACM community of its relationship with surveillance-capitalism corporations. For example, the ACM Turing Award, ACM’s highest award, is now accompanied by a prize of $1 million, supported by Google.”

“Furthermore, the issue is not just ACM’s relationship with tech companies. We must also consider how we view officers and technical leaders in these companies. Seriously holding members of our community accountable for the decisions of the institutions they lead raises important questions. How do we apply the standard of ‘have not committed any action that violates the ACM Code of Ethics and ACM’s Core Values’ to such people? It is time for us to have difficult and nuanced conversations on responsible computing, ethics, corporate behavior, and professional responsibility.”

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Dubbed internally as “Project Tinman,” executives at Peloton worked to conceal a build-up of rust on some exercise machines (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) that were sent to customers instead of returned to the manufacturer. “The project was first revealed in FT Magazine last week but eight current and former Peloton employees across four US states have provided further details on the operation,” reports the Financial Times. Here’s an excerpt from the report: They described the plan as a nationwide effort to avoid yet another costly recall just months after the company’s most tragic episode — the death of a child due to the design of its treadmill. Internal documents seen by the FT showed that Tinman’s “standard operating procedures” were for corrosion to be dealt with using a chemical solution called “rust converter,” which conceals corrosion by reacting “with the rust to form a black layer.” Employees said the scheme was called Tinman to avoid terms such as “rust” that executives decided were out of step with Peloton’s quality brand.

Insiders were also angered about enacting a plan that they argued cut across Peloton’s supposed focus on its users, who are called “members” to evoke a sense that buyers are more than customers and part of a broader community. Tinman also put a spotlight on the company’s quality control process versus meeting aggressive sales targets in the search for growth. Peloton said the issue affected at least 6,000 bikes and that 120 staff had undertaken “rigorous testing” on the devices to conclude the rust — which it described as “cosmetic oxidation” — had “no impact on a bike’s performance, quality, durability, reliability, or the overall member experience.”

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“Akamai, which announced quarterly earnings today, also announced that they plan to acquire longtime Linux VPS host Linode for $900 million,” writes Slashdot reader virtig01. From a press release announcing the acquisition: Akamai Technologies, the world’s most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Linode, one of the easiest-to-use and most trusted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform providers. […] Under terms of the agreement, Akamai has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding equity of Linode Limited Liability Company for approximately $900 million, after customary purchase price adjustments. As a result of structuring the transaction as an asset purchase, Akamai expects to achieve cash income tax savings over the next 15 years that have an estimated net present value of approximately $120 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Christopher Aker, founder and chief executive officer, Linode, added, “We started Linode 19 years ago to make the power of the cloud easier and more accessible. Along the way, we built a cloud computing platform trusted by developers and businesses around the world. Today, those customers face new challenges as cloud services become all-encompassing, including compute, storage, security and delivery from core to edge. Solving those challenges requires tremendous integration and scale which Akamai and Linode plan to bring together under one roof. This marks an exciting new chapter for Linode and a major step forward for our current and future customers.”

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Network gear maker Cisco Systems has made a takeover offer worth more than $20 billion for software maker Splunk, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Reuters reports: The offer was made recently and the companies are not in active talks, the newspaper said, citing some of the sources. In November last year, San Francisco-based Splunk announced Doug Merritt has stepped down as its chief executive officer (CEO) and that the company’s chair, Graham Smith, would be the interim CEO. Founded in 2003, the software solutions provider has a market capitalisation of $18.2 billion, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

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Nvidia is now a larger company than social media giant Meta. PC Gamer reports: In a meteoric turn of events, Nvidia has surged to become the 7th largest company in the US, despite being nowhere close only a few years ago, and helped along by Meta’s recent share price collapse. Meta’s fall from stock market grace this past week saw 30% of its share value wiped out, leaving it with a total value in shares, or market cap, of just $615.70B (at time of writing). That’s clearly still a lot of money, but it’s notably less money than it was worth at the beginning of last week — around $260B less.

Compare that to Nvidia’s market cap of $657.06B, and the green team is out on top. Perhaps not for long, but we’ll see. That’s still a little shy of Berkshire Hathaway in 6th place at over $720B, but it’s markedly higher up than Nvidia was only a few years ago, when its share value was a small fraction of what it is today. […] Nvidia officially terminated its attempt to buy Arm, the UK-based chip designer, for $40B, and that did see some value wiped off its share price in the following days. Though clearly that dark cloud hasn’t stuck around Nvidia’s Santa Clara HQ, as it’s now back up to around $260. That’s over 40% up on its lowest point this year, and just under 22% down on its all-time high of $334.

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“Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of NFTs,” reports CNBC.

“The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods. In a separate filing, the company said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.”
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Walmart filed the applications on Dec. 30. In total, seven separate applications have been submitted…. “They’re super intense,” said Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney. “There’s a lot of language in these, which shows that there’s a lot of planning going on behind the scenes about how they’re going to address cryptocurrency, how they’re going to address the metaverse and the virtual world that appears to be coming or that’s already here….”

[B]oth Under Armour’s and Adidas’ NFT debuts sold out last month. They’re now fetching sky-high prices on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Gerben said that apparel retailers Urban Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch have also filed trademarks in recent weeks detailing their intent to open some sort of virtual store…. According to Frank Chaparro, director at crypto information services firm The Block, many retailers are still reeling from being late to e-commerce, so they don’t want to miss out on any opportunities in the metaverse. “I think it’s a win-win for any company in retail,” Chaparro said. “And even if it just turns out to be a fad there’s not a lot of reputation damage in just trying something weird out like giving some customers an NFT in a sweepstake, for instance.”

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November while openings remained elevated, highlighting persistent churn in the labor market. The increase in departures was broad across industries and pushed the quits rate up to 3%, matching the most in data back to 2000. Meanwhile, the number of available positions fell to 10.6 million from an upwardly revised 11.1 million in October, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a rise to 11.1 million job openings. While the drop was the largest since April 2020, vacancies remain well above pre-pandemic levels. The unprecedented level of quits — including a record 1 million in leisure and hospitality alone — suggests a lingering struggle for employers to retain talent. Meanwhile, the month’s increase in hiring showed companies were able to make at least some headway filling vacancies. The data come ahead of Friday’s monthly employment report from the Labor Department, which is currently forecast to show that the U.S. added 420,000 jobs in December. […] Total hires were little changed in November at 6.7 million. Layoffs and discharges were also steady.

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theodp writes: Online coding lesson purveyor Codecademy, the 2011 YCombinator graduate which arguably kicked off the “Everyone Should Learn to Code” movement with a New Year’s 2012 endorsement from then NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg that went viral, has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Skillsoft for approximately $525 million in cash and stock (SEC 8-K filing). “Like Codecademy,” explained Codecademy CEO Zach Sims, “Skillsoft believes in a world where every person and every team has the opportunity to realize their full potential through learning, and together we will continue building that world.” According to Crunchbase, Codecademy had raised a total of $87.5 million in funding.

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AMD’s $35 billion acquisition of Xilinx is now expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, which is a few months after AMD and Xilinix’s originally proposed closing of the deal before the end of 2021. Tom’s Hardware reports: AMD has cleared regulatory hurdles in all but China. News filtered out earlier this month that AMD has filed certain undefined ‘behavioral remedies’ to appease Chinese regulators, and mid-month found news that China’s antitrust agency, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), was still market-testing AMD’s proposed remedies.

Here’s AMD’s statement on the matter: “We continue making good progress on the required regulatory approvals to close our transaction. While we had previously expected that we would secure all approvals by the end of 2021, we have not yet completed the process and we now expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2022. Our conversations with regulators continue to progress productively, and we expect to secure all required approvals. There are no additional changes to the previously announced terms or plans regarding the transaction and the companies continue to look forward to the proposed combination creating the industry’s high-performance and adaptive computing leader.”

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