Uber’s Chief People Officer Liane Hornsey resigned following a probe into how she handled racial discrimination at the company. Anonymous whistleblowers alleged that Hornsey, who had been in the role of top HR executive and spokesperson for a year and a half, had systematically dismissed internal complaints of racial discrimination and made derogatory remarks about Bernard Coleman, the company’s global head of diversity, and Uber brand chief Bozoma Saint John, who left Uber in June. [Jessi Hempel / Wired]
Recode Daily: Uber’s newest HR problem is its HR boss
Plus, Comcast tops Fox’s bid for Sky; Magic Leap is finally shipping; eSports goes primetime; inside Amazon’s voice-activated house of the future.
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Comcast upped its offer to buy Sky, topping an offer from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, the latest twist in an international M&A tussle. Fox had offered $32 billion for Britain’s top pay-TV company; Comcast countered with a bid of $34 billion. Conventional wisdom among media reporters today: Comcast’s continued pursuit of Sky means it is less likely to chase after the Fox assets Disney wants to buy. [Joe Mayes, Anousha Sakoui and Nabila Ahmed / Bloomberg]
Twitter is slashing tens of millions of suspicious accounts. Beginning today, the move will reduce the total combined follower count on Twitter by about 6 percent, and many users will see their follower numbers fall. [Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel J.X. Dance / The New York Times]
After four years of mostly stealth development, Magic Leap will finally ship its “mixed reality” headset to developers this summer, with AT&T as its sole U.S. wireless provider. The One Creator Edition includes a puck-shaped portable computer and wireless controller, and makes your eyes think they’re seeing actual items that blend with the physical world. [Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat]
ESports is going primetime: ESPN will air the playoffs and finals of the Overwatch League, a professional video game competition. Live coverage of the playoffs is already airing on the Disney XD channel; ESPN will show the finals live starting July 27, with a second day planned on Disney XD and ESPN3. [Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg]
Here’s your beach read for the rest of the summer: Two juicy excerpts from Adam Fisher’s “Valley of Genius,” an “uncensored” oral history of Silicon Valley, vividly portray the wild early days at Facebook and Google. Max Kelly, Facebook’s first cybersecurity officer, remembers a 2006 meeting where they tore up Yahoo’s offer of $1.2 billion; readers also hear from Mark Zuckerberg (his first business cards read “I’m CEO … bitch”), Sean Parker, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Jobs and more than 200 other voices about origin stories and literal moonshot ideas — Brin wanted to project Google’s logo on the moon. Meanwhile, Loon and Wing, Google X’s internet balloon and delivery drone projects, have graduated from “moonshots” to independent companies under the Alphabet corporate umbrella. [Adam Fisher / Wired and Vanity Fair]
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On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, the co-founder of Stable Genius Productions talks about funding her ZigZag podcast with digital coins.
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