You’ve heard the steady drumbeat in this newsletter — our Code Commerce conference is finally here. Today and tomorrow, we’ll have in-depth interviews with some of the top leaders reimagining the retail and e-commerce sector, including the CEOs of Shopify, Zola, Instacart, Chobani, Framebridge and Glossier. They’ll be talking digital-native brands, bootstrapping to huge success and the future of social commerce. There may also be some discussion of Amazon. Here’s how to follow the NYC happenings on Recode and on social media. [Dan Frommer and Kat Borgerding / Recode]
Recode Daily: Code Commerce is here; Marc Benioff buys Time
Plus, media anarchists want to shut down tech’s Big Four — today; e-Sports are copying the big leagues by developing home teams; the wildest party Vegas ever saw.
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Salesforce.com co-founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne Benioff, are buying Time Magazine from Meredith Corp. for a surprising $190 million in cash. The Benioffs are taking over a publication that has been hammered by ongoing declines in print advertising and newsstand sales; they won’t have a role in day-to-day operations of the magazine or journalistic decisions. The deal is a much-needed lift for Meredith, which put four Time Inc. publications up for sale in March. Are there any other billionaires out there to buy Fortune or Time Magazine? Salesforce is now the biggest private employer in San Francisco; here are Benioff’s quick-fire thoughts on the future of jobs, education, homelessness, the environment and the tech industry’s “crisis of trust.” [Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / The Wall Street Journal]
Amazon is investigating claims that employees in the U.S. and Canada accepted bribes for internal data and other confidential information on Amazon merchants. In exchange for payments ranging from roughly $80 to more than $2,000, brokers for Amazon employees in Shenzhen are reportedly offering internal sales metrics and reviewers’ email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts. [Jon Emont, Laura Stevens and Robert McMillan / The Wall Street Journal]
Coca-Cola is sniffing around the cannabis market. As soda sales slow, the world’s largest beverage company is potentially interested in using CBD — the non-psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, often described as relaxing — “as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world.” [Jen Skerritt and Craig Giammona / Bloomberg]
The media anarchists who helped ignite Occupy Wall Street seven years ago are now calling for a global blowback campaign to shut down tech’s Big Four for a day. That would be today. Hoping to crash servers, flood feeds and disrupt algorithms, the Adbusters Media Foundation is launching #OccupySiliconValley, a one-day #FuckItAll flood of memes, posts, pranks, tweets and statuses aimed at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Adbusters Editor in Chief Kalle Lasn detailed a three-prong attack: “Google No Search Day,” “Boycott Bezos,” “Report a Problem” to Mark Zuckerberg. [Fréa Lockley / The Canary]
Betting that gaming fans will cheer for their home teams, e-Sports companies like Blizzard are growing by mimicking traditional sports leagues like the NBA, which are structured around local franchises and fanfare. Blizzard’s parent company, Activision Blizzard publishes the Overwatch game, whose inaugural season this year featured 12 teams; the finals in July attracted sold-out crowds of more than 20,000 spectators to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, while matches were broadcast on ESPN. Since then, Blizzard has announced expansion franchises in Atlanta, Washington, Paris, Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hangzhou.[Jason M. Bailey / The New York Times]
ELON WATCH: ”#OccupyMars” and some rocket photos. TRUMP WATCH: ”Our Steel Industry is the talk of the World. It has been given new life, and is thriving. Billions of Dollars is being spent on new plants all around the country!”
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“I don’t think that’s fair or right,” Dorsey says.
Marc Benioff paid a surprising $190 million for Time magazine. Meredith hopes it can find other deep pockets for its other titles.
This is cool
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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