Happy Groundhog Day to all who celebrate. A teen who went viral for tracking Elon Musk's private jet got a job offer, and Dropbox insiders say the loss of office perks derailed its culture.
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1. A teen who went viral for tracking Elon Musk's jet got a job offer out of the saga. After creating a Twitter account that follows Musk's private plane, charter flight company Stratos Jet Charters — admiring the 19-year-old's "creativity" with the account — offered him a job on its development team. ICYMI:
- Jack Sweeney created the Twitter account — @ElonJet — in 2020 to document Musk's travels. The account uses bots to collect publicly available air-traffic data detailing the jet's movements.
- Apparently unamused, Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 last fall to take the account down, saying it was a security risk. The account has nearly 290,000 followers. Sweeney told Insider he refused the offer — saying he gets too much work satisfaction to settle for anything less than $50,000.
- Sweeney also told us Musk appears to have implemented a blocking system that makes the jet harder to track: "I just have to work around it," Sweeney said.
- On Monday, the teen told Bloomberg that Musk has blocked him on social media.
Here's what else you should know.
In other news:
2. New York City was the US's crypto capital in 2021. The Big Apple attracted $6.5 billion in crypto startup funding last year, outstripping both Silicon Valley and Miami, the latter of which has been pushing hard to attract crypto enthusiasts. More on that here.
3. Dropbox insiders say the end of office perks derailed its culture. When Dropbox closed its San Francisco offices after going remote, it also lost its famously posh cafeteria — which once served free artisanal meals from Michelin-starred chefs — and marked a radical change to the company's culture. How virtual work made it harder to keep employees around.
4. Peloton cut its 2022 sales forecast for its apparel unit. According to an internal presentation seen by CNBC, the fitness company slashed the sales projection by a quarter, from $200 million to $150 million. What we know so far.
5. A new structure at Amazon Web Services is coming. The cloud giant's customer-facing businesses are being combined under a new VP, according to an internal email viewed by Insider. The new org is called AWS Global Services.
6. Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 US vehicles with Full Self-Driving. The recall was issued after safety regulators found the FSD software lets cars roll past stop signs instead of completely stopping. Tesla will disable the "rolling stop" feature this month.
7. Who is winning the reality TV wars? In conversations with 10 Hollywood insiders about the red-hot reality TV market, three called Disney+ unscripted operations "a mess," while others said Hulu could "snatch the crown" from Netflix. Here's which streamers are making smart moves in reality TV.
8. A Spotify science podcast will drop its regular show to focus on countering misinformation. In the midst of the Joe Rogan COVID-19 misinformation debacle, the makers of "Science Vs" said they would now only make shows intended to counteract misinformation spread by Rogan and others. See the email they sent to Spotify's CEO.
9. The Coast Guard is investigating a cruise ship that sailed into SpaceX's launch hazard area. Just 30 seconds before takeoff, a SpaceX rocket launch was aborted when a Royal Caribbean ship approached the launch site's no-go zone. More on the investigation.
10. Tesla made in-car karaoke microphones — and they sold out within an hour. The $188 "TeslaMic," which comes with a pair of Tesla-branded microphones, launched in China last week and was met with a warm reception from customers. Get the rundown on the TeslaMic.
What we're watching today:
- Meta, Spotify, T-Mobile, and others are reporting earnings. Keep up with earnings here.
- Fortune magazine reveals its annual ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies. Last year, Apple topped the list.
- "Pam & Tommy" premieres on Hulu.
- Brookings is hosting a discussion on fintech in Black communities.
Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email [email protected] or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Michael Cogley in London.