1. Facebook’s Diversity Downfall
Former Facebook partnerships manager Mark Luckie sent an internal memo to his former co-workers on his last day of work earlier this month accusing the company of discrimination. The note, released to the public on Tuesday, argues that Facebook’s work environment mistreats black employees with bias and aggression. “In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people,” he writes. “Facebook can’t claim that it is connecting communities if those communities aren’t represented proportionally in its staffing.” Facebook spokesperson Anthony Harrison says the company has been making movements toward inclusion as they expand their representation and include diverse perspectives across the company.
2. GM Lays Off 14K from Workforce
On Monday, General Motors announced their intention to hand 14K employees their pink slips while closing five plants and discontinuing some sedan models. GM is trying to get ahead of the recession while focusing their efforts on self-driving and electric vehicles. Ford also ceased production of select cars a few months ago. General Motors aims to save $6B through their efforts by 2020, which will allow them to double their dollars spent on their self-driving car production over the next two years. Although the decision is displeasing to the 15% of employees who have been laid off (including 25% of executives), at least GM investors are happy as their stock rose more than 7%.
(Source: The Hustle, Washington Post)
3. Amazon’s Cloud Service
Amazon has got its head in the clouds with its new cloud service, AWS Ground Station. The service will soon offer the ability to facilitate data downloads and uploads into the cloud. It will enable customers to connect with satellites and send their own data to be analyzed by Amazon on their own schedule. The service is in response to the consumers who reached out to the company with concerns of cost and complications when building and renting ground stations along with having data analyzed. The company was quick to jump into the market providing cheap data storage and allowing customers to rent space via the internet instead of creating their own servers. Amazon’s Web Services hit sales of $17.5B last year and currently has top clients in almost every industry. Its growth is only predicted to increase.
(Source: Bloomberg)
