⚡️GitLab was valued over $6 billion which is more than double the company’s last announced valuation in September 2019.

The company had originally aimed to go public this month but decided to delay those plans until 2021.

GitLab was co founded by Ukrainian developer Dmitriy Zaporozhets in 2014.
Its 1,300-plus employees work fully remote in more than 65 countries.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/-gitlab-valued-over-6-billion-in-secondary-share-sale.html

⚡️Zoom reported fiscal Q3 earnings after the closing bell on Monday, beating analysts’ expectations with revenue jumping 367% year-over-year ($777M vs 693M expected).

At the start of the year, Zoom’s stock price sat at $71.90. But with the company growth amid the pandemic, the stock ended Monday at $478.36.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zoom-q3-earnings-2021-190234686.html

⚡️Facebook backed Libra Association was renamed to Diem. Libra cryptocurrency will be called Diem as well (why not just call it a Zuck Buck).

It could debut as a single coin backed by the dollar, with an initial launch as early as Jan 2021.

Diem is an independent group organized by Facebook to manage digital currencies that had a rough start when Visa, MasterCard, eBay and PayPal dropped out. Although companies like Coinbase, Farfetch, Spotify, Uber and Shopify still remain its members.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/facebook-backed-libra-digital-currency-has-been-renamed-diem.html

⚡️Salesforce will acquire Slack for $27.7 billion ($26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares).

Shares of Slack rose nearly 48% in the last five days.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-to-buy-slack-for-27-billion-reports-q3-results-211923742.html

⚡️Hewlett Packard Enterprise is leaving Silicon Valley and relocating its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas.

Hewlett-Packard was one of the original Silicon Valley success stories, founded by partners Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in a garage in Palo Alto 1939.

The garage has turned into a tourist destination and became known as the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley."

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/hpe-is-relocating-headquarters-to-houston-from-california.html

🎄Microsoft released its geek version of holiday ugly sweater.

$70 worth Windows sweaters sold out in 24h.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-buy-microsoft-paint-holiday-sweaters-2020-12?r=MX&IR=T

💵 In the light of recent $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack by Salesforce here is a recap of the greatest Big Tech deals:

• IBM buys Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019
• Amazon buys Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017
• Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016
• Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014
• Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011
• Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion in 2012
• Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006

https://fortune.com/2020/12/02/slack-salesforce-deal-acquisition-big-tech-amazon-whole-foods-apple-beats-facebook-instagram-google-youtube/

🌵Elon Musk could be moving to Texas.

Three of Musk’s businesses SpaceX Tesla and Boring Company already have offices in Texas.

Getting out of California, with the highest income tax in the country %13.3, and into Texas, which has no state income tax, could save Musk billions of dollars.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/02/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-plans-to-move-to-texas-friends-and-associates-say.html

💃From dancing to fintech.

TikTok's biggest star, 16-year-old Charli D'Amelio, invested in teen banking app Step.

Step is a mobile app that provides teens with a bank account and a Visa card with no fees. It allows parents to set guidelines for their children's spending, and users can send and receive money.

The dancer, who's endorsed the app on her accounts, boasts 100 million followers on TikTok, 34.5 million on Instagram and 4.9 million on Twitter.

Charli D'Amelio earns an estimated $4 million a year from TikTok.

@OGoMono 🐈 can you dance?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/business/charli-damelio-banking-app/index.html

🛰 Starlink will get $885.5 million worth of federal subsidies to support rural broadband customers through the company’s satellite internet network.

Starlink is SpaceX’s plan to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, designed to deliver high-speed internet to anywhere on the planet.

In October the company began a public beta test of Starlink, with service priced at $99 a month.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/spacex-starlink-wins-nearly-900-million-in-fcc-subsidies-auction.html

🦠 Apple and Google are launching a COVID contact tracing app called CA Notify in the state of California.

Your phone will automatically exchange a private key with another phone if they’re within Bluetooth range. (The key doesn’t contain location or any personally identifying information.) When someone tests positive, they can press a button to send a notification to every other person using the app whose phone virtually bumped into theirs, letting them know that they should get tested and quarantine.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22159842/apple-google-covid-contact-tracing-tech-california

🚀 Big toys for big boys.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336041065879580673?s=21

🖥 Apple is planning a series of new Mac processors for introduction as early as 2021 that are aimed at outperforming Intel.

They will be successors to the M1 chip, Apple’s first Mac main processor that debuted in November.

The company said it expects to finish the transition away from Intel and to its own silicon in 2022.

Intel’s shares slid 2.9% after the news.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-07/apple-preps-next-mac-chips-with-aim-to-outclass-highest-end-pcs

🚘 Uber is handing over its Self Driving Car unit to a Silicon Valley start-up Aurora.

Uber’s biggest expense was its drivers. If it could replace the drivers with machines, it could eventually reduce expenses and become profitable, ending years and billions of losses.

But the effort that could have been a salvation for their business turned into a legal and financial headache.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/technology/uber-self-driving-car-project.html

🚁 Uber sells its aerial ride-hailing division Uber Elevate to Joby Aviation.

For Uber, the transaction comes one day after selling its autonomous-driving division known as the Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora, a self-driving car start-up.

Parting with the Advanced Technologies Group and Uber Elevate will allow the ride-hailing giant to save hundreds of millions of dollars that would have been required over the next several years to develop autonomous ride-hailing and urban air taxi services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/air-taxi-start-up-joby-acquires-uber-elevate-.html

📈Airbnb shares debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York Thursday.

The stock began trading at $146, higher than its initial-public-offering price of $68 a share.

The company ended the day worth $100.7 billion, greater than the combined market value of Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-shares-more-than-double-in-market-debut-11607625899

🌵Oracle is the latest tech company to move its headquarters out of California.

The company said on Friday it’s moving its headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

Oracle is one of Silicon Valley’s older success stories, founded in Santa Clara in 1977.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/oracle-is-moving-its-headquarters-from-silicon-valley-to-austin-texas.html

🤸‍♀️Apple’s new Fitness Plus service is out.

Fitness Plus offers a variety of guided workouts (similar to competitors like Peloton) and costs $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year.

At launch, the service features workouts in 10 categories: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), strength, yoga, dance, core, cycling, treadmill, rowing, and “mindful cooldown.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22174574/apple-fitness-plus-watch-iphone-release-date-price

🚙 Amazon-owned Zoox unveiled on Monday an autonomous electric vehicle with no steering wheel that might one day be summoned with a ride-hailing app.

The vehicle can travel in either direction, with motors at each end and four-wheel steering. It is capable of operating 16 hours between charges.

Amazon acquired Zoox for $1.2 billion in June.

https://www.axios.com/zoox-driverless-autonomous-electric-vehicle-bc980691-4f20-4cad-9d15-c2b33ca5d7a8.html

🥩Apple and Facebook got beef over privacy.

With release of iOS 14.3 came an update to the App Store that shows "how developers may handle your data”.

And when it comes to Facebook app it’s a lot of data.

Follow the link below and make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.

https://mashable.com/article/apple-ios-134-update-app-store-privacy-facebook/

📰 Facebook launched a PR assault against Apple on Wednesday, proclaiming that the iPhone maker’s upcoming changes to its mobile operating system will hurt small businesses’ ability to target advertising and app makers’ ability to offer free content.

When Apple updates iOS 14 on mobile devices early next year, it will require all apps to show a prompt allowing users to opt out of targeted advertising. People opting out of tracking will hinder Facebook’s ability to collect information it could use to personalize ads.

In full-page ads Wednesday morning in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, Facebook said it is “standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-declares-war-on-apple-11608140590