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Investors have questioned the wisdom of that decision as Meta's core advertising business has struggled this year, more than halving its stock price. In his remarks to employees, Zuckerberg played down how much the company was spending in Reality Labs, the unit responsible for its metaverse investments. About 20% of Meta's budget was going to Reality Labs. About 40% of Reality Labs' budget went toward virtual reality, while about 10% was spent on futuristic social platforms such as the virtual world it calls Horizon. Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who runs Reality Labs, said AR glasses need to be more useful than mobile phones to appeal to potential customers and meet a higher bar for attractiveness.

In a private chat on Signal with about 50 Twitter staffers, nearly 40 said they had decided to leave, according to the former employee. A separate poll on Blind asked staffers to estimate what percentage of people would leave Twitter based on their perception. Blue hearts and salute emojis flooded Twitter and its internal chatrooms on Thursday, the second time in two weeks as Twitter employees said their goodbyes. By 6 p.m. Eastern, over two dozen Twitter employees across the United States and Europe had announced their departures in public Twitter posts reviewed by Reuters, though each resignation could not be independently verified. Early on Wednesday, Musk had emailed Twitter employees, saying: "Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore".

ID.me said it was reviewing the panels' findings and did not have immediate comment. Congress began investigating ID.me after former ID.me employees, government watchdog groups and lawmakers complained the company had been unprepared to handle an onslaught of unemployment insurance applications early in the pandemic. While Reuters and other media last year reported on the waits, investigators said their analysis definitively showed that issues had been widespread. The Democrat-led committees are continuing to investigate other concerns about ID.me, including the accuracy of its facial recognition system and the adequacy of its support for non-English speakers. Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Bradley Perrett and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Google, Activision and Riot did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new filing. Epic last year mostly lost a similar case against Apple Inc (AAPL.O), the other leading app store provider. The deal with Activision was announced in January 2020, soon after it told Google it was considering launching its own app store. Google around the same time was forecasting billions of dollars in lost app store sales if developers fled to alternative systems. Epic's lawsuit alleged that Google knew signing with Activision "effectively ensured that (Activision) would abandon its plans to launch a competing app store, and Google intended this result."

ID.me responded that calling its fraud estimate baseless or too high was premature because government auditing was ongoing. Congress began investigating ID.me after former ID.me employees, government watchdog groups and lawmakers complained the company had been unprepared to handle an onslaught of unemployment insurance applications early in the pandemic. While Reuters and other media last year reported on the waits, investigators said their analysis definitively showed that issues had been widespread. ID.me said it regretted the long waits but described them as "short-lived and temporary and caused by historic fraud." The Democrat-led committees are continuing to investigate other concerns about ID.me, including the accuracy of its facial recognition system and the adequacy of its support for non-English speakers.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - James Murdoch, a Tesla director, said on Wednesday CEO Elon Musk has in the last few months identified someone as a potential successor to head the electric carmaker. Murdoch, who did not name the potential successor, was testifying in a trial over Musk's 2018 Tesla pay package. When a plaintiff's lawyer asked him to confirm that Musk has never identified someone as a potential successor CEO, Murdoch said, "He actually has," adding that happened in the "last few months." MONITORING TESLA SITUATIONMurdoch also said Tesla's audit committee is monitoring the Twitter situation, saying that the committee had discussions about having some Tesla engineers do work at Twitter. He also said Musk asked a few team heads to see if they were people interested in helping Twitter.

Nov 14 (Reuters) - Epic Games on Monday will try to overturn portions of a court ruling in an antitrust trial last year that largely favored Apple Inc (AAPL.O). The "Fortnite" creator sued Apple in 2020 alleging that the iPhone maker's App Store rules, under which software developers must pay commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases, violated U.S. antitrust law. Apple appealed the order, and Epic appealed the finding that Apple did not violate antitrust laws. According to its court filings, Epic plans to argue that the trial judge did not properly interpret U.S. antitrust laws. Epic argues that such standard agreements are still subject to antitrust laws.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was watching Twitter with "deep concern" after these three privacy and compliance officers quit. Twitter did not respond to requests for comment on a potential bankruptcy, the FTC warning, or the departures. Wheeler was the face of Twitter for advertising after Musk took over. Musk has saddled Twitter with $13 billion in debt, on which it faces interest payments totaling close to $1.2 billion in the next 12 months. It joined other brands including General Motors (GM.N) that have paused advertising on Twitter since Musk took over, concerned that he will loosen content moderation rules.

Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty have also resigned, according to an internal message seen by Reuters. He announced plans to cut half its workforce last week, promised to stop fake accounts and is charging $8 a month for the Twitter Blue service that will include a blue check verification. "We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern," Douglas Farrar, the FTC's director of public affairs, told Reuters. "Elon puts rockets into space, he's not afraid of the FTC," the attorney quoted Spiro as saying. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on the FTC warning, the note from the attorney or the departures.

☆ Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom faces Republican Brian Dahle in the California gubernatorial election
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Gavin Newsom is seeking a 2nd term in office after beating back a recall election last year. Democrats have won every gubernatorial election in the Golden State since 2010. Gavin Newsom, who was elected to lead the Golden State in 2018 and easily won a recall election last year, is running for a 2nd term against Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle. After cruising to an easy victory in the recall, Newsom solidified his political standing both as governor and as a potential Democratic presidential aspirant in the years ahead. California's voting historyCalifornia has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1992.

☆ What to know about Mastodon, the Twitter alternative
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Rachel Metz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

I am one of these Mastodon newcomers, trying it out of curiosity and because Twitter has felt increasingly toxic over time. Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/ShutterstockBut while it can be exciting to seek out a new social network, it can be tricky, too. Mastodon and Twitter have some similarities, yet they’re quite different — both in how they work and how they’re operated. I have mostly taken the more manual route by searching on Twitter for the word “Mastodon” to pull up people I follow who have added Mastodon usernames to their Twitter profile names. There also isn’t a Mastodon equivalent to Twitter’s quote-tweet feature, where you can repost another user’s post and append your own thoughts to it.

Companies Chevron Corp FollowNov 4 (Reuters) - The Contra Costa County District Attorney on Friday said it has reached a settlement with Chevron Corp (CVX.N) over a diesel spill into the San Francisco Bay from the company's 245,271 barrel-per-day Richmond, California refinery last year. Officials did not release financial details of the settlement, and Chevron was not immediately unavailable for comment. "Corporations must be held strictly liable for any discharges of diesel into San Francisco Bay," said District Attorney Diana Becton in a statement. Around 757 gallons of a diesel water mixture leaked into the bay at the Richmond Refinery Marine Terminal in February last year. Some provisions in the judgment mandate Chevron implement various prevention and response measures to address and mitigate the identified hazards discovered in the investigation.

The groups said on Friday they are escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally. Staff who worked in engineering, communications, product, content curation and machine learning ethics were among those impacted by the layoffs, according to tweets from Twitter staff. Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter's acting head of human rights, tweeted on Friday that the entire human rights team at the company had been cut. Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done "everything we could" to appease the groups. Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go.

Elon Musk seems determined to remake Twitter in his own image — with some help from the men in his trusted inner circle. They are joined in Musk’s orbit by Alex Spiro, a trial attorney with a roster of celebrity clients who reportedly led the first round of Twitter layoffs. Bloomberg reported Wednesday night that Twitter is preparing to eliminate about 3,700 jobs, or roughly half its workforce. Musk's personnel decisions suggest a possible road map for the future of Twitter, one in which policies and internal rules are drawn at least in part from the views of Musk’s consiglieres. Sacks, Calacanis, Spiro and Birchall did not immediately respond to questions about the company’s future and the nature of their roles there.

The social media company said in an email to staff that it will alert employees by 9 a.m. Pacific time on Friday (12 p.m. EDT/1600 GMT) about staff cuts. The social media platform said Twitter employees who are not affected by the layoffs will be notified via their work email addresses. The layoffs, which were long expected, have chilled Twitter's famously open corporate culture that has been revered by its employees. Shortly after the email landed in Twitter employee inboxes, hundreds of people flooded the company's Slack channels to say goodbye, two employees told Reuters. "If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home," Twitter said in the email on Thursday.

Hivemapper Inc, which announced $18 million in fundraising from investors in April, said it has so far sold over 5,500 dashcams across 66 countries. As drivers record road signs and storefronts, they mint tokens that Hivemapper named Honey. Hivemapper Chief Executive Ariel Seidman said U.S. regulations limit him from discussing how and when Honey can be spent. While some investors such as Hivemapper backer Multicoin Capital are bullish on Web3 efforts, skeptics worry about currency speculation and fraud. Mapmaker HERE, owned in part by German automakers, is evaluating Hivemapper's imagery for potential use, including for up-to-date speed limit data.

Twitter is currently losing about $3 million a day "with all spending and revenue considered," according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters. The social media platform is exploring whether to cut extra server space that is kept to ensure Twitter can handle high traffic, one source said. The second source described the proposed cuts as "delusional," adding that when user traffic kicks up, the service can fail "in spectacular ways." Teams across Twitter are racing to present a plan to achieve the cost savings by a Nov. 7 deadline, according to one of the sources and the Slack message. Some employees have been ordered to work in the office every day of the week to meet the deadline, the source said.

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Elon Musk has directed Twitter Inc's teams to find over $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings by cutting cloud services and extra server space, according to two sources familiar with the matter and an internal Slack message seen by Reuters. The company is aiming to find up to $3 million per day in infrastructure savings, the Slack message said. Such steep cuts could put the Twitter website and app at risk of going down during high-traffic moments, such as the upcoming U.S. midterm election, the source said. Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment. Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas, Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.,and Katie Paul Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The man accused of beating U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer during a struggle in the couple's San Francisco home was expected to make his first court appearance on Tuesday. DePape was arrested by San Francisco police after Paul Pelosi placed an emergency 911 call reporting an intruder, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the federal case. Authorities said police officers arriving at the Pelosi home saw DePape and Pelosi struggling over a hammer. The state charges are punishable by a prison sentence of 13 years to life. The federal charges carry a combined maximum sentence of 50 years, the Justice Department said in a statement announcing the charges.

☆ Women in venture capital are writing the rules of maternity leave and bending the male-dominated culture to their will
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Melia Russell | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

And with more women entering the male-dominated venture industry, firms are being forced to craft maternity leave policies on the fly to accommodate new mothers. Forty years ago, the clubby male world of venture capital admitted so few women that maternity leave as a benefit was effectively nonexistent. "There is no playbook about how to take maternity leave or raise a family while also accelerating your career as an investor." Lux CapitalLike in many male-dominated industries, maternity leave as a benefit for investors doesn't come up in conversation until someone needs it. Though, the best policies, investors said, give women choices about how they operate on leave, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all leave.

☆ I quit my full-time tech job at Instagram to become a creator and voice actor. Here's what I've learned.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Earlier this month, she quit her job to pursue a full-time career as a creator and voice actor. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joy Ofodu, a comedic content creator and voice actor with 113,000 Instagram followers and 103,000 TikTok followers. I used hashtags and trending music, some of those in-house "best practices," but nothing that wasn't available on the @Creators Instagram page. But I could not, for example, take part in a paid Instagram creator program, or a paid TikTok, YouTube, or Snapchat program. A post shared by Joy Ofodu (@joyofodu)At the time of quitting, I had active partnerships, a primary focus, and voiceover gigs.

☆ Lindsey Graham says there are 'gonna be people jumping off bridges in San Francisco by the thousands' if Jim Jordan becomes chair of the House Judiciary Committee
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

During a speech at a Republican Party dinner in Lima, Graham riled up a crowd of the party faithful. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is set to chair the House Judiciary Committee if the GOP retakes the chamber. Graham speaks at a Republican dinner in Lima, Ohio as Jordan looks on. Attendees listen as Republican Senate candidate JD Vance speaks at the Republican dinner in Lima, Ohio. Republican Senate candidate JD Vance speaks at a Republican dinner in Lima, Ohio.

☆ San Francisco Bay Area struck by 5.1 magnitude earthquake
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: 1 min

SAN FRANCISCO — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.1 rattled the San Francisco Bay Area Tuesday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 11:42 a.m. quake struck 12 miles east of San Jose at a depth of about 4 miles. The area is about 40 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco. A 3.1 aftershock followed about 5 minutes later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

☆ Scott Peterson moved off California’s death row
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Scott Peterson has been moved off death row more than two years after the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence for killing his pregnant wife two decades ago, corrections officials said Monday. Peterson was moved last week from San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco to Mule Creek State Prison east of Sacramento. A new mug shot taken Friday shows Peterson, 50, with salt-and-pepper stubble compared to his previous clean-shaven look. Jurors imposed the death penalty after convicting Peterson of the first-degree murder of Laci Peterson, 27, and second-degree murder of the unborn son they were going to name Conner, dumping them into San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002. Peterson was mainly kept at San Quentin during that monthslong hearing process in part so he would have better access to his attorneys.

☆ Oracle is shunning job seekers in high-paying tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York to cut costs: 'They're OK passing on the top candidates'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Jessica Xing | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Oracle hiring managers and recruiters have been told to fill roles in cheaper US cities or abroad. Filling roles in areas where talent is cheaper, especially outside the US, has long been a cost-saving strategy for Oracle hiring managers, current and former employees said. "That sounds crazy to me," said Oracle executive Ken Glueck in response to a description of the claims made by Oracle employees in this story. Glueck did not directly answer whether the company was prioritizing hiring candidates outside of tech hubs like the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and New York. Cities like Philadelphia, Dallas Fort-Worth, and Denver saw the highest growth rates for tech salaries this year.

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