Nick Wingfield
The Information
Seattle, WA, United States
Contact Nick
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Past articles by Nick:
Emerson Collective Backing New Project to Encourage Civil Online Conversation
Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective is backing a new effort to encourage more civil conversation online, according to people familiar with the project. The project—which is in its early days—is being led by Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and Raffi Krikorian, Emerson’s chief technology ... → Read More
Unity CEO Predicts AR-VR Headsets Will Be as Common as Game Consoles by 2030
By his own admission, John Riccitiello has a long history of making predictions—some of them right, others not. Riccitiello, a long-time videogame industry executive who is now CEO of Unity Software, once blew it with a prediction that a new Sony PlayStation game console would come out a year ... → Read More
How Amazon’s Jassy Is Already Warming Up for CEO Job
Last week, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos finally revealed when he’ll pass the CEO baton to his hand-picked successor, Andy Jassy: July 5. But Jassy has spent months getting ready for the moment. Since Amazon announced the change in February, Jassy has begun quietly pitching in on efforts that would ... → Read More
Netflix Seeks Executive to Expand Game Efforts
Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee an expansion into videogames, a sign it is stepping up its efforts to grow beyond traditional filmed entertainment, according to people familiar with the situation. In recent weeks, Netflix has approached veteran game industry executives about ... → Read More
Zoom, Amazon Hired at Fastest Clip During Pandemic
Early last year, before the pandemic flipped the world upside down, you could have fit the entire global workforce of Zoom Video Communications on about 45 charter buses. By the end of January this year, though, it would have taken 79 buses to hold all of the videoconferencing provider’s ... → Read More
Amazon’s Shakeup: Five Questions and Answers About the Bezos-Jassy Bombshell
Jeff Bezos’ decision to step aside as CEO of Amazon in favor of his lieutenant, Andy Jassy, is an earth-shaking move in the tech industry. Bezos has built Amazon into one of America's biggest companies, with its tentacles in a wide range of businesses. Jassy's appointment also means that four ... → Read More
Employee Pressure Not a Factor in Deplatforming, Tech Companies Say
When Amazon, Twitter and other tech companies booted President Donald Trump along with social networking app Parler and others blamed for last week’s mob violence from their platforms, workers at the tech companies were thrilled. In some cases, the moves came after employees had been asking for ... → Read More
Pay Equity Startup Raises $17.1 Million in Round Led by Bessemer
Most subscription software companies aren’t at the white-hot center of social justice movements, but one that is—Syndio—has seen a surge in corporate customers, including Coinbase. Syndio’s product identifies employee pay disparities based on gender, race and ethnicity. Now Syndio is taking ... → Read More
Briefing: Salesforce to Acquire Slack in $27.7 Billion Deal —
Salesforce said it will acquire Slack, the provider of messaging tools for businesses, in a deal worth $27.7 billion, making it the biggest acquisition in Salesforce’s history. While the deal had been expected for days, the amount Salesforce is paying is an eye-popping sum for Slack, an unprofitable company that has failed to capitalize on the growth of remote work during the pandemic to → Read More
Microsoft Bashes Slack Complaint in European Antitrust Filing
Microsoft has privately told European competition authorities that Slack’s antitrust complaint against the tech giant was motivated essentially by sour grapes. In a recent confidential filing, Microsoft told the European Commission, which oversees competition regulation, that Slack brought its ... → Read More
Briefing: Magic Leap Names Microsoft Executive as New CEO —
Magic Leap, the troubled augmented reality startup, named Peggy Johnson, a senior Microsoft executive, as its new chief executive officer on Tuesday. Johnson, who will join Magic Leap on August 1, will replace Rony Abovitz, the company’s founder who stepped down from the top job in May. Johnson was one of the highest ranking female executives at Microsoft, serving as its executive vice → Read More
Briefing: Seattle Council Passes New Tax Aimed at Amazon —
Seattle’s city council on Monday passed a new tax that will seek to raise money for housing and other needs from companies with the highest paid employees in the city, including Amazon. The passage of the JumpStart Seattle tax comes two years after the council repealed another tax on employers in the city under pressure from Amazon shortly after the council had approved the measure. The council → Read More
Business as Usual—Remotely —
Last week, Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big tech companies began encouraging tens of thousands of their employees to work from home, in a dramatic response to help curb the coronavirus pandemic.Then there are people like Dave McJannet, whose company didn’t have to send employees home— ... → Read More
Five Takeaways From the FTC’s New Antitrust Probe —
Much of the antitrust scrutiny on big tech companies has focused on whether their biggest acquisitions violated competition laws. Now the Federal Trade Commission, in a sweeping review of five iconic players in the industry, is looking at whether their smaller deals might have hurt competition, ... → Read More
How YouTube and Google Cloud Compare to Rivals —
Let this sink in: YouTube makes more money from advertising than the ABC, NBC and Fox broadcast networks—combined.That was among the revelations in an unexpectedly newsy earnings report on Monday by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which broke out the financial performance of several of ... → Read More
Apple Ends AI Startup’s Work on ‘Project Maven’ After Acquisition —
Big technology companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google have jockeyed to secure lucrative contracts supplying their products and services to the military. Apple, though, has shown less interest in the market. And when it recently bought a startup that was working on a controversial Pentagon ... → Read More
As Apple Plans Come Into Focus, Big Challenges Remain for AR —
When Raven Zachary co-founded a firm in 2015 to build augmented reality applications, he figured it would take years for the market for the new technology to develop. Now, though, Zachary says he was a “little aggressive” in his predictions for how long it will take for AR to go mainstream.His ... → Read More
Apple Eyes 2022 Release for AR Headset, 2023 for Glasses —
Apple is aiming to release an augmented-reality headset in 2022 and a sleeker pair of AR glasses by 2023, The Information has learned.Apple executives discussed the timelines, which haven’t been previously reported, in an internal presentation to employees at the company’s Cupertino, California, ... → Read More
Zynga, No Longer a Game Has-Been, Hunts for Acquisitions —
When Frank Gibeau became chief executive of Zynga in 2016, the mobile games publisher behind one-time sensations like “FarmVille” and “Words with Friends” was a shambles. With revenue in decline and a history of bungled acquisitions, Zynga had a market capitalization of around $2 billion, a tad ... → Read More
A Reality Check for Microsoft’s Surface Business —
Last week, Microsoft held what has become an annual event for the company, a fall showcase for its latest Surface devices. The widespreadpraise that greeted the new products was a pinch-yourself moment for those of us old enough to remember when Microsoft didn’t make computers and was often ... → Read More