Cory talks to Scott Wiener, a member of the California state senate, about how the future of the tech industry in San Francisco. We wrote this week about the CEOs of Dropbox, Brex and Splunk leaving the city permanently. Wiener isn't sure the trend will last. "There have been a lot of speculative predictions that I'm not sure will play out," he said.

Related: Tech CEOs Are Saying Goodbye to San Francisco

Alex talks about the struggle inside Facebook over how to deal with misleading posts from politicians. Cory gets the inside story from Nick Bastone about struggles at Alphabet's Loon, the experimental company that's tried to bring internet connectivity to rural areas.

Paris explores Amazon's plan to own more parts of the delivery process with the building out of its trucking fleets. Wayne talks about Apple's fraying relationship with manufacturer Foxconn.

How can we start to make sense of the implications of this election for tech? Cory talks to three tech-savvy political veterans for early takeaways.

Guests:

Will Uber and Lyft drivers become full-time employees, or something more like contractors with benefits? California's Proposition 22 will help determine the fate of "gig" work, as well as the financial fortunes of Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart. Tom and Cory break down this high-stakes battle ahead of Election Day, with some help from Uber and Lyft reporter extraordinaire Amir Efrati. We also hear from Uber and Lyft drivers on both sides of the fight, one of the most important political battles ever for the tech industry. 

Nick Bastone and Chris Stern join to talk about the DOJ's antitrust suit against Google and where things go from here. And Jessica Toonkel and Tom dive in the the brief life and sudden death of the video streaming service Quibi.

Tom talks to Kate Clark about the state of funding for female-led startups, which has sunk even lower during the pandemic. We also interview Tracy Chou, founder of Blockparty and Sara Mauskopf, cofounder of Winnie, who discussed their experiences raising money for their startups.  And Cory talked to Nick Bastone and Humu's Liz Fosslien to talk about why some workers feel they've become less efficient as they work from home.

Cory Weinberg talks to Tom Dotan about the success of Disney+ and why the app's importance has bred tensions at the entertainment giant. Then, Cory talks antitrust and tech culture with Maelle Gavet, a former executive at real estate startup Compass and online travel firm Booking. Gavet recently published a book about her experience with what she calls "tech's empathy problem."

Zoe talks about this week's Coinbase controversy and how different CEOs feel about taking activist stands as a company. Then Alex talks about Facebook's battle with Apple, this time over messaging and integrating into iMessage. 

It seems like in Silicon Valley is starting a SPAC. Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Kevin Hartz, Chamath Palihapitiya, maybe even your roommate.

Reporters Cory Weinberg and Ross Matican trace the origins of the SPAC surge. We explain why these special-purpose acquisition companies have become so popular, some of the regulatory history, and what some of the downsides are. 

In this episode, we talked to:

Further reading: