The Information's 411

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:

This week we're presenting highlights from two interviews from the WTF Summit earlier this month. Emerson Collective's president Laurene Powell Jobs discusses her group's work on voting access as well as her ownership of The Atlantic magazine. Jenna Lyons, the former creative director for J Crew, talks about starting from the ground up with her new beauty brand.

We speak to some brave souls around the world who ventured back into the movie theater. And Richard Rushfield of The Ankler joins to give his take on how well the movie industry has faired these last two weekends back and what it all means for Hollywood.

With the TikTok drama getting even messier and tech relations between the US and China at an all time low, we check in with Jessica Lessin about the latest. Then Cory talks to Kate Clark about how the payments firm Stripe has become a force in venture capital, often edging out established firms to get in on deals.

The second part of our Airbnb series looks at Domio, a startup that tried to build a business on the Airbnb platform. Paris tells us how she stumbled across the Domio story and how the company gamed loopholes in city guidelines about short term rentals. And Cory explains what the Domio saga means for Airbnb as it heads toward an IPO.

Background reading:

How One Rental Startup Gamed Airbnb