Recode Daily: Do you want to be the CEO of Uber? Oh. Well, why not?

There has been a lot of speculation about who might take over as CEO of Uber. Leave it to Kara Swisher to check it out: She called Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, former Disney CEO Tom Staggs, former Ford CEO Alan Mulally, and many more of the most likely C-suite candidates, and flat-out asked them if they’d be interested in the job. Here’s what they told her. [Kara Swisher / Recode]

FanDuel and DraftKings have abandoned their plans for a merger, rather than fight the U.S. government, which wanted to block the combination of the country’s Top 2 daily fantasy sports sites. FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles seemed to signal the end last week; DraftKings CEO Jason Robins explains why the deal fell apart. [Tony Romm / Recode]

A who’s who of the tech and media worlds descended on Sun Valley for the annual running of the bullish, a.k.a. the invite-only media business conference hosted by investment bank Allen & Co. We’ll hear about whatever deals get made soon enough; meanwhile, here are photos of sunlit billionaires in sportswear, including a buff-looking Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Apple’s Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

Facebook has plans for making its Oculus Rift headset into something that will popularize virtual reality the way Apple did with the smartphone. Code-named “Pacific,” Facebook’s upcoming device is a $200 wireless headset that will bridge the gap between cheap headgear and high-end gaming rigs, and will work without being tethered to phone or PC. [Mark Gurman / Bloomberg]

If you blinked, you probably missed this week’s “massive” rally in support of net neutrality. Organizers of the online “day of action” protest say the event reached more than 10 million viewers and generated more than two million comments to the FCC. But some of the largest tech companies appeared to pull their protest punches, and the hue and cry won’t stop the Trump administration from killing the Obama-era rules. [Tony Romm / Recode]

What is blockchain, and how does it work? We’ve all heard about it, usually in relation to a digital currency like bitcoin. On the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire answered all our questions and yours. [Eric Johnson / Recode]

Top stories from Recode

EXCLUSIVE: My (not very) close (not very) personal Facebook friendship with Rob Goldstone.

REVEALED: Not very much. Still, he’s the guy in the middle of Trump’s biggest scandal, and this is what he posted this week.

This group of Obama alums has raised $2.5 million to improve Democrats’ tech tools.

Higher Ground Labs, which will add Obama aide Ron Klain as chairman, will announce the first crop of campaign-tech companies it plans to support.

We’re training machines to think like us — will that include how we think about women in business?

Let’s stop thinking that it must be us, not them. Let’s stop thinking that it’s normal. Let’s get a seat at the table.

This is cool

Here’s to the ones who dream ...

Actor Jimmy Fowlie jokingly posted on social media: “If I wrote the full version of Emma Stone’s one-woman show from ‘La La Land’ and performed it in LA would you come see that?” The response was (small-theater-scale) overwhelming, and the first four shows at the Celebration Theatre immediately sold out — they're still frantically adding more dates. [Curtis M. Wong / HuffPost]

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via