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Disney is going to pull all its films from Netflix, and will launch an ESPN streaming service in early 2018 and its own Disney-branded streaming platform in 2019. The move is a major shift in its business model, but it won’t kick in right away. The ESPN service will offer about 10,000 sporting events per year, including MLB, NHL and MLS content. Netflix stock dropped more than 5 percent upon announcement of the news. [Peter Kafka / Recode]
Lots of takes out there on the so-called “Google Manifesto” that resulted in the firing of its author yesterday: It really put Google executives in a bind about free speech. Attorney Anita Hill — who famously testified about sexual harassment on Capitol Hill in 1991 — says that women in tech should take sexism to court. And here’s some background on the software engineer behind the radioactive memo, who has since filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming unfair retaliation.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told his fellow Facebook board member Peter Thiel that his support of Donald Trump made Facebook look bad. In a 2016 email during the 2016 presidential election, Hastings said to proudly contrarian investor Thiel that he had displayed “catastrophically bad judgment.” [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]
SoftBank is pumping $1 billion into the online sports-apparel retailer Fanatics, raising its valuation to $4.5 billion. Fanatics has direct licensing deals with major American sports leagues and big collegiate programs, giving it rare a leg up on Amazon for team-branded replica jerseys and such. [Jason Del Rey / Recode]
Digital money is the currency of the future, and it may be on the verge of going mainstream. Sure, you’ve heard of bitcoin — but have you heard of Ethereum, Ripple, CannabisCoin or any of the 800 other variants of cryptocurrency? [Teddy Wayne / The New York Times]
Kurt Andersen is always worth reading: In a long excerpt from his forthcoming book, “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire — A 500-Year History,” he vividly traces how we arrived at our current “post-truth” moment. [The Atlantic]
Top stories from Recode
Uber is the most valuable U.S. startup, with Airbnb and WeWork following far behind it.
Airbnb and WeWork are a distant second and third.
ASOS is doubling down on the U.S., where it’s already a hot fashion site for twentysomethings.
The company is investing $40 million in a new Atlanta warehouse.
Expect to see more and more tech execs running for political office.
Silicon Valley is coming to Washington, D.C.
This is cool
David Letterman is going to do a six-episode talk show for Netflix. Two years after signing off CBS’s “The Late Show,” the longest-serving host in U.S. late-night TV history will return in 2018. Typical Dave on his retirement: “Here’s what I have learned, if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first.” [Lesley Goldberg / The Hollywood Reporter]
Dept. of Duh
Of course Gloria Vanderbilt is the mother of CNN’S Anderson Cooper, and is not the mom of Cooper's friend and tourmate Andy Cohen, as mistakenly mentioned in an item in yesterday’s newsletter about 93-year-old Vanderbilt’s fascinating Instagram account.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
