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Facebook’s future is private messaging, says CEO Mark Zuckerberg; the company is “shifting its focus away from public posts to encrypted, ephemeral communications on its trio of messaging apps,” which also include Instagram and WhatsApp. “As I think about the future of the internet, I believe a privacy-focused communications platform will become even more important than today’s open platforms,” Zuckerberg wrote in a 3,000-word blog post that focused on encryption as the way forward. Meanwhile, Facebook’s corporate reputation took a hit over the past year — it dropped to No. 94 from No. 51 out of the 100 most visible US companies — as it flailed through a series of crises and controversies. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]
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The French government plans to levy a 3 percent tax on internet giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. “The bill is an attempt to get around tax avoidance measures by multinational companies, which pay most of their taxes in the EU country they are based in — often at very low rates. That effectively means the companies pay next to zero tax in countries where they have large operations.” About 30 companies — mostly US-based but also from China and Europe — will be affected by the tax, which will apply to digital companies with global revenues in excess of 750 million euros ($848 million), and French revenue over 25 million euros. [Sylvie Corbet / AP]
Apple is bringing 1,200 employees to San Diego, some 470 miles south of Cupertino — and home to its current legal foe, Qualcomm. Reportedly trying to reduce its dependence on third-party chips, Apple is trying to bring its modem-chip engineering in-house; the company recently stopped using Qualcomm modems and switched to Intel chips. Apple wants to add up to 200 employees in San Diego by the end of the year; new positions in the three-year plan “would span a variety of specialty engineering fields in hardware and software. … The company plans also to develop thousands of square feet of office, lab and research space in the area to accommodate the new employees.” [Lauren Feiner / CNBC]
Even with the spread of online banking, JPMorgan and its rivals — Wells Fargo and Bank of America — are sticking to brick-and-mortar as a growth strategy. But the largest consumer US banks are closing more branches in poorer areas; banks have shut 1,915 more branches in lower-income neighborhoods than they have opened in the four years through 2018. The effect threatens to widen the wealth gap: After a branch closes in poor and minority neighborhoods, the number of new small-business loans declines 13 percent, according to a paper by an MIT economist. [Michelle Davis / Bloomberg]
People may lol at Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand and e-commerce platform, Goop. But Paltrow doesn’t care: “Goop is now worth some $250 million, revenues are growing and Ms. Paltrow is looking to Disney for inspiration, visualizing a company that makes money through online retail, offline experiences, ad partnerships and more.” Here’s a fresh and holistic Q&A with Paltrow about her business, including “the tech stacks, contextual commerce strategies and email service providers that power Goop.” [David Gelles / The New York Times]
Top stories from Recode
Why companies like Lyft and Uber are going public without having profits. The last time unprofitable companies went public at this rate was in 2000 — the year the dot-com bubble burst. [Rani Molla]
Media startups trying to drive people to their websites are doing it wrong, says Overtime CEO Dan Porter. Don’t listen to the conventional wisdom about relying on Instagram or Snapchat, Porter says on the latest Recode Media — just go where your audience is. [Peter Kafka]
This is cool
BuzzFeed pivots to print: “Social. Mobile. Recyclable.”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
