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From November 2020 to late January 2021, Jack Ma was not seen in public following the cancellation of Ant Group's IPO and his criticism of Chinese regulators. His disappearance sparked international speculation about whether he had been detained, placed under house arrest, or coerced into silence. Ma stepped down from Alibaba's board on October 1, 2020, before the disappearance. He later moved to Tokyo in 2022, spending significant time outside China.

Glenn Greenwald resigned from The Intercept on October 29, 2020, alleging editors attempted to censor his opinion column critical of Joe Biden five days before the presidential election. Greenwald stated editors refused to publish unless he removed all sections critical of Biden. While noting Pierre Omidyar personally 'always honored his commitment never to interfere,' Greenwald said Intercept editors in New York were 'imposing the censorship' to support their preferred candidate.

At October 24, 2020 Bund Financial Summit, Jack Ma publicly criticized Chinese regulators, stating banks have a 'pawnshop mentality' and calling regulators an 'old people's club' that stifles innovation. The criticism reached Xi Jinping who was furious and personally ordered suspension of Ant Group's $37 billion IPO days later. Ma was summoned by regulators on November 2. This speech triggered massive regulatory crackdown on Alibaba and Ant Group.

At an October 24, 2020 financial forum in Shanghai, Jack Ma publicly criticized China's regulatory system, saying banks had a 'pawn shop mentality' and that 'we cannot regulate the future with yesterday's means.' He stated 'There's no systemic financial risks in China because there's no financial systems in China. The risks are a lack of systems.' Chinese officials were reportedly 'furious' about the speech, which precipitated government crackdown on Ant Group and Alibaba.

In October 2020, Jack Ma delivered a speech criticizing Beijing's approach to financial regulation. This triggered one of the most severe regulatory crackdowns in Chinese corporate history: the Ant Group IPO (valued at $315B - would have been largest ever) was blocked days before launch, Alibaba lost ~$620B in market cap, and Ant Group's valuation collapsed from $315B to $78.5B. Ma ceded control of his companies and effectively disappeared from public life for months.

In October 2020, Stripe acquired Paystack, a Nigerian payment processing company, in a deal reportedly worth over $200 million. Paystack had 60,000 users and gave Stripe infrastructure across five African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Côte d'Ivoire). The acquisition was aimed at enabling African businesses to access global payment infrastructure, supporting the continent's growing technology ecosystem.

GitLab's compensation structure calculates pay based on employee location, with average location factor of 0.679 meaning average employee receives 67.9% of San Francisco equivalent pay. CEO Sid Sijbrandij defended approach: 'there's people saying, Same work, same pay. And there's people like us saying we should be at market.' Critics argue geography plays no role in software work value: 'Code written in Thailand has the same value as code written in San Francisco.' In October 2020, GitLab closed public access to its compensation calculator.

In October 2020, MSI's subsidiary Starlit Partners was discovered selling MSI-brand NVIDIA RTX 3080 and 3090 graphics cards on eBay at prices up to twice the MSRP during the global GPU shortage. The seller's eBay account was traced back to MSI. The company took responsibility and offered affected customers full refunds or partial refunds of the overcharge.

Livingston made a $5 million donation to Tech for Campaigns, an organization that provides digital assistance to Democratic candidates. This made her one of the top tech donors to Democrats in the 2020 election cycle.

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu donated to multiple Democratic candidates: $3,050 to Pete Buttigieg's Win The Era PAC (2019), $7,200 to the Democratic National Committee (2020), $2,800 to Joe Biden's presidential campaign (2020), and $10,000 to the Biden Victory Fund (2020). Total: over $23,000 to Democrats.

In October 2020, co-founder Cristina Junqueira made controversial comments in a TV interview, saying Nubank could not 'lower its standards' when asked about including Black people in leadership. She said 'It doesn't work to allow in someone who will not be able to work with our team.' The remarks triggered customer backlash with many saying they would cancel accounts. Nubank issued a letter titled 'Nubank failed' promising to set racial inclusion goals.

Safra Catz and her spouse contributed $250,000 to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. She also donated over $150,000 to Republican-aligned groups and individuals in the 2018 cycle, including to Congressman Devin Nunes.

In 2020, LinkedIn committed to doubling the number of Black and Latino leaders, managers, and senior individual contributors within five years. By FY2022, LinkedIn exceeded its Black senior employee target with 127% growth and achieved 74% growth for senior Latino employees. Black employee representation rose to 7.2% (up over 50% in a single year), Latino representation reached 7.4%, women in technical roles reached 27.8%, and the global workforce reached 47% women. LinkedIn also achieved no gaps in attrition rates for Black and Latino employees or women in leadership for the first time.

In October 2020, Palmer Luckey hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump's re-election campaign at his home in Lido Isle, Newport Beach, California, with the president in attendance. Ticket prices ranged from $2,800 per person to $150,000 per couple. Luckey also donated $200,000 to Take Back the House 2020 PAC, $106,500 to the RNC, and $150,000 to the Trump Victory fund in the same cycle.

In September 2020, Brian Armstrong declared Coinbase a 'Mission Focused Company' and banned employee activism and political discussions. He offered severance to those who disagreed; 60 employees (5%) left. Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, and female employees had reported hostile conditions. Women were paid 8% less and Black employees 7% less than peers.

In September 2020, Greylock Partners partnered with Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) to address diversity and inclusion in tech. The partnership connected MLT's network of ~8,000 Black, Latinx, and Indigenous professionals with roles at Greylock portfolio companies, supported retention, and helped MLT professionals pursue careers in venture capital. Partner David Sze acknowledged VCs and startups had been 'really bad at getting this right.'

CEO Brian Armstrong wrote a blog post in September 2020 declaring Coinbase a 'Mission Focused Company,' discouraging employee discussion of political and social issues at work. He stated it 'would go against our principles of inclusion and belonging to be more of an activist company on issues outside of our core mission.' The company offered severance packages; 60 employees (5% of company) left. A November 2020 NYT article cited 23 current and former staff with complaints, including allegations Black employees were paid 7% less than white colleagues and women were paid 8% less than men.

In September 2020, Stripe settled with the Massachusetts Attorney General for $120,000 over allegations that its risk monitoring and fraud prevention practices were inadequate, enabling the fraudulent PlexCoin ICO. Between August and September 2017, PlexCorps held six Stripe accounts used to obtain millions of dollars. The AG alleged Stripe knew or should have known of the fraud in time to prevent harm to 22 Massachusetts investors. Stripe terminated the accounts in September 2017 and subsequently bolstered its protections.

In September 2020, Meta/Facebook announced Quest 2 would require mandatory Facebook account login with real name policy, eliminating ability to use VR anonymously. Automated verification system falsely banned legitimate users, leaving $300+ devices unusable as 'paperweights.' Policy forced users to link personal Facebook data to VR biometric data. Criticized by EFF and Mozilla Foundation. Meta reversed policy in August 2022 after two years of user backlash, allowing Meta accounts without Facebook connection.

Sundar Pichai announced Google would be the first major company to commit to operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy in all data centers and campuses worldwide by 2030. Google eliminated its entire carbon legacy through carbon offsets, was first major company to become carbon neutral (2007) and match energy use with 100% renewable energy (2017). Target: help reduce 1 gigatonne of carbon emissions annually by 2030 (equal to Japan's emissions). Fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps prevented 2.4M metric tons of carbon emissions.

In 2020, security researcher Volodymyr Diachenko discovered that Razer had left an Elasticsearch server misconfigured and publicly accessible, exposing the personal information of approximately 100,000 customers. Leaked data included full names, email addresses, phone numbers, customer IDs, order numbers, and billing/shipping addresses. Razer initially took weeks to respond before securing the server.

In September 2020, Netflix faced massive backlash over its promotional poster for the French film 'Cuties' (Mignonnes) which was widely considered to sexualize child actors. #CancelNetflix trended on Twitter and over 600,000 people signed a petition to cancel subscriptions. Netflix apologized for the 'inappropriate artwork.' Internal documents later revealed Netflix manipulated its search algorithm to suppress promotion and search queries related to the film, aiming to 'minimize press coverage' rather than address the concerns transparently.

In its Fund 16 raise, Greylock Partners made the deliberate decision to only add new limited partners (LPs) with a specific focus on diversity and inclusion, including Management Leadership for Tomorrow. This was part of a broader effort to diversify tech's wealth cycle by ensuring that underrepresented communities could participate as investors in venture capital, not just as employees. The firm also partnered with Dreamscape to connect Black executives with leadership opportunities at portfolio companies.

Naval Ravikant gave permission for Eric Jorgenson to curate his tweets, essays, and podcast interviews into 'The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness,' published in 2020. Ravikant does not earn any money from the book, which is available for free download in PDF and e-reader formats. The book has been widely shared as a resource on wealth creation and personal philosophy.

T-Mobile's Project 10Million helps bridge the homework gap by providing free internet connectivity to millions of underserved student households. Eligible students receive free internet access, free mobile hotspots, and access to affordable laptops and tablets. The company invested nearly $17M in small towns across America, with towns receiving up to $50K for local communities. The program targets millions of student households lacking home internet access.

The SEC charged Super Micro Computer and its former CFO and VP Controller with widespread accounting violations spanning from 2015 to 2017, including prematurely recognizing revenue, underreporting expenses, and circumventing internal controls. Supermicro paid a $17.5M penalty. The company was delisted from NASDAQ in 2018 and only relisted in 2020 after restating financials.

Republican Whitman spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention supporting Joe Biden's presidential campaign. She donated $505,600 to the Biden Victory Fund in June 2020. Biden later nominated her as US Ambassador to Kenya in December 2021, confirmed by Senate in July 2022.

In August 2020, Mozilla laid off approximately 250 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce. The cuts eliminated the entire Servo engine team, the threat management team, and parts of the developer tools team. Mozilla cited the economic impact of COVID-19 and the need to restructure around commercial revenue.

Mozilla conducted major layoffs under Mitchell Baker's leadership: approximately 250 employees in August 2020 (25% of workforce), and 60+ employees in February 2024. The cuts affected key teams including the Servo engine team, MDN documentation team, and threat management. These layoffs occurred while Baker's compensation remained high.

Rappi faced multiple worker strikes: August 2020 saw ~1,000 workers strike in Bogota over blocked accounts, low pay, and impossible point targets; December 2019 saw workers burn their orange merchandise outside headquarters demanding better conditions and occupational health coverage; July 2024 saw 100 workers protest at headquarters. Colombian Senator Robledo said conditions 'offend human dignity.'