startups

The most unbelievable tech quotes of 2018 – Business Insider


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Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
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Getty/ Francois Mori / Associated Press/Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The last 12 months have been a strange and confusing time in
tech, especially for the giants housed mostly in Silicon Valley.

This is the year that the default public attitude to tech firms
such as Google and Facebook became one of suspicion, resulting in
greater scrutiny from politicians and media.

Business Insider has captured something of the changing spirit
with a list of the 17 most jaw-dropping quotes from 2018.

The list is, perhaps unsurprisingly, jointly dominated by
Facebook executives and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, both of whom had a
trying year under the spotlight. Other figures include Steve
Jobs, after the Apple cofounder’s daughter Lisa wrote a poetic
and devastating memoir which showed her father in a new light.


“You’re getting nothing.”

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Steve Jobs.
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Getty Images

It’s an open secret that Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was not only
a visionary but an exceptionally difficult man.

A memoir published this year by his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs,
lends further nuanced depth to that image and examines their
often frosty relationship.

In one heartbreaking extract, told for the first time,
Brennan-Jobs recalled that her father would replace every Porsche
as soon as it got a scratch. She asked whether she could have one
once he replaced it.

“You’re not getting anything,” she recalls him responding. “You
understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.”


“Funding secured.”

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Elon Musk’s tweeting landed him in more than one scrape this year.
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Francois Mori / Associated Press

Elon Musk’s Twitter activity prompted great scrutiny of the Tesla
CEO this year, but the tweet that bit back hardest was his
infamous claim that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla
private.

The full tweet appeared to contain a marijuana reference. “Am
considering taking Tesla private at $420,” he wrote. “Funding
secured.”

Ultimately, the tweet led to Musk being slapped with a
$20 million fine from the SEC
after it became apparent that
funding had not in fact been secured. Under the terms of the
settlement, Musk also had to step down as chairman of Tesla.


“I saw him in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet.”

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Elon Musk and Grimes at the 2018 Met
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Getty Images

A surprising twist in the tale of Elon Musk’s “funding secured”
debacle was when rapper Azealia Banks weighed in with her account
of events.

Banks claimed that after being invited to Musk’s LA home to
collaborate with Grimes, who was in a relationship with Musk at
the time (it is unclear whether they are still a couple),

she saw him scrambling for investors
.

“They bring me out there on the premise that we would hang and
make music,” Banks told Business Insider in a DM. “But his
dumbass kept tweeting and tucked his dick in between his ass
cheeks once shit hit the fan.

“I saw him in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs
scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet. He
was stressed and red in the face.”


Banks later wrote an apology letter to Musk
, saying “I feel
terrible about everything.”


“I know tech better than anyone.”

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President Donald Trump claims to know tech “better than anyone.”
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Win McNamee/Getty Images

In December, President Trump tweeted
that he knows tech better than anyone else
in response to
criticism about his plans for a border wall with Mexico.

In two tweets Trump declared: “The Democrats are trying to
belittle the concept of a Wall, calling it old fashioned. The
fact is there is nothing else’s that will work, and that has been
true for thousands of years. It’s like the wheel, there is
nothing better.

“I know tech better than anyone, & technology …..on a
Border is only effective in conjunction with a Wall. Properly
designed and built Walls work, and the Democrats are lying when
they say they don’t. In Israel the Wall is 99.9% successful. Will
not be any different on our Southern Border! Hundreds of
$Billions saved!”

There is considerable evidence to suggest Trump is not the
foremost expert on technology,
such as the fact he refers to an iPad as “the flat one.”


“Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?”

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees joint hearing in April.
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Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was hauled before US lawmakers in
April to explain the role the social network played in spreading
misinformation.

Lawmakers used the session as an excuse to grill Facebook about
privacy too, with Democratic senator Dick Durbin asking:
“Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing with us the
name of the hotel you stayed in last night?”

The point was to illustrate Facebook’s uncanny ability to show
people ads and friend recommendations based on their whereabouts.

Unsurprisingly, Zuckerberg said no.


“Senator, we run ads.”

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees in April.
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AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

When Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April, many
were surprised at the senators’ lack of tech-savvy. Perhaps the
best example of this was when 84-year-old Utah senator
Orrin Hatch asked how Facebook can be a profitable business and
yet remain a free service
.

Zuckerberg responded, “Senator, we run ads.”


“I hope I am able to assist as a cat.”

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Mark Zuckerberg’s empty chair at Westminster.
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Gabriel Sainhas, House of Commons

Feeling, perhaps, that two Congressional appearances were enough,
Zuckerberg snubbed similar grillings from other countries. He
declined to appear in November before a group of representatives
from nine countries hosted in Westminster.

Instead, Facebook sent VP and British peer Richard Allen in his
place, and Belgian lawmaker Nele Lijnen flummoxed him with
an unexpected question:
“Do you know the expression ‘sending your cat’?”

Allen admitted he did not, and she explained it was a
Flemish idiom meaning to not show up.

“I hope I am able to assist as a cat,” Allen
responded.

“No, no, you are sitting next to the cat,” Lijnen
explained.


“I choose to go to the moon, with artists.”

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Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa speaks after SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk announced him as the person who would be the first private passenger on a trip around the moon, Monday, Sept. 17, 2018.
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Chris Carlson/AP Photo

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed in September that Japanese
billionaire and art collector Yusaku Maezawa would be
the first person to fly to the moon as a private passenger aboard
the Big Falcon Rocket
.

Maezawa in turn
announced he would be taking six to eight artists along for the
ride
.


“We have taken down another great icon.”

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VC investor Tim Draper.
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty

This year the rise and fall of disgraced blood-analysis startup
Theranos was deliciously chronicled in the book “Bad Blood.”

But despite the fact that the SEC went on to charge Theranos and
its founder Elizabeth Holmes with fraud, some of its supporters
remained loyal to the end.

Venture capital investor Tim Draper defended Holmes in an
interview with CNBC. He also wore a Bitcoin-patterned tie.

“I feel that we have taken down another great icon,” he
said. “This woman came to me when she was 19 years old and she
said I’m going to transform health care as we know it and she got
bullied into submission. And this is not what America is made
of.”

Holmes stepped down as CEO a month later.

Read more:
The rise and fall of Theranos, the blood-testing startup that
went from a rising star in Silicon Valley to facing fraud
charges


“I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt.”

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Cliff Owen/AP

In a recording of an internal Amazon all-hands meeting heard by
CNBC in November, CEO Jeff Bezos said in response to a question
from a staffer:
“Amazon is not too big to fail … In fact, I predict one day
Amazon will fail.”

“Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their
lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years,” he
added.

The quote was eye-catching because Amazon has made Bezos is the
richest man in the world.

This isn’t the first time Bezos has alluded to
Amazon’s inevitable demise either
.


“If you Google the word ‘idiot,’ under images, a picture of Donald Trump comes up.”

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Sundar Pichai testifying to congress in December.
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Getty

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was, like Zuckerberg, hauled before US
Congress this year.

Pichai was questioned about alleged anti-conservative bias at the
company, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren gave Pichai the chance
to explain how Google search works.

“Right now, if you Google the word ‘idiot,’ under images,
a picture of Donald Trump comes up. I just did that. How would
that happen? How does search work so that that would
occur?”

Pichai responded that Google employees cannot manually
interfere in any search results.


“Facebook has a black people problem.”

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Facebook employee Mark S. Luckie
published a scathing goodbye note criticising racial
discrimination at the company in November
, asserting that
Facebook has a “black people problem.”

“Facebook’s disenfranchisement of black people on the
platform mirrors the marginalization of its black employees,” he
wrote.


Trump’s trade war with China is the “stupidest thing in the world.”

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Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
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Ruben Sprich/Reuters

Numerous business leaders have spoken out about Trump’s trade war
with China, but perhaps none so bluntly as Jack Ma.

China’s richest man and founder of ecommerce giant Alibaba simply
said in November it was
“the most stupidest thing in this world.”


“People just peed in bottles because they lived in fear of being ­disciplined over ‘idle time’ and ­losing their jobs just because they needed the loo.”

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An Amazon warehouse in New Jersey.
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Sarah Jacobs

This was the quote that reignited global outrage at conditions in
Amazon’s warehouses.

Reporter
James Bloodworth went undercover as a worker in an Amazon
warehouse
(or “fulfillment centre”) as research for a book on
low-wage jobs in Britain.

He claims to have found a bottle of urine while working there,
and told The Sun that people urinated in bottles so as not to be
disciplined for taking the time to walk to the toilet.

Amazon has categorically denied this, and dismissed Bloodworth’s
reporting.


“Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people.”

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Longtime Facebook exec Andrew “Boz” Bosworth (pictured left) with Mark Zuckerberg.
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Facebook

In March of this year,
Buzzfeed obtained a 2016 memo
from Facebook executive Andrew
“Boz” Bosworth, seemingly justifying growth at all costs.

“So we connect more people,” Boz wrote. “That can be bad if they
make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to
bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on
our tools. And still we connect people.”


Mark Zuckerberg subsequently condemned the memo
, saying
Facebook has, “never believed the ends justified the means.”

Bosworth himself claimed in a statement that he didn’t agree with
the memo when he wrote, but rather he wanted to “surface issues”
he felt warranted more discussion.


“I’ll be holding your hands with your dying ­business like in a hospice.”

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Campbell Brown is Facebook’s new head of news.
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Campbell Brown / Facebook

Facebook’s head of news partnerships, Campbell Brown, detonated a
media bomb after
reportedly telling news organisations
that they’d end up “in
a hospice” if they didn’t work with the social and ads giant.

Brown met with Australian news organisations and plugged the
benefits of working with Facebook, but then shocked executives by
saying: “We will help you revitalise journalism … in a few years
the ­reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your
dying ­business like in a hospice.”


“I f—ing hope he sues me.”

source
AP

Musk got in hot water after he accused British rescue diver
Vernon Unsworth of being a pedophile, after Unsworth criticised
Musk’s idea of rescuing the 12 boys who became stranded in a Thai
cave using a miniature submarine.

Even more surprising was when Musk
doubled down on the claim in an email to a Buzzfeed reporter
.

Unsworth did file a lawsuit against Musk in the US,
and is planning legal action in the UK
.





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