Serious Tech News #8: A Spinach Sent This Email

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Remember 2020? It has been a rough year for everyone in the world. From a worldwide pandemic, escalating social unrest around the world, and Schitt’s Creek not being on the air anymore.

It has been a traumatic year, to say the least. Despite all of that, 2021 has shown promising signs of healing. (For our American readers, we believe it’s okay to start your year count after January 6, 2021. Give yourself a break.)

Nature is also recuperating, although not in the way we expected.

You’ve Got Mail… From a Spinach.

In their latest experiment, MIT engineers have successfully turned spinach into sensors capable of detecting explosive materials. While any kaboom prevention is always beneficial to the world, it comes with a lofty price.

The engineers also have equipped the vegetables with one of the most disturbing 21st-century skills: sending emails.

Our source reported that Salesforce, upon hearing the news, is in a discussion of acquiring 10,000 acres of spinach farm in California to build the world’s first eco-friendly sales outreach email automation. Get ready to receive the “Per my last email” follow-ups from a f*cking spinach.

If the pilot project turns out to be a success, the SF-based company is looking into building an automated call center powered by intelligent yams.

In their spinach procurement effort, Salesforce is competing with Amazon. Not because Amazon is also currently building spinach-powered sales squads, but because they want Whole Foods to keep the baby spinach price reasonable. If you’ve shopped at Whole Foods before, you’d understand the difficulty of this endeavor.

It’s also rumored that Calendly integration would be available from the get-go. You can try the demo here at https://calendly.com/spinach

Plants aren’t the only ones making a comeback. Invoca, a startup in Santa Barbara was astounded when they found 20,000 honey bees swarming their office space. On the bright side, the news was the biggest PR hit the analytics startup has made in years.

Amidst this extraordinary situation, Invoca CEO Gregg Johnson offered the Queen Bee, Constantina Honeybun, a position as their first-ever Head of Public Relations.

Jeff Just Left the Building… or Has He?

After 27 years, 185.7 billion dollars, 3 movie cameos, and 1 divorce, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has decided to resign from the CEO position. Apparently, even the notorious Amazon workplace condition is too much for Mr. Bezos.

In a Vladimir Putin like-maneuver, the former hedge fund manager will still be in the company as executive chair. The transition itself will be official in Q3 this year. Initially, the transition was going to be done the same day or within 24 hours of the announcement, but it got delayed because of the pandemic just like Amazon’s Prime Delivery time.

Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) who has been in the company for 24 years, will take the reins of Amazon Chief Executive. Jassy is also a minority owner of the newly established NHL team Seattle Kraken. We don’t have anything smart to say here but just take a look at this badass introduction video.

As for what Bezos going to do next, it’s reported that he’s going to focus on his other projects such as The Washington Post, his space company Blue Origin, and working on sharpening his supervillain laugh.

Gentlemen in the Streets, Freak in the Term Sheets

Last week, VC Twitter finally caught up with one of the most lucrative areas the internet has to offer: thirst traps. CEO of Social Capital and co-owner of the Golden State Warriors Chamath Palihapitiya posted a shirtless picture on Twitter, to raving reactions.

Seeing the success of this stunt, angel investor and Palihapitiya’s best friend Jason Calacanis is reported to have started his training regime. The training method is “Do 10 crunches every time I tell someone I invested early in Uber.” — at this rate, Calacanis is predicted to have a rock-hard, six-pack abs by St. Patrick’s Day.

Hey Check Me Out!

Are you verified on Twitter or any other social platforms? If you are and currently reading this newsletter, you’ve probably made a questionable life decision along the way.

Public figures in the Bay Area now can get their house verified via Blue Check Homes. This brand new service will install a blue check crest outside your house, to let passersby know that “someone with at least 10,000 Twitter followers lives here” — because that’s all that matters.

Excited? Hold your horses. The service is regrettably, not real. That’s right, it is as real as the level of admiration people give to you when you’re verified online. The whole service is an elaborate prank cleverly designed by artist/designer/CEO Danielle Baskin.

Funnily enough, on the announcement Twitter thread that went viral, you can see some people who angrily called it an outrageous idea, even when Baskin clearly stated on the website that it’s a joke

She wrote: “If you thought this was a full-fledged service, please investigate the things you read on the internet!” — which is clearly contradictory to the old adage “If it’s on the internet, then it must be true.”

Our quick research also found out that people who complained are the same cohort of people who left the theater before the second post-credit scene of a Marvel movie and then complain about it.

In Other News…

• Uber is acquiring beer delivery service Drizzly for $1.1 billion. An internal source confirmed Uber is also looking into acquiring your local weed plug next.
• Reddit’s GameStop crusade has come to an end after the stock fell sharply from where it was the week before. In related news, student debt is back on the menu boys.
• 23andMe set to go public. With the money raised on IPO, the DNA startup is expected to be able to trace your ancestry down to which species of fish you descended from.

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As always, better times are coming.