10 things in tech you need to know today, August 16

WhatsApp cofounder Jan
Koum.
Getty

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this
Thursday.

1. A former Tesla engineer
says the company silenced her entire team after they brought up
safety issues. Cristina Balan raised concerns
about the quality and safety of some of Tesla’s parts, but was
later pushed out of the company.

2. Goldman Sachs is
advising Elon Musk on his plans to take Tesla
private. The bank confirmed on Wednesday that it is
suspending research coverage of Tesla because it is “acting as a
financial advisor” to the car company.

3. The billionaire
cofounder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, is “resting and
vesting.” A report in The Wall Street Journal said
he is showing up to Facebook and barely working to collect a $450
million payday.

4. Uber is cruising toward $10
billion in revenue this year. The
company’s second-quarter earnings reveal that it’s on course
to hit the milestone despite a slump in growth.

5. The founding CTO
of a $3 billion company explains why it’s vital he still gets his
hands dirty
coding. MongoDB’s Eliot Horowitz says CTOs
who are scaling up should stay close to their product so they can
have intelligent conversations with their engineers.

6. Amazon is reportedly offering
popular YouTubers multimillion-dollar contracts to switch to
Twitch. Twitch is said to be offering exclusive
deals, sometimes with huge salaries, to popular internet
personalities, according to Bloomberg.

7. Apple could launch
glasses in 2020 and an Apple Car in 2023. The
prediction was made by Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with a
strong record on Apple.

8. The UK’s advertising
authority banned an Amazon ad for being
“misleading.” The advert promoted the free one-day
shipping that comes with Prime membership, but customers
complained that their packages did not arrive in the timeframe
promised.

9. A Silicon Valley
startup with Chelsea Clinton on its board is launching the first
at-home test for an HIV prevention drug. It’s a big
move for Nurx, which recently raised $36 million in
funding. 

10. A weird Instagram hack
is locking users out of their accounts and people are
furious. Users are finding that they can’t
access their accounts, that their profile pictures have been
changed to an animated film still, or even that the accounts have
been deleted.

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