Monthly Archives: April 2021

The trillion-dollar market cap club is an exclusive one, but it could grow in the years ahead. What other companies could grow to the size of businesses like Amazon andApple? In thisFool Livevideo clip,recorded on March 8, Fool.com contributors Matt Frankel, CFP, and Jason Hall, along with chief growth officer Anand Chokkavelu, discuss three companies they could see reaching a trillion-dollar market cap in the not-too-distant future.

Anand Chokkavelu: What company could join big tech in the next five to 10 years? I will start with mine, which is salesforce.com(NYSE:CRM). I think Salesforce is an amazing business. Usually, I don't love a serial acquirer, but they have been

Jason Hall:They've shown they can do it. That's the thing.

Chokkavelu: Give me a couple of decades of performance, and I'm like, "OK, I believe you." I was a big Slack fan before the merger was announced or the acquisition. I think what Slack will enable Salesforce to do is just broaden its ability to deliver things. Just like when we're talking aboutMicrosoft penetrating so many businesses, that's why Microsoft Teams does so well and get so much adoption because it's already there. I think Salesforce can be the next one, it's already a $200 billion market-cap company. It's not trailing by that much as a dark horse. But these are such behemoths that it is one. What about you two?

Matt Frankel:I'll go with one that's a little smaller,Pinterest(NYSE:PINS). I think Pinterest has the potential to be not only a Facebook-size social network eventually, but also has the potential to really get a big stake in e-commerce. I could see that becoming a trillion-dollar business at some point.

Hall:I'm going to cheat a little bit and say if we expand our view a little bit,Taiwan Semi(NYSE:TSM)already is. It's a $640 billion company. If you want to think about one that could grow into it, that's already in the S&P 500,NVIDIA(NASDAQ:NVDA). All of these companies, everything about them, everything that's happening in the world is going to drive the need for more semiconductors in every aspect of our lives. I think maybe NVIDIA is one that it's too easy to overlook.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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3 Stocks That Could Be the Next Trillion-Dollar Tech Giants - The Motley Fool

The five biggest tech companies in the U.S. have touted a wide array of sustainability initiatives, but critics say the companies fall short where it matters lobbying.

Despite the financial success of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, environmental advocacy groups say the tech giants are not putting enough financial support behind lobbying for pro-climate public policy.

The individual actions that companies are taking are vital, and we need them to keep doing that and to step it up. But the most important thing that we all need is public policy that really bends the climate curve, Bill Weihl, executive director of ClimateVoice, told The Hill.

Companies need to be willing to get in there and honestly take some political risks, pick a side. Because continuing to stay on the sidelines is essentially picking the side of the status quo, Weihl added.

Weihl previously served as the green energy czar at Google and the director of sustainability at Facebook. Now he says that while the companies can all point to examples where they stepped up in favor of pro-climate policies, there are more examples where they stayed silent.

And that's been true for the last probably decade, at least, he said.

InfluenceMap, a London-based think tank, released a report on Big Tech and Climate Policy in January detailing how the five largest tech companies did or largely did not lobby for climate policy.

Only 4 percent of the disclosed lobbying activity of Big Tech, the term the report uses for the five previously mentioned companies, was devoted to climate-related policies, according to the report. But Big Oil has devoted an average of 38 percent of disclosed lobbying activity to climate-related policies, based on the report.

The report also found that in California, where Apple, Facebook and Googles parent company Alphabet are headquartered, the companies displayed a similarly low level of climate-related lobbying, despite the extensive ongoing climate policy agenda in the state.

Beyond Silicon Valley, the tech companies buildings, data centers and regional offices are spread across 22 states. The report found that the companies engaged with climate policy in fewer than half of those states.

While critics argue that efforts focused on combating climate change and achieving sustainability are not enough, Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, says big tech has taken tangible steps in-house to combat climate change.

Chamber of Progress is a newly launched tech coalition that brings together top tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook and Google.

The companies have traditionally focused on the action that they can take in-house to tackle climate change, particularly in making sure their facilities are powered by clean energy and other steps. Theyve really been primarily focused on tangible steps they can take internally, Kovacevich said.

Before launching Chamber of Progress, which Kovacevich defines as center-left, he worked in public policy positions at Google and electric scooter company Lime.

Google has been carbon neutral since 2007, and the company has pledged to be carbon free by 2030. The tech giant also touts its cleanest cloud in the industry, which is also used to serve governments at the federal, state and local levels.

Facebook has set a goal to reach net-zero emissions by the end of 2021, and the company said it is on track to meet that goal.

We are committed to fighting climate change and are taking substantive steps to address this important issue, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. We have publicly supported the US rejoining the Paris Agreement, were one of the largest corporate buyers of renewable energy, and were minimizing our own environmental impact, while working with partners on solutions for a more sustainable world.

Microsoft has been carbon neutral since 2012 and has a commitment to be carbon negative by 2030. Microsoft has also made additional commitments to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030, and to produce zero waste through direct operations, packaging and products by the same deadline.

Apple is carbon neutral and has pledged to make all of its products carbon neutral by 2030, according to its website. A spokesperson for Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Amazon has perhaps faced the strongest pushback of the top tech companies on the sustainability front.

Last year, a group of Amazon employees joined together to publish a Medium post speaking out about climate change and Amazons impact.

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, the group of corporate Amazon employees across the country, has continued to push Amazon on sustainability, with an emphasis on environmental justice.

The group has also been critical over Amazon CEO Jeff BezosJeffrey (Jeff) Preston BezosNASA picks Elon Musk's SpaceX to build spacecraft for manned moon missions Harvard Business community backs alumna's discrimination lawsuit against Amazon Union leader: 'Amazon left no stone unturned' in unionization fight MOREs public philanthropic efforts on climate change. When Bezos announced in February he would be donating $10 billion to his new Bezos Earth Fund initiative to fight climate change, the group issued a statement that the donation does not make up for the damage they view the company doing.

We applaud Jeff Bezos philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away, the group said in the statement.

An Amazon spokesperson defended the company's work on climate change in a statement.

Amazon believes both private and public sector leadership is required to tackle the global issue of climate change. Thats why we actively advocate for policies that promote clean energy, increase access to renewable electricity, and decarbonize the transportation system, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also touted Amazons co-founding of the Climate Pledge, a commitment for signatories to be net-zero carbon by 2040. Microsoft has also signed on to the Climate Pledge.

Kovacevich said leaders at tech companies have been waiting to see the best area to engage sustainability in policy and go beyond slogans, noting that climate change proposals had little chance of moving during the Trump administration.

Speaking up on climate policy in the Trump years wouldve been like shouting into the wind, he said.

Going forward, Kovacevich said, the main way companies can back climate policy will be through support of the Biden administrations infrastructure plan.

I think lobbying resources will increase as its becoming clear what the primary vehicle this year will be for climate change action, he said.

Weihl, of ClimateVoice, said there have been encouraging signs in the past several months that companies are paying more attention to lobbying efforts, with tech corporations putting out statements on public policy.

However, the group is pushing for more action.

ClimateVoice recently launched a campaign urging the companies to spend 20 percent of their lobbying dollars this year on the climate policy fight. Part of the campaign features a comic book-inspired digital ad campaign to urge tech employees to become heroes in the climate policy battle.

It's one thing for them to express an opinion, it's another thing for them to really lobby like they mean it, like it is an existential issue for them and the rest of us, Weihl said.

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Advocacy groups say tech giants need to 'step it up' on sustainability | TheHill - The Hill

For decades, India was a poster child for democratic development: a poor, sprawling, ethnically diverse country that nevertheless had regular elections and peaceful transfers of power the hallmarks of a functioning democracy albeit with the flaws inherent in such a system, including a single dominant party the Congress party. And then, in May 2014, Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP, was elected, swept to power on a standard-issue neoliberal platform of modernisation, privatisation and liberalisation of the economy, slashing welfare budgets, lowering corporate taxes, abolishing wealth taxes, etc.

Modis election, wrote the august journal Foreign Policy, marked a critical milestone in his countrys development. He was the first leader since independence to command a lower-house parliamentary majority that did not belong to the Congress party of Indias founders Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. After 65 years, a dynastic founding party was subsumed by new blood. But in the six years since his first election (he was re-elected in 2019), the journal continued, it has become clear that his style of leadership poses an existential threat to the worlds largest democracy. Through his wildly successful promotion of Hindutva ideology, Modi is poised to remake India into a Russian-style managed democracy one retaining all the trappings of democracy while operating as a de facto autocracy.

Quite like Hungary, in fact. Looking at his record, Modi seems to have been following the playbook of Viktor Orbn, that countrys prime minister, except that Modi has added religious and ethnic dimensions to his programme. But the formula seems pretty similar, based as it is on a thumping electoral majority and weak parliamentary opposition. The formula is to promise economic reform and then, when that falters, suppress opposition, control mainstream and then social media and undermine the judicial system. To this Modi has added his own distinctive flourish: radical and sustained use of internet shutdowns to hamper the mobilisation of opposition. And, so far, the strategy seems to be working: last year, Freedom House, an organisation that continually monitors the health of democracies, had judged India to be a free society. This year, the countrys rating is partly free.

All of which impales American tech giants, especially Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, on the horns of an ethical dilemma. For them, India represents a huge market bigger than China, in a way, because of the firm grip that the Communist party has on the operations of tech companies in its jurisdiction. The Indian market, being less centrally controlled, has enormous potential for growth. But in order to thrive there the companies must reach an accommodation with an authoritarian government that doesnt brook criticism, never mind opposition.

In February, Modis administration announced sweeping new rules to regulate social media firms, streaming services and digital news outlets. Companies will be required to acknowledge takedown requests of unlawful and violent content and misinformation within 24 hours and deliver complete redress within 15 days. In sensitive cases such as those surrounding explicit sexual content, firms will be required to take down the content within 24 hours and will also be required to appoint compliance, contact and resident grievance officers whose names and contact details will be shared with New Delhi to address official concerns. Each will also be required to set up a local office in India, which means they will have employees on the ground who can be arrested and jailed.

For Facebook, with its long history of accommodating tyrants, this shouldnt be too much of a problem. A recently revealed internal memo released by Sophie Zhang, a former employee who was a data scientist on the companys site integrity fake engagement team, reveals how relaxed Facebook was about the activities of supporters of Donald Trump and foreign autocrats from Honduras, Azerbaijan and Ukraine on its platform. Zhang also observed a lack of desire from senior leadership to protect democratic processes in smaller countries. So Facebooks boss and Indias prime minister will doubtless get along fine. After all, theyre both autocrats.

Twitter, for its part, had a brief flirtation with defiance of the ruling regime. But in the end it seems to have bowed to the facts on the ground. At any rate, after it was pulled up by the government for non-compliance, the company blocked 1,398 of 1,435 accounts that had been flagged by the IT ministry for allegedly spreading misinformation about the farmers protests that had been enraging the government.

In the end, of course, all of the US tech companies agree with Donald Trump on one thing at least: principles are for losers.

Climate clashA truly remarkable and far-sighted essay by Helen Thompson on the Engelsberg Ideas site looks at the coming geopolitical fight over sustainable energy between China, the US and Europe.

You dirty ratPut away the bleach: you can stop playing in the hygiene theatre. A terrific essay by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic on why you shouldnt be obsessive about cleaning surfaces.

Cruise controlA salutary piece by Zeynep Tufekci on her Substack blog on what we failed (refused?) to learn from the Diamond Princess cruise liner.

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Tech giants are happy to do Modis bidding in return for access to the Indian market - The Guardian

A U.S.-driven effort to reach a global accord on taxing big tech companies overseas profits is getting bogged down over ensnaring one firm in particular: Amazon.com Inc.

A Treasury Department proposal, which was distributed to other governments earlier this month and has been seen by Bloomberg, would subject about 100 of the largest and most profitable companies to greater taxation in countries where the firms users and consumers are located, as opposed to the countries where theyre headquartered.

The idea is that the new rules would apply to any large companies that exceed certain numbers, yet to be determined, for their annual revenue and profit margin. Before Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this month jump-started efforts that the Trump administration had opposed, the talks focused on digital and consumer-facing businesses -- definitions countries had struggled to reach agreement on.

The global talks, led by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, are trying to address many countries concerns that tech giants -- and other multinationals -- arent being properly taxed under the current system of rules. The OECD effort seeks to replace the digital services taxes a growing number of countries are enacting to capture more revenue from companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Read QuickTake: Plans for a Global Minimum Tax Revolution, Explained

But Amazons unusual status as a low-margin tech giant is emerging as a sticking point in negotiations. Seattle-based Amazon recently reported a global operating margin across its businesses of 5.5%; that compares with Facebooks margin of 45.5% and 27.5% at Google parent Alphabet Inc.

The U.S. proposal called for including only the largest and most profitable multinational corporations. It didnt call for specific numbers, but both revenue and profitability thresholds would have to be set high to capture just 100 companies.

Two Italian government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Amazon should be covered and theres no reason why a global tax accord cant capture companies with narrow profit margins but high revenue. Italy, the euro areas third-biggest economy, has imposed a 3% tax on companies with overall revenue above 750 million euros ($903 million) and revenue from digital services in Italy above 5.5 million euros.

A European Commission spokesperson said Tuesday that while the U.S. proposal offers a promising opportunity for progress toward a deal, we should not forget what the initial policy rationale was: a fairer taxation of the digital economy. It is essential that any proposal on the table also addresses this challenge. A French finance ministry official said they are still examining the U.S. proposal to determine if it would cover all digital multinationals.

The U.S., however, has long opposed an agreement that singles out a particular slice of the economy, such as rules that only affect digital companies, and the new Treasury proposal is intended to make the plans scope more quantitative and objective.

U.S. officials are aware that other finance ministries are trying to get low-margin companies captured within the profitability threshold, according to people familiar with the matter, who said Amazon is the target of these discussions. The U.S. continues to oppose efforts to target any single company or sector, said the people, who asked not to be identified.

The U.S. Treasury and Paris-based OECD declined to comment. Amazon didnt respond to a request for comment.

Weve made it very clear to our European counterparts that we will not support a tax that is discriminatory towards American companies, Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said earlier this month on CNBC.

No matter how successful an accord might otherwise be in reshaping tax collection and satisfying calls for multinational firms to pay their fair share to governments, failing to apply it to Amazon -- led by the worlds richest person, and a regular target for progressive U.S. lawmakers like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren over its low tax bill -- would risk public opposition to ratification in the U.S. along with European nations.

Ultimately, it must catch Amazon, otherwise it will be deemed a failure, and countries might unilaterally introduce their own measures, said Tommaso Faccio, an official at the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, a group advocating for overhauling global taxes.

Negotiators are considering the U.S. pitch as nearly 140 countries work to find consensus on both the profit reallocation plan and a global minimum tax, and present it to Group of 20 finance ministers in early July. President Joe Biden recently proposed raising the U.S. minimum tax so the country can collect more revenue from multinational firms and help pay for a $2.25 trillion infrastructure and jobs package.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has consistently set low profit targets, preferring to invest in the business, which also reduces the companys tax obligations. Amazon had 2020 sales of $386 billion, more than Facebook and Google combined, yet it paid less than either company in income taxes. Amazons retail business, which includes warehouses around the country and delivery services, costs more to operate than digital advertising businesses run by Google and Facebook.

One method under consideration for including Amazon in the rules would be to allow taxation on specific lines of business, rather than just companies as a whole, according to the people familiar with the matter. For example, if the rules considered the lucrative Amazon Web Services business -- with an operating margin of 28% -- separately from the companys lower-margin retail arm, countries could still see some of the companys profits reallocated.

While the U.S. isnt completely opposed to targeting business lines, it prefers any such practice to be limited, the people said.

In public consultations on previous iterations of the OECD plan, companies have argued that business-line segmentation will become overly complex.

Or, negotiators could also find a different way of setting the revenue and profitability thresholds that does capture the company, Faccio said. That would also risk making the rules more convoluted, after the U.S. proposal sought to simplify what had become an overly complicated determination of which companies would be covered.

The administration clearly saw the need to inject momentum, and decided to limit the proposals scope in an attempt to get an overall agreement by July, said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network. But the politics will look less smart if the most high-profile companies in terms of public concern about tax abuse turn out to be excluded.

--With assistance from Spencer Soper, Laura Davison, William Horobin and Nico Grant.

To contact the reporters on this story:Isabel Gottlieb in Arlington at igottlieb1@bloomberg.net;Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net;Alessandra Migliaccio in Rome at amigliaccio@bloomberg.net;Hamza Ali in London at hali69@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:Scott Lanman at slanman@bloomberg.net;Meg Shreve at mshreve2@bloomberg.net

2021 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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Amazon Taxation Becomes Sticking Point in Talks on Global Levies - Bloomberg Tax

By IANS Apr 20, 2021

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San Francisco - As tech giants like Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Telegram, Discord and LinkedIn go after it, invite-only audio chat app Clubhouse has reportedly raised fresh funding in Series C round, taking its valuation to $4 billion.

According to TechCrunch, the new round of financing was led by Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from DST Global, Tiger Global and Elad Gil.

"This round means Clubhouse has tripled the valuation it attained in January when Andreessen Horowitz led its Series B funding round," the report said late on Monday.

Clubhouse which has which has reported 10 million weekly active users said in a blog post that fresh funding will support the next round of growth for the app.

"While we've quadrupled the size of our team this year, stabilised our infrastructure, launched Payments in beta to help creators monetise, and readied Android for launch, there is so much more to do as we work to bring Clubhouse to more people around the world," the company said.

"It's no secret that our servers have struggled a bit these past few months, and that our growth has outpaced the early discovery algorithms our small team originally built," it added.

After Facebook, online discussion forum Reddit has also launched Reddit Talk, a new feature that will let users host live audio conversations in their communities.

"Currently, you can use text threads, images, videos, chats, and live streams to have conversations and hang out with people in your communities," Reddit said in a statement.

"We're testing ways for hosts to customise the look and feel of Reddit Talk through emojis and background colours. Redditors can change their avatar's appearance to fit the talk as well," it added.

--IANS

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Clubhouse valuation hits $4bn as tech giants up their audio game - IOL