The great escape

Hi folks, it’s Brad, reflecting on a bumpy 2021 for high tech. But first…Today’s top tech news: Chinese spies are accused of using Huawei in [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi folks, it’s Brad, reflecting on a bumpy 2021 for high tech. But first… Today’s top tech news: - Chinese spies are accused of [using Huawei]( in an Australia telecom hack - Elon Musk is [almost done]( selling Tesla shares - Sequoia Capital learned to stop worrying and [love crypto]( Getting away from it all The year 2021 may have been a good one for tech company valuations and their executives’ net worths, but it was rough for the industry’s overall reputation. We witnessed an enervating chip shortage and supply chain crisis, constant turmoil at Facebook, a brutal crackdown on the largest Chinese tech companies and repeated plans floated—and then withdrawn—to return to the office amid an unending pandemic. Tech is still our primary engine of economic growth and seemingly remains beyond the reach of most regulatory agencies. But the thing that once made it special—the faith that it was delivering to us more productive lives and a better society—now seems like it may be slipping away. The sentiment provided a fitting backdrop for another theme that emerged in 2021: escape. This year, many of the industry’s top leaders tried to flee—either from their day jobs, or just the prevailing negativity that surrounds their companies and products. People talk about the Great Resignation, that wave of pandemic-weary workers giving up their jobs. In tech’s corner offices, it was the Great Retirement. In February, Jeff Bezos surprised the world and announced [he was leaving]( the chief executive officer role at Amazon.com Inc. Last month, Jack Dorsey [stepped aside]( at Twitter Inc. to focus his energies on the newly rechristened Block Inc. (née Square) and the mythical promises of the blockchain. In September, [Axios]( reported on the “great venture capital resignation,” as legendary investors like Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital and Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners announced they wouldn’t participate in their firms’ new funds. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz bought homes [in Las Vegas]( (while [heartily objecting]( that it marked a retreat from their eponymous firm). Nearly one-third of VC and private equity firms lost a partner or recruit in 2021, [wrote PitchBook](. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t retire (as much as [some would like him to](). But he rebranded Facebook to Meta Platforms Inc., combatting the pervasive suspicion of his social network by trying to conjure a new vision that we’ll all one day cavort in the digital utopia known as the metaverse. Bezos and Elon Musk led the way in seeking a literal escape from tech’s terrestrial morass. Thanks to their firms Blue Origin and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., this year was [the busiest ever]( for human space flight, with 13 missions, surpassing the previous record set in 1985. The execs have dreamy plans to either go to Mars (Musk) or move heavy industry onto orbiting space stations (Bezos). But the flights are also an exercise in writing a new mythology, recapturing the lost excitement of tech and, at least in Bezos’s case, repairing a wounded personal brand. “I can’t tell you what you have done,” a weepy William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, tells Bezos in the Amazon Prime documentary Shatner in Space, upon exiting a suborbital Blue Origin flight in October. “Everybody in the world needs to do this.” The rousing account of [the 90-year-old actor’s historic flight]( doubles as a remarkable piece of personal propaganda for Bezos himself. “Bezos’s concept that all these polluting industries can be moved into orbit and to make pollution a thing of the past,” says the beloved actor at one point in the film, “what noble ambitions those are, and somebody has to start it.” Nowhere was the industry’s desire to escape the current narrative more evident than in the frenzy over Web 3—that still hazy notion (to me, at least) of a decentralized internet run entirely on blockchain technology. Adherents literally fled from one tech center, San Francisco, to the seemingly less encumbered confines of [Miami]( and [Austin, Texas](. The idea is that a new internet can rise from the ashes of the old one while fixing its inherent problems, like poor security, the concentration of wealth and power with a few companies, the economic exploitation of creators and the abuse of people’s personal data. Beyond Web 3, this year we saw other gambles on technologies that might actually change the world, like [flying cars](, [nuclear fusion]( and [DNA manipulation](. A lot of the leading companies in these areas exited to the public markets well before their time, via the risky investment vehicles known as special purpose acquisition companies. SPACs offered a path for investors of all kinds to get in on the action. But if these new companies end up crashing and burning, tech could end up wreaking a whole new brand of economic and societal havoc. Then not even outer space may be safe enough to hide. —[Brad Stone](mailto:bstone12@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing “We can’t just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to.” Bloomberg obtained the text messages between an [Amazon delivery driver and her boss]( the night of the fatal tornado in Illinois. Here’s what you need to know Billionaires are cashing out. Mark Zuckerberg sold Meta stock almost [every weekday of this year](. The founders of Google began to unload shares in May, which is also when two of the three Airbnb Inc. co-founders started diversifying their stakes. Amazon is fighting more privacy fines in the EU after a [record penalty]( Meta plans a Dutch recruitment drive around a new [green-power data center](. TikTok inundates some teens with [eating disorder videos](, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like Fully Charged? | [Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com](, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](