November 2014

Many tech companies readily admit that their workforces aren't as diverse as they could be -- and that they're trying hard to fix the imbalance. To date, company demographics that skew heavily toward whites and men have received most of the attention. But as I've written before, there also exists a substantial gap in gender pay in Silicon Valley.

The wage gap largely mirrors the national average; according to the American Association of University Women, female workers in the computer science field make 77 percent what their male peers do one year out of college. By comparison, Census data suggest that women make 78 percent of what men do, generally. But we're starting to get a better idea of specific differences between men and women's salaries at different tech companies. A recent survey of median salaries by Glassdoor suggests that at many Silicon Valley firms, men make thousands of dollars more than women every year. At Google, for instance, a male senior software engineer makes 19 percent more than his female counterpart. The numbers are heavily conditional on experience and the number of reports from either sex. There are big discrepancies between men and women in terms of years worked, even within the same job. The male senior software engineer at Google has, on average, nearly a decade of experience compared to just 7.6 years for women with the same title. Experience is likely one factor that helps drive up male wages relative to women.

Political campaigns are obsessed with two things: Telling every possible voter exactly what they want to hear in order to get them to the polls and cast the "right" vote, and telling them that message for as close to zero dollars as possible. It's not a surprise, then, that Facebook has focused its social-Sauron eye on the world of politics.

Already a focal point of political activity (of varying quality), the site has shifted its toolset to let campaigns target extremely specific audiences with very specific messages, for prices somewhat north of zero dollars. The end goal for the company seems clear: Replace, as much as possible, expensive, blanketed television advertising with much more immediate, much more specific ads appearing in users' feeds -- and then cash a whole lot of checks. This is not as far in the future as you might think.

Your TV knows what you watch. More than that, it knows how you watch. When you pause a program, your TV is taking notes. When you rewind or fast-forward, the machine jots that down too. But here's maybe the scariest part of all: Your TV knows what you want, maybe even before you do.

This is where technology has led us. The algorithms that spit out online recommendations for television series, movies and more are taking artificial intelligence to a new level. Top providers such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon -- which tens of millions of Americans get either through set-top boxes such as Roku or via personal computers -- employ large engineering teams dedicated to cracking the code of what users want and guiding them to it. Nothing less than the future of the entertainment business is at stake, as the industry continues its landmark shift from broadcasting to time-shifting and niche programming.

[Commentary] Dish is sitting on a pile of unused spectrum, and the value of those airwaves is increasing thanks to a current auction at the Federal Communications Commission. Dish has seen its shares rise 19 percent since the auction began roughly two weeks ago due to perceived inflation of spectrum values. Here’s what Dish could be planning:

1. It could build its own network. Dish may accrue sufficient spectrum to build out its own nationwide (or even semi-nationwide) network, but Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen has long claimed Dish needs an established carrier partner to join the wireless game. Due to prohibitive build-out costs, the odds of a Dish network built from the ground up remains very slim. Earlier reports of a partnership with Google to provide a major disruptive mobile service are intriguing, such an endeavor would be an enormous gamble for both companies in a competitive market where multiple players are well entrenched.
2. It could sell its spectrum treasure trove. Many industry onlookers have long speculated that Dish simply invests in spectrum to sell high after its value inflates, and some have suggested the company may be bidding in the current auction only to increase the amount it could ask for its current airwaves. But Ergen’s desire to join the mobile industry seems sincere, and cashing out on that opportunity -- even to the tune of billions of dollars -- isn’t in his nature.
3. It could acquire or merge with an existing carrier. I’ve long believed a partnership with T-Mobile is Dish’s best route into the mobile industry: Dish has a load of extremely valuable spectrum sitting on the shelf, while T-Mobile has an increasingly impressive nationwide network but needs airwaves to continue to improve its nationwide coverage. Speculation of a tie-up between the two has only increased following SoftBank’s failed bid to swallow T-Mobile, but despite the apparent synergies there’s no indication the two companies are moving closer to a deal.