“We wish Blake well,” Google said in a statement. — Google has fired Blake Lemoine, the engineer who said he believes the company’s LaMDA conversational technology is sentient. Lemoine shared the news of his firing in a taping of Big Technology Podcast on Friday, just hours after Google dismissed him. The full podcast episode will air shortly. In his conversations…

In April, Meta said it might post a quarterly revenue decline for the first time in its history. Next week, we’ll see the results. — Meta may report its first-ever revenue decline when it releases its second-quarter earnings next week, a potentially stunning slowdown for a business that once seemed to have no ceiling. Until last year, Meta reliably grew revenue by 20% or more each quarter, demonstrating formidable business strength even amid reputational chaos…

The old way has tradition, circumstances, ceremony, and etiquette to keep those in power entrenched there. The new way says to hell with that. …

Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter. Will the courts make him pay up? — Elon Musk will probably pay Twitter a lot of money. He’s on the hook after signing a deal to buy it, throwing a tantrum, and trying to back out last week. …

Inflation surged — in part — thanks to a broken supply chain and skyrocketing shipping costs. Now that things are getting better, can we get back to normal? — In May 2021, a shipping source told me to expect inflation. His cost to ship containers from China to the U.S. had jumped from $2,000 pre-pandemic to $20,000. So companies selling imported goods — from clothing to food — would soon pass that 10X increase to us. …

A bill forcing the tech giants to pay news publishers is moving forward in Canada, poised to deliver results with little commotion. — You can get my free weekly newsletter, Big Technology, by signing up here. Canada’s news industry is falling apart. 450 news outlets have closed there since 2008. And more than 60 have shuttered in the past two years. …

2022 is on track to be the second most active VC year ever, despite the narrative that says otherwise. — The S&P 500 is in the gutter. The tech-heavy NASDAQ is doing worse. IPOs are struggling to clear their listing prices and some tech stocks — like Uber — are trading well below their private market valuations. Yet venture capitalists are continuing to throw money at tech startups, and 2022…

After decades of economic turbulence, some in Latin America looked to Bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies as an answer. They’ll have to wait longer. — The small group of Bitcoin enthusiasts that gathered in Quito, Ecuador in early 2014 weren’t there in a vacuum. Not long before, the country faced decades of 40% inflation, high default rates, stagnant growth, and a painful year where the government froze bank accounts. In 2000, Ecuador ditched its currency…

A fascinating bit of internet history concludes today. — RIP Internet Explorer, which Microsoft is shutting down today. In a fascinating historical irony, Microsoft could’ve controlled the web. But the web — which enabled cloud computing — was a threat to Windows. So Microsoft instead kept Internet Explorer slow. And Google, in response, built Chrome. Why would Microsoft harm…