Daily Pulse: Open Season on Yahoo, Uber is Not a Car Service Anymore, Soon We'll Mine Asteroids

Simplified, schmimplified. CEO Marissa Mayer promised a simplified and more profitable Yahoo when announcing she'll cut 15% of the workforce to keep just 9,000 employees and close some business lines. But even she didn't sound convinced a turnaround is still possible. For most observers, she just put a giant "For sale" sign on the company. Bloomberg calls this move "the final flip flop." "The problem with Mayer’s argument, and strategy, is that most shareholders have already decided that even the best version of Yahoo is worthless," writes Erin Griffith in Fortune. And Mayer's own future with the company will be "one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent dramas of 2016," predicts the NYT's David Streitfeld. Would anyone else have done more with what Mayer was handed three years ago? 

“It has yet to be seen exactly what types of interest will really transpire, but we’re open to any transactions. We’re open to any proposals that are well qualified.”

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo

Big Deal. State-owned ChemChina is nearing a deal to buy Syngenta for nearly US$43 billion. It could be announced today when Syngenta reports earnings and would be the largest acquisition ever for a Chinese company. Syngenta is a Swiss pesticide and seeds company Monsanto has tried to acquire three times. Agrobusiness is strategic for China, which has to feed nearly one in five humans before it even starts thinking about exports. 

Last stretch. Pacific Rim leaders are gathering in Auckland, New Zealand, where the Trans-Pacific Partnership, this generation's largest free trade deal, is to be signed Thursday. Last stretch too for opponents who say negotiations were too secretive and benefits are unequally distributed. Even after Thursday's signing, the TPP needs to be ratified by each of the 12 nations' parliaments. Not sure at all it'll happen in the US before a new administration is in place. 

*ber. Uber has rethought its branding and logo: no more U but a "bit", a little square Uber will put at the center of all its brands. The logo also integrates a different color palette for each market. The change is not innocent: the white on black thin typography of the old logo is a hallmark of luxury branding. Perfect for a chauffeured car service. But Uber now bills itself as a digital service provider for cities, whether delivering your food or self-driving cars. I'll spare you the branding video, which makes even Apple look humble, but check out Wired's behind-the-scenes look. (Or if you must...)

#Quote

"Almost all of it is profit."

Ex-Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, in an August email, on the $375 million a year his drug Daraprim would bring in, after jacking up the price

Original content is king. Instagram gets its first original scripted series, Shield5, a crime thriller to be shown in 28 15-second episodes with stills filling in the narrative gaps. Looks like Instagram is an unwitting distributor rather than actually involved in the production. Maybe it'll give them ideas. 

Living in the future rocks. Luxembourg is putting together a plan to mine asteroids (!). Heavy metals – which on Earth have sunk toward the core of the planet and are hard to extract – would be brought home, while more common metals would be transformed in space through technologies like 3D printing into rockets and tools for further space exploration. There's more in the Financial Times' Clive Cookson's advance look at today's announcement. Yes, the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, it turns out, has a solid space industry and will be looking for commercial partners. Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? 

Cover art: Michael Del Zotto #15 of the Philadelphia Flyers misses a check and crashes into the boards against the Montreal Canadiens during the third period at Wells Fargo Center on February 2, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

What you may have missed — and really should read:

• These are the 30 tech writers most followed by other tech writers. Maybe you should too. 
• Adjunct professors make as much money as an entry-level burrito assembler at Chipotle.
• We need to teach our children how to fail. 

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