Silicon Valley Tech News Roundup – December 29th

Apple awards bonuses in a bid to retain talent – 12/28

Last week, Apple awarded surprise bonuses to engineers working in software and operations groups, silicon design, and hardware. The bonuses are issued as restricted stock units and vest over four years, thus giving Apple employees an incentive to stay with the company.

The bonuses were awarded to employees to reward top performers and range between $50,000 to $180,000. It includes between 10% to 20% of engineers in particular divisions. The bonuses are not a part of the standard Apple compensation package, which includes salaries, cash bonuses, and stock.

Experts believe the timing of the bonuses suggests Apple is trying to retain talent and prevent brain drain to their competitors. In the past few months, Meta hired 100 former Apple engineers and offered significant salary rises. Meanwhile, Apple managed to poach top talent from Meta too. This rivalry will likely continue as both companies plan new hardware releases and further developments in virtual reality headsets and smartwatches.

Apple’s spokesperson declined to comment on the news about the bonuses.

Riot Games settles gender discrimination suit for $100 million – 12/28

Riot Games, the publisher of the League of Legends, settled a class-action gender discrimination suit and agreed to pay $100 million.

Two former employees filed the lawsuit in November of 2018 and claimed they encountered gender discrimination, retaliation, and sexual harassment at the company. Riot Games initially agreed to pay $10 million in a settlement. But the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing blocked the agreement and claimed the employees should receive more.

$80 million from the settlement will go to the employees who filed the class-action suit, and $20 million will cover their legal fees. Qualified for payment are all Californian employees who identify as female and worked at Riot Games between November 2014 until the present. The employees who worked for the company longer will get a bigger payout.

Riot Games also has to hire an expert to evaluate “sex/gender equity analysis of total compensation, assignment and promotion outcomes for California employees.” For three years, the company will be monitored by a third party that will track HR complaints and pay-equity. The company also has to allow pay transparency.

China reports near collision with Musk’s satellites – 12/28

Earlier this month, China submitted a complaint to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs about their space station nearly colliding with satellites launched by Starlink Internet Services. It is a satellite internet network operated by SpaceX, the Musk-owned company.

The Chinese government claims in their complaint the incidents occurred in July and October of this year. In the complaint, they state: “For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control.” China also accused the United States of ignoring the outer space treaties and putting astronauts in danger. The two incidents are still not verified independently.

SpaceX launched 1900 satellites as a part of the Starlink Internet Services project. SpaceX has not commented on the claims. Meanwhile, Musk and his company have come under heavy criticism on Chinese social media.

Russia fines Google almost $100 million for not deleting banned content – 12/24

A court in Russia fined Google 7.2 billion rubles ($98 million) for failure to remove content the country’s regulators deem illegal. The banned content includes promotion or posts by organizations the Russian government considers terroristic or extremist. It also includes content associated with Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader.

Google faces another fine for banning a conservative Russian news channel. The company claims the ban is due to American and British sanctions against the channel’s owner.

Russian regulators are trying to exert more control over the foreign big tech companies with financial and non-financial measures. Foreign companies with websites that have more than 500,000 daily Russian visitors have to open up offices in Russia. Likewise, since 2019 Russia mandates all smartphones, computers and televisions have to include pre-installed software by Russian developers.

Google’s response to the verdict is: “to study the court documents when they are available and then decide on next steps.”