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The Unusual Signs of a Billion Dollar Company

Elad Gil’s observations on many of the world’s best known billion-dollar companies and the decision frameworks they used along the way. A startup miracle is the key difficult thing you need to pull off for your startup to work. It could be hitting product-market fit, a key business deal, a specific regulatory change, or the like. If your startup needs zero miracles to work, it probably isn’t a defensible startup. If your startup needs multiple miracles, it probably isn’t going to work — with every miracle, you are multiplying in another low probability event to get an even smaller expected outcome.

Google testing paid crowdsourcing service ‘Task Mate’ in India

The Google Opinion Rewards app has long allowed users to answer questions and surveys in exchange for Play Store credits.  Google is now trialing “Task Mate” in India to “Earn money doing simple tasks on your smartphone.” In “Early access,” Task Mate is currently “Limited to selected testers” through a referral code system.  The tasks themselves are considered “Simple” by Google and originate from “Businesses around the world.” They are categorized as “Sitting” or “Field Tasks,” with the latter noting how many minutes you have to walk.
Moderna price plan

Moderna planning to charge governments $25-$37 for its COVID-19 vaccine

Moderna’s CEO Stephane Bancel has announced that they are planning to charge $25-$37 (depending on the quantity ordered) for their Covid-19 vaccine. He was reportedly quoted saying “Our vaccine therefore costs about the same as a flu shot, which is between $10 and $50.”  Moderna had earlier announced that it has developed a new vaccine for Covid-19 and the vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing Covid-19 according to the preliminary data collected from a stage-3 clinical test.
TN bans online betting

Tamil Nadu bans online gaming that involves betting

The Tamil Nadu government has brought out an ordinance banning online gaming involving betting in the backdrop of a recent spate in suicides by gamers, who had allegedly lost money online. “The people who are found gaming will be punished with a fine amount of Rs. 5,000/- and six months imprisonment.” The ordinance further goes on to ban “electronic transfer of funds” used for wagering or betting, distribute the winnings, prize money
Ref Image - Hackers

Hackers fool GoDaddy employees in handing over controls of cryptocurrency sites

According to a report filed in KrebsOnSecurity.com, Employees of GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar were fooled into handing over controls of top cryptocurrency trading platforms like Liquid and NiceHash. The CEOs of both sites have confirmed this attack and have said in separate blog posts that it looks like no emails, passwords, or any personal data have been accessed. GoDaddy too confirmed that a limited number of staff had fallen victim to a social engineering scam and it is taking steps to prevent further attacks.
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Amazon India has unveiled STEP to help sellers accelerate their growth on the Amazon.in platform

Amazon India has announced the launch of STEP, which is a performance-based benefits program designed to help the 7 Lakh sellers trading on the the Amazon.in platform. STEP will launch on the 1st of December, 2020 and will be accessible to all sellers. STEP will help simplify the seller experience by providing customized and actionable recommendations to the sellers to improve customer experience. STEP will provide multiple benefits like fee waivers, faster disbursement cycles, priority seller support and free account management.  STEP will also provide a Dashboard on Seller Central to help sellers track their performance, benefits and growth.
Twitter new bug

A bug in Twitter’s new disappearing Tweet feature, Fleets does not enable the Fleets to disappear after the promised 24 hours

The bug will let anyone to access and download a user’s Fleets without triggering a notification that the user’s Fleet has been read and this bug could be used with an app, which communicates with Twitter’s back-end systems via its developer API. Twitter had earlier said that even though the Fleets are designed to disappear completely, it could still hold on to them for 30 days if they violate their rules. That means using this flaw; a user can access and download Fleets with unique URLs from the server even after 24 hours.  A Twitter user named @donk_enby detailed this happening in a series of tweets. Twitter says it is aware of this and is working to fix it.
Ayurveda surgery

Doctors practicing Ayurveda can now perform general surgeries in India

The center has issued a gazette notification which will allow Ayurveda post graduates to perform surgeries like Ortho and Dentistry. The gazette also notified that training modules for surgical procedures should be added to the curriculum of Ayurveda. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) however condemned the move and has called it a retrograde step of mixing the systems. This notification was made by the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) when it amended the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016 to authorize Ayurvedic doctors to perform 39 listed surgical acts. CCIM has called this move Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Amendment Regulations, 2020.

In Kerala, 5 year jail term for ‘offensive’ posts on social media

Any person who creates or sends any information that is offensive or is intended to offend or threaten another person, through any means of communication, is liable to face imprisonment of five years or a fine of Rs 10,000 or both. – Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has claimed the decision was guided by growing abuse on social media targeting individuals.