Tech's great reopening is here (don't forget to bring your mask)

Dara driving Uber

The last time I rode in an Uber I was on the way to a Warriors basketball game, just before the coronavirus suspended the season several months ago. I'm not alone: Uber's ridership is currently down 70% year-on-year (which is actually an improvement from the 80% drop in April), CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at a conference last week.

As for Uber's stock? With rides increasing again, it's now trading 18% higher than where it was when the year began, back when people were actually going places.

Anywhere you look in tech lately, the message is about getting back to business.

Google is tidying up the Googleplex to welcome the first batch of returnees in a few weeks , and Apple Geniuses are reporting for duty at stores around the world.
between May 17 and June 3 than it did during the same time period in 2019.( "more" being an admittedly vague metric).
from third-party sellers, sooner than some analysts expected.
as we saw with insurance startup Lemonade this week.

If the stock market is your yardstick for measuring "normalcy," then the party that COVID-19 disrupted is officially back on. The Nasdaq reached a new record, and the FAANG gang is riding high again.

But are we really back to normal? Or are we just so tired of sitting at home staring at half-finished puzzles and doing zoom calls that we're willing to suspend reality.

It's impossible to know what the virus will do next, of course. Even Alexa can't tell us whether there will be a second wave of infections.

But, virus or not, there are some heavy clouds hanging over tech right now. The smartphone market is still oversaturated, with global sales plunging 20% in Q1. Sure, Apple's iPhone 12 is coming and may not be delayed after all . But prophesies of iPhone "supercycles" have a tendency to disappoint. And 5G the big selling point of the next iPhone has not provided much of a sales boost for the smartphones that already offer it.

The trade war with China (where many tech products are produced and sold) has not been resolved and, if anything, is likely to worsen following the recent war of words between China and the US over each's handling of the coronavirus.

And then there are new concerns like President Trump's executive order seeking to overhaul the law that protects internet companies from liability over user content. Some legal experts don't think the order will hold up in court. But in the event, however unlikely, that it does hold up, the entire business models of companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google could go up in flames.

The stock market isn't worried about any of this not the tech industry risks or the virus risks. Maybe that's a reason to be worried.

Amazon's drone dreams and Instagram's dream team

Don't sleep on these two firework stories:

Eugene Kim reports on Jeff Bezos' seven-year plan to fill the sky with delivery drones . It's been a bumpy ride, as Eugene notes. But Bezos tapped a Boing vet to helm the project earlier this year, and it looks like we may see some kind of demonstration very soon.
Rob Price rounded up all the key players inside Instagram, the app that many people believe holds the key to Facebook's future. From music and influencers to public policy, these are the people charting Instagram's next steps.

Snapshot: Step in to your new cubicle

Not everyone will work from home after the coronavirus.

If you're among those returning to the office, the bad news is that cubicles will still be there. The good news is that pandemic cubicles are really cool. At least that's the vision of Egyptian architect and designer Mohamed Radwan, who designed the Q.workntine pods specifically for the post-COVID-19 workplace.

Radwan says his pod system, which won an award at the DNA Paris Design Awards, can accommodate the same number of employees as the cubicles in today's open floor layouts. But each pod is completely sealed off from germs and chatter, with acrylic skylight, built-in ventilation, automatic doors operated by facial recognition and most importantly, privacy.

It's a pity it took a pandemic for that.

Sound bite of the week:

"It was a small team and very diverse. We had a Hispanic person, German, Jewish, myself and a white person. It was truly unique. We all had different backgrounds. We each brought something to the table."

Mark Dean, one of the original IBM team members who created the company's groundbreaking IBM PC, and who has three of the device's nine patents in his name.

Not necessarily in tech:

Inside a 'big short' bet against malls: Investors are claiming wins, and a research analyst who said the wagers were misguided is out

Time to say bye-bye. Thanks for reading, and remember, if you like this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it .

Alexei

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