“
I need to make money. I need to write today. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to eat something. I need to quit sugar. I need to cut my hair. I need to call Verizon. I need to savor the moment. I need to find the library card. I need to learn to meditate. I need to try harder. I need to get that stain out. I need to find better health insurance. I need to discover my signature scent. I need to strengthen and tone. I need to be present in the moment. I need to learn French. I need to be easier on myself. I need to buy organizational storage units. I need to call back. I need to develop a relationship with a God of my understanding.
”
”
Coco Mellors (Cleopatra and Frankenstein)
“
That was easy for him to say when his cell phone was rounding third base. If anyone got a home run tonight, I didn't want it to be Verizon Wireless.
”
”
Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic (Goodnight Family, #1))
“
I had a sudden dismal view of my future, of being led around and asked incessantly, like one of those Verizon commercials, Do you feel sick now?
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”
Karen Marie Moning (Darkfever (Fever, #1))
“
[W]hen Ben was kissing me, the whole world retreated. I felt things I'd never felt before, in places I never knew were connected.
But I was pretty sure that whatever was buzzing against my thigh was not normal. For one thing, it was ringing.
Ben dragged his mouth away from mine and mumbled a curse that was a little shocking and kind of hot.
"Ignore it," he said.
That was easy for him to say when his cell phone was rounding third base. If anyone got a home run tonight, I didn't want it to be Verizon Wireless.
”
”
Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic (Goodnight Family, #1))
“
I need to make money. I need to write today. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to eat something. I need to quit sugar. I need to cut my hair. I need to call Verizon. I need to savor the moment. I need to find the library card. I need to learn to meditate. I need to try harder. I need to get that stain out. I need to find better health insurance. I need to discover my signature scent. I need to strengthen and tone. I need to be present in the moment. I need to learn French. I need to be easier on myself. I need to buy organizational storage units. I need to call back. I need to develop a relationship with a God of my understanding. I need to buy eye cream. I need to live up to my potential. I need to lie back down.
”
”
Coco Mellors (Cleopatra and Frankenstein)
“
I'm not sure we should get camera phones, that's all."
She hit the remote and the car doors unlocked. She reached for the door handle. Matt hesitated.
Olivia looked at him.
"What?" he asked.
"If we both get camera phones," Olivia said, "I could send you nuddies when you're at work."
Matt opened the door. "Verizon on Sprint?"
from The Innocent
”
”
Harlan Coben
“
For a long time thereafter I stared almost steadily at the bright and ostentatious VERIZON sign on top of one of the tallest buildings—the only branded skyscraper in Manhattan, a fucking blight marring the skyline—and I thought, Why couldn’t those cunts have flown into that building?
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”
Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour)
“
Someone who takes the trouble to see her file at one of the many brokerages, for example, might see the home mortgage, a Verizon bill, and a $ 459 repair on the garage door. But she won’t see that she’s in a bucket of people designated as “Rural and Barely Making It,”or perhaps “Retiring on Empty.
”
”
Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy)
“
Our founding republican spirit of “No taxation without representation” and “Don’t tread on me” is laudable, but must be directed to the proper offshore entity. Libertarians are confused because, unlike King James I, Verizon doesn’t make a straightforward assertion of sovereignty. Instead, it wraps you up in the embrace of rational-looking bureaucratic irrationality.
”
”
Matthew B. Crawford (The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction)
“
You are a product to dragnet surveillance capitalists like Google, Facebook, Comcast and Verizon. Your ideas are rarely your own, rather you are little more than a pawn to their perception steering initiatives to get you to read, believe and buy what they put in front of you. The first step to breaking out of this faux reality matrix is to stop using Google, Bing, Yahoo, Comcast and Facebook.
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”
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
“
He slowed a little so I could hear him better. “No, they’re night people, Ms. Lane. They’ll be up and just as willing to see me, as I am to see them. We like to keep tabs on one another. They, however, don’t have you.” A slow smile curved his lips. He was hugely pleased with the new secret weapon he had in me. I had a sudden dismal view of my future, of being led around and asked incessantly, like one of those Verizon commercials, Do you feel sick now?
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Darkfever (Fever, #1))
“
In early 2014, the global economy’s top five companies’ gross cash holdings—those of Apple, Google, Microsoft, as well as the US telecom giant Verizon and the Korean electronics conglomerate Samsung—came to $387 billion, the equivalent of the 2013 GDP of the United Arab Emirates.78 This capital imbalance puts the fate of the world economy in the hands of the few cash hoarders like Apple and Google, whose profits are mostly kept offshore to avoid paying US tax. “Apple, Google and Facebook are latter-day scrooges,” worries the Financial Times columnist John Plender about a corporate miserliness that is undermining the growth of the world economy.
”
”
Andrew Keen (The Internet Is Not the Answer)
“
TO THE ATHEIST WHO IS CURRENTLY DYING IN HOSPICE:
While you have the energy, invite all your friends over for a last supper. As they enjoy their meal of bread and wine, look at them and say, "One of you will betray me." Because, dear Atheist, there is a Judas among your apostles. A secret Christian in desperate need of a deathbed coversion to brag about at church. A friend who will wait until you are alone, then ask you to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.
Who can blame this person? Convincing an atheist to die a Christian is the faith version of getting the Verizon guy to switch to Sprint. The moment your stage 4 fate was posted on Facebook, you went from being a regular dick to some Christian's Moby Dick.
Believe me.
”
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Laurie Kilmartin (Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed)
“
If somebody comes and scoops up all of my neighbor’s information because they’re on Verizon and just gathers all of that information, it is a violation of my civil rights as well. I’m telling you, America, we are the civil rights leaders of this day. Accept your position. Accept your role. Square your shoulders. Stand up. Link arms. Some of us will not make it to the end, as they used to say because this is a long, long journey to the end of the road. But man will be free as long as people understand the Bill of Rights. It was given to us, yes, by man, and flawed men, but it was inspired by God. Those rights don’t belong to you. You are merely a guardian of those rights for our children and our grandchildren, of all color, of all races, of all theological backgrounds. You are a guardian and a steward. Recognize what time it is. Recognize why you have been born, where you have been born. You have been given much, and believe me, much is required, not just expected.
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Glenn Beck
“
You tell me why the government needs this information on every Verizon customer but they don’t need to know who’s coming across our border? They don’t need to know where the 15,000 foreign nationals are that skipped out on their visa, just didn’t show up to school but they’re here in the United States. You tell me why they need my grandmother’s phone records but they don’t need to know where the Saudi nationals are. Why they don’t need — why they need to know who’s calling who inside the United States of America. They need to know who’s calling who, how long the phone conversations were lasting, the GPS locators for all of the cellphones, when those phones, when that phone call was made. Why do they need all of that for domestic terror but they can’t seem to get it right with the Boston bombers? They don’t know where that guy was. You tell me why they need all of this information. Why do you need to go for the AP? You don’t need to go for the AP and target the reporters.
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Glenn Beck
“
In early 2014, the global economy’s top five companies’ gross cash holdings—those of Apple, Google, Microsoft, as well as the US telecom giant Verizon and the Korean electronics conglomerate Samsung—came to $387 billion, the equivalent of the 2013 GDP of the United Arab Emirates.78 This capital imbalance puts the fate of the world economy in the hands of the few cash hoarders like Apple and Google, whose profits are mostly kept offshore to avoid paying US tax. “Apple, Google and Facebook are latter-day scrooges,” worries the Financial Times columnist John Plender about a corporate miserliness that is undermining the growth of the world economy.79 “So what does it all mean?” Michael Moritz rhetorically asks about a data factory economy that is immensely profitable for a tiny handful of Silicon Valley companies. What does the personal revolution mean for everyone else, to those who aren’t part of what he calls the “extreme minority” inside the Silicon Valley bubble? “It means that life is very tough for almost everyone in America,” the chairman of Sequoia Capital, whom even Tom Perkins couldn’t accuse of being a progressive radical, says. “It means life is very tough if you’re poor. It means life is very tough if you’re middle class. It means you have to have the right education to go and work at Google or Apple.
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”
Andrew Keen (The Internet Is Not the Answer)
“
Focus on the user… and the money will follow. This can be particularly challenging in environments where the user and customer are different, and when your customer doesn’t share your focus-on-the-user ethos. When Google acquired Motorola in 2012, one of the first Motorola meetings Jonathan attended was a three-hour product review, where the company’s managers presented the features and specifications for all of Motorola’s phones. They kept referring to the customer requirements, most of which made little sense to Jonathan since they were so out of tune with what he knew mobile users wanted. Then, over lunch, one of the execs explained to him that when Motorola said “customers,” they weren’t talking about the people who use the phones but about the company’s real customers, the mobile carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, who perhaps weren’t always as focused on the user as they should have been. Motorola wasn’t focusing on its users at all, but on its partners. At Google, our users are the people who use our products, while our customers are the companies that buy our advertising and license our technology. There are rarely conflicts between the two, but when there are, our bias is toward the user. It has to be this way, regardless of your industry. Users are more empowered than ever, and won’t tolerate crummy products.
”
”
Eric Schmidt (How Google Works)
“
The power of the big fish in general to regroup is hardly restricted to banking. When Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, the immediate effect was to replace a national monopoly with a number of regional monopolies controlled by many of the same Wall Street interests. Ultimately, the regional monopolies regrouped: In 1999 Exxon (formerly Standard Oil Company of New Jersey) and Mobil (formerly Standard Oil Company of New York) reconvened in one of the largest mergers in US history. In 1961 Kyso (formerly Standard Oil of Kentucky) was purchased by Chevron (formerly Standard Oil of California); and in the 1960s and 1970s Sohio (formerly Standard Oil of Ohio) was bought by British Petroleum (BP), which then, in 1998, merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana).
The tale of AT&T is similar. As the result of an antitrust settlement with the government, on January 1, 1984, AT&T spun off its local operations so as to create seven so-called Baby Bells. But the Baby Bells quickly began to merge and regroup. By 2006 four of the Baby Bells were reunited with their parent company AT&T, and two others (Bell Atlantic and NYNEX) merged to form Verizon.
So the hope that you can make a banking breakup stick (even if it were to be achieved) flies in the face of some pretty daunting experience. Also, note carefully a major political fact: The time when traditional reformers had enough power to make tough banking regulation really work was the time when progressive politics still had the powerful institutional backing of strong labor unions.
But as we have seen, that time is long ago and far away.
”
”
Gar Alperovitz (What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution)
“
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecom providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk—regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
”
”
Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
“
By cooperating, Verizon Wireless is implicitly promising that the FiOS service will spread no farther; Comcast and Time Warner, for their part, are implicitly promising that they will not go into the wireless business.
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Susan P. Crawford (Captive Audience)
“
Their leadership team recognized how amazing this sales productivity number was to the company and ultimately to one of the factors that led to the acquisition by Verizon. I love this quote from Kelly: “We could close deals faster and bigger than our competition.” What sales leader, salesperson, sales manager, or chief executive officer does not want this too?
”
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Elay Cohen (Enablement Mastery: Grow Your Business Faster by Aligning Your People, Processes, and Priorities)
“
It was right about then that a drink dropped down in front of me on the table, Brant sliding into the open chair to my side.
"You know I can't have..." I started, big-eying him so I didn't have to say it.
"Raspberry mocha shake with skim milk but full fat whipped cream," he explained, popping the little piece of paper topper off the straw. "Not a damn bit of actual coffee in it," he said, looking disgusted at the very prospect. "Oh, and here," he said, pulling my phone out of his pocket.
"You know, you can't pull the 'pregnancy' card every time your phone has an issue and you don't want to go to Verizon."
"True," I agreed, taking a long sip of the shake he made and closing my eyes on a sigh. "But I can for the next eight or so months," I concluded, giving him a saucy smile.
He chuckled at that, reaching for the piece of paper I had in front of me with the design for the macaron wedding cake.
"Macarons, huh?" he asked, looking excited.
It didn't matter how many different recipes I came up with, he never seemed to get sick of them.
"It's not too soon," he informed me, reading my thoughts as I looked down at the perfect princess cut ring.
"It hasn't even been a year," I had insisted, shaking my head.
"Sweetheart, I knew this was where we were heading that first time you moaned like a porn star over your break-up frappe."
I looked around my mother's and mine and Brant's little shop, feeling it down to my soul: peace.
Then I looked over at Brant, feeling it down to my bones: love.
And finally, to the plate at the center of the table where Brant and I reached toward simultaneously and grabbed one each: macarons.
It was all I would ever need.
”
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Jessica Gadziala (Peace, Love, & Macarons)
“
Bill Kelley, a Bloomberg employee, waited minutes before replying on his BlackBerry to a relative asking: “Bill, are you OK?” At 9:23 a.m. Kelley sent the last message of his life from the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the World Trade Center. “So far … we’re trapped on the 106th floor, but apparently [the] fire department is almost here.”5 These messages are a sample of a vast collection of e-mails sent on September 11, 2001, and later shared with news media or stored in a 9/11 digital archive owned by the Library of Congress. Many of the e-mails were dispatched by BlackBerrys. For trapped or fleeing workers, BlackBerrys were the only reliable communication link in lower Manhattan. After the first plane knocked out cell towers on top of the World Trade Center, cell and landline circuits were overwhelmed. Paging companies lost many of their frequencies, and phone lines went dead for hundreds of thousands of Verizon customers6 when a call-switching center, several cell towers, and fiber-optic links were smashed by debris from a collapsed building.7
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Jacquie McNish (Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry)
“
I checked my messages before I started driving. I had three. The first was from Verizon, letting me know I could save more money by spending more money.
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Gay Hendricks (The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery, #2))
“
like late Rome, the Bell system now existed as an eastern and a western empire—Verizon and AT&T (whose
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Tim Wu (The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires)
“
The first was about the secret order from the FISA court compelling Verizon, one of America’s largest telephone companies, to turn over to the NSA all the telephone records of all Americans.
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Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
“
Seven of the 30 largest U.S. corporations paid more money to their chief executives last year than they paid in U.S. federal income taxes, according to a study. The seven companies cited were Verizon, Boeing, Ford, Chevron, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and General Motors. A Verizon spokesman disputed the report, saying that the company paid $422 million in income taxes in 2013 and that "the federal portion of that number is well more than Verizon's CEO's compensation.
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Anonymous
“
Verizon, for example, reports that it received 320,000 "law enforcement demands" for data in 2013. We know that every three months Verizon is served with a single National Security Letter that requires it to turn over the metadata of all 290 million of its customers, so what does that 320,000.
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Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
By accident, some traders had stumbled across a route controlled by Verizon that took 14.65 milliseconds. “The Gold Route,” the traders called it, because on the occasions you happened to find yourself on it you were the first to exploit the discrepancies between prices in Chicago and prices in New York.
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Michael Lewis (Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt)
“
First it was New York Tel, then Bell Atlantic, then they became Verizon. Same shit, different patch on your shirt pocket.
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James Patterson (NYPD Red 2 (NYPD Red #2))
“
If you’re with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint, you can now text the police (911) in case of emergency.
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Keith Bradford (Life Hacks: Any Procedure or Action That Solves a Problem, Simplifies a Task, Reduces Frustration, Etc. in One's Everyday Life (Life Hacks Series))
“
Verizon doesn’t have a Hell plan.
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Robyn Peterman (Fashionably Fanged (Hot Damned, #8))
“
American Express employees were told in mandatory trainings to create an “identity map” by writing their “race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity, citizenship” in circles surrounding the words “Who am I?” 71 Verizon employees were taught about intersectionality, microaggressions, and institutional racism, and asked to write a reflection on questions like “What is my cultural identity?” with “race/ ethnicity, gender/ gender identity, religion, education, profession, sexual orientation” beneath. 72 CVS Health hourly employees were sent to a mandatory training where keynote speaker Ibram X. Kendi explained that “to be born in [The United States] is to literally have racist ideas rain on our head consistently and constantly … We're just walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas believing we're dry.” 73 Employees were asked to fill out a “Reflect on Privilege” checklist and told they should “commit to holding yourself and colleagues accountable to consistently celebrate diversity and take swift action against non-inclusive behaviors.” 74
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Tim Urban (What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies)
“
For example, AllThingsD broke the story that new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had secured a $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging platform Tumblr. It was a major scoop at the time with lots of details. Yahoo quickly followed with an official announcement that included the “promise not to screw it up.” They did. Eventually, Tumblr passed from Yahoo to Verizon and, in 2019, was purchased by Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic’s WordPress, for $3 million.
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Kara Swisher (Burn Book: A Tech Love Story)
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The first one, the one not named Rudy, works at Pembroke Lakes Mall all the way up in Broward, at the T-Mobile stand right near the food court. It would be a better sign if he worked for Verizon or AT&T, but whatever, dude's got to start somewhere, right? Irregardless of any cease and desist letter, you can't just start off as Mr. Worldwide, not without first spending some time as Mr. 305.
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Jennine Capó Crucet (Say Hello to My Little Friend)
“
Here are the statements made by the CEOs of AOL and Time Warner when they announced their $350 billion (!) merger on January 10, 2000. Stephen Case, the cofounder of AOL, proudly proclaimed, “This is a historic moment when new media has truly come of age.” Not to be left behind, Gerald Levin, the CEO of Time Warner, gushed philosophically that the internet had begun to “create unprecedented and instantaneous access to every form of media and to unleash immense possibilities for economic growth, human understanding and creative expression.” The result of this bromance? The largest failed merger in the history of the corporate world.23 Within two years, AOL took a write-off of $99 billion on the deal. Yes, “billion” with a “b.” The market value of AOL went from $226 billion in 2000 to $20 billion in 2002. In June 2015, it was acquired for a mere $4.4 billion by Verizon.
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Pulak Prasad (What I Learned About Investing from Darwin)
“
This guy here on the screen—" Coupland turned up his laptop to show me the JPEG of the Chinese guy in Tiananmen Square. "Know what he’s doing now? He’s working out this co-sponsor deal with Verizon Wireless and Pizza Hut.
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Douglas Coupland (JPod)
“
Google Fiber was launched to connect homes in Austin, Kansas City, and Provo (Utah) with internet service that’s one hundred times faster than broadband. Google never intended to become an Internet Service Provider. Rather, this is about forcing the established providers in each market—Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, Verizon, Charter—to lower their prices and increase their bandwidth. In developing countries, a similar strategy is in play. Google is helping to build out fiber backbones for entire cities, such as Kampala, Uganda. Where the ground or the local government proves tricky, there is Project Loon. Laying a massive backbone would be an expensive proposition for a rural community, hence those giant floating balloons.
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Amy Webb (The Signals Are Talking: Why Today's Fringe Is Tomorrow's Mainstream)
“
Verizon Communications’ general counsel Randal Milch in a blog, while applauding proposals to end Section 215 (of the PATRIOT Act) bulk collection, argued that “the reformed collection process should not require companies to store data for longer than, or in formats that differ from, what they already do for business purposes.
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Jim Marrs (Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us)
“
But what if it didn’t take money to make money? What’s terrifying about the digitally disrupted future is that this rhetorical question is already being concretely answered. The mindset of the digital disruptor accelerates every possible process by exploiting digital toolsets that are free for tinkering. Economists talk about trends that reduce barriers to entry. The force of digital disruption doesn’t just reduce these barriers, it obliterates them. This allows the disruptor to take new ideas of any size and potential impact and rapidly pursue target customers at almost no cost and in the space of a few days, rather than years. That’s the power of digital disruption, and it will happen to every industry on the planet, whether that company makes digital products or not. That’s why the rise of millions of digital disruptors like Thomas Suarez, whether they go it alone or choose to disrupt on behalf of massively physical firms like Verizon and Unilever, matters so much. These disruptors will do what they do in whatever industry they find themselves planted, ultimately generating significantly more innovation power into the marketplace.
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James McQuivey (Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation)
“
If you have an iPhone, Apple could have your address book, your calendar, your photos, your texts, all the music you listen to, all the places you go—and even how many steps it took to get there, since phones have a little gyroscope in them. Don’t have an iPhone? Then replace “Apple” with Google or Samsung or Verizon. Wear a FuelBand? Nike knows how well you sleep. An Xbox One? Microsoft knows your heart rate.1 A credit card? Buy something at a retailer, and your PII (personally identifiable information) attaches the UPC to your Guest ID in the CRM (customer relations management) software, which then starts working on what you’ll want next.
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Christian Rudder (Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves)
“
Facebook and Google (now known as Alphabet) are together worth $1.3 trillion. You could merge the world’s top five advertising agencies (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, and Dentsu) with five major media companies (Disney, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, and Viacom) and you’d still need to add five major communications companies (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter, and Dish) to get only 90 percent of what Google and Facebook are worth together.
”
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Scott Galloway (The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google)
“
Customers flooded back to stores dissatisfied with their touch-screen BlackBerrys. Balsillie knew returns were high. What he didn’t realize was how severe the problem was. As their meeting got under way, Verizon’s chief marketing officer, John Stratton, laid out the shocking news to his guests from Waterloo. Virtually every one of the first batch of about 1 million Storms shipped needed replacing. Many of the replacements were being returned as well. The Storm was a complete failure, and he wanted RIM to pay.
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Jacquie McNish (Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry)
“
RPX's current members include such giants as Apple, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, IBM, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsung, Sony, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
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Anonymous