| Hey all, it's Kurt Wagner in Denver. Happy Fourth of July! Threads is one year into its plan to create a "less angry" Twitter, but first… Three things you need to know today: • The hack against Microsoft also affected US departments and agencies
• Saudi Arabia is offering more money for esports than the PGA
• The former banker who runs chipmaker Renasas is seeking a $100 billion value Twitter, now X, had a lot of issues well before Elon Musk ever arrived on the scene. Yet I always felt Twitter was indispensable because it did one thing incredibly well: It was the best place on the internet to understand what was happening in the world right now. Twitter created an urgency around the news that wasn't replicated anywhere else online. It was a singular use case that helped Twitter punch above its weight for years. After Musk took over Twitter in late 2022, that reputation changed thanks to a combination of updates that included verification removals, more reach for paying users and an algorithm that seems to focus on promoting entertainment over news. Over at Meta Platforms Inc., executives saw an opening. They launched Threads almost exactly one year ago to rival Twitter. With 175 million monthly users and several promising features, I think they've accomplished a lot in one year. But Threads seems reluctant to pick up the breaking news baton that X has dropped, and I think it could be a mistake. Threads boss Adam Mosseri says he wants Threads to be "a place where you can be up to speed on what's happening as it's happening." But Mosseri also says that Threads won't amplify political news on the service. People can share or seek out political news on their own, but Threads won't recommend political posts to users if that post comes from someone they don't follow. "We think that comes along with too many problems to be worth any potential upside there might be on engagement or revenue," he added. More than 50% of the posts people see on Threads are recommended, which means political discussions will inevitably be more contained and siloed than on other platforms. There are legitimate reasons for Mosseri to feel the way he does. Political news is polarizing. It's controversial. Things can get complicated when a world leader uses a service to spread political lies. We watched all of these issues play out on Twitter for years. Promoting political news doesn't really align with one of Mosseri's key goals, which is to make Threads a "less angry" place than Twitter. Despite all of those negatives, though, Threads may overlook one critical positive: relevance. The political discussion on Twitter, perhaps more than any other topic, made the service important, urgent and necessary. I don't think you can truly be a place where people go to learn "what's happening as it's happening" if you are simultaneously trying to corral political discussions. As the US election looms, Threads has an opportunity to make its service feel indispensable in the way Twitter used to feel. It may not be as kind, but it would feel more necessary. Threads, though, is fine letting that opportunity pass. "I think we are going to give up some of that relevance, some of that attention, some of that business," Mosseri said. "And that's OK." It is OK. But it also means Threads will need to figure out its own path to relevancy.—Kurt Wagner LG is trying to commercialize game-changing battery tech by 2028. The Korean firm is outpacing rivals Tesla and Samsung in developing a new dry-coating technology that could cut production costs by as much as 30%. The new process would replace the energy-intensive wet process for producing electrodes, which are key components in electric car batteries. Alphabet is winding down its ag tech moonshot, Mineral, and licensing some of the technology to berry producer Driscoll's. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is cashing in on the chipmaker's rally. French Billionaire Xavier Niel's voice AI takes on ChatGPT. The EU may levy import duties targeting Shein, Temu. AI startups are injecting some life into US venture capital dealmaking. | 
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