Losers:

UBER: Just months after announcing that Uber would be working with the city of Pittsburg to support new self driving car technology, the deal has turned bitter. Uber has now backed out of the promise to not charge for rides driven by self-driving cars and withdrew from the 50 million dollar grant funded by Pittsburg. In addition, Uber has been accused of pirating the software tech it uses for its self driving cars from Google. Not to mention it’s 991 million dollar loss in the 1st quarter this year.

Snapchat: Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc. lost 2.2 billion dollars in its first quarter as a public company. Signalling that the company may not be able to sustain long term growth in the ring with tech giants Twitter and Facebook. Snapchat, although extremely popular with millennials has had trouble attracting other age groups, yet another reason for its decrease in value.                                                                                                                            

Facebook: The company headed by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, was fined 122 million by the European Union after Facebook made misleading statements about its management of data collected from WhatsApp, when it was bought in 2014 for 19 billion. It was also discovered by a French watchdog agency that Facebook was collecting information on users through third party websites without their knowledge.

Winners:

India: The internet is finally becoming common place in the world’s second most populated country. In decades past only half of the country had access to electricity and if there was power available most towns only had one landline. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, aims to change this. He has embraced new research into energy sources and vows to expand the internet. Like most countries, older people are less likely to embrace the internet and the sweeping changes that come with it.

China: Artificial Intelligence, better known as AI is one of the computer world’s fastest changing and innovating fields. Some consider to be the next step in the progression of the internet. This past month as President Donald Trump revealed his plans for the national budget in the coming year, AI funding dwindled as China funnels billions into research and development of AI technology. China’s government wants AI to eventually be able to lend money, curb traffic jams, censor the internet, and predict criminal activity before it happens. Some of these ideas may seem far fetched, they could someday in the not-so distant future be very real.  

Amazon: The online shopping giant breached the thousand dollar share mark on Tuesday after growing 33% so far this year. Amazon, now the fourth most valued company on the New York Stock Exchange, is responsible for every 43 cents out of a dollar spent on the internet. The company founded in 1998 has exploded throughout the first two decades of the 21st century. These days you can buy almost anything on Amazon from clothes to food.

This month, usually untouchable tech companies hit barriers, such as fines and quarterly losses. However, in the past months companies, such as Amazon have seen amazing growth and development. “I buy everything on Amazon, it’s the best,” said Shelby Chasser.
Graphic: Connor Killeen