Big Tech is. Facebook, Google and other companies armed with the data to look ahead on this pandemic are slowly but surely bringing employees back in. On today’s show, Molly and Kai contemplate sitting in traffic once again. Plus, we go “Half Full/Half Empty” on inflation, movie theaters, “Peepsi” and much more on this Friday grab-bag episode.

Here are links to everything we talked about today:

• “Europe warns hospitals at ‘breaking point’ as third Covid wave hits” from Financial Times

• “America’s Obsession With Wipes Is Tearing Up Sewer Systems” from Bloomberg

• “Startups Axios and the Athletic Discuss Merger, Consider SPAC Deal” from The Wall Street Journal

• “WeWork agrees to go public through a SPAC deal with BowX Acquisition” from CNBC

• “Facebook sets reopening date for S.F., Bay Area offices, with no free food and no transit” from the San Francisco Chronicle

• “Big tech CEOs face lawmakers in House hearing on social media’s role in extremism, misinformation” from The Washington Post

• “Amazon keeps trying to troll US Congress members in perplexing new PR strategy” from the Verge

• “Prince Harry is now a chief impact officer. What does that actually mean?” from Marketplace

• “Movie theaters reopen without their biggest moneymaker: snacks” from Marketplace

• “Fed Chair: Rise in inflation not ‘particularly large’ from $1.9 trillion rescue package” from Marketplace

• “The Suez Canal block could hit ‘downstream’ manufacturers the hardest” from Marketplace

• “Ok, Sure, But Why Wasn’t It Named ‘Peepsi’” from Refinery29

• More big boat content

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