In the tech world we’re usually looking to the future. Leslie Berlin’s new book “Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age,” looks at the industry’s past, specifically its big turning point in the 1970s. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked with Berlin about the pioneers of tech and how they helped shape the industry. 

Tesla has had a tough couple of weeks. On Friday, the carmaker updated its customer reservation website to tell people that delivery of the mass-market Model 3 would be several months late, at best. And in an earnings call last Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk went into great detail about software issues, robot calibration and battery assembly, and said the company is currently in the ninth level of hell. Part of the problem is that making cars is really hard, and Tesla is still more of a software company. But some argue that having a tech-first mentality could benefit Tesla in the long run because it will be able to make changes faster.  

The iPhone X hits Apple stores today. Apple is a major player in the U.S., but it also needs China to continue to grow. On this episode, we talk with Marketplace’s China correspondent, Jennifer Pak, about the country’s rival market for fakes and why consumers there may not shell out for Apple’s most expensive phone yet.

During the election, 146 million people on Facebook and Instagram might have been reached by Russian-linked political ads. Facebook and other social media companies are reliant on ad revenue to survive. So their business model is also the very thing that allows misinformation to spread. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Geoffrey Parker, one of the authors of the book “Platform Revolution,” about the value of a “like.”

Representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter are testifying before Congress this week about propaganda and misinformation on their networks. Russian operatives created fake accounts across the political divide: one called “Secured Borders,” raised concerns about illegal immigration, while another, called “Blacktivist,” called for more activism in the African-American community. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Loyola communications and African-American studies professor Karsonya Wise Whitehead about whether these accounts were successful in exacerbating racial tensions in America.

The next census is coming up in 2020, when the government will set out to count every single person living in the U.S. It’s a system that helps determine how federal money gets spent and who and where businesses are investing. But some populations are harder to count than others, even as the Census Bureau moves more of their data collection online. The Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York created an interactive map highlighting those populations. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Steven Romalewski of CUNY’s Center for Urban Research about what’s at stake for these communities.

Companies are required to file equal employment opportunity reports with the government. But few make that information public. Reporters at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX looked into how diversity stacks up in Silicon Valley. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked with reporter Will Evans about why hard data on diversity in tech remains a bit of a mystery.

Think about all the apps you use in a day: Amazon, Facebook, Gmail, maybe Lyft or Uber. In China, some of those apps are banned. But it’s possible to use one app — WeChat — to do lots of things, like sending messages and ordering taxis. Facebook Messenger is trying to take on the same role in the U.S. Jennifer Pak, Marketplace’s new China correspondent, gives us the lowdown on WeChat and talks about why there’s no equivalent in the U.S. … yet. 

A ransomware attack called Bad Rabbit hit this week, starting in Europe and spreading to businesses in the U.S. This is the latest in a string of ransomware attacks in the past year. On this episode, we look at how an attack affected KQED, the National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco. And we talk to a security expert about how to protect your business and recover from an attack.