Bob Swan, who was named Intel's CEO two years ago, is stepping down effective Feb. 15 and will be succeeded by Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of VMware. Activist investor Dan Loeb has pressured the company to make changes.

VMware plans to hire enough women that it achieves gender parity on its management team over the next 10 years. "We want to hire one woman for every one male that we hire, and really see a more diverse workforce with underrepresented minorities and women," Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Poonen said.

Microsoft, Google, VMware and other tech giants have filed an amicus brief supporting Facebook's lawsuit against Israeli firm NSO, whose spyware exploited a bug in WhatsApp to help NSO's government customers surveil more than 1,400 high-value app users, including journalists, diplomats and human rights activists. The companies argue that the development of spyware by "cyber mercenaries" poses risks for innocent individuals and businesses, and that the creation of such tools should be limited to governments.

Facebook, Twitter, Stripe and other companies are responding to the pandemic by letting people work from home permanently, although one side effect has been questions about location-specific compensation. "We've told everyone: If you're not comfortable, no problem, stay put," says Rich Lang, VMware's senior vice president of HR.