Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dan Pramack. On today's show, Zoom's newest headache and a Philadelphia icon heads to Silicon Valley.

But first, saving small businesses. So for many people, that was the goal of the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, a $350

billion pool of money in the initial federal stimulus plan, which was designed to keep people

on payrolls.

The trouble, though, is that small business, that term, has proven to mean very different

things to many different people.

For many, it conjures up thoughts of the local bakery or barbershop, you know, mom and pop,

Main Street sorts of establishments that have seen their revenues disappear.

The reality of the PPP legislation, though, was that it was applied to any business

with fewer than 500 employees.

And as Shake Shacks Danny Meyer said on this podcast last week, he's never seen a restaurant

with 500 employees or even 499 of them.

Now, none of this would actually matter except for the fact that PPP ran out of money, fast.

And the result was a lot of finger pointing at larger businesses that took the loans,

particularly given that larger businesses often have better banking relationships and more legal

resources than do smaller ones.

And before continuing, it is important to put in a brief disclaimer here that Axios both

qualified for a PPP loan and then decided to return it.

So right now, PPP is in the midst of its second round, with over a million new applicants

already being approved with average loan sizes just north of $100,000.

But that has not stopped the debate over who deserves funding and how the law could

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