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Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump's nominee for the US Supreme Court, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
A GOP memo obtained by Axios advised Republicans on their comms strategy in the wake of the SCOTUS leak.
It said Republicans should portray their support for overturning Roe v. Wade as "compassionate."
It also said Democrats had "extreme and radical views on abortion."
A leaked GOP memo obtained by Axios has told Republican lawmakers to portray themselves as the "compassionate consensus-builder" on abortion policy after the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The memo by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which is the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, advised Republican lawmakers and candidates on their communications about the draft decision in a bid to coordinate party message, Axios reported.
"Be the compassionate, consensus-builder on abortion policy ... While people have many different views on abortion policy, Americans are compassionate people who want to welcome every new baby into the world," it said, according to Axios.
The memo went on to say that Republicans should "expose the Democrats for the extreme views they hold," claiming that "Joe Biden and the Democrats have extreme and radical views on abortion that are outside of the mainstream of most Americans," Axios reported.
It said candidates should also seek to refute what it characterised as false claims by Democrats about Republican plans, saying Republicans do not want to take away contraception, mammograms, and female-health care, or jail physicians and women.
In a Tuesday statement, the Democratic National Committee said that Republican support for overturning Roe v. Wade was an "extremist" policy that infringed on women's rights. Polls show that most Americans oppose overturning the landmark 1973 decision and the five decades of legal precedent it set.
If the conservative-majority Supreme Court upholds the draft decision, it is expected to be one of the key issues of the November 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election.
Democratic lawmakers are pledging to pass a bill to codify the Roe v. Wade ruling if they retain control of Congress after the midterms. Meanwhile, Republicans are rallying around the draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, hailing it as a triumph and potential realization of one of the conservative movement's longterm objectives.
More: Republican Party Roe v Wade News UK 2022 midterms | 2022-05-04T10:42:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | GOP Told Lawmakers to Act Compassionate After Roe V Wade Leak: Report | https://www.businessinsider.com/scotus-leak-gop-told-lawmakers-portray-compassionate-consensus-builder-axios-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/scotus-leak-gop-told-lawmakers-portray-compassionate-consensus-builder-axios-2022-5 |
Porsche's plan to go electric hinges on delivering the performance its buyers expect. It just led a $400 million investment into the little-known EV battery startup that could make it work.
In 2021, Porsche pledged $18 billion for new EVs and charging tech over the next five years, and saw its first EV, the Taycan, account for 14% of its sales.
Automakers, including Porsche, are betting much of their futures on electric cars.
Porsche just led a $400 million investment into Woodinville, Washington battery startup Group14.
Here are 3 ways Group14 got on Porsche’s radar — and how it will help the luxury automaker electrify.
Porsche just led a $400 million investment into a little-known EV battery startup, a deal that could bolster the German luxury carmaker in tackling the pending battery shortage and solidify its strategy to go electric.
In 2021, Porsche pledged $18 billion for new EVs and charging tech over the next five years, and saw its first EV, the Taycan sedan, account for 14% of its sales. Porsche expects that to accelerate and to see 80% of its global car sales be electric by 2030. It's banking on its high-performance battery cell subsidiary Cellforce Group to reach those targets — but Porsche needs some help.
Group14 is a seven-year-old lithium-silicon battery startup based in Woodinville, Washington. The company says its technology improves vehicle range and charging times. This week's Series C raise, led by Porsche with investors including OMERS Capital Markets, Blackrock, and more, brings Group14's total funding raised to $441 million.
This raise is sizable compared with other big EV battery space deals, according to Crunchbase data. In 2021, solid-state battery startup Solid Power raised $130 million in a Series B round, and hybrid lithium-metal battery maker SES raised $139 in a Series D. This year, battery companies Factorial Energy and StoreDot closed $200 million and $60 million in their respective Series D rounds.
The funding will help Group14 build its second factory for battery active materials (those part of the battery's electrochemical reaction), which it will supply to Cellforce for production of lithium-silicon battery cells. It's a push to make Porsche competitive with other automakers scrambling to secure their battery plays. (Porsche declined to comment for this story.)
CEO and cofounder Rick Luebbe described three things his startup emphasized to get on Porsche's radar:
As Porsche seeks to not compromise on its legacy while going electric, it needs batteries that offer the same high-performance its customers are used to.
Group14's anode technology replaces graphite in EV batteries with silicon-carbon powder, resulting in a battery that can deliver better performance than traditional lithium-ion batteries. And it's compatible with lithium and solid-state battery chemistries.
Lithium-ion battery pouch manufacturer Farasis has said it saw a 25% energy boost for its batteries using Group14 technology. Fast charging outfit StoreDot said Group14 tech helped it reach 80% battery charge in 10 minutes — a capability Porsche has prioritized with the Taycan.
"If you think about what the industry really worries about, it's about range anxiety and charge anxiety," Luebbe said, "and these silicon-based technologies led with our material, our commercialization, mitigates both those concerns."
Group14 says it is already capable of commercial production scale, with consumer electronics programs, via its production facility near Seattle.
While Group14 is not yet at the scale needed to support an auto industry EV program, Luebbe said the funding helps put the company ahead of others in the space — without an added expense.
"It seems like every week we're hearing about a new gigafactory somewhere," Luebbe said. "If we're going to transform the industry, we have to be able to piggyback on all the infrastructure. It can't be a completely new battery technology. It's just too difficult to implement and requires too much capital.
"Our material drops directly into current battery manufacturing, no CapEx required whatsoever," he added. "The technology has to be scalable. It can't be a science project. It can't be a lab experiment."
Supply chain security
Top of mind for the industry is supply chain, given the hyper-focus on battery material procurement issues. Automakers, their executives, and other industry stakeholders are cautioning a substantial shortage of critical battery metals.
"For that reason, we've already established a dual sourcing model," Luebbe said, referring to the company's joint venture with Korean battery giant SK Group. "That gives us independence from a sourcing perspective, as well as geographic independence."
More: Transportation Porsche Taycan | 2022-05-04T10:42:23Z | www.businessinsider.com | Why Porsche Led a $400 Million Round Into EV Startup Group14 | https://www.businessinsider.com/why-porsche-led-400-million-round-into-ev-startup-group14-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/why-porsche-led-400-million-round-into-ev-startup-group14-2022-5 |
Elon Musk said he's not worried about Twitter staff leaving over his proposed takeover.
"It's a free country," Musk responded when asked about it by reporters at the Met Gala.
"Certainly if anyone doesn't feel comfortable with that, they will on their on accord, go somewhere else. That's fine," he added, Reuters reported.
The Twitter employees told Hays there is unease about Musk's publicly stated desire to loosen the platform's rules on content moderation — a move which experts told Insider could lead to an uptick in hate speech and misinformation.
More: Elon Musk Twitter Takeover Employees | 2022-05-04T11:25:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | Elon Musk Not Worried by Potential Twitter Employee Exodus | https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-not-worried-twitter-employees-quitting-exodus-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-not-worried-twitter-employees-quitting-exodus-2022-5 |
There are specific steps users can take to use Grindr safely, experts told Insider.
Grindr will cover surgery, name changes, hormone therapy, voice therapy, and new wardrobes.
Grindr's director of product, who helped created the new benefits, drew on her own experience of transitioning.
More firms are expanding their provisions to allow employees access to treatment and care that can be difficult to obtain.
Grindr, the world's largest dating app for LGBTQ+ people, will pay for gender-affirming surgeries for its workers, TIME reported.
Grindr has expanded its benefits program to cover surgery and some other related procedures such as name changes on legal documents, hormone therapy, voice therapy, and new wardrobe provisions, the outlet reported.
The magazine reported that the company will not seek referrals from psychiatrists, such as a mental health history and a recommendation that surgery be undertaken, and will instead accept signed confirmations from employees that they require surgery in order to live according to their own identified gender.
The firm will also pay for travel costs, where necessary, TIME added.
Grindr joins a list of firms that have expanded their health provisions to allow employees access to treatment and care that might be otherwise difficult to obtain. Transgender medical treatments can add up to more than $100,000, and they're often not covered by health insurance.
On Monday, Amazon confirmed it will cover up to $4,000 per year in medical care travel costs for US employees, including for transgender care and elective abortion, while finance firm Citi announced in April that it would pay the travel costs of US staff forced to leave their home state to get an abortion.
Firms such as Apple, Yelp, Match and Bumble have also announced similar support.
Grindr did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside its working hours.
Grindr's director of product, Amy Jie, the architect of the new benefits, told TIME that she had drawn on her own experience of transitioning under her former's employer's benefits program, where she had to send letters to 30 psychiatrists to obtain the documentation needed to abide by her insurance provider's policies.
"It made me feel like my problems were not ones society cared about," Jie told TIME. "It's that ritual humiliation and conditional care that causes such a high percentage of queer people to avoid seeking healthcare."
More: Grindr Healthcare LGBTQ | 2022-05-04T11:25:27Z | www.businessinsider.com | Grindr Will Cover Cost of Gender Affirmation Surgeries for Its Workers | https://www.businessinsider.com/grindr-will-cover-cost-gender-affirmation-surgeries-for-its-workers-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/grindr-will-cover-cost-gender-affirmation-surgeries-for-its-workers-2022-5 |
Hyundai's Korean arm has turned its Staria minivan into a camper van starting at around $40,000.
The tiny home on wheels comes in two layouts: one with 11 seats and the other with four.
Both layouts are topped with the coveted electric pop-top roof, a popular addition to camper vans.
Hyundai's Korean arm has turned its Staria minivan into a tiny home on wheels complete with an electric pop-top roof, a popular addition to motorohomes around the world.
And if you're picky about the number of seats, Hyundai has you covered.
The Staria Lounge Camper will be available in two layouts: one with 11 seats, and the other with four …
… both with the coveted electric pop-top roof.
This isn't the Korean automaker's first foray into the tiny home on wheels market: The company also has the clunkier Hyundai Porest motorhome.
But unlike the Porest, the new Staria Lounge looks less like a RV and more like its minivan base.
At around 6.9 feet tall, the van has a lower profile than most RVs, making it a bit more discrete.
But when the awning is extended and the roof is popped, there'll be no mistaking this camper van for the traditional minivan.
The Staria Lounge Camper 11 has enough seats to accommodate, well, 11 people.
The second, third, and fourth row of seats can lay completely flat, turning the seating space into a bed topped with an air mattress.
It won't be able to sleep all 11 passengers, but the pop-top roof and seating area can at least sleep a combined four people.
Source: New Atlas
If you don't need an 11-seater, the Staria Lounge Camper 4 model can instead seat a more manageable family of four.
This interior has more of the bells and whistles of a traditional camper van, like LED lights and a kitchenette.
Like its larger sibling, this iteration relies on the pop-top and rear seats to sleep four people.
When the blackout curtains are pulled out and the speaker is turned on, the rear of the minivan can turn into a cozy little bedroom.
But unlike the Camper 11, this smaller model has a kitchen equipped with a sink refrigerator, storage units, and a small countertop.
There's also a folding table inside the van for cozy dinners on the road …
… and an additional sliding table that extends out the rear of the van. This outdoor table is available on the Camper 11 model as well.
There's even a mosquito net at the rear of the camper for increased ventilation without the fear of bugs.
The van's energy and water supply can be accessed from the exterior of the van, which is perfect for outdoor showers after messy hikes.
This tiny home on minivan wheels will set you back almost $40,000, but don't wait around to buy your own Staria camper van.
The Hyundai Staria isn't available in the US, so the odds of the camper iteration coming overseas may be slim as well.
More: Hyundai Camper van Minivan Motorhome | 2022-05-04T11:25:33Z | www.businessinsider.com | Photos: Hyundai Turned Its Minivan Into a Campervan | https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-hyundai-turned-its-minivan-into-a-campervan-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-hyundai-turned-its-minivan-into-a-campervan-2022-5 |
A US solider prepares ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine in January 2022.
Mauricio Campino/U.S. Air Force via AP
Russia said it hit railway infrastructure helping bring Western weapons to Ukraine.
The defense ministry said Russia destroyed traction electrical substations.
Ukraine said Russia fired missiles at multiple railway facilities.
Russia attacked Ukrainian railway lines that were used to transport weapons to Ukraine from Europe and the US, both countries said.
Russian defense ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that Russia used "high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons" to destroy six traction electrical substations in five regions of Ukraine, the Russian state-owned TV network Zvezda reported Wednesday.
Konashenkov said Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donbas region were getting "weapons and ammunition manufactured by the United States and European countries" through those stations. He did not specify what condition the stations or railway lines were in after the attacks.
Ukraine also said that Russia targeted its railway lines. It said Russia had attacked more parts of the country than Konashenkov identified.
Ukraine's armed forces said on Tuesday night that Russia had fired missiles "at facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Zakarpattia, Odesa and Donetsk oblasts," the Financial Times reported.
Ukrainian officials said the strikes were aimed at stopping weapons arriving that were supplied to Ukraine from the West, the FT reported. The strikes managed to delay almost 50 trains for several hours, the FT said.
The reports come as US and European countries, which have collectively provided Ukraine with billions of dollars of security assistance since Russia's invasion, pledged to step up weapon transfers in recent weeks.
NOW WATCH: How 27 countries sent Ukraine more than $1 billion of weapons and supplies in one week | 2022-05-04T11:25:51Z | www.businessinsider.com | Russia Says It Destroyed Railway Lines Transporting Weapons to Ukraine | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-says-destroyed-railway-lines-transporting-weapons-to-ukraine-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-says-destroyed-railway-lines-transporting-weapons-to-ukraine-2022-5 |
Then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf at his confirmation hearing.
Former DHS chief Chad Wolf delayed an intel report on Russian election interference, a watchdog report said.
The report includes a whistleblower complaint that said Wolf ordered him to "kill it."
The watchdog said the delay, and other changes to the report, risked politicizing the intelligence process.
A Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security chief stalled a key report on Russian interference in the 2020 election and politicized the intelligence process, a government watchdog said.
The report from DHS' Office of the Inspector General, which was published on April 26, said that between April and October 2020, Chad Wolf, then the department's acting secretary, intervened in the release of a dossier on Russian media attempts to question the mental health of Joe Biden, the then-Democratic nominee.
The OIG report includes allegations made by Brian Murphy, the former DHS under secretary for intelligence and analysis, who filed a wide-ranging whistleblower complaint in September 2020.
It included Murphy's allegation that the intelligence report was altered to help then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and concluded that the intelligence process was likely politicized through the intervention. Murphy withdrew his complaint in November 2021 as part of an agreement with DHS, the OIG report said.
In a statement to Insider, Wolf said that the report "supports my longstanding position on this matter," saying it found no credible evidence he was trying to help Trump and that his interventions were solely over "quality control." He also called Murphy's complaint "grossly false." The full statement can be seen below.
'Kill it'
In April 2020, DHS' cybersecurity wing — referred to as CYMC — began looking into multiple reports that Russian state media was seeking to undermine Biden's mental capacity.
The initial draft was made by June 30 with the plan of sharing it on July 9. But at a meeting on July 8, Wolf requested it be "held," the OIG report said.
This is a departure from DHS norms. Per the OIG report, the DHS chief has no formal role in making and approving intelligence reports, the OIG report noted.
The OIG report made no decisive conclusion on one key allegation that at the July 8 meeting, Wolf instructed Murphy to bury the intelligence report as a form of damage control for Trump.
But it included Murphy's scrawled note from the meeting that reads: "AS1 — will hurt POTUS — kill it per his authorities." "AS1" is an internal abbreviation for the Acting Secretary, namely Wolf.
Murphy's note from the July 8, 2020 meeting reads: "AS1 – will hurt POTUS – kill it per his authorities," according to the OIG report.
DHS OIG
Per the OIG report, Murphy said "these notes meant that the Acting Secretary told him [Murphy] to hold the product because it would hurt President Trump; he also believed the Acting Secretary was referring to authorities possessed by the DHS Secretary."
Others at the July 8 meeting could not recall Wolf giving a political reason for the instruction, the report said. Wolf told OIG investigators he got involved and delayed it simply because of its quality. "The product I saw in July was written at the Fifth-grade level," he told investigators.
CYMC then delayed the report twice more, which the OIG found a highly unusual situation. It was ultimately released on September 4.
Politicizing the report
OIG included that inappropriate changes to the report were made with political considerations in mind.
It highlighted a section added by CYMC, with the apparent intention of adding "balance" — a blue information box that outlined Iranian and Chinese efforts to question Trump's health as well.
In his original whistleblower complaint, Murphy said that this was done on Wolf's instruction.
The CYMC's mission lead, who was unnamed in the report, told OIG investigators it was a "blunting feature" included to add balance. That addition "potentially furthered the perception of politicization surrounding the product," the OIG report said.
An internal ombudsman also raised concerns, the report said. "The piece seems to almost avoid the main message that is made explicit in the key judgment — that Russian influence actors are targeting the Democratic candidates in 2020," the ombudsman wrote.
OIG ultimately concluded that Wolf's delays and the addition of "balancing" material risked politicizing the report and the intelligence-gathering process.
Here is Wolf's full statement to Insider
"The recent release of the DHS IG report regarding the quality of an Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) product supports my longstanding position on this matter.
"First, I became aware and was concerned about the deficiencies of this product because of the lack of professional standards and quality control exhibited at the time, as confirmed by I&A employees and validated by a separate audit.
"Second, the conclusion of the report did not find any credible evidence that I directed anyone to change the substance of the report because it 'made President Trump look bad.' In fact, the report found that I had no objection to the substance of the report or its subsequent release.
"And finally, buried in the report is the fact that the grossly false whistleblower complaint against me was withdrawn."
More: Chad Wolf DHS Whistleblower Donald Trump | 2022-05-04T12:00:10Z | www.businessinsider.com | Trump DHS Head Stalled Report on Russia Election Meddling: Watchdog | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-dhs-chief-stalled-intel-report-election-meddling-watchdog-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-dhs-chief-stalled-intel-report-election-meddling-watchdog-2022-5 |
7 signs your quirky company culture might be 'cultish'
Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in "The Dropout."
Tales of corporate cult leaders are a TV genre, with "WeCrashed," "Super Pumped," and "The Dropout."
Amanda Montell's book, "Cultish," says that companies often use cultlike language to build loyalty.
Montell spoke to Insider about signs your company might be "too cultish for comfort."
As much as cults can terrify us with their fringe beliefs and chilling crimes, we are also fascinated by their power. Stories about the rise and fall of cultlike companies have become a cultural obsession recently, with the release of multiple documentaries and television shows about Silicon Valley's most menacing leaders.
But calling an organization a cult is fraught with complexities, said Amanda Montell, the author of the best-selling book, "Cultish: the Language of Fanaticism." In business, some companies straddle the line between creating loyal, close-knit teams and dominating every aspect of their employees' lives.
"We're turning to more secular sites of community, belonging, and identity, and the workplace has become one of those primary sites," Montell told Insider. "But the pandemic has really shown us that it can be problematic. It's not super healthy to derive your entire sense of belonging from your job."
Her book, which was published last summer but recently gained new popularity on TikTok, covers several types of organizations that resemble cults and how they use words to wield power and influence human behavior. The main difference between harmless brands and more nefarious organizations is how they deploy that influence. "Cultish" contends that it's important to spot this type of rhetoric in order to remain in control of our lives and choices.
Montell spoke to Insider about seven characteristics of cultlike companies, so employees can consider whether their organization is harmless or, as she calls it, "too cultish for comfort."
1. Specialized terminology
Orangetheory is a fitness brand considered to have a "cult following."
Orangetheory
Montell's book focuses on the linguistic side of cult behavior, ranging from the most sinister organizations like Jonestown or Scientology to popular fitness brands like Orangetheory that use marketing techniques to create a sense of community and identity.
She said it's common for companies to use a set of specialized terminology like acronyms or abbreviations that only insiders understand. She pointed to language like "holistic, actualization, paradigm shift, and organic," as examples of lofty, transcendent terms that corporations use to create a sense of higher purpose.
Just because your job uses abbreviations for different teams doesn't mean you're in a cult, as long as you can turn it off. What Montell finds eerie is when people are still speaking in corporate jargon when they're off the clock.
"This language can create a sense of 'us versus them,'" Montell said. "You're creating an echo chamber, and maybe you don't feel like you can raise your hand and ask a question like 'What does this mean?'"
2. A culture of silence
Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos.
CNBC/Getty Images
Cults often rely on isolating members from the outside world, Montell said, but while we might think of cults in remote compounds, this indoctrination can happen psychologically. In cultlike companies, higher-ups often discourage dissent, which could leave room for abusing power.
Montell pointed to the example of Theranos, where Elizabeth Holmes aggressively silenced dissent to cover up the fact that she had no actual product. In multiple instances, when C-suite-level executives voiced their concerns about Holmes' misleading claims, they would be fired within weeks.
3. A charismatic leader with unchecked power
Amanda Seyfried in "The Dropout" (left); Elizabeth Holmes (right).
Beth Dubber/Hulu; Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
In the 2020 memoir by Anna Wiener, "Silicon Valley," the phrase "cult of the founder" describes the idea that genius companies come from genius leaders. We are fascinated with the rise and fall of people like Adam Neumann and Elizabeth Holmes, who used their charisma to lead investors and employees astray. In 2022, television and documentaries about WeWork and Theranos have drawn millions of viewers.
Having a leader that embodies the vision of a company can be a marketing jackpot, but that power can also be dangerous if left unchecked.
"When you have a cult-followed figure at the top of an organization, this person has done a really good job of communicating that their business is about something more," she said. When these leaders start to abuse their influence, they might become "too cultish for comfort."
4. Spending all of your time with other people in the company
Miguel McKelvey, left, and Adam Neumann, cofounders of WeWork.
Scott Legato/Getty
At some companies, coworkers become more than colleagues; they're more like family. Montell said this can be a way to justify working longer hours and exploiting employees. If you spend all your time at work or with people from work, this can be another sign your company is "cultish," she argued.
"Do you have other people in your life?" Montell asked. "Are the people closest to you who aren't in the organization telling you you're in a cult? Do you feel like you're in a toxic relationship?"
Montell used WeWork as an example of a place where employees were encouraged to spend extra time in the office to party and drink. WeWork's cofounder Adam Neumann originally envisioned the company as a commune where people would spend their entire lives.
5. Internalizing company values
Hundreds of tech workers gather outside the Amazon Spheres during a climate strike walkout and march in Seattle on September 20, 2019.
There are some companies that take their values and history very seriously, and this can also ring alarm bells. Montell pointed to Amazon, where employees are expected to memorize the 14 leadership principles for a badge that has no currency outside the company. "It truly sounds like something out of the Moonies," she said, referring to the Unification Church, often considered a religious cult.
6. Deriving your identity from work
Adam Neumann, the former CEO of WeWork.
Michael Kovac/Getty Images for WeWork
Montell said many different types of organizations of use cultlike language to create a sense of identity — think of customer-loyalty program at companies like Gap, Sephora, or Starbucks where being an "insider" comes with special benefits.
Many people find companies like Theranos or WeWork fascinating, she said, because they remind us of groups we interact with every day — our workplaces, favorite brands, spiritual spaces, Instagram feeds, fitness studios, and other organizations that aim to create a sense of shared community.
That's not to say identifying with a company's brand makes you a member of a cult. But if one organization's mission, structure, and goals start to take over your whole life, that should be a red flag, Montell said.
7. Ends justify the means
Adam Scott as Mark in "Severance."
Another common red flag for cultlike organizations is the expectation that you'll do things you wouldn't normally do for the good of the organization. Think of the Apple TV thriller, "Severance," where employees get a dangerous medical procedure to show their dedication to the company. In real life, this could be akin to lying or misappropriating funds at the request of your bosses for the "greater good."
"You might find yourself swimming in cognitive dissonance and justifying behavior that makes you feel uncomfortable," she said. "But they make it seem like you're serving a greater purpose."
More: Cult Leaders cult of personality Cult shows | 2022-05-04T12:12:42Z | www.businessinsider.com | 7 Signs Your Quirky Company Culture Might Be 'Cultish' | https://www.businessinsider.com/7-signs-your-quirky-company-culture-cultish-cult-theranos-wework | https://www.businessinsider.com/7-signs-your-quirky-company-culture-cultish-cult-theranos-wework |
Playboy generated $12 million from its NFT drops last year. Its top marketer explains how the 69-year old publisher reinvented itself for the Web3 age, from NFT 'Rabbitars' to AR artist collaborations.
Rachel Webber, Playboy's chief brand officer and president of corporate strategy.
Erik Voake/Getty Images for Playboy
Playboy NFTs brought in more than $12 million in 2021, the company said.
Playboy shared Web3 playbook, using existing IP and collaborating with Web3 artists.
Among its NFTs are $900 rabbit avatars, dubbed "Rabbitars," which sold out rapidly at auction.
Long gone are the days of teenagers ogling provocative Playboy covers at the newsstand.
The magazine-turned-lifestyle brand, which discontinued its print product in 2020, now counts multiple new business lines among its lineup. These include products aimed at sexual wellness and lifestyle apparel, as well as its OnlyFans-rival platform Centerfold.
And, as of last year, NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, have become an increasingly lucrative new unit.
Fans have sprung for Playboy NFTs like those co-created with digital artists Slimesunday and Shantell Martin, aimed at reimagining the magazine's historic collaborations with artists like Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol.
Its most recent NFT drop, released on April 21, featured 42 NFTs priced at $420 of a reimagined 1982 Playboy Sunglasses ad, with $10,000 of the proceeds donated to the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cannabis criminal justice reform. The drop sold out and raised approximately $17,000.
Playboy made over $8 million in "upfront revenue" from its "Rabbitars" NFTs, said its CEO Ben Kohn on an earnings call last year a month after they had dropped. Overall, the company raked in $12 million from NFT sales in 2021, a company representative said via email.
"There's always been a desire to be an owner of the Playboy brand or be a member of the Playboy community," Playboy Chief Brand and Strategy Officer Rachel Webber told Insider.
An early mover among media companies in the NFT space, Webber outlined how Playboy is building on these foundations to transition its iconic 69-year-old brand into the metaverse as part of its ongoing transformation from a legacy adult entertainment company to a direct-to-consumer and digital business.
"It's an opportunity to create these high value and premium new offerings for a community, in the forms and the format that they want to engage in," she added.
Playboy entered Web3 through an established Web3 artist
Webber and her team knew that Web3 communities, such as those involved in NFTs, wanted the next iteration of the internet to be user- rather than corporation-owned, as with Web2's social media giants.
For its first foray into Web3, Playboy released reimagined photos from its archive, created by digital artist Slimesunday. The brand intentionally chose him as he was already part of a strong Web3 community and having served as creative director for Justin Blau, the founder of NFT royalty sharing platform Royal, said Webber.
A post shared by Mike Parisella (@slimesunday)
The NFTs were released on NFT platform Nifty Gateway, which at the time was among the few accepting credit cards, in addition to crypto.
"It was important to us to be speaking directly to the Web3 community as well as to Playboy's existing fan base, that was probably more crypto curious," said Webber.
The company created new products out of existing IP
Webber said Playboy's extensive library of photos and articles, featuring celebrities and work by well-known artists, was an inspiration for several of its NFT projects.
For example, Playboy engaged artist Shantell Martin to reimagine the magazine's 1976 interview with musician David Bowie in the form of three animated NFTs, each depicting a theme from the interview. The drop raised approximately $13,000, according to its listing page, which went towards non-profit media organization GLAAD.
—Shantell Martin (@shantell_martin) June 29, 2021
To create the collection, Webber said her team asked themselves how to take those "raw materials" and turn them into art that is appealing to today's audiences, who want products that live at the "intersection of virtual and physical worlds."
"You see the regenerative nature of this archive, and the opportunities for new products and services that you can build on top of all of this incredible endless set of IP that we have," she said.
Playboy intends to use Web3 tech to solve real business problems rather than backing into 'What are we wanting to do in Web3?'
Webber emphasized that Playboy first considered what business problems it was facing, and then looked into what Web3 technologies could help it achieve its goals. "It's less about backing into, 'what are we wanting to do in Web3?'," she added.
For example, her team wanted to bring the experience of being a Playboy member "into the 21st century."
"If you had the Playboy Club in 1960 that you could step into, what does that mean in 2021?" said Webber. "We saw the opportunity to create a collectibles project that would serve as a key into the benefits and perks of the Playboy lifestyle of 2022 and beyond."
So Playboy released the Rabbitars, a collection of 11,953 generative NFTs. Like the monkey NFTs of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, each Rabbitar was generated by an algorithm that randomly mixed and matched different "traits", like jewelry and fur color.
—PlayboyNFTS (@PlayboyNFTS) January 28, 2022
Owning a Rabbitar gives its holder access to "IRL" perks, like access to Playboy events at Art Basel and NFT.NYC, as well as "URL" ones, such as special "hairdrops" upon visiting a Playboy-hosted party in Decentraland, a browser-based 3D virtual world.
Holders also receive regular "hairdrops" containing content from the Playboy archive, based on each Rabbitar's unique traits. Those with a paintbrush in their Rabbitar, for example, received a photograph of an outtake from a photoshoot with Salvador Dalí.
To further engage with its community digitally, Playboy also allows holders to modify their Rabbitars into new creations, through a program called "Derabbitives".
To capitalize on its early success, Webber continues to see wide potential in Web3 for Playboy in the coming months and years. Ideas for future projects include integrating token-gated access on Centerfold, providing long-term royalties for artist collaborations, and giving its talent community access to blockchain-based tools to reach their fans in new ways.
"Brands today have to really see the Web3 community as creators and builders, as partners," said Webber, who added that the key to Playboy's success in NFTs rested on choosing projects that were authentic to its brand.
"What's authentic to our brand is serving as a platform for artists, is having conversations around a lifestyle of pleasure and leisure. Using a token is a new mechanism to provide access to that," she said.
More: Media Playboy NFT NFTs | 2022-05-04T13:00:36Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Playboy Made $12 Million From NFTs | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-playboy-made-12-million-from-nft-web3-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-playboy-made-12-million-from-nft-web3-2022-5 |
Check out the 17-page pitch deck that Allocate, a startup that lessens the cost of investing in venture capital funds, used to raise $15.3 million
From left to right: Allocate co-founders Hana Yang and Samir Kaji
Samir Kaji and Hana Yang created Allocate to help more investors access venture capital funds.
The company just completed a $15.3 million Series A funding round led by M13.
In six months, Allocate has onboarded more than 200 investors, and has 600 investors on its waitlist.
Samir Kaji and Hana Yang know firsthand how tough it can be for even wealthy investors to build venture capital portfolios.
In jobs managing private equity and venture capital relationships and venture manager diversity at First Republic Bank, they watched individual investors and family offices get blocked from investing with venture capital managers on a regular basis. One reason was high investment minimums, which can range from $1 million to $50 million. Another was the difficulty of vetting these managers.
"To build a great portfolio you have to see the universe of qualified, great managers," said Kaji, who, along with Yang, have worked with over 1,000 venture capital managers over the years. "You have to have the time to diligence these managers which requires a lot of work. You have to be able to access these managers because access requires relationships plus high capital minimums. And then ultimately, you need an easy way to track these investments. The vast majority of the families that we were working with didn't have it. Most individuals are just completely locked out of the sector."
So, in late 2021, Kaji and Yang rolled out Allocate, a digital investment platform that gives family offices and wealth advisors access to top-tier venture funds and co-investments.
The standard minimums through Allocate are just $100,000. The platform aggregates investors' capital into Allocate feeder vehicles, giving venture capital managers the chance to access non-institutional investors without the hassle of sourcing, managing, and administering these allocations.
"We do this by pooling investor demand into a single purpose feeder vehicle that invests in the underlying fund or a set of underlying funds," said Kaji. "Such pooled vehicles are done in accordance with SEC rules on investor counts."
The company just completed a $15.3 million Series A funding round led by M13 with participation from Bedrock, SignalFire, and Intera Capital, and returning investors Tusk Venture Partners, Urban Innovation Fund, Fika Ventures, Anthemis, Basis Set Ventures, and Broadhaven Ventures.
In six months, Allocate has onboarded more than 200 non-institutional investors, and has 600 investors on its waitlist. Those 200 investors have pumped $125 million into venture capital funds through the platform.
Through its latest round of funding, the platform will use the money to hire talent to help vet the waitlist of retail investors, family offices, and wealth managers. Allocate is looking for this talent with the help of referrals, its venture capital talent pool, and recruiters.
The company currently has 17 employees across three departments: engineering, compliance and operations, and sales, said Kaji. Its current team members came from a myriad of companies across technology, venture capital, and financial services: SVB Financial Group, SVB Capital, Hamilton Lane, AngelList, Bowdoin Endowment, iCapital, Fidelity, First Republic Bank, Kauffman Fellows, CircleUp, Gradifi, and Vistaprint.
See the 17-page pitch deck Allocate used to raise over $15 million.
More: Features Private Equity Venture Capital | 2022-05-04T13:43:57Z | www.businessinsider.com | Allocate Raised $15.3 Million Using This 17-Page Pitch Deck | https://www.businessinsider.com/allocate-raised-153-million-using-this-17-page-pitch-deck-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/allocate-raised-153-million-using-this-17-page-pitch-deck-2022-5 |
6 important things employees leaving their companies need to know about severance agreements, according to lawyers
Severance packages are typically offered to employees who are laid off for business reasons.
Employees should make sure these agreements also protect their best interests, lawyers say.
Here's what you need to know about separation agreements.
The labor market has been on a roller coaster in recent years, and with every job change comes more paperwork.
Whether they're laid off or they've quit their jobs for other opportunities, employees are ringing up lawyers with questions about the agreements they sign when they leave one job for the next.
Parsing through the quagmire of legalese in separation agreements can be tough, but it's crucial for employees to understand what they're signing, employment lawyers told Insider. Separation agreements can have lasting consequences on an employee's future job prospects — and on their bank accounts.
"You're at the company's mercy, really, and you need to make sure you're protecting your interests," Alan Lescht, who founded an employment law firm in Washington, DC, said.
Insider spoke with three lawyers about what employees need to know before they sign any separation agreement. The lawyers also shared tips for how to negotiate the best possible contract.
What's the point of a severance agreement?
Companies usually offer severance packages to employees when they're laid off for business reasons, like a company restructuring or mass layoffs. In exchange for severance money, an employee gives up most of their legal rights to sue their former employer down the line. Employees who quit are usually not paid severance.
"It's a transaction to protect the company from future damage or liability — a quid pro quo," Robert Ottinger, an attorney at Ottinger Law, said.
But it's also important for employees to make sure these agreements are two-way streets. The money they're getting should be worth whatever claims they're giving up.
Breaking the terms of a severance agreement can mean having the payment taken back, plus, in rare cases, additional violation fines, Ottinger said.
What's in a severance agreement, and what's negotiable?
Two common provisions in a severance agreement are confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses, according to employment lawyers.
Under a confidentiality provision, employees agree to not disclose sensitive company information or the terms of their severance agreement. This clause usually isn't contentious, though some lawyers may advise including carve outs for an employee to share certain information with their spouse, close family members, or the IRS.
The non-disparagement clause proposed is often one-sided, where the employer wants to prevent the employee from bad-mouthing the company. But employees should push to make the clause mutual, so the company can't say anything disparaging about a former employee.
Some lawyers will also advocate for a neutral reference clause to ensure that the company will be willing to confirm basic information like job title and employment length if a former employee applies for another job, according to Lescht.
What about noncompetes?
Some companies might ask departing employees to sign noncompetition or non-solicitation clauses, which prevent them from seeking a job at a competing firm or reaching out to current clients.
Noncompetes are usually bad for employees, since they can seriously limit a person's job prospects, Ottinger said.
That said, whether or not to take severance in exchange for signing a noncompete can depend on a person's goal, according to Peter Cohen, an employment lawyer at Charlson Bredehoft Cohen & Brown.
"You might be walking away from severance money, but you're also walking away with freedom," Cohen said. "On the other hand, an employee might not mind taking a hiatus for a couple of years or want to pivot into a different line of work."
How much negotiating power do I have?
Whether a severance agreement is negotiable depends on the circumstances of the departure. For instance, if an employee is fired as part of a mass layoff, the company will offer all laid-off employees a predetermined severance, which is typically hard to negotiate, according to Ottinger.
Generally, leverage is key for negotiations, and when there's risk for the company, there's greater leverage for the employee. If an employee thinks they might have a case to bring a wrongful termination claim based on race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or age discrimination, or retaliation for whistleblowing, they can often push for a more favorable separation agreement.
If a company asks that an employee be available and cooperate in the future to help transition their former job to their replacement, for example, that can provide some leverage for negotiation as well, Lescht said.
How much will I get paid?
The severance amount is totally discretionary, and there's no law requiring that it's paid, according to Lescht.
Employees should make sure the agreement clearly states when, how much, and how they'll get paid. It's best to have the severance paid in lump sum than spread out over time, Lescht said. He usually tries to negotiate out of any provisions where severance pay ends once an ex-employee gets a new job.
In industries like tech where compensation includes equity, employees should also be wary of any unvested stock.
"A lot of companies will say all unvested stock is canceled if you leave, so it falls on the lawyer to negotiate to keep those unvested options open for a period of time," Lescht said.
Are there any tax issues I should be aware of?
Severance payments are generally considered W-2 income, which means a certain percentage is withheld, depending on the employee's tax bracket , according to Cohen.
But some employees can negotiate for a portion of their severance to be considered 1099 work, which means taxes won't be withheld, Cohen said.
More: Law Career Severance | 2022-05-04T13:44:09Z | www.businessinsider.com | Severance Agreements: What You Should Know to Negotiate a Good Package | https://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-severance-agreements | https://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-severance-agreements |
How law firm Gunderson Dettmer's deal machine swallowed Silicon Valley
Melia Russell and Jack Newsham
Gunderson Dettmer has done well by throwing the typical Big Law playbook out the window.
Anatoliy Cherkas/Shutterstock; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
No law firm handles as much business for startups as Gunderson Dettmer in Silicon Valley.
Established in 1995, the firm has done well by throwing the Big Law playbook out the window.
Its sole focus on startups and investors makes it a go-to for the who's who of the tech world.
Right away, the founders of Anduril knew they needed a good lawyer.
The five inventors came together in 2017 to develop surveillance systems and attack drones for the defense industry. They knew the business would need a lot of cash to get off the ground, which meant many rounds of funding from outside investors and a complex legal structure.
They had also just watched a board coup at Uber that ousted its founder and chief executive. And one of them, the virtual-reality wunderkind Palmer Luckey, had just been fired from Facebook after it bought his startup, Oculus.
"For all five of us coming to the table, there was a fair amount of paranoia or attention paid to corporate governance and board structure," said Matt Grimm, an Anduril cofounder.
The founders met with a handful of startup lawyers recommended by one of their investors, but they were unimpressed. The lawyers were all cautious types, bristling at the group's ambitions.
So when they landed at the San Francisco office of Gunderson Dettmer, the partner Lou Soto stood out for his moxie. He saw how legal battles elsewhere had left them scarred and presented a menu of options for protecting against dilution and maintaining control of the company through many financings. Unlike the other lawyers, he didn't prescribe the typical corporate structure.
Lou Soto is a partner at Gunderson Dettmer.
"This is going to be fun," Soto told them, according to Grimm.
They hired Soto before even incorporating the business or raising a penny of investment. Five years later, Anduril is worth $4.6 billion and is still a Gunderson client, sending the firm work for its many rounds of funding and a recent spree of business acquisitions.
Gunderson isn't the only law firm that specializes in tech and life sciences. But it is the only law firm with a singular focus on startups and the venture-capital firms that back them. Since its founding in 1995, the firm has quietly taken over the industry, representing more than 2,500 startups.
The firm gives counsel to the who's who of the startup world, with a client roster that includes Plaid, Bolt, Daily Harvest, Harry's, and Flexport. PitchBook has reported that Gunderson's worked on more venture-capital and growth-equity financings for startups than any other firm for the past eight years. It negotiated close to one-fourth of the $643 billion invested worldwide in the tech bull run of 2021.
Gunderson also advises more than two-thirds of venture firms on the Forbes Midas List, a ranking of the biggest names in venture capital. Its clients include venture powerhouses like Andreessen Horowitz and Accel, as well as the famed hedge funds Tiger Global and Coatue.
Gunderson has done well by throwing the Big Law playbook out the window. The firm takes on only corporate work, like crafting stock-option agreements and negotiating deals. It doesn't do any litigation or courtroom disputes. That focus makes Gunderson a go-to for startup founders and investors who want their law firm to understand the industry they're in.
"They have arguably a better lens on market dynamics than anyone," Grimm said.
Though it's clear the firm has been successful, the degree to which remains unknown. Unlike other big law firms, most of which share their revenue with trade publications, Gunderson keeps a tight lid on its finances. Based on an Insider analysis of data from similar firms, its annual revenue likely tops $400 million. Even its junior partners are paid over $1 million a year, two sources told Insider. And it lists 110 partners on its website — all of whom, in another deviation from Big Law norms, have equity, or an ownership stake in the firm.
Gunderson declined to confirm or share any details about its finances.
Interviews with over a dozen lawyers, founders, and venture capitalists reveal how a firm that has bucked Big Law conventions has nonetheless dominated Silicon Valley's legal landscape.
Keeping up with the Gundersons
Historically, startups have turned to the same few law firms for counsel: Cooley, Fenwick & West, Goodwin Procter, Orrick, and Wilson Sonsini.
From the start, Gunderson tried to do things differently.
In 1995, six young lawyers were climbing the ranks at the now defunct law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison when they felt a pull to build something new. In a 2015 talk at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Scott Dettmer described meeting in secret after work around kitchen tables, drafting plans for a firm with an entrepreneurial spirit. They decided they would run through brick walls for clients and advise them from day one all the way to an exit.
The founders set up shop in Menlo Park, California, a tony enclave in Silicon Valley. That put them in position to snatch up clients as the tech industry's center of gravity shifted from the East Coast to the West and the demand for corporate lawyers soared.
The firm rode a tidal wave of investments in internet companies during the dot-com boom, and it hired promising young talent by offering them better pay and perks like foosball tables and snacks. Employees had no need for suits; they wore untucked shirts and slacks to meetings.
"They're living the same ethos that their clients do," said Greg Raiten, who worked at the firm as an associate before becoming a general counsel for tech companies.
The founder flywheel
Since its founding, Gunderson's success has accelerated through a sort of network effect.
Most entrepreneurs come to hire a law firm through a referral from an investor or a fellow founder, said Alda Dennis, a former corporate attorney who's now a partner at Initialized Capital, a venture firm that uses Gunderson as counsel. Gunderson's depth of experience with fund-formation makes it top of mind for VCs.
"Trust is the most important currency in the business," said Soto, who joined Gunderson as a partner from the rival law firm Orrick in 2012. "The funds trust us. The companies trust us because we represent them. I'd say other firms have a harder time demonstrating that."
This loop of referrals also benefits the entrepreneurs, sources said.
Matt Grimm, far right, poses for a portrait with the cofounders of Anduril.
Anduril
Each year Gunderson advises clients on thousands of venture and growth-equity financings representing tens of billions of dollars. The firm tracks its deal flow using software like Snowflake, a data-analytics service, said a startup founder who works with several firms, including Gunderson, and requested anonymity to discuss Gunderson's inner workings.
The firm's technical chops allow it to analyze and compare those deals and make a current recommendation to a client on how much cash to raise, at what valuation, and on what terms.
"When we say, 'Hey, Lou, we're starting to think about a fundraise, what are you seeing in the market about board rights or voting rights?' He's able to say, 'I've literally seen 75 deals in the last three months. Here's what the trend is looking like,'" Grimm said.
Soto said the firm's lawyers often ask questions in email threads and Monday-morning partner meetings to crowdsource their knowledge of market data and deal trends.
The firm also benefits from a powerful alumni network sending it referrals. Many Gunderson lawyers jump to their clients' in-house teams, bringing the Gunderson ethos with them. Its alumni include top lawyers at Accel, Addition, Andreessen Horowitz, Dragoneer, FirstMark, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lux Capital, Paradigm, and Thrive Capital.
Now that the firm is well established, other founders hear of its reputation and reach out cold.
"I've definitely heard from founders that they want to have this patina of legitimacy or approval where they have a strong, reputable firm representing them," Dennis said.
Mary McCann and Ray Lui are the cofounders of Sprinly, a Gunderson client.
Sprinly
That reputation of excellence is known beyond Silicon Valley, said Ray Lui, an entrepreneur who runs a vegan-meal-delivery service, Sprinly, from his hometown of Cleveland. His first thought when finding a law firm was to ask people he trusts who have also founded companies.
His network turned up Gunderson. Lui and his cofounder and wife, Mary McCann, hired the firm more than two years ago to design the company's employee stock-option plan. The couple plan to use the firm to support Sprinly in its first fundraise this year.
Gunderson has tech in its bones
Gunderson says that each year it helps hundreds of entrepreneurs spin up new businesses.
To be sure, most of them fail — sometimes before their lawyers get paid. The firm often defers fees until a startup secures funding, said one early-stage investor who uses Gunderson as counsel. In fewer cases the firm takes company stock instead of cash payment for its services. The same is broadly true of its peers.
In this way, Gunderson is more like the venture capitalists it advises than its peer law firms. It takes on lots of clients, knowing that most of them will stall out but that a rare few will reach such a scale that they hire the firm to execute a merger, acquisition, or initial public offering. A representative for Gunderson declined to answer questions about the firm's billing practices.
"They get in early with the startups, and much like a VC, the ones which grow and continue to use Gunderson services create much more value than the handful where they had to write off the equity/deferred fees," said the early-stage investor, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
Moreover, the trend of venture-backed startups staying private longer means they turn to Gunderson for multiple fundraising rounds, said Adam Sterling, a former Gunderson associate who now leads the UC Berkeley Center for Law and Business. Some clients take their business to a different law firm when they go public.
The similarities go on. Gunderson also touts a venture fund. The firm's partners pool their own money into an investment vehicle called G&H Partners. The venture fund appears on the cap tables of hundreds of tech and life-sciences companies, and its check sizes range from $50,000 to $200,000, a former partner at Gunderson said.
Its lawyers have a line of sight into the hottest startups seeking funding, said Matt Turck, a partner at FirstMark, a venture firm that uses Gunderson as counsel and whose general counsel, Eric Cheung, previously worked as an associate at the firm. "They only make a certain amount of dollars per hour," Turck said, so they invest as a way to "leverage the access they have."
A banner for Snowflake is displayed celebrating the company's IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.
Other firms do this. Cooley lawyers made about $150 million when the firm's client Snowflake went public, according to Bloomberg Law. And Fenwick attorneys pocketed a small fortune after the firm helped take the exercise-bike maker Peloton public, according to a securities filing.
Investing in clients has always been somewhat fraught; some legal-ethics professionals say it can cloud a lawyer's professional judgment and lead to conflicts. That's why firms that do take a stake in clients often take a relatively small one, and often just for part of the fees they charge, with the rest paid in cash, reports suggest. A representative for Gunderson declined to answer questions about the firm's practice of investing in startups.
There are limits to the firm's growth
Law firms can't exactly scale like startups can. Only lawyers — who are trained for three years, then pass a bar exam — can advise on law. Like its peers, Gunderson uses software to help lawyers work more efficiently, but it has stopped short of trying to replace people. (Several startups over the past decade have vowed to disrupt legal services through software. The most famous, Atrium, shut down in 2020 after raising $75.5 million.)
But Gunderson has grown fast. Its lawyer headcount grew by 30% last year — to say nothing of how many paralegals and other professional staff it has added. The firm now counts over 400 lawyers in 10 offices. In 2021 it elected 15 new partners in its largest new-partner class.
Gunderson needs to hire aggressively to keep up with business. PitchBook data indicates that last year the firm worked on roughly 2,050 venture financings for startups representing $165 billion in value, up from the previous year's 1,200 deals valued at $60 billion.
The firm is poised for even more growth. On a recent visit to Gunderson's New York office, the sound of construction echoed through the ceiling.
Even in a hot labor market, Gunderson has attracted many candidates without offering the six-figure signing bonuses and five-digit referral bonuses that other law firms have resorted to.
Steve Baglio, a Gunderson partner who works with startups, said it tries not to "create perverse incentives." Retention remains strong, he said, knocking on the wood table in front of him.
The firm's practice of investing in startups also gives its lawyers a reason to stay, Turck said. "I'm sure it doesn't hurt from a recruiting perspective to know that as you graduate through the ranks at Gunderson you can participate in those deals through the fund."
Such deals benefit the entrepreneurs, too, Grimm said. Gunderson became a shareholder in Anduril as payment for work on three acquisitions the defense startup has made in the past year. Grimm said ownership gives the law firm a "long-term incentive" to do great work.
And it has, Grimm said. He's quick to refer his lawyer, Soto, to other founders.
Grimm said, "I think he's startup counsel for three of my friends' companies."
Have a tip? Contact tech reporter Melia Russell on a nonwork phone using encrypted messaging app Signal or Telegram at +1 (603) 913-3085, email, or Twitter DM. Contact legal reporter Jack Newsham via Signal at 314-971-1627 or via email.
More: Gunderson Dettmer Startups Venture Capital
Big Law | 2022-05-04T14:31:45Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Law Firm Gunderson Dettmer's Deal Machine Swallowed Silicon Valley | https://www.businessinsider.com/gunderson-dettmer-top-startup-law-firm-in-silicon-valley-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/gunderson-dettmer-top-startup-law-firm-in-silicon-valley-2022-5 |
Andrew Warford — the one-time top stock-picker at Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital — is gearing up to launch his own fund
Maverick billionaire founder Lee Ainslie is a member of an elite class of investors known as "Tiger Cubs" because of their ties to Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management.
Andrew Warford left Maverick after 18 years in 2021 to start a family office in Minnesota.
Sources tell Insider Warford is planning to accept outside capital and run his own fund.
Warford, who was the top stock-picker at Maverick, has named his firm Estuary Capital.
A long-time lieutenant of billionaire Lee Ainslie is starting his own firm.
Andrew Warford left Dallas-based Maverick Capital after 18 years in 2021. Sources told Insider at the time that he was starting a family office in Minnesota, where local media reports noted he owned a large lakehouse.
Now, Warford is gearing up to accept outside capital and launch his own hedge fund in Minnesota, several sources familiar with his plans tell Insider. One individual said he had already hired roughly a dozen people to join him.
Warford did not respond to requests for comment and Maverick declined to comment.
The new firm is named Estuary Capital, and already has a website, though it is currently bare of any information beyond the name.
Warford's pedigree is notable as he led the stock-picking committee at the $9 billion Maverick for ten years and owned at least 25% of the "Tiger Cub" hedge fund at the time of his departure. Prior to joining Maverick, Warford worked at fellow "Tiger Cub" Viking Global until Ainslie hired him away to be Maverick's technology sector head in 2003.
Investors' interest in managers who have worked for a so-called "Tiger Cubs," or protegees of Julian Robertson's Tiger Management, has been strong. Mala Gaonkar, a former managing director at Lone Pine, is in the process of setting up her Surgo Capital, while former Viking portfolio managers Divya Nettimi and Jeff Butler are each launching their own funds.
Spinoffs out of Ainslie's fund have not been as common as they've been from shops such as Ole Andreas Halvorsen's Viking, though two former employees — Rishi Renjen and Prashanth Jayaram — have started their own funds in recent years.
More: Hedge Funds Maverick Capital Viking Global | 2022-05-04T14:31:51Z | www.businessinsider.com | Inside Former Maverick Stock Chief Andrew Warford's New Fund | https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-former-maverick-stock-chief-andrew-warfords-new-fund-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-former-maverick-stock-chief-andrew-warfords-new-fund-2022-5 |
The Duchess of Cambridge, left, and the Duchess of Sussex, right.
John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images, Dominic Lipinski/Getty Images
The Metropolitan Police confused Kate Middleton with Meghan Markle in a report on a vigil for Sarah Everard.
The force was heavily criticised for their actions at the vigil in Clapham Common in March 2021.
The blunder was made in an internal document summarising the force's actions that evening.
A Metropolitan Police summary of the force's much-criticised actions at a March 2021 vigil in Clapham Common for Sarah Everard mistakenly referred to an appearance by the "Duchess of Sussex", a copy of the document shows.
A public order event debrief, released under Freedom of Information laws, summarises incidents of note from the evening.
The report says that "the Duchess of Sussex attended the bandstand at approx. 1715. Reported in media."
The vigil had been judged unlawful by the Met, but Dame Cressida Dick, the then-Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, suggested that Middleton's appearance was legal as she was there for work purposes.
The document also noted the event had "significant media interest and political interest that could have an impact" on the Met's representation.
Police detain Patsy Stevenson at a vigil for Sarah Everard in London on March 13, 2021.
Photographs and footage of the Metropolitan Police handcuffing and arresting women attending the vigil at the bandstand, trampling flowers left in memory of Everard, led to widespread condemnation.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said some of the footage left him "deeply concerned".
The report refers to "a large vocal reaction" to the arrest of attendees on the bandstand, adding that "at times some missiles were thrown towards police".
In January, the High Court ruled the force breached the rights of the original organisers by forbidding a socially distanced vigil.
A woman who was arrested at the time said subsequently officers had been contacting her on Tinder.
More: News UK Metropolitan Police Sarah Everard | 2022-05-04T15:11:23Z | www.businessinsider.com | Met Police Confused Kate Middleton With Meghan Markle, Document Shows | https://www.businessinsider.com/met-police-confused-kate-middleton-with-meghan-markle-document-shows-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/met-police-confused-kate-middleton-with-meghan-markle-document-shows-2022-5 |
Bill Gates comments on Elon Musk's Twitter buy
Bill Gates questioned Elon Musk's goals for Twitter, as well as what free speech would look like.
Gates said Musk has a "mind blowing" track record with Tesla and SpaceX.
The Microsoft founder spoke at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit in London.
Bill Gates said he's unsure what Twitter's future will look like under Elon Musk's guidance.
"He actually could make it worse," Gates said at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "That's not his track record. I mean his track record with Tesla and SpaceX is pretty mind blowing at putting together a great team of engineers and taking the people who work in those fields in a less bold way and really showing them up. I kind of doubt that will happen this time, but we should have an open mind and never underestimate Elon."
Last week, Twitter accepted Musk's roughly $44 billion buyout offer. The deal is expected to close within the year, pending approval from shareholders and regulators.
Though the Microsoft founder expressed concern over how Musk may address misinformation on the social media platform, especially considering his emphasis on promoting "free speech." Last week, Musk said that he defines free speech as "that which matches the law."
"How does he feel about something that says vaccines can kill people or that Bill Gates is tracking people?" Gates said. "Is that one of the things he thinks should be spread?"
Experts previously told Insider that Musk's approach to free speech could lead to the further spread of misinformation and hate speech on Twitter.
In April, Musk appeared to mock Gates with a meme of the Microsoft founder alongside a pregnant man emoji. The meme was posted in response to a series of screenshots of texts that appeared to be between the two billionaires. In the messages, Musk confirmed that Gates was shorting Tesla's stock and rejected an offer from Gates to work on a philanthropic opportunity. Musk later said on Twitter that the screenshots were real.
Gates commented on the exchange during his interview with The Journal and said he was unbothered by Musk's apparent jab on Twitter.
"I do not think that shorting Tesla is an indication of your seriousness about climate change," Gates said. "I applaud Tesla's role in battling climate change. I have nothing but positive things to say about Elon. If he makes Twitter worse, I will speak out about that."
More: Elon Musk Bill Gates Twitter Jack Dorsey | 2022-05-04T16:03:05Z | www.businessinsider.com | Bill Gates: Never Underestimate Elon Musk, but He Could Make Twitter 'Worse' | https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-never-underestimate-elon-musk-twitter-moderation-vaccines-free-speech-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-never-underestimate-elon-musk-twitter-moderation-vaccines-free-speech-2022-5 |
'I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud': A strategist at a $5 billion crypto asset manager breaks down how governments are trying to ban bitcoin — and why overlooking the issue could result in the entire crypto industry crumbling
Bitcoin played only a supporting role at Crypto Bahamas compared to other blockchains.
This lack of presence comes as governments and regulators are zoning in on bitcoin.
Speaking at a panel, CoinShares' Meltem Demirors explains the implications for the entire crypto industry.
At the Crypto Bahamas conference, co-hosted by 30-year-old crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried and think tank SALT, attendees and panelists were noticeably quiet on one subject: bitcoin.
Capturing participants' attention instead were topics like crypto regulation, institutional adoption and improving layer one blockchains like solana and ethereum, as well as their corresponding layer two scaling solutions.
This leaves an open question on whether the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is simply reaching maturity in the crypto ecosystem that it inspired, or if its dominance is waning.
Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer of $5 billion crypto asset manager CoinShares, is worried if it's the latter.
Speaking at a panel on the future of bitcoin, Demirors laid out why politicians are zoning in on bitcoin when attention is moving away from the leading cryptocurrency and what this could mean for the entire ecosystem.
"What we're seeing around the world, which is really concerning to me, is using the attack on proof-of-work , and in particular, bitcoin's energy usage, as a way to implement a de facto ban on bitcoin without saying it," she said.
The bitcoin network uses a highly energy-intensive system, known as the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, to validate transactions without the need of a third party. It also makes the network highly secure.
As the bitcoin network is completely decentralized, it doesn't fit easily into the government's existing approaches to dealing with the threats, Demirors said. One "easy way" to attack the network is by focusing on mining, she added.
A number of studies have shown bitcoin's current energy usage will create problems in the fight against climate change. At the same time, innovations are rolling out that will allow bitcoin miners, who validate transactions, to use cleaner sources of energy.
"I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud," Demirors said. "Governments are going to try to ban bitcoin, they're going to try to attack bitcoin because it's really difficult to do otherwise."
There's already been a number of initiatives aimed at overhauling bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism.
In April, the environmental organization Greenpeace and Chris Larsen, chairman and billionaire co-founder of crypto network Ripple, launched a lobbying campaign urging the bitcoin network switch from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake to reduce its energy usage.
For those in the crypto community, the campaign massively oversimplifies how bitcoin works and repeated a number of myths that many have spent years trying to debunk.
Last week, lawmakers in the New York Assembly voted to pass a bill that would freeze the expansion of carbon-based crypto mining operations until the state can complete a comprehensive impact study, according to The Block.
Demirors refers to this recent development as a "massive deal".
Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism is an easy target, because there is no central authority that oversees it. At the same time, other protocols that have made it their selling proposition to say they are greener than bitcoin and are already lobbying lawmakers, Demirors said.
"A lot of the information they're getting is from other protocols lobbying for this," Demirors said.
"I believe there are a lot of actors out there that are intentionally trying to attack bitcoin because there's no CEO," added Elizabeth Stark, co-founder and CEO of Lighting Labs, who was also speaking on the panel.
Non-profit groups like Coin Center have emerged in recent years to fight for decentralized protocols and technologies with no core leadership on policy issues.
Broader implications
If bitcoin and proof-of-work bans are successful, it could have wider implications for the whole crypto community, according to Demirors.
It doesn't stop here. The focus starts with proof-of-work, but it could just as easily shift to proof-of-stake, she added.
"I think the really important thing is for this whole industry to succeed we need bitcoin to succeed, like bitcoin proof of work is the underpinning for everything," Demirors said. "Without bitcoin and bitcoin as a liquidity sink and bitcoin as like the ultimate source of liquidity, none of this exists. So I think it's incredibly short sighted."
Speaking from the conference in the Bahamas, Lightning Labs' Stark said this short-sightedness could create an "arbitrage opportunity" where individuals will leave one location to hubs that will be more friendly to the industry.
Crypto exchange FTX, which is valued at $32 billion, broke ground on its new headquarters in the Bahamas last week as the country rolled out a clearer regulatory framework for crypto firms compared to other locations, such as the US.
"With this moratorium on mining, it's going to bring jobs elsewhere," Stark said. "It's not going to incentivize people to build in this community."
Both Stark and Demirors agreed crypto transcends party lines and it will simply become a case of where does talent move to.
"The goal is it shouldn't be a partisan issue," Stark said. "Decentralized money, and the freedom that comes along with it is something that hopefully we can all agree upon. Now, there may be some legacy institutions or even governments that want to crack down on it, but ultimately we are going to win as a community, because it is the right thing."
More: Investing crypto UK
Meltem Demirors
Lightning network
Elizabeth Stark
Lightning Labs | 2022-05-04T16:03:11Z | www.businessinsider.com | Crypto Crash: Government Bitcoin Ban Could Happen, Meltem DeMirors | https://www.businessinsider.com/government-bitcoin-ban-lighting-network-crypto-crash-outlook-meltem-demirors-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/government-bitcoin-ban-lighting-network-crypto-crash-outlook-meltem-demirors-2022-5 |
From layoffs by conference call to cuts over Zoom, mortgage industry employees are losing jobs by the thousands as rates skyrocket. Here's why startups are bracing for the pain.
Carter Johnson, Alex Nicoll, and Dakin Campbell
Wells Fargo; Samantha Lee
As the Federal Reserve tightens, mortgage rates have spiked at a record pace.
From Wells Fargo to Blend, lenders and mortgage tech startups have laid off employees in recent weeks.
Many tech companies, in particular, face rising rates for the first time.
A cryptic email arrived in the inboxes of Wells Fargo loan processors and managers working in the Des Moines, Iowa metro area on Thursday, April 21. The bank would be holding a meeting at 11 a.m. local time, and attendance was mandatory.
When they dialed into the conference call at the appointed time, the employees learned what so many in the mortgage market have begun to fear: Wells Fargo had eliminated their positions. An executive vice president, Mike Venable, offered a spiel that almost sounded like a recording to one person who was listening.
After about 30 minutes of speaking, Venable ended the call without taking questions. Some employees were told they could take the rest of the day off, logging it in their calendars as a "non-routine event," said the person, who spoke to Insider on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships in the industry. Many would learn that May 12 would be their last workday, according to people briefed on the announcement.
To some, the layoffs weren't a complete surprise, given that Wells Fargo's loan pipeline had begun to dry up.
"I was prepared," said the person. "If I am not getting constant work and my pipeline is slowing down, something is going on."
Not everyone expected the announcement, however — nor was Wells Fargo alone. Last month, Michigan-based Flagstar Bank announced cuts this year affecting 20% of its mortgage staff, or 420 employees. Rocket Mortgage, also based in Michigan, plans to offer voluntary buyouts affecting 8% of the roughly 26,000-strong company.
But traditional lenders may get off easy compared with once-hot mortgage industry startups, which stand to bear the brunt of the pain, industry insiders said. These companies grew headcount to dizzying levels as the pandemic spurred a home-buying boom, and they're suddenly reckoning with an unprecedented surge in mortgage rates and a slowing market.
The once high-flying startup Better has laid off thousands of employees this year, and Blend, another mortgage-related startup, has also made steep cuts as venture capital's expectation of exponential growth confronts the reality of the mortgage cycle.
By comparison, Wells Fargo's layoffs, which affected at least four other Wells Fargo locations, numbered in the hundreds, according to a person familiar with the matter as well as postings on job-search website The Layoff. Wells Fargo had earlier confirmed that layoffs in its home lending operation took place, but declined to comment on the scope of the cuts.
Seasoned industry veterans have come to expect the cyclicality of the credit markets — and the rapid pace at which lenders can grow and shrink. They remember the effect the Global Financial Crisis had on the mortgage industry, which employed nearly half a million people by the end of 2006 but was cut nearly in half by the end of 2009, according to Mortgage Daily, which tracks mortgage-market data.
Those who joined newer, tech-oriented online lenders during the pandemic had never faced a rising rate environment before, and they've been caught off guard by the magnitude and speed of rate rises spurred by a Federal Reserve effort to tame mounting inflation.
From the end of February to the end of April, the average rate for a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage in the US jumped more than 30%, according to weekly survey data from Freddie Mac.
'These are big movements in a very, very big market'
April's spike in rates followed a March rise that had previously shattered the record for four-week rate increases, according to Freddie Mac data.
Although Blend doesn't write home loans, its technology is used by major US lenders from Wells Fargo to U.S. Bank, so its fortunes are tied closely to theirs. Blend's layoffs this spring affected roughly 200 people, many concentrated within Blend's title insurance business.
While Mayopoulos said "the industrial rationale" for the Title365 acquisition was still valid, Blend executives understood at the time that "inevitably volumes will go up and down."
"This wasn't about people being poor performers or not being valued members of the team," Mayopoulos said. "We just didn't have as much business and therefore we couldn't carry as many people."
Coming into this year, the industry had staffed up a lot, and the most recent data shows employment continuing to rise in the sector. Seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the number of people employed as mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers increased more than 8 percent from March 2021 to February 2022.
Companies that went on a hiring spree when the market was favorable are now facing tough decisions.
"We are in a horrible market for mortgage origination," Mike Nierenberg, CEO of New Residential, a mortgage REIT that owns a large mortgage originator Newrez, said on the company's first-quarter earnings call. "It's only going to get worse."
In 2020, the company had been hiring 500 people a month, Nierenberg said, but it now has to adjust to a new market.
"We have made significant cuts," Nierenberg said. "We don't want to be those folks, but we need to get our business right-sized for the current environment and just move forward."
Tech startups, meet rising rates
The layoffs across the industry may be particularly painful for those lured to the mortgage market by the performance of high-flying startups and other tech-oriented companies.
Tech-enabled firms with venture capital backing may have a tougher adjustment to the new climate than traditional lenders, said Nima Wedlake, principal at VC fund Thomvest, who has led the firm's investments in Blend, LoanSnap and Maxwell.
"The venture-backed startup model is a little bit antithetical with the cyclical nature of mortgage or other credit markets," Wedlake said.
Wedlake recently went to a conference mostly attended by smaller and more regional lenders to assess how they were handling rising rates and the inevitable layoffs that are expected to follow. He found that they were prepared for a slower market.
"While they all did exceptionally well in 2020 and 2021, they've all lived through these cycles before, so they were more accepting of the fact that this is the natural course of their industry," he told Insider.
Nonetheless, loan officers at these tech-enabled companies may be in a worse spot compared to well-performing traditional loan officers.
Many tech-enabled startups focus on new workflows that turn a business that was traditionally relationship- and location-based into one that's less personal and more regional for the sake of efficiency. While this may mean larger volume per loan officer, the technology means they may not have the same sort of book of business as a high-performing traditional loan officer.
That may mean there's a silver lining for those mortgage employees who are being laid off from the more traditional lenders.
"There's still an intense war for talent within mortgage for the highest-producing loan officer," Wedlake said. "As the market shifts from refinance-oriented to purchase-oriented, the loan officers with local relationships and their own book of business are even more valuable to a lender."
Rising rates are likely to spur more consolidation in the industry for both tech and legacy companies, as well-funded competitors may see an opportunity to pick up market share, Wedlake said. While it's unclear what impact that will have on broader employment within mortgages, it does bode well for large lenders and the tech names that cater to them.
It's also a good opportunity for real-estate-tech companies to purchase mortgage companies so that they can offer all the services in one spot, such as Redfin's recent acquisition of Bay Equity Home Loans.
A case study in Better.com
Still, layoffs can be traumatic for employees, however well-telegraphed. Online lender Better has been the most visible example of what happens when a market downturn crashes into the lofty ambitions of a mortgage high-flyer.
In December, Better CEO Vishal Garg announced, over Zoom , the first in a series of mass layoffs that has whittled down the company to a shell of its former self. Better continued cutting staff into 2022 in a clumsy series of layoffs. The company did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
For two Better loan officers who left the company at the end of last year, the experience soured them on the mortgage industry as a whole.
One of them had joined Better in the fall of 2020 from the hospitality industry, one of Better's main recruiting pools as it hired 7,000 people during the pandemic. The other joined Better in February of 2021 after a career in sales, attracted to the promise of a well-paying, professional job and long-term stability.
"I truly believed Better would be the company I would be at for a few years at least," the loan officer who joined Better in fall of 2020 said. The loan officer understood that the industry was cyclical in nature, but believed that Better's rapid growth would insulate them from the worst of it.
Both ended up landing at a mortgage company called Lower, also doing business as Homeside Financial, after a short recruiting process that consisted of a single phone call with a recruiter.
They told Insider that dozens of Better employees were hired by Lower to work on their remote lending team.
Neither lasted long. One quit on his first day, after reading the fine print of his contract. The second quit a few weeks into the job, after hearing of some coworkers being let go.
Insider spoke with two other Better employees who went to Lower, only to be let go after working there for roughly a month. Those employees said they were told they were being let go because of market conditions. When one asked whether they were laid off or fired, they said they were told that it was a "layoff due to performance."
A Lower spokesperson told Insider that these former Better employees were not laid off from the company, characterizing them as "involuntary separations" that were "based on individual fulfillment of role requirements." Both of them applied for unemployment categorizing their exits as layoffs, and their unemployment requests are pending.
Three of the four former Lower employees who spoke to Insider have since left the mortgage industry, and two of them plan to never work in it again. The loan officer who joined Better in 2020 described the emotional toll it took, calling the experience "traumatizing."
"After Lower, I halted any and all mortgage jobs that I was looking at," the person said. " I wasn't going to go through that again."
More: Wells Fargo Better.com Layoffs | 2022-05-04T16:03:29Z | www.businessinsider.com | Major Layoffs Hit Mortgage Startups and Traditional Lenders Like Wells Fargo | https://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-layoffs-startups-to-wells-fargo-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-layoffs-startups-to-wells-fargo-2022-5 |
Liz Truss, the UK's foreign secretary, said doing business with Russia was "morally bankrupt."
The UK is banning Russia from accessing its services industry in its latest round of sanctions.
The foreign secretary also took aim at journalists and media operators that help the Kremlin.
"Doing business with Putin's regime is morally bankrupt and helps fund a war machine," she said.
The UK has banned Russia from using British management consulting, accounting, and public-relations services in a new round of sanctions, and taken aim at people who have helped Kremlin spread disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine.
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said on Wednesday the ban would "cut off Russia's access" to the UK's services industry, which is "critical to the Russian economy."
Truss said: "Doing business with Putin's regime is morally bankrupt and helps fund a war machine that is causing untold suffering across Ukraine. Cutting Russia's access to British services will put more pressure on the Kremlin and ultimately help ensure Putin fails in Ukraine."
As well as the services industry, the government has targeted Russian media, following a new UK report exposing the scale of the Kremlin's troll factory operation, which is being run overtly out of St. Petersburg.
The UK also introduced a swathe of new sanctions targeting Russian journalists and operatives from mainstream media organisations.
The journalists Evgeny Poddubny, Alexander Kots, Dmitry Steshin, and "significant individuals" at Channel One are among the 63 people newly coming under restrictions.
The sanctions come shortly after the UK introduced new legislation that requires social media, internet services, and app store companies to take action to block content from two of Russia's major sources of disinformation, RT and Sputnik.
Digital minister Chris Philp said Wednesday: "For too long RT and Sputnik have churned out dangerous nonsense dressed up as serious news to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Experts have long called for more restrictions to be brought in to tackle the "enabler" communities that have been supporting Russian oligarchs. Lawmakers in the UK and US have urged their respective governments to impose a travel ban on certain lawyers.
More: News UK Ukraine Russia Liz Truss | 2022-05-04T16:03:35Z | www.businessinsider.com | UK Bans Russia From Using British Services, Takes Aim at Troll Factory | https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-bans-russia-british-services-kremlin-troll-factory-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-bans-russia-british-services-kremlin-troll-factory-2022-5 |
My Shopify store went viral on TikTok in its first year. Here's how I converted those views to make 6 figures in sales.
Jade Brown.
Courtesy of Sprout Design Lab
Jade Brown is a former Boeing engineer who founded Sprout Design Lab in 2020.
Her business uses TikTok and Instagram to generate sales and relies on holiday-specific content.
Here's how she got started, as told to writer Robin Madell.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jade Brown, the founder of Sprout Design Lab, an online jewelry business based in Charleston, South Carolina. Insider has verified her sales with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I founded Sprout Design Lab, which turns children's artwork into custom jewelry using 3D printing technology, in September 2020 to combine my love for celebrating children's creativity with my passion for engineering design. Sprout is run by a small team of female engineers and sells exclusively online through Shopify. In 2021, we achieved six figures in sales.
I studied mechanical engineering at Duke University and prior to running Sprout, I worked as an engineer at Boeing. I spent three years as a repair engineer on the 787 Dreamliner and two as a design engineer. It was here that I learned the incredible capabilities of 3D printing. Boeing is a big advocate for continued education and they covered the cost of my certificate in additive manufacturing (another word for 3D printing) from MIT, which I completed after work.
I taught myself how to do social-media marketing and still fully run our social-media accounts, including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. All our content is created in-house. Our social media has a very intentional aesthetic, so I'm particular about what gets posted.
I wish I could say there was a secret formula to social-media growth, but everything I've learned has been through trial and error
Some videos have been hits while others haven't. You need to be okay with that failure and ready to almost instantly pivot to the next. Trends come and go so quickly, so I try to actively watch TikTok for the next viral trend or song so that we can immediately create a video using it.
We've been very successful at creating viral videos that lead to large boosts in sales. Our first TikTok video showing what we do received 1.9 million views, and our second 2.8 million.
In mid-April, the media news company Tyla asked if they could compile our TikTok videos into a larger three-minute video and share it. As of today, it's at 1.6 million views.
Sprout's story begins after a last-minute scramble to find a Mother's Day gift
I spent the afternoon taking my young niece to multiple jewelry stores, and with no luck we settled on a handmade card. It was after she finished her drawing the idea suddenly sprouted to turn it into jewelry. Using the design on the card, my at-home 3D printer, and an old necklace chain, Sprout's first masterpiece was created.
In the beginning, I personally funded Sprout using my savings from working as an engineer for more than five years. Because we're a made-to-order business, the upfront costs were not too significant because we didn't need to buy a huge amount of inventory like a traditional jewelry business would.
The driving force of Sprout is the extraordinary stories behind the drawings that we preserve. We've preserved many firsts — like the first time a child drew a heart, a person, or wrote "mom."
We've also sadly preserved many lasts — the last drawing a little boy created before passing away from cancer, or the last "Love, Zack" found in a soldier's letter to his family before being killed in Afghanistan. We also recently launched our custom pawprint necklaces for dog moms.
As soon as our first video began to go viral, we saw a huge spike in visits to our Shopify website
A necklace by Sprout Design Lab.
Our first viral TikTok video started with a child's doodle on a refrigerator. It then showed the doodle being designed in 3D on a computer, the 3D printer at work, and finally the finished necklace.
We knew that in order for these visits to translate into sales we had to capture the customer's contact information for future retargeting. We quickly added a welcome popup to our website offering 10% off their first order if they entered their email address. Our mailing list now has more than 50,000 addresses.
Our videos going viral meant that not only do we capture the attention of new potential customers but we also have influencers with large followings find us — a couple include Savannah LaBrant, who has 6.9 million followers, and Eva Chen, who has 2 million followers. For a select few, we create custom necklaces, and they in turn share our business with their followers.
I believe our videos go viral because of our unique idea. When people find a cool product they tend to want to share it, so a large majority of our comments are tags, which in turn creates another view and follower.
We're strategic about creating content that aligns with the upcoming holidays
A month before Mother's Day, our videos primarily highlight children's drawings of mom and handwritten "mommy" jewelry, and Valentine's Day is focused on heart designs and handwritten "I love you's."
During Christmas last year, we focused on gift ideas for grandmothers — and the Instagram reel performed well.
All of our videos use rapid transitions. Our rule of thumb is to create a transition in the first three seconds. Your viewer is more likely to keep watching if the content continues to change. We frequently create short videos showing the original drawing, we snap, and then the final necklace is revealed.
More: Jewelry Small Business SMB | 2022-05-04T16:46:44Z | www.businessinsider.com | How I Turn Viral TikToks Into Sales for My Shopify Business | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-use-tiktok-sales-shopify-jewelry-business-sprout-design-lab-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-use-tiktok-sales-shopify-jewelry-business-sprout-design-lab-2022-5 |
A 35-year market veteran who runs a fast-growing income ETF for JP Morgan Asset Management shares his 5 top stocks in the fund — and what separates them from peers
Hamilton Reiner runs a pair of income-focused funds for JP Morgan Asset Management.
Hamilton Reiner, JP Morgan Asset Management
Income investing is becoming increasingly popular with uncertainty and volatility elevated.
Reiner shared five top stocks in his income ETF — and the strategy that's helped him outperform.
Uncertainty is inherent when investing, but Hamilton Reiner of JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) believes that today's market is especially unpredictable.
Just look at the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), said Reiner, a 35-year market veteran who's JPMAM's head of US equity derivatives and a fund manager for the firm.
The VIX is often called the market's fear gauge, but that moniker is inaccurate, Reiner told Insider in a recent interview, adding that it's really a measure of volatility and uncertainty. Regardless, the index has roughly doubled in the past six months, and it's not difficult to figure out why, Reiner said.
A litany of risks are weighing on stocks right now, including the Russia-Ukraine war, the trajectory of sky-high inflation, the resilience of profit margins, the next steps an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve will take, upcoming midterm elections in the US, and the possibility of a conflict between China and Taiwan.
But despite the market's murky outlook, Reiner said he's "cautiously optimistic" on stocks. His base case is that in the coming months the VIX will slide and stocks will rise as uncertainties get resolved.
"When I think about three months from now or three to six months from now, I think the market's going to be higher for a few reasons," Reiner told Insider. "The market's pricing in no good news, and confidence is low. The amount of bulls in the marketplace are low. And so you get a hint of good news — I think the market's going to get a little bit more of its buzz underneath us."
Income is the antidote for uncertainty
Scoring gains in the stock market right now is far tougher than it was in 2021 — a year in which the S&P 500 rose nearly 27% and had just one 5% pullback. But Reiner is confident that there's a time-tested strategy for navigating volatility and uncertainty: income investing.
All investors should take an interest in assets that generate reliable, consistent cash payments, Reiner said — not just baby boomers and retirees.
"It's that shirt in your closet or that sweater in your closet that never goes out of style," Reiner said. "It's not like that ugly sweater that was in style in the '80s and your kids laugh at you now for still having it. Income is always an important part of people's portfolios."
Reiner runs a pair of funds focused on income generation: the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) and the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income Fund (JEPIX). The former, an exchange-traded fund (ETF), and the latter, a mutual fund, have topped their category and index benchmarks this year, according to Morningstar. Each fund has a 7% annual yield, which crushes the 3% yield of the 10-year US Treasury Note.
Both income-oriented funds have the same strategy: 85% of assets are in a long-only portfolio of stocks, and the remaining 15% is in equity-linked notes that provide equity exposure and short options, Reiner said. The latter strategy involves call overwriting, which is where an investor sells a call option and makes a quick buck from the buyer but risks missing out on a much bigger gain if that stock rallies by a certain amount in a predetermined period.
When done effectively, call overwriting makes sense for two main reasons, Reiner said: It generates income while reducing volatility in a portfolio, and distributing income gained from selling calls as equity-linked notes is beneficial for tax purposes.
Contrary to what some investors believe, high returns aren't everything. By taking on less risk, Reiner can improve the Sharpe ratio — or risk-adjusted returns — for his funds, which is ultimately his goal as a portfolio manager. He acknowledged that such a strategy may cause his funds to underperform their benchmarks. But so far this year that hasn't occurred..
"If you have a third less volatility — a third less beta — than the benchmark, you're expected to underperform," Reiner said. "Anyone who can tell you they outperform the benchmark with 35% or 40% less volatility in beta is not telling you the truth."
Reiner's strategy appears to be resonating with investors, potentially because spiking inflation has eroded investors' savings while sparking a broad selloff in stocks. His income ETF is the fastest-growing actively managed equity ETF in the past month, as of May 2, according to JPMAM, which cited Bloomberg data. The firm also said that the fund has accumulated $8 billion in assets under management since its launch in mid-May 2020.
5 top stocks in JPMAM's income funds
Though call overwriting is a key differentiator for Reiner's funds, stocks are still the bedrock of both the ETF and the mutual fund that he manages. Instead of handpicking the stocks, Reiner said that fellow JPMAM portfolio manager Raffaele Zingone selects companies for the funds.
Five of the ETF's biggest holdings are as follows, Reiner said: Alphabet (GOOGL), United HealthGroup, (UNH), Microsoft, (MSFT), Coca-Cola (KO), and Accenture (ACN).
To make the cut into his income ETF, Reiner said that stocks must have the following traits: well-established businesses, attractively priced valuations, low earnings volatility from tight earnings expectations, low volatility as measured by beta, and the ability to hold up in selloffs.
Once stocks with those attributes are selected, Reiner said that the next step to successfully building a portfolio is by diversifying. There are about 100 stocks in JPMAM's income ETF, Reiner said, adding that no company has more than a 2% weighting and that no sector has more than 17.5% of assets allocated to it. That reduces portfolio volatility, Reiner said.
Interestingly, Reiner said that when building JPMAM's income-focused ETF, he and Zingone don't chase dividends. Stocks that sport lofty dividend yields seem like obvious picks in a fund like Reiner's, but the portfolio manager said that such names can be volatile and unpredictable.
"When the market goes down, we want to like — or even love — all the names that are secured in our portfolio," Reiner said. "Not say, 'Well, we own it just because it has a dividend.'"
More: Investing Income income investing
how to invest for income
volatility investing
Hamilton Reiner
Hamilton Reiner JP Morgan Asset Management
jpmam | 2022-05-04T16:46:50Z | www.businessinsider.com | Income Investing: 5 Top Stocks in a Market-Beating JPMorgan Fund | https://www.businessinsider.com/income-investing-strategy-stocks-to-buy-jpmorgan-asset-management-reiner-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/income-investing-strategy-stocks-to-buy-jpmorgan-asset-management-reiner-2022-5 |
Millennium just snagged a top volatility trader from Barclays to run a new team
Bradley Saacks and Alex Morrell
Israel Englander, Chairman and CEO, Millennium Partners
Phil McCarten/Reuters
Izzy Englander's Millennium has hired a head trader from Barclays to start a new team.
The fund has hired Pankaj Khandelwal, previously the head of index volatility at Barclays.
Hedge funds have poached a slew of vol traders from investment banks in recent years.
Millennium has hired a head volatility trader from Barclays to lead a new team at the $53.5 billion fund — the latest in an exodus of derivatives traders to the buy side in recent years.
Pankaj Khandelwal, the head of US index volatility, resigned from the bank to join Millennium, according to people familiar with the matter.
Khandelwal started as a trader at Lehman Brothers in 2006 and has been at Barclays since it absorbed Lehman during the financial crisis. He served on the CBOE's board of directors for nearly three years as well, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Millennium and Barclays declined to comment, and Khandelwal did not return requests for comment.
Flow volatility has been a reliable moneymaker for Barclays over the years, typically producing more than $400 million in trading revenues annually. During 2020, a record year for volatility trading across the street, US flow volatility generated around $750 million for the bank, and last year it brought in about $450 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Volatility has also been an enormously popular strategy at hedge funds in recent years. Buy-side firms like Millennium, Citadel, and Jane Street in 2021 poached a slew of derivatives traders, primarily from Wall Street investment banks that produced bumper trading profits the prior year.
Khandelwal is following the footsteps of former Barclays colleague Michael Hosana, a corporate derivatives trader who defected to Millennium last year. Top traders from banks like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America have also left in recent years to join hedge funds like Citadel, Balyasny, and Brevan Howard, among others.
Some of Millennium's top producers in recent years have been former sell-side traders, such as former Goldman portfolio manager Glenn Scheinberg's index-rebalancing strategy that has made billions in profits.
Millennium — which has hundreds of different portfolio management teams known as pods — was up 5.7% in April, according to Hedge Fund Alert; it's unclear what the firm's year-to-date performance has been.
In 2021, the massive multi-strategy manager returned 13.5% and had one of the firm's best years in decades in 2020 when it made 25.9%.
NOW WATCH: WATCH: Executives from Morgan Stanley, Citi, and Barclays explain how they encourage innovation within big, unwieldy banks
More: Millennium Barclays | 2022-05-04T16:47:02Z | www.businessinsider.com | Millennium Hires Head Vol Trader Pankaj Khandelwal From Barclays | https://www.businessinsider.com/millennium-hires-head-vol-trader-pankaj-khandelwal-from-barclays-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/millennium-hires-head-vol-trader-pankaj-khandelwal-from-barclays-2022-5 |
How Netflix staged its comedy festival featuring Dave Chappelle, who was tackled during a Tuesday show midway through the massive 11-day event
Dave Chappelle performed four shows at the Hollywood Bowl, including one April 28, as part of the Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival.
Dave Chappelle was rushed and tackled by a man during a Netflix Is A Joke festival performance.
Netflix's 11-day comedy fest features standup from Kevin Hart, Gabriel Iglesias, Amy Schumer, and more.
Netflix Is A Joke will host 250,000 attendees as the streamer seeks new fan touchpoints amid subscriber losses.
During a Tuesday night performance at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl, Dave Chappelle was rushed and tackled on stage by a man carrying what police said was a replica gun with a knife, according to a Los Angeles Times report. Chappelle was unhurt and his assailant was booked on assault charges but the incident, coming just a few weeks after Will Smith's shocking slap to Chris Rock during the Oscar ceremony, stunned the crowd and cast a brief pall on Netflix Is a Joke: The Festival — the massive 11-day comedy-palooza that the streamer has been planning for months.
Tuesday was the final show of a four-night festival stand for Chappelle, who came under fire last fall after his special "The Closer" featured transphobic material that angered audiences and Netflix employees. In spite of the controversy, his shows mostly sold out in advance. "Our members love Dave," said Netflix vp of standup and comedy formats Robbie Praw a few days before the festival's April 28 opening. "We're thrilled that he's taking part."
Asked about security concerns in light of both the Oscars' episode and previous protests about Chappelle's material, Praw told Insider, "Just like any event, safety is always a top priority."
Security was just one of many challenges the streamer faced in planning its ambitious fest, with more than 280 shows across 35 LA venues featuring well over 300 performers — Gabriel Iglesias at Dodger Stadium! Wanda Sykes at the Orpheum! John Mulaney at The Forum! Kevin Hart at Crypto.com Arena!
Even for LA, a city known for its ubiquitous standup, the 250,000-strong crowd Netflix expected to draw through May 8 is massive — and the event, originally planned for April 2020 but delayed by the pandemic, lands at a critical moment for the streamer.
On April 19, Netflix revealed it lost subscribers for the first time in a decade and that it expects the trend to continue. Amid talk of cost-cutting, the streamer laid off marketing staff, gave up exclusive rights to onetime top-performing series "Schitt's Creek," and scrapped development on a Meghan Markle-created kids show.
With Netflix Is A Joke, the streamer has the opportunity to prove that, in spite of the challenges, its cultural relevance is vital and growing.
Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday's show.
'A strategic showcase' for Netflix's comedy power
Netflix Is A Joke "is both a celebration for our fans," Netflix head of comedy Tracey Pakosta told Insider in a statement a few days ahead of the festival, "and a strategic showcase for all the great work we're producing across our comedy portfolio."
Netflix has been investing in standup since it first began producing original programming in 2013. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos is a noted comedy fan and the streamer has released dozens of specials from established and rising stars including Bo Burnham, Amy Schumer, and Hannah Gadsby, as well as comedian-driven scripted series and interview shows like David Letterman's "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction."
Free outdoor programming during Netflix is a Joke: The Festival included WeHo Drag Brunch on May 1.
The Netflix Is A Joke brand began popping up on billboards in 2017. It now has a Twitter account, a SiriusXM channel, and a YouTube channel with nearly 3 million followers where Arsenio Hall is hosting a talk show during the fest and where the streamer is adding fest clips daily to its already robust collection of free content.
With the festival, Netflix is adding IRL to the mix — part of a broader effort to engage fans beyond the streaming screen that include the immersive event The Queen's Ball: A Bridgerton Experience and similar offerings based on "Money Heist" and "Army of the Dead."
"This is unprecedented," said Brian Volk-Weiss, who produces stand-up specials for Netflix and other distributors via his company Comedy Dynamics. And he was only talking about the festival itself. Consider the dozen or so shows that Netflix is filming so that it can later stream them to its 222 million subscribers, and "the logistics alone are absolutely staggering," Volk-Weiss added.
Along with all the ticketed events, Netflix is hosting free outdoor festivities outside the Palladium during the fest's two weekends, with a "Bridgerton"- and "Emily in Paris"-themed mini golf course, a Museum of Comedy featuring the leopard-spotted dress Ali Wong wore while pregnant to perform her "Baby Cobra" special, an inflatable obstacle course based on the animated comedy "Human Resources," and comedians like Janelle James and Joel Kim Booster dropping in for quick sets at the outdoor stage.
'Funny people like being around other funny people'
Though it sounds like a scheduling nightmare to book more than 330 comedians, Praw said getting the talent on board was one of the easiest parts.
"Funny people like being around other funny people," he said, explaining that many comedians worked festival dates into their existing touring calendars. The bigger challenge was managing the logistics — including COVID safety protocols — at multiple major venues in a busy city like LA. Netflix brought Live Nation on board to help.
Jay Pharoah surprised the audience with an April 30 appearance at Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival's free outdoor stage.
During the fest's closing weekend, Iglesias will become the first standup to perform at Dodger Stadium. "I've been going there since I was a kid," the comic told Drew Barrymore a week before he was set to take the stage for back-to-back shows. "It's the biggest thing I've ever done and it's at home."
Iglesias' set is one that Netflix plans to capture for its subscribers — given that the stadium seats 56,000, it'll be the streamer's largest comedy taping ever.
With its mix of marquee talents and emerging acts, the festival is a way for Netflix to embed itself with the comedy community as well as boost the profile of comedians likely to appear on the streamer's future programming lineup.
"A huge goal of ours is for people to leave this event with a new — if not favorite comic — one of their new favorite comics," said Praw. "That's something that our members really enjoy."
Major live events can also bring revenue as subscriber growth slows. In addition to an ad-supported tier for its service — which co-CEO Reed Hastings hinted would happen in the next year or two — experiences and merchandise are new touchpoints for audiences to spend money with Netflix.
For the comedy community, the impact is more straightforward. "Hopefully 30% of the people that go to this festival were taken there by someone else who's already a fan of standup comedy," said Volk-Weiss. For every 100,000 attendees, he added, "that's 30,000 new standup comedy fans."
More: Netflix Netflix Is A Joke Streaming wars | 2022-05-04T16:47:08Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Netflix Staged Comedy Fest With Chappelle, Who Was Tackled on Stage | https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-is-joke-comedy-festival-chappelle-controversy-subscriber-loss-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-is-joke-comedy-festival-chappelle-controversy-subscriber-loss-2022-5 |
Pair Eyewear cofounder shares her tips for getting on 'Shark Tank' and raising millions from investors like the D'Amelios and D'Angelo Russell
Nathan Kondamuri and Sophia Edelstein cofounded Pair Eyewear in 2018.
courtesy of Pair
Sophia Edelstein and Nathan Kondamuri launched Pair Eyewear as a children's-glasses startup in 2018.
In 2020 they appeared on "Shark Tank" and landed a deal with Lori Greiner and Katrina Lake.
Edelstein shared her advice for finding the right investors and strategic partnerships.
Nathan Kondamuri grew up wearing glasses. But no matter how many years went by or how many life transformations he went through, his glasses style remained the same.
As a freshman studying mechanical engineering at Stanford, he met Sophia Edelstein, a fellow freshman and biology major who sympathized with his frustration. Edelstein said the high price of glasses — often costing hundreds of dollars — hindered their self-expression.
"The average American won't be able to afford to have three or four different pairs," she said. "The two of us became so obsessed with solving this problem."
The duo launched Pair Eyewear as a children's-glasses company in 2018. Two years later they appeared on "Shark Tank," where they agreed to give 10% equity in exchange for $400,000 from Lori Greiner and the guest judge Katrina Lake, the CEO of Stitch Fix. The cofounders also settled on a royalty structure of $1.50 per pair of glasses until the investors recoup their investment.
Pair Eyewear says that since then it's experienced 10x year-over-year growth in revenue and raised a total of $72 million from investors like the NBA player D'Angelo Russell, the actor Sterling Brown, and the TikTok stars Charli and Dixie D'Amelio.
Edelstein shared her best tips for founders looking to raise funding and leverage partnerships to accelerate growth.
Preparing for 'Shark Tank' was a long process
The cofounders on "Shark Tank."
As founders of a children's-eyewear company at the time, Edelstein and Kondamuri hoped the show would connect them with family audiences.
"We did a lot of preparing," Edelstein said. "We watched every episode of 'Shark Tank' that exists and wrote a list of every question we heard a judge ask contestants."
Her biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs interested in going on the show is to have a bulletproof business model. Additionally, they should be able to defend and understand the business fundamentals, unit economics, marketing strategy, and plans to build a profitable or rapidly growing company.
"We knew we were ready because we had seen the product-market fit in real life and were very confident in our business model," Edelstein said.
The show attracted investors, generated customers, and started discussions
Pair also makes frames for adults.
While their episode ended in a deal from two sharks, the show also increased brand awareness among families, just as they had hoped, Edelstein said.
Edelstein said her strategy when introducing the brand on-air began with telling a story, followed by explaining the company's current and predicted market size. She added that those strategies are key for any entrepreneur trying to raise funding.
"Start off by creating a story that allows investors or 'Shark Tank' judges to understand what need you're serving," she said. "Once people understand the need, they can start understanding the solution."
She said that after the episode aired, the cofounders saw an increase in customers purchasing products, engaging with the brand, and reaching out with requests. The discussions encouraged Edelstein and Kondamuri to expand their product offering to a new consumer base: adults.
Finding the right investors and partnerships
A post shared by Pair Eyewear (@paireyewear)
Since the show, Pair has partnered with several investors and collaborators to grow the company and with brands like "Harry Potter" and the NBA to license designs and collections.
But Edelstein said that choosing the right investors is something founders don't focus on enough.
"You need to find people who are going to be good mentors for you," she said, adding that the best investors know how to help when something goes wrong and can connect you with advantageous networks and resources. "From there you can really start building those relationships and engage with people who are passionate about what you're doing."
More: Founder Investment Investing advice | 2022-05-04T16:47:14Z | www.businessinsider.com | Pair Eyewear Cofounder on 'Shark Tank' and Finding the Right Investor | https://www.businessinsider.com/pair-eyewear-shark-tank-right-investor-for-your-business-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/pair-eyewear-shark-tank-right-investor-for-your-business-2022-5 |
The 35 best 'Star Wars'-themed gifts to celebrate May the 4th
By Steven Cohen, Maliah West, Connie Chen, and Remi Rosmarin
"Star Wars" remains one of the most popular movie franchises of all time, and there are plenty of great gifts for fans, from Lego sets to apparel.
CraftyLittleCactus/Etsy; Williams Sonoma
The "Star Wars" movie franchise has been going strong for over 40 years and has become a universe that extends far beyond the films themselves. There are "Star Wars" video games, comic books, and even theme park attractions. People of all generations count themselves as part of the fictional fandom.
With its epic storylines, enticing visuals, and memorable characters, it's no wonder the "Star Wars" has amassed such a huge fanbase. And if one of your friends or family members is a superfan, you're in luck. So many retailers sell "Star Wars"-themed products that will make perfect gifts for your favorite "Star Wars" lover.
We rounded up 33 of our favorite "Star Wars" gifts below. These gifts run the gamut from kitchen goods and clothes to home decor and books, so whether it's your "Star Wars" fan's birthday or May the Fourth, you're sure to find the perfect gift below.
The 33 best "Star Wars" gifts:
A vintage-style t-shirt that feels timeless
Star Wars "May The Force Be With You" T-Shirt, $17, available at Old Navy
You can never go wrong with gifting a great t-shirt. This vintage-looking one pays homage to one of the franchise's most iconic quotes and will look great on anyone.
If you want something warmer, Old Navy also carries similarly styled "Star Wars" sweatshirts.
A plant holder from the dark side
CraftyLittleCactus/Etsy
Concrete Darth Vader Air Plant Holder, from $17.67, available at Etsy
Spruce up their space with this adorably miniature Darth Vader plant holder. It's the perfect vessel for housing an air plant, which is super easy to care for.
A cozy pair of slippers
Chewbacca 3D Plush Slippers, from $37.99, available at Amazon
Who wouldn't want to keep their toes cozy in these soft, plush slippers adorned with Chewie himself?!
An R2-D2 popcorn maker
Star Wars R2D2 Popcorn Maker, $99.95, available at Williams Sonoma
A big bowl of popcorn is the perfect snack for a "Star Wars" movie marathon. This popcorn maker looks just like the series' favorite droid.
Baby Yoda inspired ice molds
Star Wars The Child Ice Molds, Set of 2, $24.95, available at Williams Sonoma
Any "Star Wars"-themed dinner or birthday party will be made complete with this set of ice molds shaped just like the beloved child. Plop one in a cup of water, juice, or a special cocktail to add some "Star Wars" spice to any beverage.
A Lego set that lets you build your own Millennium Falcon
Lego "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" Millennium Falcon Kit (75257), $128, available at Amazon
Lego "Star Wars" Ultimate Millennium Falcon Expert Kit (75192), $799.95, available at Walmart
Thanks to Lego, "Star Wars" fans can build their very own Millennium Falcon. The ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs is available in a couple of different kits at different price points, with varying degrees of difficulty and detail.
This "Rise of Skywalker" set features 1,351 pieces and is recommended for ages 9 and up. It's not the biggest or most intricate model that Lego offers, but it comes in at a reasonable $129 and is an ideal gift for younger fans.
Meanwhile, if you're looking to give someone the ultimate Lego "Star Wars" gift this year, look no further than this massive 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon kit for experts. This set is larger and much more detailed, but it's also a lot more expensive and hard to come by. The package carries a retail price of $800, but due to high demand, it often sells for over $1,000.
A funky print of R2-D2
"Keep Calm and Droid On" Framed Art Print, from $43.34, available at Society6
This fun print places R2-D2 in a modern background and is part of a Society6 and "Star Wars" collaboration. The print comes framed and can be customized with eight different frame finishes and is also available in six sizes.
A parent-child duo of Darth Vader aprons
"Star Wars" Darth Vader and Stormtrooper Adult and Kid Aprons, $39.95, available at Williams Sonoma
This Williams-Sonoma exclusive apron set will bring double the "Star Wars" fun into your kitchen. Choose from Darth Vader or Stormtrooper designs based on your character preferences.
A 4K Blu-ray collection with all 9 'Star Wars' episodes
Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Collection, $159.99, available at Best Buy
Sure, a Disney Plus subscription is the cheapest way to get access to every "Star Wars" movie, but for fans who want to own the films in the very best quality, there's no substitute for this beautiful 4K Blu-ray set. You'll need a 4K Blu-ray player to watch the 4K discs, but regular Blu-ray copies are also included.
The handsome package comes with every "Star Wars" movie from the "Skywalker Saga." That means you'll get episodes one through nine, but you won't get any of the spin-off movies, like "Rogue One" or "Solo." Each movie is presented in 4K resolution with high dynamic range (HDR) and Dolby Atmos for the best video and audio experience currently available.
The disc set is a perfect gift for people who prefer to own physical copies of movies, and the package even includes a digital redemption code so you can unlock a streaming version of each film as well.
A Hawaiian-print shirt with a subtle "Star Wars" nod
Men's Novelty Button-Down Shirt, $23.19, available at Kohl's
With prints for pretty much every big fandom like Disney and Marvel, this shirt in the "Peacoat" print features R2-D2 peeking out from vibrant tropical flowers.
A mug that perfectly depicts 'the dark side'
Society6/Insider
"Dark Side" Coffee Mug, from $14.25, available at Society6
Another fun product from the Society6 and "Star Wars" collection is this double-sided mug that pinpoints "the dark side" in a colorful Venn diagram and is sure to become a mug they use every morning.
A festive card that doubles as a keepsake
Amazon/Insider
Lovepop Pop Up Card, $15, available at Amazon
No matter the occasion, they'll appreciate this pop-up card that depicts iconic scenes from the series. The card comes with a blank note that you can write special messages on.
A decked-out pair of comfy Crocs
Disney's Mandalorian Pack, $66.98, available at Crocs
This pack comes with a set of black Crocs and five "Mandalorian"-themed charms, from Baby Yoda to a Mandalorian's helmet. If your gift recipient already has a pair of Crocs, you can also buy the pack of charms separately or get an individual "Star Wars" charm.
Pancake molds in the shape of their favorite character
Williams Sonoma/Business Insider
"Star Wars" Pancake Molds, Set of 4, $19.95, available at Williams Sonoma
Pancakes taste way more delicious in the form of Yoda and R2-D2. The hassle-free silicone molds make it difficult to mess up your recipient's "Star Wars"-themed breakfast.
Loungewear featuring intergalactic dance party prints
"Star Wars" Disco Collection, from $68, available at MeUndies
MeUndies' limited-edition collection, available for its underwear, onesies, and lounge pants, comes in three funky, dance-worthy "Star Wars" prints of Ewoks, lightsabers, and stormtroopers. MeUndies also has a collection inspired by Baby Yoda, and we love its soft and stretchy micromodal underwear so much.
A classic board game set in a new galaxy
Monopoly: "Star Wars" Complete Saga Edition Board Game, $29.92, available at Amazon
With its "Star Wars" setting and theme, this board game will give them the opportunity to share their love of the franchise with both family and friends. The game includes references to all three trilogies.
A supersized Mandalorian figure
Chrome Mandalorian with The Child Vinyl Action Figure, $34.98, available at Amazon
This collectible is three times the size of normal-sized Pop! figures, making it a great gift for those that love the Mandalorian and The Child.
A cookbook filled with intergalactic recipes
Target/Insider
"Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Cookbook" by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel & Marc Sumerak, $16.34, available at Target
If they love to cook as much as they love the "Star Wars" series, they'll love this themed cookbook that takes inspiration from recipes served at the "Star Wars" theme park at Disneyworld. The cookbook includes fun recipes such as spicy Mandalorian stew, nerf kebabs, Huttese slime pods, and more.
A slim, protective phone case
"Star Wars" iPhone Story Case, from $31.46, available at OtterBox
OtterBox's rugged phone cases have strong drop protection but aren't excessively bulky. The cases are an easy and practical way to express their love for "Star Wars."
A plush toy inspired by the franchise's cutest member
shopDisney/Business Insider
The Child Plush, $23.88, available at Walmart
The Child (more commonly known as Baby Yoda) has charmed the hearts of "The Mandalorian" fans and beyond. For more Baby Yoda-inspired gifts, check out our gift guide that's entirely devoted to The Child.
The cheese board you bring out for all viewing parties
"Star Wars" Death Star Cheese Board & Tool Set by Picnic Time, $44.95, available at Amazon
Everything falls perfectly into place in this cheese board you'll want to bring out for your "Star Wars" marathon.
The best running shoes for space missions
Adidas Ultraboost 19 "Star Wars" Shoes, from $125, available at GOAT
Adidas' famous Ultraboosts get the "Star Wars" treatment. Like the other shoes in the line, this pair features a second-skin fit, stretchy and supportive comfort, and a bouncy, responsive midsole. Learn more about the Adidas and "Star Wars" collaboration here.
A tribute to the illustrator behind the iconic worlds and characters of Star Wars
"Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie," $133.30, available at Amazon
Dive into the fascinating artistic process of creating the "Star Wars" universe. The never-before-seen illustrations and interviews paint the picture of the hard work of designer Ralph McQuarrie.
A spatula with the face of an iconic villain
"Star Wars" Flexible Spatula, Darth Vader, $19.95, available at Williams-Sonoma
Keep your food from going over to the dark side (by burning, of course) with this Darth Vader spatula. Stormtrooper, Chewbacca, and R2D2 are also available.
Buy a Disney Plus gift subscription for $79.99 a year
It gives them unlimited access to movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, "Star Wars," National Geographic, and 20th Century Fox, and costs just $79.99 a year. "Star Wars" fans in particular can enjoy new big-budget shows in 4K quality, along with iconic classics. Read everything there is to know about Disney Plus over here.
And if you need some binge-spiration, here are all the new movies available to stream.
FancyMatsCo/Etsy
Welcome You Are Doormat, from $14.12, available at Etsy
For those who are no stranger to Yoda's words to the wise, this welcome mat pays homage to a "Star Wars" fan favorite. The mat is available in various colors and sizes, so you can customize it for a gift that feels extra personal.
A self-help book inspired by the rebellious personality of Princess Leia
Amazon/Business Insider
"Star Wars Be More Leia: Find Your Rebel Voice and Fight the System," $6.99, available on Amazon
We can't think of any mentor better than Leia to dish out advice on confidence, courage, and grit. This guide is both entertaining and helpful for anyone trying to become a more independent person.
A subtle PopSockets grip
Popsockets/Business Insider
Rebel Insignia PopGrip, $13.60, available at PopSockets
This handy phone accessory is a subtle show of their allegiance to the Rebel Alliance and commitment to fighting for the cause.
A toy that helps kids learn the basics of coding through fun and engaging games
Kano "Star Wars" The Force Coding Kit, $21, available at Amazon
The Kano kit will have them creating different-colored lightsabers, levitating stormtroopers, and discovering costumes for their avatar. They can also share and "remix" their creations with the Kano kids coding community at large.
Stormtrooper socks
Stance Manga Vader Crew Socks, $19.59, available at Amazon
Darth Vader looks imposing on these socks made by an NBA player-favorite brand. On top of looking cool, these lightweight socks are cushioned, supportive, and comfortable. There are other "Star Wars" designs available, including Baby Yoda, stormtroopers, and BB-8.
A book profiling the notable women in the galaxy
"Star Wars: Women Of The Galaxy," $17.49, available on Amazon
Rediscover all the strong women in this franchise through this book of 75 characters from the films, comics, games, and more. Each profile is accompanied by a beautiful illustration by a female or non-binary artist.
A realistic lightsaber
"Star Wars" Bladebuilders Jedi Master Lightsaber, $54.95, available at Amazon
Their special day is no time to settle for a basic lightsaber. The included accessories allow for multiple configurations, and the final product simulates lights and sounds for a realistic (yet non-destructive) playtime experience.
An umbrella that provides protection from the twin suns of Tatooine
Oniva "Star Wars" Portable Beach Umbrella, $78.99, available at Bed Bath & Beyond
While everyone else at the beach lounges under brightly colored rainbow umbrellas, you'll be enjoying the warm weather with an umbrella only a dedicated fan would own.
A toothbrush that makes brushing their teeth feel as exciting as a battle
Oral-B Kids "Star Wars" Electric Toothbrush, $5.97, available at Amazon
The rotating brush head and gentle bristles clean their teeth thoroughly, but they'll be too busy enjoying the character theme to notice. Available characters include Yoda, Darth Vader, and a stormtrooper.
A playful ornament featuring Baby Yoda from 'The Mandalorian'
Hallmark Keepsake "The Child" Christmas Ornament, $15.37, available at Amazon
There's no better way to celebrate the holidays than with a Baby Yoda ornament hanging on your tree. Baby Yoda, also known as Gorgu or "The Child," is the breakout character from the popular Disney Plus series "The Mandalorian."
The adorable keepsake is an ideal stocking stuffer for "Star Wars" fans looking for a fun new ornament to display. The character is featured holding his favorite knob while sitting on top of a Stormtrooper helmet.
Maliah West
Home & Kitchen Fellow
Maliah West is a Home and Kitchen fellow at Insider, where she covers product reviews, gift guides, and deals in the home and kitchen space, specifically in the home organization, home office, and decor categories. Maliah graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Writing and Rhetoric. Before transitioning to digital media, Maliah worked in various administrative positions which started her obsession with all things organization. In her free time, you can find her reading any and everything she can get her hands on, learning new skills through online classes, and thinking of new ways to organize her space. You can reach Maliah at mwest@insider.com. See below for some of her work. The 9 best places to shop for sofas and couches in 2021 The 4 best bath mats we tested in 2021 The 5 best hangers we tested in 2021 20 conversation-starting coffee table books by Black authors, photographers, and artists The 8 best places to buy floor lamps in 2021 Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here.
More: Gifts Star Wars Insider Picks Gift Guides Disney Plus | 2022-05-04T17:30:31Z | www.businessinsider.com | May the 4th Be With You: 35 Best "Star Wars" Gifts in 2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/gifts/star-wars-gifts | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/gifts/star-wars-gifts |
A peek at the Darkstar in the official “Top Gun: Maverick” trailer.
The producers of "Top Gun: Maverick" worked with Lockheed Martin to design the "Darkstar" hypersonic aircraft that appears in the film.
The fake aircraft apparently looked so realistic that China moved a spy satellite to a different route to photograph it, Jerry Bruckheimer told Sandboxx News.
The long-awaited "Top Gun: Maverick" will fly into theaters later this month, and while most of the movie features very real US Navy aircraft, there's one exotic platform aviation buffs might not recognize: the hypersonic Darkstar.
Darkstar may not be a real airplane, but it certainly looks the part — so much so that the Navy apparently told Top Gun's producer, legendary filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer, that China re-oriented spy satellites to get a glimpse of the full-size mock-up they built for filming.
"The Navy told us that a Chinese satellite turned and headed on a different route to photograph that plane. They thought it was real. That's how real it looks," Bruckheimer told Sandboxx News.
As we've discussed before, Darkstar bears a striking resemblance to artist renderings of Lockheed Martin's long-awaited follow-up to the SR-71 Blackbird, the hypersonic SR-72. As it turns out, that may not have been by happenstance.
A rendering of the SR-72.
According to Bruckheimer and Joseph Kosinski, the film's director, they actually worked with engineers out of Lockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works on the design.
"Joe worked with Skunk Works and Lockheed [Martin] to design the plane that's in there. So they had a lot of fun doing Darkstar," Bruckheimer said.
Kosinski, who previously helmed sci-if action flicks like "Tron: Legacy" and "Oblivion," partnered with the aviation firm not only to design their Darkstar aircraft, but to actually build a full-scale mockup.
The finished product looked awfully believable, which the director credits to support the film received from Skunk Works.
"The reason we approached Skunk Works is because I wanted to make the most realistic hypersonic aircraft we possibly could. In fact, as you saw, we built it full-scale in cooperation with them," Kosinski told Sandboxx News. "But the reason it looks so real is because it was the engineers from Skunk Works who helped us design it. So those are the same people who are working on real aircraft who helped us design Darkstar for this film."
If any firm could make a fake aircraft seem real enough to fool the Chinese military into re-orienting a spy satellite to snap pictures of it, it would be Lockheed Martin's legendary Skunk Works. The firm has specialized in designing groundbreaking classified military aircraft for literally decades.
The team at Skunk Works was behind the fastest operational aircraft in history, the SR-71 Blackbird, as well as the world's first operational stealth aircraft in the F-117 Nighthawk and the world's first true stealth fighter in the F-22 Raptor.
The F-117 Nighthawk.
Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon II/DoD
According to Top Gun's director, it was essential that they deliver that degree of realism to the fictional aircraft, because it had to fit in alongside the very real platforms shown in the movie.
Unlike most fighter pilot action flicks, the actors in "Top Gun: Maverick" actually rode in the cockpits of US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets for filming. The G-forces you see them experience are very real, which was something the film's star, Tom Cruise, championed for this movie.
"It had to look just as real as the F-18s, the P-51 and everything else in the movie in order for you to buy it, so that's why we worked closely with them."
NOW WATCH: A Top Gun school graduate explains what the movie got wrong
More: Sandboxx News Contributor Top Gun Top Gun Maverick
hypersonic jet
hypersonic aircraft | 2022-05-04T17:52:45Z | www.businessinsider.com | Bruckheimer: China Moved Satellite to See Top Gun Hypersonic Aircraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/bruckheimer-china-moved-satellite-to-see-top-gun-hypersonic-aircraft-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bruckheimer-china-moved-satellite-to-see-top-gun-hypersonic-aircraft-2022-5 |
Experts say women spend 200 more hours at work on tasks that don't help their career. Here's how they suggest saying no.
Laurie R. Weingart, Lise Vesterlund, Linda Babcock, and Brenda Peyser, the authors of "The No Club."
The authors of "The No Club" found that women take on more nonpromotable tasks than men on average.
They say the best way to identify such a task is to ask if it's visible or requires a special skill.
Saying no isn't always easy, so the authors suggest offering to rotate the task among staffers.
Linda Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, noticed that on nonteaching days she often attended multiple meetings while her male colleague was in his office working on his research.
She told Insider that when they compared schedules that day 10 years ago, she saw that his calendar had only two meetings: student presentations and a faculty meeting. Babcock's schedule included three additional meetings, an interview with a reporter, and preparing a talk for a women's group, leaving her only one hour to work on research — a task that's essential to promotion for college professors.
"We laughed because it was a little uncomfortable," Babcock said. "He asked me, 'What are these things you're doing, and how did you get into this situation?'"
That encounter led Babcock to start a "No Club" with four colleagues: Laurie R. Weingart, a management professor at Carnegie Mellon; Brenda Peyser, a former professor of communications at Carnegie Mellon; and Lise Vesterlund, a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh.
In addition to helping each other recognize and say no to tasks that wouldn't help them move up in their roles, they conducted research to understand why women working in industries from academia to hospitality are often tasked with unrewarding work no one else wants to do.
Their research found that women were 48% more likely to volunteer for nonpromotable tasks than men, regardless of their seniority, while the average woman spent 200 more hours a year than the average man on nonpromotable tasks — including screening interns, attending to a time-consuming client, onboarding new teammates, and helping colleagues with their work.
Those findings are in line with a 2021 survey by Lean In and McKinsey & Company suggesting that women often take the lead on emotional labor in the workplace — and that work is rarely formally recognized during performance reviews.
Babcock and her colleagues, who wrote the book "The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work," which came out on Tuesday, spoke with Insider about how anyone can apply their findings to say no more often at work.
How to identify a nonpromotable task
Babcock and her colleagues found that many women believe that if their boss is asking them to do something, the task must be important, but that's often not the case.
For instance, you might believe that running a big event for the company will get you noticed by senior management — but after all the effort you put in, it never comes up in your performance review.
"It's a matter of learning and asking about whether these tasks are promotable," Babcock said.
Babcock's research found that nonpromotable tasks are typically:
Not visible to others
Not instrumental to the organization's mission
Able to be done by many people because they don't require specialized skills
Examples of these tasks include organizing and coordinating (but not managing) others' work; editing, proofreading, and compiling others' work; logistical planning and organizing special events; and recruiting, onboarding, training, and mentoring.
Remote work and hybrid schedules can further diminish the value of a nonpromotable task. "When we're working more remotely, it's even harder to see what people are doing," Babcock said. "A nonpromotable task becomes even less promotable because no one sees you doing it."
How to get better at saying no to nonpromotable work
Initially, when Babcock and her colleagues said no, they found that the task would just go to another woman.
"Just saying no doesn't solve that problem," Weingart said.
Now when they say no, they try to suggest a colleague who might be good for the task, and often that person is a man. Babcock said another alternative is to say, "Sure, I'll do it now, but let's set up a schedule so we rotate the task amongst the staff."
If turning down a task isn't feasible, take a page out of Dolly Chugh's playbook.
Chugh, a social psychologist and associate professor of management and organizations at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said she's often asked to speak to alumni or participate in events because she's one of the few women of color in her department and her research is related to identity.
"I get a lot of alumni reaching out, far more than my colleagues do, asking for advice," she told Insider. "I've started tracking the requests in a special folder so when I do my performance review I can quantify it."
Chugh and her colleagues Modupe Akinola, an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School, and Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, started a No Club several years ago after Milkman heard Babcock talking about it. Using the subject line "No Club," the three women will discuss by email whether to say yes to an opportunity and how to say no.
Courtesy of Modupe Akinola
If one of the women says she's leaning toward saying yes, the other two will ask her why — is it something she really wants to do, or does she feel guilty not doing it?
"It's comforting when your gut is saying no to something to hear the why from your colleagues," Akinola told Insider.
If Akinola plans to say no, she'll also talk with her senior male colleagues about the request. "I let them know the many demands on my time, and I bring them in as a mentor," she said. She added that this approach has helped her decline tasks because her colleagues have at times volunteered to reach out on her behalf and explain that she doesn't have the time to help.
"No one will realize these requests you're getting, particularly if they are related to your identity," Chugh said. "You have to make things visible."
Managers, not women, need to solve the problem
Babcock acknowledged that her schedule still isn't free of nonpromotable work — that's because the problem isn't just women saying yes to too many tasks.
"In order to solve this problem, organizations have to change," Babcock said. Supervisors need to pay attention to who they're asking to take on extra work and ask male and female colleagues to take turns doing these tasks, she added — or better yet, they should recategorize the work so that it's part of an employee's performance evaluation.
"Managers and team leads who are doling out the task are able to effect the most change," Weingart said.
More: Saying no Women And Leadership Women economists Women at Work
Gender at Work | 2022-05-04T18:19:53Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Women Can Recognize and Say No to Nonpromotable Tasks at Work | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-women-recognize-say-no-nonpromotable-tasks-work-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-women-recognize-say-no-nonpromotable-tasks-work-2022-5 |
The DEA is investigating Cerebral as the $4.8 billion mental-health startup faces growing scrutiny
Ho Anh, left, and Kyle Robertson, Cerebral's cofounders.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating Cerebral, a $4.8 billion mental-health startup.
Cerebral is one of the few companies prescribing highly regulated drugs like Adderall online without in-person visits.
Cerebral said that it was unaware of the interviews and that it complies with regulations.
US Drug Enforcement Administration agents interviewed former Cerebral employees about the mental-health startup — one of the few telehealth companies that prescribes controlled substances online — according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they understand an investigation to be ongoing. Their identities are known to Insider.
Michael Cereo, the assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Buffalo district office, told Insider that the DEA can neither confirm nor deny an investigation.
"However, as the DEA we're concerned with the health and safety of the public," Cereo said. "And any medical professional or organization that's prescribing drugs, we're going to monitor their behavior."
Insider relayed information about the DEA's interviews, without naming the company, to Ronald Chapman II, a federal criminal defense attorney specializing in DEA investigations at Chapman Law Group, and Larry Cote, a former attorney for the DEA who now advises healthcare companies on DEA compliance. They said the nature of the agents' questions and the fact that they interviewed former employees strongly suggests that there is an investigation underway. Chapman said the inquiry had the markers of a criminal investigation.
In those cases, the DEA typically interviews former employees first to avoid tipping off the business owners, and these interviews are meant to gather enough information to obtain a search warrant, Chapman said.
"They are definitely investigating," Chapman said. "The only question is whether that will turn up anything."
Cote said that based on the information Insider provided, the DEA's investigation could result in criminal, civil, or administrative sanctions.
In a statement provided to Insider, Cerebral said the company was unaware of any DEA interviews and could not comment on what any interviewees may have said. Cerebral also said that it was unaware of a DEA investigation into Cerebral or its medical group. It said that the DEA performs many important functions, including regulatory oversight. The company said the mental-health services provided through its platform comply with applicable federal and state laws and regulations and accepted medical practices.
The DEA interviews follow pushback against Cerebral by DEA offices in several states. Specifically, they have rejected some Cerebral clinicians' applications for DEA licenses since at least last fall, according to an internal company document obtained by Insider. DEA licenses are necessary to prescribe controlled substances.
Cerebral, a $4.8 billion company backed by venture-capital firms including SoftBank and Oak HC/FT, provides medication and therapy online to people with anxiety, depression , ADHD, and other conditions. It's one of a handful of online companies that prescribes controlled substances tightly regulated by the DEA, like Adderall and Xanax, which have the potential to be addictive.
The startup, which has served more than 200,000 patients since it launched in 2020, has faced scrutiny in recent months over its prescribing practices from news outlets, industry observers, and at least one former executive who recently filed a lawsuit.
Major pharmacy chains, including Walmart and CVS, have blocked or delayed telehealth prescriptions for Adderall and other controlled substances. In some cases the pharmacies have expressed concerns that clinicians at Cerebral and another company are writing too many prescriptions for stimulants, The Wall Street Journal reported in April. Cerebral's preferred pharmacy Truepill also recently suspended Adderall prescriptions, The Journal reported.
Cerebral said pharmacies can hold prescriptions for administrative reasons, such as problems with insurance coverage. The company works with them to answer any questions and resolve delays.
On Wednesday, The Journal reported that Cerebral will pause prescribing controlled substances like Adderall to treat new patients with ADHD starting next week. Cerebral's CEO Kyle Robertson confirmed the changes in an online letter.
Investigators' questions suggest a broad probe
DEA agents have interviewed former employees as recently as April, according to the two sources with direct knowledge. Their questions were wide-ranging.
The agents asked about the rules Cerebral sets for prescribing controlled substances to patients, the sources said. One source said that agents sought banking information related to Cerebral.
The DEA has also asked about Cerebral's processes for monitoring whether its clinicians' licenses are up to date and not on a federal list barring them from participating in federal healthcare programs, one of the sources said.
In its statement, Cerebral said that it has processes to verify clinician licenses and checks federal exclusions lists.
The DEA agents are also looking into alleged incidents in which patients have created more than one account with Cerebral, that source said.
Matt Truebe, a former vice president in charge of product and engineering at Cerebral, sued the company, claiming that he was wrongfully terminated. In the complaint, filed against the company on Wednesday, he alleges that he uncovered roughly 2,000 duplicate shipping addresses in Cerebral's patient database in August 2021, suggesting that patients were able to set up multiple accounts to obtain more medication, according to the complaint.
One customer received duplicate prescriptions from multiple Cerebral clinicians, which suggested prescription fraud, according to the complaint.
Truebe and his counsel did not respond to a request for comment.
Cerebral said in its statement that the safe medical care of patients is its highest priority and that it is continually refining its internal processes to identify duplicate accounts.
The company said it verifies patients' identities when they sign up and during initial visits with clinicians, and checks the legitimacy of shipping addresses. Accounts flagged as potential duplicates are removed, it said.
"Any efforts to get more medication than prescribed is an important issue for all health providers, including online healthcare service providers," Cerebral said in the statement.
Two lawyers said that the DEA's questioning of former employees likely indicates that an investigation is underway
The attorneys, Chapman and Cote, said the DEA is increasingly interested in the prescribing of controlled substances, including the stimulant Adderall, used to treat ADHD.
Cerebral has faced scrutiny from news outlets and former employees for making it easy for patients to obtain controlled substances after a 30-minute online video session. Former clinicians have said they felt pressure to prescribe controlled substances, Bloomberg's Businessweek and The Journal reported.
In the statement, Cerebral said clinicians assess and treat patients based on their professional judgment. In addition to the initial appointment, they can schedule follow-up appointments, the company said.
"The availability of audiovisual appointments allows people to get the care that they need that they otherwise would not be able to get," Cerebral said.
Chapman said the DEA may be concerned with whether Cerebral providers are establishing a relationship with patients before prescribing controlled substances. That's often an issue in telemedicine, he said. The agency could also be interested in the relationship between Cerebral and the pharmacy it uses to fulfill prescriptions for controlled substances, he said.
"The DEA would much prefer that a patient go see a doctor in their home state, get an evaluation, get a medication, fill it at a local pharmacy," Chapman said. "This widespread practice of telemedicine — the DEA is just not ready for that yet."
The DEA performs routine inspections and audits, as well as criminal investigations. Cote told Insider in an interview that the DEA would typically reach out directly to a company if it were conducting a standard inspection or audit.
"It seems to me like this would be something more than routine," Cote said.
Chapman said questions from DEA agents about banking information also suggest a criminal investigation. This is because the DEA may be looking for that information so they can seize accounts, if necessary, he said.
Cerebral has seen DEA pushback in the past, Insider has learned
Cerebral has previously dealt with pushback from the DEA over its clinicians' licensing dating back several months.
DEA offices in various states have denied Cerebral clinicians' applications for DEA licenses, according to an internal company document seen by Insider.
Cerebral set up WeWork addresses and instructed clinicians to use them on their DEA license applications. DEA offices in states including North Carolina, Michigan, and Illinois have rejected that approach, according to the document and the sources close to the DEA interviews.
Using a WeWork address wouldn't be compliant with the DEA requirement that a license be attached to the address where providers actually practice, Chapman said. The agency requires that providers tell the agency where they are practicing medicine, so agents can go there when they need to audit compliance, he said.
Cerebral said the addresses included by clinicians on the state-specific registrations meet federal requirements. At times this has included the use of leased locations under the control of Cerebral, the company said in the statement. Only clinicians with valid state DEA certification can prescribe controlled substances on Cerebral's platform, the company said.
More: Cerebral Healthcare Dispensed
SoftBank Capital
Oak HC/FT | 2022-05-04T19:03:14Z | www.businessinsider.com | Exclusive: the DEA Is Investigating the Mental-Health Startup Cerebral | https://www.businessinsider.com/dea-cerebral-questions-license-issues-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/dea-cerebral-questions-license-issues-2022-5 |
C-suites are on edge on how to address Roe v. Wade. Executives should keep these 5 things in mind when drafting a crisis memo.
The Supreme Court is on the verge of striking down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
The Supreme Court is on the verge of striking down Roe v. Wade, which protects abortion rights.
CEOs have remained mute on the subject, but experts say corporations cannot afford to stay quiet.
Comms experts offer CEOs five critical components to draft an effective crisis memo.
The Supreme Court is on the verge of striking down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to a leaked draft majority opinion, published Monday by Politico, which was confirmed as authentic by the Court on Tuesday. If approved, the decision would roll back federal protections on abortion rights and turn laws regarding abortion over to individual states — 26 of which are expected to ban or limit access to abortions.
Abortion rights is a high-stakes issue for companies, which risk alienating stakeholders by taking a public stance on either side. The majority of CEOs have remained mute on the subject, but experts say silence is not an option when it comes to addressing the potential reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The stakes have been raised virtually overnight, so it's necessary — and urgent — for CEOs to articulate their stance to stakeholders in the form of a written memo or statement.
"This is a cultural and political issue, and corporations cannot afford to stay on the sidelines, " Carla Bevins, a professor of business communication at Carnegie Mellon University, said. Companies that choose to stay silent do so to the detriment of employees relying on employers' benefits packages for abortions and aftercare.
As abortion rights hang in the balance, experts say top CEOs are struggling to figure out how to respond effectively. Insider spoke with Bevins and Jason Thompson, an executive coach, on what steps CEOs should take in crafting the perfect memo regarding the potential reversal of Roe v. Wade, abortion, and reproductive rights. They say CEOs should consider five critical components when drafting a memo — alignment with core values, communicating in a timely manner, concise messaging, appropriate tone, and the key components to include.
Align with your values
Before drafting a crisis memo, leaders must decide what position to take. According to Thompson, the most important thing CEOs can do right now is review their vision and mission statements and make sure that whatever they do aligns with that.
The murder of George Floyd was a watershed moment in America, forcing CEOs to commit to racial justice. Following the incident, Boston Scientific CEO, Michael Mahoney, addressed the incident in an open letter to employees that was a case study in how leaders should address hot-button issues in alignment with their core values.
"George Floyd's death reflects deeply ingrained, long-standing divisions in our society," Mahoney wrote. The CEO went on to write that the executive committee felt "compelled" to "reaffirm our commitment to live by our values and cultivate a workplace that makes equality, diversity and openness priorities — a workplace that sets an example for the greater community." Other CEOs who need to address controversial issues should take note of his letter, Thompson said.
"What gets people in trouble is inconsistent messaging. If you say you're committed to the community, for example, and you don't speak out on community-centered issues, you have done nothing to convince us that you're living your values," Thompson said.
Timely communication
No matter where a company comes down on an issue, timely communication is essential. "As a company, you and your communications management team want to have control of the message you're sending out," Bevins said.
"It's incredibly important to have a timely message and to be clear and transparent with where you stand — even if the stance is 'We don't have a clear position at this point, we are looking into it.' It's essential that companies clearly articulate their position in a timely manner," she said.
Clear, concise, upfront messaging
Memos should be brief, jargon-free, and clearly written to a specified audience. A memo should be one page, max, and straight to the point. "Identify two or three key points you want to cover. Bullet points can be very effective," Bevins said.
Your reader needs to quickly understand the content of the memo and make a decision based on that information. "Be very judicious with the information you include," Bevins said, warning that it's not a time to add fluff. "You want to make sure that you are sharing only the key pieces of information that your audience needs."
Measured tone
Use a tone appropriate to the information you convey, consider your audience, and think carefully about how your words come across to them. "You don't want to come off unfeeling, especially with this issue. Leaders have to be very empathetic and caring with the tone of their message," Bevins said.
When COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were lifted, companies faced the uncharted challenge of returning employees to physical work locations amid an ongoing public-health crisis. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy met the challenge by sending a company-wide memo explaining return-to-office plans in a way communications consultants described as powerful, timely, authentic, and empathetic in tone.
"We've never been through something like this before, and hope we never encounter it again," Jassy wrote in the 850-word memo. "When are we really going back to the office, what will that really be like, how will I allocate my time between the office and home, how will others do it?"
When employees "see a question that looks like a question they've been asking, they know that the CEO is hearing the voice of the employee," Suzanne Bates, the author of "Speak Like a CEO" and a managing director and partner at the leadership consultancy BTS, said in an interview with Insider. "They think, 'The CEO is attuned to what we're talking about.'"
Where possible, communications teams should use language to echo the company's mission and vision statements. "I always try to come up with the words so the language overlaps. Whether or not people agree with your stance, when questioned, you can say, 'This is consistent with our mission and vision and how we see ourselves as an organization,'" Thompson said.
Include key components
Memos are divided into segments to organize the information clearly and help achieve the writer's purpose. Bevins outlined the critical components for a clean memo:
Heading Segment: To, From, Date, Subject. Be specific and concise in your subject line.
Opening Segment: Include the purpose, context, problem, and the specific assignment or task of the memo.
Task Segment: Describe what you are doing to solve the problem. Avoid insignificant details.
Discussion Segment: Include all the details that support your ideas. Include solid points and evidence.
Closing Segment: Close with a courteous ending stating the action you want your reader to take.
Attachments: Provide detailed data at the end of your memo (lists, graphs, tables, etc.).
More: SCOTUS leak Roe v Wade Roe v Wade leak | 2022-05-04T19:50:35Z | www.businessinsider.com | Abortion Rights Is a High-Stakes Issue CEOs Can't Afford to Ignore | https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-rights-roe-v-wade-ceos-crisis-memo | https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-rights-roe-v-wade-ceos-crisis-memo |
Why Estée Lauder's CEO is taking its prestige brands to Kohl's and Target and embracing the 'evolution of the retail landscape'
Estée Lauder said it is adding prestige brands to Sephora's Kohl's and Ulta's Target partnerships.
The push is a sign that Lauder is loosening its grip on distribution channels for its brands.
The luxury beauty giant is banking on new customers and increased exposure, one analyst said.
Estée Lauder is looking to mass retail and the lower-priced brands in its portfolio for growth as the luxury beauty giant tries to win new customers amid rising inflation and changing consumer shopping habits.
On the company's earnings call Monday, President and CEO Fabrizo Freda said Estée Lauder plans to usher more of its brands into mass retail in the second half of the year through Sephora and Ulta Beauty's existing partnerships with Kohl's and Target.
Mass retail represents an important growth opportunity for Lauder. While the company's sales were up 10% to $4.25 billion in its fiscal third quarter, it had to cut its outlook for fiscal 2022 nearly in half due to uncertainty over COVID lockdowns in China, a key market for the beauty company. Lauder's stock price dropped as much as 12.3% on Tuesday.
Freda attributed the company's decision to push further into mass retail to the "promising evolution of the retail landscape both in-store and online in the United States for prestige beauty."
Freda did not mention which prestige brands in the company's portfolio will be entering Kohl's and Target. Some of Lauder's mid-priced brands, such as Clinique, Too Faced, The Ordinary, are already sold in Ulta and Sephora shop-in-shops in Target and Kohl's.
The company's push into mass retail this year is a sign that Lauder, maker of luxury brands like Tom Ford, Jo Malone, and La Mer, is loosening its tight grip on distribution channels on many of its brands. Historically, Lauder's core distribution channel for its prestige brands has been department stores.
Jefferies analyst Stephanie Wissink told Insider that the company is recognizing that these mass retail partnerships are important avenues for brand exposure and customer acquisition, especially for its prestige legacy brands like Clinique, MAC Cosmetics and Smashbox, which have suffered from slumping foot traffic in the company's mall locations.
"More brands equals more business for the portfolio," Wissink said.
She added it's not likely that the company's most high-end brands will end up in mass retail.
"I would expect them to maintain a degree of selectivity. Luxury brands such as La Mer and Tom Ford may not make the mass access cut," she said.
While ultra-high-end brands like Tom Ford and La Mer have served as key growth vehicles for Lauder in the past, and continue to do well, the company is turning its focus to its lowest-price brand as its next big growth driver.
Lauder acquired a majority stake in Deciem, maker of skin-care brand The Ordinary, in 2021, valuing it at $2.2 billion. The Ordinary, which sells serums, peels and oils in the $6.50 to $10 range, is by far Lauder's most affordable brand.
"The upcoming addition of the Deciem brands to our portfolio and the expansion of our business with Sephora and Ulta Beauty in the U.S. represent additional growth drivers for us as we progress in recovery from the pandemic shock," said Tracey Travis, executive vice president and chief financial officer."
Deciem is expected to contribute two percentage points to the company's overall growth this fiscal year, Travis said.
Freda added, "The brand has redefined entry prestige with an ingredient-focused, regimen-based product portfolio that drives basket size."
NOW WATCH: Sephora's rewards program and product display may make you spend more money. These are other sneaky ways it gets your money.
More: Beauty Estee Lauder Ulta Beauty | 2022-05-04T19:50:41Z | www.businessinsider.com | Estée Lauder Grows Mass Retail Distribution in U.S. at Kohl's, Target | https://www.businessinsider.com/estee-lauder-grows-mass-us-retail-distribution-with-kohls-target-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/estee-lauder-grows-mass-us-retail-distribution-with-kohls-target-2022-5 |
Internal memo from Facebook's CFO says a hiring freeze will last through the rest of this year, and reduced hiring targets 'will affect almost every team in the company'
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook parent company Meta is pausing hiring for the rest of the year.
The rare move comes as the company attempts to trim costs and refocus its energies.
In an internal memo, CFO said a "reprioritization" is in part due to an "industry-wide downturn."
Facebook's parent company Meta is reducing hiring targets and has paused hiring across much of its engineering operation for the rest of the year, according to internal notes to employees, a rare move as the company seeks to rein in spending and shift its priorities.
In one internal memo, David Wehner, Facebook's CFO, cited the invasion of Ukraine, data-privacy changes and an "industry-wide downturn" in explaining issues impacting its business and a hiring freeze, first reported by Insider. The overall result is "slower than expected revenue growth" for Facebook.
"We came into 2022 with really aggressive growth targets," Wehner said. "However, as we look towards the second half, were going to adjust those targets in a couple of ways."
"We're still working out what this means for each org, but this will affect hiring goals for almost every team across the company," he added in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Insider.
Insider previously reported Meta began a pause last month for hiring of certain levels of engineers, termed E3 and E4, citing individuals familiar with the matter. Such pauses are rare for the company. The last one happened near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a worker there at the time said. It was put in place due to an inability to train people outside of offices and was short-lived.
A Meta spokesperson said the company "regularly re-evaluates" its hiring and "according to our business needs and in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings period, we are slowing its growth accordingly." Facebook said last week that it intended to reduce costs this year to no more than $92 billion, down from an initial plan to spend $95 billion.
"We will continue to grow our workforce to ensure we focus on long term impact," the spokesperson added.
According to the memos, written by Miranda Kalinowski, Facebook's global head of recruiting, the impact of this hiring freeze will "almost every team across the company." Her note detailed engineers, mangers and even some director level talent will not be hired for the rest of the year, resulting in hiring fewer people than the company planned.
"We're taking a more conservative approach to expense and headcount growth over the rest of the year," she said.
Meta stock is currently trading at around $213, down almost 40% this year so far, and other tech stocks have also taken a beating. A few other companies in the sector have ratcheted back hiring plans this year. DoorDash's CEO told staff last month that the company planned to slow headcount growth. Google Cloud has also cut jobs recently.
More: Meta Facebook Job Cuts | 2022-05-04T19:50:47Z | www.businessinsider.com | Leaked Facebook Memo Details Hiring Freeze, Negative Business Impacts | https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-facebook-memo-details-hiring-freeze-negative-business-impacts-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-facebook-memo-details-hiring-freeze-negative-business-impacts-2022-5 |
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Fixed: 3.49% - 5.68%
$5,000 with no max
Splash Financial student loan refinancing
Citizens Bank student loan refinancing
LendKey student loan marketplace
College Ave student loan refinancing
You may want to refinance your student loan for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you're looking to lower your interest rate, switch from a variable-rate to a fixed-rate loan, or to change up your payment term length.
However, you may want to think twice about refinancing if you have federal student loans, as you can lose key protections and repayment options if you switch. Before you refinance your student loan, you need to decide if the process is right for you.
If you choose to turn to a private lender to refinance your loans, here are several of the best places to begin your search.
Late fee of $10 or 5% of payment amount, whichever is less
Offers hybrid loans
No weekend customer support
High minimum rates
Five, seven, 10, 15, and 20-year repayment terms available
Loan maximum up to $500,000
Customer service available via phone, email, and physical mail
Loans made through CommonBond Lending, LLC
Commonbond makes our list because of its unique hybrid loan offering. Commonbond's hybrid loan fixes your interest rate for the first five years of your loan term, then switches it to a variable rate for the last five years of your loan period.
The fixed rate offered on these hybrid loans is lower than Commonbond's traditional fixed-rate loan, so you can benefit from a locked-in lower rate if you think you'll be able to pay it off early.
Look out for: High minimum interest rates. While Commonbond's higher rates are comparable to competition, its lowest rates don't hold a candle to some of the better lenders on our list.
No late fees
Low minimum interest rate
Skip a payment option
Maximum interest rate undisclosed
Customer service available via phone, live chat, email, and standard mail
Five, seven, 10, 15, and 20-year repayment term lengths available
Loan amount range between $5,000 to $500,000
Skip a payment feature allows you to forgo making one payment every year
Loans are originated by Earnest Operations LLC
Earnest has some of the lowest starting rates of any of the lenders on our list, so if you have excellent credit, it could be a good choice for you.
Like Earnest's undergraduate and graduate new loans, its refinanced loans have a special perk: the ability to skip one payment every year. You can ask for your first skip once you've made at least six months of consecutive on-time, full principal and interest payments, as long as your loan is in good standing. However, interest will accrue during this time, and the lender will extend the final payoff date of your loan by the length of the skipped payment period.
Look out for: Opaque maximum interest rates. Earnest eagerly shares its minimum rates, but the company doesn't disclose its maximum interest rates anywhere. If you have a shakier credit history, you may end up with a higher interest rate than you initially expected.
$5 late fee
No maximum balance you can refinance
Autopay discount
Third-party loan servicer
0.25% AutoPay discount
Apply through your computer or mobile device
Customer service available via phone, mail, and social media
Loan amount from $5,000 to full balance
Term lengths of five, seven, 10, 15, and 20 years
Unemployment Protection provides up to 12 months of loan forbearance for eligible borrowers who lose their job through no fault of their own
Loans are serviced through third-party affiliate MOHELA
Currently, SoFi has a promotion offering zero interest through August 15, 2022 when you refinance your federal student loans with SoFi. You also won't make payments until October 1, 2022. While this sounds great on its surface, remember that the government has already paused payments on federal loans through August 31, 2022. Your federal loans aren't currently accruing interest.
Additionally, if you refinance your federal loans, you'll lose eligibility for federal student loan relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Watch out for: Third-party loan servicing. Once your loan is funded, your loan servicer will be MOHELA, SoFi's third-party loan provider. If you prefer a direct relationship with your lender, this might not be the best choice for you.
$29 late fee
Low maximum APR
No variable rate loans
Need to be a member to get a loan
Higher minimum loan amount than competitors
Five, eight, 12 or 15-year repayment term lengths
Customer service available by phone, mail, or via chatbat
Loans originated by Pentagon Federal Credit Union
PenFed offers the lowest maximum rates of any lender on our list. If you have poorer credit and are still able to qualify for a PenFed refinanced loan, you might get a better deal with them than elsewhere.
You need to be a member of the credit union to get your loan. If you've served in the military or work at qualifying associations or organizations, you'll qualify. If that doesn't apply, you can easily join by opening a savings account with a $5 minimum deposit.
Watch out for: Doesn't offer variable-rate loans. Variable-rate loans often start at lower rates than fixed-rate loans — although this rate can overtake a fixed loan over time. If you want a variable loan, you won't be able to get one with PenFed.
Late fee or $38 or 5% of payment, whichever is less
Low fixed rates
Customer service seven days a week
Interest rate discounts
Variable rates are slightly higher than competitors
Customer service available via phone, live chat, and email
$5,000 loan minimum, with no maximum
Late fee of 5% of the late payment or $28, whichever is less
.25% three-month introductory discount when you open a checking account with Laurel Road, then .25% discount for $2,500-$7,499 in monthly direct deposits, .55% discount for $7,500+
Loans are offered by KeyBank, member FDIC
While Laurel Road offers some of the best fixed rates of all of our lenders, keep in mind that only 11% of applicants who applied between July 2019 and June 2021 qualified for Laurel Road's top rate, according to the company's website. Don't bank on getting the top advertised rate unless you have excellent credit.
If you sign up for a Laurel Road checking account, you'll receive an interest rate discount on your refinanced loan.
Look out for: Late fees. Laurel Road's late fee is $38 or 5% of your payment, whichever is less. If you fall behind on payments, the total cost of your loan will add up.
Read Insider's full review of Laurel Road.
Depends on lender
Low minimum rates
Offers all in one place
High maximum rates
Contact customer support by phone or email
Depending on the lender, the loan amount range is $5,000 with no max
Splash Financial operates through a network of lending partners
Splash Financial, like LendKey below, is a student loan marketplace, not a direct lender. A student loan marketplace allows you to compare loan offers from multiple lenders at once. The marketplace allows you to check your rates with no impact on your credit score .
As a result, it's tricky to nail down the exact terms you'll receive with Splash Financial. For instance, some of the company's lending partners have no maximum amount you can refinance, while other have a cap. You may like Splash Financial if you want to compare a bunch of different companies all at once with one application.
Watch out for: Splash Financial doesn't underwrite its own loans. As a result, you'll be dealing with whatever partner lender you choose and may have a different experience with them managing your loan than the one you expected.
Late fee of 5% of the loan payment amount
High maximum loan amount
Rate discounts
High minimum loan amount
Repayment terms of five, seven, 10, 15 and 20 years
.50% rate discount if you or your cosigner have a qualifying Citizens Bank account at the time you submit a complete application and you sign up for automatic payments
Loan amount range from $10,000 to $750,000
Loans are originated by Citizens Bank, N.A.
Aside from the couple of lenders on our list which have no maximum loan amount, Citizens Bank's top amount of $750,000 is the most of any lender we compiled. It's also the only brick-and-mortar bank we have listed, which may be a good option for those who are more comfortable with traditional banking.
Watch out for: High minimum loan amount. Citizens Bank's minimum of $10,000 is the highest of any lender on our list. If you have a small amount of student debt, you might find that another lender is a better fit for you.
LendKey student loan refinancing
Low maximum variable rate
Low maximum loan amount
High minimum variable APR
Loan amount between $5,000 to $250,000
AutoPay discount of 0.25%
Term lengths range between five to 20 years
LendKey operates through a network of partner credit unions and community banks
LendKey, like Splash Financial above, is a student loan marketplace, not a direct lender. A student loan marketplace allows you to compare loan offers from multiple lenders at once. The marketplace allows you to check your rates with no impact on your credit score.
LendKey partners with credit unions and community banks, so you may get a more personalized level of service than you would with a Splash Financial partner.
Watch out for: Low maximum loan amount. LendKey has the lowest maximum refinance amount of any of the lenders on the list. This probably won't be an issue unless you have a significant amount of student loan debt.
Late fee of $25 or 5% of payment, whichever is less
Low maximum interest rate
Many repayment term lengths
Lower maximum refinancing amount
High minimum interest rate
Eleven different term lengths, from five to 15 years
Contact customer support by text, email, phone, live chat, or physical mail
Loans made through Firstrust Bank, member FDIC or M.Y. Safra Bank, FSB, member FDIC
College Ave offers 11 repayment term lengths. You're able to take out a loan for five to 15 years. Many other lenders limit your selection to four or five options — though some others do offer 20-year term lengths (which College Ave does not).
Watch out for: Lower maximum refinancing amount. If you have a truly significant amount of student loan debt (we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars), you may not be able to refinance all your debt with College Ave. This won't be the case for the vast majority of borrowers, but it bears noting.
Other student loan refinancing lenders we considered
Discover: Discover does offer competitive rates on its consolidation loans, which function similarly to other lenders refinanced loans. However, you're only able to consolidate a maximum of $150,000 with Discover — a lower maximum amount than every other lender on our list.
ELFI: The minimum amount you can refinance with ELFI is $15,000, so if you have a smaller amount of student loan debt you want to refinance, the lender wouldn't be a good choice.
PNC Bank: The bank's rates start slightly higher than the competition, and it jacks up its rates if you didn't graduate from school, so PNC's refinanced loans may be prohibitively expensive for people who didn't finish college.
The Better Business Bureau, a non-profit organization focused on consumer protection and trust, measures businesses using information like their responsiveness to consumer complaints, truthfulness in advertising, and transparency about business practices. Here is each company's score:
Lender BBB grade
Splash Financial logo
LendKey Logo
All of our top picks are rated A or higher by the BBB, with the exception of Commonbond and Splash Financial. Commonbond received a B+ rating because of 14 complaints filed against the business, and Splash Financial also got the same grade because of eight complaints filed against the business.
It's important to note that a good BBB grade doesn't guarantee you'll have a good relationship with your lender. Ask family and friends about their firsthand experience with the company before signing on the dotted line, or read online customer reviews.
How did we pick the best student loan refinancing companies?
Personal Finance Insider's mission is to help you make the best, most informed decisions with your money. To do that, we combed through many student loan refinancing companies, comparing interest rates, terms, and fine print so you don't have to. We also compared our findings to other personal finance sites. We looked for several factors in determining the best student loans, including:
Interest rates: We looked for lenders offering competitively low interest rates, and we prioritized lenders with the lowest interest rates for both fixed and variable loans.
Nationwide availability: We searched for student loans available in all or most US states.
Variety of term lengths: We picked lenders that offered term lengths that fit many borrowers' different situations.
No or few fees: We prioritized lenders that didn't charge fees, like origination fees or prepayment penalties. Some of our lenders still charge late fees, however.
High maximum loan amount: We prioritized lenders that offer high maximum loan amounts to ensure you're able to refinance your loans with the same company.
Better Business Bureau rating: We chose lenders that were given high marks by the BBB as a part of our screening method for trustworthiness.
What is not a good reason to refinance student loans?
While opting for a lower interest rate is often a good reason for people to refinance, it doesn't come without drawbacks for certain types of loans.
If you have federal student loans, be careful before choosing to refinance them. You will lose key protections that come with federal loans if you refinance. For instance, you won't be eligible for the COVID-19-related student loan payment pause, currently in place through August 31, 2022, and federal student loan relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
You also won't be eligible for specific repayment options like Income-Driven Repayment plans, which take your specific income and family size into account when determining monthly payments.
Does refinancing your student loans cost money?
It depends. Most of the time, lenders won't charge any application fees to refinance your loan. However, sometimes lenders will charge origination fees, which are deducted from your overall loan proceeds and add to the cost of your loan. None of the lenders on our list will hit you with origination fees to refinance your loan.
Is it hard to get approved for student loan refinancing?
Your credit history is the biggest factor in your refinancing approval chances. If you have a poor credit score, it'll be harder for you to get the green light for a new loan, but you may be able to enlist a cosigner to boost your likelihood of approval.
How many years can you refinance student loans for?
The lenders on our list allow you to refinance your loans with terms ranging from five to 20 years. All of them will let you pay off your loan early with no prepayment penalty.
Does refinancing hurt your credit?
In the short term, yes. When you apply for a new loan, lenders will conduct a hard inquiry to check your credit history, which will ding your credit score a bit.
Additionally, when you refinance, your original loan is closed and a new one is opened. As part of your credit score is based on your payment history, your credit score may take a hit as your work to establish a new track record of reliable payments.
What documents are needed to refinance student loans?
While these documents vary depending on the lender, generally you'll need some combination of the following:
A statement verifying your current loan
Proof of graduation
A government-issued ID
You'll also need to provide information about your cosigner if you are applying with one.
PERSONAL FINANCE LendKey review: Student loan marketplace shows you rates from a variety of lenders and doesn't charge fees
PERSONAL FINANCE What are the pros and cons of refinancing student loans?
More: CommonBond Commonbond student loans Earnest Earnest student loans
SoFi student loans
PenFed student loans
Laurel Road student loans
Splash Financial student loans
Citizens Bank student loans
LendKey student loans
College Ave Student loans
Discover student loans
ELFI student loans
PNC student loans | 2022-05-04T19:50:53Z | www.businessinsider.com | The Best Private Student Loan Refinance Companies of May 2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-student-loan-refinance-companies | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-student-loan-refinance-companies |
Read the internal Facebook memo detailing company-wide hiring freeze, explaining 'slower' revenue growth
Facebook is implementing a company-wide hiring freeze.
Facebook is implementing an expansive hiring freeze as it fails to hit revenue targets.
Executives explained the initial extent of the action in internal memos seen by Insider.
Read below to see the full text of the memos.
Facebook is putting in place a massive hiring freeze that will impact "almost every team across the company," executives told employees on Wednesday in internal memos seen by Insider.
It is a rare move for the company, which last year changed its corporate name to Meta in order to reflect a new focus on building "the metaverse." The project of building a digital reality and the hardware to access it is proving very costly. Coupled with a nearly 40% decline in its stock so far this year, the company is "reprioritizing," according to CFO David Wehner.
In the face of "slower revenue growth than anticipated," Facebook is implementing an expansive freeze on hiring, as Insider first reported, and does not intend to meet hiring goals set out at the start of the year. Read on below for the full memos sent Wednesday to employees.
From David Wehner, CFO:
Last week I shared our latest earnings results. While we're optimistic about opportunities ahead, we need to ensure we are making focused, balanced investments to support our most strategic priorities. We're facing headwinds including slower revenue growth than anticipated at the start of the year. This is due to a number of factors including the loss of signal from iOS changes, business challenges resulting from the war in Ukraine, and the general macroeconomic environment. Also, as with much of the tech industry, we had two years of exceptional growth as more activity moved online during the pandemic. The resulting acceleration of e-commerce led to outsized growth, but this growth has eased off as the pandemic restrictions have lifted and more people are spending time offline and returning to pre-pandemic spending patterns. This shift has resulted in an industry-wide downturn that is affecting us too. We need to take another look at our priorities and make some tough decisions about what projects we go after in both the short and medium-term to achieve the lower expense guidance we committed to during earnings.
While we're still going through our reprioritization, we know this will have an effect on hiring for the rest of the year. We came into 2022 with really aggressive growth targets and have hired at an incredible pace this year so far — we hired more engineers in Q1 than all of 2021. We've brought thousands of talented people into the company that are helping us work towards our ambitious goals and 2022 priorities. However, as we look towards the second half, we're going to adjust those targets in a couple of ways:
Reducing our hiring targets for 2022. This means hiring fewer people than we initially forecast. We're still working out what this means for each org, but this will affect almost every team in the company. We're entering into the H2 planning cycle, and this will be an opportunity to reprioritize work to make sure we're all focused on the most important things and the top priorities for the company. Your org leaders will follow up with more information over the coming days and weeks, but today we're announcing some changes on the Engineering side — look out for a post in Engineering FYI for details.
Reviewing headcount allocation to make sure it's aligned to our top company priorities given our modified hiring targets. This will help us resource the projects that we're prioritizing for the rest of the year. You'll learn more about this from your functional and org leads over the next couple of weeks.
We're in a strong position with a healthy business, and we feel optimistic about the opportunities to re-accelerate growth, particularly through unlocking new revenue streams through Reels monetization, incorporating AI into our ads system to overcome signal loss from iOS changes, growing business messaging and bringing the metaverse to life. But we also have to be responsible by responding to the unpredictable market forces that have put pressure on our business over the past few months. In practice, this is a valuable forcing function to make sure we're prioritizing more effectively and are all working on the most important things.
We'll share more details as we have them.
From Miranda Kalinowski, global head of recruiting:
Hi everyone —
As Dave Wehner shared this morning, we're taking a more conservative approach to expense and headcount growth over the rest of the year, given the headwinds facing our business and this means hiring fewer people than we initially forecast for 2022. We're still working out what this means for each org, but this will affect hiring goals for almost every team across the company. Based on this refreshed guidance, we know we need to adjust our hiring targets across the board starting with Eng. I am committed to keeping you all updated as we have new information to hand. Here's what we know so far….
What this means right now in Engineering Recruiting
- At this time, we will need to pause Eng hiring for IC6 and M1 hiring, effective immediately, with the exception of ML IC5+ candidates.
- We will not extend any new offers to IC5 and M1+ Eng candidates (except ML IC5+) for these select pipelines and will be canceling future scheduled interviews.
- We will continue with scheduled interviews at onsite for IC6/M2 Eng candidates, but will not be adding any net-new candidates as we are confident we have enough people in process to meet our hiring goals.
- We will continue to actively hire for ML IC5+ candidates and IC7+ candidates across all SWE areas, and will pause Director openings to asses our needs on a case by case basis.
- In addition to ML IC5+ and IC7+ hiring, MTR recruiting will also pivot to other hiring prioritizes across Product XFN, Reality Labs, and Infra.
- Please note, this means we'll also pause additional IC3/4 Eng hiring at this point. However, we will continue to honor rEng conversions and will re-evaluate net-new rENG STE hiring. | 2022-05-04T19:50:59Z | www.businessinsider.com | Read the Internal Facebook Memo Detailing Company-Wide Hiring Freeze | https://www.businessinsider.com/read-the-internal-facebook-memo-detailing-company-wide-hiring-freeze-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/read-the-internal-facebook-memo-detailing-company-wide-hiring-freeze-2022-5 |
In this May 22, 2020, file photo, a car drives past the Federal Reserve building in Washington.
The Fed just raised interest rates by 0.5 percentage points, and it will likely do so again soon.
There's a "broad sense" that such hikes "should be on the table" at coming meetings, chair Jerome Powell said.
The double-sized increase represents the Fed's more aggressive strategy for cooling inflation.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday issued its first double-sized rate hike since 2000. It probably won't be the last one this year.
The central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate to a range of 0.75% to 1%, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous range's limits. The increase was twice the size of the quarter-point rate hikes typically used by the Fed and reflect a markedly more aggressive policy strategy to cool inflation.
The larger-than-usual hikes suggest the Federal Open Market Committee is betting the economy needs less in the way of pandemic-era support and a more stringent effort to slow the country's months-long price surge.
One double-sized rate increase won't be enough to quell inflation, however, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted in a Wednesday press conference that such large hikes could dominate the Fed's summer meetings.
"There is a broad sense on the committee that additional 50 basis point increases should be on the table at the next couple of meetings," Powell told reporters. "The American economy is very strong and well-positioned to handle tighter monetary policy."
The faster hiking cycle will primarily fight inflation by weakening demand. A higher benchmark rate lifts rates on all kinds of borrowing, ranging from mortgages to credit card interest. Pricier borrowing tends to rein in Americans' spending. A spending cooldown would help close the supply-demand gap that's powered inflation higher.
But while Powell confirmed that 0.5-point hikes are being considered, he doesn't see the Fed backing a larger increase anytime soon. A 0.75-point hike "is not something that the committee is actively considering," he said.
The forward guidance confirms what markets have been betting on for weeks. Traders are largely pricing in 0.5-point hikes to be announced at the FOMC's June and July meetings. Forecasts for the September policy decision are much more varied but still point to another double-sized increase. That would place the upper limit of the benchmark interest rate at 2.5%, sharply higher than the 0.25% limit seen as recently as early March.
Such a high rate would make borrowing much more expensive and leave Americans feeling new pressure from their loans. The alternative, however, would be more dangerous for the economy, Powell said. There "may be some pain" as the Fed raises rates at a faster clip, but the "big pain" would come from "not dealing with inflation and allowing it to become entrenched," he added.
Whether Powell is correct and the economy can withstand a more aggressive hiking cycle is possibly the hottest debate surrounding the US economy. The discourse focuses on the goal of a "soft landing," a phrase that characterizes the Fed's ability to slow inflation without facing a drop in employment.
The central bank has a "good chance" at achieving a "soft or soft-ish landing" through the recovery, Powell said Wednesday, cited the labor market's swift recovery and strong economic data as a sign the US can stomach higher rates.
Yet hawkish economists have pushed back against Powell's outlook in recent months, arguing the Fed moved too late to address the inflation problem. Deutsche Bank projected in April that the Fed would raise rates above 5% and trigger a major recession by the end of 2023.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said Wednesday he sees a one-in-three chance the Fed can accomplish a soft landing, and a similar probability the country plunges into a severe recession. Still, the economy remains "very strong" and the Fed is right to move faster, he added.
"We're a little late, but remember two years ago we had 15% unemployment and no vaccine," Dimon told Bloomberg TV. "People should take a deep breath and give them a chance."
More: Economy Federal Reserve Fed Central Bank | 2022-05-04T20:34:22Z | www.businessinsider.com | The Fed Will Likely Issue More Double-Sized Rate Hikes, Powell Says | https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hikes-double-sized-future-meetings-powell-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hikes-double-sized-future-meetings-powell-2022-5 |
Smooth stone is neat and uniform.
You can make smooth stone in Minecraft by smelting stone with any type of fuel.
Smooth stone is one of the most popular construction materials in the game.
You can also combine smooth stone with iron ingots and a Furnace to make a Blast Furnace.
If you're desperate enough, you can make a house out of anything in Minecraft. Who among us hasn't spent at least one night hiding inside of a dirt hut?
But if you want a house that's not an eyesore, you'll need to use some better blocks — for example, smooth stone.
To craft smooth stone, you'll need two things: A Furnace and stone.
To make a Furnace, just fill the edges of your Crafting Table with cobblestone. A Furnace lets you smelt items using fuel, turning them into new items.
You’ll need nine units of cobblestone to craft a Furnace.
Quick tip: Smelting with a furnace requires fuel. You can use coal, charcoal, a bucket of lava, or nearly any item made out of wood.
You'll also need this Furnace to acquire stone. Stone is one of the most common materials in any Minecraft world, but when you mine it, all you'll get is cobblestone. To get stone, take that cobblestone and smelt it. You'll get one unit of stone for every piece of cobblestone you smelt.
Once you have your Furnace and stone, you're ready to make smooth stone.
Fuel up the Furnace and place a unit of stone inside. After a few moments, it'll produce a unit of smooth stone.
You can use any type of fuel to smelt smooth stone.
What you can use smooth stone for in Minecraft
Smooth stone is a pretty basic block. But it's resistant to explosions and has a neat uniform design, making it a great choice for constructing a home or fortress.
If you're looking to upgrade your buildings from dirt or plain cobblestone, give smooth stone a shot. It'll look much cleaner.
Smooth stone (top row) compared to cobblestone and dirt.
Otherwise, you can combine your smooth stone with iron and a Furnace to make a Blast Furnace. Blast Furnaces smelt at twice the speed of a regular Furnace, and can also be placed inside of a village to turn a nearby Villager into an Armorer.
You can use iron and smooth stone to upgrade your Furnace.
Lastly, lining the bottom three slots of a Crafting Table with smooth stone will give you six smooth stone slabs. These are pieces of smooth stone that are half as tall as usual.
More: Tech How To Minecraft stone Minecraft Items | 2022-05-04T20:34:28Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Make Smooth Stone in Minecraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-smooth-stone-in-minecraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-smooth-stone-in-minecraft |
Sen. Marco Rubio's new bill wouldn't let employers deduct travel expenses that pay for abortion or trans care
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican of Florida, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference at The Rosen Shingle Creek on February 25, 2022 in Orlando, Florida.
The Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a leaked draft.
In response, some large corporations said they'd pay for workers' abortion travel costs.
Rubio has introduced a bill to prevent companies from deducting the travel in their taxes.
Employers wouldn't be allowed to deduct travel expenses for their workers' abortions under a bill Sen. Marco Rubio introduced Wednesday.
The Florida Republican's bill, the No Tax Breaks for Radical Corporate Activism Act, comes as several major corporations including Citi, Apple, Yelp, Lyft, Levi's, and Amazon announced they'd reimburse travel costs for employees to access abortion if they live in a state where it becomes illegal.
The bill would also extend to transgender care as Disney is considering ways to help employees and their children receive coverage.
"Our tax code should be pro-family and promote a culture of life," Rubio said in a statement announcing his legislation. "Instead, too often our corporations find loopholes to subsidize the murder of unborn babies or horrific 'medical' treatments on kids. My bill would make sure this does not happen."
Under current tax law, businesses can deduct benefits from an employee compensation package, including for healthcare plans or medical expenses.
Other companies are likely to follow in offering coverage for abortion or transgender care travel, Rubio wrote in an editorial he published in Newsweek.
"These corporations may be able to help their employees kill their unborn children or transition their son into a daughter tax-free," he wrote, adding later in the piece, "If executive elites think they can force the rest of the country to support their insane policies, they have another thing coming."
The legislation contains exceptions for workers who receive care because they would otherwise face serious health problems or death.
Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican of Florida, is introducing the House version of the bill. In a statement, Mast said corporations "should not be allowed to use taxpayer funds to support dangerous procedures that harm our kids and kill innocent babies."
Rubio's office said the legislation had the backing of the Family Research Council, which opposes abortion and transgender rights.
GOP and Big Business clash
The new bill represents an escalation by Rubio against Big Business.
The two-term senator introduced another bill in September that would require corporate directors to prove that certain social initiatives he calls "woke" are in the best interest of shareholders.
Rubio has also called for other Republicans to break against big businesses who are pushing for "woke policies" that will lead to "Marxism."
Rubio is the son of Cuban parents who immigrated to the US just ahead of Fidel Castro's rise, and has often invoked his personal story in explaining his position against large businesses' policies.
Rubio ran for the GOP nomination for president in 2016 but lost to Trump. If he wins reelection in November — when he's likely to face off against Democratic Rep. Val Demings of Orlando — he is expected to be in the mix for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Clashes between Republicans and corporations have become more common. For decades, the GOP was aligned with American corporations and delivered them millions of dollars worth of federal tax breaks. But former President Donald Trump frequently attacked large companies and their CEOs, shaking up the GOP playbook and ushering in an era of populist ideology.
Businesses, too, have evolved as younger employees are demanding that their bosses take stronger stances on social and political causes, from Black Lives Matter to the climate crisis and even abortion.
The calculus over how far to wade into such topics is risky for businesses, who risk losing employees or customers, or drawing the ire of lawmakers.
Last month, top CEOs paid attention when Disney spoke out against Florida's controversial sex education bill. In response, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed a bill into law to terminate the theme park and entertainment company's special tax district.
The latest corporate push for abortion access in particular comes after a leaked draft opinion Politico obtained from the Supreme Court showed the justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In response, the Senate is preparing to vote on a bill that would codify Roe into law and undo all state restrictions on abortion. Rubio opposes abortion and voted against the legislation when it came to the floor in February.
Rubio told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday that he hadn't read the Supreme Court's draft opinion.
"I'm not going to read a leaked document," he said. "It's not the final opinion of the court."
More: Politics Marco Rubio Florida Roe v Wade
transgender laws | 2022-05-04T20:34:46Z | www.businessinsider.com | Rubio Bill Would Prevent Corporate Travel Deductions for Abortions | https://www.businessinsider.com/rubio-bill-would-prevent-corporate-travel-deductions-for-abortions-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/rubio-bill-would-prevent-corporate-travel-deductions-for-abortions-2022-5 |
5 conversations that helped a newlywed couple pay off $131,000 in student loans in 14 months
Corazon Ochanda-Eaton and Curtis Eaton paid off $131,000 in student loans in just 14 months.
Courtesy of Corazon Ochanda-Eaton
Even though Corazon Ochanda-Eaton qualified for PSLF, she wanted to pay off her student loans quickly.
Before getting married, Corazon and her husband Curtis talked about their finances regularly.
Here are five key questions that jumpstarted their 14-month journey to pay off $131,000.
When Corazon Ochanda-Eaton graduated from college in the summer of 2018, she and her soon-to-be husband, Curtis, sat down to look at their full financial picture before getting married. The biggest worry the couple had? Corazon's $131,000 student loan debt.
Corazon tells Insider, "At the time, I was working in the nonprofit industry and making a minimum payment of $286 a month, which barely contributed to any of the principal payment." She knew that she qualified for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, but she knew that 98% of eligible applications get denied.
She adds, "In that moment, I knew I didn't want to be bound to my student loan debt, hoping that the government wold take care of it for me. I knew it was time to take action by making smart financial decisions early into our marriage."
The first step was getting on the same page with Curtis about their shared financial goals and understanding what kind of life they were both working towards once the loans were paid off. Here are five questions the Eatons asked each other while planning to pay off six figures worth of student loan debt in just 14 months.
1. Should we focus on paying down debt first?
Initially, Corazon and Curtis weren't on the same page about prioritizing paying off Corazon's student loans. Corazon says, "Curtis wasn't 100% convinced that it was possible to pay off such a large amount of debt."
To convince Curtis to get on board, Corazon made a debt-payoff plan that included details about their debts, including the interest rate and principal balance of each loan, and how much they needed to contribute to pay off the loans as quickly as possible.
Once Curtis saw the debt-payoff roadmap, he was convinced. Corazon adds, "One of the things that got us on the same page was talking through how the debt was — and would continue to — impact us mentally and financially."
2. What's your credit score?
Early in their relationship, the couple had to get used to sharing intimate details about their financial well-being. Corazon says, "We were open and honest about our finances, including our debt, credit score , past financial mistakes, and success."
Learning each other's credit scores is an uncomfortable conversation for most marriages, but, for the Eatons, it helped them set goals and measure their overall progress.
3. What are your budgeting strengths and weaknesses?
The Eatons asked each other what their strengths and weaknesses were when it comes to personal finance. If one partner struggled with keeping food spending down, the other stepped in to provide accountability and support.
Corazon adds, "This allowed us to implement strategies around our weaknesses, like taking out cash envelopes each month, updating our budget tracker, and mapping out our financial plans and goals."
3. What's your biggest financial accomplishment so far?
Corazon has had the same car for 10 years, which she paid off before they got married — one of her biggest money accomplishments. While creating a roadmap for their financial goals, she realized that paying off Curtis' car note would help them redirect more money toward their student loan payoff journey.
Knowing what each of them had done correctly in their past helped them implement the same strategies on their journey to becoming debt-free.
5. Would you prefer to travel or live in a high-end home?
The biggest budget cut that helped the Eatons pay down Corazon's $131,000 student loan debt was housing costs. Corazon says, "We eventually house-hacked and moved into a two-family property, allowing us to rent out the other unit and reduce our overall housing expense."
To come to an agreement about that decision, the Eatons had to discuss their money values in detail so that they could prioritize what's important to both of them. Says Corazon, "We made room for the things in life that we valued, like travel, and reduced expenses in areas that we didn't value, like material possessions."
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Marriage Kids and Money | 2022-05-04T21:22:01Z | www.businessinsider.com | Paying Off $131,000 in Student Loans Started With 5 Key Money Talks | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-conversations-student-loan-debt-payoff-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-conversations-student-loan-debt-payoff-2022-5 |
Amazon's troubled drone delivery division sees high attrition, with one team losing more than 70% of employees, leaked documents show
Katherine Long and Eugene Kim
Amazon's former retail chief Jeff Wilke revealed Prime Air's new drone model at the 2019 Re:Mars robotic conference
Amazon's ambitious drone delivery division, Prime Air, had a 30% turnover rate in 2021, internal documents show.
One team working on drone testing had an attrition rate higher than 70%.
High turnover in Prime Air is leading to delays in meeting project goals, the documents say.
Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery division bled personnel last year, imperiling the unit's ability to meet key project goals, according to internal documents obtained by Insider.
More than 30% of Prime Air's 800 employees quit, transferred, or were fired last year, the documents show. This turnover rate is significantly higher than the previous year's 20% and more than four times higher than Amazon's annual 6% target for what it calls "unregretted attrition." Within the testing unit, attrition reached almost 70% last year.
Prime Air's unusually high turnover also comes at a time of flux and internal turmoil. Employees have left amid cultural clashes between new hires and longtime employees, high costs, shifting goals, missed deadlines, and delays from testing accidents, Insider previously reported. The company also laid off more than 100 employees at Prime Air's UK office last year as part of a division restructuring, Wired previously reported.
Other teams at Amazon also struggled with unusually high attrition rates last year, Insider previously reported, partly due to increased competition from other tech titans willing to offer lucrative compensation packages to Amazon executives.
An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Prime Air's progress has been bumpy since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced the project in 2013. At that point, Bezos predicted that autonomous Amazon drones would be delivering packages to customers within "four or five years."
But by 2020, Amazon had concluded the division had focused too much on R&D and had failed to produce "a delivery service that could be safely operated over populated areas," according to an internal quarterly business review from earlier this year obtained by Insider. Amazon replaced Prime Air head Gur Kimchi in 2020 with former Boeing executive David Carbon, who set ambitious goals for testing and regulatory approvals, former employees said.
Carbon's stricter approach sometimes rankled Prime Air's existing staff, one former testing employee said. Some were not used to the painstaking process required to ensure that Amazon's autonomous drones were safe to fly over cities and towns, a crucial step to gain approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. The division had previously been "a haven for tinkerers," this person said.
Turnover was particularly high in Prime Air's roughly 100-person testing unit, which lost 71% of its employees last year, according to the confidential business review, which was distributed internally in February. That high attrition rate contributed to difficulties in meeting a goal of running 2,500 test flights last year, according to the document — a significant ramp up from Prime Air's previous goal of running about 350 test flights a year, according to a former Prime Air employee.
Last year, Prime Air test engineers worked "seven days a week" to try to meet the testing goal, according to a former Prime Air employee. They ultimately completed 2,338 test flights and fell short of the goal, according to the documents. Test-team employees grew burnt out on the workload, another former Prime Air employee said, and many left.
The quarterly review notes that Prime Air was "not prepared" to ramp up testing, citing attrition alongside limited hardware availability, software bugs and incomplete testing processes. Amazon restructured the team and hired contractors "to bridge the capacity gap," the document said.
The test unit's workload, meanwhile, has grown by an order of magnitude in the past year. Prime Air aims to run 12,000 test flights in 2022, Insider previously reported, including flights to 1,300 customer beta testers in California and Texas.
High turnover has been an ongoing problem for Prime Air. The team's attrition is high even compared to other parts of Amazon, which caused Carbon to address the issue during a contentious internal all-hands meeting last summer, as Insider previously reported.
In order to address hiring and retention issues, the Prime Air team is planning for a number of virtual networking events, external recruitment videos, and new branding campaigns this year, according to one of the documents.
Prime Air also planned to double down on attracting internal transfers, according to a recruiting document from last May, which said that roughly 33% of Prime Air's total hiring typically comes from existing Amazon employees. It also aimed to encourage managers to have internal hiring goals and to actively use "dive and saves," a new pay package offered to those at risk of leaving the company.
The team also planned to launch a recruiting initiative called "Project Reconsider," which identifies and speeds up the hiring process for software development candidates who declined an Amazon offer within the last three-to-six months, according to that recruiting document. Amazon could expand the project to other job positions, depending on the results, it said.
Prime Air also launched a second tech hub in Austin, Texas, late last year to expand its talent pool in the region, the documents show.
More: Amazon Prime Air Drone Delivery | 2022-05-04T22:53:03Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon Prime Air Division Bleeding Staff, High Turnover: Leaked Documents | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-air-attrition-drone-delivery-employee-turnover-2021-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-air-attrition-drone-delivery-employee-turnover-2021-2022-5 |
Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs' Blackstone-backed Candle Media is in talks to acquire NFT company Notables, pointing to Web3 content ambitions
Kevin Mayer founded Candle Media with Tom Staggs in 2021.
Blackstone-backed company Candle Media is in talks to acquire NFT startup Notables.
Candle's Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs are on the board at Forest Road, which incubated Notables.
Notables has done NFT drops with stars like Shaquille O'Neal and has close ties with top Hollywood agencies.
Candle Media, the Blackstone-backed company founded by former Disney execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, is in talks to acquire NFT startup Notables, three sources familiar with the deal told Insider.
Notables bills itself as a highly curated marketplace for NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that "prioritizes quality over quantity," and counts major Hollywood talent agencies CAA, UTA, and WME as advisors.
A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment. A representative for Notables could not be reached for comment.
If a deal comes together, it would be Candle's first acquisition in the Web3 space, following deals for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company, kids media company Moonbug Entertainment, and "Fauda" producer Faraway Road Productions. Candle also acquired a minority stake in Will Smith's Westbrook Inc. earlier this year.
Such a deal would also offer a sign of how Mayer and Staggs — both former Disney executives who left the media conglomerate after it became clear that they were not in line to succeed ex-CEO Bob Iger — plan to build Candle into a consumer-facing media company that is more than the sum of its parts. Bringing NFT creation and sales capabilities in house via Notables, for example, would give Candle the ability to develop virtual collectibles based on the IP created through its production arms.
Work on Notables began in 2020 via Forest Road Co, an investment firm that counts Mayer and Staggs as board members. The company formally launched last year, according to Variety, with support from the Hollywood agencies as well as a group of media, tech, and finance executives, including Spotify global head of creative artist partnerships Ashley Graver, Reservoir Media Management CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi, and UTA head of Web3 Lesley Silverman.
According to Notables' website, "Our commitment to the world of premium content means that every item is considered, curated, and contextualized with our in-house team of tech and culture experts." Its current live drop comes from jeweler-actor-musician Ben Yang, also known as Ben Baller, who has crafted custom jewelry for Ye, Drake, and others. Past drops include a 10,000-NFT collection from Shaquille O'Neal that raised $2 million for the basketball icon's charitable foundation.
Hollywood creatives and studios have increasingly invested in the NFT space in the past year, with stars like Witherspoon, producers like "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, and legacy and upstart studios jumping into the tech.
Mayer and Staggs launched Candle in 2021 and, with around $2 billion in backing from Blackstone, began scouting Hollywood for assets to acquire. It has held talks with many companies, not all of which have led to deals. Last August, it announced its first acquisition: Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine, in a deal that valued the production company behind shows like HBO's "Big Little Lies" at $900 milion.
With its initial slate of deals, Candle is betting that the streaming wars will continue to drive insatiable demand for buzzy, star-ladden content. In an interview with The Information in January, Joe Baratta, Blackstone's global head of private equity, said the plan is to marry that content with commerce, gaming, and social media.
Around the same time, Candle announced it had hired Brent Weinstein, the former chief innovation officer at UTA, to lead its new business development with a focus on opportunities in social media, the creator economy, ecommerce, and Web3 spaces.
More: Web3 NFT Hollywood | 2022-05-04T22:53:09Z | www.businessinsider.com | Blackstone-Backed Candle Media in Talks to Acquire NFT Startup Notables | https://www.businessinsider.com/blackstone-candle-media-kevin-mayer-tom-staggs-acquire-nft-notables-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/blackstone-candle-media-kevin-mayer-tom-staggs-acquire-nft-notables-2022-5 |
TikTok's new ad program will split half its revenue with creators. Here are the key details.
TikTok is piloting a new ad program where it will give 50% of revenue to creators.
The revenue share agreement will only apply to ads run on its new product "TikTok Pulse."
TikTok hasn't shared ad earnings with creators previously, opting to pay them via its Creator Fund.
TikTok will give 50% of ad revenue generated from a new contextual ad product to creators as it looks for additional ways to pay influencers for their content, the company confirmed to Insider.
Users whose videos appear in-feed next to ads purchased through the program, dubbed "TikTok Pulse," will be eligible for payouts. A creator must have at least 100,000 followers to get paid.
The 50/50 split is a bit lower than revenue share agreements at rivals like YouTube and Instagram. YouTube typically pays a 55% share of ad revenue back to creators for video ads. Instagram has offered the same split for ads served in its TikTok copycat feature Reels. Livestreaming platform Twitch is considering reducing its revenue share agreement for some of its streamers from 70% to 50%, Bloomberg reported.
TikTok hasn't given a cut of ad earnings to influencers in the past, opting instead to compensate them for content through a creator fund it launched in 2020. Some creators have expressed displeasure at their effective pay rates from the program.
One likely reason TikTok hasn't done ad revenue sharing with influencers in the past is its single-feed format. Ads that appear between two videos, as opposed to in the beginning, middle, or end of a single video — the format on YouTube — can be harder to tie back to a particular creator.
The company is addressing this attribution challenge with Pulse. Ads purchased through Pulse will still be in-feed placements. But the ads will be programmed to appear adjacent to specific videos in 12 content categories that TikTok has deemed in the top 4% of "engaging content" in all users' feeds. The company told Ad Age that engaging videos don't need to have the most views, but they do need to be "taking off" in terms of viewership.
TikTok will be able to determine who should be compensated because the ads will appear between videos from a participating set of creators in a subset of categories. It did not specify whether the 50% of revenue from an ad impression will go to the creator whose video appeared before or after an in-stream ad. The company named beauty, fashion, cooking, and gaming as categories that advertisers could buy Pulse ads against.
Since Pulse is being marketed as a premium ad placement offering, TikTok addressed the question of brand safety upfront in its Pulse announcement. Brands have cut spend from rivals like Facebook and YouTube in the past after discovering their ads have run alongside toxic user-generated content such as hate speech.
"Our proprietary inventory filter ensures that TikTok Pulse ads are running adjacent to verified content with our highest level of brand suitability applied on the platform," the company wrote.
More: TikTok Influencers YouTube | 2022-05-04T22:53:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | TikTok to Give Half of Ad Revenue From New Pulse Program to Creators | https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-to-share-half-ad-revenue-with-creators-pulse-program-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-to-share-half-ad-revenue-with-creators-pulse-program-2022-5 |
The turret of a destroyed Russian tank stuck in the ground in Zalissia in the Kyiv region, May 3, 2022.
Ukrainian investigators gather items belonging to Russian soldiers in the village of Bervytsia, April 21, 2022.
Evgen Kotenko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
A destroyed Russian military vehicle on the outskirts of Kharkiv, February 26, 2022.
A couple inspects the tail of a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft, which was destroyed in the Kyiv region and relocated near a military museum in the city, May 2, 2022.
More: Russia Ukraine military communications News Contributor | 2022-05-04T23:40:50Z | www.businessinsider.com | Russian Troops in Ukraine Face Military Communications Challenges | https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-troops-in-ukraine-face-military-communications-challenges-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-troops-in-ukraine-face-military-communications-challenges-2022-5 |
Rep. Henry Cuellar, left, is facing an electoral rematch against attorney Jessica Cisneros, right
Alex Brandon/AP, Eric Gay/AP
Congressional challenger Jessica Cisneros called out Rep. Henry Cuellar's stance on abortion.
After the SCOTUS leak on Monday, Cuellar said "I do not support abortion."
Cisneros called on top democrats to drop their support of Cuellar ahead of their May 24 race.
Progressive Democratic House challenger Jessica Cisneros called her opponent Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar "the last anti-choice Democrat in the House," and urged top Democrats to stop supporting the incumbent over his anti-abortion stance.
"As the Supreme Court prepares to overturn Roe v. Wade, I am calling on Democratic Party leadership to withdraw their support of Henry Cuellar who is the last anti-choice Democrat in the House," Cisneros told NBC in a statement on Wednesday.
Roe v. Wade is the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that codified the right to an abortion into law, but the memo leaked by Politico on Monday showed that the court's five conservative judges all shared their opposition to the law in February.
After the leak, Cuellar issued a statement saying he "does not support abortion," according to the Associated Press.
In 2021, Cuellar was the sole House Democrat to vote against the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill aimed at making abortion care more accessible.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have endorsed Cuellar, and the Texas Rep. is set to speak at a rally in Texas on Wednesday evening with Rep. Jim Clyburn. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also endorsed Cisneros, and the senior Democrats aligned with Cuellar have stood by him as FBI agents raided his home in January. The reasons for the raid are still unclear.
Cisneros told NBC that "with the House majority on the line, he could very much be the deciding vote on the future of our reproductive rights and we cannot afford to take that risk."
—Jessica Cisneros (@JCisnerosTX) May 4, 2022
She added that she "would be a better working partner for Democratic leadership to be able to deliver on these Democratic priorities and proposals that Democrats ran on in the last election cycle."
Cisneros and Cuellar's offices did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.
The two are set to face off on May 24, after neither secured the needed majority vote in a March 2 democratic primary.
More: Jessica Cisneros Rep. Henry Cuellar Roe v Wade Roe v Wade leak | 2022-05-05T01:55:31Z | www.businessinsider.com | Jessica Cisneros Slams 'the Last Anti-Choice Democrat' Rep. Cuellar | https://www.businessinsider.com/jessica-cisneros-slams-the-last-anti-choice-democrat-rep-cuellar-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/jessica-cisneros-slams-the-last-anti-choice-democrat-rep-cuellar-2022-5 |
Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Delaware on April 23, 2022, left. Michael Cohen leaves federal court in Manhattan on Nov. 22, 2021, right.
Left, Joe Maiorana/AP. Right, Carlo Allegri
Michael Cohen will be deposed Monday in a lawsuit alleging Donald Trump sicced security on Trump Tower protesters.
Trump swore under oath he had nothing to do with the protest; Cohen now says he'll rebut that claim.
The dueling depositions — Trump's and Cohen's — will be played at trial next month in the Bronx.
Donald Trump fixer-turned critic Michael Cohen will tape a video deposition Monday rebutting the former president's sworn account of a violent, 2015 protest outside Trump Tower, according to a new court filing.
As part of an upcoming, New York City civil trial, Trump had sworn in a deposition saying he had nothing to do with his security getting rough with protesters back in September 2015.
But on Wednesday, Cohen filed a letter with the judge in the case, confirming that he is a witness to Trump's actions that day and that he will tape his own deposition on Monday.
Cohen's letter takes a swipe at Trump's years-long failure to tell the protesters' lawyers that Cohen was there with Trump on the day of the protest, as the protesters' side has only recently learned.
And court filings reveal that Cohen plans to refute Trump's account of having nothing to do with his security personnel punching protesters and taking their signs.
Cohen was at Trump's side upstairs in Trump Tower and saw Trump order his top security guard, Keith Schiller, to "get rid" of the protesters, their lawyer has alleged in court documents.
Both Trump's deposition and Cohen's opposing deposition will be played for a Bronx jury — in lieu of their in-person testimony — at a trial now scheduled to begin June 20.
Four protesters and the estate of a fifth, all of Mexican heritage, allege in the lawsuit that Trump is personally responsible for their being attacked by security as they held parody "Make America Racist Again" signs to protest the then-presidential candidate calling immigrants from Mexico drug dealers and rapists.
"It is noteworthy that the defendants were aware of my presence at, during, and after the incident," Cohen wrote in the letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez, who sits in the Bronx, "and their decision not to exchange my name as a witness (likely because what I witnessed was adverse to their interest) ... should not be endorsed."
Cohen also used the letter to take a swipe at Trump's attorney, Alina Habba. As Insider first reported, Cohen had blown off what he called a "defective" subpoena from Habba compelling him to sit for a deposition on May 2.
In his letter, Cohen noted that Habba's subpoena failed to say what he would be questioned about.
"I have no legal obligation to comply with a subpoena when there is no clarification as to why I am being asked to participate," Cohen told Insider Wednesday.
He declined to describe the details of what he will be testifying to on Monday, but he has previously told Insider that during his time as Trump's "fixer," Trump, "was involved in every aspect of the Trump Organization, regardless of how big or small the matter."
In the letter, Cohen also mocked another filing in which Habba "outrageously" signed her own name at the bottom, in the space where the judge's signature should be.
Habba, meanwhile, has called Cohen "a former disgruntled employee of the Trump Organization" with "a long and well-documented disdain for Mr. Trump." She could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Portions of Trump's own deposition were released last week by the protesters' lawyer, Benjamin Dictor, as part of a filing describing why Cohen's deposition is necessary to the case.
It included Trump's strange musings on the threat that "dangerous" fruits could be thrown at him by protesters.
"Mr. Cohen's letter to the court confirms what we have suspected — that Defendants failed to identify Mr. Cohen as a witness with information adverse to their defenses," Dictor said Wednesday night when asked for comment.
"This is a serious violation of Defendant Trump's discovery obligations. We look forward to examining Mr. Cohen for trial."
More: Donald Trump Michael Cohen Trump Tower New York City | 2022-05-05T01:55:37Z | www.businessinsider.com | Michael Cohen to Swear Monday That Donald Trump Lied About a Violent Trump Tower Protest. | https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-to-swear-trump-lied-violent-trump-tower-protest-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-to-swear-trump-lied-violent-trump-tower-protest-2022-5 |
2022 has been a 'loss year in terms of valuation' for Christian Angermayer. The 44-year-old German billionaire told us why he is doubling down on his investments in psychedelic stocks and remains 'extremely bullish' on bitcoin.
Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group
Apeiron Investment Group
Risk assets are falling in tandem as the macro environment sends increasingly bearish signals.
Christian Angermayer took the opportunity to double down on his psychedelic stock holdings.
The German billionaire explains his high conviction and why he is "extremely bullish" on bitcoin.
Amid the triple whammy of a protracted war in Europe, surging inflation, and the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates into tightening financial conditions in much of the developed world, investors have nowhere to hide from the market turbulence as risk assets fall in tandem.
Even billionaires cannot escape the brutal impact of a rapidly shifting macro environment.
"2022 has been a loss year in terms of valuation but not a loss year in terms of building great companies," Christian Angermayer, who runs his $3.5 billion family office Aperion Investment Group, told Insider in an interview.
The 44-year-old German billionaire dropped out of university at the age of 21 to help start a biotech company in 2000 that eventually became Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), which has a market cap of more than $17 billion today. In 2018, he founded the psychedelics startup Atai Life Sciences (ATAI), which focuses on psychedelic treatment for mental health disorders.
In June last year, the Peter Thiel-backed company became the third psychedelic biotech to go public in the US after MindMed (MNMD) in April and Compass Pathways (CMPS) in September 2020. Angermayer also owns a stake in Compass Pathways through Atai Life Sciences.
A teetotaler, he began to bet on the long-term medicinal potential of psychedelics after trying magic mushrooms for the first time in a Caribbean country where usage is legalized. The "trip" ended up being the "single most meaningful" experience in his life and later gave him the creative boost to start investing in crypto assets, he told Insider in a September interview.
Through his family office, Angermayer is the largest institutional investor in blockchain software company Block.one, which created the EOS token and holds more than 170,000 bitcoin. Along with a coterie of billionaires that include Angermayer, Block.one launched and capitalized crypto exchange Bullish Global with about $10 billion in digital assets and cash in May 2021.
From psychedelics to crypto, the bets worked out well as ample liquidity and bullish sentiment in the market propelled growth stocks and cryptocurrencies to all-time highs in 2021.
Doubling down in a challenging market environment
Things have looked less buoyant since the Fed signaled its intention to hike rates and tighten financial conditions to rein in inflation. Under such circumstances, stocks have been stuck in what seems like a perpetual downward spiral while cryptocurrencies are trading like leveraged versions of high-growth tech stocks.
So far this year, Atai has tumbled more than 40% and Compass Pathways has fallen almost 60%. The Horizons Psychedelic Stock Index ETF, which tracks the North American Psychedelics Index, is down 76% from its peak in February last year. The global crypto market cap has retreated to $1.84 trillion from a peak of $3 trillion last year.
"Last year, everything was priced for perfection," Angermayer said. "My feeling at the moment is that everything is priced for the worse. The mood is so depressed that I think there is room for positive surprises."
Indeed, the serial entrepreneur has doubled down on his investments in the psychedelics sector by extending the lockup of his pre-IPO shares of Atai by another two years, he announced in a LinkedIn post in December. In April, he increased his stake in the company via a capped call of one million shares, according to a regulatory filing. (The transaction would pay off if Atai stock doubles by March 2025.)
"As a founder, obviously, I really deeply believe that Atai is worth much more," he said. "In this challenging public market environment, investors don't look at the quality difference when everything is going down. My conviction is that once markets stabilize and start going up again, investors will choose high-quality companies in the sector."
In his view, many biotech companies claim to be involved with psychedelics without having a clearly defined strategy, viable business model, and intellectual property, including patents.
"As these companies struggle to survive, this might give casual observers the feeling that the entire sector is in trouble," he said. "In my opinion, however, these struggling companies should have never gotten funding in the first place."
He explains that it is critical to separate the wheat from the chaff in the psychedelics sector because the medicinal use of psychedelics requires a clear regulatory pathway for approval, experience and expertise in conducting clinical trials, as well as intellectual property protections.
"Throughout their history, psychedelics have been highly regulated, often through religious practices, and were administered under strict guidelines and with a certain protocol, not dissimilar from what we strive to create, just with different gatekeepers," he said, adding that medical doctors now help guide users instead of shamans.
Ultimately, his conviction in the space is rooted in his belief that mental health and the pursuit of happiness are paramount in a modern world where the race for technological advancement is relentless.
"I do think that people were happier because I think our mind is deeply made for continuity," he said. "But if you look at the world today, it's anything but continuity, it's speed and record innovation."
'Extremely bullish' on bitcoin
Despite the mental health issues that have accompanied rapid innovation, Angermayer said he remains "extremely bullish" on bitcoin — a financial innovation in and of itself.
That's because he believes that bitcoin is the "positive antidote" to everything that is "wrong and risky" about the world. For example, bitcoin could be a store of value during times of surging inflation and a life-saving technology for holders to escape war zones, he said.
To be sure, bitcoin has not performed like an inflation-hedging asset at a time when US inflation soared to a 40-year high. The price of the largest cryptocurrency has fallen to $39,000 from its all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November.
"I'm extremely bullish on bitcoin. It is suffering in the short term due to the risk-off market environment, which is the price we pay for it to become a more institutional asset," he said. "But there are still two big drivers, one is that bitcoin adoption is still in the early days, the other is that bitcoin's protective nature against inflation makes it a better store of value than many other things."
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macro investing | 2022-05-05T08:49:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | Billionaire Doubles Down on Psychedelic Stocks, BTC Amid Valuation Hit | https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-doubles-down-on-psychedelic-stocks-btc-amid-valuation-hit-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-doubles-down-on-psychedelic-stocks-btc-amid-valuation-hit-2022-5 |
Coinbase CEO breaks down 3 factors that will help the crypto space grow to 1 billion users within a decade — and says there's a huge opportunity for a decentralized protocol on Twitter
Brian Armstrong is the chief executive officer at cryptocurrency exchange and custodian Coinbase.
He explains the pros of a decentralized protocol on Twitter's platform amid Elon Musk's takeover.
Armstrong talks about crypto regulation and blockchain upgrades.
By 2032, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says 1 billion people will use or have tried to use cryptocurrency. The trillion-dollar industry currently has 220 million users, per recent reports.
"My guess is that in 10 to 20 years, we'll see a substantial portion of GDP happening in the crypto economy," he said, comparing the nascent space's growth to the early days of the internet.
The 39-year-old made the prediction at the Milken Global Conference on Monday, amid bearish signals in the broader crypto markets. Ethereum and bitcoin have slid more than 15%, while altcoins like solana declined 34% in past month, according to Messari.
Key drivers for user adoption, Armstrong said, are regulatory clarity, blockchain upgrades and an influx of institutional capital flowing into the ecosystem.
Companies like Coinbase have complied with regulators, he said. The firm announced its acquisition of CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange FairX in January.
"And so the space has just become more trusted with more and more regulation happening both here in the US and abroad," he said.
Coinbase, however, has been in the crosshairs of regulators. In September, the SEC threatened legal action against the company if it launched its planned lending program, which was later cancelled. In response, the chief executive tweeted that the regulators' handling of the situation was "really sketchy," but that the company would comply with its guidance.
At Milken, Armstrong said there's still "cause for optimism" in the US regulatory environment, citing President Joe Biden's executive order on digital assets in March.
"It was very positive to see them also mention that we need to protect the innovation potential of this technology," he said. "Because this represents a huge opportunity where we want to preserve this in the United States."
Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, on the other hand, said that regulatory clarity is lacking and has slowed crypto adoption, specifically for institutional players.
"If we're not lucky, regulatory arbitrage is going to take this market away from us," Wood, who was on the Monday panel with Armstrong, said.
'The technology just keeps getting better'
Critics have said cryptocurrency's key issue is the technology powering it. Armstrong, however, thinks that it's consistently improving.
Let's look at the largest smart contact network, in particular. Ethereum's scalability, speed, and energy efficiency have been cause for backlash. One transaction on Ethereum's blockchain is comparable to the energy consumption of several thousands of a Visa card transaction, according to a January 10 report on Statista.
The Ethereum Foundation, however, says it's been working on a series of upgrades, known as Eth2 or The Merge, which aims to address complaints about the network's infrastructure. This includes a transition from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake model, which the foundation says is a less energy-intensive technology.
"And all of this new innovation is happening," Armstrong said, citing the creation of DeFi, NFTs and DAOs as well. "The technology just keeps getting better and better and easier to use for regular everyday people."
The timeline, however, for this multi-phase upgrade is unclear. Per an April 12 tweet, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko said that the transition will most likely occur "a few months" after June, but that there is no "firm date yet."
Roughly $100 billion in institutional capital has been flooding into crypto "over the last couple of years," Armstrong said. He cited Coinbase becoming a qualified custodian and acquiring a prime brokerage as two potential reasons for further adoption in the industry.
"All these features are starting to come together in a really important way," the exec said.
Elon Musk and a decentralized Twitter
Amid his bullish case for crypto's future, Armstrong predicted a potential outcome of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter: a decentralized social media. Mega billionaire Musk has advocated for opening up Twitter's algorithm so users can see what's curating their feed.
To Armstrong, this would look like a decentralized social media application, also known as DeSo – a Web3 version of Twitter. Crypto proponents, many of whom have long-standing concern over transparency, are calling for a decentralized protocol on the social media giant's platform.
"I do think there's an opportunity for Twitter to essentially embrace using a decentralized protocol," he said.
According to Armstrong, if this is added, a user could own their data – allowing user information to be stored on Filecoin or a distributed ledger instead.
"And I think that's one of the directions Twitter could go," he said. "I imagine that there's a number of startups and other companies that will be building a competing decentralized social media products if they don't."
NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency
More: Investing BIPrime crypto Coinbase | 2022-05-05T09:32:38Z | www.businessinsider.com | Coinbase CEO Predicts 1 Billion Crypto Users Within a Decade | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-coinbase-blockchain-twitter-ceo-brian-armstrong-1-billion-decade-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-coinbase-blockchain-twitter-ceo-brian-armstrong-1-billion-decade-2022-5 |
Amazon launched a $1 billion fund to invest in warehouse tech. One founder explains why he's not afraid to take money from the '800-pound gorilla'.
An Amazon warehouse in England in 2017.
Vimaan makes computer vision technology that counts and tracks inventory in warehouses in real-time.
The startup announced an undisclosed investment from Amazon's Industrial Innovation Fund last month.
Founder S.K. Ganapathi shared his reservations and advantages to taking investment from Amazon.
KG Ganapathi thought twice about taking Amazon's money.
"They're obviously the 800-pound gorilla in the space," the logistics startup founder told Insider. "They are a leader in size and scale. They are a leader in innovation."
Ganapathi raised a $25 million Series A round in January from New Enterprise Associates, Wing VC, and Neotribe Ventures for his warehouse technology startup, Vimaan. Soon after, Amazon approached him with an offer to invest from its $1 billion Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund. He ultimately decided to accept the offer after thoroughly weighing the potential pros and cons.
Amazon announced the fund last month along with investments in five startups including Vimaan — all in warehouse technology, from robots to wearable tech for human workers.
Vimaan makes inventory tracking technology that uses computer vision to count products coming into a warehouse from the loading dock, and tracks every piece as it moves around and eventually leaves.
An exact inventory count with the ability to locate every piece cuts down on errors. That in turn cuts down on returns from customers who received the wrong item. And it boosts productivity since, in theory, finding the right item is faster, according to Ganapathi.
Vimaan stores the barcodes and physical specification of an item along with its location. The system also integrates with warehouse software to understand what's coming in and point out discrepancies with the actual items received. It can even spot dented boxes and passed expiration dates, Ganapathi said.
The tech is particularly helpful for high-velocity warehouses (like e-commerce fulfillment centers) where goods come and go quickly, increasing the possibility for error, and for warehouses dealing in high-value goods. The founder said his tech is a necessary step toward so-called "lights out warehouses" that require very few or even no human workers.
"We believe their underlying computer vision technology platform is extremely innovative, differentiated, and highly relevant to solving everyday inventory management problems faced across a wide range of facilities," said Head of the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund Katherine Chen, in a statement announcing the investment.
Taking the gorilla's money
Ganapathi saw the investment from Amazon as a validation of the company's mission and technology — and a sign he may have built something Amazon had yet to build itself. But he also had concerns.
How would existing customers, which may be Amazon competitors react? Would Amazon want AWS to get involved with Vimaan? Would Amazon seek to acquire the company and then take it off the market, as it did with Kiva Robotics in 2015? Ganapathi declined to say whether Amazon is a Vimaan customer.
"We didn't enter this thing with the intention of being acquired and I genuinely believe we'll be able to convince our customers of that case," he said.
Plus, the nature of Vimaan's system protects it from some of the issues customers might have with the Amazon connection, according to the founder.
Vimaan captures so much data, it requires an on-premises server and can't work in the cloud, which Ganapathi said is a helpful element since target customers may be Amazon competitors. Vimaan's tech is operating in more than a dozen warehouses as of late April.
"You can imagine that some customers would be a little bit reticent about allowing their raw data to go into an Amazon cloud," he said. "We bypass all of those concerns because the customer's data stays on site, partly because we engineer it that way and partly because it's driven by the customer themselves."
In the end he decided the benefit outweighed any potential risk.
"Amazon will make us a better company," he said. "When you have someone that advanced, that big, they're just going to make us better and that will serve the entire industry as a whole," Ganapathi said.
More: BITranspo Logistics warehouse | 2022-05-05T09:32:50Z | www.businessinsider.com | A Warehouse Tech Founder Explains Why He Took Amazon Funding | https://www.businessinsider.com/one-founder-vimaan-amazon-industrial-innovation-fund-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/one-founder-vimaan-amazon-industrial-innovation-fund-2022-5 |
Buzzy fintech Revolut has ruled out going public in 2022 amid the slowdown in the global IPO market
Nik Storonsky CEO and cofounder of Revolut.
SoftBank-backed fintech Revolut has ruled out an IPO in 2022 as the fintech focuses on growth.
The London-based startup will be keen to avoid the same fate as trading app Robinhood.
IPOs have plummeted this year as geopolitical uncertainty and market corrections wreak havoc on publicly traded stocks.
Challenger bank Revolut has no plans to go public for at least another two years as it bids to build up revenues against a backdrop of plummeting tech valuations and interest rate hikes, sources said.
The $33 billion-valued fintech, which was backed by both SoftBank and Tiger Global last year, is best known for enabling users to spend money worldwide in 150 currencies at a real-time exchange rate with no fees through a debit card.
Nik Storonsky, the startup's CEO and cofounder, played down an imminent public bow during a town hall meeting last month, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Storonsky was asked about the company's public ambitions during the meeting where he noted market conditions for such a move were poor and that Revolut would likely wait at least another two years.
Revolut declined to comment when contacted by Insider.
The company has yet to set a firm timeline on any listing plans but has previously spoken about the need to dramatically increase its revenue before going to market. Revolut needs to be at least in the "few billion dollars range of revenue a year," Storonsky told Bloomberg during a TV interview in September.
The fintech posted a 57% increase in adjusted revenue in 2020 to £261 million ($325.8 million), according to its most recent accounts. Revolut competes with other challenger banks such as Monzo, Starling Bank, and N26 in Europe — and with offerings like Chime in the US.
2021 was a record year for IPOs with companies raising over $600 billion with the likes of dating app Bumble, Asian delivery startup Grab, and Rivian all going public. However, the unprecedented demand for public listings has not continued in 2022 with just 321 deals closed in the global IPO market in the opening quarter of the year, according to an analysis by EY. The slowdown in listings has been attributed to factors like geopolitical tensions and stock market volatility , as well as a correction in overvalued stocks.
The performance of 2021's IPO cohort has been poor with stocks trading 20% down on their issue price, per data from Renaissance Capital Research. That included disappointments in the world of fintech with big declines from the much-hyped listings of companies like Robinhood, Wise, and Marqeta.
VC investors, particularly late-stage and crossover funds, are concerned about bloated valuations for private market companies that raised at record multiples during the COVID-19 pandemic. The scale of the issue was highlighted last month when Instacart cut its own valuation by 40% to $24 billion in an unusual response to the turbulence in public markets.
Revolut will be keen to avoid the same fate as stock trading app Robinhood, which has seen its valuation drop by over 70% to $8.74 billion since it went public in July.
"None of us want to be in the position of Robinhood employees, so we're happy to hang tight," one early Revolut employee told Insider on the condition of anonymity.
Robinhood lost $3.89 billion last year and recently laid off 9% of its employees having gone public at a $32 billion valuation, potentially offering a warning to late-stage businesses that push to go public while still loss-making.
Two early investors in Revolut and one early employee highlighted the need for the company to improve its offering in the lending market before the fintech could consider a public debut.
Storonsky recently said that lending, particularly mortgages, would be a focus in the near term and also pointed out that home loans "are quite an important part of consumer financial life," Reuters reported.
One early Revolut investor told Insider that the company should be in "no rush" to list given current market conditions and also highlighted the relatively poor performance of recent UK IPOs like THG, Deliveroo, and Wise as a warning against moving too quickly. The company has been making strides in the US market too, having earmarked plans for more than a million users there, while the startup recently partnered with US embedded finance provider Cross River to offer loans Stateside.
More: Revolut Fintech IPO | 2022-05-05T09:32:56Z | www.businessinsider.com | Revolut: $33bn-Valued Fintech Rules Out 2022 IPO, Focuses on Growth | https://www.businessinsider.com/revolut-rules-out-ipo-valuation-focus-growth-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/revolut-rules-out-ipo-valuation-focus-growth-2022-5 |
9 recent hires transforming JPMorgan Chase as it races to attract Gen Z customers, fend off fintechs, and maintain its powerhouse status
Sonali Divilek, David Moss, and Demetrios Marantis
JPMorgan has made key hires in wealth management, consumer banking, and other divisions.
The new talent comes from Lyft, Marcus, Google, and other firms in and out of financial services.
Here are nine hires JPMorgan has made across business lines who will help the bank transform.
The financial industry is undergoing a transformation as more people turn to apps and startups to help them save, invest, and otherwise manage their money.
From trading apps like Robinhood, to payments processors like Square and online-only banks like Ally, traditional banks and brokerages face surmounting competition from financial tech startups looking to steal away customers — and valuable talent.
While no bank or brokerage is taking the threat lying down, nowhere has the fight been more pronounced than at JPMorgan Chase, led by CEO Jamie Dimon, who has been vocal about the threat of fintechs — and how the firm plans to win.
In an effort to fend off the competition, adapt to evolving consumer tastes, and attract more Gen Z customers, JPMorgan has taken to hiring aggressively to maintain its dominant position, including a chief information officer from Lyft and a head of content from Robinhood. The hiring spree is resulting in a very different JPMorgan from the one that survived the financial crisis and is creating a new center of gravity when it comes to the reins of power there.
The changes come amid a broader shift in banking generally. A majority of consumers, or 54 percent, said they use digital banking tools more now due to the pandemic, according to the 2021 digital banking attitudes study by JPMorgan's consumer banking arm. Meanwhile, 99% of Gen Z and 98% of millennials use a mobile banking app, according to the Chase study, released last year.
But it's not just online banking that's experiencing an internal shift. JPMorgan is also shaking things up in its wealth management division, commercial bank, and in its efforts to address big issues, like health care and climate change.
Here nine key hires JPMorgan has made in the last year that will be key to helping the bank transform its operations.
David Moss, Head of Content for US Wealth Management
Moss jumped from Robinhood in June 2021 to head up a new role for JPMorgan.
Demand for marketing talent is exploding across the financial industry as banks compete for customers. In addition to consumer-banking services like savings and checking accounts , Wall Street firms are also trying to win business from clients who want to invest.
JPMorgan hired Moss last summer to take on a newly-created role at the firm focused on attracting new clients who are "curious about investing," JPMorgan Wealth Management head of content and communications Jennifer Zuccarelli said in a July memo.
As head of content, Moss works to market JPMorgan's wealth-management products and services to potential clients in the form of blogs, social media, newsletters, podcasts, and events. This multimedia will be geared toward clients who use low-cost online investing options as well as ones who work with financial advisors, Insider previously reported.
Moss oversees a team of wealth-management employees including project managers, writers, editors, and event specialists.
In recent years, banks and money managers have gone all-in to create content that can market firms' products and services. Many shops are creating full in-house media units that have launched highly-produced podcasts and videos, interviews with executives, and other marketing content with the goal to sell services and improve banks' brands.
Moss came to JPMorgan from Robinhood, where he oversaw content for the startup brokerage Robinhood, and he previously headed up content for Goldman's Marcus.
Carla Hassan, Chief Marketing Officer
Hassan joined JPMorgan in October 2021 from Citigroup, where she was the bank's first global CMO.
A longtime marketing executive at Toys "R" Us, Pepsi, and Kellogg, Hassan stepped into her first bank role in October 2018 when she became Citigroup's chief brand officer.
She was promoted to be the firm's first chief marketing officer in September 2020, a role she held for just over a year before moving over to take the same role at JPMorgan.
While at Citi, Hassan headed up marketing for branding and sponsorships and consumer banking, and she also led some of the marketing and sponsorship efforts for the institutional client group. She led brand campaigns focusing on ESG and diversity and inclusion as well as rolling out Citi's Custom Cash card.
Hassan's hire comes as Wall Street has doubled its marketing spend in a battle to earn more customers. CMOs, who once played smaller roles in green-lighting mailers or placing TV ads, now have much larger influence – and budgets — to connect with their audience.
Demetrios Marantis, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility
Companies are increasingly called on to take a stand on important social issues, from climate change to racial justice.
Enter the role of the corporate responsibility leader. These executives use company resources to enact positive change both internally and externally.
Jamie Dimon has called on US companies to do more to address social issues and has used presentations and shareholder letters to advocate for raising the minimum wage. JPMorgan has opened bank branches that double as community centers by offering free wifi and financial literacy classes.
As global head of corporate responsibility, Marantis leads JPMorgan's global corporate responsibility department, which focuses on creating an inclusive economy and strengthening global financial systems.
Marantis joined JPMorgan in September 2021 from Visa, where he was senior vice president of global government engagement. Before that, he led global policy, government, and regulatory affairs for payments fintech Square and was also acting United States Trade Representative and Deputy United States Trade Representative under President Barack Obama.
Sonali Divilek, Head of Digital Products and Channels
A former Marcus Executive, Divilek joined JPMorgan to support a "huge agenda" for digital banking.
JPMorgan poached Divilek in May 2021, mere months after she took over as head of product for Marcus, Goldman Sach's consumer-banking business.
The longtime AmEx alum's hire is part of a bigger push by JPMorgan to support a "huge agenda" in digital banking, then-head of digital Allison Beer said at the time of Divilek's hire.
As head of digital products and channels, Divilek will work with her team to develop and implement new technologies for JPMorgan's consumers. Her hire came alongside Sumit Gupta, who joined from Google, and Kaaren Hanson, who joined from Wells Fargo. The trio is part of a team that focuses on maintaining and improving the firm's online presence.
Online banking exploded in popularity during the pandemic: according to Fidelity National Information Services, online banking registrations rose 200% in April 2021 while foot traffic to branches fell 50% during the same time period, according to Novantas.
Last year, the firm's website and mobile app serviced 55 million customers, and executives previously told Insider Intelligence that more and more people will bank digitally in the future.
Sherry Ann Mohan, Chief Financial Officer for Chase Business Banking
Sherry Ann Mohan joined JPMorgan in 2021, also from Goldman Sach's Marcus
The CFO role isn't new, but Mohan's move in August 2021 represented another loss for Goldman Sachs' burgeoning consumer banking operation, which competes with JPMorgan.
JPMorgan's business bank — helmed by CEO Ben Walter and a division of the larger Chase consumer bank — advises and provides banking services to more than 4 million small business owners who have up to $20 million in annual revenue.
Most of the digital banking wars have been fought on the consumer-banking turf, with fintechs like online bank Chime and buy now, pay later app Klarna popping up to offer traditional banking services to customers.
Some fintechs are trying to replicate this success for small business owners, such as Novo, which provides online business checking accounts, and Fundbox, which gives entrepreneurs access to capital.
Mohan's hire is another example of JPMorgan fighting back against the threat of fintechs and is part of the firm's broader push into digital banking, which also included the hires of Sonali Divilek and Sumit Gupta.
Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health
Mendelson joined JPMorgan in May 2021 to lead the firm's second foray into the health space.
JPMorgan's Morgan Health was launched in May with the goal of improving employer-sponsored healthcare — which is how half of the US population gets their health insurance.
It's the second time the firm has forayed into healthcare after the first — a joint venture with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway called Maven — was disbanded in early 2021 after failing to land on a concrete strategy.
For this new, solo approach, JPMorgan hired Mendleson to get the job done. A veteran of the Clinton White House, he was founder and CEO of the healthcare advisory company Avalere Health as well as an operating partner at private-equity firm Welsh Carson.
In his new role at JPMorgan, he reports to vice-chair Peter Scher, who heads up the firm's corporate responsibility department that creates programs to tackle social problems that impact individuals, their communities, and the environment.
As healthcare costs in the US rise, so does frustration about underperformance and lower quality of care. Morgan Health is working to solve that, Mendelson told Insider last year — first for the bank itself and its 285,000 employees and dependents that get their healthcare through JPMorgan. In the future, he said the bank hopes to create healthcare models that other companies can use. but then by creating models that other companies can purchase to use.
Mendelssohn will have at his disposal Morgan Health's $250 million investment arm and will also work to develop industry partnerships with established health plans and new startups.
Sumit Gupta, Head of Consumer Experience and Personalization for the Consumer Bank
Gupta, who spent 10 years at Google and most recently led product strategy and partnership-driven growth for Google's AI-powered assistant, joined JPMorgan's consumer-banking team in May alongside Marcus's Divilek and Wells Fargo's Kaaren Hanson.
He's now the consumer bank's head of consumer experience and personalization, which means he works to ensure that JPMorgan customers have a good experience when they use the firm's website and mobile app.
Broadly, JPMorgan's digital-consumer and community-banking team, which Gupta and Divilek both joined, handle the design and experience of the firm's website and mobile app for tens of millions of customers. Team members work to make the website and app more intuitive, with the goal of enticing more customers to join JPMorgan's platforms.
Allison Beer, JPMorgan's Card CEO who used to head up the digital team, previously told Insider that other innovations include features like Autosave, which lets customers set and work towards savings goals. Additionally, the firm in another digital initiative has hired more than 150 virtual bankers who serve consumer clients in tandem with the bank's suite of digital tools.
Eisar Lipkovitz, Chief Information Officer for the Corporate and Investment Bank
Faced with the growing threat of fintechs, banks across Wall Street are on the hunt for tech talent to add to their ranks.
Lipkovitz, who joined JPMorgan in April 2021 from ride-sharing app Lyft, brings to the bank a wealth of experience from top tech firms. As CIO, Lipkovitz oversees the bank's IT and computer systems and manages the rollout of new technologies.
Additionally, Lipkovitz joined the firm's digital and platform services management team and its global technology leadership team.
At Lyft, he was the executive vice president of engineering and led the firm's RideShare business. Before that, Lipkovitz spent nearly 15 years at Google, where he was the vice president of engineering display and video ads as well as vice president of engineering search infrastructure.
In a memo last year announcing his hire, investment banking and tech executives said Lipkovitz's hire will support a "transformational time" at the bank.
"As we modernize our infrastructure, build out scalable platforms and utilize data, artificial intelligence and the cloud, we are certainly on the right path," said the memo, which was penned by David Hudson and Guy Halamish, co-heads of CIB digital and platform services, and Lori Beer, the bank's global CIO.
Paul Vienick, Head of Online Investing
JPMorgan launched You Invest, its online investment offering, in 2018 to compete for valuable business in the wealth management arena.
But the product was lacking, as Jamie Dimon admitted last year, and the firm saw an opportunity to rebrand its online investing tools and win more customers.
The bank hired Paul Vienick from online trading giant Charles Schwab in September 2021 to head up online investing. Vienick, who previously led digital, investment management, and retail client experience at TD Ameritrade, has previous experience as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
His hire comes two years after a massive wealth-management reorganization at JPMorgan, during which multiple wealth units were combined to become US Wealth Management, led by Mary Callahan Erdoes.
And You Invest, the online investment platform that lagged behind Wall Street competitors like Goldman Sachs's Marcus Invest, was rebranded to be JPMorgan Self-Directed Investing in 2019.
More: Wall Street Features | 2022-05-05T10:20:37Z | www.businessinsider.com | Meet 9 JPMorgan Hires Who Are Overhauling the Bank | https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-chase-hires-transforming-bank | https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-chase-hires-transforming-bank |
Today's mortgage and refinance rates: May 5, 2022 | The Fed announces its largest rate hike since 2000
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will raise the federal funds rate by 0.5% and reduce its balance sheet as part of its mission to get inflation under control. This half-point increase is the Fed's largest hike since 2000.
The central bank is expected to raise rates at each of its remaining five meetings this year. Unless inflation starts responding to the Fed's efforts, mortgage rates are probably going stay elevated for the next couple of years, and may even increase further.
When rates are high, it becomes even more important for homebuyers to shop around with multiple mortgage lenders to see who offers them the lowest rate. When you find a rate you like, be sure to lock it in.
"As the next few weeks and even months remain unpredictable, it's a good idea to evaluate and track your qualified mortgage options with an eye towards locking in a loan option," says Robert Heck, vice president of mortgage at Morty. "Locking a rate is typically not binding, and you can always reevaluate your options as things progress." | 2022-05-05T10:20:43Z | www.businessinsider.com | Today's Mortgage, Refinance Rates: May 5, 2022 | the Fed Announces Its Largest Rate Hike Since 2000 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-may-5-2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-may-5-2022 |
Booming private jet demand has made hangar space nearly impossible to find. This startup is going national in a bid to solve the shortage.
Sky Harbour's hangars include a lounge, kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry machines.
Sky Harbour
More people than ever flew on private jets during the pandemic as they sought to avoid infection.
The booming demand has led to a shortage of hangar space for the jets on the ground.
Startup Sky Harbour is trying to fix that by taking a new approach to hangar building.
Private jet usage skyrocketed during the pandemic, as the wealthy looked to avoid potential COVID-19 infection on commercial flights filled with other passengers and a wealth boom expanded the market of people with the means to convert to private air travel. But as manufacturers have churned out more and more jets to meet demand, room on the ground has become hard to find, industry experts told Insider.
To solve this problem, businessman Tal Keinan formed Sky Harbour, the first company to take its unique approach to hangar-building to a national scale.
"The fleet is swelling dramatically faster than it ever has," Keinan told Insider. "Where are all these new $60 million planes going to live? That's where we come in."
Flipping the traditional business model on its head
Founded in 2017 and based out of White Plains, New York, Sky Harbour went public via a SPAC merger with Yellowstone Acquisition Company in January. It opened its first two hangars in Houston and Nashville in 2021 and has plans to open several more in Denver, Miami, and Phoenix.
The building of private jet hangars in the US has historically been done by fixed-base operators. These companies operate like marinas for private planes, providing private jets a place to park and refuel, said Doug Wilson, president and founder of business aviation consultancy FBO Partners.
Because FBOs make most of their revenue from selling fuel rather than parking space, they're not incentivized to create more space for the aircraft to be stored, Wilson said. That's why, even before the pandemic, hangar space was getting scarce.
"There's really no business that has a direct incentive to develop hangar space for aircraft," Keinan said, adding that hangars were an "attractive real estate niche," even before the pandemic.
Sky Harbour's business model focuses on real estate rather than fuel. It sells fuel at cost, and all of its revenue comes from rent that aircraft owners pay to house their plane in one of the company's hangars, which come with a lounge, kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry facilities.
Sky Harbour founder Tal Keinan said hangars were an "attractive real estate niche" even before the pandemic.
There's "downsides and upsides" to Sky Harbour's approach, Keinan told Insider. The downsides include the fact that when the private jet industry experiences a dramatic increase in flight volumes, as it is now, FBOs get a huge revenue boost, while Sky Harbour's revenues stay flat.
On the upside, Sky Harbour's revenues are predictable. That revenue visibility allows it to raise money in the bond market, Keinan said. The company finances itself via public bonds, while FBOs finance themselves through bank debt.
"The advantage there is our cost of capital is much lower than FBO business models are, as would be any real estate versus service model," Keinan told Insider.
While Sky Harbour is the only company taking this real estate-centered approach to a national scale, it's not the only company to use the business model. CloudNine Hangars, for example, is a business venture created by commercial real estate development firm RKR Incorporated that is working to build four luxury hangars at the Camarillo Airport in California with a real estate-centered business model. But, there's still relatively few companies going this route, Wilson said, and none are doing it at the scale Sky Harbour is.
Sky Harbour's business will be laser-focused, Wilson predicted, and consumers won't see hundreds of Sky Harbour hangars popping up across the US. Rather, about 15 to 20 hangers will be built in areas with high demand and limited hangar space.
Sky Harbour also has the advantage in being the first one to scale nationally, as it likely won't have any direct competition for a long time, since there's a finite number of airports and most of the land is already taken by FBOs.
"The competitive environment of the US airport market does not behave like any other economic competitive market in the free economy does," Wilson said. "As a result, it's really hard to compete."
More: business aviation Private Jet Aviation | 2022-05-05T10:20:55Z | www.businessinsider.com | Sky Harbour's Plan to End the Private Jet Hangar Shortage | https://www.businessinsider.com/sky-harbour-us-private-business-jet-hangar-shortage-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/sky-harbour-us-private-business-jet-hangar-shortage-2022-5 |
The boss of a $2.2 billion hedge fund who's called the last two big bear markets lays out why he's moved virtually all his assets into cash. He shares what he wants to see before buying back in
Phil Toews
Toews Corp.
Markets are delicately poised as investors struggle to weigh up whether rate rises and inflation are priced in.
Phillip Toews of $2.2 billion firm Toews Asset Management sees markets at risk of going much lower.
He told Insider why he has moved virtually all his firm's money into cash and when he will get back into stocks.
Markets are delicately poised this week as investors struggle to weigh up whether the Federal Reserve's interest rate raising cycle is priced into markets properly or not.
The bull case rests on the view that because the Fed has been so clear about its plans for the rest of the year the market has already discounted stocks by an appropriate amount to reflect tighter financial conditions.
There are also encouraging signs the economy can withstand higher rates, such as high employment numbers and healthy job vacancy rates.
Not everyone is signed up to this viewpoint though. Phillip Toews, chief executive of $2.2 billion Toews Asset Management sees markets at risk of going much lower still. His conviction in this is strong enough to move the assets under his watch to 90% cash in readiness for lower prices.
This is not the first time Toews has pulled money from the market in anticipation of a slump. He correctly reduced exposure in February 2020 to avoid much of the downside from the COVID crash. He also was able to cut his equities position ahead of the worst of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Toews said his investment process is driven by computer algorithms, and the picture they paint currently is not a good one for stocks.
"What the algorithms are designed to do is to react in the early phase of a down market and move to the sidelines. We are fully in cash now and what's interesting about this scenario is that when we move defensive, we have the ability to be in investment grade bonds or short duration bonds, but even all of those positions are now in cash."
"So we're just fully defensive and our perspective is based primarily on valuations, but also on all of the things that we know are happening with Ukraine, and inflation. We will see a full bear market in the broader US indices like the S&P 500 this year."
Toews sees the relationship between inflation and financial assets as fraught with risk and potential downside, and this goes a long way to explaining his current position. He believes persistently high inflation has not been properly priced in yet, and if it remains elevated stocks could have further to fall.
"We looked at was the last three episodes of a significant cumulative inflation in the US and there were three episodes prior to what we're experiencing now where average inflation doubled. So what happened to financial assets? It's really informative in terms of where we are now."
The time periods Toews is referring to are 1915-1920, 1941 - 1951 and 1973 -1981.
"Well, obviously, bonds did very poorly on average and stocks on average actually equaled inflation. So they didn't provide any above inflation gains but they at least matched inflation on average. But within that average, one time it surged. The other two times, stocks fell in real terms."
"But but here's what's interesting," Toews continued. "In all three episodes of high inflation stocks sold off considerably as inflation moved from benign to rampant. So I I think if you look at the history of what has happened with inflation in combination with high valuations and supply issues with Ukraine, potential food shortages globally and all of these issues, it adds up to a very bleak picture for equity markets."
Some markets experts expect the Fed to react to a falling stock market by turning more dovish but Toews warned they should not count on it. He explained that the Fed appearing to step in to support markets in the recent past does not mean they can, or will, do it this time around due to inflation.
In terms of getting back into the market, there is no magic number Toews wants to see the S&P 500 or Nasdaq slide down to. Instead he says the decision depends on seeing stock valuations in a better place, and a reversal of market momentum to to the upside.
"We are driven by algorithms so we remain on the sidelines as long as markets are moving lower. When we say are we bearish, we look at the history of what's happened in the past. Looking at when we've seen high valuations before, we would still be in the early part of this decline," Toews added.
More: stocks 2022 stocks to buy 2022 stock market bubble 2022 Stock Market Crash
Phillip Toews | 2022-05-05T10:21:01Z | www.businessinsider.com | Stock Market Crash: Why One Fund Manager Says He's Cashed Out | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-why-sell-shares-cash-bearish-fund-manager-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-why-sell-shares-cash-bearish-fund-manager-2022-5 |
Spiking lithium prices could derail automaker plans to make cheaper electric cars. Here are 4 ways outfits like GM and Lucid can keep production on track, according to experts.
The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq starts at $58,795. Some experts worry today's spiking lithium costs could derail automaker plans to make EVs cheaper.
Skyrocketing lithium prices could mean electric car batteries become more expensive.
That has some fearing that automaker plans to make more affordable EVs could be on hold.
Here's how automakers can skirt these supply chain roadblocks.
Automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Lucid say they are laser-focused on making electric cars more affordable for the masses. But today's spiking lithium prices could cause an increase in overall battery costs that some fear could stand in the way of those plans.
Though EVs may have a lower total cost of ownership considering skyrocketing fuel prices, maintenance costs, and tax credits, they remain more expensive than gas-powered cars: the average transaction price for a new EV was $65,977 (versus $42,364 for a non-luxury gas-car) in March, according to Kelley Blue Book.
"That does not portend well for the effort to electrify a large share of the American auto fleet," said Patrick Anderson, principal of industry consultancy Anderson Economic Group.
Carmakers say they are eager to change that, and have pledged that more affordable EVs will come over time and with scale. The Biden Administration has pledged $3.1 billion for domestic battery production and invoked the Defense Production Act to get ahead of supply issues. But with a pending battery metals shortage, including rising lithium prices — a critical material in EV batteries — some of those plans could come to a screeching halt, experts say.
"You have a recipe for an even bigger price differential," Anderson said, "as well as an even bigger contraction of the supply chain, which is a double-whammy for economy car buyers that might want to have an EV."
Automakers and industry newcomers have entered the market almost entirely with premium or luxury EVs. GMC's Hummer is a whopping $110,295, while Cadillac's first EV, the Lyriq, costs $58,795. Tesla's Roadster started at $109,000; the Model 3 was supposed to be $35,000 but now sits at $48,490.
Meanwhile, startup Rivian's debut R1T pickup starts at $67,500, while Lucid's flagship sedan, the Air Dream Edition, cost $169,000. The Air is expected to drop to $77,400 with the Pure edition.
"A lot of people can make a $169,000 electric vehicle," Anderson said. "Right now, nobody can make a $25,000 EV that passes US safety standards and meets even minimal demand in the US marketplace."
Only recently have EVs started to see lower sticker prices. Volkswagen's debut ID.4 comes in at $41,995. The base Ford F-150 Lightning pickup costs $39,974. This year's Chevrolet Bolt costs $31,000, while the Nissan Leaf starts at $27,400. Elon Musk recently said the $25,000 EV is no longer a priority for Tesla — but Peter Rawlinson says that's top of mind at Lucid.
In the near-term, "I don't think there is a way for OEMs to continue to build low-cost EVs the way they want," said Qichao Hu, CEO of li-metal battery maker SES.
But Andrew Dillon, innovation fellow at consultancy West Monroe, said while these battery supply scarcity issues could limit the rate of EV growth, he's not convinced they'll impact automakers' ability to reduce their prices. He also said solid-state battery tech could help automakers deal with materials in short supply at high costs.
"That $25,000 EV that Volkswagen promised is very likely to be a reality," Dillon said, referring to the automaker's ID.Life concept. "The solid state battery has potential to bring it even lower. There is no end in sight to the downward trajectory of batteries, and that will be the biggest driver of making EVs cheaper."
Hu offered three solutions: regionalizing the industry's battery supply chain, introducing more battery recycling, and pass costs down to the consumer with a battery-as-a-service.
"Battery-as-a-service allows the increase in raw material price to get passed down to end users and do that in a way that the total cost of ownership will go up over time, but because you're leasing, your cost of entry is actually lower," Hu said.
Still, consumers won't be happy if they see any additional costs to going electric.
"I'm concerned about a real crunch a few years from now," Anderson said, "and most consumers still don't have a cost-effective option that meets their needs and their budget."
More: Transportation Electric Vehicles Lithium | 2022-05-05T11:04:10Z | www.businessinsider.com | 4 Ways Carmakers Can Deliver Cheap EVs Amid a Supply Crunch | https://www.businessinsider.com/ways-carmakers-ensure-lithium-prices-dont-derail-cheaper-evs-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/ways-carmakers-ensure-lithium-prices-dont-derail-cheaper-evs-2022-5 |
I'm the CEO of Hootsuite. I start my day writing emails because it's when my brain is the clearest — here's what my morning routine is like.
Tom Keiser, CEO of Hootsuite, has made employee wellness a business priority.
Tom Keiser is the CEO of Hootsuite and lives in San Francisco.
He starts his day reading industry newsletters before responding to urgent messages and emails.
Here's how he organizes his morning routine, as told to writer Robin Madell.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tom Keiser, CEO of Hootsuite, about his workday morning routine. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Each day, I wake up early and read a bunch of news and newsletters.
The sites I regularly check include Platformer by Casey Newton, Stratechery by Ben Thompson, Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, Money Stuff by Matt Levine, DealBook by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Cup of Coffee by Craig Calcaterra, and The Information.
I usually start focusing on work at about 7:15 a.m.
I'm a big list person and I prefer tracking my to-dos on paper
I've used Engineering Notebooks from the Laboratory Notebook Company since the '90s to take notes and put my daily and weekly to-do lists together. I've tried to embrace technology for lists over the years, but having a physical notebook just works better for me.
I mostly work from my home office in San Francisco
When I joined Hootsuite in June 2020 during the pandemic, the entire interview and onboarding process was done on video, so I'd never met my leadership team or colleagues in person.
When restrictions were lifted, I was finally able to travel to our corporate head office in Vancouver, Canada. I was excited to meet everyone and work together in person, so I traveled to our Vancouver office every week throughout the fall months. But in December when Omicron hit, I had to stop traveling again and now work primarily from my home office in California.
As CEO, I spend a lot of time listening and communicating with my team
This means clarifying priorities, removing roadblocks, recruiting talent, motivating people, making decisions and communicating constantly, a bit of strategy, M&A, and fundraising work.
Writing is the first work task I do each morning
My brain is clearest in the morning to be able to think through and grind out whatever messages or emails I'm trying to send. Later in the day I'm in decision, speed, and deal-with-it mode, which makes it hard to slow down and communicate as effectively.
I always address the most urgent communications first
For example, if I'm working on a planning project where our team is expecting my feedback on their presentation, I've usually jotted down notes and thoughts the day prior so I have a basic outline of ideas to work with. This helps me better respond to their specific questions and package my response into an email when my mind is clear.
I believe in a weekly cadence of running the business. I have leadership meetings on Tuesday, weekly touch-bases with all of my direct reports, monthly touch-bases with board members, and then ad-hoc meetings as needed. I don't like surprises, so I try to stay immersed in every aspect of the business as much as possible.
More: Strategy CEOs work routine Morning Routines
Tech CEOs | 2022-05-05T11:52:03Z | www.businessinsider.com | I'm the CEO of Hootsuite — Here's How I Plan My Work Morning Routine | https://www.businessinsider.com/hootsuite-ceo-work-morning-routine-favorite-notebook-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/hootsuite-ceo-work-morning-routine-favorite-notebook-2022-5 |
This CEO created a startup to save founders from flubbing their make-or-break demo moments. Here's a look at the pitch deck that raised $34 million from firms such as Tiger Global.
Demostack is a no-code startup that raised a $34 million Series B led by Tiger Global.
Demostack
Demostack aims to help startups better present their products to investors and clients.
The no-code platform startup recently raised a $34 million Series B led by Tiger Global.
"Anyone who's been in tech knows how painful demos are," CEO Jonathan Friedman told Insider.
When Jonathan Friedman launched the no-code startup Demostack, he decided to build a product for the most nerve-racking moment of any founder's career: the infamous demo.
Demos are, of course, presentations or test runs where tech companies show off their products, usually in front of potential investors or clients. They can make a break an investment opportunity, sale, or even a company. And as a repeat founder, Friedman said he knew the frustration of a demo being derailed by something as simple as a misclick, data mishap, or other technical error.
That's why in the height of the pandemic, Friedman founded Demostack as a platform aiming to help demos run smoother. Using a number of different tools on Demostack, companies can simulate how their product works to a prospective client while the no-code software edits out unnecessary technical mishaps.
"Anyone who's been in tech knows how painful demos are. Once you have a demo that goes wrong, there's always a lot on the line," Friedman said.
While Demostack is still a relatively new company, founded just under two years ago, it's already caught the attention of investment heavyweights. The company recently closed a $34 million Series B round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Bessemer Ventures and other firms.
Naturally, having a stellar demo that "actually worked" is what caught Tiger Global's attention, Friedman said. Since Demostack is a company that focuses on perfecting the tech demo, Friedman said, for the team's own presentation, they knew they had to "walk the walk."
"Because we were called 'Demostack,' investors were looking at our demo with a critical eye, which they should because the demo is our product," Friedman said. "But I think showing how our product worked made the story really click."
Check out the pitch deck Demostack used to raise $34 million.
More: Enterprise Tech Pitch Deck Startups Series B | 2022-05-05T11:52:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | The Pitch Deck a No-Code Demo Startup Used to Raise $34 Million | https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-nocode-demo-startup-demostack-founder-raise-series-b-2022-4 | https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-nocode-demo-startup-demostack-founder-raise-series-b-2022-4 |
How a Capitol Hill vet delivers aid and reunites families in Ukraine
Steven Moore created the Ukraine Freedom Project after Russia attacked the country.
Moore provides refugees with groceries and helps them find their family members.
His organization is also supplying medical aid to hospitals in Ukraine.
When the Ukraine war started Steven Moore, a Capitol Hill vet, left his job and went into the war zone to help those in need. Click here to read more about Moore and his work in Ukraine. | 2022-05-05T12:31:12Z | www.businessinsider.com | How a Capitol Hill Vet Delivers Aid and Reunites Families in Ukraine | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-capitol-hill-vet-delivers-aid-and-reunites-families-ukraine-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-capitol-hill-vet-delivers-aid-and-reunites-families-ukraine-2022-5 |
Hedge fund titan Brevan Howard poached Peter Johnson from Jump Crypto to help launch its crypto division. He breaks down 4 ways the investing powerhouse is uncovering alpha in the digital assets market
Digital assets illustration
Brevan Howard is a hedge fund that was co-founded by billionaire Alan Howard in 2002.
It's one of the best-known hedge funds to get into crypto, having launched BH Digital in 2021.
Peter Johnson, BH Digital's co-head for private investments, breaks down their approach to finding alpha.
At the start of this year, venture capitalist Peter Johnson moved from one ultra-secretive investment house to another, when hedge fund Brevan Howard poached him from Jump Capital, the venture arm of proprietary trading firm Jump Trading.
In his nine years at Jump, Johnson launched the company's crypto investing strategy, which now sits within their crypto division, Jump Crypto. Now, he's co-leading private investments for Brevan Howard's crypto arm, BH Digital.
Brevan Howard specializes in macroeconomic investing strategies and is one of the best-known hedge funds to move into the cryptosphere, despite its publicity-shy nature.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Its billionaire co-founder Alan Howard has been investing some of his personal wealth in crypto for years, including backing One River Digital Asset Management, a crypto wealth manager.
The firm's push into digital assets only started last year with the appointment of Colleen Sullivan to lead its "private and venture investment activities in crypto and the launch of its flagship BH Digital Multi-Strategy Fund.
Speaking at the Crypto Bahamas conference, co-hosted by 30-year-old crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried and think tank SALT, Johnson provided some insight into how BH Digital is positioning itself in the digital assets ecosystem.
The crypto strategy
"We're a thesis-driven venture capital firm," Johnson said. "And we combine that with active trading and participation in the crypto markets."
The new division, BH Digital, is said to have 30 employees and 12 portfolio managers, according to Bloomberg. The flagship digital assets fund invests in both liquid cryptocurrencies and venture capital style positions in private companies.
Brevan Howard's core investment approach is macro-driven, Johnson said. That doesn't change with their approach to crypto.
"That's something that we really do at Brevan is we focus on going to big macro themes that we think are going to change the world and then specifically go after those and try to ignore other things," Johnson said.
With so much money chasing crypto deals right now, it pays to take a meticulous and focused approach to certain areas, Johnson said.
"You can't just be money, you need to provide more than that," Johnson said. "You need to be, can you provide liquidity to my token in the centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges? Are you an active user of my product? Are you gonna be a customer?"
"Those types of things are what you need to do to be in the best deals," he added.
Despite the competitive market, Johnson describes the strategy as "very active", given that the fund has invested in around 20 companies.
But the new role still involves a mindset shift for Johnson, who's primarily used to managing proprietary capital at Jump and is now speaking to investors such as pension funds and endowments.
"Most of them, they're up to speed," Johnson said. "The decision of the folks that we're talking to is often not: 'should we allocate to crypto?' They've made that decision, they've made that leap. They know they need to be in the space."
One key area of focus for Johnson as an investor is the rise of stablecoins — crypto tokens whose value is pegged to that of an underlying asset, like the dollar, or set of assets, and offers holders more stability than a typical cryptocurrency.
"We invest in big macro shifts that we see coming," Johnson said. "And one of those is the adoption of stablecoins, [which] will be a new way that money moves around the world."
Johnson's invested in Terra (LUNA), a stablecoin, at both Jump and at Brevan Howard.
"We are big fans of what they're building and overall just big fans of stablecoin adoption," he said.
He expects both centralized and decentralized stablecoins and the applications and infrastructure surrounding them to become one of the biggest stories in crypto in the coming years.
Layer ones
Johnson is also looking at the emergence of layer one blockchains through the lens of what new activities and features they can unlock. He shares how the launch of the solana ecosystem enabled the development of Serum, which allows a central order book to be managed in a decentralized way.
"That had been tried on ethereum many times," Johnson said.
Solana's speed and cheaper transaction fees made it possible to develop this type of product for a Web 3.0 ecosystem.
"That's when I think things get really exciting," Johnson said. "We're keeping a very close eye on a lot of these to see like, 'okay, what is this unlocking that you couldn't do before?'"
The rise of crypto derivatives
Despite the launch of many crypto exchanges and trading solutions, the crypto derivatives market is still small, which creates opportunities for alpha, Johnson said.
"The options market is like 3% of spot volumes in crypto," Johnson said. "And in the equities markets, it's like 30 times the spot market. So it clearly has just like a massive room to grow there."
Over the course of this year, he expects to see more sophisticated derivatives products to help investors to take more nuanced views on risk management and produce income.
Where Johnson is seeing less buzz for in the institutional market is non-fungible tokens — a kind of digital collector's item that resides on the blockchain.
Investors still want exposure to the sector, but not necessarily direct investments in NFT projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club or Moonbirds. They're more drawn to the technology behind these projects, rather than the tokens themselves.
"We are, I would say, playing with holding some NFTs as well," Johnson said. "But it's really more of an R&D effort and being part of the community than an umbrella alpha-generating investment strategy. You can't really scale that right now, but it's really more about the infrastructure at this point."
crypto hedge funds
finding alpha
hedge fund Brevan Howard
Jump Capital | 2022-05-05T14:06:27Z | www.businessinsider.com | Crypto Trading: How Brevan Howard Finds Alpha in Digital Assets | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-hedge-funds-brevan-howard-digital-assets-peter-johnson-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-hedge-funds-brevan-howard-digital-assets-peter-johnson-2022-5 |
Investors have long accused Better CEO Vishal Garg of self-dealing. Now, their lawsuits could threaten the company's SPAC deal.
Vishal Garg and his business partners are being sued over a real-estate investment venture.
The embattled mortgage firm Better plans to close a SPAC deal to go public this summer.
Investors unearthed new docs to allege CEO Vishal Garg misappropriated their funds to launch Better.
The conflict over the company's founding could imperil the SPAC deal.
Better.com, the embattled mortgage startup that has laid off more than 4,000 employees since December, says it is set to go public through a SPAC in just a couple of months. But investors suing its CEO, Vishal Garg, over a decade-old real-estate investment venture are raising more red flags before the deal closes.
In an ongoing fraud lawsuit in New York, a group of investors in a Cayman Islands partnership run by Garg accuse him of mismanaging their money and redirecting funds meant for them to launch his own endeavors, including Better. Under the limited partnership, investors expected to receive regular distributions, but they say those began to dry up after Better's founding in 2014.
In particular, they are questioning the transfers of funds between entities overseen by Garg. One filing in April appears to show transfers of nearly $7.2 million in funds from the investors' partnership to another connected entity involving Garg. The apparent transfers of funds were documented in a spreadsheet produced during the discovery process in the suit. Attorneys for the defendants didn't respond to requests for comment from Insider.
The new filings, in which investors claim Garg and his business partners were not transparent about the dynamic between related entities, heighten a familiar pattern of allegations against Garg. They're also casting a shadow over the pending deal to go public through a special-purpose acquisition company.
Better's SPAC merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp., announced a year ago, is still pending and expected to close at the end of the second quarter. Closing SPAC deals requires the vote of shareholders, who may decide to reassess whether a company is still worth what it was at the time the deal was announced.
"Investors are going to be asking themselves, given these new developments, as well as given what is happening in the broader market, do we think this company is worth what the original merger agreement valued it at?" said Michael Ohlrogge, an assistant professor of law at New York University who has published research on SPACs.
When it was announced in 2021, Better's deal with Aurora valued the company at $7.7 billion. In an amended S-4 in April, Aurora acknowledged the investors' suit among a series of "risk factors" for Better's business.
Representatives for Better investors SoftBank, Ally Financial, and Pine Brook didn't respond to a request for comment. A representative for Aurora declined to comment for this story.
Investors have hounded Garg over transparency
The crux of the Cayman Islands investors' allegations is that Garg and his business partners misappropriated distributions meant for Phoenix Holdco, the limited partnership that served as their investment vehicle. The investors alleged that Garg, a director in the partnership, used those funds to instead launch startups including Better; they told a New York state court that they stopped receiving distributions and regular financial statements at about the time of Better's founding in 2014.
Garg and business partners including Raja Visweswaran and Nicholas Calamari, also defendants, have asked the court to toss the suit, saying the investors are simply seeking more profits than they'd already received from the arrangement. Visweswaran is also a director in the Phoenix partnership.
The investors also alleged in their suit that the terms of the partnership agreement entitled them to receive regular audited financial statements but they'd stopped receiving those in 2014. Garg countered this in court filings by arguing that the defendants had already produced "all the books and records to which they conceivably are entitled (and more)."
One document in particular raised questions about how Garg and others managed their funds, the investors said. An auditor's report in July 2021 by Cayman Moore highlighted instances in which it said a Phoenix director used their personal bank account to manage the partnership's finances. The report didn't identify the director.
Attorneys for the defendants didn't respond to requests for comment.
In reviewing an entity's financial activities, auditors typically focus on transactions between so-called related parties, or companies controlled by the same people. In general, auditors flag the transfers of funds between companies owned by the same person or same people, said Omar Ochoa, who runs a litigation firm in Texas and is also an accountant. Ochoa is not involved in the suit and spoke generally about accounting analysis.
"Each entity should be able to stand on its own two feet, with its own cash accounts and financial statements," he said. "The whole reason you have entities is for separation of interests. Otherwise, you get into this murky relationship of entities."
Other glimpses into the Phoenix investment saga also appear in emails newly surfaced last month of discussions in 2011 between Garg and business partners including Visweswaran. One appears to show tension over early plans to manage the investment project.
In one email at the time to Garg and others, according to a recent exhibit filed in the investors' suit, Visweswaran wrote, "Guys, I've been through a lot of situations where management failures add up really quickly, and result in a situation where people start picking off one versus the other, and finally results in a destruction of shareholder value."
Other previously disclosed emails also indicate the toll of all the litigation on Garg. In an email in 2020, Garg wrote that the Phoenix partnership had borrowed "more than $1 million of my own personal money" for legal fees.
The Phoenix Holdco investors have yet to depose Garg, Visweswaran, and Calamari, and are seeking additional bank statements from the defendants.
Better is also contending with internal upheaval and heightened scrutiny of SPACS
Better has appeared to be in damage-control mode since a December Zoom meeting in which Garg unexpectedly terminated 900 employees. The company has since laid off more employees, some of whom flagged concerns about the severance they received.
Garg took a leave of absence, and the board called for a law firm to conduct a "cultural assessment" at the company. Since then, high-level executives including Sarah Pierce, who headed Better's sales and operations, and Diane Yu, Better's chief technology officer, have left the company. Garg returned to the helm in January.
In a regulatory filing last month, the company also disclosed general financial struggles, noting that 2020 was the only year in which it had netted an operating profit. The US Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees disclosures by public companies, reviews such merger filings to make more holistic assessments of company finances, said Ohlrogge, the NYU professor.
"The SEC is going to be looking to see, is this providing a complete picture of what's going on with the company, how it works, where its money is coming from and where it's going to," he said.
The SEC has also recently indicated it is taking closer look at SPAC transactions, which are like negotiated mergers-and-acquisitions deals that usually complete within months to give startups quick access to public capital and a known share price. A SPAC is a public blank-check company — in this case, Aurora — created to acquire a company that will use the transaction to go public.
"In a traditional IPO, you go on a road show and convince analysts you're a good investment, and it takes probably twice as long, or more — and you have no idea what the share price will be for much of that time," said Margaret Butler, a partner in Baker & Hostetler LLP's M&A team. Butler is not involved in representing Better and spoke generally about SPACs.
"A SPAC will have been organized by somebody, like a sponsor — they go out to market and list the SPAC and say, 'I'm an expert in these sorts of deals, I'm going to look for a deal, and we're all going to make money.'"
Aurora Shareholders have to vote on the merger with Better, but no date has been set so far for that vote. The date is usually set after the SEC approves the merger disclosures.
Have any tips? Reach out to Sindhu Sundar using a nonwork phone, through Signal at 984-377-3887, or email at ssundar@insider.com.
More: Law Real Estate Better Vishal Garg | 2022-05-05T14:06:45Z | www.businessinsider.com | Lawsuits Against Better's CEO Could Threaten the Company's SPAC Deal | https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuits-better-vishal-garg-could-threaten-startup-spac-deal-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuits-better-vishal-garg-could-threaten-startup-spac-deal-2022-5 |
'This bear market is far from completed': Morgan Stanley shares 2 charts that show why the outlook for stocks is dim — and says the S&P 500 could fall another 19% before the sell-off is over
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on August 24, 2015 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Image
Stocks are off to a rough start in 2022, with the S&P 500 currently down more than 10%.
According to Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, the selling isn't over yet.
He warned the index will fall at least another 11%, and potentially another 19%.
Stocks started 2022 by suffering their worst sell-off since the pandemic-driven crash in February and March 2020.
From its January 3 high around 4,800, the S&P 500 has fallen as much as 13.8%.
The rough four months have some believing the market has bottomed, or is at least due for a near-term rally.
In April, Fundstrat's Head of Research Tom Lee said there was a 90% chance stocks had bottomed for the year. RIA Advisors' CIO Lance Roberts said it was likely stocks rallied in the next month or two.
Morgan Stanley's Chief US Equity Strategist Mike Wilson doesn't rule out that second scenario of a near-term rally. He does, however, believe that stocks have yet to hit their floor.
"We can't rule anything out in the short-term, but we want to make it clear this bear market rally is far from completed," Wilson said in a note to clients on Monday.
Wilson said stocks continue to face a challenging backdrop: firms face both inflation and slowing growth as the Federal Reserve begins to hike interest rates aggressively. He said he expects the S&P 500 to fall at least another 11% and potentially another 19% from Wednesday's close of 4,300. The index opened on Monday at 4,130.
"With inflation so high and earnings growth slowing rapidly, stocks no longer provide the inflation hedge many investors are counting on. Real earnings yield tends to lead real stock returns on a y/y basis by about 6 months. It suggests we have meaningful downside at the index level as investors figure this out," Wilson said.
He added: "We think the S&P 500 has minimum downside to 3800 in the near term and possible as low as 3460, the 200 week moving average if forward 12 month EPS start to fall on margin and/or recession concerns."
Wilson shared two sets of charts that show why he thinks the blue-chip index is heading further downward in the months ahead.
One was that investors are deleveraging themselves because of higher interest rates, meaning lower liquidity levels. Margin levels — or the amount of money investors are borrowing to buy securities — tend to be correlated with S&P 500 returns, Wilson said.
The other is the relationship between inflation-adjusted earnings yields for the S&P 500 and the index's real returns year-over-year. With inflation at 8.5% year-over-year, inflation-adjusted earnings yields are down. That bodes poorly for the S&P 500's real returns, according to history.
Stocks rallied in a big way on Wednesday, jumping more than 3.3% after Fed Chair Jay Powell said the central bank would raise interest rates by 50 basis points — but likely not by more than that at future meetings — and reduce their balance sheet to slow down rising prices. Investors reacted bullishly because the 50 basis point ceiling for future hikes reduced the risk of the central bank sending the economy into a recession quickly.
But the risk that hawkish monetary policy poses to stocks and the economy is still present. On Monday, Guggenheim Partners Global CIO Scott Minerd said he believes demand destruction from restrictive policy is a more serious threat than inflation. Minerd warned that there may already be significant demand destruction happening in areas of the economy, and urged the Fed to move cautiously.
"As Greenspan would say, 'let's just take our foot off the accelerator and see what happens," Minerd said at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, referencing the former Fed chair. "I think as long as the world is pulling liquidity out of the system, I don't think that inflation is going to be the problem, it's going to be the demand destruction."
In addition to inflation's impact on earnings, slowing growth as a result of tighter policy is part of Wilson's bearish outlook. He said earnings estimates are still too high for the next 12 months.
"1Q may be the last good quarter of earnings as higher costs and increased recession risks weigh on future growth," Wilson said.
More: Investing Stock Market Crash Stock Market Correction | 2022-05-05T14:54:08Z | www.businessinsider.com | Morgan Stanley Warns Stocks Could Drop Another 17% | https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-stocks-is-correction-finished-morgan-stanley-wilson-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-stocks-is-correction-finished-morgan-stanley-wilson-2022-5 |
2 women who run multimillion-dollar businesses share their strategies for balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship
Ria Graham; her husband, Kevol; and two of their three children.
Ria Graham
Balancing entrepreneurship and childcare can be a daunting task, made worse by the pandemic.
Three women who own businesses shared how they structure their days to juggle both.
They described working remotely, setting aside time for family, and building inclusive policies.
For Ria Graham, balancing a business and motherhood means waking up early to potty-train the kids and taking phone calls from playrooms.
She and her husband, Kevol, run Kokomo, a Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn, and raise three children, all under 4.
"It's all hard," Graham said. She booked $4 million in revenue last year, which Insider verified with documentation.
She isn't alone in that feeling — and with the COVID-19 pandemic, the balance became even more difficult for entrepreneurial mothers, many of whom had to scale back their work because of childcare needs.
"There are many similarities between being an entrepreneur and being a mother: Both need nurturing and time in order to grow," said Nathalie Mroue, the founder of Maison Pyramide, a consultancy that helps luxury brands in the Middle East gain traction in Western markets.
Insider spoke with three women running successful businesses to see how they structure their days to juggle entrepreneurship and motherhood.
Adopt remote- and flexible-work policies
Natalie Mroue, who launched her company in 2016, says she depends on a housekeeper and nanny to help balance motherhood responsibilities.
Nathalie Mroue
Based in London, Mroue and her husband work full time and raise two children, 3 and 7. Last year, Mroue's company booked seven figures in revenue, which Insider verified with documentation.
Mroue said she works remotely and adopted a four-day workweek, which allows her flexibility and the ability to meet her children's needs.
The nonprofit Catalyst said it found in a survey of about 8,000 full-time workers in 2020 that women with childcare responsibilities who had access to remote work were 32% less likely than those without remote-work access to suggest they intended to leave their jobs.
Block out time for family
Graham cooking with two of her three children. Her company offers unpaid family leave.
Graham blocks off her early mornings to spend time with her children — she said she wakes up at 5, potty-trains her daughter, prays with the family, and prepares breakfast.
By 9 a.m. she's focused on the business. Graham said she typically goes into the office four times a week but also does some administrative tasks from her home.
She said she tries to end the workday by 5 p.m. so she can eat dinner with her family and relax. But sometimes she continues to work after her children go to sleep.
"Most of the time I do a little work after I put them to bed as well," she said.
Hire people to help with childcare needs
Hope Dworaczyk Smith is married to Robert Smith, the billionaire founder of Vista Equity Partners.
Hope Smith
Hope Dworaczyk Smith launched her beauty brand, Mutha, in 2019 with the goal of creating products that are safe for pregnant people to use.
Smith has four children, all under 8, and primarily works from home. She said that there's a designated room in her house for school activities and that she'd hired a teacher to homeschool the children.
She said that for the past six years she's also had a caretaker to help her look after the children, adding that having help gives her time to focus on scaling her business.
"Many people don't want to say that they have help," Smith told Insider. "Without that support, there is no way I would be able to do this."
Craft helpful policies for employees
Mroue's company has policies that allow mothers to take half-days and work from home. She said that having those policies was imperative because there aren't strong rights for working mothers in the Middle East, where many of her employees are based.
Smith has similar policies at her company: Mothers get four months of fully paid leave and unlimited sick days. She said she set the policy after realizing how much sick time she'd taken caring for herself and her son, adding that giving mothers the option to take sick time alleviates stress about using up all their personal time off.
While Graham doesn't have a maternity leave policy similar to the other companies, she offers unpaid family leave, life insurance, 401(k), and accident and commuter benefits that mothers can use to support themselves and their families. For example, a mother can use unused sick days for paid maternity leave or she can access the benefits in the company's disability insurance plan if there are birth complications.
"As a family-based company with strong women leadership, we are committed to our employees to not just give them a livable wage but to support and protect their livelihood and their families," she said.
More: Small Business entrenpreneur Remote Work Mother's Day | 2022-05-05T14:54:26Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Balance Motherhood and Running Million-Dollar Businesses | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-balance-entrepreneurship-and-motherhood-successful-careers-2022-4 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-balance-entrepreneurship-and-motherhood-successful-careers-2022-4 |
Manchin is trying to strike a bipartisan energy deal at a critical moment.
Plenty of Democrats are skeptical his attempt to find an agreement will amount to much.
Probable hurdles include how to pay for it, the level of GOP support, and which energy measures to include.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is at it again.
Late last month, he surprised many in his own party by convening a meeting intended to strike a bipartisan energy agreement. It raised a lot of eyebrows among Democrats since they don't believe Republicans will cut a deal that will tackle the climate emergency at an aggressive scale.
Democrats are trying to mount a last-ditch effort to revive President Joe Biden's stalled economic agenda. But they're in a holding pattern while Manchin's latest bipartisan gamble plays out. They can't advance any slimmed-down climate spending plan without his thumbs-up in the 50-50 Senate.
Here's a look at the stumbling blocks that could derail the entire effort.
What should go into an energy or climate bill
Republicans and Democrats generally disagree on how to assemble a climate bill. Democrats in the House had passed $550 billion in clean energy tax credits as part of the Build Back Better plan before that bill died in the Senate after Manchin refused to support it.
Those tax credits would have transitioned the US away from fossil fuels onto wind and solar power, along with incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles.
Manchin is on a different wavelength compared to most other Democrats. He's pushed for priorities like fast-tracking the Mountain Valley gas pipeline that would cross his state, overhauling the oil and gas leasing process in the Gulf of Mexico, and more federal funding for nuclear and carbon capture projects.
The conservative Democrat has also thrown cold water on the electric vehicle tax credits.
"We want to make sure that we have the reliability that fossil [fuels] has given us and can continue to give us as we basically promote and invest in the new technologies and innovation that's going to take us to the next level," Manchin told reporters on Monday.
Republicans tend to favor investments in nuclear energy and unwinding the regulatory process to make it easier to build oil and natural gas pipelines. There's not a lot of overlap between the parties at the moment.
How to pay for it
President Joe Biden (C), joined by from left to right, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), speaks after the bipartisan group of Senators reached a deal on an infrastructure package at the White House on June 24, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Last year, Congress approved a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure deal after months of wrangling. Much of the dispute centered on how to cover the new spending.
Democrats pushed tax increases on the rich, but Republicans took those off the table early on and vigorously defended the 2017 Trump tax law. Negotiations sometimes veered on the edge of collapse due to disagreements on financing the roads-and-bridges law.
Senate Republicans aren't inclined to hike taxes, particularly with the November midterms around the corner. "I think what you gotta look at is it's gonna have to involve some taxes," Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told Insider. "Probably you're going to find it difficult for Republicans to raise taxes."
Manchin acknowledged the obstacle without specifying how to overcome it. "There's a lot of challenges here," he told Insider.
One possibility is a tax on carbon-intensive imports on products like steel from nations with weaker guardrails on emissions. But that could raise issues with the World Trade Organization.
A backdoor Build Back Better bill
President Joe Biden speaks on Earth Day at Seward Park in Seattle, Washington, on April 22, 2022.
Manchin sunk Biden's House-approved social and climate spending package at the end of last year. Talks have been mostly on ice ever since.
Some Democrats like Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware say they can get onboard duplicating last year's two-track approach to ensure a bipartisan energy package and a reconciliation bill travel in tandem. But Democrats would likely try to use a reconciliation bill to salvage the clean-energy tax measures that formed the spine of climate provisions in the defunct House bill. That could turn off the Republicans they need.
"If it becomes a vehicle for them, then it becomes less attractive to us," Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters on Tuesday.
Not enough GOP support
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), was the sole Senate Republican to vote to advance to debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
Any bipartisan deal needs to clinch at least 10 Senate Republicans so it advances past a filibuster in the Senate and eventually reaches Biden's desk. So far, only a handful have been attending the meetings.
—Joseph Zeballos-Roig (@josephzeballos) May 2, 2022
Active GOP members include Cramer, Murkowski, Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
The number of Republicans still doesn't seem firmed up — and Manchin suggested the amount of Republicans could fluctuate. "We haven't set any guidelines," he said on Monday. "The main thing is to have a meeting of the minds first."
More: Joe Manchin Republicans Democrats Climate Change | 2022-05-05T14:54:32Z | www.businessinsider.com | 4 Stumbling Blocks That Could Derail Manchin's Bipartisan Energy Efforts | https://www.businessinsider.com/manchins-bipartisan-energy-deal-build-back-better-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/manchins-bipartisan-energy-deal-build-back-better-2022-5 |
Top 3 passive ways to earn crypto from a small amount of capital, according to the CEO of a blockchain investment firm
Jake Brukhman is the CEO and managing partner at CoinFund, a blockchain-focused investment firm.
Jake Brukhman says there are many opportunities for individuals to earn crypto yields.
He recommends physical devices, staking, and yield farming as options.
All three options require an initial investment but can then yield over time with minimal effort.
Investors who have been in the crypto game long enough to ride out a bearish environment may see a depressed market as an opportunity to buy things on sale.
However, if you're new to the game, the idea of buying more of something you've already lost on may seem like running into the fire while everyone else is running for the hills.
Jake Brukhman, the founder and CEO of CoinFund, one of the first fully blockchain-focused investment firms, says you can earn crypto without continually buying it. This can be done by finding various ways of participating in networks in exchange for yields or rewards.
The firm, which invests in tokens, private equity, and convertible nodes, has been in the space since 2015. Its focus is on early-stage projects, based on the belief that blockchain technology will be disruptive to many sectors. However, you don't have to be an accredited early-stage investor to participate and continually grow your position. Many of the protocols in crypto are better suited to individual investors rather than funds.
"As a big fund, most of these strategies don't have enough capacity for us to invest. They're much better suited for people who can take a smaller amount of capital and get a much bigger return on it," Brukhman said.
From a purely economic perspective, why wouldn't you do that, Brukhman asked rhetorically. It actually lowers your risk because what you're earning can offset the volatility , he said. But he admitted that the trade-off is dealing with the complexity of each protocol, which includes collecting the yields and paying taxes on them.
3 top picks to passively earn more crypto
The first option to consider is physical devices that allow users to earn rewards in the form of tokens, Brukhman said. New networks that either create a service or collect data are releasing small hardware instruments that often look like an internet router. Most of these products can be purchased for well below $1,000.
Some of these devices can be considered miners, except they use very little electricity, are easier to set up, and don't make noise.
One device Brukhman mentioned is a Helium miner, a hotspot that provides wireless network coverage for surrounding areas. This little box retails anywhere between $400 to $800 depending on the provider. The setup is simple: it requires an ethernet cable that will plug into an internet router. Rewards are earned in the blockchain's native token HNT and can vary drastically based on where the device is placed and the strength of its antenna.
Eric Vladimirsky, a Los Angeles-based senior software developer, went all-in on Helium mining. He started off with two miners and then quickly scaled to 63. During a 30-day span in July 2021, he earned 1,386 HNTs. Today, the rewards have been slashed substantially but the price of HNT has increased from $12.88 at the time he mined to $16.33 as of May 4.
A similar device is PlanetWatch, a small box that tracks air quality and sells that data to weather companies. It rewards the holder with PLANETS tokens. The miner retails for about $600 and requires an annual license of $270.
Brukhman is also excited about Dimo, which is creating a user-owned internet-of-things platform that allows drivers to collect and share their vehicle data in exchange for rewards. The small device retails for about $345 and is placed on the vehicle's dashboard.
Although there aren't yet any set conversions for the points currently being issued into future tokens, it's something the project is still evaluating, according to Alex Rawitz, a co-founder at Dimo. The website states that rewards will be based on what third parties are paying for that data. The full product is set to launch next year.
If you're not a fan of hardware, staking is a second option. Investors who participate in this process are supporting a blockchain by validating transactions and blocks within the network. Users lock up a portion of their tokens and, in return, receive a yield denominated in that token, Brukhman said. Staking times may vary for each platform.
"This is for people who are interested in blockchain networks themselves. It's an opportunity to run a node," Brukhman said.
Knowing which staking protocols to use can be a daunting task. He recommends filtering options through a website called Blockdaemon, an independent blockchain infrastructure platform that supports these protocols.
Dan Reecer, chief growth officer at Acala, a platform that's soon launching several types of DeFi applications including yield farming, recommends checking out staking platforms on BlockFi, Polkadot, and Kusama.
"They are implicitly choosing their partnerships. In doing so, they're making good decisions about who to partner with and they're not going to be partnering with some fly-by-night project or something like that," Brukhman said. "All of the companies listed there are very credible, have been around a long time or have good prospects, and have credible investors."
The third option is yield farming, a process that involves users depositing their crypto into a DeFi platform.
Brukhamn says participating in these types of platforms usually means you're adding liquidity to decentralized exchange protocols or lending protocols. He recommends checking out a website called APY.Vision, which lists varying yield opportunities across different products.
This approach is high-risk relative to staking because users are trusting a protocol rather than a blockchain's fixed consensus. This means if the project goes bust or gets hacked, you can lose your funds. On the other end, the rewards can be substantially higher than simply staking.
"There's definitely risk," said Sonali Giovino, the head of communications at DeFiYield, an asset management dashboard that allows users to link their wallets to various crypto protocols, including yield farming.
Projects can fail or get hacked, and users can get rug pulled, which is when the creators of a project withdraw massive amounts of funds, devaluing the project. The smart contract could include loopholes that would allow for vulnerabilities within the protocol, Giovino added.
"So regular users wouldn't be able to identify what's safe and what's not all the time, on their own," Giovino said. "It's really tough, sometimes you need a developer or technical tools to do that."
DeFiYield's dash warns users if any of the protocols linked to their wallet shows any signs of a red flag or vulnerabilities within the smart contract. Her advice to investors: Only put in what you can afford to lose.
Reecer recommends doing some internet digging. Look into the team. Make sure they aren't anonymous and that they have been involved in other successful projects in the past, if not in crypto then in the technology sector . Probe to see if others have done any audits on the network. And if the yields are too good to be true, they probably are.
"The other thing that you can do is also trust the evaluation process of others, of experts," Reecer said. "So if you look into the team of backers or VCs that are backing teams, you can usually tell the quality. If you see some of these well-known or well-respected venture capital firms that are backing them, it means they've probably done their due diligence and you can probably trust them more than teams who may not have that sort of support."
Yield farming projects Reecer considers legitimate include Aave, Compound, Uniswap, Curve, Trader Joe, Astroport, Saber, Raydium." | 2022-05-05T15:37:53Z | www.businessinsider.com | Top 3 Passive Ways to Earn Crypto: CEO of a Blockchain Investment Firm | https://www.businessinsider.com/top-passive-ways-earn-crypto-ceo-of-blockchain-investment-firm-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/top-passive-ways-earn-crypto-ceo-of-blockchain-investment-firm-2022-5 |
How a comedian built a podcast with 60,000 weekly downloads, and how much money she earns from it each month
Julie Merica, creator and host of the podcast "Make Your Damn Bed."
Julie Merica.
In February 2021, Julie Merica launched the motivational podcast "Make Your Damn Bed."
Since then, her audience has grown to 60,000 weekly downloads, and she's signed on advertisers.
Here's how much she built her podcast and how much she's made in the past seven months.
When Julie Merica started working on her motivational podcast "Make Your Damn Bed," she, herself, was her target audience.
It was October 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and she was looking for some encouragement to get out of bed.
Prior to the pandemic, Merica worked as a stand-up comedian, photographer, babysitter, and bartender. But when Covid-19 hit, all of her gig work suddenly disappeared.
"I found myself not having any trigger to get out of bed, and I thought, 'Man, I wish there was a short podcast or something that I could have as a trigger,'" Merica told Insider. "I wouldn't even care what the podcast was about, to be honest. I just needed something."
So she decided to launch it herself.
She'd tried podcasting two years earlier with a show called "Bud Buddies" — on which she smoked marijuana and told funny stories with guests on a weekly basis — that never really took off.
Still, she had all the skills she needed to produce quality audio content — many of which she'd learned watching YouTube videos — and about four months after she started working on the show, "Make Your Damn Bed" debuted in February 2021.
Each episode of the daily show, which is about eight minutes long, offers motivational advice designed to be paired with daily habits, such as the titular making your bed.
Initially, Merica produced the show on Anchor, a free Spotify-owned tool that allows users to create and distribute their podcasts to multiple listening platforms.
During the first few months, she hardly earned anything, and instead focused on building an audience. She started a TikTok to promote the podcast that now has over 27,000 followers.
On TikTok, Merica posts teasers of the episodes, as well as broader motivational content. In March 2o021, one of her videos went "micro-viral," amassing 1,000,000 views, which was a turning point for the early growth of the podcast.
@mydbpodcast Day 32 Make Your Damn Bed Podcast - coulda used this message in high school. #positivemindset #encouragement #friendship ♬ original sound - MakeYourDamnBed
Having a successful social media account is crucial in helping people find her podcast, Merica said.
With so many podcasts — last year, 1.2 million new podcasts were added to Spotify — discovery is a challenge that hosting platforms have still not overcome, despite various attempts.
Consistency is also key, Merica said.
"People just want something they can rely on," she said. "You just have to flood the market with your stuff or people will forget you exist, because everyone's so busy."
She posted every single day until, in September 2021, she was scouted by Acast, a podcast company that helps with growth and monetization.
Acast helped her find paying advertisers, and, since then, her earnings and the popularity of "Make Your Damn Bed" have both grown.
In April, "Make Your Damn Bed" had an average of 60,000 weekly downloads and estimated revenue of over $6,000. (Merica is still waiting to receive exact numbers.)
Here's how much Merica earned from ads from September 2021 to March 2022. Insider verified this information with documentation she provided.
September 2021: $169
October 2021: $1,597
November 2021: $2,380
December 2021: $2,400
January 2022: $6,416
February 2022: $2,917
March 2022: $4,255
While Acast takes a cut of her ad earnings as a fee, the rest of Merica's podcast-related expenses are small.
She has made small investments, like buying an iPad, and pays about $200 monthly for a listener to make Instagram Reels for the "Make Your Damn Bed" Instagram page. But otherwise, podcasting has cost very little.
"Podcasting in general is pretty low maintenance," she said. "At some point, I might get a nice recording mic, maybe, but for now, I'm just investing my time and learning as I go."
More: Podcast Podcast Ads Creator money | 2022-05-05T16:21:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Much Money a Podcaster With 60K Weekly Downloads Earns Each Month | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-comedian-built-a-podcast-how-much-money-she-makes-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-comedian-built-a-podcast-how-much-money-she-makes-2022-5 |
Unemployed people at a rally last year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Senate Democrats are calling for $3 billion in funding for the unemployment insurance system.
Overburdened, aging state-run systems were put to the test during the pandemic, and many workers saw delays.
The 20 Democrats want the funding to ensure that won't happen again in another downturn.
The pandemic revealed the cracks in unemployment systems across the country, with some recipients waiting months to collect the relief checks meant to help keep them afloat during the unprecedented economic shutdown.
Now, top Senate Democrats are calling for billions to fund state unemployment insurance programs after "decades of underinvestment." In a letter, twenty Democrats — including Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey — called on Congress to allocate $3.2 billion to shore up unemployment systems in the next government funding bill.
"We can't expect the UI system to scale up overnight and function well in an economic downturn if we don't provide strong, consistent funding — including during economic expansions," the senators wrote.
An analysis from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank found that many states struggled to get benefits out the door on an "acceptable" timeline, which the Department of Labor defines as a first payment within 14 to 21 days after the first eligible week.
Just half of states made at least 54% of their payments within 21 days in August 2020, according to the Minneapolis Fed. It took Kentucky 77 days to send out their first Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, one pandemic-era UI expansion that made gig workers and freelancers eligible to collect checks.
Those bureaucratic delays and aging infrastructure had tangible impacts on the workers waiting for checks: Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Ralph Wyncoop, an Uber driver in Las Vegas, struggled to receive PUA benefits. He initially applied in May 2020, after being told that he'd be eligible for benefits backdated to March — but those didn't come. His application was turned down in July; he finally got his benefits by Christmas, but in the meantime had had a heart attack and was evicted. He was found dead in a motel on March 17, 2021.
Unemployment claims are now dipping to 50-year lows with the Labor Department reporting on Thursday that roughly 200,000 people filed for jobless benefits last week, similar to levels seen in the strong labor market before the pandemic. Those have trended downward over the last year as the economy rebounded, setting up a favorable landscape for workers trying to find new jobs that either pay more or have better working conditions.
Wyden initially pressed to include state unemployment reforms in President Joe Biden's Build Back Better legislation. But it fell out of consideration and Congress has achieved very little to shore up what many experts believe is an outdated part of the social safety net.
More: Economy Unemployment aid Unemployment benefits unemployment check
unemployment ending | 2022-05-05T16:21:46Z | www.businessinsider.com | Senate Democrats Want 3 Billion to Fix Unemployment, Jobless Checks | https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-democrats-want-3-billion-fix-unemployment-pua-jobless-checks-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-democrats-want-3-billion-fix-unemployment-pua-jobless-checks-2022-5 |
The top TV shows returning in May, including Netflix's 'Stranger Things'
Every month, Insider looks at the most anticipated returning TV shows using data from the app TV Time.
It's derived from its US users who use the app to track and react to what they're watching.
Netflix's hit "Stranger Things" returns in May for its fourth season after a three-year hiatus.
HBO Max's Emmy-winning comedy "Hacks" comes back for its second season.
5. "Girls5eva" season two — Peacock, May 5
Paula Pell, Sara Berailles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Busy Philipps in "Girls5eva."
Description: "A one-hit-wonder girl group from the 90s that was churned through the pop music machine reunites to give their dreams another shot. This time they'll try again on their own terms."
What critics said: "'Girls5eva' season two manages to hit all the same highs, while expanding its range ever so slightly to make room for earnest self-reflection among all those goofy jokes." — Hollywood Reporter (season two)
4. "Love, Death and Robots" season three — Netflix, May 20
Description: "Terrifying creatures, wicked surprises and dark comedy converge in this NSFW anthology of animated stories presented by Tim Miller and David Fincher."
What critics said: "The show remains an anthology, but look hard enough and you'll see at least one hint that these shorts might not be occupying wholly distinct universes after all." — IndieWire (season two)
3. "Hacks" season two — HBO Max, May 12
Jean Smart on season one, episode one of "Hacks."
Description: "A Las Vegas comedian and her young writer travel across the country for a new stand-up act."
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 100%
What critics said: "Deeper than the ironic name suggests, 'Hacks' digs into vulnerability, self-image, and gender politics in refreshing ways." — Empire Magazine (season one)
2. "The Wilds" season two — Amazon Prime Video, May 6
Description: "Survival hangs in the balance for a group of teenage girls stranded on a deserted island, after the explosive discovery that what's happening to them is an elaborate social experiment."
What critics said: "The good news is that the women of 'The Wilds' are still intriguing, dynamic, frustrating, and accessible. The bad news is we get way less time with them." — AV Club (season two)
1. "Stranger Things" season four — Netflix, May 27
Description: "When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one strange little girl."
What critics said: "Even while some things go a bit too predictably, the last two episodes tie everything and everyone together in spectacular, emotional fashion." — Dallas Morning News (season three) | 2022-05-05T16:21:52Z | www.businessinsider.com | Top TV Shows Returning in May: 'Stranger Things,' 'Hacks' | https://www.businessinsider.com/top-tv-shows-returning-in-may-stranger-things-hacks-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/top-tv-shows-returning-in-may-stranger-things-hacks-2022-5 |
The leaked US Supreme Court draft opinion poised to overturn the landmark five-decade-old Roe v. Wade decision lays a "roadmap" to potentially strike down other rights such as gay marriage, law experts told Insider this week.
The draft opinion, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and backed by four other Republican-appointed justices, "is a roadmap to striking down every other thing that the conservative movement is against," said Maxwell Mak, a political science professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
More: Roe v Wade Gay Marriage Abortion Roe v Wade leak | 2022-05-05T17:09:08Z | www.businessinsider.com | Leaked SCOTUS Opinion a 'Roadmap' to Overturn Rights Like Gay Marriage: Experts | https://www.businessinsider.com/gay-rights-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-leak | https://www.businessinsider.com/gay-rights-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-leak |
US open-banking regulation tripped up by privacy concerns
Proposed open banking guidance allowing consumers to share financial data with third parties is reportedly delayed by concerns over safeguarding data.
New open-banking regulation will make it easier for consumers to share their banking data by simplifying the bank-switching process.
The news: Privacy concerns are reportedly delaying a new open banking rule in the US which would let consumers share their financial data with third parties, according to Reuters.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule allowing consumers to share their financial data would potentially make it easier for them to switch service providers and benefit from lower fees.
What's the hold up? The CFPB's reservations stem from consumer privacy and data protection issues—specifically, that Big Techs could exploit personal consumer data, anonymous sources told Reuters.
The delay comes amid a global wave of regulation and penalties against Big Tech firms as watchdogs grapple with restrictions to protect consumers' data.
Last year, President Biden urged the CFPB to progress with rulemaking that would give customers the right to port their data from one bank to another.
Unlike the UK and the rest of Europe, the US banking industry still has no open banking standards. And the CFPB is in no rush to fill the regulatory gap.
The CFPB, banks, fintechs, and other data users disagree over which information to share. Banks generally want to limit what's shared, shielding data they see as proprietary. By contrast, fintechs and Big Tech want more data access to support their products and services while making it easier to win new customers.
The opportunity: New open-banking regulation will make it easier for consumers to share their banking data by simplifying the bank-switching process. This could potentially help neobanks and Big Tech pick off incumbents' customers to build out their banking businesses.
Easier data movement will also benefit incumbent banks by letting them share their data with fintechs. Banks could then better integrate fintech technology to improve the services they offer and deepen customer relationships. Ultimately, open banking will help banks and companies tailor their products and services to the needs of individual customers using insights gleaned from huge quantities of customers' financial data.
But consumers remain wary of data privacy issues: A 2021 Axway survey found that 47% of US consumers worried about losing control over their financial data access. More than half of US adults surveyed by the Future of Tech Commission felt they had somewhat less or much less control over their personal data and privacy.
The bottom line: The US lags behind Europe on open banking regulation partly because it lacks any uniform federal standard similar to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which in Europe regulates the collection and use of consumer data. In the absence of all-encompassing federal law, the CFPB is erring on the side of caution and trying to be proactive in managing customer privacy. | 2022-05-05T17:09:32Z | www.businessinsider.com | US Banking Regulators Are Stuck on the Unsolved Issue of Data Privacy | https://www.businessinsider.com/privacy-concerns-are-delaying-us-open-banking-rule-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/privacy-concerns-are-delaying-us-open-banking-rule-2022-5 |
South Asian beauty traditions have inspired a number of startups. Here's why VCs say 'inclusive' beauty is a hot trend.
Live Tinted's Huestick.
A number of new startups are drawing inspiration from South Asian beauty traditions.
Some brands focus on "inclusive" beauty which VCs say is a fast-growing sector.
Others focus on skincare and wellness, areas which saw an uptick in investment during the pandemic.
From saffron face serums for firming and brightening to turmeric teas for hair growth, a growing number of beauty startups are drawing inspiration from the Indian subcontinent.
Some are bringing the principles of Ayurveda — an ancient system of holistic medicine that's traditional in India — to western consumers.
These startups are billing themselves as wellness brands and introducing American customers to beauty rituals that South Asian women have been practicing for centuries. Others are launching cosmetics lines that address concerns common to women with darker skin tones who have long been neglected by mainstream beauty brands.
The inclusive beauty space is a fast-growing sector, according to Daphne Che, a principal at Montage Ventures. Her firm is a lead investor in Live Tinted, a South Asian-founded cosmetics brand that raised $3 million in funding in 2021. Other investors in the brand include Halogen Capital and Curate Capital.
Aavrani, a pioneer in luxury Ayurvedic skin care which launched in 2018, has raised almost $10 million in two rounds from firms like Amplifyher and The MBA Fund, according to Crunchbase.
Over the past year, venture-capital investment in beauty and wellness companies has jumped significantly. Between 2016 and 2020, the average amount of funding raised by individual companies in this space was around $1 million. By 2021, that number climbed to $3.2 million, according to Crunchbase.
Some of the past year's biggest beauty news came from companies based in India. MyGlamm, a Mumbai-based direct-to-consumer beauty startup, ascended to unicorn status with a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Nykaa, a fashion and beauty e-commerce firm, made almost $13 billion in its debut on India's National Stock Exchange, and launched its founder, Falguni Nayar, to the status of India's richest self-made billionaire.
Many emerging beauty startups operate as direct-to-consumer, or DTC, companies, which means they sell their products straight to consumers without the help of middleman retailers. The recent surge in investments in these companies can be attributed to the broader success of DTC vanguards like Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Casper. Not that all successful DTC brands are completely infallible. Glossier, the "cool-girl" beauty brand that catapulted to massive success in 2019, laid off 80 employees in January.
Still, several Ayurvedic skin- and hair-care startups have popped up following Aavrani's success, such as Soma Ayurvedic, Fable & Mane, and Prakti Beauty, which was founded by the model Pritika Swarup.
Business of Fashion predicts that by 2026 the global Ayurvedic products market will triple in growth from 2017, and reach a total of $14.9 billion in value. Established beauty houses have jumped on the trend, too. Estée Lauder recently invested in the New Delhi-based luxury skin-care brand, Forest Essentials.
Deepica Mutyala, the founder of Live Tinted, often weaves her own experiences as a girl of South Asian descent growing up in Texas into the company's campaigns. She's said she would dye her hair blonde to meet Western beauty standards, but still grapple with biases against darker skin within the Indian American community.
Mutyala found herself at odds with both Indian and Western ideals of beauty. Her signature product, the Huestick, is born out of that struggle. Che calls Mutyala an "outsider to the industry but an insider to the problem" and said that it was one of the many reasons her firm was compelled by Mutyala's vision.
Priyanka Ganjoo, a Harvard Business School graduate, launched Kulfi Beauty in 2020 out of a similar personal impetus. Ganjoo, like many women of South Asian descent, has dark under-eye circles, so she would wear colorful makeup to distract from them. Her line of vibrant eyeliners builds off that childhood practice. Ganjoo says she would consider VC funding if she found the right partner, but they would have to be someone who aligns with Kulfi's goal of building an inclusive global brand.
"Before starting Kulfi, I would encounter brands that tokenized and appropriated South Asian culture," Ganjoo said.
"Finally, I decided it was time for a South Asian founder to reclaim our narrative and represent our community through our products, our storytelling, and our actions."
More: Venture Capital Startups Beauty brands
South Asians Americans | 2022-05-05T17:56:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | South Asian Beauty Startups Are Grabbing VC Dollars | https://www.businessinsider.com/indian-beauty-startups-vc-dolalrs-next-big-trend-in-beauty-2022-4 | https://www.businessinsider.com/indian-beauty-startups-vc-dolalrs-next-big-trend-in-beauty-2022-4 |
US Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican of North Carolina, waves to the crowd after he spoke before former President Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally on April 9, 2022, in Selma, NC.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn's controversies are prompting mixed responses from voters in his district.
Some voters in Asheville, North Carolina, say Cawthorn is "crazy" and wont support his reelection bid.
Other voters in his hometown say he is still doing a great job.
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn is in trouble.
He's twice brought guns to airport checkpoints, allegedly drove without a valid license, made dubious claims of cocaine-fueled orgies, called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "thug," is facing a congressional financial investigation, and, most recently, appeared in a leaked video depicting the conservative lawmaker naked in bed while simulating sex with another man.
These and other recent controversies — yes, there are more — have made Cawthorn a target within his own party ahead of a May 17 primary that could determine his future in Congress, if he has one. And some voters preparing to cast their ballots in North Carolina's 11th congressional district, which covers much of the state's western region, have decidedly mixed feelings about Cawthorn's run for reelection.
Joy, an Asheville, North Carolina, resident who declined to give her last name, says she will not vote for Rep. Madison Cawthorn — if he wins the May primary election.
Joy, an Asheville resident of 17 years who also declined to give her last name, told Insider that she thinks he is "crazy."
"I don't agree with any of the ideas he has," she said. "I think he is a wacko and they should take him off of anything that he is on."
But other Hendersonville residents struck a different tone when asked whether they will support his reelection bid ahead of the primary elections.
"He's young, and sometimes he may speak when you probably shouldn't, but I'm all for him," said a longtime Hendersonville business owner, who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.
Cawthorn's brazen rhetoric has made him a rising star within the Republican Party.
"Be a radical for freedom. Be a radical for liberty," Cawthorn said during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
But his words have also driven some of his former supporters away. The youngest member of Congress, Cawthorn has faced significant opposition not just from Democrats, but from Republicans, too.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called for a investigation into Cawthorn after government watchdog groups accused Cawthorn of violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act because of actions related to his financial stake in a cryptocurrency called "Let's Go Brandon," the anti-Joe Biden slogan popularized by former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans.
Separately, The Daily Beast on Thursday reported that Cawthorn may have also violated congressional ethics rules involving payments to his chief of staff.
"He screwed himself," Sharon, a Hendersonville resident of nearly five years who declined to provide her last name, told Insider.
"Once he got elected, he started to do stupid things," Sharon said. "I won't vote for him."
On top of that, Cawthorn faces a congressional ethics complaint, filed last week David Wheeler, the president of American Muckrakers PAC, a political action committee that is trying to unseat him.
The complaint accuses Cawthorn of failing to properly disclose the money loans and gifts he allegedly provided to a male staffer. The complaint also said that the North Carolina lawmaker violated the House ethics rules by allegedly giving free housing to this same staffer.
Some of his supporters say these allegations are politically motivated because of the upcoming midterm election.
David Gorasan, a longtime Hendersonville resident, said accusations against Cawthorn are "nonsense."
"It's all nonsense," David Gorasan, a Hendersonville resident, told Insider. "I met him one time, he's a great guy, and I like his way of thinking … He's very upfront and cool and overall a very nice person."
Cawthorn, a Trump acolyte, has spoken out against these allegations stating that it is a coordinated effort by "the North Carolina establishment" against him.
"I'm NOT backing down. I told you there would be a drip drip campaign. Blackmail won't win. We will," Cawthorn tweeted Wednesday.
"Don't let the swamp of Washington dissuade or distract you from sending a warrior back to Washington. I've only just begun to fight for you," Cawthorn wrote in a separate tweet the same day.
Cawthorn faces several Republican challengers ahead of a Republican primary vote on May 17.
Cawthorn is facing several Republican primary challengers ahead of the May 17 primary election.
His main opponent is North Carolina state Sen. Chuck Edwards, who Tillis endorses. Cawthorn must receive more than 30 percent of the primary vote to avoid a runoff in July, where he would face the other candidate who finished first or second in May's vote.
More: Madison Cawthorn North Carolina Thom Tillis Republican | 2022-05-05T17:56:46Z | www.businessinsider.com | Madison Cawthorn's Controversies Draw Very Mixed Feelings From Voters | https://www.businessinsider.com/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-voters-election-district-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-voters-election-district-2022-5 |
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WATCH NOW: Why all businesses should understand the emerging science of customer values to be successful
Created by Insider Studios with PayPal
In the recent event "How Delivering Against Consumer Core Values Will Help Drive Business Growth," experts share how to understand and tap into customer values.
Demographics don't tell the whole story – understanding what consumers value provides an additional layer of insights.
Rewarding your loyal customers and hearing their feedback leads to deeper engagement and innovation.
Watch how Pressed improved their consumer experience to help increase sales below.
According to David Allison, author and founder of The Valuegraphics Database, what we value determines everything we do. "Whether we are conscious of it or not, the majority of decisions we make are rooted in our core human values," he said at a recent virtual event sponsored by PayPal.
Allison cited this example to prove his point: Three friends leave a bar together and come upon a dark alley. They must decide, do they go into the alley to see what's there, or do they take another route home? The friend who loves adventure wants to go through the alley to see what's there. The one who values safety wants to head back to the bar. The third friend, whose primary value is friendship, doesn't care what happens next as long as his buddies stick together.
"We don't need to know anything about these people other than their values," Allison said. "They don't need to know, either. They didn't check back into their demographics and say, 'I'm faced with a dark alley at midnight. Am I male, female? Do I have a white-collar job? Do I have a degree?' The only thing that matters when it comes to knowing how humans make decisions about anything is what do they care about deeply enough?"
The science of customer values
Understanding how people's values drive decision making was the main focus of the event, titled, "How Delivering Against Consumer Core Values Will Help Drive Business Growth." Allison, along with panel moderator Jason Test, vice president, digital and in-store commerce at PayPal, and Blaine LaBron, vice president of digital commerce and technology at Pressed, a plant-based beverage company, explored the emerging science of customer values and how to get to know what your customers care about most, and design an experience that caters to their desires.
When PayPal wanted to understand more about the core values of their own customers' purchasing habits, they enlisted Allison and his Valuegraphics Database to study 6,750 users in five regions around the world. The study incorporated some traditional metrics, such as demographics, which can help brands define the kind of group they want to target, and psychographics, which show a consumer's past pattern of behavior and can sometimes help predict the future.
But he focused on values and found that loyalty, security, and experiences were among the top 10 values of PayPal users. "Those three values are incredibly powerful tools to attract attention, engagement, and activation for PayPal consumers," he said. "There's a lot of PayPal customers around the world — don't you want your fair share of them? This is one way that you can get there."
Loyalty is also a key value for Pressed's customers. Knowing that value has led the company to better cater to their clientele. How? When Pressed customers said they wanted more contactless payment options, they quickly implemented Braintree, a mobile and web-payment system powered by PayPal.
They also launched a novel loyalty program a few years ago that costs $10 per month, but that $10 is put toward special product purchases, while customers also received preferred pricing on all their buys. "This spoke to our core customers — it was a no brainer because it saved them money. That's why the program really took off. It outpaced any of our initial goals."
With its customer base now even more loyal to the brand, it created a program called Pressed Post, where it works with coffee shops and restaurants to fulfill local pickup and delivery orders. "It fuels loyalty for the customer," LeBron said, adding that one customer was so excited to get her products closer to home "because she had been driving all the way to Pasadena in Los Angeles traffic for 45 to 50 minutes to enjoy Pressed products."
As the world emerges from the pandemic, which dramatically altered the way people interact with companies, understanding customer values is critical for success, Test said. "Consumer values have changed and evolved as many people have taken an opportunity to reassess what's important in their lives," he said. "It's important to understand how consumer values have evolved. The impact those changes are having on how consumers are purchasing is important to continue driving growth. And for most of us, what we value determines what we do."
This post was created by Insider Studios with PayPal.
sp-paypal22-postevent | 2022-05-05T17:57:02Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Businesses Can Tap Into Their Customer's Core Values | https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/how-businesses-can-tap-into-their-customers-core-values | https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/how-businesses-can-tap-into-their-customers-core-values |
Restart the Amazon app
Make sure you have an internet connection
Check for an app update
Restart your phone
Clear the Amazon app's cache
Reinstall the Amazon app
Update your phone's operating system
Amazon app not working? 7 ways to troubleshoot
You may need to take a few different steps to get the Amazon app working when it isn't.
If the Amazon app is not working on your device, there are a handful of troubleshooting steps you can take.
Start by force closing and restarting the app; you can also check for app updates.
Here are seven ways to get your Amazon app working properly.
You can use the Amazon app to shop and browse, place online orders, check the status of an order and even get a discount at Amazon-owned stores like Whole Foods. When an app like Amazon does so many things, you probably come to rely on it — which is why it's so frustrating if it does not work properly.
But don't lose hope. If your Amazon app displays an error or doesn't work at all, there are a handful of ways to troubleshoot the problem and get it back up and running again.
One of the most common (and easy to solve) problems is when a software glitch prevents the Amazon app from starting properly or not properly loading the main page. The first thing to try is to close the app completely (sometimes called force closing the app). If you need a refresher, here is how to close an app on Android and close an app on iOS. After you close the app, start the app again and see if that has solved the problem.
If you have trouble using the Amazon app, force close it and then start it again.
It's also possible that if the Amazon app isn't working properly, it might be due to a connectivity issue. The Amazon app needs to be able to go online, either via WiFi or your cellular service. Make sure you see a strong WiFi or cellular signal in the status at the top of the phone's display. If it's not clear if you have reliable service, try to use another app that accesses the internet to make sure your connection isn't what's causing a problem with Amazon.
Make sure you have a reliable wireless connection.
There might be a problem with the Amazon app that's preventing it from working. It's possible, for example, that it's incompatible with a recent update to your phone's operating system. Your apps should be configured to update themselves automatically, but if you are having a problem, it's worth checking to see if there's an app update waiting which hasn't been installed yet. Here is how to update your apps on Android, and here's how to update apps on iOS.
If you're still having trouble with the Amazon app, it's a good idea to restart your phone entirely — this will flush out any temporary software issues that are plaguing your phone. You can turn off most Android phones by holding the power button for several seconds, or you can pull the Control Center down from the top of the screen and tap the power icon. If you have an iPhone, here's how to restart it no matter which iPhone model you own.
A less common glitch involves the Amazon app's cache . If the cache becomes corrupted, you might need to clear it in order for the app to work properly again. The only way to clear an iPhone app's cache is to uninstall the app and then reinstall it from the App Store. But you can clear the Amazon app's cache on Android without removing the app:
1. Start the Settings app and tap Apps.
2. If necessary, tap See all apps and then tap Amazon Shopping.
3. Tap Storage & cache.
4. Tap Clear storage.
One other potential problem: Your Amazon app or some of its associated files might be corrupted. The solution is pretty straightforward — just delete the Amazon app from your phone and then reinstall it from your device's app store. You'll be automatically logged out, so make sure you have your Amazon account login information to sign back in.
Delete the Amazon app from your iPhone and then reinstall it.
Does the phone itself have important updates waiting to be installed? If you have pending iOS or Android OS updates waiting, there could be a conflict with the Amazon app. To eliminate any potential glitches with the OS, it's a good idea to make sure your mobile device is completely up to date. Here is how to update your Android phone with the latest software, and here is how to update iOS on your iPhone.
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More: Amazon Amazon App Software & Apps Troubleshooting | 2022-05-05T18:40:29Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon App Not Working? 7 Ways to Troubleshoot | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-app-not-working | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-app-not-working |
Investor Kavita Gupta told us how her Delta Blockchain Fund finds the most exciting opportunities in digital infrastructure, and why they reject 97 out of every 100 applications they receive
Kavita Gupta, founder and general partner of the Delta Blockchain Fund.
Delta Blockchain Fund
Kavita Gupta founded the Delta Blockchain Fund in 2021 and the firm has invested in 26 companies.
Gupta has been involved in digital currencies for almost a decade.
She told Insider how her firm narrows down the vast number of investment pitches it gets.
The explosive growth of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is creating more and more opportunities for investing in the burgeoning space — something Kavita Gupta knows all about.
Gupta first dove into the world of crypto as a bitcoin miner in 2013. Later, she co-founded ethereum software and application developer Consensys Ventures, as well as blockchain accelerator program Tachyon, and invested in scores of companies along the way.
After a contentious exit from Consensys, she's now general partner at the Delta Blockchain Fund, a firm she founded just last September. So far it's invested in 26 early stage companies. But as more people flock to the blockchain space and develop new ways to use the technology, the amount of work Gupta and her coworkers have to do to find those companies is only growing.
She talked Insider through her investment process in a recent interview. Gupta says that when her firm identifies a promising founder and company, they'll begin in the usual place — reviewing its slide deck and researching its place in the market.
"We have the running market analysis sheet for each and every small micro sector in the space," she said. "First we figure out which sector this particular company belongs to. What are their competitors? Who are the customers?"
That's followed by a call with the founder of the company that lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, but the discussion is less about the company itself and more about who's on the other end of the line. Gupta and her team won't back a company if they don't believe in the person behind it, and about 60% of their discussions end at that stage.
"If a founder is great, they can pivot and create something," she said. "But if it is just the idea and the founders are not strong enough to execute it, that idea is just not going to go. "
If the Delta group is still interested, they'll proceed to what Gupta calls a "technical due diligence call" where Delta experts, investors, and partners may get involved to better understand the details of what the new firm has created.
"We have bunch of really amazing venture partners for technical diligence. They're also investors in the fund coming and helping us based on a case-by-case basis, though we have two full-time deep technical coders to go into the projects."
After that comes a final conversation with the potential target to understand its clients and the market it hopes its products will serve, and how it's thinking about its next funding round and other potential sources of funding like tokens.
When those three calls are over, Gupta says, three or four companies out of 100 will be left. That's when the discussions about Delta's participation and the structure of a potential investment would begin.
Right now Gupta's fund is focused on blockchain infrastructure technology. "We invest in different blockchain technologies and a lot of infrastructure projects built on those blockchain technologies, whether that's on a single chain or whether that's on multiple chains."
Gupta continued: "That includes NFT borrowing and lending platforms, DeFi projects, and decentralized storage and hardware companies like FunctionLand."
While crypto enthusiasts and blockchain supporters today have to choose between different networks to complete a transaction, she says that's going to be a thing of the past soon.
"Developers and builders have to go through a thousand and decide and have limitations," she said. "I think we are just going to start building on an interoperable chain, and that chain at the back end will use all this infrastructure coming from different chains on case by case basis. And I think that's where I see the future of blockchain."
More: Investing Blockchain blockchain investing
Blockchain in Finance | 2022-05-05T18:40:35Z | www.businessinsider.com | Digital Infrastructure Investing, Blockchain Fund Manager Kavita Gupta | https://www.businessinsider.com/digital-infrastructure-investing-opportunities-ideas-blockchain-fund-crypto-btc-eth-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/digital-infrastructure-investing-opportunities-ideas-blockchain-fund-crypto-btc-eth-2022-5 |
The 12 best new books coming out in May, according to Amazon's editors — from Selma's Blair's memoir to a 'We Were Liars' prequel
From Selma Blair's memoir to a highly anticipated prequel, these are the best new books coming out in May 2022, according to Amazon's editors.
Amazon's book editors rounded up the best new books being released this month.
May's books include high-profile memoirs and can't-put-down fiction.
For other book recommendations, check out some of the most anticipated book releases of 2022 here.
There are long, sunny days in our not-so-distant future, and we recommend a new books haul in preparation for peak lounging.
Just like every month, Amazon's book editors have curated the best new titles coming out in May. The top releases range in genre and tone, from evocative memoirs by Selma Blair and Paul Holes (the detective who found the Golden State Killer) to fast-paced fiction perfect for future beach trips.
You'll find the full list of great May reads, plus why they're worth the read, according to Amazon's book editors, below.
The 12 best books of May 2022, according to Amazon editors:
*Captions are provided by Amazon's Book Editors and lightly edited for length and clarity.
"This Time Tomorrow," available at Amazon, $21.99
If you could go back in time and make different decisions, would you? That question is at the center of Emma Straub's big-hearted new novel, "This Time Tomorrow." The protagonist, Alice, drunkenly falls asleep on her 40th birthday and wakes up in her childhood bedroom on her 16th birthday. She's wistful about carefree days with her best friend and the teen boy who got away, but blown away by her youthful, healthy father, and an opportunity to change his life nearly 25 years later. This novel is a sweet take on the passing of time, the power of relationships, the misguided rush to adulthood, and the pressure to achieve arbitrary milestones in life. The time travel never feels gimmicky, and '80s kids will appreciate the references to "Back to the Future." It's breezy, yet smart — check it out for your next book club pick! — Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
"Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up" by Selma Blair
"Mean Baby," available at Amazon, $22.99
Selma Blair's memoir is more than a gushy celebrity story of bright lights and glitzy parties. It's a story about complicated mother-daughter relationships, how childhood interpretations of experiences can shape you, how the need for attention can drive you, how Hollywood kismet happens, and how the public platform it provides can be a force for good. "Mean Baby" will make you laugh out loud at moments that are at once deeply funny and deeply disquieting. Blair's life is not all roses — booze entered her life at the age of seven and eating disorders and the darkness of depression is a constant — but she recounts the bittersweet events and details of her life with such specific clarity, honesty, and humor that it's impossible to not fall under her spell in this page-turning memoir. — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
"River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile" by Candice Millard
"River of the Gods," available at Amazon, $26.99
River of the Gods is thrilling narrative nonfiction full of adventure, ambushes, false starts, and the pursuit of conquest. Richard Burton was a consummate explorer, with a penchant for languages (he spoke more than 25), sex, and glory (one of his greatest expeditions was a trip to discover the head-waters of the Nile in 1857). Candice Millard, the best-selling author of "The River of Doubt" and "Destiny of the Republic," recounts Burton's life and epic journey that not only involved harrowing physical feats but stiff competition and epic clashes with his fellow explorer John Hanning Speke, and also with the man who has been left out of the history books, African guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Using diary entries and letters, Millard's story drops you in the middle of the jungle and exposes a world of conquering and colonial exploits. A fascinating portrait of the characters and the era in which they roamed that is an adventure to read. — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
"Remarkably Bright Creatures" by Shelby Van Pelt
"Remarkably Bright Creatures," available at Amazon, $19.59
What does a misanthropic octopus have in common with Tova, a widowed aquarium employee? Not much, until a friendship develops following a daring tank rescue, and Marcellus McSquiddles happily uses all eight of his tentacles, his three hearts, plus his sharp brain, to solve the soul-scarring mystery of Tova's son Erik's disappearance thirty years ago. Utterly original, funny, wise, and heartwarming (be warned: there'll be tears as well as giggles), "Remarkably Bright Creatures" will have readers falling hard for an acerbic invertebrate whose intervention in his new friend's life sets her up for healing lessons in love, loss, and family. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
"Sleepwalk" by Dan Chaon
"Sleepwalk," available at Amazon, $27.99
It might take you a few chapters to figure out who Chaon's protagonist Will Bear is and what makes him tick, but the chapters are short and soon you'll have your bearings. Sleepwalk takes place in a near-future dystopia where most of the big problems we have in the world have continued to worsen. Will Bear lives in that worsening world, and he has an unsavory job that keeps him driving around and off the grid, and that sometimes requires him to shoot people — but his humanity and warmth in the face of all that, along with his sense of humor, will win you over. Sleepwalk is a road novel that will make you think and make you laugh. It's fast-paced, literary, and entertaining. There's a lot going for it, but in my view, the book's greatest asset is Will Bear himself. I almost wished I could ride shotgun with him. — Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor
"Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases" by Paul Holes
"Unmasked," available at Amazon, $19.02
True crime fans take note: here is a first-person account of a life spent solving cold cases, told by the detective who found the Golden State Killer. But "Unmasked" is much more than that. First, the Golden State Killer is only one of the high-profile cases Paul Holes tackled. And second, this is a book about more than solving high-profile cold cases. Unmasked describes what it's like to be a forensic detective, to dedicate oneself to uncovering the secrets behind some of life's most brutal acts, day in and day out, and the toll that it takes on the rest of one's life. There is obsession here, but there is also confession. As we read about Hole's life solving cold cases — some famous, some only remembered by a handful of people — an imperfect man with a laser focus and a deep well of compassion comes to life amid all that brutality. This is a special book. — Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor
"The Other Mother" by Rachel M. Harper
"The Other Mother," available at Amazon, $28
"The Other Mother" is a complex story set over 30 years, weaving two families together — whether they like it or not. It opens on Jenry's first day at college, which happens to be the alma mater of his mother, who raised him alone, and his famous ballet dancer father, whom Jenry never knew. The narrative is told via rotating character perspectives, alternating two timelines: present day, and the early years of his parents' lives and relationship. I love the way the author starts with a narrow viewpoint and then widens the lens, immersing you deeper into the story — uncovering facts and questions through each twist and turn. I had big feelings about this book, physically hugging it while feeling all the emotions tingling throughout my body after reading the last words. The journey through the ups and downs of life; love, secrets, growth, and forgiveness, captured me and will leave me thinking about this one for quite a while. — Kami Tei, Amazon Editorial Contributor
"Hidden Pictures" by Jason Rekulak
"Hidden Pictures," available at Amazon, $25.19
Rekulak runs his fingers down your spine with a pulse-pounding thriller, steeped in the supernatural and fueled by alarming twists. In "Hidden Pictures," Mallory Quinn is an ex-drug addict with a chance at redemption working as a nanny for the Maxwell's, a seemingly perfect family living in an idyllic neighborhood. But when her sweet five-year-old charge begins drawing dark, disturbing pictures well beyond his age, Mallory starts looking for answers in a decades-old story of a local artist's murder. Is Mallory's past coming back to haunt her or is there something malignant at play? This horror-tinged tale of suspense will keep you up at night racing to the final shocking outcome. — Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
"Such Big Dreams" by Reema Patel
"Such Big Dreams," available on Amazon, $27
With a whip-smart, funny, and strong-willed woman at its core, "Such Big Dreams" is an absolute pleasure to read. Growing up homeless on the streets of Mumbai, 23-year-old Rakhia is hardwired with a certain grit and skepticism about the world — especially because her best friend on the streets disappeared ten years ago. Now an adult, she's landed on her feet, working as a personal assistant at a nonprofit human rights law organization, and with the encouragement of her boss and a white intern, she begins to dream of a life beyond the slum where she lives and the menial tasks she performs. But dreams are never that easy. There's a lot that Patel tackles in this book — the disparity of wealth in India and abroad, the education gap; the nonprofit world commandeered by celebrity; loss and love — and yet, it's done with such a deft hand that it's impossible to put this book down. Rakhia is a narrator you will root for and want as your best friend — she's got guts, gusto, and dares to dream, and there's nothing better than that. — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
"Family of Liars: The Prequel to We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart
"Family of Liars," available on Amazon, $13.38
If you loved "We Were Liars" then the backstory of the Sinclair family's deeply-rooted rifts and allegiances is the book you've been waiting for. "Family of Liars" returns to idyllic Beechwood Island, circa 1987, a magical epoch of lemon hunts and privilege, of first love, and of shocking events that upend the teenage Sinclair sisters' lives. Lockhart pulled me into the story so thoroughly that I could smell the ocean, hear the clink of ice in a glass, and feel the raw emotions of our (admittedly) unreliable narrator. Old family secrets come to light, and new ones are buried in this spell-binding novel of family and tragedy, love and betrayal, that will sweep you off your feet. — Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
"Siren Queen" by Nghi Vo
"Siren Queen," available at Amazon, $24.29
The glitz of the golden age of Hollywood was never bright enough to hide the darkness behind the scenes, but here Nghi Vo creates a world where the once metaphorical monsters of the studio system drop their disguises. They rip and rend with teeth and claws just as easily as they do with words. Lured in as a child by dreams of stardom, Luli Wei must find what she truly believes in before she's devoured like so many hopeful young actresses before her. Haunting, thrilling, and beautifully told, "Siren Queen" captures a portrait of magic, fear, and love as vivid as any I've seen on the silver screen. — Marcus Mann, Amazon Editor
"The Change" by Kirsten Miller
"The Change," available at Amazon, $19.59
For every woman who's ever been ignored, underestimated, or talked over, you need to read "The Change." Described as "'Big Little Lies' meets 'The Witches of Eastwick,'" with, we think, a tiny pinch of "The First Wives Club" thrown in for good measure, this epic, boo-yah revenge fantasy centers on three woman "of a certain age" who find that while their estrogen may be declining, the other "gifts" that arrived with menopause are surging, giving them the kind of superpowers that can take on whoever is killing young women in their affluent neighborhood. Have your highlighter finger ready, because Miller has packed this novel with the kind of pithy, quotable, laugh-out-loud zingers that belong on fridge magnets everywhere. To misquote Dylan, "'The Change' is gonna come, and evil better be ready." — Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor | 2022-05-05T18:40:41Z | www.businessinsider.com | 12 Best New Books to Read in May, According to Amazon Editors | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/amazon-best-books-may-2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/amazon-best-books-may-2022 |
A transcript of a call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is shown.
A former Zelenskyy aide said the Trump-Ukraine scandal showed Ukraine was a diplomatic country.
Iuliia Mendel told Insider that Zelenskyy's refusal to meddle in US politics revealed Ukraine to be "mature."
Mendel also commended Zelenskyy for showing perseverance throughout his difficult presidency.
A former aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the 2019 Donald Trump-Ukraine scandal showed the world that Ukraine is a "very good diplomat," despite the chaos the incident caused both at home and abroad.
Iuliia Mendel, a Ukrainian journalist who served as press secretary for Zelenskyy from June 2019 to July 2021, spoke to Insider this week about the ongoing Russian invasion and her experience working under the now-renowned wartime president.
"Ukraine, I think, showed itself as a very good diplomat in general," Mendel said. "Ukraine showed itself as, actually, a mature state by doing everything not to meddle."
While the conversation primarily centered on her time with Zelenskyy and the current war, Mendel offered some brief insight into the now-infamous phone call between presidents that launched Trump's first impeachment trial.
In a July 2019 phone call with Zelenskyy, then-President Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden.
The contents of the conversation came to light in August 2019 when an anonymous intelligence official blew the whistle on the phone call, expressing concern that Trump used his role as president to "solicit interference from a foreign country" in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
A senior official would later testify that Trump made clear to Zelenskyy that the release of millions of dollars of recently-blocked military aid for Ukraine was contingent upon an investigation into Biden. The accusations of interference led to Trump's first impeachment trial, of which he was ultimately acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
The phone call came just three months after Zelenskyy — a former comedian — took office.
Despite his political inexperience, Zelenskyy's handling of the situation in which he stressed Ukraine's independence, showed the new president to be "diplomatic," Mendel told Insider.
She added that this time period was particularly hectic for her as she fielded calls "around the clock" as Zelesnkyy's primary spokesperson.
More details about the phone call and its aftermath are expected in Mendel's upcoming book, "The Fight of Our Lives," which is set to be released this fall.
Mendel commended Zelenskyy for showing perseverance and tenacity throughout his presidential tenure, which has included three years of ongoing challenges. Between the Trump scandal, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion, Mendel said Zelenskyy's presidency has been plagued by nonstop difficulties.
Luckily for Ukraine, Mendel said, Zelenskyy is persistent.
"He is the person who never gives up," she said. "When ... you don't have a way out, he will say 'let's start from the beginning.'"
But even as the international community has embraced Zelenskyy amid the war, Mendel stressed that Ukraine's current plight is bigger than just one man.
"It's not about him," she said. "It's about the challenge between authoritarian regimes and democracy."
"This is about the whole country," she added.
More: Volodomyr Zelensky Zelenskyy Trump Ukraine
trump ukraine | 2022-05-05T19:28:57Z | www.businessinsider.com | Former Zelenskyy Aide: Trump Scandal Showed Ukraine Was 'Good Diplomat' | https://www.businessinsider.com/former-zelenskyy-aide-trump-scandal-showed-ukraine-was-good-diplomat-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/former-zelenskyy-aide-trump-scandal-showed-ukraine-was-good-diplomat-2022-5 |
Warner Bros. Discovery has a huge reality TV portfolio but insiders predict staff cuts and 'intense pressure' to trim unscripted budgets at HBO and HBO Max
Food Network's "Chopped."
Now that Discovery has acquired WarnerMedia, insiders wonder how the reality TV business will be impacted.
Reality TV giant Discovery is known for being cost-conscious, a contrast to HBO's big budgets.
The Discovery way of producing shows is "budget first, then everything else," said one TV agent.
The marriage of WarnerMedia and Discovery, now entering its second month, seems like an easy union of content. The former is known for scripted film and television powerhouses Warner Bros. and HBO, while the latter is a reality TV titan with a robust web of unscripted cable networks that include Food Network, HGTV, and TLC.
But the two entertainment companies have vastly different content strategies, and as the ax has started to fall on beloved execs and teams on the Warners side, several reality TV producers and agents who spoke with Insider expressed worry about how Discovery's penny-pinching philosophy may impact those who work on the highly regarded documentary, sports, and reality TV teams at HBO and HBO Max.
Chief executive David Zaslav, who is leading the combined Warner Bros. Discovery, is generally hailed as a savvy, hands-on leader and a welcome change from the telecom execs at former WarnerMedia parent AT&T. But already corporate synergies have begun, leading to ousted high-profile executives and, according to a report in Variety, the dissolution of scripted programming development at Turner networks TNT and TBS.
"It's a little mixed emotions," said one TV agent of news headlines celebrating Zaslav's embrace of Hollywood. "We know what he's been doing [at Discovery] and it hasn't been the best for our unscripted community."
Discovery has widely been known as 'frugal, and it never changes'
Many in that unscripted community point to the Discovery financing kerfuffle from several years ago, when the company mandated that production partners cover their own show expenses up front — which can run into the millions per season — and arranged for Citibank to offer loans to producers who could not afford to do so.
Under that model, Discovery would repay a production company once a show was delivered, so that "money didn't leave Discovery's books until the last possible moment," said a second agent. The system put a strain on independent producers.
The idea was said to be the brainchild of then-Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who is now WBD's head of finance.
"That was Gunnar's signature move," said one prolific unscripted producer, who has made several shows for Discovery. "That frees up cash for them. It helps their books look better as a public company."
After industry pushback, insiders say, that move was no longer Discovery's prevalent financing model ahead of its acquisition of WarnerMedia. But even before Wiedenfels, Discovery had a long history of strict budgeting.
"I've always known them to be frugal, and it never changes," said the producer.
Discovery series typically cost around $300,000 to $450,000 per hour (that's more like 42 minutes on linear TV), said the first agent. For comparison, production price tags on an original docuseries or reality show for HBO Max or HBO were said to easily run three times as high.
Top shows in Discovery's vast reality portfolio include Food Network hits "Chopped" and "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," TLC juggernaut "90 Day Fiancé," and Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch." Unscripted standouts from the WarnerMedia teams have included HBO Max's ballroom competition show "Legendary" and HBO documentary "Leaving Neverland."
Early COVID-era productions — which often relied on talent filming on iPhones from home — prompted Discovery to see if it could trim the fat even further, according to a 2020 Wall Street Journal report.
Expecting more leadership shifts and shakeouts
Industry stakeholders who spoke to Insider do not immediately expect Zaslav to trim budgets at premium cable giant HBO, run by respected exec Casey Bloys. But reality TV is Discovery's bread and butter, leading some to wonder if former WarnerMedia staffers and platforms will have to yield to Discovery's longtime practices in the unscripted arena.
Kathleen Finch, who previously oversaw all of Discovery's lifestyle networks, now has a purview of more than 40 US networks at WBD.
The second TV agent, who called the Discovery model "Budget first, then everything else," projects "intense pressure to bring budgets down" at WBD.
Insiders also expressed concern about the fate of WarnerMedia's reality TV and documentary executives, singing the praises of HBO doc heads Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, HBO Max executive vp of non-fiction and live-action family Jen O'Connell and, on the studio side, Warner Bros. unscripted TV president Mike Darnell — who produces shows both for in-house platforms and for buyers across town, including NBC ("The Voice") and ABC ("The Bachelor").
Whether Darnell in particular will be encouraged to fit into the Discovery mold — and reduce costs for programming produced for WBD platforms and networks — remains to be seen. Affectionately called an "evil genius," a "chameleon," and "truly one of the respected entities that sells outside of the group" by those who spoke to Insider, the reality TV powerhouse and former Fox exec is known for his involvement over the years in mega-hits such as "American Idol" and "Ellen's Game of Games."
"He's got hair like Howard Stern, he wears lizard cowboy boots, he shows up two hours late for meetings, rambles endlessly about God knows what," said the producer. "He's just totally eccentric, and within that eccentricity, can be brilliant — and has been a part of some of the best shows of the genre."
For now, industry players who spoke to Insider are waiting for the other shoe to drop as more layoffs are widely expected at WBC in the coming months.
"It's hard to pitch a show if you don't feel like that exec team is going to be there in three weeks," said the second agent.
Having a reality-savvy exec like Zaslav running a company as big as WBD could be a boon for unscripted programming there.
"We're rooting for these people in unscripted — we're hoping for the best," said the first agent, adding of the Discovery leadership now driving strategy at WBD, "but we've seen time and time again what they've done."
More: Discovery Warnermedia Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming | 2022-05-05T19:29:27Z | www.businessinsider.com | Warner Bros. Discovery Reality TV: Insiders Fear Budget and Staff Cuts | https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-hbo-max-reality-tv-future-unscripted-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-hbo-max-reality-tv-future-unscripted-2022-5 |
Wikimedia has officially stopped cryptocurrency donations. Here's how a 28-year-old Wikipedia editor started the debate from the inside.
Molly White, a Wikipedia editor.
Three months ago, Molly White urged the online encyclopedia to stop accepting crypto donations.
Now, 71% of the Wikimedia community of editors voted in favor of White's proposal.
Concerns range from environmental sustainability to reputation risks.
On Sunday, the Wikimedia Foundation voted to stop accepting donations in the form of cryptocurrency. In a vote from the online encyclopedia and community's editors, 71% of the group voted in favor of removing the ability to accept crypto as a payment option for donations to the site.
The decision came three months after Molly White, a longtime Wikipedia editor and a software engineer at HubSpot, who also blogs against Web3, submitted a request for comment that spelled out the case against crypto, saying "it is no longer ethical." "Cryptocurrencies have been joined by a bubble of predatory, inherently harmful technologies," White, known on the site by the handle GorillaWarfare, wrote in her original post.
As the pandemic played out, and as people spent more time online, crypto grew in popularity. Companies, such as Crytpo.com and Coinbase, promised passive income from digital assets, a way to get rich quick. Then came the marketing term "Web3," which made the jump from decentralized banking to decentralized organizations, essentially a backlash of the conglomeration of users' personal data by Big Tech, such as Meta and Google.
Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, brought in $130,100.94 in the form of crypto donations, the smallest source of revenue at 0.08% of its total revenue.
Wikipedia first started accepting cryptocurrency donations in 2014, in response to the requests from volunteer contributors and donor communities. "It was a very different time," White told Insider in an email.
The birth of the crypto community promised privacy, anonymity, decentralization, and freedom — particularly for those who couldn't afford traditional banking. "Those values don't really seem so central anymore," she told Insider in January. "Most projects are more interested in making a quick buck and are in fact very centralized."
"I intended it to be just a starting point for discussion," White said after three months of reflection. But her comments spurred debate and echoed the growing number of people in tech who think crypto hasn't kept its idealist promises of freedom and anti-surveillance.
The 28-year-old said she was happy to hear that others shared her concerns. "Taking principled stances like this can help send a message," she said. "Even when that message is competing against a very loud onslaught of hype and marketing money."
Late last year, before she challenged Wikimedia, she began to take notice of the marketing around crypto. Celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Matt Damon, and Reese Witherspoon, endorsed it, and advertisements flooded social-media feeds — all while White heard of scores of people involved in crypto-related scams and hacks.
EthereumMax's investors sued Kim Kardashian, accusing her of misleading people to buy crypto and causing an artificial inflation of the token. Recently, scammers impersonated finance influencers, luring followers into crypto scams.
"It really alarmed me to see people trying to mainstream this technology that is absolutely not fit for wide adoption, and not only that, they began to brand it as the 'future of the web,'" White said.
This became clearer to White when Mozilla paused cryptocurrency donations shortly after announcing its partnership with BitPay. Jamie "jwz" Zawinski, Mozilla's cofounder, responded, "Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters." Wikimedia also used BitPay, a bitcoin payments processor that charges a 1% processing fee.
"I realized that it was likely that the same sentiment existed among Wikimedians," White said.
Yet her stand against crypto also came with virtual hate from crypto devotees. "I mostly try to ignore the hate rather than keep up with it," she said. "It was definitely frustrating though."
White isn't new to Wikipedia. She's been a Wikipedia editor since she was 13. She wrote articles, restored vandalized posts, copyedited, and mediated disputes between users, earning her an administrator's title in high school, she said, adding, "And have remained an active editor and community member pretty much ever since."
In line with Wikipedia's revisionist nature, White said, if she were to rewrite her original plea: "I would've spent more time refining my original proposal. It worked out all right in the end, but I would've given it some more polish and perhaps tried to preempt some of the arguments that I knew were likely."
For now, White hopes people will see beyond the crypto hype. "It's very clearly preying on people who are in a really tough situation financially and looking for any way out," she said, referring to the crypto industry. "It overwhelmingly seems like people are only digging themself into deeper holes of debt with it."
More: Tech Wikipedia Wikimedia Foundation | 2022-05-05T19:29:33Z | www.businessinsider.com | Wikimedia Votes to Stop Accepting Crypto Donations | https://www.businessinsider.com/wikimedia-stopped-accepting-crypto-donations-unethical-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/wikimedia-stopped-accepting-crypto-donations-unethical-2022-5 |
"For Sale" signs are seen outside a home in Glenview, Ill., Tuesday, July 27, 2021.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 5.27% last week, marking the highest level since 2009.
The uptick comes one day after the Fed issued a double-sized rate hike, which will boost mortgage rates even higher.
Home inflation is set to cool, but higher rates will dent near-term affordability, a Freddie Mac economist said.
Mortgage rates swung higher last week to the highest levels since the Great Recession , putting new pressure on the still-hot housing market.
The average rate for a 30-year home loan climbed to 5.27% from 5.10% last week, Freddie Mac said in a Thursday report. That's the highest average since August 2009 and about 2.2 percentage points higher than where rates sat at the start of the year.
The average rate on 15-year mortgages rose to 4.52% through the week, up from the prior reading of 4.40%. The five-year Treasury-indexed adjustable-rate mortgage saw its average rate climb to 3.96% from 3.78%.
The rally is expected to only accelerate in the weeks ahead. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.5 percentage points on Wednesday, doubling the size of its typical rate hikes and kicking off a more aggressive effort to cool inflation. The Fed's rate influences borrowing costs throughout the economy, and mortgage rates usually respond to hikes in a matter of days.
The Wednesday increase is likely the first of a few double-sized hikes. There was a "broad sense" among Fed officials that more half-point hikes "should be on the table" at coming meetings, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a Wednesday press conference. Unless new factors throw a wrench in the Fed's plans, borrowers can expect rates to skyrocket through the summer.
The Fed's actions aim to slow inflation by reining in demand, but higher rates risk pushing more Americans out of the already white-hot housing market. The mortgage payment on an average-price home with a typical 20% down payment and 30-year loan now counts for 31% of the median American's income, according to data from mortgage technology and data provider Black Knight. That's the highest share since 2007.
That pressure should abate later in 2022, but prospective buyers will have to face a higher barrier to entry until then, Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac, said in the Thursday report.
"While housing affordability and inflationary pressures pose challenges for potential buyers, house price growth will continue but is expected to decelerate in the coming months," Khater said.
Whether the market slowly cools or faces a more violent crash remains to be seen. Soaring prices and higher mortgage rates have already slammed demand. Sales of new homes fell for the fourth straight month in March, as did pending home sales. It's likely demand will wane even faster as rates tick higher.
That could be a problem for the entire economy. Homes are the average American's most valuable asset, and a sharp decline in demand could force sellers to cut their prices. That could erase swaths of household wealth, particularly among those who bought into the market when prices sat at record highs.
The latest data show prices still rising at a fast clip. But with mortgage rates on the rise and putting new pressure on affordability, the first hints at a correction have emerged.
"Sellers are starting to reduce their asking prices some, even in hot markets," Marty Green, a principal at Texas mortgage law firm Pulunsky Beitel Green, said. "While these reductions are not an indication that prices are falling, they do indicate that sellers are facing the reality that the days of the massive run up in prices from the COVID period may be coming to an end."
More: Economy Housing Market mortgage rates Mortgages | 2022-05-05T20:11:26Z | www.businessinsider.com | US Mortgage Rates 30-Year Fixed Today: Highest Levels Since 2009 | https://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-rates-30-year-fixed-today-highest-levels-2009-housing-market-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-rates-30-year-fixed-today-highest-levels-2009-housing-market-2022-5 |
How Hancock Whitney Bank works
Hancock Whitney Bank trustworthiness and BBB rating
Hancock Whitney Bank vs. Woodforest National Bank
Hancock Whitney Bank vs. Regions Bank
Hancock Whitney Bank review: Over 200 branches in 5 states, but low interest rates on savings
Hancock Whitney is a regional brick-and-mortar bank with branches in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
Hancock Whitney Bank; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
The bottom line: Hancock Whitney Bank could be a decent option if you live in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas, and prefer a sizable branch network to online banking. But you may still find lower minimum opening deposits and lower monthly service fees at other brick-and-mortar banks.
Low savings rates
High minimum opening deposits
Hancock Whitney Silver Savings Account
$3 withdrawal charge if you exceed the monthly limit
Over 200 branches and almost 300 ATMs in AL, FL, LA, MS, and TX
To waive the $3 monthly service fee, you must fulfill one of the following requirements: keep at least $200 in your account daily; link a Hancock Whitney Connect or Priority Checking Account; be under the age of 18 or over the age of 65
Interest compounded daily and deposited monthly
You might want to consider the Hancock Whitney Silver Savings Account if you're able to waive the $3 monthly service fee due to your age. If you're between the ages of 18 and 65, you'll need to keep at least $200 in your account daily or open an eligible Hancock Whitney checking account to avoid the fee.
The Hancock Whitney Silver Savings Account pays a lower interest rate on its savings account than the national average, so it may not be the best option if this is a big priority for you.
Hancock Whitney Access Checking Account
Overdraft protection
$36 overdraft fee (however, the bank will be eliminating some overdraft fees at the end of 2022)
To waive the $10 monthly service fee, you must fulfill one of the following requirements: keep at least $250 in your account daily; receive a direct deposit of $250 or more each month; be under the age of 24 or over the age of 64
You can overdraw up to $5 from your account and you won't be charged a fee
Overdraft protection that lets you link your checking account to another Hancock Whitney account or apply for a line of credit
There is a $10 transfer fee if you utilize overdraft protection by transferring money from another account; however, the bank eliminating some overdraft fees at the end of 2022
The Hancock Whitney Access Checking Account could be worthwhile if you meet one of the requirements to waive the $10 monthly service fees.
The bank also announced in March that it would be eliminating some overdraft fees by the end of 2022. Customers would no longer be charged certain overdraft protection transfer fees or continuous overdraft fees, and the current $5 overdraft limit would increase.
Hancock Whitney Personal Money Market Account
Must have at least $2,500 to earn interest
Earn 0.01% APY if you maintain $2,500 in your account daily
The Hancock Whitney Personal Money Market Account pays the same interest rate as the Hancock Whitney Silver Savings Account but requires a minimum of $2,500 to get started. You'll also need to maintain this amount to earn interest.
Consider going through our best money market account guide if you'd prefer to open a money market account with lower minimum balance requirements.
Hancock Whitney Certificate of Deposit
Standard CD penalties
Terms range from 7 days to 7 years
Early withdrawal penalties vary depending on term and amount deposited; Contact your nearest branch to learn more information
Hancock Whitney may offer more CD terms than competitors. You can choose from terms as short as seven days to as long as seven years.
If you're searching for a competitive interest rate, other financial institutions will likely offer more suitable options.
Hancock Whitney Bank is a brick-and-mortar regional bank with over 200 branches and almost 300 ATMs. Branches are located only in five states in the southern region of the US: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
Customer service is available by phone from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. CT on Saturdays.
The regional bank's mobile app received 4.7 out of 5 stars in the Google Play store and 4.8 out of 5 stars in the Apple store.
Hancock Whitney bank accounts are federally insured, so you may safely keep up to $250,000 in individual accounts and $500,000 in joint bank accounts.
Hancock Whitney has been involved in a recent public controversy.
In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission required Hancock Whitney Investment Services to pay disgorgement of over $1.6 million in a settlement that accused the bank of insufficiently notifying customers of a conflict of interest involving mutual funds and money market shares.
We also include ratings from the Better Business Bureau, which assess banks on customer complaints, transparency in business practices, and honest advertising.
The BBB gave Hancock Whitney an A+ rating. A high BBB rating doesn't guarantee your relationship with a bank will be perfect, though. To see if Hancock Whitney is right for you, reach out to current customers you know or read online customer reviews.
Hancock Whitney Bank and Woodforest National Bank are brick-and-mortar banks available in the same states. Here's how the two compare.
Hancock Whitney Bank
AL, FL, LA, MS, and TX
Low minimum opening deposits on accounts
Deciding between these two regional banks will likely come down to what you want out of your banking experience.
Woodforest National Bank accounts have lower minimum opening deposits across the board. You'll also earn a higher interest rate on a Woodforest National Bank savings account or CD than at Hancock Whitney Bank.
You might prefer Hancock Whitney Bank if you'd like a bank with a strong mobile app. It also might be a better choice if you are searching for a greater variety of CD terms.
See how Fulton Bank stacks up to another regional bank on the East Coast: Regions Bank.
AL, AK, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KY, MO, MS, NC, SC, TN, and TX
Regions Bank will likely be your top choice for opening a savings account. The Regions LifeGreen® Savings Account doesn't charge monthly service fees and has a $5 minimum opening deposit if you open the account at a branch.
If you're planning on opening a checking account, however, Hancock Whitney makes it a bit easier to waive the monthly service fee. You can waive the fee by keeping at least $250 in your account daily, receiving a direct deposit of $250 monthly, or meeting certain age requirements.
Meanwhile, Regions Bank requires you to keep at least $1,500 in your account monthly, make a $500 single direct deposit, or make a $1,000 combined direct deposit.
What kind of bank is Hancock Whitney?
Hancock Whitney Bank is a regional brick-and-mortar financial institution. The bank has branches in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
Is Hancock Whitney a good bank?
Hancock Whitney might be worth considering if you prefer traditional banking to online banking. The bank has decent-sized branch and ATM networks. You'll have several ways to waive monthly service fees on checking and savings accounts.
If you don't think you'll meet the requirement to waive monthly service fees, or you'd prefer to earn a competitive interest rate, other financial institutions may be a better fit.
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PERSONAL FINANCE How do you open a bank account for a minor?
More: Hancock Whitney Bank Hancock Whitney Silver Savings Account Hancock Whitney Access Checking Account Hancock Whitney CD | 2022-05-05T20:11:32Z | www.businessinsider.com | Hancock Whitney Bank Review: Over 200 Branches, Low Savings Rates | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/hancock-whitney-bank-review | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/hancock-whitney-bank-review |
The 80k Chase Sapphire Preferred bonus is effectively a blank airline ticket — here's how to use it to get (almost) anywhere in the world
Joseph Hostetler/Insider
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card currently has a heightened offer of 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
By transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards® points to airline partners, you can fly just about anywhere on earth.
We don't know how long this bonus will be around, but if it drops to its usual 60,000-point bonus, your possible destinations plummet.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card comes with a whopper of a bonus. You'll get 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Insider estimates that this bonus is worth $1,440, on average. That sounds like a lot — but you can also get tons more value from the bonus by transferring those points to valuable airline and hotel partners. In fact, with a bit of strategy, you can turn this bonus into a (nearly) free ticket to just about anywhere on planet Earth.
Below is a basic overview for getting to whichever region is on your bucket list.
Use the Chase Sapphire Preferred bonus to get (almost) anywhere
This post does not focus on the absolute best value for your Chase points. Instead, the goal is to effortlessly reach every continent on Earth — except for Antarctica, where the aviation industry stubbornly and inexplicably refuses to construct a large commercial airport. You'll be astonished at the places you can go with very little work, all from earning one single sign-up bonus.
All this to say, below are not all the options you have, but they'll get you to where you want to go.
Chase points transfer to United Airlines and Southwest, both of which cover nearly every nook and cranny of North America.
By transferring 80,000 Chase points to Southwest, you can expect an average value of $1,120 in free flights. Southwest famously offers super-cheap fares, so this should be more than enough to get you wherever you want to go more than once. Southwest serves Hawaii, Mexico, and Central America, too.
You can also transfer your points to Singapore Airlines for cheap flights to Hawaii on partner United Airlines. Even from the East Coast, you'll pay no more than 35,000 miles round-trip.
You can transfer Chase points to United Airlines to visit anywhere in South America.
For example, flights near the bottom of the continent to Santiago, Chile, cost 60,000 miles round-trip in coach. You can get to Brazil, Peru, Colombia, etc. for equal or fewer miles.
United miles can even take you to the Galapagos Islands for as little as 42,000 miles round-trip, though note that the taxes can be above $100 on this award flight.
There are plenty of ways to reach Europe for free, but United Airlines is again the path of least resistance. Round-trip coach flights to Europe generally cost 60,000 United miles, from Iceland to Malta to Turkey and everywhere in between.
You can save quite a few Chase points if you're willing to pay a bit in taxes, however. One of our favorite tricks is to transfer points to Iberia. You can cross the Atlantic for around 17,000 points and $100 in taxes. The only real catch is that you must be flying from either Chicago, Boston, or New York (JFK) to Madrid. But once you're in Europe, you can hop around for as little as $20 one-way — so you can very inexpensively reach whichever destination you want to visit.
Asia is massive. The best plan of attack depends on the specific region you want to visit.
If you're off to India, transfer to United Airlines and you'll pay 85,000 miles round-trip in coach (just 1,000 points more than you'll have after meeting the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card minimum spending requirement). And you can reach hot spots in Southeast Asia for 80,000 United miles round-trip, such as Singapore and Phuket, Thailand.
If you'd like to go to Japan, you can transfer your points to Virgin Atlantic to fly round-trip in coach for as little as 55,000 miles.
Additionally, you can fly coach to Israel for just 50,000 points round-trip by transferring to Flying Blue via Air France or KLM.
United Airlines prices its flights just out of reach for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card's current bonus. You'll pay 88,000 United miles round-trip in coach.
However, those on the West Coast can transfer Chase points to British Airways to reach Australia for as little as 77,500 points by using Hawaii as a stopover. Here's what you do.
First book a flight from the West Coast to Honolulu — this will cost 26,000 points round-trip.
Then book a round-trip from Honolulu to Sydney for 51,500 points which occurs inside the previous round-trip. This ticket can incur some annoying fuel surcharges — but for a ticket that otherwise costs $1,500+, it can be swallowed. Plus, you can stay in Hawaii as long as you want. It can be two vacations in one!
You can also reach French Polynesia for 51,000 miles round-trip in coach by transferring points to Flying Blue, the airline partner of KLM and Air France. This is one of the cheapest ways to reach Tahiti — the gateway to Bora Bora.
And you can fly round-trip in coach from Los Angeles to the South Pacific on Air New Zealand by transferring 60,000 points to Virgin Atlantic — though admittedly these seats aren't the easiest to find.
Africa contains many different regions and prices, but you can reach every extremity one way or another.
You can book a round-trip coach flight to Algeria and Morocco by transferring just 50,000 Chase points points to Flying Blue. You can fly all the way to Cape Town, South Africa, for 80,000 United miles round-trip.
You can even book a round-trip coach flight to the Seychelles (in the middle of the Indian Ocean) for 84,000 United miles. Again, you'll have at least this many Chase points after meeting minimum spending requirements.
The 84,000 Chase points you'll have after opening the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and meeting its minimum spending requirement is basically a blank airline ticket to nearly anywhere on the face of the planet.
There are always taxes and fees associated with award flights (some steeper than others), so don't expect to pay absolutely zero dollars. But you could very well save thousands of dollars on airfare with this bonus.
More: Personal Finance Insider Credit Cards Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred | 2022-05-05T20:11:38Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Turn the Chase Sapphire Preferred Bonus Into a Blank Airline Ticket | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-to-turn-chase-sapphire-preferred-bonus-into-blank-airline-ticket-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-to-turn-chase-sapphire-preferred-bonus-into-blank-airline-ticket-2022-5 |
President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh met with union organizers at the White House.
The organizers came from workplaces ranging from Starbucks to REI to Amazon.
One worker who was there said it was an "unbelievable surprise" to meet the president.
Union organizers from around the country — including Christian Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union — met with the president, vice president, and secretary of labor on Thursday.
In a tweet, President Joe Biden said, "From the Amazon Labor Union to IATSE at Titmouse Productions, these folks are inspiring a movement of workers across the country to fight for the pay and benefits they deserve."
According to a White House readout, Biden thanked the organizers for their leadership and roles in the current organizing swell.
"Meeting the president was an unbelievable surprise, and I'm so glad he was able to hear our stories as well!" Alex Speidel, a lead organizer with United Paizo Workers/CWA who attended the meeting, told Insider in a text.
The union organizers, which also included workers from Starbucks, REI, the Baltimore Public Library, Titmouse productions, and Paizo, discussed with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh how they organized their unions — and the anti-union tactics they came up against.
The meeting comes as union movements at companies like Amazon and Starbucks — both of whom were represented at the White House — gain traction. Smalls leads the upstart Amazon Labor Union, which pulled off an unlikely victory at the JFK8 Staten Island warehouse. Another warehouse across the street recently voted against unionizing with the ALU.
Starbucks workers have also been unionizing stores at a rapid clip, with over 40 stores unionized since December, and a flurry filing for union elections daily.
On Thursday morning, Smalls testified at a Senate Budget Committee hearing chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, where witnesses discussed whether companies skirting labor law should not receive federal contracts.
"You forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate, and if we are not protected and if the process for when we hold these companies accountable is not working for us, then that's the reason why we're here today," Smalls told Sen. Lindsey Graham in his testimony.
Smalls tweeted that Biden said Smalls got him in trouble; following the Amazon Labor Union's victory, Biden had said "Amazon, here we come." Smalls wrote: "gooooooooooood."
—Christian Smalls (@Shut_downAmazon) May 5, 2022
The meeting is part of a greater pro-labor push from the White House, where President Biden has been repeatedly outspoken about his support for unions — although progressives like Sanders want him to act upon those promises.
Biden has said that he intends to be "most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history." Harris and Walsh both serve on Biden's task force meant to promote organizing and strengthen union membership.
"My favorite part was hearing the stories from my fellow organizers, and realizing that we're all fighting the same issues and dealing with the same struggles," Speidel said.
More: Economy Biden administration Labor Union Labor Unions | 2022-05-05T21:44:59Z | www.businessinsider.com | Biden, Harris, Walsh Meet Amazon, Starbucks Union Workers at White House | https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-harris-walsh-meet-amazon-starbucks-union-workers-white-house-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-harris-walsh-meet-amazon-starbucks-union-workers-white-house-2022-5 |
Cameo lets you hire celebrities and athletes to create personalized videos that make memorable gifts — here's how it works
By Kevin Webb and Reece Rogers
Lindsay Lohan is best known for her roles as a child star in "The Parent Trap and "Mean Girls," and she's one of the many celebrities you can request a personalized video from with Cameo.
How does Cameo work?
What are Business Cameos?
Is Cameo worth it?
Cameo is an online service that lets people hire celebrities to create personalized videos.
Thousands of actors, artists, and influencers have set their own rates for a Cameo video appearance.
Cameo prices range from $1 to as high as $15,000 for personal videos, depending on the celebrity.
Cameo Personalized Message
$1.00 from Cameo
On Cameo, anyone can hire actors, athletes, artists, and all kinds of celebrities to create personalized video messages. These easily shareable videos can be given as a gift for birthdays, holidays, or any special occasion.
For example, you can hire Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to give a personal pep talk to a friend, or hire an actor, like Lindsay Lohan, to create a memorable birthday message.
Thousands of celebrities and social media influencers are available for Cameo videos — they set their own price and still have final say over whether or not they complete user requests. Prices start as low as $1 for less recognizable talent, while stars with more name recognition, like Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, boxer Floyd Mayweather, and venture capitalist Kevin O'Leary, charge anywhere from $900 to $15,000 per video.
For talent big and small, Cameo gives people a way to make money directly from their celebrity, and the service puts fans directly in touch with the artists they appreciate.
A view of the Cameo Marketplace.
To request a Cameo, you need to make an account and visit the Cameo Marketplace through the Cameo website or app, where you can sort the thousands of available celebrities based on category.
Once you've chosen your celebrity, you'll fill out a request form where you describe what you want your Cameo talent to do, in a maximum of 250 characters. Cameo accepts direct payment via credit card — US residents using iOS can also purchase "Cameo credits" to store in their account and exchange for videos later.
Once the request is completed, the Cameo talent has seven days to accept or deny the project. If accepted, the celebrity will record the video and Cameo will send a link to the video to the phone numbers and email addresses listed with the request. Users can download the video to keep forever and share however they like.
If the hired talent doesn't fulfill the request within a week, all charges will be restored to the buyer's wallet.
Some Cameo celebrities also offer live video calls, though you can expect them to be more expensive than a standard Cameo. The Cameo app gives you the ability to chat with talent via direct messages as well. Chatting is a cheaper option if you just want to ask a celebrity a question or send a quick shout-out.
Cameo offers a separate service for businesses looking to promote a product or have a celebrity appear for a virtual event. Business Cameos have an average price of $1,000 but come with a different license for promotional and commercial use.
It's important to note that Business Cameos are only licensed for use for 30 days after they are created and can be used on up to three different marketing channels. Cameo says businesses must contact the company directly to extend the license beyond thirty days. Cameo Live sessions are also available for businesses and virtual events, with a starting price of $10,000.
Companies looking to book services on Cameo can browse the marketplace on their own, or they can choose to partner with Cameo for access to their VIP service. This VIP service includes a dedicated customer success representative, prioritization for your request, and a waiving of the 5% service fee. For more information about the VIP service, companies must book a call with Cameo.
Any products being sent to a celebrity for promotional purposes must be cleared through the Cameo request process in advance, and the talent is allowed to provide their honest opinion of any product they're asked to endorse.
Cameo also says that promotional videos cannot be edited, to avoid celebrity videos being used out of context. VIP service members can speak with their customer representative for a potential do-over if the celebrity says the wrong name or doesn't meet expectations.
Companies who choose to book through self-service have fewer options for rectification and can reach out via email to the customer service team. Unfortunately, there are no refunds or reshoots for Promotional Cameo videos if you're unsatisfied with the final result, so be careful before you commit.
In our experience, Cameo is a worthwhile service to use for gifts. Insider fellow Reece Rogers shared their experience with purchasing a Cameo to give to their father as a retirement gift. The Cameo was from former Steelers running back Merril Hoge, and Reece's dad wholeheartedly appreciated the gift. Rogers found the site to be easy to navigate, and the personalized video arrived in just a few days.
We recommend using Cameo to give a gift to a friend or family member, especially if you can find a celebrity on the service who they admire and is available for a reasonable price.
For more information about whether or not the service is worth it, check out Insider's full review of Cameo.
Streaming Fellow, Insider Reviews
Reece Rogers is a Streaming Fellow for the Insider Reviews team. They have written for WIRED, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. After graduating from college, they were a smartphone repair technician for a short stint and performed soldering magic on far too many iPhones. See below for some of their work. Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here.
More: cameo IP Tech product card IP Streaming | 2022-05-05T21:45:05Z | www.businessinsider.com | What Is Cameo? Hire Celebrities for Personalized Videos | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/gifts/what-is-cameo | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/gifts/what-is-cameo |
How Old National Bank works
Old National Bank trustworthiness and BBB rating
Old National Bank vs. Fifth Third Bank
Old National Bank vs. Huntington Bank
Old National Bank review: Brick-and-mortar bank that pays solid interest rates on CDs
Old National Bank has nearly 200 branches in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Old National; Savanna Durr/Insider
The bottom line: Old National Bank could be appealing if you're a resident of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, or Wisconsin who's searching for a brick-and-mortar bank with good CD rates. If you'd like to avoid common bank fees, other financial institutions might make it easier with fee-free savings and checking accounts .
CD 3.75
Good interest rates on CDs compared to other brick-and-mortar banks
ATM card included with savings account
Available only in IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, and WI
Monthly service fees on accounts
Low interest rates on savings account and money market account
ONB Basic Savings Account
$2 charge if you exceed the monthly withdrawal limit
Nearly 200 branches in IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, and WI
To waive the $4 monthly service fee, you must keep at least $300 in your account daily
Earn 0.01% APY if you have an account balance under $10,000
The ONB Basic Savings Account works best if you regularly maintain at least $300 in your account daily, so you can waive the $4 monthly service fee. It also comes with an ATM card — a unique perk for a traditional savings account.
Bear in mind other banks pay higher interest rates on savings accounts. Our best high-yield savings accounts guide features strong contenders if one of your main priorities is earning more interest on your savings.
ONB Everyday Checking Account
$6.95 monthly service fee
Access to over 55,000 free ATMs through the Allpoint ATM network
To waive the $6.95 monthly service fee, you must meet one of the following requirements: receive a total of $500 or more in direct deposits each month; keep a minimum of $750 in your account daily; maintain a total balance of at least $1,500 across all your Old National Bank accounts; or be an active member of the military
You may overdraw your account by $25 or less, and you won't have to pay an overdraft fee
Overdraft protection that lets you apply for a line of credit or link your checking account to another Old National Bank account
$12 transfer fee if you utilize overdraft protection
The ONB Everyday Checking Account might be worthwhile if you are part of the military, receive a total of $500 or more in direct deposits monthly, or meet one of the account minimum balance requirements. That way, you'll avoid paying a $6.95 monthly service fee.
You'll want to be mindful of overdraft fees or out-of-network ATM fees. The bank doesn't offer free overdraft protection or ATM fee reimbursements on the account.
ONB Certificate of Deposit
Standard early withdrawal penalties
Interest compounded annually or at maturity, not daily
Online banks may still pay higher interest rates on CD
Terms from 91 days to 5 years
Early withdrawal penalties depend on CD term and amount deposited; Contact your nearest branch for more information
Interest compounded and deposited annually or at maturity
Old National Bank CDs are the bank's strongest products. These CDs may stand out to you if you don't have a lot of money for an initial deposit. Compared to other brick-and-mortar banks, you'll also earn a higher interest rate regardless of which term you choose.
ONB Market Monitor Account
Low minimum opening deposit
ATM card option
Earn 0.05% APY on account balance over $100,000
The ONB Market Monitor Account has a hefty $20 monthly service fee if you don't keep at least $5,000 in your account daily.
While you'll have easy access to deposits, the money market account pays a pretty low interest rate even if you have a high account balance.
Old National Bank has nearly 200 branches in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Customers also have access to over 55,000 free ATMs through the Allpoint ATM network.
To contact customer service, call from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET on weekdays, or 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET on weekends.
Old National Bank's mobile app is rated 4.6 out of 5 stars in the Google Play store and 4.8 out of 5 stars in the Apple store.
Depsoits with Old National Bank are FDIC insured. Up to $250,000 is secure in an individual bank account.
The Better Business Bureau rates businesses by how they deal with customer issues.
Old National Bank received an A+ rating. Bear in mind that a high BBB rating won't necessarily result in a smooth relationship with a bank. To see if Old National Bank is a good fit, read online customer reviews or chat with current bank customers.
Old National bank has been involved in a recent public controversy.
In 2021, the Southern Indiana District Court required Old National Bank to originate more than $27 million in loans to Black borrowers and majority-Black neighborhoods in Marion County due to a settlement that accused the bank of discriminating against Black applicants applying for home loans.
Old National Bank and Fifth Third Bank are brick-and-mortar banks based in the Midwest. Here's how the two compare.
Old National Bank
IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, and WI
FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MI, NC, OH, SC, TN, and VA
Fifth Third Bank offers a more appealing checking account than Old National Bank.
The Fifth Third Bank Momentum Checking Account doesn't charge monthly service fees and has free overdraft protection. If you don't sign up for overdraft protection, Fifth Third Extra Time is also available. The program waives overdraft fees on the bank's checking account if you restore your account balance before midnight ET the next business day.
If your goal is to open a CD, Old National Bank might be your top choice. Old National Bank requires a minimum of $500 to open a CD and pays higher rates than Fifth Third Bank.
See how Old National Bank compares to another regional bank in the same states: Huntington Bank.
If you are searching for a strong checking account, you'll want to go with Huntington over Old National Bank.
The Huntington Asterisk-Free Checking® Account is a free checking account that currently offers a $150 bonus to new customers. To qualify for the cash reward, you'll need to deposit $1,000 within 60 days of opening a new account and keep the account open for 90 days.
Old National Bank might be worthwhile if you're looking for savings accounts. The ONB Basic Savings Account pays a higher interest rate than the Huntington Premier Savings Account if your account balance is over $10,000. Old National Bank could also be a decent option for CDs.
How much does it cost to open a bank account with Old National Bank?
You may open an Old National Bank checking account, savings account, or money market account with a minimum of $50. CDs require an initial deposit of $500.
How many locations does Old National Bank have?
Old National Bank has over 200 branches in the Midwestern region of the US. The regional bank serves residents in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Is Old National Bank a good bank?
Old National Bank might be a good option if you prefer a traditional banking experience to online banking, but still want to earn a decent interest rate on a CD. If you're searching for high interest rates on other types of savings accounts, though, you'll want to consider other banks.
PERSONAL FINANCE 8 tips for choosing the best bank
PERSONAL FINANCE The only difference between regular and high-yield savings that matters is the one that earns you 10 times more on your money
More: Old National Bank Old National Bank Basic Savings Account Old National Bank Everyday Checking Account Old National Bank CD
Old National Bank Market Monitor Account | 2022-05-05T21:45:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | Old National Bank Review: Brick-and-Mortar Bank With Solid CD Rates | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/old-national-bank-review | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/old-national-bank-review |
Trump made the comments during an interview with David Brody on the Christian Broadcasting Network's television program "The 700 Club." Brody asked Trump how he thought the upcoming elections would play out and "how much stock" he would put in recent wins for the candidates he's endorsed — particularly Ohio senate candidate JD Vance, who won his primary early this week.
However, other Trump-backed candidates, including Georgia gubernatorial candidate David Perdue, have struggled to keep up in their races. Perdue is 26 points behind his GOP rival, Brian Kemp, according to some pollsters. In the Idaho gubernatorial primary, Trump backed Janice McGeachin, who is trailing by around 40 points behind incumbent Gov. Brad Little in the polls. And one of the candidates Trump endorsed, Sean Parnell, a GOP candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate, was forced to drop out of the race after allegations of domestic violence emerged.
As The Post's Aaron Blake noted: "He has overwhelmingly endorsed candidates who were going to win anyway." Most of the candidates he's endorsed who have already won their primaries were incumbents, Blake added.
Trump has made 160 endorsements since leaving office, per Ballotpedia, the bulk of which still have yet to play out. If his candidates win, it will cement his status as a Republican kingmaker.
More: Donald Trump Trump GOP 2022 midterms | 2022-05-06T09:02:55Z | www.businessinsider.com | Trump Says His 'Unparalleled' Endorsements Are Vital for GOP Wins | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-his-unparalleled-endorsements-are-vital-for-gop-wins-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-his-unparalleled-endorsements-are-vital-for-gop-wins-2022-5 |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) said the crowdfunding site would provide 24-hour updates on how the donations are spent.
Ukrainian Presidency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Ukraine has launched a crowdfunding website so people can donate to its war effort.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the funds would go directly to Ukraine's national bank.
Ukraine has lost billions in infrastructure since Russia's invasion began.
Ukraine has started an online crowdfunding site to raise funds for its fight against Russia's invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Thursday.
"Today, the whole free world got united around Ukraine, countries, companies, international organizations and most importantly, people. Now you, too, are among them," Zelenskyy said in a video address.
He outlined three ways that donations could help Ukraine: by protecting troops, saving civilians, and rebuilding the country.
All funds donated through the Ukrainian initiative United24 will be transferred to the national bank of Ukraine and distributed to the relevant ministries, Zelenskyy added.
The Ukrainian leader also said that the crowdfunding platform would provide 24-hour updates on how the money is used but gave no specifics on that the reports would include. The United24 website states that its first report will be available on May 12.
"We will always remember your contribution to the victory of Ukraine, to the victory of freedom," Zelenskyy said in the video address, thanking his viewers.
The crowdfunding site isn't the first time Ukraine has opened a platform for donations. In March, it created a website for cryptocurrency donations, which claims that it has raised $60 million so far.
Ukraine has lost billions in infrastructure since the Kremlin authorized a full-scale invasion of the country in late February, including destroyed factories, schools, and medical institutions. | 2022-05-06T09:03:07Z | www.businessinsider.com | Zelenskyy Launches Crowdfunding Campaign for Ukraine's War Effort | https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-launches-crowdfunding-campaign-for-ukraines-war-effort-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-launches-crowdfunding-campaign-for-ukraines-war-effort-2022-5 |
How a founder with no tech experience convinced investors to bet on her Gen Z recruitment app poised to tackle the hospitality sector's hiring woes
Jennifer Johansson, Placed App founder and CEO.
Placed App
Jennifer Johansson isn't a typical founder — she doesn't have a business degree or tech experience.
She wants to put an end to "help wanted" signs in shop windows with her Gen Z recruitment app.
Johansson told Insider how she convinced customers and investors to bet on her startup.
Jennifer Johansson is not a typical tech entrepreneur.
Johansson, 31, has held roles across the hospitality industry, from hotels to McDonald's. Now she's setting out to solve the sector's high labor churn by forcing the recruitment process out of an era of "help wanted" signs in shop windows and printed CVs.
Johansson spent over four years at Quintessentially, a personal concierge service, where she found that owners of restaurants, bars, and members' clubs all complained about staffing issues.
"The methods that we were using, they're very old school and completely mismatched for a younger audience," Johansson said.
"When you look at the demographic that they try to target — under-25s — it's the mobile-first generation. They don't have CVs. They don't have printers."
Johansson founded Placed, an app that uses machine learning to match job seekers with relevant roles in hospitality, in 2016.
Job hunters answer quizzes about their soft skills and attitudes rather than their past experience. They may also be asked about their values and career progression and whether they are looking for a summer gig.
Johansson convinced 50 of her contacts in the industry to sign letters of intent, telling them what she wanted to build and asking them if they'd use it if she did.
Then she took the letters to venture capitalists. "That's how I raised the first funding round," she said.
Johansson has lured a total of 2.5 million pounds from True Global, an early investor; angels including Martin Robinson, the chairman of Burger King UK, and Stephen Sacks, the former customer lead at both Selfridges and Burberry; and the angel group SyndicateRoom.
"You can be an amazing bartender, an amazing chef, or an amazing person, but you may not know how to write an amazing CV," Johansson said. "That sometimes can eliminate your chances."
She added that Placed is "helping candidates shine on their profiles."
Johansson said it wasn't until 2020 when the pandemic hit that Placed really found product-market fit. The company started signing up enterprise customers that also struggled to fill roles.
The Great Resignation, a pandemic-fueled exodus of people from cities, and labor shortages have affected sectors from retail to tech.
"That's really when things kicked off," Johansson said.
Recruitment apps and platforms in Europe had a record year in 2021, raising $1.6 billion following a mere $288.2 million in 2020, according to PitchBook.
The founder said that while Placed had raised "a fraction" of what its competitors have — adding that "initially that was quite scary" — she believes her 22-employee-strong company has better customer retention.
"I don't have a business degree. I haven't run a business before. I'm sure there are reasons why we haven't been able to raise as much as fast. But you can compensate for that," Johansson said.
It comes back to your understanding of customers and resilience, she added.
Check out the pitch deck Placed used to raise its seed round in 2019:
More: Tech Insider Startups Features | 2022-05-06T09:11:24Z | www.businessinsider.com | Placed App: How Gen Z Recruitment Startup Lured Cash From VCs | https://www.businessinsider.com/female-founded-gen-z-recruitment-app-raise-its-first-round-2022-3 | https://www.businessinsider.com/female-founded-gen-z-recruitment-app-raise-its-first-round-2022-3 |
Buy bitcoin, gold, and these 5 stocks to hedge against higher prices, says the portfolio manager behind a new inflation-focused ETF that's beaten 99% of peers and crushed the S&P 500 since its launch
It's not too late to hedge against inflation because price growth hasn't peaked yet, according to Mike Venuto, the founder of Toroso Investments.
Antonio Diaz/Getty
The newly launched Amplify Inflation Fighter ETF has topped 99% of peers in the past three months.
Mike Venuto, the top mind behind the fund, broke down his strategy and a key mistake to avoid.
Here are five of the top stocks in the fund — and why bitcoin and gold are included.
As inflation surges to 41-year highs, many investors have scrambled to find hedges that can protect their portfolios from price surges and preserve their purchasing power.
But not all investors are content with getting defensive. Some would rather find a way to keep inflation at bay while staying aggressive.
That's why Amplify ETFs created the aptly named Amplify Inflation Fighter ETF (IWIN) and launched it on February 1, just as investors were getting increasingly worried about inflation. The exchange-traded fund (ETF) is managed by subadviser Mike Venuto, who's the CIO and co-founder of Toroso Investments, the parent company of Tidal ETF Services.
Amplify's Inflation Fighter ETF has beaten 99% of opposing funds in the past three months, according to Morningstar. In that span IWIN has logged a 5.5% gain, while the S&P 500 has fallen 5.4% over the same period.
While inflation is priced into markets to a certain extent, investors who haven't yet insulated their portfolios from price hikes still have time to do so, Venuto said in a recent interview with Insider.
"I do not think we're at peak inflation," Venuto told Insider. "And I think the Wall Street definition of what inflation is, is very much understating the reality of what Main Street is feeling."
Venuto continued: "Wall Street uses numbers to define inflation. And they use the CPI and the PPI, and those things don't really matter that much to Main Street. Main Street sees that gas costs twice as much and milk costs twice as much. So when they hear the CPI is up 8%, it's just a meaningless number to them because it's meaningless to their pocketbook."
Avoid this simple inflation investing mistake
Though the Amplify Inflation Fighter ETF is new, and mainstream interest in inflation hedges has resurfaced for the first time in decades, Venuto said that his idea for a fund like the one he now runs dates back about 15 years.
Like many inflation-focused funds, IWIN consists of stocks and commodities that have direct or indirect ties to real assets like energy, precious metals, agriculture, and land. To get exposure to the latter group, many ETFs load up on real estate investment trusts (REITs).
But Venuto noted years ago that REITs must issue at least 90% of their profits as dividends, which are taxable at a 15% rate in most cases, though the highest rate is 20%. That led the portfolio manager to think of ways to find inflation hedges that don't result in high tax payments.
"The REIT structure that forces you to pass through the income and give away 90% of your income — that's not a great inflation hedge," Venuto said.
The best way to fight inflation
Instead of relying on REITs, Venuto said that his inflation-fighting fund is built on inflation hedges that aren't as dividend-dependent, like homebuilders, miners, and commodities, including gold and bitcoin. The REITs that are in IWIN are tied to farmland and timberlands, he said.
Having a diverse group of inflation-adjacent assets is key, Venuto said, especially because he believes that there are two distinct causes of price surges that can affect groups differently: currency debasement and supply shocks.
"We named the fund 'inflation fighters' — I've got to know who my opponent is," Venuto said.
When central banks devalue their currencies by expanding the money supply too much, physical assets like homes, metals, and commodities tend to rise in value. Venuto's ETF is hedged against that risk because it owns shares of homebuilders and miners and has exposure to real assets like gold and other rare earth metals.
But the main driver of today's inflation, in Venuto's view, is supply-side issues that have caused prices for oil, gas, and other goods to skyrocket. Additionally, the Federal Reserve's willingness to rapidly raise interest rates has put fears of currency debasement to bed for now.
That's the simplest explanation for why gold has risen just 2.9% in 2022 and why bitcoin — a cryptocurrency that has been likened to digital gold — has fallen 15.5% this year as inflation roars higher, Venuto said. But that doesn't mean bitcoin can't or won't be a hedge.
"The type of inflation that we're experiencing and driving the narrative right now is supply-chain shocks," Venuto said. "It is not the debasement story. The debasement story was what we were hearing 18 months ago. If we look at bitcoin's behavior during that 18 months, it's pretty spectacular."
Besides bitcoin and gold, Venuto spoke about five stocks that are core holdings in the Amplify Inflation Fighter ETF. All five stocks are below, along with the ticker, market capitalization, industry, and commentary, including Venuto's views, for each.
1. Farmland Partners
Ticker: FPI
Industry: Farmland
Commentary: Few physical assets are more vital to a functioning society than farmland, which is why Venuto believes it will continue to appreciate in value over time.
"Ask Bill Gates. That's where all of his wealth is now," Venuto said.
Though Venuto isn't a massive fan of REITs, he said that Farmland Partners — which allows investors to gain exposure to a diversified pool of farmlands — is a notable exception.
"They can sell their farms to Farmland Partners and own the machinery and have the liquidity for the participation as an equity entity," Venuto said. "It's an amazing inflation hedge for us."
Ticker: NUE
Industry: Mining
Commentary: Steel producers like Nucor are a key part of Amplify's inflation-focused fund — as are uranium producers — because both are difficult to directly gain exposure to, Venuto said. He added that there can be a disconnect between prices for metals and their associated miners.
"We'll move around to the ones that look the most dislocated from the price of the underlying commodity producer," Venuto said. "The gold miners — we thought were a little rich. We actually lowered them last week."
3. Rayonier
Ticker: RYN
Industry: Timberlands
Commentary: Like farmland, timberlands are a smart subsector of real estate to have exposure to, in Venuto's view. The REIT reported earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday and was light on revenue ($222 million vs $228.9 million expected) but beat on earnings ($0.20 vs $0.16 expected).
4. Green Brick Partners
Industry: Homebuilders
Commentary: This group is a more tactical — or short-term — play, Venuto said, adding that he's currently underweight the group as he expects demand for homes to cool as rates rise.
"Homebuilders tend to do extremely well at the beginning of inflationary environments, and then when interest rates start rising, they tend to do poorly," Venuto said.
However, Venuto is keeping some exposure to homebuilders in case his thesis that the housing boom may slow soon is incorrect. After all, homes are real assets and tend to rise with inflation.
Ticker: ABNB
Industry: Travel Services/Real Estate Technology
Commentary: Airbnb and other "real estate technology" companies like WeWork (WE) and Zillow (Z) are in Venuto's fund, even though he acknowledged that they may not perform as well as they have previously while interest rates rise. Still, companies tied to real estate can thrive if property prices steadily rise.
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when will inflation peak | 2022-05-06T09:11:36Z | www.businessinsider.com | 5 Stock Picks With Peak Inflation Far Off: 99th-Percentile ETF Manager | https://www.businessinsider.com/stocks-to-buy-inflation-peak-bitcoin-gold-commodities-etf-venuto-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/stocks-to-buy-inflation-peak-bitcoin-gold-commodities-etf-venuto-2022-5 |
3. Demand for Slack admin and developer skills is expected to skyrocket. Salesforce is kicking off a major push to get pros certified on Slack , as part of an effort to get its vast network of partners and customers trained on the platform. We outlined how to skill up and land a Slack job that could pay up to $185,000 a year. | 2022-05-06T10:41:44Z | www.businessinsider.com | 10 Things in Tech: Attrition at Amazon | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-in-tech-attrition-at-amazon-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-in-tech-attrition-at-amazon-2022-5 |
Johnson now faces more pressure to his leadership, with Conservative MPs fearing the party's poor showing in the south of England will be reflected in parliamentary contests. MPs have told Insider they were waiting for the local election results before considering their next steps.
He told the BBC that Johnson had "some difficult questions to answer," saying that the "partygate" scandal of lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street, for which Johnson has received a fine from the police, had come up on the doorstep.
One Tory candidate in Barnet criticised the media, saying: "The press killed Diana".
More: News UK Partygate Boris Johnson | 2022-05-06T10:41:50Z | www.businessinsider.com | Boris Johnson Faces 'Difficult Questions' After Local Elections: MP | https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-faces-difficult-questions-after-local-elections-tory-mp-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-faces-difficult-questions-after-local-elections-tory-mp-2022-5 |
Today's mortgage and refinance rates: May 6, 2022 | Average mortgage rate hits 5.27%
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate just rose to 5.27% — a 13-year high, according to Freddie Mac.
The Federal Reserve announced this week that it's raising the federal funds rate by 0.5%. This is a larger than usual rate hike for the central bank, and a sign that it plans to move more aggressively to fight inflation.
As inflation rages and the Fed tightens monetary policy in response, it's likely that mortgage rates will remain elevated, and they may continue increasing this year.
"I still believe we are in a market that is advantageous to buy or own in," DiBugnara says. "Higher rates mean less buying power in some cases, but rent is rising as fast or faster than home prices because of inflation, making buying the more ideal option for many."
In the last 12 months, the Consumer Price Index rose by 8.5%, the fastest rate of inflation since 1981. The Federal Reserve has been working to get inflation under control, and plans to increase the federal funds target rate five more times this year, following a 0.25% increase at its March meeting and a 0.5% increase in May. | 2022-05-06T10:41:56Z | www.businessinsider.com | Today's Mortgage, Refinance Rates: May 6, 2022 | Average Mortgage Rate Hits 5.27% | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-friday-may-6-2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-friday-may-6-2022 |
The wing of a United Airlines plane. Not the one involved in this story.
A United Airlines passenger opened the emergency exit and walked onto the plane wing, police said.
He did this as the plane moved to its gate after landing and was taken into custody, police said.
Charges are pending against the passenger.
A United Airlines passenger was taken into custody after they opened the plane's emergency exit door and walked onto the wing while the plane was moving, police said.
The Chicago Police Department said officers responded when a man went onto the plane wing of Flight 2874 as the plane moved down the runway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, NBC 5 Chicago reported.
The flight had landed from San Diego on Thursday morning and was moving towards the gate when the incident took place, the report said, citing United Airlines.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement to CNN: "A male subject was onboard a plane that was approaching the gate when he pulled the emergency exit and walked out onto the wing of the plane."
The police told CNN that its officers "placed him into custody. Charges are pending."
United Airlines told CNN that all of the plane's passengers were able to get off the plane safely.
Insider has contacted United for comment.
NBC 5 reported that Air Traffic Control were heard saying in a recording that "We had to stop short of gave Bravo 3. Somebody pulled the rear right over wing exit. Someone in seat 21 Bravo has exited the aircraft and is on the ramp."
More: News UK Speed desk United Airlines | 2022-05-06T10:42:27Z | www.businessinsider.com | United Passenger Opened Door, Walked on Wing, Arrested: Police | https://www.businessinsider.com/united-passenger-opened-door-walked-on-wing-custody-police-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/united-passenger-opened-door-walked-on-wing-custody-police-2022-5 |
A top BlackRock exec explains the 4 technologies job candidates should know to land one of its 125 cloud and software engineer openings
Bianca Chan
Lance Braunstein, BlackRock's head of Aladdin Product Group.
BlackRock is hiring 125 cloud and software engineers for Aladdin, a widely used analytics platform.
The firm is partnered with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon for various cloud businesses.
A top executive tells Insider what to expect in the interview process and how to stand out.
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, wants to transform its engineering ranks to put the cloud first.
The team behind the firm's crown jewel, Aladdin, is looking to snap up 125 cloud and software engineers to accelerate the broader push to a cloud-centric culture. It's a ripe market for engineers on Wall Street, and applicants at BlackRock can stand out by showing off their experience with cloud and open-source technologies, Lance Braunstein, head of Aladdin Product Group at BlackRock, tells Insider.
Aladdin, which is nearing completion on its migration to Microsoft Azure, is the near-ubiquitous risk analytics and tech system widely used across Wall Street. Aladdin helps investors analyze and manage risk in their portfolios across different asset classes and is a top-line revenue generator for BlackRock, according to Braunstein.
But the $10 trillion asset manager is, in fact, a firm that relies on multiple clouds. BlackRock uses Amazon Web Services for parts of eFront, an investment management platform for private-market deals, and Google Cloud is used by some of BlackRock's equity teams, Braunstein says.
The infusion of public cloud in BlackRock's tech stacks is causing the firm to prioritize groups of specific cloud engineers who write code that provisions or operates in the cloud. But many engineers at BlackRock will interact with cloud tools, even if they're not specifically cloud engineers.
"There's a whole range of professions, including software developers, who are interacting with the cloud for whom cloud engineering and expertise is required," Braunstein said.
To get hired at BlackRock, there are a few things candidates can do to show that they're qualified. Braunstein tells Insider that the best candidates have a combination of technical certifications and the ability to work well with the team.
Show off cloud certifications, but also experience with open-source technologies
Because BlackRock is a multi-cloud shop, having cloud experience with one of the three major public cloud providers is an advantage. But beyond AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud certifications, Braunstein says he's focused a candidate's mindset and knowledge of specific third-party technologies.
"When you think about cloud, it's not just Azure-specific or AWS-specific technologies," Braunstein said.
Instead, there are other forms of cloud expertise that he says he wants his engineers to know. Candidates should have a "cloud mindset," which presents a different way of writing software, Braunstein says. Building with the cloud in mind typically uses smaller, single-purpose software components called microservices. Microservices are usually easier to adapt and certain pieces can be scaled with demand.
"Cloud native is very much about not associating applications with a specific computer, but thinking about the virtual computer, about the virtual estate, and how you provision things in a much more elastic way," he said.
BlackRock's tech stack also includes several open-source tools, like Kubernetes, the open-source system used for automating software deployments and managing containerized applications. It also runs on Docker, a system that enables developers to package applications into containers to run in different environments, and Terraform, an open-source system that lets users operate and manage infrastructure in the cloud.
But the interview process is two parts, according to Braunstein. A candidate's technical abilities and experience will be probed during an assessment followed by behavioral interviews that assess whether someone is a good fit for the team.
BlackRock did not provide or confirm a salary range for its cloud and software job openings.
A hot tech job market has led financial firms scrambling for candidates
BlackRock's Aladdin group is currently on the hunt for more cloud talent than its needed in previous years, Braunstein said.
"There is an intensity of competition for talented technologists across the spectrum: information security, software development, data analytics, emerging digital assets, crypto," Braunstein said.
But that's been a trend across the industry. Nearly every financial firm on Wall Street is ramping up hiring for engineers with cloud experience. Demand for cloud engineers has hit a fever pitch ever since the technology took the finance industry by storm.
That means BlackRock's search for talent won't come without its headwinds. Braunstein, who spent decades in senior technology roles at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and E-Trade, says it's likely the most heated tech talent market he's seen.
And that's true across many industries. Nearly all 48 chief information officer respondents to a McKinsey survey in January said a lack of cloud talent was one of the biggest challenges they face.
"These are all fields that every industry is recruiting for, and so increasingly we're seeing our competition not just as finance firms, but across every industry and specifically Big Tech," Braunstein said. "We are often in the market against the Googles, and Amazons, Microsofts."
More: BlackRock Aladdin Fintech | 2022-05-06T11:25:11Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Land One of BlackRock's 125 Cloud Engineering Roles | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-land-one-of-blackrocks-125-cloud-engineering-roles-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-land-one-of-blackrocks-125-cloud-engineering-roles-2022-5 |
Brett Gibson went from making pizza to a rising star crypto VC at Initialized Capital. Here's how a chance encounter with Garry Tan changed the course of his career.
Brett Gibson, a general partner at Initialized Capital.
Courtesy of Brett Gibson
Initialized Capital's Brett Gibson quit his job making pizza to teach himself how to code.
He became a serial startup founder and then met future colleague Garry Tan at Y Combinator.
Tan later brought Gibson on to work with him at his startup, Posterous, and then Initialized.
After graduating from Santa Barbara University with a philosophy degree, Brett Gibson was serving pizzas and trying to figure out what to do next.
Gibson liked to be creative, but also solve puzzle-like problems. He had taken a coding class in college and realized that writing code was a perfect marriage of the two. He decided to start teaching himself how to code by reading online articles and first learned to write ActionScript, the programming language for developing websites.
His accidental newfound love for code changed the course of his career. And learning what was a niche code at the time, paid off.
"I was able to get into the industry without credentials," Gibson said.
In 2004, he landed a software engineering job at Grand Central Communications, a startup that helped people manage voicemails and phone numbers, which was later acquired by Alphabet. He left the startup with some colleagues to cofound DrawHere in 2005, a browser drawing startup, and then DeviantArt bought the company a year later.
After the deal, Gibson and a friend went on to cofound Slinkset, an online tool that lets users create message board sites and integrate them with their websites. The duo was accepted into Y Combinator's summer 2008 cohort, and that's where Gibson met Garry Tan, who was also there for his blogging startup, Posterous.
Garry Tan, founding and managing partner at Initialized Capital.
Oliver Covrett
Slinkset ended up shutting down, but Tan asked Gibson to join Posterous in 2009, bringing him on as a cofounder.
"It just made sense," Tan told Insider when reflecting on why he asked Gibson to join his startup. "We just worked very seamlessly."
Three years later, Posterous was acquired by Twitter and then shut down. Tan went on to start investing as a partner at YC and later asked Gibson to join him there as well, this time as a software engineer to rewrite the application system and its backend system that tracked potential startups to invest in.
"In his code, you sort of see the philosophy major in him," said Tan. "He definitely has this sort of, like, obsession with the platonic ideal of perfection. There's something very elegant about that."
Within a year, both Tan and Gibson left the accelerator. Tan was raising funds for his new firm Initialized Capital, and Gibson took a year off to do research on cryptography and continued learning code, with the intent to continue working as a software engineer at a big tech company like Alphabet.
But his career trajectory changed yet again after having lunch with Tan one day. Gibson was opining about how hard it was to get a job as a software engineer and Tan responded by saying he should work at Initialized.
"Who better than someone who I've sat in the trenches with and spent 10,000 hours learning how to make things with," Tan said.
Gibson knew he didn't want to go through the coding interview process so he took a leap into venture capital and was hired on as an operating partner at the firm.
The job turned out to be tailored to his skill set. He wrote software, advised companies on engineering best practices, and helped invest.
Gibson was first tasked to build the firm's internal software to make smarter investments. Initialized now uses the software, Folio, on a daily basis for tasks to find potential startups, track data on investments, and set up alerts to respond to founders, which sets Initialized apart from other firms.
Folio keeps the team on the same page and facilitates blind voting on startups, helping the team make deal decisions and ultimately close them. Once a partner is ready to invest in a startup, Folio sends out a questionnaire for the team of partners to decide on whether it's worth an investment.
Tan and Gibson said the philosophy behind blind voting is to help partners not play into venture capital politics by removing institutional hierarchy and bias.
"We really do want everyone on the team to sort of be independently thinking," Gibson said. "Without worrying what else is going on or playing to politics."
Gibson has now moved on to investing full- time after being promoted to general partner last August.
With his technical and startup knowledge, he's led investments for the firm in crypto companies like Bison Trails, a blockchain infrastructure platform; TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company to help crypto-related fraud; and Talos Trading, a crypto trading platform, and earned a spot on Insider's list of rising stars in crypto investing.
Tan says Gibson's blend of experience has been his biggest asset pulling in massive returns for new funds.
"It's been so cool to see someone who I've had such a long history with just blossom," Tan said.
More: Tech Venture Capital Startups
Initialized Capital | 2022-05-06T12:12:53Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Brett Gibson Went From Making Pizza to Initialized Capital VC | https://www.businessinsider.com/brett-gibson-crypto-vc-partner-initialized-capital-2022-4 | https://www.businessinsider.com/brett-gibson-crypto-vc-partner-initialized-capital-2022-4 |
Spirit Airlines crew have been left stranded away from home for up to 30 hours, a union official has said.
Spirit Airlines crew slept on airport floors amid operations meltdowns, a union official told The Guardian.
He said some crew were stranded for up to 30 hours without communication from managers.
Spirit crew have been protesting staff shortages and flight cancellations.
Spirit Airlines crew have slept on airport floors amid operational meltdowns that left them stranded for up to 30 hours, a union official has said.
"We had flight attendants who were getting kicked out of airports in the middle of the night," Don Reno Intreglia, a Spirit crewmember and the airline's vice president for the Association of Flight Attendants – Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA) union, told The Guardian.
Spirit crew were stranded away from home with no hotel beds to sleep in, and left for up to 30 hours without communication from their managers, Intreglia told the newspaper.
"It's been horrible on the morale for the flight attendants, because you're sleeping on an airport floor, you've got pretty much nowhere to go," he said.
Intreglia added: "We want the traveling public to know that we're trying to pressure management into making serious changes, so that we are prepared for the summer travel."
Gary Peterson, vice president of the air division at Transport Workers United, told The Guardian: "Sleeping in the hallway at the airport – that never used to happen in the industry, and now it's becoming the new norm."
Labor shortages continue to pose problems for the aviation industry. Airlines have hiked salaries and bonuses in an attempt to lure and retain workers.
The AFA-CWA union told The Guardian that Spirit had suffered four operational meltdowns since August 2021, a number that was much higher than usual.
Spirit flight attendants held protests at airports in Orlando, Dallas, and Las Vegas in mid-April over staff shortages and flight cancellations, which left staff "stranded in airports overnight and oftentimes left without hotel accommodations," according to the AFA-CWA.
Spirit didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
More: Spirit Airlines Spirit Airlines Flight attendant | 2022-05-06T12:13:11Z | www.businessinsider.com | Stranded Spirit Airlines Crew Slept on Airport Floors: Union Official | https://www.businessinsider.com/spirit-airlines-crew-slept-airport-floors-stranded-flight-attendants-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/spirit-airlines-crew-slept-airport-floors-stranded-flight-attendants-2022-5 |
I visited Canadian chain Swiss Chalet and was impressed by the quality and price.
The beloved Chalet sauce was the perfect addition to a crispy chicken sandwich.
I hope its parent company brings it back to the US one day.
I stopped by Swiss Chalet on a recent trip up to Canada from my home in Western New York.
The casual dining chain has just under 200 Canadian locations, with 162 in Ontario, where it was founded in 1952.
Source: Swiss Chalet
The chain used to extend into border cities in the US, but the last locations were closed by parent company Recipe Unlimited in 2010.
Source: Buffalo News
Recipe Unlimited owns 20 chains in addition to Swiss Chalet, including fast food restaurant Harvey's.
In 2021, Recipe Unlimited logged $2.7 billion in sales across all restaurants. It did not break down sales by chain.
From the entryway, there were two ways to enter. One was for takeout orders only while the other was a dine-in restaurant.
I walked in and noticed some subtle details in the Swiss Chalet style, like chandeliers and fireplaces.
It wasn't especially busy, so the hostess seated me immediately.
The menu highlighted rotisserie chicken dishes, which are the signature items at the chain.
There was also a surprisingly extensive alcohol menu, which made the restaurant feel closer to an Applebee's more-so than a fast-casual chain.
My waitress suggested the Canadian Sangria, which includes Canadian maple syrup.
I can't say I would have noticed the maple syrup specifically, but it did taste pleasantly sweet and I was happy that I ordered it.
One of the entrees came with cheese pierogies, which were brought to the table ahead of meals as an appetizer.
They came with "zesty Cajun sauce," which was good but much milder than the name implies.
The pierogies themselves were delicious and hearty, full of cheese and potatoes.
Next, our entrees arrived. We got two chicken dishes to try what Swiss Chalet highlights on the menu.
The half chicken dinner came with a breast and leg of a rotisserie chicken, plus a roll and a choice of side — in this case Caesar salad.
I got the crispy chicken sandwich, which comes with slaw and mayo, along with a side of fries.
The chain offers fries and "Chalet fries," which come with extra seasoning. I'm not sure exactly what the seasoning was, but they were delicious.
Entrees also come with Chalet sauce, a secret recipe that's both spicy and sweet, perfect for dipping fries.
Chalet sauce is so popular that there are dozens of copycat recipes online, and Lays has even released a limited edition Chalet Sauce in 2016.
Source: Potato Business
Americans who live near the border and miss Swiss Chalet have been known to go to Canada just for a meal and stock up on sauce, even bringing gallon jugs to fill with the condiment.
The highlight of my meal was easily the crispy chicken sandwich.
The combination of slaw and Chalet sauce, plus a crispy yet juicy chicken breast, was perfect.
It was quite messy, as most of the best sandwiches are.
I've sampled all the big US chains' chicken sandwiches in covering the "Chicken Sandwich Wars," and I think Swiss Chalet can hold its own against any of them.
Two entrees and drinks came out to about $51 Canadian dollars before tax, or just under $40 US dollars.
I thought that was a very fair price for a meal that left us full for hours, and I'll definitely be stopping in next time I'm in Canada.
Recipe Unlimited hasn't given any indication that Swiss Chalet is coming back to the US, but if it does I'll be first in line.
More: Features Retail Fast Food Casual Dining
Chicken Sandwich Wars | 2022-05-06T12:13:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | What It's Like to Eat at Swiss Chalet in Canada: Restaurant Visit in Photos | https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-eat-at-swiss-chalet-in-canada-restaurant-visit-in-photos-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-eat-at-swiss-chalet-in-canada-restaurant-visit-in-photos-2022-5 |
The US economy added 428,000 jobs in April, beating expectations as the Fed tapped the brakes on the recovery
A We Are Hiring sign is displayed at a Game Stop in Baileys Crossroads, Virginia, on April 2, 2022.
The US added 428,000 payrolls in April, beating the median estimate for 391,000 new jobs.
The unemployment rate held at 3.6%, missing the 3.5% forecast.
The April report is the first to show how higher interest rates are affecting the jobs recovery.
The labor market's recovery held strong in April as higher interest rates did little to slow companies' rapid pace of job creation.
The economy added 428,000 nonfarm payrolls last month, according to data published Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had a median estimate of 391,000 new jobs. The increase shows no change from the job creation seen in March, which was revised to 428,000 payrolls from 431,000.
The government's count of February payrolls was also updated, falling to 714,000 in the final reading from 750,000.
The unemployment rate held at 3.6%. That landed above the 3.5% rate economists projected. The rate now sits at the same record low seen before the pandemic, offering yet another sign of just how tight the labor market has become.
Job gains were widespread through the month, but service sectors hit hardest by the pandemic crash continued to lead the recovery. Leisure and hospitality businesses added 78,000 payrolls, with 44,000 new jobs coming from restaurants and bars. Manufacturers followed with a 55,000-payroll gain. Employment in the transportation and warehousing sector rose by 52,000 jobs.
Job counts were little changed in the construction, information, and government sectors, according to the report. Subsectors including employment services, department stores, and furniture manufacturing saw mild declines in employment.
Despite strong overall payroll growth, there were still roughly 100 million Americans not participating in the workforce in April, meaning they either weren't working or hadn't looked for work in the past four weeks. That large number of non-participating Americans has helped the unemployment rate drop so quickly, as they aren't counted in the measure. As more people rejoin the workforce and are counted as unemployed, it's possible the rate will climb again.
The Friday report is the first to reveal how hiring fared after the Federal Reserve's first pandemic-era interest rate hike. The central bank raised rates on March 16 by 0.25 percentage points, kicking off a cycle of increases that aim to weaken demand and cool inflation. As borrowing gets more expensive, businesses will likely slow their hiring plans and settle into a more moderate growth pace.
The March jobs report only covered the period up to the middle of last month, meaning it didn't capture the full effects of higher rates. With the Fed raising rates at an even faster clip on Wednesday, tighter monetary policy is set to hit the brakes even harder on job creation in the months ahead.
In a less encouraging sign, labor force participation slipped to 62.2% in April from 62.4%, marking the lowest level since January. The decline was entirely fueled by a decline in female participation, with the rate dropping to 76.2% from 76.5% for prime-age women.
The persistent imbalance between job openings and workers to fill them continued to lift wages at a historically fast pace. Average hourly earnings rose by $0.10, or 0.3%, to $31.85 in April, just missing the average estimate of a 0.4% gain. The print signals strong wage pressures remained after workers enjoyed record-breaking pay growth through the first quarter.
There's little indication the labor shortage will ease any time soon. Job openings hit a record 11.5 million in March, according to government data published Wednesday. That pulled the ratio of available workers to openings down to 0.5, meaning there were two openings for every worker able to fill them.
Quits, meanwhile, soared to a record 4.5 million. That marked the tenth consecutive month to feature more than 4 million walkouts. Americans tend to quit when they're confident they can easily find a higher-paying job elsewhere, and the persistence of elevated quitting suggests workers are still enjoying historic bargaining power in the healing economy.
More: Economy jobs day Jobs Report nonfarm payrolls | 2022-05-06T12:56:20Z | www.businessinsider.com | April Jobs Report: 428,000 Payrolls Added, Unemployment Rate at 3.6% | https://www.businessinsider.com/april-jobs-report-428000-payrolls-unemployment-rate-labor-market-inflation-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/april-jobs-report-428000-payrolls-unemployment-rate-labor-market-inflation-2022-5 |
$26 billion web security giant Cloudflare just hired Cisco's head of sales to lead its push into the lucrative Latin American market
Katie Malone
Cloudflare hired Carlos Torales from Cisco to lead sales in Latin America.
The internet security firm will use its partnerships to add talent and infrastructure in the region.
Insider spoke with Torales and Cloudflare's CTO about the firm's plans for Latin America.
Latin America is quickly becoming a hot spot for the power players of Silicon Valley, with vendors pouring in to support the billions of dollars of capital flooding the region's nascent tech scene.
Now, Cloudflare — the $26 billion internet security giant that helps protect companies like Canva and Shopify from cyberattack even as they scale up – wants a piece of the market.
The internet security firm announced on Friday that's it's hired 20-year industry veteran Carlos Torales away from Cisco to head its sales team in Latin America. The company aims to grow its presence in the region through investments in areas like infrastructure and talent, Torales and Cloudflare chief technology officer John Graham-Cumming tell Insider.
"We do see a huge opportunity to double our business in Latin America," Torales said. "We are investing in people, in our team to be closer to our customers."
Torales brings two decades of IT experience in Latin America to Cloudflare, and he says right now is an inflection point for the region. In his 15-plus year career at Cisco, Torales served as a managing director of sales in the small business segment and built out a team of product specialists in Latin America.
Because of the pandemic, customers in Latin America are investing heavily in technology and digital capabilities, giving Cloudflare an opportunity to increase its business, Torales said.
Cloudflare already operates in more than 275 cities, including 36 in the Latin America region, according to the company. Regional customers include news organization El Universal, financial firm Bidu, and retailer Facily.
Cloudflare plays in the the global market for content delivery networks, or servers and data centers that deliver internet services. That market is is expected to grow to $81.86 billion by 2030, according to estimates from The Brainy Insights.
"There's lots of opportunity for Cloudflare to continue to expand and obviously having Carlos local makes a big difference," Graham-Cumming said.
But there will be no shortage of competition for customers. Giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all offer CDNs, and smaller startups have targeted the Latin America region as an opportunity for growth in recent years.
$1.65 billion cloud platform Fastly, a key Cloudflare competitor, currently has points of presence in eight South American cities, with one planned for Mexico City coming soon, according to its website. Another CDN competitor, $15.8 billion Akamai, announced its intention to increase its presence in Latin America in 2019 with the acquisition of Sao Paulo-based cloud security firm Exceda.
As Cloudflare looks to expand in Latin America, Torales says it will rely on its existing partners to help. It already has relationships with businesses like IT services firm Alestra, cybersecurity company Cipher, and cyber firm NeoSecure in the area.
"We are already present," Torales said. "We are just going to be driving even more acceleration to our customers and to the Latin American market."
More: CloudFlare Cisco Latin America | 2022-05-06T13:40:07Z | www.businessinsider.com | Cloudflare Hires Head of Sales to Lead in Latin American Markets | https://www.businessinsider.com/cloudflare-hires-head-sales-latin-america-cisco-poach-carlos-torales-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/cloudflare-hires-head-sales-latin-america-cisco-poach-carlos-torales-2022-5 |
Molson Coors reveals how it's kept its online sales humming even as people start going out again
Sara Welch Goucher, director of e-commerce for Molson Coors beer brands.
Molson Coors has capitalized on an early pandemic spike in e-commerce.
It's kept sales going by making it easier for people to buy its beer and hard seltzer online.
It's also advertising on platforms like Instacart to make its beer appear at the top of search results.
Like lots of companies, Molson Coors' online sales soared early in the pandemic, spiking 140%.
Those boom days are over, but it's managed to keep online sales going even after people return to prepandemic routines.
Sara Welch Goucher, director of ecommerce for Molson Coors beer brands, said online sales rose 8% year over year from January through March.
"With the reopening of on-premise, vaccine access, etcetera, the fact that we are growing on top of two years of explosive unprecedented growth is indicative of how this channel will remain key to consumer buying habits and that there is still upside," Welch Goucher said.
People have shifted their shopping online during the pandemic. Online alcohol sales from grocery stores quadrupled to $1.6 billion in 2021 from $441 million in 2019, according to a report by Rabobank, which predicts sales will reach $1.87 billion in 2022.
But Welch Goucher also credits Molson Coors' own efforts to invest in its online sales, which were all but nonexistent before the pandemic.
The company launched direct-to-consumer sites in 2020 in the UK and Canada. It's increased its online sales team by 50% and struck partnerships with vendors like Basketful, which works with companies to let people shop from multiple online retailers using a single cart.
Molson Coors also grew its online sales through distributors 57% in the first quarter as they ramped up their e-commerce capabilities, according to the company.
The company is throwing more marketing behind its brands, too. It plans a double-digit year-over-year increase in the second quarter, the company said during its 1Q earnings call.
Part of that effort has gone toward getting brands in top search results on platforms like Instacart and Gopuff.
For the 2022 Super Bowl, for example, Molson Coors flooded Instacart with ads for its beer and hard seltzer so they'd appear when people searched for Big Game staples like chips and soda. That campaign drove a 50% sales lift on Super Bowl Sunday this year versus last year's Big Game, Welch Goucher said.
Beyond growing sales, the goal of the e-commerce push was to make people aware they can buy beer online.
Welch Goucher said only 20% to 30% of consumers knew they could buy beer online before the pandemic, per internal research. Her team has pushed out that message using email and in-store marketing like displays in liquor stores promoting online retailers that sell Molson Coors brands, and now awareness is close to 70%.
"These solutions drive category growth," Welch Goucher said.
More: Marketing Shoppable content Super Bowl
Miller Light
Coors Lite | 2022-05-06T13:40:13Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Molson Coors Is Keeping E-Commerce Sales Going Post-Pandemic | https://www.businessinsider.com/molson-coors-ecommerce-growth-strategy-post-pandemic-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/molson-coors-ecommerce-growth-strategy-post-pandemic-2022-5 |
French social media startup BeReal set to quadruple valuation to over $600 million as Yuri Milner's DST Global leads new round, sources say
BeReal social media app screenshots.
French social media app BeReal is set to close a new Series B funding round, sources said.
The Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup is set to quadruple its valuation to around $630 million.
Sources familiar with the deal have stated that Yuri Milner's DST Global will lead the round.
Buzzy social media startup BeReal is set to close a new funding round that will quadruple its valuation to over $600 million, sources said.
The French startup, which was founded in 2020, asks users to post unfiltered photos of themselves once a day at random times. The app uses both the front and back cameras to take a candid photo and has become increasingly popular among French and US teens with downloads skyrocketing this year.
The funding round is set to be led by Yuri Milner's DST Global, two sources familiar with the matter told Insider. It follows the company's $30 million Series A round in June, which was led by US investing giant Andreessen Horowitz and counted DST and Accel as backers, Newcomer reported at the time.
BeReal's latest raise will represent a sizable jump on its previous valuation of $150 million, with three sources telling Insider that the two-year-old business will now likely be valued at around $630 million in this Series B. The startup will raise around $85 million between primaries and secondaries, two sources said. The round is not yet closed and the final round size is not yet finalized and it is not yet clear if Accel and A16Z are joining the new deal.
BeReal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Downloads of the app have risen by 315% since the beginning of the year, now ranking fourth in the list of most downloaded social media apps, behind Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest, according to trending news website Social Media Today.
Data from App Annie seen by Insider indicates that the company has had 8.68 million downloads across the iOS and Google app stores in the past six months with nearly 3 million active users.
BeReal was founded by French cofounders Kévin Perreau and Alexis Barreyat, the latter attended 42, the coding school set up by French billionaire Xavier Niel, whose fund Kima Ventures also funded the company's seed round.
More: BeReal Social Media a16z | 2022-05-06T14:27:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | BeReal: Buzzy Gen Z Social Media App Set to Raise at $630m Valuation | https://www.businessinsider.com/bereal-buzzy-gen-z-social-media-app-raise-630m-valuation-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bereal-buzzy-gen-z-social-media-app-raise-630m-valuation-2022-5 |
This 25-year-old launched an app for Squishmallow collectors to buy the latest drops at retailers. Now with over 100,000 users, she's open to selling it to the plush toys' manufacturer.
Jessica Dao is a 25-year-old software engineer who created the app Squish Alert.
Jessica Dao created the Squish Alert app to help Squishmallow collectors find them at retailers.
Squish Alert users can receive alerts when major retailers restock Squishmallows.
Dao said she'd be willing to sell her app to the maker of Squishmallows, Kelly Toys.
When Jessica Dao launched Squish Alert in May 2021, she didn't expect her app to reach as many people as it did.
Her passion for Squishmallows, the widely popular plushies created by Kelly Toys, was becoming increasingly clear as her collection of frog Squishmallows grew into the hundreds.
Dao's popularity in the Squishmallow community exploded thanks to her TikTok account, @imdatingfrog, where she creates short comedic videos using the plushies in her collection. The 25-year-old has over 763,000 followers and 13.9 million likes on her posts.
"I had a few Squishmallows back in 2018, but that was probably two years before I started to collect," Dao said. "Then at the end of 2020, I randomly realized there were different sizes of the frog Squishmallow."
Part of Dao's collection of frog Squishmallows.
The Squish Alert sends users alerts when major retailers like Walmart restock Squishmallows in stores and online across 37 countries. Dao said it is also the only app on the Apple Store and the Google Play store designed for the Squishmallow collecting community.
"When the app was first launched, I faced so many troubles with scaling," Dao said, "meaning that my server was not able to handle the amount of people that came to the app. So it was just breaking and was so slow, so I had to basically figure out how to serve these people."
Dao says her app has over 100,000 users and is available for free on Apple and Android devices. Squish Alert users who spot Squishmallows can post a photo, the location, the price, and the store name or link, while those seeking them can filter by location. A Q&A section allows users to talk with other collectors.
"The main goal is to allow people to buy from retail, because the resale market is crazy," Dao said. "I do buy from Mercari too when the price is OK, but the main goal of the app is for people to buy from retail, and they're certified retailers like Five Below or Walmart."
Squishmallows often sell for several times the sticker price on resale marketplaces. For example, a strawberry cow Squishmallow that cost $20 at Hot Topic is listed on Mercari for upwards of $100. As with other in-demand resellable items, rarity and inaccessibility increase a Squishmallow's value.
Dao holding two of her frog Squishmallows often seen in her videos on TikTok and Instagram.
Dao created Squish Alert using her skills as a software engineer. In August, she left a small software company in Massachusetts to freelance, which she said is still her main source of income.
Dao said she's not necessarily looking to make her app a full-time job just yet. She's focused on keeping it going by striking advertising deals to wipe out operating costs of about $1,000 a month, including $380 for a Google Cloud server and $320 for data storage from MongoDB.
Dao recently secured a three-month, $12,000 sponsorship from Toynk Toys, an online seller of collectible toys and novelty items, to further fund Squish Alert. Dao said the app makes close to $1,500 a month from ad sales.
"I'm trying to not to be too stressed about the ad revenue, because I'm trying to focus on adding a subscription," Dao said, adding that that would help limit ads for users and help them support the app directly.
Dao said she would also be willing to sell Squish Alert to Kelly Toys in the future and had brought her app to the company's attention.
"That would be nice, you know?" she said. "I had reached out to them months ago when I first created the app, before I had this many users."
More: Retail Business Collectibles App | 2022-05-06T14:28:04Z | www.businessinsider.com | This Squishmallow Collector App Let's You Buy the Latest Drops at Retail | https://www.businessinsider.com/squishmallow-collector-app-lets-you-buy-latest-drops-at-retail-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/squishmallow-collector-app-lets-you-buy-latest-drops-at-retail-2022-5 |
How I went from making sparkling water in my kitchen to raising $2 million from investors in 2 years
Aura Bora cofounder Maddie Voge; Aura Bora's line of herbal sparkling waters.
Aura Bora
Maddie Voge, 27, is the cofounder of Aura Bora, a sparkling water company she runs with her husband.
Last year, they secured $2 million in seed funding and also appeared on "Shark Tank."
Here's what she says starting and growing the business was like, as told to Claire Turrell.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maddie Voge, the 27-year-old cofounder of sparkling beverage brand Aura Bora. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When my husband Paul and I first started playing with mixing sparkling water, fresh herbs, and fruit in our kitchen in early 2019, we never imagined that it would turn into a full-time business with a backer from "Shark Tank."
Our love of soda as adults came from having crunchy moms as kids who wouldn't let us drink fizzy drinks. But we didn't enjoy many of the sparkling water flavors available, so we started to make our own at home.
As soon as we muddled crushed fresh basil and frozen strawberries with carbonated water, we knew we'd hit something interesting.
We created four more flavor combinations by mixing fresh cactus with rose petals, lemongrass with coconut, and lavender with fresh cucumber. Not every combination made the cut — frankincense and birch being one.
When we tested different combinations on our friends they'd say, 'You should sell this'
In October 2019, inspired by our friends' enthusiasm, we used our savings to make 1,000 cans of five different flavors. We were living in Denver at the time and took the cans to a trade show in Boulder. The cost of the cans was small enough to put on a personal credit card, but large enough to be stressful if we didn't do well at the show.
Luckily, not only did the customers love them, but we attracted the interest of a buyer for Whole Foods, who became our client a year later.
We also got interest from our first store, a local organic food store, that took our remaining cans.
We immediately started zipping our credit cards and raising money from family and friends to make more cans
Aura Bora's flavors include Basil Berry, Lemongrass Coconut, and Peppermint Watermelon.
Every day was a learning curve. We didn't know how to make legal nutrition labels, where to get barcodes from, or why grocery stores charged us to be on their shelves. Luckily, other startup owners we met were very generous at answering any of our questions.
In summer 2019, Paul decided to take the leap and leave his job at a venture capital firm. However, I'd just gotten a new marketing job at a tech firm in San Francisco, so we moved to the Bay Area. Paul worked full-time for Aura Bora, while I worked for the brand in the evening and on weekends.
Instead of taking our cans to trade shows in Colorado, we began throwing samples in the trunk of our Subaru and knocking on doors of health food stores in San Francisco. Then a few months later, the pandemic hit and everything changed.
When the pandemic began, people stopped shopping for impulse buys or to try new things
Most shoppers were getting the essentials and going home. Due to supply chain issues, aluminium was difficult to get at one point, so we also had concerns about whether we'd be able to have enough cans from the factories who worked with us to fill our inventory. Deliveries were also hit as the trucking companies needed to give up their space to emergency items.
Despite these challenges, we still managed to fulfil our orders and our deliveries always got to their destination, even if they were slightly delayed.
But being a new brand actually helped us, particularly when the pandemic created a rise in costs for everything from ingredients to shipping. While more solidified brands may have struggled with the rise in costs, we were still young and flexible enough to factor these changes into our business plan and expenses.
There were also fun surprises during the pandemic, such as when we were invited to film an episode for 'Shark Tank' in summer 2020
After we received an email from the TV show's producer asking if we wanted to take part, Paul and I immediately went into overdrive. We watched more than 100 episodes of the show to help prepare for our pitch. When we went on, we got amazing reactions. Robert Herjavec loved our pitch the most and invested $200,000 in our business.
When the program aired in January 2021, we did more in revenue on our website on that day alone than we'd done previously in the entire history of our site. It was a huge moment for us.
Since then, the company has continued to grow. We now manufacture with three factories in the United States and are sold at 2,500 stores across the country. Besides Paul and me, we also now have three employees: a head of commerce, a head of social, and a graphic designer. We've also started creating limited edition flavor drops that are available exclusively on our website.
But as the business has grown we've still been thrown a few curve balls
Voge says growing the business during the pandemic has been challenging at times.
In February 2021, cold weather caused a deep freeze across several regions where we ship Aura Bora waters, which made our cans explode in the back of delivery trucks due to the dramatic drops in temperature. Some customers in Texas said the cans delivered on their doorstep were so cold they'd turned into slushies.
Waking up to an inbox flooded with emails from folks who love our brand saying that their cans had exploded was definitely our most challenging day so far. We immediately started replacing the cans and made a strategy to hold future orders if the temperature were to drop again. Now if we see the weather is changing, we hold onto the shipments and tell customers that they'll arrive the next week once the temperature rises a little.
In 2021, we raised $2 million in seed funding
This funding helped us restock inventory for our contracts with retailers including Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Fresh Thyme.
I left my tech job and joined the team full-time in February 2022. I did hesitate about leaving my job — I wondered what it was going to be like working full time with my husband and I questioned if I had learned enough to do it well. But at the end of the day, I felt I'd learned a lot during my time with the tech company. Paul and I felt ready to work together as a team, and I wanted to play a bigger role in growing the brand I'd helped create.
While we have had tough days, I couldn't be happier. Every time that we release a new flavor and I choose the creature to illustrate for the can and write the decorative haiku, I feel as if I've birthed something into the world.
More: Small Business Founder Aura Bora Sparkling Water | 2022-05-06T15:15:22Z | www.businessinsider.com | How I Started a Sparkling-Water Business That's Raised $2 Million | https://www.businessinsider.com/founder-sparkling-water-company-aura-bora-shark-tank-funding-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/founder-sparkling-water-company-aura-bora-shark-tank-funding-2022-5 |
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, left, and Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde bump fists in NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, January 24, 2022.
Sweden made a major defense spending increase after Russia's 2014 attack on Ukraine and now plans to spend more.
Russia's aggression against its neighbors has prompted European countries to rethink how they defend themselves, perhaps none more so than Sweden, which over the past decade has rapidly increased its military spending and is now reevaluating its relationship with NATO.
US Marine Corps/Sgt. Averi Coppa
Sweden and its neighbors have watched Russian military activity warily in recent years, particularly in the Arctic, where Moscow has added forces, tested new weapons, and opened or refurbished bases.
Since 2014, Stockholm has increased investment in its own military, purchasing new aircraft and ships and other weapons, like US-made Patriot air-defense missiles, as well as expanding conscription and emphasizing cyber and psychological warfare.
Those planned investments have only grown following Russia's renewed attack on Ukraine. "We had a plan to increase our defense spending by 85% from 2014 to 2025, and now we have just taken a decision" to increase annual defense spending to 2% of GDP, Olofsdotter said Wednesday.
Protesters with Ukrainian flags at a demonstration against Russia's invasion in Ukraine, in Stockholm, March 1, 2022.
Sweden's foreign minister is now leading discussion with the defense minister and the eight parties represented in its parliament, among others, about what NATO membership would entail, said Olofsdotter, who presented an analysis of the US's view of transatlantic security as part of those talks.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, left German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson in Meseberg, Germany, May 3, 2022.
A Swedish or Finnish application is expected to move quickly, given both countries' ties to NATO, political and economic stability, and robust defense capabilities. Olofsdotter said Thursday that she hoped if an application was made in the coming weeks then US approval could be secured before the Senate's August recess.
Moscow has threatened retaliation should Sweden or Finland apply. While Stockholm and Helsinki say they haven't seen a direct threat from Russia since it attacked Ukraine in February, Moscow has made other aggressive moves, including military flights into the airspace of Sweden and its neighbors.
Sweden is particularly concerned about cyber or hybrid threats, Olofsdotter said, pointing to posters that have appeared in Moscow labeling famous Swedes as Nazis.
Russian fighter jets in Swedish airspace east of the Baltic Sea island of Gotland on March 2, 2022.
SWEDISH AIR FORCE/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images
Sweden focused more attention and resources on its security amid Russia's military buildup around Ukraine in fall 2021, including through contingency planning between military and civil authorities, Olofsdotter said, adding to years-long efforts to prepare for a potential conflict. The Cold War-era "total defense concept" that Sweden reinvigorated in the late 2010s was augmented this year by the creation of the Psychological Defense Agency.
"I think that's something that we have to see what happens when the war is over and how it ends for President Putin and what the world looks like then," Olofsdotter said, "but trust is definitely gone."
More: Russia Ukraine Sweden Finland | 2022-05-06T15:24:21Z | www.businessinsider.com | Russia's Ukraine Attack Causes Sweden to up Defenses, Reconsider NATO | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-attack-causes-sweden-to-up-defenses-reconsider-nato-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-attack-causes-sweden-to-up-defenses-reconsider-nato-2022-5 |
The US labor market is on pace to fully recover by July
Ben Winck and Juliana Kaplan
If strong job growth continues, the US labor market will reach its pre-crisis payroll count in July.
Such a rebound would be about three times as fast as the recovery from the Great Recession.
The US could even see a full jobs recovery by the end of June if hiring only slightly accelerates.
The US jobs recovery is in its final stretch. If the current pace holds, the labor market will be fully healed before summer is over.
Data out Friday morning showed the economy continuing to add jobs at an extraordinary pace. The US created 428,000 nonfarm payrolls through April, matching the gains seen in March and handily exceeding the 391,000-job projection from economists. Despite high inflation, the labor shortage, and the Federal Reserve's pullback of pandemic support, the country is still adding jobs at roughly double the pre-pandemic pace.
The latest print also keeps the job-growth trend at a blistering pace. Average monthly job creation over the previous three months reached 523,000 in April, Insider calculated. Unless job growth slows dramatically in the months ahead, the economy is on track to reach its pre-crisis payroll count by July.
Recovery could come even sooner if the next two reports surprise to the upside. The current pace would place total nonfarm payrolls at 152.4 million in June, just a hair below the 152.5 million seen in February 2020. It would only take one better-than-expected month of job growth for a complete rebound to arrive in June.
Payroll creation could also slow as the country gets closer to completing its jobs recovery. Recent months have shown a moderate deceleration from the massive gains seen earlier in the pandemic, and as the economy transitions into its new normal, it's unlikely to feature such blowout hiring numbers.
"What we're starting to see, not full force yet, but eventually, we're gonna see a transition to regular market conditions. That's going to happen," Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh told Insider.
To be sure, a complete rebound only brings the labor market back to where it stood before the pandemic. The economy was adding about 200,000 jobs every month up to the lockdowns of 2020, meaning there are another 6.3 million jobs that would've been created had the pandemic not happened, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said in a tweet. If job growth continues at its current rate, however, those payrolls could be recouped by the end of 2022, she added.
The Friday jobs report further emphasizes just how transcendent the economic recovery has been. In just 26 months since the pandemic recession began, the US has recouped about 95% of the jobs it lost. By comparison, it took the same amount of time just for the jobs recovery to start after the 2008 financial crisis. Where the jobs recovery from the Great Recession took about six years, the current rebound is set to take just over two.
It's not just the prior recovery that the US is outpacing. The pandemic rebound is on track to surpass the recoveries from the early 1990s and early 2000s as well. Considering the record-breaking employment slump seen in early 2020, today's recovery is in a league of its own.
A payrolls recovery is only one way to track the labor market's progress, and other measures reflect a much slower climb to full health. While April job creation beat forecasts, the unemployment rate held at 3.6%, still stuck just above the record lows seen before the health crisis.
The rebound in labor force participation has been even bleaker. The rate, which tracks the share of people either working or actively looking for work, remains well below pre-pandemic levels as millions of Americans remain on the labor market's sidelines. The rate turned lower in April as female participation weakened, signaling there's much more to be done to attract Americans back to the workforce.
Still, the slow recovery in participation has yielded some benefits for working Americans. The imbalance between worker supply and demand, informally referred to as the labor shortage, has pressured businesses to raise wages at the fastest pace in decades in hopes of attracting job applicants.
The gap between available workers and job openings hit a record in March, signaling the labor shortage is going strong and still giving job-seekers extraordinary bargaining power. They seem to be taking advantage of it, too, as quits rose to a record 4.5 million in March.
There's no guarantee the labor market will reach its pre-crisis job count in July, or even by the end of the summer. Payroll growth could slow dramatically as the economy edges closer to a full rebound, and the labor shortage could start to crimp hiring.
Yet the April jobs report showed job gains continuing to beat estimates and maintain a historically strong pace. Americans might just have one more thing to celebrate this July 4 holiday.
More: Economy economic outlook Jobs Report Labor Market | 2022-05-06T15:58:55Z | www.businessinsider.com | The US Labor Market Is on Pace to Fully Recover by July | https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-report-outlook-recovery-expected-july-labor-market-forecast-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-report-outlook-recovery-expected-july-labor-market-forecast-2022-5 |
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