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Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt testifies before the January 6 panel on June 13, 2022.
Stirewalt told the January 6 panel of Trump's diminishing chances of victory after Nov. 7, 2020.
He said that a recount could potentially shift hundreds of votes, but huge changes in multiple states was a reach.
"I mean, you're better off to play the Powerball than to have that come in," he said of Trump's predicament.
Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt on Monday said that President Donald Trump had virtually no chance of winning the 2020 presidential election after losing Arizona and lagging in enough key purple states.
During his testimony before the January 6 committee investigating the Capitol riot, Stirewalt — who was fired from Fox in January 2021 — told the panel of the improbability of a Trump victory after most networks called the national election for Joe Biden on November 7, 2020.
Trump was incensed that Fox's decision desk called Arizona for Biden before most other news outlets did, but Stirewalt felt confident in his team's conclusion. Biden won the state by roughly 11,000 votes out of nearly 3.4 million ballots cast.
"We were able to make a call early," Stirewalt told the panel. "We were able to beat the competition."
Stirewalt spoke of the vast importance of Arizona — along with other swing states, including Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — in the 2020 presidential contest.
With Biden set to win Arizona and the outcome in several other swing states still up in the air on Election night, Stirewalt spoke of how he tried to prepare viewers for the initial results, which would show Republicans sweeping the Election Day vote — the result of Trump urging his supporters to only vote in-person on November 3 — while yet-to-be-counted mail-in votes would shift many races toward Democrats.
"We had gone to pains — and I'm proud of the pains we went to to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen because the Trump campaign and the president had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this anomaly," Stirewalt said. "And we knew it was going to be bigger, because the percentage of early votes was higher."
When Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California — who sits on the January 6 committee member — asked Stirewalt about Trump's chances of victory after November 7, his response was clear.
"None," the former Fox News news staffer told the congresswoman.
Stirewalt went on to remark that while a recount could potentially shift hundreds of votes, it would be a stretch for several thousands votes to change in the contingent of swing states that Trump needed to win.
"It's always possible that you could have a truckload of ballots be found somewhere, I suppose," he told the committee. "Ahead of today I thought about what are the largest margins that could ever be overturned by a recount ... in a recount, you're talking about hundreds of votes."
He added: "When we think about that margin ... you're talking about 1,000 votes, 1,500 votes ... normally you're talking about hundreds of votes."
Trump needed thousands of votes to change in multiple states to have a shot at overcoming Biden, which Stirewalt said just wasn't a real possibility given the history of such outcomes.
"He needed three of these states to change," he told the panel. "And in order to do that, I mean, you're better off to play the Powerball than to have that come in."
Trump still falsely claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite the lack of evidence pointing to any sort of mass voter fraud.
More: Chris Stirewalt January 6 committee Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Election | 2022-06-13T18:33:20Z | www.businessinsider.com | Fired Fox Editor Dismissed Trump's 2020 Chances: 'Better Off to Play the Powerball' | https://www.businessinsider.com/stirewalt-trump-2020-election-fox-arizona-call-powerball-recounts-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/stirewalt-trump-2020-election-fox-arizona-call-powerball-recounts-2022-6 |
Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt stands outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre on November 6, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Lynsey Addario/Getty Images
Schmidt was a Pennsylvania election official in November 2020.
Trump attacked Schmidt on Twitter after election day for not calling the results fraudulent.
MAGA supporters threatened to execute his family for betraying Trump.
Former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt told the January 6 select committee Monday that MAGA supporters threatened to kill his immediate family after then-President Donald Trump complained on Twitter that Schmidt wouldn't overturn the 2020 election results.
Schmidt testified about the targeting during the House committee's second public hearing, telling lawmakers that Trump's outburst on November 11, 2020 took the threats he had already been receiving as an elections official from generally disturbing to horrifyingly close-to-home. Committee member Zoe Lofgren of California showed screenshots of some of the messages Schmidt shared with investigators, including text messages and emails that mentioned his kids being "fatally shot," assailing him for betraying his country, and calling for "heads on spikes" for the "treasonous Schmidts."
"After the president tweeted at me, by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific. Much more graphic. And included not just me, by name, but included members of my family, by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home. Just every bit of detail that you could imagine," Schmidt said. "That was what changed with that tweet."
In his online attack, Trump lashed out at Schmidt for not going along with his baseless claims of election fraud.
"He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty," Trump wrote before losing his social media accounts for messages that could incite violence in the aftermath of the deadly siege at the US Capitol.
Before Trump singled him out, Schmidt said the threats he'd been getting from election deniers were more in the vein of corrupt officials getting what they deserved or that he was "walking into the lion's den."
Schmidt also told the January 6 panel that he looked into every allegation of potential fraud in Philadelphia's 2020 presidential election results and reiterated that he had found none.
"We took seriously every case that was referred to us, no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd," Schmidt said.
More: Donald Trump January 6 committee Capitol Siege 2020 election disinformation | 2022-06-13T18:33:32Z | www.businessinsider.com | Trump Fans Told Pennsylvania Election Official They'd Shoot His Kids | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-al-schmidt-twitter-attack-kids-threatened-2020-election-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-al-schmidt-twitter-attack-kids-threatened-2020-election-2022-6 |
Media startup Wave Sports + Entertainment has laid off about 1/3 of its staff as it restructures
Wave.tv's "Gym Heroes."
Wave.tv
Wave Sports + Entertainment has laid off 56 staffers.
The media startup said its restructuring in part to strengthen its business amid an economic downturn.
Layoffs have spread across the media landscape, including at Jellysmack, Food52, and Netflix.
Wave Sports + Entertainment has laid off 56 staffers, or roughly a third of its workforce.
The layoffs came last week as the sports-media startup, which last raised in July more than $27 million, began restructuring partly to strengthen its business amid concerns of an economic downturn, the company told Insider in a statement.
"Last week, WSE began restructuring the organization to focus on the company's core areas of expertise, notably the company's award-winning storytelling, talent-led original programming, and IP and league partnerships," the company said in a statement. "As the industry begins to face economic headwinds, this restructuring will also allow WSE to maintain its strong balance sheet position, continue aggressively investing in key growth areas, and manage from a position of strength."
The company said most of the eliminated roles were in "supporting functions."
WSE is the latest media company to conduct layoffs as the economic downturn shakes the industry.
The Chernin Group-backed Food52 let go in April of roughly 20 staffers and another 20 staffers in June. Creator economy startup Jellysmack laid off 8% of its employees last week. Warner Bros. Discovery has shed staff as it restructures following the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia. Even Netflix , which avoided the widespread layoffs that rocked the media world earlier in the pandemic, has conducted layoffs recently.
WSE, founded in 2017 as Wave.tv, is best known for its sports and entertainment brands like Buckets, Gym Heroes, and Haymaker that live on platforms including Snap, TikTok, Instagram, and more. It creates content around the major sports like basketball and soccer, as well as more niche sports with passionate followings including combat and fitness. It also has content deals with sports organizations including the WNBA, ACC, Bellator, and more.
The company rebranded in December as WSE, but still uses its Wave.tv brand on its social channels. It said at the time of the rebrand that it was doubling down on its talent-led original programming, including sports betting content.
"We plan to build a best-in-class, sports-betting-focused digital media brand for Gen Z and young millennials, while also developing a slate of talent-driven originals that can live both on our existing properties or be distributed across the broader digital landscape," Brian Verne, founder and CEO of WSE, said at the time in a statement.
More: Layoffs Sports Betting Media | 2022-06-13T18:33:44Z | www.businessinsider.com | Wave Sports + Entertainment Has Laid Off Staff Amid Economic Downturn | https://www.businessinsider.com/wave-sports-entertainment-has-laid-off-staff-amid-economic-downturn-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/wave-sports-entertainment-has-laid-off-staff-amid-economic-downturn-2022-6 |
Amazon insiders speculate about consumer CEO Dave Clark's replacement. One top contender: no one.
Katherine Long and Eugene Kim
Amazon's outgoing worldwide consumer CEO Dave Clark.
Amazon's worldwide consumer CEO Dave Clark is leaving the company to lead logistics startup Flexport.
It's not clear who might replace Clark, who is known as an exceptional manager.
Some insiders speculate that Amazon will scrap Clark's role and have the three retail and operations chiefs report directly to CEO Andy Jassy.
Amazon may scrap the position of worldwide consumer CEO rather than replace departing executive Dave Clark, who earlier this month announced his resignation to helm logistics startup Flexport, according to senior Amazon insiders.
The move would be an elegant solution to the problem of finding a replacement of Clark's caliber and depth of understanding of Amazon's business. And it could help Andy Jassy, who formerly led Amazon Web Services, dive deeper into Amazon's retail business as it grapples with billions of dollars in extra costs due to inflation and overexpansion, regulatory scrutiny, and labor activism, according to three former Amazon vice presidents who asked not to be named discussing Amazon's leaders.
"The smart move for [Jassy] is 'I want to go deep in Retail, since AWS is in great shape,'" one former VP said.
Jassy has already been diving deep into the inner workings of the company's retail division. The frequency and depth of Jassy's inquiries into retail customer complaints outpaces even Clark's, Insider previously reported. Jassy has also embedded inside Amazon's warehouses to learn more about the company's safety protocols, Jassy wrote in his first letter to shareholders. Meanwhile, there's no "clear successor" for Clark, Insider previously reported.
Official Amazon channels have been tight-lipped about the company's succession plans. In an interview last week at the Bloomberg Technology conference, Jassy demurred on a question about Clark's departure.
"If you want to build a business that lasts one-hundred-plus years, outlasts all of us, you have to get used to these sorts of transitions and make sure you're doing the right succession planning," Jassy said. Amazon has the "right succession planning and the right talent to keep building business," he added. "We've done that historically and I expect we'll do it again."
Scrapping Clark's role wouldn't be unprecedented for Amazon. The position didn't exist until 2016, when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos installed former executive Jeff Wilke as worldwide consumer CEO. Bezos simultaneously created the role of AWS CEO for Andy Jassy, a move widely interpreted as a signal that one of the two new CEOs would take over the company once Bezos stepped down. Wilke retired from Amazon in 2021.
"The previous two CEO's reporting to Jeff B was sort of a test to see who should replace him. I think Wilke answered that question by retiring," said another former vice president. Unless Amazon is weighing plans for replacing Jassy, "What's the point of the role?" this person asked.
Already, three of Clark's most important direct reports work closely with Jassy as members of Amazon's top leadership council, the S-Team, and could move to reporting directly to the Amazon CEO. These are senior vice president for North American consumer Doug Herrington, senior vice president for international consumer Russ Grandinetti, and senior vice president for global customer fulfillment Alicia Boler Davis.
By declining to replace Clark, Jassy, who is notorious for his attention to minute detail, could "get fingers into each of these areas" overseen by Herrington, Grandinetti and Boler Davis, a third former VP said.
Insiders have also floated Herrington, Grandinetti, and Boler Davis as possible replacements for Clark. Herrington, who has 17 years in the company's retail division, is the most obvious pick for the role. Among the three, Grandinetti has the longest tenure and widest breadth of experience at the company: In his 24 years at Amazon, he's overseen Kindle as well as the international consumer division. Boler Davis, who joined Amazon in 2019 from General Motors, is well-regarded but may not have enough experience at Amazon to be a contender, according to a former Amazon executive.
Jassy could also opt for an external hire or a boomerang, which he's done before, recruiting former AWS executive Adam Selipsky back from Tableau to run that division. One former VP speculated Amazon could choose from the vast pool of recently departed VPs, such as Gopuff executive Maria Renz. Another former VP speculated that a current Amazon executive with prior retail experience could be selected, such as Tom Taylor, SVP of Alexa. Jassy could similarly turn to a former Amazon retail executive like Diego Piacentini, The Information recently reported.
Whatever Amazon decides to do, Clark leaves big shoes to fill after he departs July 1. He currently has 14 direct reports, who oversee everything from Amazon's massive logistics and delivery network to its online marketplace and physical stores, according to an internal org chart seen by Insider. He's also in charge of workplace safety issues, international markets, and Whole Foods.
Clark's departure is the latest in a stream of high-profile resignations at Amazon. At least 50 vice presidents left the company in 2021, according to people familiar with the matter and Insider's analysis from January, citing relatively low pay and stultifying layers of bureaucracy.
In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said the average tenure for its vice presidents is 10 years, and longer for its senior vice presidents. "Like with any company, people leave from time to time for personal or professional reasons," the spokesperson said. "Many return to the company over the course of their careers." The company has more vice presidents now than it did a year ago, the spokesperson added.
Clark's farewell message hinted that he, too, feels Amazon is ossifying, in the read of one former Amazon executive.
"I've had an incredible time at Amazon," Clark wrote on Twitter, "but it's time for me to build again."
More: Amazon Dave Clark Resignation Andy Jassy | 2022-06-13T19:44:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon Insiders Speculate That Dave Clark's Job May Be Left Empty | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-dave-clark-successor-consumer-ceo-job-left-empty-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-dave-clark-successor-consumer-ceo-job-left-empty-2022-6 |
Tech companies have announced over the last few weeks that they’re instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.
Other tech companies are freezing hiring as well due to impact of inflation and interest rates.
Some workers say they'll be less likely to apply to companies that retract job offers.
Signing on to work for a company doesn't necessarily mean you're safe in this economy — some are starting to rescind job offers in an effort to cut costs amid growing fears of a coming recession .
According to LinkedIn, a growing number of its members reported this happening. Tech companies especially are slowing hiring, after adding employees at record levels over the last two years.
Companies have announced over the last few weeks that they're instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees, but the move to drop workers right after taking them on suggests that many businesses are making last-minute considerations about what they can and cannot afford amid rising inflation rates and slowing demand.
"A lot of companies were over-hiring, part of this is really a correction on that," says Lars Schmidt, founder of HR search firm Amplify, told Axios.
Cryptocurrency platform Coinbase recently joined the line of tech companies dropping new hires, rescinding the offers of hundreds of new employees in recent weeks. Insider reported last month that companies including Meta, Netflix , Uber, and Salesforce are either cutting down hiring or implementing layoffs. More than 15,000 tech workers were laid off globally in May, according to a TechCrunch analysis.
The hiring moves — or lack thereof — come despite the US labor market still feels a strong demand for workers. It represents a divergent trend in the market right now: the hospitality and service sectors can't hire people fast enough, but there's a slowing need for tech workers. That's as hospitality and service sector workers — historically in the lowest wage bracket — bargain for higher wages, with the most power they've seen in decades. Tech workers, in contrast, are some of the highest earners in the country, and now those salaries are getting harder to hold onto. Some in the finance and tech industries warn that rescinding offers will make workers wary of joining companies in the future.
So tech leadership is hoping the trend doesn't last.
"I've never rescinded an offer before, and I hope I never have to do it again," Jeff Mahacek, the VP of product design at Redfin, commented on the Linkedin post of a Redfin hire whose offer was revoked. "What's going on in the economy now is happening quickly and leaders are having to make tough decisions."
Rescinding offers may spook future hires away from certain companies
Tech leaders like Mahacek point to the state of the economy to explain the current hiring pileup, but workers might still have reservations about working with companies like Redfin in the future, Joe Moglia, the chairman of investment firm FG New America Acquisition, wrote on Linkedin.
"Decisions like this to halt hirings and rescind offers can have a real chilling effect much farther down the line," Moglia said. "This sort of thing conveys a message of potential disorganization or mismanagement and can scare off a lot of really smart and talented people, especially in an industry where folks don't lack job options."
Although it's the tech industry that's experiencing the sudden squeeze at this moment, many warned that a mass retraction of job offers could deter talent from applying to any company in the future, especially as workers hold the upper hand in a persisting Great Resignation.
"Rescinding accepted offers really feels like a good way to never be able to hire again," Thomas Powell, a software engineer at Progress Chief, wrote on Linkedin.
More: labor shortage Tech Hiring Recession | 2022-06-13T19:45:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | Tech Companies Revoke Job Offers Because of Economy, Recession Fears | https://www.businessinsider.com/job-offer-revoked-rescinded-economy-recession-coinbase-redfin-meta-tech-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/job-offer-revoked-rescinded-economy-recession-coinbase-redfin-meta-tech-2022-6 |
Summers argued that Republicans dismissing the severity of Jan. 6 risked worsening inflation.
"If you can't trust the country's government, why should you trust its money?" he said on CNN.
Inflation stems from a mismatch between consumer demand and the available supply of food and fuel.
Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued that Republicans who reject the severity of the Jan. 6 attack risk worsening inflation.
"If I can step out of my area for one second, I think the banana Republicans who are saying that what happened on Jan. 6 was nothing, or OK, are undermining the basic credibility of our country's institutions — and that in turn feeds through for inflation," the prominent Democratic economist said in a CNN interview on Sunday.
Democrats are spearheading a House select committee investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection, holding the second hearing on Monday. The committee is attempting to make the case that former President Donald Trump played a big role in a coordinated effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
—State of the Union (@CNNSotu) June 12, 2022
Summers went on: "If you can't trust the country's government, why should you trust its money?"
Inflation in the US has reached its highest level in over 4o years with gas prices overpowering efforts from the Fed to restrain price growth, Insider's Ben Winck reported. Prices have surged due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting global supply chains — and not from Republicans downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
The ongoing war in Ukraine has also unsettled supplies of food and fuel, contributing to price increases within the US for those goods as well.
Summers argued the importance of giving the Federal Reserve space to combat inflation without interference, and called for renewed efforts to cut prescription drug costs as well as reduce the federal budget deficit. The latter two measures are top priorities for Democrats trying to revive their stalled economic agenda.
He warned that the current mix of high inflation and low unemployment has "almost always" been followed with a recession within two years. For now, Biden administration officials are trying to quell the recession fears raised by some economists as well as business leaders.
"I know people are very upset and rightly so about inflation, but there's nothing to suggest that a recession is in the works," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week.
More: Congress Larry Summers Inflation Jan 6 commission | 2022-06-13T19:45:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | Summers: Republicans Who Dismiss Jan. 6 Risk Worsening Inflation | https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-summers-republicans-jan-6-attack-risk-worsening-inflation-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-summers-republicans-jan-6-attack-risk-worsening-inflation-2022-6 |
Corazon Ochanda Eaton paid off $131,637 of student loans.
Courtesy of Corazon Ochanda Eaton
Corazon Ochanda Eaton paid off $131,637 in student loans years earlier than planned.
She did it with the help of her husband, Curtis, who followed her lead in budgeting and saving.
They house-hacked and negotiated raises at work, all while keeping their monthly expenses down.
On January 29, 2022, 35-year-old Corazon Ochanda Eaton from Columbus, Ohio, called her student loan servicer to make a lump-sum payment of $131,637 on her student loans, wiping out the balance. She recorded the whole interaction on her phone and posted a video on Instagram, which quickly went viral.
After getting her master's degree in 2018, she says, "I was working in the nonprofit industry and making a minimum payment of $286 a month, which barely contributed to any of the principal." Because she worked at a nonprofit, she was eligible to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a federal program that allows some workers in nonprofit and other sectors to make 120 eligible payments before cancelling the entirety of their student loans.
However, she was discouraged upon hearing that 98% of PSLF applications get denied. She says, "In that moment, I knew I didn't want to be bound to my student loan debt, hoping the government would take care of it for me."
So, with the support of her husband, Curtis Eaton, Jr., 34, who followed her lead on budgeting and saving to become debt-free in four years, Corazon focused on paying off her loans fast.
Here are seven strategies the couple used to pay off $131,637 in student loans in 14 months.
1. They paid off smaller debts first
Before paying off Corazon's student loans, the Eatons also paid off Curtis' student loans, totaling $12,383, and his car note worth $8,703, according to records viewed by Insider.
Corazon says, "The momentum from paying small debts first helped us stay motivated throughout our journey by giving us small wins along the way. By the time we got to my debt, our other financial achievements allowed us to feel more confident about paying off such a large amount of debt."
The Eatons took advantage of the student loan pause during the pandemic to save up the lump sum. Rather than making payments along the way, they decided to keep the money in savings until they had enough to pay off the full balance. Says Corazon, "We wanted to make sure we didn't run into any financial emergencies, especially with so many layoffs taking place at the time."
2. They used the cash-envelope system
The cash-envelope system involves putting money in envelopes labeled with discretionary spending categories and the limit you're allowed to spend in each category. The Eatons used this technique to curb their personal spending and eating-out budget.
3. They used sinking funds
A sinking fund is a reserve of money set aside for larger, specific expenses. Typically, people open separate savings accounts or create envelope systems to save toward a long-term goal or expense, like traveling or car repairs.
Corazon says, "Having an emergency fund and implementing sinking funds helped us not get thrown off by sudden emergencies or irregular expenses. It allowed us to forecast future expenses, buget for everyday expenses, and maintain our budget."
4. They put their tax refunds and bonuses toward the debt
The Eatons dedicated their tax refunds and bonuses each year to paying down Corazon's student loans. Additionally, they each asked for raises at their jobs, eventually leaving to take higher-paying jobs elsewhere.
Corazon says, "We knew that increasing our income would help us reach our goals faster, so we prioritized that."
5. They house-hacked
The couple moved from a single-family home to a multi-family home, which allowed them house-hack. House-hacking is the practice of renting out rooms in your house to bring in additional income.
"We moved into a multi-family property and lived on one side and rented the other," Corazon says. "This significantly cut down our housing expense." According to records reviewed by Insider, the Eatons saved $900 a month on their monthly mortgage payments through house-hacking.
6. They used income from their rental property
The Eatons were able to buy a new rental property, which brought in an additional $818 a month in net rental income. They directed that amount to their student loan repayment efforts.
7. They avoided lifestyle creep
Even though the Eatons started earning more, they kept their expenses as low as possible to avoid lifestyle creep. Lifestyle creep is the pattern of spending more money as you earn more, getting used to higher levels of convenience as your new normal.
"Although we were able to afford a lot more, we resisted lifestyle inflation and stayed grounded in our mission and goals," says Corazon. "It can be extremely difficult to go from high expenses to low expenses, so we were fortunate to start modest where we could adjust as we progressed."
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More: student loan payoff Debt payoff Student Loans Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
public service student loan forgiveness
Cash envelope system | 2022-06-13T19:45:52Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Corazon and Curtis Eaton Paid Off $131,000 in 14 Months | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/student-loan-payoff-strategies-2022-5 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/student-loan-payoff-strategies-2022-5 |
Warner Bros. Discovery insiders fear post-merger structure will chip away at past diversity efforts and innovation: 'Are we going to lose this advantage?'
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
Warner Bros. Discovery's C-suite moves in diversity and inclusion have caused some concern among staffers.
WarnerMedia has a 50-plus DEI team, while Discovery inclusion efforts are largely fueled by employee volunteers.
"You wouldn't rely on volunteers for something that you thought was business critical," said one insider.
Every corporate merger or acquisition comes with a hit of culture shock — maybe one company offers worse health insurance than the other, or the parent corporation holds the reins tighter than its new subsidiary did.
As the structure and strategy of the newly-merged Warner Bros. Discovery take shape, certain cultural differences between the combined companies are becoming more pronounced, with some legacy WarnerMedia staffers concerned that Discovery's corporate philosophy on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) may be an unwelcome departure from their own.
And amid sustained pressure for Hollywood to uphold its commitments following the racial reckoning of 2020, moves that may seem like corporate nuances could have significant consequences for the entertainment industry's efforts to improve representation and equity — on camera and in the studio ranks.
At WarnerMedia, a team of more than 50 full-time staffers drove robust DEI initiatives. And while WarnerMedia's and Discovery's inclusion initiatives have not yet been combined, the corporate structure around DEI is clearly shifting: WarnerMedia's now-ousted inclusion chief reported solely to exited CEO Jason Kilar, whereas WBD is now searching for a chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer to report dually to chief people and culture officer Adria Alpert Romm, who heads up human resources, and CEO David Zaslav.
That key change, along with others, has members of the existing WarnerMedia DEI team wondering about their future, though WBD insiders are cautiously hopeful that under new leadership from Discovery, their efforts will be supported.
'You wouldn't rely on volunteers for something that you thought was business critical'
Historically, DEI initiatives have stemmed from HR, which can breed distrust among employees, critics say, particularly when their concerns involve the company's handling of DEI in the workplace. This structure can also give the impression that the company is simply trying to check boxes and fill quotas, as several people who spoke to Insider put it.
"When you have the role reporting directly to the CEO, two things happen: It takes away that HR feeling, and it sends a very clear message to the company that this chief diversity officer has equal standing with the CEO at his or her table as one of the business leaders," said one senior-level DEI executive at a separate major media company. "Both on an org chart, optically, but actually as the person sitting at the table, existentially, that is a sea change from the way these roles have traditionally been seen."
In contrast to WarnerMedia's large in-house team, Discovery's inclusion efforts rest with employee resource groups steered by HR, with no separate DEI division or employees dedicated to those initiatives. Discovery has grown a 300-strong group of employee volunteers to fuel an initiative called Mosaic, which tackles issues including unconscious bias, career development, and supplier diversity.
Based on this structure, some WarnerMedia workers have questioned Discovery's dedication to the efforts. "You wouldn't rely on volunteers for something that you thought was business critical," said one legacy WarnerMedia insider. "You wouldn't get a volunteer to work on distribution."
Who should own a company's inclusion initiatives?
Discovery's ethos, according to someone familiar with the company's thinking, is that inclusion is every employee's responsibility, and that staffers' ownership of initiatives like Mosaic means they'll feel invested in the efforts.
Sheereen Russell, a senior vice president of ad sales and inclusive content monetization strategy at the Oprah Winfrey-founded network OWN, said Mosaic arose from the events of 2020.
She described it to Insider as "a real thoughtful effort around measurable ways that we could not only impact our content and our storytelling, our supplier diversity initiatives, but also immediately create [space] for communities for healing, for responses to the incidents that took place, and then from there, grow out more opportunities."
The impact was significant.
"I think it was the first time, personally, that I felt safe in my entire 20-year career to probably show up with my full self at work, and be unapologetic about every nuance and specificity of being Black at work, and being a woman," Russell said.
A WBD spokesperson told Insider that "Warner Bros. Discovery is committed to amplifying the strong DEI efforts of both legacy companies by advancing existing endeavors and building on programs already in place, including internationally focused initiatives and programs that create pathways for more diverse voices in content, careers and storytelling. We look forward to appointing a CDO soon who will lead our DEI agenda."
Accountability for who's on screen and who's behind the scenes
Over 70% of the Discovery programming is reality fare from networks like HGTV or Food Network, according to Parrot Analytics, while WarnerMedia's strength is scripted series and movies from subsidiaries including HBO Max , CNN, and Warner Bros.' TV and film studios. In scripted TV and film, scrutiny of diversity on screen and off — and efforts to improve representation — have grown in recent years and were approached with added urgency by many Hollywood companies following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor two years ago.
WarnerMedia issued an in-depth equity and inclusion report in late 2021, noting that the company nudged up on-screen representation so that 36% of its original scripted TV shows starred women, while 29% of those series featured people of color. In film, the fraction of women on screen dipped to 30%, while the percentage of actors of color in Warner Bros. films grew to 29%. (Behind-the-scenes representation grew in the single digits on all fronts, in TV and film.)
Some Warner staffers are concerned that there is less of a fire under the seat of those who work in reality, documentary and competition show programming.
"The unscripted world doesn't focus on this, so there's a perception that doing this work is some kind of luxury, as opposed to a critical business advantage, not just with the workforce but with the talent," said the legacy WarnerMedia insider, who has direct knowledge of WarnerMedia's efforts. "One of the things that is concerning to a lot of leaders of the [WarnerMedia] networks and the studios is, 'Are we going to lose this advantage [we've built]?'"
Focusing on equity and inclusion in an industry where 'diversity hire' has a negative connotation
Following AT&T's 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T chief John Stankey brought on CAA vet Christy Haubegger a year later to grow WarnerMedia's DEI team from the ground up, with Haubegger reporting to him until Kilar joined the company in 2020. Haubegger, who also led communications for WarnerMedia, began with an inclusion team of 20 that ultimately grew to more than 50 by the time of her exit.
Haubegger's title, chief enterprise inclusion officer, conveyed the heft and innovation of her role. Some WBD insiders are rankled by the more traditional wording of the role outlined at WBD — chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer — in an industry where the phrase "diversity hire" has taken on a negative connotation.
The WarnerMedia staffers' philosophy: Equity and inclusion constitute the work; diversity is the outcome.
"It speaks volumes that they're still using [the term] 'diversity,'" said a second legacy WarnerMedia insider, adding that the term "means different things to different people" and that a focus on equity and inclusion drives results. "When you have those two things, you get diversity. E plus I equals D."
The exec from the other media company hailed the programs that were launched "in record time" under Haubegger's leadership, which include the six-month WarnerMedia Fellows program aimed at executives of color and the year-long Career Advancement Program for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous execs.
Data product vp Michelle Pineda Peterson, who joined WarnerMedia five years ago, said growing up in Los Angeles as the Mexican-Salvadorian American daughter of immigrant factory workers, she never thought a studio job was even "in the realm of possibility."
The CAP program at WarnerMedia gave her a toolkit of executive skills, and she highlighted the value in continuing such initiatives.
"We don't always have the right sort of corporate flowery speak," she said of staffers from underrepresented backgrounds. "But that doesn't mean that there isn't just a vast amount of insight and contributions to be tapped into. Sometimes it helps to figure out how to get your message across … when we do have those good ideas."
Pineda Peterson walked away from the program last year feeling more confident and connected to her colleagues, particularly as the company adjusted to new leadership. "For me, it gave me my heart back."
More: Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. David Zaslav | 2022-06-13T19:45:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | After Warner Bros. Discovery Merger, Staff Question Diversity Structure | https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-merger-diversity-equity-inclusion-culture-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-merger-diversity-equity-inclusion-culture-2022-6 |
Leaked memo shows Amazon is considering flattening growth in hiring and budget for its PR, public policy, and lobbying team next year
Amazon SVP of global corporate affairs Jay Carney
Amazon's global corporate affairs group, which covers corporate communications, public policy, and lobbying, is expecting no headcount or budget growth for 2023.
The plans for GCA's flattened hiring and budgeting forecast the current pullback cycle extending into next year.
It's particularly noteworthy since Amazon is facing a multifront battle against policymakers around the world.
Amazon's Global Corporate Affairs group, which includes its corporate communications, public policy, and lobbying arms, is expecting to halt headcount and budget growth for 2023, as the company continues to dial back its core business following two years of overexpansion during the pandemic, Insider has learned.
An internal memo seen by Insider said the GCA team's headcount and budget are expected to remain flat next year. Amazon's finance team told GCA leaders about the plan last week and is asking for specific projects and investments to scale back to help the company reassess its priorities for the upcoming year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Amazon is currently holding meetings for next year's operational plan, and the final details about hiring and budgeting will emerge later this year, one of the people said.
In an email to Insider, Amazon's spokesperson said "most" of the reporting found in this story is "incorrect," without addressing GCA's specific plans.
"We continue to hire this year and plan to continue investing as the business grows into next year, albeit at different levels based on the individual teams and the stage of the businesses and topics they support. Of course, as we do every year when we plan, we will be looking to find efficiencies in our operations," the spokesperson said.
The GCA team's potential flatline growth in hiring and budgeting for 2023 shows Amazon forecasting the current growth slowdown to extend into next year.
The retail giant's first quarter financial results fell far below investor expectations, driven by waning consumer demand and profit margins. After expanding too much, too fast during the pandemic, Amazon has also been left with excess capacity across its logistics network, forcing the company to scale back some of its key segments this year. Record level inflation and growing costs have only deepened those problems.
Amazon's retail business, for example, reduced its hiring target for this year, while its delivery service unit plans to add a much smaller number of third-party carriers, as Insider previously reported. The company is also subleasing or canceling at least 10 million square feet of warehouse space, according to Bloomberg.
"We have too much space right now versus our demand patterns," Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavsky said during a call with reporters in April.
The potential static growth in the GCA group, which has over 1,000 employees, is particularly noteworthy given Amazon's multifront battle with policymakers around the world. President Joe Biden has been openly critical of Amazon's labor practices, and a number of government agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, are scrutinizing the company's business practices. Amazon is facing a similarly hostile political environment in overseas markets.
The political environment against Amazon could become even more challenging later this year if US Republicans end up taking control of both Congressional Houses. The GCA group, which covers everything from Amazon's media relations to public policy and lobbying efforts, is led by Jay Carney, the former White House press secretary during Obama's administration.
Amazon isn't the only company to reexamine its business plan this year. A number of tech companies, including Meta, Salesforce, and Netflix , have made significant changes to their hiring plans in recent months in anticipation of a long-term economic downturn. Startups and venture capitalists have also been cautioning of a broader pullback and a turbulent business climate ahead.
More: Amazon Jay Carney Biden | 2022-06-13T20:05:16Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon's Global Corporate Affairs Group Expects No Headcount and Budget Growth Next Year | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-global-corporate-affairs-group-expects-no-headcount-and-budget-growth-next-year-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-global-corporate-affairs-group-expects-no-headcount-and-budget-growth-next-year-2022-6 |
The three leading manufacturers of baby formula had no site visits from the FDA in 2020, the AP found.
A shutdown due to unsanitary conditions at one Abbott Nutrition plant led to the ongoing shortages.
The FDA told the AP it skipped 15,000 inspections due to COVID-19 and is working through a backlog.
US food safety regulators did not inspect any of the three largest baby-formula manufacturers in 2020, an Associated Press review of federal records found.
Two of the three firms — Abbott, the maker of Similac, and Reckitt, which makes Enfamil — accounted for nearly 80% of the $4 billion baby-formula market in 2021. However, apparently neither they nor Gerber were on the Food and Drug Administration's list of "mission critical" inspections during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, per the AP.
"The FDA would have had more chances to catch these issues if they'd been inspecting during the pandemic," food safety specialist Sarah Sorscher told the AP.
Current law only requires inspections of baby formula facilities every three to five years, but the FDA had been conducting at least once-a-year visits until 2019. New legislation would require twice-yearly inspections.
The ongoing national shortage of baby formula began after one Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan was shut down after four children got sick after consuming the company's powdered Similac.
An investigation later found unsanitary conditions at the plant, though the company maintains that the bacteria that caused the illnesses did not originate there.
The FDA told the AP it skipped about 15,000 inspections in the US because of pandemic safety measures, but it has caught up on 5,000 of those at a rate it says is ahead of schedule.
More: Baby formula Formula shortage FDA Abbott | 2022-06-13T21:38:33Z | www.businessinsider.com | Leading Baby Formula Manufacturers Had Zero Inspections in 2020: AP | https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-formula-manufacturers-zero-inspections-in-2020-ap-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-formula-manufacturers-zero-inspections-in-2020-ap-2022-6 |
How to make glass in Minecraft, and what it's used for
There are three basic types of glass in Minecraft: Blocks, panes, and stained.
You can make glass in Minecraft by smelting blocks of sand.
Combining your glass with any color of dye will give you stained glass.
You can also combine glass with other objects to craft glass bottles, beacons, and more.
When building a house in Minecraft, you need more than building blocks like stone or wood. A proper house has windows — and the best way to make windows is to use glass.
It doesn't take much to make glass in Minecraft, and there are lots of ways to use it. Here's how it works.
How to make glass in Minecraft
To make a block of glass, you'll need sand, a furnace, and any type of smelting fuel.
You can find sand in the desert, on any beach, and underwater in rivers and oceans. To make a furnace, fill the edges of a crafting table with cobblestone. For fuel, you can use coal, charcoal, a bucket of lava, or anything made of wood.
Once you've got everything, fuel up the furnace and place your sand in the top slot. It'll burn for a few seconds, then give you one piece of glass.
It should take about ten seconds for every piece of glass.
This is a full block of glass, the same size as any other block. If you instead want a pane of glass — a flat slab that looks a lot more like an actual window — you'll need to do a bit more crafting.
Open your crafting table and fill the bottom two rows with glass blocks. This will craft 16 glass panes, perfect for any home or building.
A wall of glass panes.
And if you want stained glass, like you might see at a church or monument, you'll need some dye. Place any color dye in the middle slot of your crafting table, and surround it with glass blocks. You'll craft eight stained glass blocks, their color matching whatever dye you used.
To make stained glass panes, fill the bottom two rows of the crafting table with matching stained glass blocks. You'll get 16 stained glass panes.
What you can use glass for in Minecraft
The most obvious use for glass in Minecraft is for windows, either in a house or building. Glass blocks and panes are almost completely transparent, and don't block light like other solid blocks.
Some players make glass floors, usually in high towers or other structures, so they can look down and see everything below them.
You can also use glass as a crafting ingredient for making other items.
If you place three blocks of glass in a V-shape on your crafting table, you'll make three glass bottles. These are required to brew potions.
Surrounding a glass block with four amethyst shards gives you two pieces of tinted glass. These are glass blocks that are still transparent, but block out light.
Combining five glass blocks with obsidian and a nether star will give you a beacon, a powerful item that can buff any player nearby.
The beacon is a very late-game item.
Seven glass blocks combined with an Eye of Ender and a ghast tear makes an end crystal, a glowing orb that can heal and respawn the Ender Dragon, the game's final boss.
Finally, for players who love making redstone machines, combining three pieces each of glass, nether quartz, and wooden slabs gives you a daylight detector. These machines are like solar panels, and send out a redstone signal whenever they're hit by daylight.
TECH How to make Concrete in Minecraft and get access to one of the game's best building materials
More: Tech How To Minecraft glass Minecraft Items | 2022-06-13T21:38:57Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Make and Use Glass in Minecraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-glass-in-minecraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-glass-in-minecraft |
How Guaranty Bank works
Is Guaranty Bank trustworthy?
Guaranty Bank vs. Citizens National Bank
Guaranty Bank vs. First Horizon Bank
Guaranty Bank review: Tennessee and Mississippi bank that helps low-to-moderate income homebuyers
Guaranty Bank 24 branches in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Guaranty Bank; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
The bottom line: Guaranty Bank might be worthwhile if you prioritize being part of a local financial institution. The bank has an affordable housing program for low-to-moderate-income families. However, most bank accounts have service fees unless you qualify to waive them. Other financial institutions also offer higher interest rates on savings accounts.
Feature Insider rating
Savings 3
Only available in Tennessee and Mississippi
Service fees on most bank accounts
Guaranty Bank Guaranty Savings Account
$10 quarterly service fee
24 branches and 34 ATMs/ITMs across Tennessee and Mississippi
To waive the $10 quarterly service fee, maintain at least $300 in your account daily
The Guaranty Bank Guaranty Savings Account works best if you maintain at least $300 in your account daily to waive the $10 quarterly service fees.
Keep in mind other banks may offer higher interest rates on savings accounts. Consider looking over our best online high-yield savings accounts guide.
Guaranty Bank Freedom Checking Account
Can't overdraw from your account
Won't be refunded out-of-network ATM fees
$50 opening deposit upfront or you can set up a direct deposit
$8 monthly service fee if you get paper statements
$6 monthly service fee if you get online statements
To waive the monthly service fee, keep at least $1,000 in your checking account daily or $5,000 across all your Guaranty Bank accounts
Can't overdraw from your checking account
You may open the Guaranty Bank Freedom Checking Account with $50 upfront, or set up a direct deposit when you open the bank account.
You might find it easier to waive monthly service fees at other banks, though. At Guaranty Bank, you'll need to keep at least $1,000 in your account daily or $5,000 across all of your accounts.
Guaranty Bank CD
Standard CD terms
Earn 0.05% APY on a CD term if you deposit less than $10,000
Earn 0.10% APY on a CD term if you deposit more than $10,000
Early withdrawal penalties depend on term chosen and amount deposited
Guaranty Bank offers low interest rates on CDs compared to online financial institutions. You'll also need at least $2,500 for an initial deposit — usually, the minimum opening deposit for a CD is around $1,000.
Guaranty Bank Personal Money Market Account
The Guaranty Bank Personal Money Market Account pays a lower interest rate than the Guaranty Bank Guaranty Savings Account and requires a much higher minimum opening deposit.
If you're looking for a money market account that offers a debit card or checks, look through our best money market accounts guide.
Guaranty Bank has 24 branches across Tennessee and Mississippi. Customers also have access to 15 ATMs and 19 interactive teller machines (ITMS). ITMs allow you to speak with bank tellers via video chat from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT on weekdays and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
Customer service is available over the phone or through live chat from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
The bank's mobile app is rated 4.3 stars in the Google Play store and Apple store.
Guaranty Bank is FDIC insured. You may safely keep up to $250,000 in an individual bank account.
Guaranty Bank has an affordable housing program for low-and-moderate-income homebuyers called the SAFE Homebuying program. Here is how the SAFE Homebuying program works:
You have to complete a financial education class and a homebuyer's education course.
You have to save up and deposit up to $2,000 in a matched savings account. A matched savings account allows you to save money for a specific purpose, and the organization will match that amount. In this case, Guaranty Bank may match up to $2,000. You can use the funds in your matched savings account for the down payment of your mortgage, closing costs, or the principal balance.
You will need to apply for a mortgage through Guaranty Bank within 12 months of finishing the first two requirements. At this time, Guaranty Bank may also help you apply for down payment assistance from the Federal Home Loan Bank. The amount you receive will depend on the funds available.
If you have a low credit score , a credit counselor will also help you raise your credit score so you meet the bank's minimum credit score requirement of 625.
Guaranty Bank trustworthiness and BBB rating
Guaranty Bank hasn't been involved in any recent public settlements.
We typically look at grades from the Better Business Bureau, which evaluates how businesses address customer complaints. Guaranty Bank has an NR ("No Rating") grade because the BBB says information about the business is currently being reviewed.
BBB ratings aren't necessarily the be-all and end-all. Consider reaching out to current customers or reading online customer reviews.
Guaranty Bank and Citizens National Bank are both located in Mississippi. See how the two compare.
MS and TN
Checking account with no out-of-network ATM fees
If your goal is to open a savings account, Citizens National Bank will likely be a better option than Guaranty Bank. The Citizens National Bank SmartBlue Savings Account doesn't charge service fees.
For checking accounts , your choice might depend on your priorities.
The Citizens National Bank ClassicBlue Checking Account offers several ways to waive the monthly service fee. However, the Guaranty Bank Freedom Checking Account might be appealing if you don't want to pay out-of-network ATM fees. Keep in mind that you'll have to pay fees by outside ATM providers if they charge you, though.
See how Guaranty Bank stacks up against a popular brick-and-mortar bank in the same states: First Horizon Bank.
AL, AR, TN, FL, GA, LA, MS, NY, NC, SC, TX, and VA
You may favor First Horizon Bank if you are searching for a free checking account, since Guaranty Bank has service fees on its savings and checking accounts unless you qualify to waive them.
The First Horizon Bank Traditional Savings Account also has a lower minimum account balance requirement than the Guaranty Bank Guaranty Savings Account.
Guaranty Bank still might be worth considering if you prioritize a strong mobile app. It's received over 4 stars in both the Google Play store and Apple store. Meanwhile, First Horizon Bank has poor mobile app customer ratings.
Is Guaranty Bank FDIC insured?
Yes, Guaranty Bank is an FDIC-insured bank. FDIC insurance makes sure that your money is safe even if a bank shuts down.
Does Guaranty Bank have a checking account with no opening deposit?
No. Guaranty Bank has a minimum opening deposit requirement for all of its checking accounts. You may be able to open the Guaranty Bank Freedom Checking Account with $50 upfront or through a direct deposit.
PERSONAL FINANCE What you can expect to pay in bank ATM fees
More: Guaranty Bank Guaranty Bank Guaranty Savings Account Guaranty Bank Freedom Checking Account Guaranty Bank CD
Guaranty Bank Money Market Account | 2022-06-13T21:39:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | Guaranty Bank Review: Tennessee and Mississippi Bank | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/guaranty-bank-review | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/guaranty-bank-review |
Major insurers are kicking Cerebral out of network as the mental-health company faces scrutiny
Cerebral's Dr. David Mou.
Aetna and UnitedHealth's Optum are removing Cerebral from their covered networks.
Starting in August, people in 28 states won't be able to use insurance for Cerebral's services.
The mental-health startup faces investigations by the DEA and DOJ into its prescribing practices.
Two major health insurers will no longer pay for their members to get therapy or medications from the mental-health startup Cerebral, as the company faces federal investigations into its prescribing practices.
UnitedHealth Group's Optum behavioral health network has notified Cerebral providers that they are being removed from the network in August, an Optum spokesperson told Insider. The network provides services for Optum and UnitedHealthcare members. Aetna, the health insurer owned by CVS Health, is taking Cerebral providers out of its networks as of August 21, a spokesman said.
Cerebral has removed Aetna from the list of insurers on its website. As of June 13, UnitedHealthcare and Optum remain on the list.
Cerebral said UnitedHealth Group hadn't informed the startup of plans to remove its services from the insurer's covered networks.
"We are not aware of any decision by UnitedHealthcare / Optum to no longer include Cerebral as in-network," a Cerebral spokesperson told Insider in an email.
Cerebral offers therapy and medication management for mental health problems like anxiety and depression . The moves comes less than a month after Cerebral ousted its co-founder and CEO Kyle Robertson following increased scrutiny of the startup's prescribing practices.
A box of medications Cerebral medical providers can prescribe.
Before Aetna and UnitedHealth's Optum moved to terminate their contracts, Cerebral services were covered by various insurers in 45 states plus Washington, DC. Insurers like Medicare, Magellan, and Blue Cross Blue Shield plans cover Cerebral's services in some states.
Cerebral's services were available to Aetna members in 44 states plus Washington, DC. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Aetna's coverage decision.
Cerebral told Insider its services won't be covered by any insurers in 28 states after August.
With insurance, Cerebral's subscription plans for services including medication, counseling, and therapy start at $30 per month. Without insurance, however, the plans can range from $85 per month to $325 per month.
The health insurer Anthem, which operates under the Blue Cross Blue Shield brand in 14 states, said it's still working with Cerebral's medical group and will continue to cover Cerebral's services.
A Cerebral spokesperson told Insider that the startup is still in-network with Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Shield of California, Cigna, Magellan, United, and Optum.
Cerebral sinks into controversy
The coverage decisions present a fresh challenge for Dr. David Mou, who replaced Robertson as CEO and was previously the startup's chief medical officer.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Cerebral's board of directors made the executive switch based on concerns about Robertson's reluctance to take advice from medical staffers about the company's push into treating ADHD.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as the US Department of Justice, have been investigating Cerebral's history of prescribing controlled substances, including benzodiazepines like Xanax and stimulants like Adderall. Insider first reported the investigations in May.
The drugs are classified as controlled because of an increased risk of addiction for those who take them. Patients typically have to meet in-person with a clinician to receive an initial prescription.
Launched in January 2020, Cerebral exploded in popularity during the pandemic. Federal regulators had relaxed rules that required doctors to see patients in-person before prescribing them controlled substances, allowing Cerebral to prescribe the highly regulated drugs through online visits.
But concerns about Cerebral's business model began surfacing a few months ago from industry insiders and news outlets. Robertson told staff in a leaked email in May that the startup would stop prescribing most controlled substances starting May 20, and would halt those prescriptions for existing patients starting October 15. Cerebral previously confirmed the decision to Insider.
The company still plans to prescribe controlled substances for the treatment of opioid use disorder, since access to care is limited, Robertson said in the email. The company began treating opioid use disorder with Narcan and Suboxone in March.
More: Cerebral Dispensed Mental Health
Health Insurers | 2022-06-13T21:39:28Z | www.businessinsider.com | UnitedHealth Group, Aetna Remove Cerebral From Coverage Network | https://www.businessinsider.com/unitedhealthcare-optum-aetna-cerebral-insurers-out-of-network-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/unitedhealthcare-optum-aetna-cerebral-insurers-out-of-network-2022-6 |
Bill Barr is emerging as the unlikely star of the House January 6 committee hearings
The House January 6 hearings have aired extensive footage from William Barr's deposition.
Barr called the election fraud claims "bullshit" and laughed off a pro-Trump documentary.
The attention has made Barr an unlikely star of the House January 6 panel's initial hearings.
Rep. Bennie Thompson gave fair warning: "This content," he said, "contains strong language."
It was Thursday night, and the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol was seizing on primetime coverage to play never-before-seen footage at its first hearing. But what followed Thompson's warning was not mayhem at the Capitol but rather former Attorney General William Barr, flanked by lawyers in a nondescript conference room, recalling conversations with former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election.
"I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit," Barr said in the recorded deposition.
Barr has only continued to feature prominently in the House committee's hearings, with the erstwhile Trump ally emerging as an unlikely star in a public presentation that is placing the blame for January 6 squarely on Trump and his relentless stoking of widespread election fraud claims.
During the Trump administration, Barr's own aides nicknamed him the "buffalo" for his hard-charging approach and predilection for profanity. Barr appeared to stay very much on-brand in his closed-door deposition: not holding back and exhibiting a style — strong language included — that the House January 6 committee has showcased in its first two hearings.
On Monday, the House committee made extensive use of recorded testimony from Barr, who only appeared for the closed-door deposition on June 2 — a week before the panel's first hearing. Barr testified that he believed Trump had grown delusional as he insisted on advancing unsupported claims of widespread election fraud.
"He's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff," Barr told the panel, in recorded testimony played publicly on Monday."There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were."
Barr labeled the voter fraud claims as "bogus" and appeared to bemoan having to deal with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as they peddled — via increasingly wild and unverifiable conspiracy theories — Trump's argument that the election had been stolen.
Recalling the "avalanche" of voter fraud claims from Trump allies, Barr said, "It was like playing Whac-a-Mole."
In another portion of the recorded interview, Barr could not restrain his laughter at the absurdity of the claims, including one alleged scheme involving the former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.
Barr also ridiculed a pro-Trump documentary, 2,000 Mules, that claimed to have "smoking gun" evidence of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election.
"I haven't seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that, including the "2,000 Mules" movie," he said.
"In a nutshell," he added, "I was unimpressed with it."
In addition to Barr, the House committee featured other Republicans and Trump allies who recalled telling Trump in no uncertain terms that he'd lost the 2020 election. Legal experts said that testimony could help prove Trump's intent — a critical part of any case connected to his efforts to overturn the election results.
With the airtime devoted to Barr, the House committee has apparently taken the view that Trump's former attorney general makes for a compelling narrator. But the renewed attention on Barr's private pushback against Trump has brought renewed criticism and questions about why he did not tell the public sooner of his belief that Trump was doing a "disservice" to the country spreading claims of pervasive election fraud.
Instead, Barr warned of the dangers of mass mail-in voting and exaggerated the facts of a small ballot fraud case in Texas two months before election day. Barr later told Trump of an investigation in Pennsylvania involving fewer than 10 ballots found in a trash can, prompting the then-president to tout the inquiry as proof of widespread fraud. It turned out to be a case of human error.
Barr previously drew criticism for allowing the politicization of the Justice Department and intervening in prosecutions to the benefit of Trump's political allies. And within months of his confirmation, in early 2019, Barr confronted criticism that he spun the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation to present them in a favorable light for Trump. Mueller, known for his silence through the inquiry into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, wrote Barr a letter asserting that his summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the special counsel office's work.
And in spite of his private beliefs and pushback, Barr resigned from the Justice Department in December 2020 with glowing praise for Trump. As recently as April, he said that while he hopes Republicans don't nominate Trump again, he would not rule out voting for him.
"It would be a big mistake to put him forward," Barr said, "but if he was the nominee I would vote for him over the Democrat."
More: William Barr House january 6 committee Capitol Siege Donald Trump | 2022-06-13T23:11:36Z | www.businessinsider.com | Bill Barr Emerges As Unlikely Star of the House January 6 Committee Hearings | https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-barr-star-house-january-6-committee-hearings-trump-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-barr-star-house-january-6-committee-hearings-trump-2022-6 |
Elon Musk to attend all hands meeting at Twitter this week, speaking to staff for first time since launching his $44 billion acquisition
Elon Musk is set to speak to Twitter workers this week in a virtual meeting.
It will be the first time Musk has addressed staff since launching his takeover of the company.
Many workers have expressed frustration and disappointment with Musk as their would-be owner.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told workers on Monday that they will be hosting another all hands this meeting, this time with a guest speaker fielding questions: Elon Musk.
Musk has already been a central topic of discussion at several such meetings and on internal Slack channels since he invested in and then offered to acquire Twitter earlier this year. Some workers have previously expressed "anger" and "dissapointment" at his taking over the company. Some have quit or plan to in protest. One worker who told Insider they are not put off by Musk taking over dubbed the reaction to him at Twitter "Elon derangement syndrome."
Questions to Twitter executives about Musk's takeover of the platform have ranged from concerns that Donald Trump will be allowed back on the platform to whether he will enact mass layoffs in an effort to get the company steadily profitable.
On Thursday, Musk will be able to field any such questions himself. And Agrawal said in his email that during the meeting "we'll cover topics and questions that have been raised over the past few weeks."
This will be the first time Musk has addressed Twitter workers since revealing in April his investment in the company and his subsequent takeover bid. | 2022-06-13T23:11:48Z | www.businessinsider.com | Elon Musk to Attend All Hands Meeting at Twitter This Week | https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-to-attend-all-hands-meeting-at-twitter-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-to-attend-all-hands-meeting-at-twitter-2022-6 |
The mass grave where workers were stationed Monday was located behind a trench dug out for a military vehicle, according to the AP. Seven civilian bodies were discovered, two of which were bound and had suffered gunshot wounds to the knees, Nebytov said.
More: Ukraine mass grave Bucha war crime | 2022-06-14T02:17:02Z | www.businessinsider.com | Bodies of Ukrainians With Knees Shot Suggest 'Torture,' Police Say | https://www.businessinsider.com/bodies-of-ukrainians-with-knees-shot-suggest-torture-police-say-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bodies-of-ukrainians-with-knees-shot-suggest-torture-police-say-2022-6 |
Chris Stirewalt, former Fox News political editor, testifies as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2022.
A former Fox News political editor testified before the January 6 committee on Monday.
Following his testimony, Chris Stirewalt told NPR that television news as entertainment has hurt Americans.
"They confused the TV show for the real thing," Stirewalt said of some Fox viewers.
Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt said he was surprised by the internal firestorm that erupted at his former workplace after Fox became the first major news network to call Arizona for President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Stirewalt, who was fired from Fox in January 2021, testified before the January 6 committee investigating the Capitol riot on Monday, telling lawmakers that former President Donald Trump's chance at victory was virtually zero after most networks called the election for Biden on November, 7, 2020.
Trump was reportedly enraged that Fox's decision desk called the swing state of Arizona for Biden before most other outlets did the same, but Stirewalt said he was confident in his team's work. Biden ultimately won the state by about 11,000 votes.
"We were able to make a call early," Stirewalt told the committee this week. "We were able to beat the competition."
But what Stirewalt wasn't expecting was the wave of backlash at Fox that followed the accurate projection.
Stirewalt spoke to NPR's David Folkenflik following his Monday testimony, telling the outlet that people close to Trump were hammering Fox executives and anchors to take back their Arizona call.
"We don't award any electoral votes. We don't count any ballots. We're some nerds in a room, and that's it," Stirewalt told NPR. "We're telling you what's going to happen, we're not making anything happen."
The ordeal left Stirewalt disillusioned about the state of network news in the US, he told the outlet.
"It showed to me how...the perceptions of events of television as entertainment, news as entertainment, and treating it like a sport had really damaged the capacity of Americans to be good citizens in a republic because they confused the TV show for the real thing," he said.
Stirewalt said Fox News played a self-fulfilling role in their Trump-supporting viewers' anger at the Arizona decision, lamenting the network's opinion hosts who, for months, repeated baseless claims about Trump's odds and the sanctity of the election.
"Fox News should have been proud of the work we did. We should have been rewarded and we should have been lifted up and they should have defended the journalists they hired to do a job," Stirewalt told NPR.
Fox fired Stirewalt two months after the Arizona projection. The network did not publicly comment on his dismissal.
Stirewalt has previously spoken about the "murderous rage" and attacks he faced from conservative Fox viewers following the call. He told NPR on Monday that he hopes the sensationalism of 2020 is done for good.
"In 2024, are we going to look back on 2020 and say 'that was weird, moving on?' Or are we entering a new chapter in American history where we gradually fall apart because we can't even agree on the results of the election?" Stirewalt said.
More: Fox news Trump January 6 commitee hearings Chris Stirewalt | 2022-06-14T02:17:08Z | www.businessinsider.com | Fired Fox News Editor Says TV News Has 'Really Damaged' Americans | https://www.businessinsider.com/fired-fox-news-editor-says-tv-news-really-damaged-americans-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/fired-fox-news-editor-says-tv-news-really-damaged-americans-2022-6 |
Former Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien (left) says he did not mind being called part of "Team Normal," as opposed to Team Giuliani.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images; Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Former Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien said he was part of "Team Normal" in the Trump camp.
In opposition to "Team Normal," Stepien said, was the team led by Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani aggressively pushed Trump's voter fraud claims while Stepien distanced himself from the campaign.
Former Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien says the Trump team was split into two camps after the election – "Team Normal" and "Team Giuliani."
The House Select Committee to Investigate January 6 played a clip of Stepien's testimony on Monday during the second of the committee's six public hearings. During his deposition, Stepien was asked if he had pulled back from the Trump camp to preserve his professional reputation.
"You didn't want to be associated with some of what you were hearing from the Giuliani team and others that — that sort of stepped in in the wake of your departure?" an unidentified questioner asked Stepien.
"I didn't mind being categorized. There were two groups of them. We called them kind of my team and Rudy's team. I — I didn't mind being characterized as being part of Team Normal, as — as reporters, you know, kind of started to do around that point in time," Stepien said.
Stepien added that he had worked in political campaigning "for a long time," with his work spanning ideologies from former President Donald Trump, Arizona Sen. John McCain, former President George W. Bush, and former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie.
Stepien then added that he quit after the election because he did not think what was happening was honest or professional.
"And, you know, I can work under a lot of circumstances for a lot of varied, you know, candidates and politicians," Stepien added. "But a situation where — and I think along the way, I've built up a pretty good — I hope a good reputation for being honest and — and professional, and I didn't think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time."
Giuliani led the Trump campaign's legal team and led a rollicking press conference in November 2020, where he made bizarre, baseless claims about voter fraud while his hair dye trickled down his face.
A longtime political operative, Stepien became Trump's campaign manager four months before the 2020 election, per CBS, taking over Brad Parscale. Stepien was originally one of the witnesses scheduled to testify at the second televised hearing, but bowed out after his wife went into labor Monday morning.
More: january 6 capitol riot capitol riot investigation Bill Stepien | 2022-06-14T03:44:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | Trump Aide Says Campaign Split Into 'Team Normal' and 'Team Giuliani' | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aide-says-campaign-split-into-team-normal-team-giuliani-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aide-says-campaign-split-into-team-normal-team-giuliani-2022-6 |
Former Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon said he was accused by former Trump aide Peter Navarro (above) of being a "deep state" operative when he dared question the validity of the baseless conspiracy theory that voting technology company Dominion was flipping votes from Trump to Biden.
Ex-Trump lawyer Alex Cannon testified about a conversation he had with Trump aide Peter Navarro.
Cannon said he told Navarro he had doubts about the Dominion voting machine conspiracy theory.
In response, Cannon said Navarro called him a "deep state" agent working against Trump.
Alex Cannon, a former Trump campaign lawyer, testified in front of the House Committee on January 6 and said that Trump aide Peter Navarro accused him of being a "deep state" operative because he expressed doubt over Dominion voting machine conspiracy theories.
Cannon's testimony was broadcast on Monday as part of the second of six public hearings on the committee's investigation.
During his deposition, Cannon said that he had a conversation with Navarro in mid-November, after the 2020 presidential election, about voter fraud allegations.
Cannon said he spoke to Navarro specifically regarding the conspiracy theory that Dominion voting machines were used to flip votes from Trump to Biden. This conspiracy has continually been pushed by Trump-allied lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, as well as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Dominion named all three in a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit.
"I recall him asking me questions about Dominion. And maybe some other categories of allegations of voter fraud. And I remember telling him that I didn't believe the Dominion allegations because I thought the hand recount in Georgia would resolve any issues with a technology problem and with Dominion, or Dominion flipping votes," Cannon said.
A hand recount held in late November 2020 confirmed Joe Biden won the state by a narrow margin.
Cannon told the panel's investigators that he mentioned to Navarro that Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, had released a report saying the election was secure. Trump fired Krebs after the election for contradicting Trump's baseless claims of election fraud.
"And I believe Mr. Navarro accused me of being an agent of the deep state working with Chris Krebs against the President. And I never took another phone call from Mr. Navarro," Cannon said.
The term "deep state" is often used in QAnon conspiracy theorist circles to refer to the idea of an individual working for a shadowy, government-linked entity. QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory that posits without substantiation that Trump is battling such a "deep state" cabal of satanic pedophiles.
In addition to his comments on Navarro, Cannon said he met former Vice President Mike Pence briefly and told Pence that he "didn't believe" the Trump campaign was finding "anything sufficient to alter the results of the election." Pence, he said, thanked him.
Navarro was indicted in June for contempt of Congress after repeatedly refusing to comply with the House investigation into the January 6 riot. Most recently, he claimed without substantiation that the FBI treated him like an "Al Qaeda terrorist" during the few hours that he was in custody.
More: Dominion Dominion Voting Systems Conspiracy Theories Conspiracy
chris krebs | 2022-06-14T05:15:38Z | www.businessinsider.com | Peter Navarro Accused Trump Lawyer of Being 'Deep State' Agent | https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-navarro-accused-trump-lawyer-deep-state-voter-fraud-conspiracies-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-navarro-accused-trump-lawyer-deep-state-voter-fraud-conspiracies-2022-6 |
Twitter and Coca-Cola use this startup to upskill their staffers. Check out the 21-slide pitch deck CoachHub used to raise $200 million in a round led by SoftBank.
CoachHub has raised $200 million in a Series C round
Berlin-based CoachHub has raised $200 million in a round led by SoftBank's Vision Fund.
The startup aims to give employees a more tailored training experience with curated video playlists.
Check out the 21-slide pitch deck CoachHub used to raise the funds below.
An employee training startup used by blue-chip companies like Coca-Cola, LVMH, and Twitter has raised $200 million in fresh funds.
Berlin-based CoachHub, which was founded in 2018, has become one of the world's biggest digital coaching platforms. The startup secured the capital in a Series C round co-led by Japanese investor SoftBank and Belgian firm Sofina.
CoachHub has developed a platform that aims to deliver tailor-made coaching with a real-time dashboard to track progress. It aims to take advantage of the boom in demand for online training that led to a record $20 billion invested into edtech startups in 2021, according to data from Dealroom.
"As workplaces continue adapting to the new normal of hybrid and remote models, leaders need individual support and solutions to boost employee performance, engagement, and motivation, while keeping wellbeing at the forefront," said CoachHub cofounder Matti Niebelschuetz.
The shift in working models triggered by the pandemic sparked a wave of interest in tech companies that support the digitization of processes that were once done primarily in a manual fashion.
For Yanni Pipilis, managing partner at SoftBank's Vision fund, the learning and development sector is among those sectors witnessing a strong trend towards "the digitization and personalization of services".
Its Series C round was also backed by existing investors such as Molten Ventures, Speedinvest, and HV Capital, and comes just eight months after it raised $80 million in a funding round.
The startup's platform has been shaped by engineers and behavioral scientists and offers employees a tailored program through both web and mobile-based apps that pair them to a curated playlist of videos from business coaches that the company says will address their specific needs.
CoachHub, which has made several strategic acquisitions over the past year of competitors such as MoovOne in France and Klaiton Coaching in Austria, aims to increase its headcount from 850 employees globally at present to more than 1,000 by the end of 2022.
The company will use the new funds to speed up its growth across the US, EMEA, and APAC.
Check out the 21-slide pitch CoachHub used below:
More: Features SoftBank Group Vision Fund 2 | 2022-06-14T08:18:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | CoachHub Raised $200 Million From SoftBank With This Pitch Deck | https://www.businessinsider.com/coachhub-raises-200m-softbank-led-round-with-this-pitch-deck-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/coachhub-raises-200m-softbank-led-round-with-this-pitch-deck-2022-6 |
Space quests to Mars, learning from NASA scientists and writing algorithms. Here's how metaverse gaming startup Royelles wants to help teach young girls about STEM.
A group of Royelles avatars.
Royelles
Royelles is a new educational video game for girls and non-binary kids to learn about STEM.
Players can go on educational quests in space and learn from real life NASA scientists.
Royelles was founded by Múkami Kinoti Kimotho, who wanted more educational games for her daughter.
Longtime diversity consultant and content creator Múkami Kinoti Kimotho came up with the idea for her mobile gaming startup, Royelles, after trying to find educational games for her 11-year-old daughter and coming up short.
The mobile gaming metaverse just launched and wants to inspire young girls to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering, and math, through interactive augmented reality quests and sessions with real life scientists.
"We know that children as young as 2 years old these days spend more than six hours a day on their smartphones, and mobile gaming is quite literally at the heart of everything they do," said Kimotho. "But the reality is that the available options out there from a gaming perspective really weren't created with girls in mind."
As she began to research solutions, Kimotho also found that young girls' interest in STEM takes a hit when they get to middle school.
A 2018 study conducted by Microsoft and KRC research found that girls begin to lose interest in pursuing projects in STEM for a variety of social factors, like peer pressure and lack of tools specifically targeting young women and girls.
Royelles CEO and founder Múkami Kinoti Kimotho started the game to support her daughter.
Kimotho decided to build her own mobile game that could fill this gap for girls like her daughter.
"It's all well and good to jump through hoops and roadblocks or to build something in Minecraft, but if that girl is not able to connect the dots to the possibilities that exist for her as an architect or an engineer in real life, then it's a wasted opportunity," said Kimotho.
The game, which just launched on Apple's App Store and for Android, tells the story of an interstellar princess named Mara who wants to be the first woman on a human mission to Mars. Her journey is narrated by Dr. Christyl Johnson, the deputy center director for technology and research investments at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Through Mara, players can interact with their virtual environment by tapping on prompts to learn more about the science of space travel and engineering, and even build simple algorithms within the game as part of Mara's quest. Using the mobile app, girls can also "beam" an avatar persona or character into their rooms using their device's camera feature and see these experiments take place in their own space.
Royelles also offers curated live sessions for players, where gamers can tune in on their devices and hear talks from successful women in STEM, including the game's narrator, Dr. Johnson. The team is working on building out other quests and avatars that players can choose from, Kimotho said.
Royelles has been bootstrapped thus far, but is in discussions with investors. The team is also hoping to launch Royelles on Amazon Fire tablets and Chromebooks later this year to bring the game into more educational settings, along with adding more storylines that can include different STEM lesson plans.
More: Startups Gaming Education
metaverse 2022 | 2022-06-14T09:53:51Z | www.businessinsider.com | Edtech Metaverse Game Royelles Launches to Teach Young Girls STEM | https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-edtech-game-royelles-launches-teach-young-girls-stem-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-edtech-game-royelles-launches-teach-young-girls-stem-2022-6 |
Banks are trying to create a world without cash — that would be a disaster for the economy
Big banks and Big Tech want to eliminate cash, but that would be terrible for our economy — even card users need cash sometimes.
"Dispense with a horse and save the expense, care and anxiety of keeping it," read the first automobile advertisement in 1898. An early term for these motorcars was "horseless carriage," which suggested that the innovation was unencumbered by the previous limitation of a living horse. I like to picture early car enthusiasts trying to overtake a horse cart on a country road while shouting, "Make way for the future!"
Now, much like the car salesmen in the past, purveyors of so-called cashless payments — all those bank cards, fintech platforms, and mobile apps that facilitate the transfer of digital dollars between accounts — are presenting cash as the horse-drawn cart of payments, saying that it survives only through the stubborn nostalgia of laggards. In a 2016 Super Bowl ad, PayPal launched an attack on "old money," contrasting it to a world of digital "new money." Players such as Visa and PayPal present digital money as an update to cash — the former even entered into a deal with the NFL to promote a cashless Super Bowl in 2020. Like the term "horseless carriage," the term "cashless payment" implies that some previous hindrance has been shaken off. And why hold on to an inferior system?
This denigration of cash has been effective. In major cities across the world, a rash of shops have started to go cashless, especially in the wake of COVID-19. In the UK, for example, cash usage collapsed by 50% in 2020 as cash users were rejected by stores that refused to take their physical money.
But cash is not an inferior system, and the idea that cash is the "horse-drawn cart of payments" is both misleading and dangerous. In fact, this rush to make the world cashless could result in millions of people getting entirely cut out of the global economy. Even people who prefer card or app payments should reject a totally cashless world. It's a world where even the tiniest of payments will have to travel via powerful financial institutions, which leaves us exposed to their surveillance and control — and also their incompetence. A payments system without cash is one dependent on banks that are prone to financial crises, systems failure, and cyberattacks.
The casino chips of the economy
Unlike the move from horse-drawn carriages to cars, digital bank transfers are not an upgrade to the current government cash system. That's because the cash-based system underpins its "cashless" counterpart. The easiest way to understand this is through an analogy. Are casino chips an "upgrade" to the cash you might hand over to get them? No. A casino chip is a limited-purpose form of money, issued by a casino. But if you weren't able to redeem a chip for cash, it would be worthless.
Winton Motor Carriage ad, 1896.
Many people don't realize that mainstream digital money is similar. The units you see in your bank account are "digital chips," issued to you by your bank, which you control with your payment card or mobile app. The entire digital-payments system — facilitated by companies such as Visa and Mastercard — is an elaborate network for transferring these bank-issued chips around, but they remain psychologically — and legally — anchored to the cash system. When you go to an ATM to withdraw cash, you're demanding the redemption of your chips.
It's not clear whether the digital monetary system could even exist without access to cash. The digital chips promise you government-issued dollar bills, and that promise is empty if you can't get those from the ATM. Despite this, banks in many countries are hoping that people slowly forget that they have a right to get their money out of the banking system, closing down ATMs and retail bank branches and effectively blocking the exits to the system. While older generations still make a clear distinction between "money outside the bank" (cash) and "money inside the bank" (digital bank chips), many younger people forget that there is an outside, and future generations may never know any better. As this progresses, we're getting locked into financial institutions that can watch us, influence us, and constrain us via their chokehold on the payments infrastructure.
Don't put all your eggs in the digital basket
Promoters of a cashless society paint cash as an out-of-date impediment — much like those horse-drawn carriages blocking the road for cars. Yet in reality, there's no conflict maintaining both cash and digital money systems. Unlike horse carts versus motorcars, cash runs on entirely different tracks to digital payments. It's a parallel system, and from a user's perspective, cash is more like the bicycle of payments than the horse cart. Cash may not move as fast or as far as transnational digital systems, but it's great for short outings, it's more inclusive, and it certainly comes in handy when the other system gets jammed up.
A digital bank account depends on getting access to the broader banking system, and on that system being maintained. Cash, by contrast, doesn't crash when the electricity fails or when a cyberattack brings a payments system down. Any society that relies exclusively on digital platforms run by mega-institutions is going to have major resilience problems. If the institutions go offline, you may suddenly find yourself unable to interact with your surroundings. During a 10-hour outage in Visa's European systems in 2018 — caused by a failure in its primary data center — 5.2 million payment attempts were blocked, which left people who'd become dependent on card payments stranded and searching for ATMs (which are getting harder to find). This is why there's a major spike in cash demand in the US prior to hurricane landings. People understand that digital systems are insecure, and in a world in which the climate crisis makes extreme weather events more likely, putting all your eggs into the digital basket makes your economy far less resilient.
But even in normal times there are many people who simply prefer cash, especially in informal settings where having digital institutions mediate seems like an overkill. Think of home poker games where friends stuff cash into a common pot, or wooden donation boxes at a community-run museum. Dropping cash into the box is simple, requires no account or digital infrastructure, and works fine in this down-to-earth situation. And why must globe-spanning digital-payments corporations stand between me and a homeless veteran whom I'm trying to give some dollars to?
People line up outside an ATM in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
It's also no secret that there are class dynamics to this: People with more wealth and education are more prone to using digital payments, partly because they have higher trust in institutions such as banks and greater access to them too. A Morning Consult poll from 2021 found that 10% of US adults didn't have a bank account. You don't need a sociology degree to see that cashless establishments proliferate first in gentrified areas among more well-off people, and that establishments that start to refuse cash might be covertly trying to discourage poorer customers from entering their premises. If this trend proliferates, we will see a split economy forming, with millions of cash users — including elderly people, ethnic minorities, and privacy activists — pushed into ever smaller enclaves where cash remains accepted.
Despite how crucial it is to maintain an inclusive, multimodal payments system with nonbank and non-digital options, our payments system is being driven toward a monoculture. Ads for digital payments don't say, "Enjoy the speed, convenience, surveillance, cyber-hacking, exclusion, and critical infrastructure weaknesses that our platform brings," yet that is what lies beneath the surface-level slickness of digital payments.
More power to the banks
One thing should be immediately clear: A major beneficiary of a move toward these digital chips is the banking industry . This is precisely why Brian Moynihan, Bank of America's CEO, openly declared, "We want a cashless society," adding that his firm has "more to gain than anybody" from a move to digital transactions.
This becomes obvious when you think through the differences between cash and card or app transactions. The former is localized, happening here and now between two people through the simple act of handing over a bill. A digital bank transfer, by contrast, is never localized: It's set in motion through a device — a card, phone, or computer — which communicates with a distant bank data center. So-called cashless transactions take place between two banks that act on your behalf, and which insert themselves between buyers and sellers. And this has serious privacy implications.
Firms such as Bank of America are excited about a cashless society because digital payments not only bring them fees but also vast amounts of data about who transfers how much to whom. Financial institutions find this data extremely useful in profiling customers — information that can be used to cross-sell products to them or to decide who gets loans — and major tech players, such as Google, can use it to track, for example, how effective their online advertising is. As commercial players build up these financial data dossiers on people to make a profit, it opens the way for governments to pry into the accumulated information as well.
More stores are refusing to take cash — a move which benefits big financial institutions and large tech companies, and hurts poor communities.
Horacio Villalobos/Corbis/Getty Images
In the cashless society that Moynihan and other executives seek, anyone who can't secure a bank account — or anyone who gets blacklisted by banks — effectively gets screened out of the economy. This could happen if you're part of a minority group that banks simply deem not profitable enough to offer accounts to, or it could happen for political reasons. One major concern about the rise of cashlessness in authoritarian countries is that banks can be ordered to, for example, stop political dissidents or pro-democracy campaigners from buying particular things from particular people.
During the Hong Kong protests of 2019, activists stood in lines to buy subway tickets with cash, just in case their card payments were monitored for evidence of them traveling to protest sites. In a cashless society, their payments could be not only watched but also blocked to prevent travel. We see a limited-scale example of this paternalism in the Australian "cashless welfare card," which prevents welfare recipients from buying alcohol and other non-approved goods from non-approved establishments. It also prevents them from withdrawing cash to get around the restrictions.
Cash fuels decentralization
But perhaps the most overlooked element of this story is the fact that the attack on cash is an attack on the local businesses that form the backbone of communities. One critique leveled at the Australian cashless welfare card is that it pushes people away from supporting local cash-based businesses and funnels them toward bigger retailers that work with Mastercard and Visa. Cash is by nature localized in its movement, and it's not likely to end up being used to support a faraway tech giant. In past decades it was normal for people to hand over cash to local storekeepers, but the growing norm today is for people to transfer digital bank chips to distant corporations, such as Amazon.
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets (2022)
Harper Business
The major beneficiaries of a cashless society are not only the banking and fintech players in big cities but also big tech companies. And while a plethora of digital-payments companies and apps now available might give the illusion of diversity in that realm, they're all built on the same underlying banking oligopolies; it's standard practice for fintech players to quietly partner with major banks .
But what about cryptocurrency? One of the claims made by the growing crypto industry is that digital tokens, such as bitcoin, provide a counterforce to the banks' digital-payments system and help to "democratize" digital finance away from large institutions. The vast majority of people who hold bitcoin, though, see it as something to be bought and sold for dollars, rather than a form of money itself. And even when it's used for exchange, people rely on its dollar price to decide how much of it to hand over. Crypto tokens face all the same hacking and resilience problems as any digital system, and they also subject users to wild and destabilizing swings in price as they get traded on speculative markets. There's a place for crypto, but fixating on it is a distraction.
The world's most vulnerable people rely on the already existing, physical cash system, and our priority should be to protect that system. But this campaign to protect cash is also in the interests of those who enjoy digital platforms. The fight for bicycle lanes in cities dominated by cars is not an anti-car move — car lovers also benefit from the reduced congestion and the option to use their bicycle from time to time. Similarly, we need to fight for cash infrastructure and pro-cash laws in order to prevent our economies, and our lives, from becoming totally dependent on a single set of digital giants. You may enjoy Venmo and Cash App in the short term, but in the long term, it's in everyone's interests to maintain an offline, inclusive, and localized form of money that you can switch to when the chips are down.
Brett Scott is a journalist, monetary anthropologist, and former financial broker. He is the author of Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets (2022).
Sections of this article were excerpted from the book "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for Our Wallets" by Brett Scott. Copyright © 2022 Reprinted by permission of Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
More: Cashless Society Cash digital currencies Big banks | 2022-06-14T11:24:43Z | www.businessinsider.com | Banks Want Cashless Society — It Would Be Disaster for Economy, Business, Privacy | https://www.businessinsider.com/banks-cashless-world-disaster-economy-business-fintech-cash-crypto-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/banks-cashless-world-disaster-economy-business-fintech-cash-crypto-2022-6 |
A financial coach who books $8,000 a month shares 9 easy ways to earn passive income, including affiliate marketing and selling online courses
Lisa Andrea is the financial coach behind The Financial Cookbook Blog.
Lisa Andrea
Lisa Andrea launched a financial blog in 2021 and booked $8,000 in revenue last month.
Through her business, she shares tips on generating multiple streams of income.
Andrea outlines 9 of the easiest ways to earn passive income, including eBay and stocks.
Lisa Andrea discovered the possibilities of passive income as a child, when she started a lemonade stand. She hired her younger brother — paying him a percentage of the profits — and reaped the remaining revenue without working at all.
Then a few years later, she began selling old clothes on eBay. By the time she was 15 years old, Andrea was making hundreds of dollars a month from that venture. Today, as a 34-year-old entrepreneur those earnings have turned into thousands of dollars and inspiration for her business.
From her experience building passive income streams and teaching herself the fundamentals of financial literacy, she launched the financial-advice blog The Financial Cookbook in February 2021. Through her company, Andrea teaches other women how to scale their income and find financial freedom.
Her business, which she runs as a side hustle, booked $8,000 in revenue in May alone, which Insider verified with documentation. What's more, she makes additional income through investing in stocks and selling on eBay.
Andrea spoke with Insider about nine methods of passive income she encourages everyone to try.
Andrea continues to work full time as a marketing expert for a Big Four accounting firm for the income, network of colleagues and friends, and additional events and opportunities. However, she does advise people to start side hustles in industries they are knowledgeable about if they're looking for extra cash.
For her, that came in the form of financial coaching, but certain industries are more promising for entrepreneurs right now. However, those looking for an additional job should be wary of the additional workload.
2. Google Ads
If you have a website with regular viewership and traffic, Andrea suggests charging advertising fees.
For example, Google's advertising program AdSense allows online-content creators to monetize their websites or YouTube videos and generate income through ads.
"AdSense works by matching ads to your site based on your content and visitors," and content creators should enable advertising space and ensure it's available on their websites and sign up for the AdSense program to start earning, according to Google.
Affiliate marketing allows content creators to direct viewers to another brand's site. Then, when a viewer makes a purchase, part of the profits go toward the creator.
"All you have to do is apply for affiliate programs, explain why you want to work with them, and how you'll drive income," said Andrea.
Some popular affiliate programs include Amazon, LTK (previously known as rewardStyle), and Partnerize.
4. Sponsored posts
Dana Hasson is a full-time creator and social-media influencer.
Julia Chesky
Andrea said companies typically contact her about brand partnerships, but she encourages other entrepreneurs to be more proactive when looking for passive income avenues. Sponsored posts can be a lucrative way to generate income as a content creator.
When reaching out to brands about potential partnerships, make sure your media kit is comprehensive and enticing — it's how companies gauge whether they want to work with you.
5. Sell products, templates, and courses
Andrea also sells her own products, including a résumé template and a virtual "75 hard" challenge, which allows users to track their habits for 75 days.
Depending on what you're knowledgeable and passionate about, creating and selling virtual or live courses is another way to generate extra cash, she said.
For example, Jessica Hawks is a virtual assistant and career coach. Her online courses, which she launched in 2020, helped scale her business to $1 million in company sales.
6. Invest in bonds
Bonds are loans corporations or institutions take out and give to investors. They are low-risk market investments in comparison to stocks, making them a great option for beginners, she said.
When purchasing a bond, investors have to wait until the value "matures" to see the return. But if you are willing to wait long enough, some bonds have interest rates as high as 9%, Andrea said.
7. Invest in stocks and crypto
The stock market can be really complicated, which is why Andrea breaks it down into two categories throughout her blog posts: stocks with dividends, and cryptocurrency.
When deciding where and how to invest, you should look at your budget, timeline, and risk tolerance, she said. For example, some crypto stocks have plummeted in recent weeks.
Purchasing, renting, or selling properties is a common route to passive income. But even those without large sums of expendable cash can take part through fundraising strategies like crowdfunding, she said.
Some companies, such as Fundrise and DiversyFund, allow people to invest as little as $100 into real-estate properties and generate a percentage of their investment when the property earns money, Andrea said.
"If you're investing $100, you're not going to make a huge return, but you're still going to make the same percentage as the person that invested $100,000," she said.
9. Sell on e-commerce sites like eBay
eBay is the most cost-effective platform for e-commerce sales, Andrea said. She recommends selling old clothes, coupons received in the mail, or finds from garage sales or local stores.
Nicholas Waskosky, a Poshmark seller, earns five figures a year selling old or upcycled clothes on the platform.
More: financial advice Passive Income Passive funds
income streams | 2022-06-14T11:25:08Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Earn Passive Income Through Affiliate Marketing and Google Ads | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-earn-passive-income-affiliate-marketing-google-ads-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-earn-passive-income-affiliate-marketing-google-ads-2022-6 |
Arielle Loren is the founder and CEO of 100K Incubator, the first business-funding app for women.
Arielle Loren
VC firm Y Combinator told startups in its portfolio to think about other ways to fundraise in 2022.
This comes at a time when VC investments are dropping and tech firms are laying off workers.
Founders outline other ways to raise money, like personal loans, frugal living, and credit cards.
The Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Y Combinator told startups in its portfolio that raising funds could get difficult this year.
"No one can predict how bad the economy will get, but things don't look good," said the letter, which was titled "economic downturn" and sent to founders planning to raise funding in the next six to 12 months. "The safe move is to plan for the worst."
Y Combinator's letter comes at a time when tech firms are implementing hiring freezes and layoffs because they're anticipating a recession later this year. Venture-capital investments are dropping, too: A May report by Crunchbase News found that the value of VC investments had dropped by $5 billion between March and April.
But raising venture capital isn't the only way to fund a business. Insider spoke with three founders who explained how they successfully started and scaled their companies without venture capital.
Determine the best type of financing based on your revenue
The funding expert Arielle Loren — who is also the founder of the first business-funding app for women, 100K Incubator — broke funding options into three levels based on a business' monthly revenue ranging from $0 to more than $100,000.
At level one are businesses that earn under $3,000 a month and haven't established proof of concept yet. Level-one funding options include business credit cards, personal loans, home-equity loans, and crowdfunding. Loren said these worked best because these founders hadn't started making a serious profit. As a result, they shouldn't take out funding that they might not be able to repay.
Businesses at level two earn $3,000 or more a month in sales and are on track to reach six figures a year. Loren lists funding options such as pitch competitions, government contracts, government small-business loans and private business loans, payment-processor loans, and business lines of credit for companies to consider. These are good options for businesses that have just started earning steady revenue and are looking to expand.
The final level comprises companies that earn $9,000 or more a month in sales. For businesses that might not want to pursue venture capital based on the recent warnings, angel investing is another option. Business owners can consider this when their companies are showing enough growth to pursue serious funding.
Additionally, the biggest advantage for businesses in level three is that there's nothing to repay. However, it also means that the owner will be giving up more of their equity and therefore more parties can be involved in making decisions.
When money is tight, use a spreadsheet to track expenses
Shereen Campbell started her online business My Little Magic Shop selling crystals, gemstones, and jewelry with $3,400 from a tax refund. She wanted to track every dollar she was investing in her business and used a detailed budget spreadsheet to organize expenses like savings, debt payments, and paychecks.
She also created a second spreadsheet that tracked her company's revenue, traffic, and sales targets. This helped her scale the business, and she now books $12,000 a month in revenue.
"Being so diligent about creating and maintaining these two spreadsheets really, really helped to keep me focused, disciplined, and strategic," she previously told Insider.
Set a frugal budget and stick to it
Jeremy Schneider said the key to successfully building his business RentLinx, an advertising website for rental properties, was living frugally. He stuck to a fixed budget for grocery shopping, drove an older car, and paid himself a minimum salary to keep costs low while scaled the young startup.
"I had a roommate, and our rent was $1,400, so I was paying half of that," he previously told Insider. "It was very frugal living."
In 2015, 12 years after he started RentLinx, he sold it for $2 million.
More: Venture Capital Silicon Valley Small Business Fundraising | 2022-06-14T11:25:14Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Raise Money for Your Business Without Venture Capital | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-raise-money-for-your-business-without-venture-capital-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-raise-money-for-your-business-without-venture-capital-2022-6 |
Venture capitalists are still investing. Here's how to raise VC money right now, according to investors and entrepreneurs.
Pano Anthos, founder of XRC Labs at the recent XRC Demo Day presentation.
XRC Labs
The first quarter of 2022 saw a 19% decrease in global investments from the fourth quarter of 2021.
Despite the drop, investors still hold some available funds, experts told Insider.
Here are two venture capitalists' tips for raising and the most promising industries right now.
Alongside recent news of an economic slowdown and a potential recession, venture-capital investments dropped in the first quarter of this year.
The global $143.9 billion raised in the first quarter of 2022 was 19% less than the quarter prior. Despite the steepest quarter-over-quarter drop in global funding in almost a decade, venture capital is still flowing to certain industries, according to experts Insider interviewed.
Some of today's highest raisers are coming from industries like healthcare and technology, said Pano Anthos, the founder of startup accelerator XRC Labs, at the company's Demo Day presentation in May. Additionally, he outlined the five main sectors that XRC Labs believes are poised to do well this year: the consumerization of healthcare, Web3, marketplaces, consumer brands, and digital technologies in commerce.
Insider spoke with Anthos, a VC advisor, and two startup founders who shared tips for raising capital right now.
1. Get in at an early stage
Despite news of decreased funding, early-stage companies are still in a good position for investment opportunities, said Adam Kaufman, a senior advisor at Ovo Fund, a VC fund that has invested in companies like the Citizen app.
"A lot of people would probably say it's not the ideal time for founders to raise money, but there is still a ton of money in private hands," he said. "The key is to know how to identify the right sources of capital and to inspire partners to believe in your vision."
2. Innovate on existing industries
Transforming your supply chain is one way to innovate.
Data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are industries Kaufman is watching for future opportunities. However, the best kind of new business is one that people can relate to and understand, Anthos added.
"Inventing something and getting customers to change behavior? That's very hard," he said. Instead, he suggests founders innovate through substitution, redesign, or creating a new way to do something.
He advises entrepreneurs to ask themselves questions like: How can something move another way instead of in a straight line? What's a more efficient and sustainable way to manufacture? How can we utilize technology to help inform decisions?
3. Bring marketplaces to industry intersections
Marketplaces are a growing sector of our economy and promising for founders to tap, Anthos said. Marketplaces are some of the easiest businesses for consumers to understand and use, he added.
If a founder has expertise in multiple industries, marketplaces are a great way to combine them and solve the overlapping issues, he said.
4. Design with customers in mind
Experimenting with "product-customer-channel fit"— which is determining which products and channels of sale customers interact with best — is the process Sung Park, the founder of nutritious-snacks company Fyxx Health, uses. Park says that strategy for scaling businesses helped him raise nearly $800,000 in total venture capital.
"Our philosophy is to create a series of experiments," he said, adding that Fyxx experiments by sending products into the market to discover which ones sell and which ones don't. "It's much more accurate and believable than market research."
Understanding the consumer reaction is a necessary step to growing and generating funding for a business today, Anthos said.
XRC Labs Demo Day, 2022 cohort network.
5. Network to build your staff and investor portfolio
It is critical for a founder to build their teams from the earliest stages, Kaufman said. The current competitive environment makes a solid team much more enticing to investors, especially for tech and software entrepreneurs.
"The founder who can convince talented developers to join him will be in a desirable position to grow and to attract more capital," Kaufman added.
Meanwhile, Zarina Bahadur — founder of baby-essentials subscription-box business 123 Baby Box — said it's important for founders to network. To date, she's raised just shy of $600,000 in VC.
It's important to be realistic about connecting with investors who are in your network of peers and also unknown to you as an early founder, she said.
"If you are one person away from a VC or an angel, try to get that intro," she said. "But if there's a VC you're far from, don't focus on them — find the lowest hanging fruit, then it's a ripple effect."
More: Venture Capital Venture Capitalists venture capitalist | 2022-06-14T11:25:20Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to Raise Venture Capital for Your Startup, Despite the Recession | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-raise-venture-capital-best-industries-networking-recession-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-raise-venture-capital-best-industries-networking-recession-2022-6 |
Today's mortgage and refinance rates: June 14, 2022 | Rates moderate ahead of expected Fed hikes
Mortgage rates spiked late last week following the release of May's Consumer Price Index data, which showed that inflation rose again last month after a decline in April. This week, rates have trended back down slightly, though 30-year fixed mortgage rates are still elevated above 5%.
The Federal Reserve is meeting today, and it's expected to announce a 0.5% increase to the federal funds rate tomorrow. But last week's CPI report has sparked some concerned that the central bank will choose to move more aggressively in its fight to tame inflation, and may instead enact a 0.75% hike, which could push mortgage rates higher. | 2022-06-14T11:25:38Z | www.businessinsider.com | Today's Mortgage, Refinance Rates: June 14, 2022 | Rates Moderate Ahead of Expected Fed Hikes | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-tuesday-june-14-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-tuesday-june-14-2022-6 |
How do you refinance?
Average interest rates on most refinanced student loans have increased since two weeks ago, according to Credible. Only five-year variable graduate rates have gone down. Five-year rates on undergraduate loans have jumped substantially, and rates on all 10-year loans are up.
Laurel Taylor, CEO and founder of student debt fintech company FutureFuel.io, says that over the last two decades, it has been rare for rates to rise so significantly over such a short period of time. However, Taylor says borrowers shouldn't be too worried about the jump in federal rates.
Note: Federal loans are almost always a better option than private loans. They come with fixed interest rates that are often lower than private lenders and your credit history doesn't factor into lending decisions. Additionally, they have many perks that private lenders don't offer, including the current repayment pause.
Refinance rates on 5-year variable-rate undergraduate student loans have skyrocketed this past week, increasing by 1.40% from two weeks ago to hit 4.47%.
The refinance rates on 5-year variable graduate loans are actually down compared to two weeks ago. Currently, the average rate is 3.24%.
Refinance rates on 10-year fixed student loans this past week have increased a little bit from two weeks ago. Undergraduate rates have risen by 21 basis points, while graduate rates have gone up by 37 basis points. Rates have gone up substantially from six months ago.
How do you refinance a student loan?
To start refinancing, look at different companies and check your terms with each lender. Look over the details of each offer and figure out which rate and term length is best for you. When you check your rates, lenders will often perform a soft credit check, which doesn't hurt your credit score.
You'll need to apply to refinance through a private student loan lender, as you aren't able refinance a student loan through the federal government.
Once you've picked a company, you'll fill out its application and provide documents that verify your finances and identity. After the lender gives you its final offer, you'll need to agree to the terms and sign on the dotted line. Then, your new lender will pay off your existing loan and you'll be ready to go with a new loan.
If you want a lower interest rate and are able to pay off your loan more quickly, a 5-year loan term could be an excellent choice. You'll save money in interest and will free up money to put toward your other financial goals faster.
A 10-year loan term will be more expensive overall, but you'll make smaller monthly payments. This may make it easier for you to repay your loan if you're on a tight budget. | 2022-06-14T11:25:44Z | www.businessinsider.com | This Week's Student Loan Refinancing Rates: June 14, 2022 | 5-Year Undergraduate Rates Jump Substantially | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/student-loan-refinancing-rates-today-tuesday-june-14-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/student-loan-refinancing-rates-today-tuesday-june-14-2022-6 |
Morgan Stanley's stock chief breaks down why the S&P 500 is likely to fall another 9% before a bottom is visible — and shares his 3 favorite areas of the market for the short-term
Stocks closed in a bear market on Monday.
Stocks officially closed in a bear market on Monday, down more than 20% from January highs.
Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson says they will likely fall another 9%.
He shared in notes to clients why he sees further downside, and where to invest.
Stocks continued their 2022 slide on Monday, officially entering a bear market as the S&P 500 closed more than 20% below its high at 3,764.
According to Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, things are only going to get worse.
The bank's chief US equity strategist said in notes to clients on Sunday and Monday that he expects the S&P 500 to fall to around 3,400, or about 9% lower than Monday's close.
That's because the market is still not appropriately discounting the risk to earnings growth, Wilson said.
Wilson said this is evident in the current level of the equity risk premium (ERP), which is the expected return from stocks minus the yield on the 10-year Treasury notes, which is seen as a risk-free investment. The ERP is currently at around 3%.
When the economy is slowing down, the ERP should typically rise because investors usually pile into the safe-haven Treasury bonds (sending yields downward) and exit riskier stocks.
But yields on the 10-year Treasury note have risen too high in recent months amid soaring inflation, Wilson argues, and will eventually likely recede.
"At year end, the ERP was 315bps, well below the average of the past 15 years. It was also below our estimate for the ERP of 335bps at the time. In short, the ERP was not reflecting the rising risks to growth in 2022 that we expected coming into this year," Wilson said. "Fast forward to today, and the ERP is even lower at just 295bps. Given the rising risk of slowing growth and earnings, this part of the P/E seems more mispriced today than 6 months ago."
Wilson said the ERP could reasonably be at around 5% until earnings fall, but said he expects it to go to around 3.7%.
"If we avoid a recession over the next 12 months (still our economists' base case), we stick to our view that 3,400 for the S&P 500 is a more reliable level of support that takes into account our view for 3-5% lower earnings than consensus forecasts, a 3% 10-year yield and an ERP of 370bps," he said.
He continued: "This all translates to approximately 15x $230 in EPS. It's also where technical support lies — 200 week moving average, the pre COVID highs and the break out point from the announcement of the vaccines."
Fueling Wilson's view on earnings are grim consumer sentiment data — the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey fell to it's lowest level ever last week — and high inflation.
Poor sentiment is worrisome for earnings as consumers could begin to spend less, yet so is uber-hawkish Fed policy that will also weigh on demand and is likely to stick around longer after May's Consumer Price Index report of 8.6%.
3 areas of the market for the short-term
While Wilson is bearish on the S&P 500's prospects in the near-term, he said he still likes three areas of the market in particular.
Two of them — energy stocks and defensive stocks (like utilities and food companies) — perform well late in economic cycles, Wilson said. This is because energy and defensive stocks tend to be less susceptible to consumer demand slowdowns given the necessity for their products.
He also said he likes firms with "high operational efficiency," or highly profitable companies.
"With growth now the main risk to stocks, our focus remains on names that can deliver on earnings in a very difficult environment for many companies to navigate," Wilson said. "In short, it is still the year of the stock picker as the index remains challenged."
Investors seeking exposure to the above areas of the market might consider exchange-traded funds like the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), the Invesco Defensive Equity ETF (DEF), and the PowerShares S&P 500 High Quality ETF (SPHQ).
More: Investing Stock Market Analysis stock market bearish view
Equity Risk Premium | 2022-06-14T11:25:56Z | www.businessinsider.com | Why Stock Market Will Fall Another 9%, 3 Areas to Invest in: MS | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-sell-off-how-far-fall-where-to-invest-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-sell-off-how-far-fall-where-to-invest-2022-6 |
Good morning! I'm Aaron Weinman and on this day last year, Coca-Cola lost $4 billion in value because Cristiano Ronaldo removed Coke bottles from his press table at the European Championships.
Now, let's get into today's news.
1. It's anyone's guess whether Elon Musk will buy Twitter. The billionaire agreed to acquire the social-media platform for about $44 billion in April, but acts like he wants to walk away from it as he continues to moan about fake accounts.
Musk's making an appearance at a Twitter all-hands meeting on Thursday, according to an internal memo viewed by Insider, giving Twitter workers a chance to field questions to the billionaire.
One burning inquiry — and lively point of discourse — surrounds the financing attached to the acquisition. The deal comprises Musk's gargantuan $21 billion equity commitment, and the $12.5 billion margin loan that he secured against his stock in Tesla (and that he's since paid back).
The last piece of debt is the $13 billion in bridge loans, part of which would be taken off banks' balance sheets and sold as high-yield bonds or leveraged loans in the capital markets.
Banks that underwrote this stand to pocket millions of dollars in fees each in what's been an otherwise paltry year for capital-markets dealmaking.
But assuming Musk goes through with a deal for Twitter, this "bridge financing" will not be so easy to offload onto third-party investors like hedge funds, institutional investors, and collateralized loan obligations, the latter being the largest buyer (more than 60%) of leveraged loans, bankers familiar with the deal told Insider.
Bond and loan investors, above all else, love something Twitter does not have — cash flow. Musk's lack of a business plan and erratic behavior also has investors spooked, which makes selling this debt a tall order, should that day ever come.
This is one of the reasons why well-known leveraged-finance banks like Credit Suisse, RBC, Deutsche Bank, and Citi passed on underwriting the term loans, the bankers familiar with the transaction said.
Banks don't want to be left holding onto this debt should the investor community say "thanks, but no thanks."
You can listen to me talk about this on The Refresh from Insider.
Point72's Denis Dancanet, president of cubist systematic strategies
2. Denis Dancanet defected to the US via a chess tournament before becoming one of Wall Street's most-powerful quant execs. He also built two startups, including one that's constructing flying cars. Dancanet's story is the latest from Insider's series that highlights top quants who quit the Street to build something new.
3. Lawyers at Wall Street's go-to firms are making boatloads of cash. One attorney with "outrageous discretionary spending" told Insider how he allocates his paycheck.
4. Staying with rich folks, these heavy-pocketed people are tackling inflation with bets on music royalties and farms. Four investment strategy heads told Insider what is hot and what's not for the country's wealthiest folks.
5. This Wall Street copper is warning about WhatsApp and Signal use. Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, told Bloomberg that banks and hedge funds should monitor these encrypted apps as these messaging services are where his team will look for nefarious activities.
6. Sen. Dan Sullivan will testify about his proposal to stop index fund managers from voting on shareholder proposals. The Republican from Alaska wants these proposals to have explicit consent from the larger institutional investors. The testimony comes as BlackRock and other money managers face heavy criticism from mostly conservatives over their liberal-leaning initiatives around ESG.
7. Thoma Bravo shaved 3% off the price it's paying for software company Anaplan, the Financial Times reported. In return, the buyout group increased the fee it would pay Anaplan if the deal falls through to $1 billion from $586 million.
8. HSBC could unlock almost $27 billion in value should it split off its Asian business, as a big shareholder has called for. The British bank could spin off its Asian business, or its Hong Kong retail bank through IPOs, according to a report from In Toto Consulting published by Bloomberg.
9. Celsius said it's pausing account withdrawals and transfers. The crypto lender has doled out more than $8 billion to clients but bitcoin and other digital currencies have nosedived in recent months.
10. Israeli startup Odeeo just scored $9 million in seed funding. Here's key slides from the deck that helped the mobile game advertiser leverage demand for a segment that could top $6 billion this year.
Bain Capital Credit and J.C. Flowers & Co. invested $100 million in wealth management platform Insigneo Financial Group.
Alpine Investor-backed Trilon Group acquired Ramey Kemp Associates, a North Carolina-based transportation consultant.
Event invite: The fourth installment in Insider's "Financing a Sustainable Future" series is today, June 14 at noon Eastern. This event, in partnership with Bank of America, focuses on corporate governance, perhaps the most difficult measure of ESG reporting. Check out the previous three events and register for today's event here. | 2022-06-14T12:55:54Z | www.businessinsider.com | Wall Street: Elon's $13 Billion Quagmire | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-wall-street-elon-musk-twitter-loans-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-wall-street-elon-musk-twitter-loans-2022-6 |
Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it plans to lay off about 1,100 employees or about 18% of its total workforce.
The cryptocurrency platform said its workforce will be reduced to about 5,000 workers by the end of the second quarter of 2022. Earlier this month, the company began rescinding job offers via a mass email to employment candidates.
The news comes nearly a month after the cryptocurrency market began to plummet. Bitcoin has slid for nearly 12 straight weeks, dropping from highs near $50,000 to as low as $22,002 as of Tuesday morning. The crypto crash has caused traders to lose about $2 trillion since a peak in November, according to NBC News.
Coinbase stock has dropped about 5% in pre-market trading following the news of more layoffs at the company. The company is one of several tech ventures to initiate a series of sweeping layoffs in the US as CEOs and economists warn of an impending recession amid soaring inflation.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the decision was made as the result of concerns related to an impending recession that could lead to another crypto winter. Armstrong said employees will be notified Tuesday morning via an email from HR. Workers who are laid off will receive a minimum of 14 weeks of severance.
He said the company over-hired in the beginning of 2021 and believes a workforce reduction will increase Coinbase's efficiency. Over the past year, the company hired about 3,200 new employees.
The layoffs were announced the same day that JPMorgan downgraded the stock, citing the crypto market sell-off, as well as Coinbase's hiring ramp up in 2022.
More: crypto Crypto crash Coinbase Layoffs | 2022-06-14T12:56:12Z | www.businessinsider.com | Coinbase to Lay Off 1,100 Employees Amid Crypto Bloodbath | https://www.businessinsider.com/coinbase-layoffs-1100-employees-amid-crypto-bloodbath-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/coinbase-layoffs-1100-employees-amid-crypto-bloodbath-2022-6 |
Premium Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Executive Lifestyle
Chef Daniel Humm reopened Eleven Madison Park as a meat-free restaurant in June 2021. The year since has been a "shit show," according to insiders.
Chandler Yerves had wanted to work at Eleven Madison Park since he was 14 years old. After all, it had been named the best restaurant in the world, counted Leonardo DiCaprio and Martha Stewart as fans, and had pioneered decadent culinary techniques like its celery root braised in pig's bladder and honey lavender roast duck.
So when Yerves was hired in May 2021 after showing up on a broken ankle to beg for a job, he was elated. Eleven Madison Park had been closed for 15 months during the coronavirus pandemic. Not only did Yerves have the opportunity to finally work there, but he had the rare chance to launch its brand-new vegan tasting menu. It was a chef's dream.
Or it was until the day he found himself running around the streets of New York holding a ruler.
A sous-chef sent Yerves out, instructing him not to return until he had enough 5-inch red peppers for that evening's dish of fried peppers wrapped in Swiss chard. Yerves' bosses didn't care where the peppers came from. All that mattered was that they were exactly 5 inches and looked like the photos the restaurant posted on Instagram of its tasting menu.
A post shared by Eleven Madison Park (@elevenmadisonpark)
Eataly's peppers were too big; two different Whole Foods didn't have them. It took him two hours to finally find the precise peppers at the third or fourth Whole Foods he visited. Half of the peppers he purchased ended up in the garbage, in line with what another former employee called Eleven Madison Park's "farm to trash" pipeline.
Yerves knew he needed to quit. He was exhausted from waking up at 4 a.m. and going to sleep at midnight, standing for six days a week on a broken ankle. (His walking boot was banned from the kitchen because of its open toe.) While the vegan tasting menu cost $335, he was paid $15 an hour as a commis chef, or junior prep cook. He was tired of being yelled at for things like scooping ice "too loudly" in the infamously silent kitchen. He bristled at the bins upon bins of wasted produce as Eleven Madison Park's owner and chef, Daniel Humm, trumpeted the restaurant's "higher purpose" and commitment to sustainability.
"It was definitely a huge toll on my mental health," Yerves, who quit in November, said. "It was definitely the most egotistical restaurant I've ever been in in my life."
Eleven Madison Park has been around since the 1990s, when the restaurateur Danny Meyer owned it. But it wasn't until 2011 after Humm and Will Guidara, then the general manager, purchased the art-deco establishment that it became one of the most acclaimed — and buzzed about — restaurants in the world. With parties DJed by Questlove and tableside magic tricks, Eleven Madison Park made fine dining exciting. It was a place where staff members would surprise a family visiting from Spain with customized sleds after an 11-course meal so they could explore snowy Central Park. In 2015, The New York Times gave EMP a four-star review, praising its "relentless, skillful campaign of joy," and it topped San Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017.
In 2019, Humm shocked employees when he bought out Guidara. Guidara wanted to expand the restaurant empire — which included NoMad hotel restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas and the fast-casual spot Made Nice — while Humm was obsessed with creative freedom. Months later, the pandemic hit. Humm considered permanently shutting Eleven Madison Park in the face of looming bankruptcy, telling Bloomberg in May 2020 it would take "millions of dollars to reopen." When $62,500 in PPP loans and rent forgiveness put reopening back on the table, Humm decided to relaunch it as a 100% vegan restaurant in June 2021. He said he wanted to "redefine luxury as an experience that serves a higher purpose."
The reviews were brutal from the start. In September, Ryan Sutton wrote in Eater that Humm "doesn't yet appear to fully possess the palate, acumen, or cultural awareness" to pull off the vegetable-centric meal, while the New York Post declared that veganism "might be ruining" Humm's career. Perhaps most scathing was the New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells' review in September, in which he wrote the vegetables were "so obviously standing in for meat or fish that you almost feel sorry for them." A heavily hyped beet dish, he wrote, "tastes like Lemon Pledge and smells like a burning joint." Wells capped off the critique by revealing the private dining room still served meat, "a secret room where the rich eat roasted tenderloin while everybody else gets an eggplant canoe."
It was just, to put it very simply, a shit show.
It's been one year since Eleven Madison Park's vegan relaunch. And while the reopening prompted a 50,000-person waiting list, the online-reservation site Tock now shows open tables almost every night. It would be easy to blame waning interest on the pivot to veganism — not everyone is willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for a dinner without the caviar and foie gras luxuries that typically appear on high-roller menus. But seven current and former employees who worked at EMP since the relaunch said the restaurant faced bigger problems. The past year has been packed with pressure, chaos, and understaffing. Some described Humm as more focused on his image as a celebrity thought leader than on acting as a chef. That would be far less of a problem if Humm weren't essentially rebuilding from scratch. After he and Guidara split, most of the key players left for other ventures. New hires burned out quickly and fled en masse. The restaurant where it was once nearly impossible to get hired has been trying to recruit workers on Instagram, where it recently listed 16 open positions.
"There were suddenly sous-chefs who were walking out of the restaurant. There were cooks who were walking out of the restaurant," a line cook who quit in late 2021 told Insider. "It was just, to put it very simply, a shit show."
(Some of the 11 former Eleven Madison Park employees interviewed for this article requested to remain anonymous for fear of professional repercussions, but their identities are known to Insider.)
A representative for Eleven Madison Park said in an email that Humm was "extremely proud of the team's tireless work."
"When Daniel reopened Eleven Madison Park post-pandemic, he told the New York Times that 'we couldn't go back to doing what we did before,'" the person wrote. "Neither the restaurant nor he plan to retreat from these necessary changes due to some mostly anonymous and flat-out erroneous critiques from former employees, competitors and other agenda-driven sources."
Most employees hired to relaunch Eleven Madison Park found out it was going vegan when the rest of the world did: when Humm posted about it on Instagram in May 2021, about a month before the opening.
Quietly eccentric, with an easy smile and a perfectionist streak, the 6-foot-4 Humm convinced many employees that what they were doing was revolutionary, people who staffed the relaunch told Insider. Humm argued that the modern meat-centric food system was not sustainable, earning praise from experts like Michael Pollan who said plant-based fine dining could help address the climate crisis by legitimizing vegetables' culinary potential. One employee recalled Humm comparing their mission to the first moon landing — some would doubt them, but it would change the world.
Despite Humm's grand aspirations, current and former employees say he's spent more time off-site curating his image than actually working in the kitchen. Humm is regularly seen out and about hobnobbing with power players: He met with Eric Adams during Adams' New York City mayoral campaign in August; spoke at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November; and sat front row at his friend Gabriela Hearst's fashion show this past March. Even the women he dates are high profile, including the billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and his current girlfriend, Demi Moore.
Humm made headlines in March when news broke he was dating Demi Moore after the two were spotted front row at Paris Fashion Week.
Five people said Humm rarely visited the kitchen during service except to take VIP guests on tours, laughing with them as cooks silently prepared meals. Yerves recalls the chef personally calling Angelina Jolie's agent to invite Jolie to the reopening. One memorable 2021 kitchen tour ended with Woody Harrelson and Humm dancing around the kitchen and lighting up a joint — an event that delighted some employees while disgusting others.
"He acted like an idiot," a former front-of-house employee said, adding that servers started walking laps around the restaurant with trays of the pungent beet dish, not destined for anyone, to cover up the smell of pot.
"We kind of felt that Chef had lost touch with everything. It's not Eleven Madison Park, the institution that is bigger than all of us," the former employee said, adding that since the relaunch, the restaurant had "just been a vehicle for Daniel Humm to be Daniel Humm."
As Humm mingled with celebrities, Eleven Madison Park staffers were reaching their breaking points, with six former employees saying they were driven out by low pay, long hours, and a lack of support.
In the tight labor market of 2021, most New York City restaurants were forced to raise wages to try to retain talent; Eleven Madison Park stubbornly kept its starting pay at $15 an hour. Even with overtime, employees said this was less than at other fine-dining restaurants, especially because tipping was banned at EMP. One former employee recalled Chipotle's founder, Steve Ells — who sold Humm his $14.5 million Manhattan apartment — being "insulted" when employees refused his $1,000 tip.
A current employee said many employees quit to work at "lesser restaurants" that lacked Eleven Madison Park's prestige. But at their new jobs, the person said, "they were making more money — a lot more." One former employee said many people left for Danny Meyer's restaurant The Modern, where starting pay was said to be about $22 an hour and Meyer had already ended his famous no-tipping policy.
Meanwhile at EMP, kitchen staff members said 80-hour weeks became the norm, with some days stretching more than 18 hours. Long shifts weren't uncommon at Eleven Madison Park before the pandemic, but employees were now forced to juggle roles as people continued to quit, former employees said.
A former employee said quitting was a regular topic of conversation among Eleven Madison Park staffers in 2021, following the reopening.
Numerous former employees said they lacked support, time off, and proper meals. Arielle Smith, a maître d' from the relaunch until this past February, told Insider she saw colleagues breaking down in tears in the women's locker room weekly. A former kitchen employee said he felt pressure to come to work while ill. He vomited twice before asking to go home, he said, but the chef de cuisine told him he had to finish his prep work first.
"Everyone was depressed," said the former kitchen employee, who recalled employees at afterwork drinks in 2021 fantasizing about quitting. "Everyone was like, 'This place is not OK.'"
Three former employees said even family meals — preservice staff meals once so delicious that New York magazine wrote about the sous-vide shawarma, fresh gnocchi, and toasted coconut-cream pies at EMP's sister restaurant The NoMad — took a beating. Overworked chefs had little time and ingredients to make meals that properly sustained workers, three people said. Meals had to be vegan to satisfy Humm, a former employee said, even though the famous chef himself eats meat. A former employee recalled eating cauliflower and beets day after day. After their shift, some employees would get Sticky's fried chicken or a burger at McDonald's, another former employee said.
One former kitchen employee who didn't have time during his 14-hour shift to seek out alternative food said his health began to suffer so greatly that he went to see a doctor. Preparing food himself or bringing some from home was allowed, but he said he didn't have the time or money to do so every day. He told Insider he submitted a request to management that chicken be added as an option for family meals, as it was still quietly served in the private dining room at that time. But soon after, Wells' New York Times review was published and outrage over the secret "meat room" exploded. The employee's request was ignored.
Many employees say it wasn't just the low pay and tough working conditions that drove them away; it was the fact that they stopped believing in Humm's mission.
When Eleven Madison Park reopened, Humm boasted about his plans to create dishes centered on produce from the fashion photographer Maciek Kobielski's Magic Farms in upstate New York. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the farm would "soon be one of EMP's primary suppliers of fresh produce."
In reality, most vegetables were sourced from delivery services like Baldor instead of farms or local markets, Yerves and another former employee said. Both former employees, who quit in late 2021, said workers regularly trashed entire green boxes of produce from Magic Farms. Vegetables that weren't the right size or that had even a slight blemish went in the garbage, along with any unused produce. (Kobielski told Insider his collaboration with Eleven Madison Park — his farm's sole customer — had been a "positive and meaningful experience" and he'd had "no indication that food I produce for the restaurant is wasted.")
This particularly struck a nerve considering Humm cofounded the nonprofit Rethink Food, which collects and redistributes excess food from restaurants' kitchens. During the pandemic, Humm partnered with Rethink to serve free meals to low-income communities out of a food truck; EMP pledges to donate five meals for every meal served at the restaurant. Three former Eleven Madison Park employees said bins of food were trashed daily instead of being donated to Rethink or composted. Rethink Food CEO Matt Jozwiak, a former EMP chef de partie, told Insider it took "a few months" to organize the transfer of excess food from Eleven Madison Park to the truck's dedicated kitchen in Queens.
The former kitchen employee said it was bizarre to watch Humm describe Eleven Madison Park as a farm-to-table restaurant to the media when he found it to be "farm to trash."
This is the new EMP, and everybody is new, and no one really knows how to do this.
All this took its toll on morale and staff retention, and Eleven Madison Park began experiencing a problem it had never dealt with before: understaffing.
Most of the people hired to launch the vegan menu last year are now gone, current and former employees say; they note that less than a handful of the roughly 45 staff members hired last June for the kitchen remain.
Maria Reuge said that when she worked at Eleven Madison Park and The NoMad from 2011 to 2017, she turned away applicants with years of experience who were desperate to be reservationists or kitchen servers. Eleven Madison Park's 16 open positions include senior roles like sommelier and sous-chef that were once achievable only through internal promotions.
While Smith, the former maître d', is grateful for her time at Eleven Madison Park, she said the restaurant had lost experienced employees who were once crucial to its culture.
"This is the new EMP, and everybody is new, and no one really knows how to do this at the level that they've been doing it," she said.
Humm's commitment to plant-based fine dining has posed other problems for his restaurant portfolio, which now consists solely of EMP.
Humm's London restaurant, Davies and Brook at the hotel Claridge's, shuttered in December after the hotel refused to allow the chef to switch to a vegan menu. In March, the New York Post reported that owners of the swanky skyscraper 425 Park Avenue killed Humm's long-held plans to open "a Four Seasons on steroids," his new meat-free vision being the dealbreaker.
At Eleven Madison Park, interest in the vegan menu may be waning. A former employee recalled that before the pandemic, the chef de cuisine would shout to the kitchen how quickly a month of reservations sold out. The record, he recalled, was just nine minutes.
As of Friday, you could make a reservation for a late-Sunday tasting-menu dinner at Eleven Madison Park, just two days later. After that, you could make a reservation any day you wanted in June, barring one. Every day in July had at least one opening.
Humm and Will Guidara shocked employees when they ended their long-term partnership in 2019.
Former employees don't blame the vegan menu for Eleven Madison Park's struggles, however. Most feel the bigger problem is that the restaurant lost the players who made it an icon. Since 2019, much of the former leadership team has joined Humm's former partner Guidara to start a hospitality consulting firm and transform a Hudson Valley castle into a culinary destination. Others launched their own new projects during the pandemic.
These departures essentially gutted Eleven Madison Park's institutional knowledge, according to two people who worked at the restaurant before and after 2020. One quit in late 2021, saying that he felt Humm was hypocritical and out of touch and that standards had "dropped dramatically."
"It's probably never going to be the same restaurant as it was before, just because you can never rebuild that culture and get those people," the former employee said.
Despite the chaotic year, Eleven Madison Park veterans cautioned against counting Humm out. "Endless reinvention" has always been part of Eleven Madison Park's ethos, and this isn't the first time critics have doubted the restaurant. Wells criticized a 2012 New York-themed menu as "the most ridiculous meal I've ever had." Three years later, he awarded the restaurant four stars.
There are signs Eleven Madison Park is working to stem the flow of exits and find new revenue streams. In late April, Humm launched a $150 vegan meal kit called Eleven Madison Home. In February, Humm folded to internal pressure and began to allow tipping. As of the new year, the private meat room had also gone vegan.
Employees who staffed the relaunch said they hoped Eleven Madison Park was making changes to better support workers and return the restaurant to its former glory. One line cook said he quit in late 2021 after burning out and falling into a depression but still loved the restaurant and continued to marvel at its beautiful Instagram photos. Still, he is not rushing to recommend it anytime soon.
"It's definitely not as good as it was before," he said. "Definitely not worth the cost."
More: Rebecca Zisser BI Graphics Restaurants Eleven Madison Park | 2022-06-14T12:56:18Z | www.businessinsider.com | NYC's Eleven Madison Park Went Vegan. Then, Things Fell Apart. | https://www.businessinsider.com/eleven-madison-park-vegan-labor-shortage-chaos-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/eleven-madison-park-vegan-labor-shortage-chaos-2022-6 |
Here are the 5 best and 5 worst US cities for first-time homebuyers
Bankrate released Monday its annual ranking of the best cities for first-time homebuyers.
Western cities including Los Angeles and Seattle were near the bottom.
Pittsburgh ranked No. 1, and was joined near the top by other non-coastal metro areas.
Bankrate released Monday its annual ranking of the 50 largest metro areas in the US in terms of attractiveness for first-time homebuyers, and the Western US is prominent at the bottom.
The media and research company used data from sources like the US Department of Labor and Census Bureau to measure aspects of cities like "affordability" and "wellness and culture."
For example, the outlet measured "safety" with the most recent available FBI data on rates of property and violent crime in a specific metro space. The outlet scored each area on several measures, then ranked them overall.
"Some metropolitan areas offer an enticing combination of affordable real estate, a robust job market and high marks for safety, public health and cultural amenities," Bankrate wrote.
At the top of the heap was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for aspects including low-cost real estate and low crime rates. The West Coast had a few of the five "worst" cities, including Los Angeles and San Jose, California.
Buying a home is stressful, amid record inflation and a bonkers market that is just now slowing down. But if you're looking for good and cheap, here are the five best and worst metros for first-time home buyers, from Bankrate's list.
Winner: 1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Yuanshuai Si/Getty Images
Pittsburgh scored high in the "affordability" area in particular, which Bankrate found using data points such as how much people shelled out to buy homes and income levels for people aged 25 to 44. Pittsburgh's median home price in Q122 was a mere $169,000, the outlet noted.
LinkedIn calculated that Pittsburgh had the 4th-largest growth spurt in tech talent from 2019 to 2021, Insider previously reported. It's also home to Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook offices.
2. Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis preformed well because of its low unemployment rate, which, along with average commute times, fed into Bankrate's "job market" score.
The pandemic sped up the trend of people moving to cheaper Midwestern cities, Insider previously reported.
3. Cincinnati, Ohio
Over The Rhine district in Cincinnati.
Bankrate wrote Cincinnati did well as far as affordability and safety. It was near the bottom, however, (40th) for its "wellness and culture," a data point which captured access to things like healthcare and the arts.
4. Kansas City Metro Area
Kansas City, Missouri.
Edwin Remsberg/Getty Images
Bankrate measured "market tightness" which looked at home inventory and how fast homes sold. The more relaxed the market, per their measure, the better.
"In an intense seller's market nationwide, the Kansas City area stood out as the least insanely skewed market," the outlet wrote.
Walter Bibikow/Getty Images
Buffalo had solid scores in affordability and market tightness, Bankrate reported.
1. Loser: Los Angeles, California
kenny hung photography/Getty Images
Home to high-powered brokers hunting million-dollar mansions, the metro area sunk to the bottom for being nearly the least affordable for the 25 to 44 age group, per Bankrate's calculations (but it shined in the wellness and culture category).
randy andy/Shutterstock
Las Vegas' housing market heated up with the arrival of former Californians, and it's gotten expensive, Bankrate wrote, plus has a high unemployment rate.
"Households headed by young adults have robust incomes, but home prices are so high that it's still difficult to afford real estate," the outlet wrote. It also is short on inventory, Bankrate added.
4. Riverside, California
The UC-Riverside campus.
Christopher Vu for Insider
While cheaper than San Diego or Los Angeles, the Riverside area suffered longer commute times and slightly lower wages, Bankrate reported.
An aerial view of San Jose, California.
Steve Proehl/Getty Images
One report predicted San Franciscans would scoot to San Jose early in the pandemic. Wages are high, but it's still a super-pricey market -- the highest on the list, Bankrate wrote.
More: Real Estate Homeownership | 2022-06-14T12:56:36Z | www.businessinsider.com | Here Are the Best US Cities for First-Time Homebuyers | https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-best-us-cities-for-first-time-homebuyers-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-best-us-cities-for-first-time-homebuyers-2022-6 |
Here's how I became a global top seller on Depop whose fans include Molly-Mae Hague from 'Love Island'
Danielle Mass starting selling clothes on eBay from her dorm room, now she is a global top ranked Depop seller.
Danielle Mass
Danielle Mass started selling her old clothes on eBay as a hobby while studying at college.
After graduating in 2018, she began selling vintage clothes on Depop, and her account blew up.
Here's how she scaled to become a top seller on the resale app, as told to Amber Sunner.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Danielle Mass, a 25-year-old founder from London, about starting a Depop shop. It has been edited for length and clarity. Insider has verified Mass' revenue with documentation.
I started selling my old clothes on eBay as a hobby while studying at university. When I graduated in June 2018, I didn't stop selling.
In October 2018, I also started a Depop account because the app was becoming popular. I would take photos of old clothes in my room and post them to the resale sites. My experience with eBay taught me how to best present secondhand clothing online.
My account was making a lot of sales, so people started approaching me to sell things for them on the app. I took a 10% commission on every sale, but everything I was selling at the time was relatively cheap.
Sometimes, I would get £1 from a £10 sale. That pound was for picturing the item, packaging it, and sending it to the post office. Even though it wasn't super lucrative, it was an easy way to source clothes and helped grow my knowledge about selling on Depop.
Depop and eBay were my primary source of income after college
A month after I started selling on Depop, I stopped using eBay.
I had some savings from selling on eBay and babysitting on the side, and I was lucky enough to live at home and not pay rent. I had just come back from university and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
In February 2019, my Depop account was doing well, but I had no intention of making it full time — I just liked selling.
As my following grew, I thought having my name as a Depop brand was no longer appropriate. It wasn't just a hobby anymore, so I decided to change the store's name to Remass.
Mass started sourcing stock from car-boot sales and thrift shops before turning to European secondhand wholesalers.
I spent very little setting up Remass. My friend designed the branding as part of her university course, so it cost me nothing.
After changing the name in February 2019, I also sent clothing to influencers for free to market the rebrand.
To be a top seller, you had to make at least £2,000 or sell 50 items for £15 or over every month for six months straight. I started hitting that target in my first month of selling under Remass.
I stopped selling for other people in June 2019, because it was too much hassle. I had to start sourcing my stock from charity shops and car-boot sales. It was the first money investment I was making, and I capped myself at £20. I bought items that I thought would sell quickly.
I reinvested all the money I made initially into buying stock and lived off my savings from eBay and the money I earned babysitting. I was running Remass out of a spare room in my parents' house, but I began to take over the whole place with my stock.
Now, I have suppliers abroad – I've found that you can get more unique pieces, which makes your shop stand out
I started going to markets in Italy and Greece and built relationships with the vendors there.
I go for a few weeks every year to choose clothing from these secondhand wholesalers. We mainly source from European countries because it's cheaper.
We used to send influencers vintage clothes, but because vintage is one-off, people couldn't get the same pieces and would get annoyed.
We decided to make our first original top, so we had a consistent product to send to influencers and generate brand awareness. We launched the top in May 2021.
To make the tops, I worked with a local seamstress to create one design. We bought an inexpensive 50-meter roll of leftover fabric from a factory and made as many tops as we could — 100 in total.
Influencer Molly-Mae Hague wore the top and posted it on Instagram
The whole stock sold out. We made the top in different colors, but we only use excess fabrics so each restock is limited.
Around summer 2021, we started building a studio to store clothes and for shoots. I hired two people to join my team. A year later, I have six employees.
My team lists 150 to 200 items daily to our Depop to keep customers coming back. We also generate new customers from Depop's search function.
Three months ago, we were the top-ranked Depop shop in the world. The rankings fluctuate a lot, but this was super gratifying.
We use words people are more likely to search and put as much detail as we can into the listing. Optimizing search has contributed to our organic growth.
One thing I've learned about growing Remass is to try things out when building brand recognition on social media. The more you put out, the more you'll understand what people are looking for on the app.
I now take a salary, but we reinvest most of the income into the business.
It's hard at the start of a small business. My advice is to ignore people who say Depop — or whatever business endeavor you're passionate about — is not a real job, and do what you've got to do.
More: contributor 2022 as told to eBay Clothing
secondhand apparel | 2022-06-14T12:56:42Z | www.businessinsider.com | How I Became a Global Top Seller on Depop | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-on-depop-top-global-seller-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-on-depop-top-global-seller-2022-6 |
A Russian serviceman inspects an underground tunnel under the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, June 13, 2022
The UK predicted problems for Russia in equipping its forces.
Intelligence officials said sanctions and "lack of expertise" would deprive Russia of advanced gear.
It said that moves in Russia to massively increase defense spending would not fix the problem.
Russia is likely to struggle sustain its military through the grinding war in Ukraine because of difficulty producing equipment, British intelligence claimed on Tuesday.
In its daily update on the conflict, the UK's Ministry of Defence said Western sanctions and "lack of expertise" within Russia could hamper production.
—Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 14, 2022
It highlighted high-quality optics and advanced electronics as areas where Russia was mostly likely to struggle, which it said could "could undermine its efforts to replace equipment lost in Ukraine."
The update said that a recent announcement of massively increased defense spending in Russia would only partially address the problems it predicted.
The update cited an announcement made by a Russian official who said he expected defense spending in 2022 to increase by 600-700 billion rubles ($10.5-$12.3 billion).
Last year Russia was the fifth biggest military spender in the world, slightly below the UK and India, although dwarfed by the US and China, according to Statista.
The update came after Russia's former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov warned "if Ukraine falls, the Baltic states will be next," referring to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The situation on the ground appears to be intensifying, with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claiming the battle for Sievierodonetsk will be remembered as one of the "most brutal" Europe has ever seen.
Speaking during his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy said: "The human cost of this battle is very high for us. It is simply terrifying.
"The battle for the Donbas will without doubt be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe."
More: News UK Ukraine Russia military & defense | 2022-06-14T12:57:07Z | www.businessinsider.com | Russia Will 'Struggle' to Make Equipment to Sustain Ukraine War: UK | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-likely-struggle-make-equipment-sustain-ukraine-war-uk-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-likely-struggle-make-equipment-sustain-ukraine-war-uk-2022-6 |
After the recent Terra Luna crash the CTO of Tether welcomes fair regulation of the stablecoin market — and discusses why he isn't worried about central bank digital currencies
Tether's CTO Paolo Ardonio spoke with Insider following the stablecoin crash.
The CTO of Tether, Paolo Ardonio, spoke with Insider about the state of stablecoins.
He remains optimistic about the future, and called for increased regulation in the space.
He doesn't fear the potential creation of a central bank digital currency.
For years stablecoins have been one of the most controversial topics in crypto.
But with the recent collapse of TerraUSD, the algorithmic stablecoin linked to Luna, many are starting to lose faith in the $159 billion stablecoin market. Moreover, some investors are worried that the creation of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, will obviate the need for stablecoins.
But despite the stablecoin market's recent upheaval, Tether CTO Paolo Ardonio is optimistic about the future of stablecoins. In an exclusive interview with Insider, he noted that he remains confident in Tether's financial health, wants fair regulation of crypto, and feels that CBDCs can coexist with stablecoins.
Tether is the world's largest stablecoin — a type of cryptocurrency that is typically pegged to fiat currencies — and in fact was the world's first stablecoin. While Tether supports the Mexican peso, Chinese yuan, European euro, and even gold, by far their most-used fiat currency is the United States dollar.
Stablecoins were created as a way to merge blockchain technology with traditionally less volatile fiat currencies, and in the last few years they have become an important part of the crypto ecosystem. Investors often use stablecoins as stores of value in-between trades. Stablecoins also make for a handy way of moving money between traditional financial networks and crypto markets.
But as crypto investors recently found out, stablecoins have their problems too.
State of stablecoins
Stablecoins have suffered a huge hit to their public image after TerraUSD's $40 billion crash.
Following the collapse of Terra and its sister cryptocurrency Luna, panic spread to the rest of the stablecoin market, and Tether wasn't immune. Investors cashed out $7 billion of Tether in under 48 hours — or about 9% of assets — and an additional $4 billion over the following days, causing it to lose its peg with the US dollar. This led to fears that Tether would suffer the same fate as TerraUSD and Luna's, causing an industry-wide crash.
Ardonio, however, said that the recent problems in the stablecoin market only served to illustrate Tether's resilience.
Ardonio cited the Washington Mutual bank run as an example of how traditional banks — when faced with a bank run like the one Tether just survived — have defaulted.
"In 2008 Washington Mutual suffered a 10% redemption of their assets," Ardonio said. "10% of their assets were redeemed in less than 10 days, and the bank went bankrupt. No bigger redemption proportionally has happened in recent financial history. Now Tether, two weeks ago, was able to redeem 9% of assets in 48 hours. That is much more than any bank could do."
Ardonio also addressed criticism that Tether does not have actual paper notes backing their stablecoin. In February 2021, the New York attorney general found that Tether had misled investors about its amount of cash reserves.
"Tether's claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie. These companies obscured the true risk investors faced," New York Attorney General Letiticia James said at the time.
Following the Attorney General's statements, many focused on the attorney general's findings on Tether's commercial notes. Commercial paper is not liquid cash — rather they are a form of short-term unsecured corporate debt.
In theory, this means if investors were to cash out large amounts of their Tether, the company may be unable to pay out. Tether's reliance on commercial notes is what prompted investor Jim Cramer to call Tether "an unstablecoin" and the "achilles heel of the whole crypto business."
Ardonio believes that Tether has sufficiently responded to this criticism. Since 2021, he says they've reduced their holdings from $40 billion in commercial papers to $20 billion, a number that he points out is still steadily decreasing. Tether has also gone to great lengths to improve transparency regarding the assets backing their stablecoin, including providing the New York Attorney General's office with a transparency report every quarter.
Fair regulation is the only way forward
Ardonio is aware of the need for stronger oversight in the stablecoin market, and noted that he's advocating for increased regulation to protect investors following the crash of TerraUSD.
"Fair regulation would see clear rules on the categorization of stablecoin, and also transparency requirements," Ardonio said.
Ardonio's desire for more regulation is rooted in a desire to prevent another debacle like what happened with Terra and Luna. Right now, there are hundreds of stablecoins, and there is no formal process or regulation for creating one.
"You cannot have a guy that wakes up in the morning and decides to create a cryptocurrency and defines it as a stable coin. People believe it is a stablecoin, but the first, the first wind, it crumbles," Ardonio said.
Regulation that enforces transparency regarding currency reserves would also help secure the stablecoin market. Tether, or the other prominent stablecoin — Circle's USDC — have cash reserves backing their assets, and could therefore cash out investors if needed.
However, stablecoins like Tron's USDD or Frax use algorithms — the same theoretical backing that Luna provided TerraUSD — to maintain their pegs. And that, according to Ardonio, could pose a real threat to the stablecoin market.
"To be honest, with regards to algorithmic stablecoins, it's all fun and games if you're a $5 billion or $10 billion market cap stablecoin. If you have a liquidation with this market, you can still handle that," Ardonio said. "But imagine if you have a $80 billion or $100 billion market cap stablecoin like Tether that's backed by digital assets. It's really hard to predict what will happen and know if there will be enough liquidity to backstop that immense cascade."
On central bank digital currencies
Speaking of regulation, one of the biggest concerns that investors have regarding the future of stablecoins is the emergence of government-backed competitors in the form of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. If a central bank like the Federal Reserve were to create a stablecoin it would theoretically compete directly with stablecoins, and be free of the seemingly constant controversies that stablecoins face.
But Ardonio isn't worried about the creation of a CBDC. He said that some American politicians — like Congressman Tom Emmer, who proposed a bill against CBDCs — are worried about how they could be used as instruments of mass surveillance. Mixed sentiment among politicians means that while CBDCs are under consideration, it's likely that their development will proceed slowly.
He also said that if governments began to create CBDCs they would need to rely on the blockchain infrastructure that stablecoins have already built. "I really doubt that the US or European CBDCs will issue in Tron, Solana, or Ethereum or whatever, right? So, stablecoins are the ones that will take care of supporting the public projects."
What's next for Tether
Looking towards the future, Tether has created partnerships with cities like Lugano in Switzerland to create demonstrable proof that when cities embrace cryptocurrencies they will see an increase of GDP.
Ardonio also highlighted Tether's plan to build up infrastructure in developing nations where the population is in need of an inflation hedge and means to transact — which Tether can provide.
"Tether is one of the most used currencies in Turkey, in Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, El Salvador, and Dubai. All the emerging markets, all the developing countries have embraced Tether," Ardonio said.
In the end, Ardonio remains confident of Tether's place in the ever-changing crypto world.
"There will always be a market for stablecoins as they present an opportunity for traders to interact with the larger crypto ecosystem. Tether in its own right is a resource for the unbanked, a tool for an evolving payment system, and a leader in driving the mainstream adoption of a new financial revolution."
More: Tether Tether depeg Tether DOJ probe Tether investigation
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stablecoins SEC | 2022-06-14T14:27:25Z | www.businessinsider.com | Tether CTO Calls for Fair Regulation Following Terra Luna Crash | https://www.businessinsider.com/cryptocurrency-tether-terra-luna-stablecoin-crash-regulation-cbdcs-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/cryptocurrency-tether-terra-luna-stablecoin-crash-regulation-cbdcs-2022-6 |
Guy Benhamou sends a picture of gas prices to friends while pumping gas at an Exxon Mobil gas station on June 09, 2022 in Houston, Texas.
Inflation has Americans feeling the worst about the economy on record.
Yet the current recovery is leagues better than the rebound from the Great Recession.
Finances recovered in a fraction of the time, and the labor market is giving workers long-overdue power.
Americans have experienced two vastly different recessions and recoveries over the past 14 years, and they're much angrier about the one that, by most economic measures, has been far better.
The years after the Great Recession saw the economy heal at a painfully sluggish pace. Employment didn't fully rebound for more than six years. Households' finances didn't recover for five years. Inflation largely trended below the Federal Reserve's 2% target, but the economy was operating well below its full potential.
The coronavirus recovery almost completely flipped the script. Generous stimulus helped household balance sheets fully rebound in a matter of months, not years. The jobs recovery ran at a pace three times faster than that seen after the 2008 crisis. And inflation surged, hitting the fastest pace since 1981 and showing little sign of cooling off.
It's clear that, despite the much faster and stronger growth of the post-coronavirus economy, this recovery has Americans feeling worse than the slow climb back after the Great Recession. Consumer sentiment plummeted to an all-time low in June, according to the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, extending a downward trend that began in early 2021. That measure stands to tumble even further, as data out since the survey was conducted showed inflation bouncing to fresh highs in May.
Inflation presents a major problem for the US economy, particularly for low-income households that are less able to pay up for necessities like food and shelter. There's also the risk that the Fed's efforts to cool price growth will throw the economy into a recession.
For now, the sharp decline in sentiment strikes at an unusual divide taking place in the US economy: The current recovery has been unequivocally better for most Americans than the last one. They just aren't feeling it.
The pandemic's hit to household finances was a blip, not a plunge
Inflation is hammering Americans' wallets throughout the economy, from gas stations and grocery stores to airports and restaurants. Yet households are also far better equipped to handle higher prices than before the pandemic.
It took just two quarters for the amount of money US households held in aggregate to climb above its pre-pandemic level, according to data from the Fed. Finances were largely buoyed by the direct payments approved by Congress early in the pandemic, as well as through other aid measures like expanded unemployment benefits. Household balance sheet totals now sit about 28% above the levels observed in the fourth quarter of 2019.
By comparison, it took 20 quarters — five whole years — for Americans' finances to recover after the Great Recession. It took six quarters for balance sheets to hit a nadir of a nearly 16% decline, whereas finances had already rebounded 22% at the same period after the coronavirus recession.
Inflation has only just started to chip away at the rally. Finances declined slightly through the first quarter of 2022, reflecting the impacts of higher prices and dwindling stimulus support. Still, it would take many more quarters of surging inflation and drawing down of savings to pull balance sheets back to pre-crisis levels.
The labor market isn't just thriving — it's the best its been for workers in decades
The labor market's recovery through the 2010s isn't the toughest bar to clear — the rebound was the slowest in modern US history, with nonfarm payroll employment not returning to the pre-recession peak until 76 months after the downturn started.
The US endured a decline in employment during the coronavirus crash that was twice as severe as the Great Recession's, yet the rebound has been markedly faster. Nonfarm employment is now just 0.5% below the pre-crisis level. The economy is on pace to complete its jobs recovery by the end of July.
The speed of the rehiring effort yielded several other promising trends. Intense demand for workers has boosted wages at the fastest pace since at least 2001. There are two job openings for every available worker, meaning companies are competing over employees. Americans are also quitting at a near-record rate, signaling workers are confident in their ability to find new jobs with better pay, benefits, or working conditions.
The length of the Great Recession's jobs recovery, meanwhile, brought some nasty side effects. While job loss of any duration brings a loss of income, long-term unemployment usually brings bigger setbacks. Long-term unemployed workers tend to earn less once they find new work and suffer from permanently lower wage potential, according to a 2016 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. A lack of fresh experience can also start a vicious cycle in which unemployed workers are passed up for those who were in the labor force more recently.
To be sure, the past two recessions were created by extremely different circumstances. The Great Recession was sparked by a financial crisis, and as such featured a sudden decline of Americans' trust in the banking sector. The coronavirus recession was born out of nationwide lockdowns and other measures to curb the virus's spread. Once vaccines were rolled out and the economy reopened, activity surged accordingly.
Yet every recession is inevitably compared to the prior one, and each of the last two downturns featured unprecedented economic damage. Inflation remains the biggest risk weighing on the economic outlook, and failure to slow the price rally could usher in a new crisis. But as the economy swings closer to a full recovery, Americans seem to be ignoring the pros of the current rebound and focused solely on rising prices.
More: Economy economic outlook Inflation Great Recession | 2022-06-14T14:27:31Z | www.businessinsider.com | Americans Feel Awful About the Economy. the Great Recession Was Worse. | https://www.businessinsider.com/economic-outlook-americans-feeling-inflation-ignoring-worse-outcomes-great-recession-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/economic-outlook-americans-feeling-inflation-ignoring-worse-outcomes-great-recession-2022-6 |
Hilton created a 160-square-foot tiny hotel room on wheels for the 2022 RBC Canadian Open.
Inside, there's a bedroom, bathroom, deck, and small references to existing Hilton properties.
Travelers have been flocking to untraditional accommodations since the start of COVID-19.
Standard hotel buildings are out of style now: Travelers have been flocking to untraditional accommodations for their vacations, whether it be tiny homes, "glamping" campgrounds, or yurts.
Source: Airbnb, Insider, Insider
And now, a hospitality giant is taking advantage of this hype to (literally) roll out its own unconventional hotel alternative.
Let's take a closer look at Hilton on the Green, a pop-up hotel room on wheels designed for golf enthusiasts at the 2022 RBC Canadian Open and the upcoming Women's Open.
The concept was created with design company Artam Design and advertising agency Fuse Create.
To build the 160-square-foot space, the team drove a custom trailer onto the golf course near the third hole where the hotel room was then completed on-site.
The outside may look different from a traditional hotel room. But inside, Hilton on the Green has everything a typical Hilton room might have.
There's a bedroom, bathroom, windows for panoramic views of the course, and a deck …
… as well as little references to existing Hilton properties, like linens from Waldorf Astoria and cookies from DoubleTree.
It's also movable and self-sufficient so the room can be placed wherever the company would like, Jennifer White, Hilton's director of destination marketing, told Insider in an email statement …
… a concept New York startup Moliving is also using to create a chain of resorts.
But don't scramble to book Hilton on the Green for your upcoming summer vacation.
For now, the concept is exclusive to golf tournaments.
Golf and tiny home enthusiasts entered an online contest to win a stay at the hotel room during the Canadian Open, which ran from June 6 to 12.
The pop-up room will also make an appearance at the Women's Open in August.
But after that, the fate of Hilton on wheels will be unknown: "We have no immediate plans to create more hotel rooms of this kind," White said. "Maybe 'Hilton on the Grand Canyon' is next?"
More: Hilton Hospitality hotel Travel | 2022-06-14T14:27:37Z | www.businessinsider.com | Photos: See Hilton's New 160-Square-Foot Tiny Hotel Room on Wheels | https://www.businessinsider.com/hiltons-new-tiny-hotel-room-inspired-by-unique-stays-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/hiltons-new-tiny-hotel-room-inspired-by-unique-stays-2022-6 |
I grew my TikTok following to 48,000 in 4 months as I promoted my coaching business. Here's my 5 tips for finding clients.
Tiffany Toombs
Tiffany Toombs is a trauma and mindset coach.
Tiffany Toombs/TikTok
Tiffany Toombs set up a TikTok to promote her business and achieved 48,000 followers in four months.
She says she has secured high-value clients who found her via the app.
She shares her five top tips for growing a business account on the platform.
I started on TikTok back in January 2020.
I heard it could be a great platform to build an audience for my business as a trauma and mindset coach. Within two months of joining, I had signed up my first client from the platform.
Over the next couple months, more clients continued to reach out to me after finding me on TikTok, two of whom signed up for my $10,000 programs.
After reaching the 1,000-follower milestone, my growth was steady. By my fourth month on the platform, I hit 48,000 followers.
Here are the top five things I've learned about growing a following on TikTok to help your business, without having to dance to viral trends.
1. Pick a niche and stick to it
TikTok's algorithm is not like any other. On Facebook and Instagram, you can get away with straying from your niche without your engagement suffering too much.
TikTok is less forgiving. The "For You" page will show people content that is similar to what they've already engaged with. If your niche is weight-loss tips, TikTok will show your content to people who have engaged with others who share weight-loss tips.
If your content has a little about weight loss, a little about politics, and some random dance trends, the algorithm doesn't know who to show your content to.
Stay on niche by relating any trends that you see back to your expertise and use niche-specific hashtags over trending hashtags. When I was starting out, a trending sound in 2020 was the infamous "what do you want" scene from the movie "The Notebook."
Creators would film themselves lip-syncing to both parts to make their own video using the trend. I used it to show how trauma in childhood can lead to a pattern of people-pleasing. That 12-second video gained 506,700 views.
2. Create content in batches
Consistency on the platform is key. Some TikTok coaches will tell you that to grow quickly you need to post five to 10 videos a day. But I found that posting a high-value video a day worked.
Take one day a week or a month and batch create content. This helps you stay consistent on the platform, even when life and business challenges happen, because they will.
On an app that caters to short attention spans, I learned the hard way that if you disappear for periods of time, people will forget about you and you'll have to build your engagement back up.
Due to family health issues, I had to stop consistently creating for TikTok for a year. My sporadic posts would take weeks to get 1,000 views, instead of hours or days as before. Sometimes they didn't even reach that point at all.
While I would gain followers when I posted, I was also losing them when I wasn't.
3. Create content that teaches people things
A TikTok for your business can't just post a series of adverts.
Use the videos to show people how you can help them solve their problems or add value to their lives. I use mine to teach people about what trauma is, the various ways it impacts our lives, and tools they can use to navigate healing or to reduce anxiety and depression .
Do this by creating "how to" videos, explaining the jargon of your profession, or doing a "behind-the-scenes" to show people what most never get to see.
4. Create a series and use the 'playlist' function
A great way to get people coming back to your page is to break some of your videos into a series of parts, releasing one part a day.
Just like the latest TV dramas leave us hanging each week to come back for the next episode, you can do the same on TikTok, which lets you group videos together into playlists, so someone who sees one video on their For You page can immediately look at all the others on that topic.
I've done series like "how to manifest your perfect partner" and "what people really mean when they say," which amassed 200,000 views. People commented that they were awaiting the next "episode." This increased engagement leads to TikTok pushing the video out to even more people.
5. Give a specific call to action
If there was one thing I would've done differently, I'd have started making specific calls to action sooner.
If viewers don't know that you have something they can buy, they'll just keep scrolling.
After two followers from TikTok searched me out on Facebook to ask me if I had any coaching programs, I started talking about my programs on TikTok, and I started booking more calls.
Mention your online store, programs, or clients and tell people where to go for more information or to purchase. After you reach 1,000 followers, you can add a website link to your profile.
You can link your Instagram and YouTube channels in your profile from the very beginning and direct people there for more in-depth content and giveaways. I've only recently started doing this with my YouTube channel and have seen a 16% increase in traffic to it.
More: TikTok tiktok algorithm Small Business contributor 2022 | 2022-06-14T14:27:55Z | www.businessinsider.com | 5 Tips for Growing a TikTok Account to Promote Your Business | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-tiktok-business-benefits-client-growth-followers | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-tiktok-business-benefits-client-growth-followers |
Here's what Instacart's slumping market share and website traffic means ahead of its potential IPO, according to analysts
Instacart filed confidentially for an IPO in May.
Instacart is losing sales and market share, analysts who track its performance say.
The company has filed confidentially for an IPO and hasn't disclosed its financial performance.
Analysts say society reopening and grocers making their own deliveries are challenges for Instacart.
So far, 2022 has been tough for Instacart, data on the company's sales and market share indicates.
Instacart filed confidentially for an initial public offering last month, which means it didn't disclose any of the financial data that companies have traditionally disclosed when they plan to go public.
But data from firms that track Instacart's performance suggest that the boost that the company got from shoppers ordering delivery during the pandemic has faded so far this year.
Instacart's sales fell 4% in the first quarter of 2022 over the previous year, Bloomberg Second Measure said.
"The company has not been able to sustain the strong year-over-year growth it experienced early in the pandemic," Second Measure wrote in a report.
Instacart's market share has also taken a hit, falling 2.3% during the first five months of this year, said 1010Data, a retail-data analytics firm. 1010Data's figures, which track major retailers such as Walmart and Target but not Amazon, show that Instacart's market share has fallen from to 8.9% in May from 11.2% in January.
Instacart's sales grew 330% in 2020, said Jonah Ellin, the chief product officer at 1010Data. In 2021, that rate was about 15%, a "much slower growth rate, but you're growing at a much bigger number," he said.
"What we are seeing, though, is that things are starting to slow down," Ellin said.
Instacart declined to comment on any of the data presented in this article.
Traffic growth on Instacart's core website during the first quarter of 2022 was 3.7% lower than in the previous year, Similarweb said. In 2021, it was up 53% during the same period.
Instacart got a big boost as customers turned to its services in the first year of the pandemic, said Seema Shah, the senior director of research and analytics at Similarweb.
Now, Instacart is seeing "more of a normalization, because people who aren't online, like the elderly, were forced to buy online" two years ago, Shah said.
Those consumers have likely gone back to buying their groceries in person, while more tech-savvy customers are dividing their shopping between in-person trips to the supermarket and online orders, she added.
Web traffic is also down so far this year at some of Instacart's rivals, including Shipt, which is owned by Target but also fills orders for other retailers, including Costco and CVS.
"This market inevitably was going to have to undergo a correction," said Sneha Pandey, the insights manager at Similarweb. "But that would still leave companies like Instacart at a much higher rank than they would've been before the pandemic."
Gopuff was an exception: Traffic on the delivery service's website has grown consistently since the start of the pandemic, Similarweb said. Gopuff has laid off employees and raised billions in new funding over the past year, but it has no plans to go public in the near term.
Instacart is diversifying its business beyond working with major retailers to deliver groceries and other goods as it seeks to grow sales and reach profitability. The company's other initiatives include advertising, smart shopping carts that it says make in-store shopping faster, and small fulfillment centers for online orders.
But delivery remains a focus for Instacart, and it's facing more competition on that front. Many of the retailers Instacart delivers from, such as Kroger, are simultaneously developing online and delivery infrastructure in-house.
For customers who want delivery, that means plenty of choices.
Customers who ordered groceries from Kroger through Instacart might be more tempted to buy directly through Kroger as the chain expands its network of automated warehouses developed by the UK online grocer Ocado, 1010Data's Ellin said.
"People often think, 'If I go direct, I'm going to get a better value,'" Ellin said. "And certainly, in a time when a lot of people care about value with inflation, that could be a pretty big motivation."
More: eCommerce Instacart Delivery | 2022-06-14T14:28:07Z | www.businessinsider.com | Instacart's Sales and Market Share Are Down in 2022, Analysts Say | https://www.businessinsider.com/instacarts-sales-market-share-down-in-2022-analysts-say-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/instacarts-sales-market-share-down-in-2022-analysts-say-2022-6 |
Check out the 18-slide pitch deck Next Matter, a platform that aims to cover all business operations, used to raise $16 million from OMERS Ventures
The Next Matter team.
Next Matter has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by OMERS Ventures.
Founder Jan Hugenroth believes the health of operations at a company can "make or break a business."
Check out the 18-slide pitch deck Next Matter used to raise the fresh funds below.
A startup that aims to cover all business operations including task management, corporate wikis, and workflow charts, has raised $16 million in a round led by the venture capital arm of Canadian pension fund OMERS.
Berlin-based Next Matter, which was founded in 2018, has developed an all-in-one platform for businesses that will also manage individual and team wide inboxes while also removing the need for low code app builders. The company counts German trading startups Moonfare and Trade Republic among its users.
Next Matter was created by Jan Hugenroth, who found during his time at McKinsey that many of the companies he advised were using a patchwork of tools such as spreadsheets and emails to drive critical operations.
His days as a consultant showed him how the health of operations at a company can "make or break a business," with many using systems that were not too generalized to be effective in driving operations.
Operational inefficiency is a serious problem for businesses, with research from the Harvard Business Review estimating that the cost of "excess bureaucracy" in the US is in the region of $3 trillion.
"There has been a sustained lack of innovation taking place in the operations space, with companies forced to put together patchwork solutions that leave much to be desired," he said.
Next Matter, which also works with the likes of insurtech firm Wefox, aims to change this with its automated system that integrates with existing tools such as Slack or Zapier, and helps join up the work done across different departments in a more seamless way.
The Series A round, led by OMERS Ventures, also included investment from existing backers including BlueYard Capital and Crane Venture Partners, as well as founders of startups such as Raisin, a fintech business, and online recruitment firm HeyJobs.
The startup will use the fresh funds to boost its fully remote team from 15 people to 75, as it looks to grow its presence in the US, where the company said a third of its customers are now based.
More: Features Venture Capital Cloud
OMERS Ventures | 2022-06-14T14:28:25Z | www.businessinsider.com | Next Matter: Operations Startup Raises $16 Million From OMERS | https://www.businessinsider.com/next-matter-operations-startup-raises-16-million-from-omers-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/next-matter-operations-startup-raises-16-million-from-omers-2022-6 |
OkCupid is changing the online-dating world — a culture of inclusion is key to innovation, a top exec says
OkCupid's culture of innovation comes down to fostering inclusion so all employees can share their ideas, an exec said.
OkCupid has offered more options for LGBTQ communities years before other dating apps.
Marcus Lofthouse, its chief product officer, explains how he fosters inclusive innovation.
The key is to foster safe spaces for employees and work with people from diverse backgrounds.
In the early 2000s, Marcus Lofthouse used Craigslist to find dates with other men. Lofthouse, who wasn't out as gay until 2008, was searching for an online queer community and could find it only next to listings for furniture and odd jobs.
But when OkCupid launched in 2004, it became the underdog of online dating. It offered inclusive options for LGBTQ singles. The app also offered specific questions for queer, trans, and nonbinary users — a novelty at the time.
It took other apps years to offer similar options. It wasn't until 2010, after settling a lawsuit brought by gay and lesbian users, that eHarmony added dating options for LGBTQ users, such as "men seeking men." In 2014, OkCupid expanded its sexuality options to include options such as "asexual, demisexual, and heteroflexible," and it added more gender options beyond "man" and "woman" to include options such as "agender, androgynous, trans man, and cis woman." It wasn't until 2019 that Tinder added similar options.
Lofthouse began using OkCupid and loved it because of the options it offered him in dating. He began working as OkCupid's chief product officer in 2019. Now, he heads product creation at one of the world's most popular dating apps.
Execs at OkCupid, a mainstay in the online-dating landscape, tell Insider they prioritize innovation at the company. They work with a range of partners, including the nonprofit GLAAD and queer diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants, to ensure the company's products are inclusive of people from all backgrounds and are on the cutting edge of new conversations around inclusion. Lofthouse said that Match Group, OkCupid's parent company, has copied its products and applied them to the other apps it owns, which include Hinge, Match.com, and Tinder. In an interview with Insider, Lofthouse explained how other companies could make sure new products were transformational and inclusive.
"We have a historical legacy of being open," Lofthouse said. "We set the pace on things like LGBTQIA+ products and offerings. Other apps look to us."
Normalizing queer experiences
While dating apps designed specifically for LGBTQ communities offer a range of gender and orientation options, apps for straight, cis-gendered singles have often neglected this type of intersectionality.
This year for Pride Month, OkCupid is adding a range of LGBTQ-centric questions for all users in an effort to include and normalize a range of experiences. For example, all users are now asked: "What does Pride mean to you?" "Do you advocate for LGBTQ+ rights?" "Is it important to you that your date cares about transgender rights?"
OkCupid launched queer-inclusive options for users years before other apps.
The latest product rollout follows a number of innovative features the company has spearheaded.
Earlier this year, OkCupid added definitions to its gender and orientation options to better serve LGBTQ singles and to help educate allies. In 2020, the company rolled out the feature to all users to specify their pronouns, following a 2018 feature that gave LGBTQ users pronoun options. OkCupid has let users search for not only "men" or "women" but also "nonbinary" daters, too. Bumble just added this option, and on Hinge, for example, the app allows a user to identify as nonbinary but lets them search for only men or women, not other nonbinary users.
Many of these features at OkCupid have resulted from either listening to consumer feedback or employee insight. Having a diverse set of employees, as well as creating safe spaces for people to voice their opinions, is crucial to innovation, Lofthouse said.
"We hire the best quality people, and we make sure that we're recruiting candidates of diverse backgrounds," he said. "But I think it's fundamental that we've got a number of openly diverse people specifically from the LGBTQ+ space. We've normalized conversations. We create psychological safety."
Lofthouse said OkCupid executives model psychological safety by speaking openly about their personal experiences and holding team members accountable when an issue arises. For example, someone may stop a meeting, point out that a comment was problematic, and discuss it, instead of letting it slide.
Like any other historically marginalized group, LGBTQ communities are not a monolith. To make sure the company is creating products that represent members of all backgrounds, OkCupid executives partner with nonprofits such as GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and commissioned DEI consultants and queer focus groups.
"There is a danger of sometimes having a representative of one group and then the assumption is, like, 'Well, we've checked with one gay person. Let's go with their ideas,'" Lofthouse said.
Marcus Lofthouse, OkCupid's chief product officer, said the first step to developing more inclusive products is to simply have the intention to seek opinions from people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Marcus Lofthouse
Companies need to avoid the tendency to consult with one member of an underrepresented group and then "check a box," the executive said. For example, the experience of an affluent cisgender lesbian white woman is different from the experience of a Black lesbian trans woman.
"Start with the intention to be more inclusive," Lofthouse said. "There's generally always partners who can help you, or someone who can take customer feedback. There's always some input that can help you think of something a little bit more expansive."
Frankie Bashan, a queer dating coach and matchmaker, said large companies have a responsibility to use their platforms to advance human rights.
"It's their responsibility to engender and create an environment that's inclusive, even if it pushes them out of their comfort zone," Bashan said. "We can't know it all on our own. So you hire an expert who does."
The dating coach reviewed some of OkCupid's features and agreed that it's on the cutting edge of offering inclusive products.
"They're disrupters in a way," she said. "They've been leading."
More: Culture of Innovation OkCupid DEI Diversity and Inclusion | 2022-06-14T14:28:31Z | www.businessinsider.com | OkCupid's Inclusive Culture Is Key to the App's New Product Innovation | https://www.businessinsider.com/okcupid-leading-inclusive-movement-online-dating-diversity-innovation-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/okcupid-leading-inclusive-movement-online-dating-diversity-innovation-2022-6 |
Fiserv targets sports and entertainment venues with Clover Sport suite
Fiserv launches Clover Sport, a suite of tools catered for arenas, stadiums, and entertainment venues.
This comes as part of Fiserv's verticalization push—an industry-wide trend of developing more tailored offerings.
The news: Fiserv introduced Clover Sport, a suite of tools for arenas, stadiums, and entertainment venues, per a press release.
Under the hood: The payment suite brings together the Clover point-of-sale (POS) platform and Bypass, a back-office management system that Fiserv acquired in 2020. Clover Sport offers venues contactless payment acceptance, order management, and inventory tracking.
The trend: Fiserv has been on a verticalization push—part of an industry-wide trend of developing more tailored offerings.
While a one-size-fits-all approach may work for smaller providers looking to cast a wider net, verticalization is gaining traction among larger, more established providers that want to hone in on specific market needs.
Payment providers are leveraging in-house research and development, acquisitions, and partnerships to tap into each vertical—like Block's Square for Restaurants suite, which it just expanded after acquiring GoParrot, and Paysafe's and Shift4's push into casinos and online gaming.
As the payment sector becomes more competitive, providers like Fiserv can use verticalization to diversify their offerings and stand out from one-size-fits-all providers.
Why it's worth watching: The return to in-person gatherings has opened an opportunity for payment providers as venues grapple with new consumer habits.
Declining cash use is increasing the need for digital solutions. The share of POS payments made with cash in North America dropped 3.5% annually last year—and between 2021 and 2025, cash use is expected to decline 45%, according to FIS. Offering more digital ordering and payment solutions through things like Clover Sport can help sports and entertainment venues improve the customer experience.
Sports and entertainment venues are lucrative businesses. Pre-pandemic, US consumers spent a whopping $56 billion a year on sporting events, per data from CreditCards.com cited by CNBC. Moving into this segment, and in-person events overall, can help Fiserv boost revenues, which grew 10% YoY in Q1, compared with flat growth from the same period last year.
Clover Sport can help Fiserv offer more tailored services to sports and entertainment venues through digital payment tools, attracting a wider base of clients and driving revenues. | 2022-06-14T15:10:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | Fiserv Launches a Suite of Payment Tools for Entertainment Venues | https://www.businessinsider.com/fiserv-launches-clover-sport-for-entertainment-venues-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/fiserv-launches-clover-sport-for-entertainment-venues-2022-6 |
Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Opinion
5 ways brands can move people from just talking about sustainability — to taking real action
Nadia Tuma-Weldon
Global activists tout the need for climate action at meetings like COP26.
Parisa Hashempour
People say they are worried about the climate crisis, but a study shows they are unwilling to take meaningful action to address it.
The language of sustainability has to change to be more focused on human, personal outcomes.
This is an opinion column. Thoughts expressed are those of the author.
Ninety percent of people globally say they are willing to change their actions to be more sustainable.
Yet only 13% of people say they are willing to give up meat, 9% say they are willing to limit international travel, and a third of people say that they sometimes buy the cheapest option even if they know it's bad for the environment. That's according to our own "Truth About Sustainability study," comprising 40,000 interviews across 26 countries.
Why such a chasm between word and action on perhaps the most pivotal and pervasive issue in the modern world?
The three biggest news "stories" of the past five years that have significantly captured the public's attention have been Trump, the Covid pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine – but climate hasn't ever come anywhere close to garnering the same level of attention despite the vast majority of the scientific community agreeing it is the biggest threat to humanity (a number of news outlets noted that Jeff Bezos's trip to space spurred dramatically more press coverage than climate change).
With sustainability, something unique happens…even as large swaths of the population recognize the dire need to adopt more sustainable practices. The way the issue is framed does not convey the immediate and personal impact on our own lives the way other crises and movements have.
The truth is that sustainability has a language problem. To truly rouse people and business leaders to match what they do with what they say, the issue has to engage not just the ears but the hearts and minds of all of us in a deeply personal way.
There are five ways brands can and should change the language they use regarding sustainability to inspire real engagement and impact:
McCann Worldwide
Talk more of people, and less about the planet
The #1 association with sustainability that people cite globally is that it's about "protecting the planet." While instinctively this makes sense, it also reveals a problem. "The environment" is often characterized as being separate from us and allows us to disassociate from the issue of sustainability. We need a reframe that allows people to understand that, above all, sustainability is about "protecting us."
Humanize the language
92 percent of the top 100 companies have made a climate pledge in the last two years, yet the most frequently he words most used by these companies when they talk about sustainability are "emissions" and "carbon." This is indicative of the technical storytelling that dominates the corporate dialogue. To truly connect, brands should speak in ways that connect to the everyday lived experience of people around the world in a deeply human way.
Speak to everyone (not just the young people)
Brands frequently make the common judgment error that the younger generations are the ones that care the most about sustainability. But while Gen Z is an activist generation, our findings reveal that people aged 55-64 are more likely to say that they are worried about climate change than those aged 18-24. Further, 70% of parents say that they are worried about climate change, versus 61% of non-parents. "Greta" has become a catch-all for "young people care about the environment" and brands are potentially missing a trick by not nurturing connections between generations.
Remember that (cultural) context matters
Language and cultural context matters, and there's a major opportunity for brands to touch upon specific cultural flashpoints in their messaging to translate attitudes into behavior.
In India, for example, where many people are vegetarian due to religious and spiritual practices, respondents are most likely to say that they are willing to give up eating meat to fight climate change (26% India vs. 15% global). In Germany, a hot bed of engineering and good design, people are most likely to say that they would buy products that are designed to last a long time (58% Germany vs. 42% global).
Ultimately, if brands want to spark change, they should be meeting people where they are, starting with the low-hanging fruit within their culture. It snowballs from there to more and more behavior change.
Change the narrative from less to more
Much sustainability-based messaging is about telling people to give up things or stop certain behaviors. Framing sustainability as a pathway to abundance rather than an act of sacrifice and deprivation is a crucial way of communicating the immediate and personal benefits of adopting climate-friendly behaviors. Meaningfully addressing sustainability through a lens of "more" (more time, health, flourishing, community, joy) rather than "less" (less sickness, pollution, stress, exploitation) reveals opportunities to unleash creativity to solve challenges that shape a hopeful future.
When asked who has the greatest responsibility for reversing climate change, the top three answers are pegged neck and neck: the government, companies, and people like me. Brands now hold the coveted spot in people's trust and consciousness that they have long worked to achieve. This is a pivotal moment for them to change the language around sustainability to make it something more actionable for people, and to elevate their role in peoples lives from the transactional to the meaningful.
Nadia Tuma-Weldon is EVP, global head of thought leadership at McCann Worldgroup
More: Sustainability Communications McCann climate crisis | 2022-06-14T15:11:05Z | www.businessinsider.com | Sustainability Messages Should Focus on Personal Outcomes to Drive Change | https://www.businessinsider.com/sustainability-messages-should-focus-on-personal-outcomes-to-drive-change-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/sustainability-messages-should-focus-on-personal-outcomes-to-drive-change-2022-6 |
Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins and Shriya Bhattacharya
Marcus Gram owns Joyner Vending.
Marcus Gram
More than nine million Americans started businesses in the last two years.
Some businesses aren't the most orthodox types to start, but can earn up to six figures.
These include vending-machine companies, live shopping, and website flipping.
More than nine million Americans started businesses in the last two years, motivated by jobs that no longer fulfilled their needs, the necessity for additional income, or promising market conditions.
If you've dreamed of creating your own business but you're not sure where to begin, consider unconventional startups. Insider has interviewed many entrepreneurs who launched businesses that aren't the most obvious, but can earn up to six figures within the first year.
Here are six unique businesses to start in 2022.
Marcus Gram is the founder of Joyner Vending.
When Marcus Gram started his vending-machine company, he considered it a stepping stone to real-estate investing. Vending machines don't require as much capital to start and can eventually earn passive income, which requires less daily upkeep.
Gram started his business in 2018 with $10,000 in savings. Today his company, Joyner Vending, operates 18 vending machines in four states. It generated more than $307,000 in revenue last year, which Insider verified with documentation.
Read more: A 31-year-old entrepreneur made $300,000 from vending-machine sales and passive income last year. Here's how he built his business.
Read more: A Gen Z entrepreneur made $119,000 in vending-machine sales since graduating college. Here's how she built her business.
Flipping websites
Chelsea Clarke is the founder of Blogs for Sale.
Friday Eve Photo
Building and selling websites can be similar to real estate, only you're dealing with online property. The aim is to purchase an inexpensive domain name, build a new website with useful and search-engine-optimized content, then earn passive income from ads and affiliate links. You can also choose to sell the site for a profit.
That's what Chelsea Clarke does through her business, Blogs for Sale. In 2020, she earned $127,000 from flipping 13 websites and brokering sales for 50 more, Insider verified through documents.
Read more: Chelsea Clarke reveals 6 tips that helped her earn $127,000 last year flipping websites.
Mimi Striplin is the owner of The Tiny Tassel in Charleston, South Carolina.
Aneris Photography
Mimi Striplin owns The Tiny Tassel, a boutique and online store based in Charleston, South Carolina. Last year, she started hosting live-shopping events on Instagram and Facebook to expand her customer base. After her first show, sales increased by nearly 50%. In 2021, her store made more than $970,000 in total sales, which Insider verified with documentation.
But you don't have to have a storefront to sell a product online. Many sellers start livestreaming in their homes, hawking collectibles or handmade items. The live-shopping market is estimated to be worth $6 billion this year and $25 billion by 2023, according to Coresight Research.
Read more: How a Charleston boutique owner netted $970,000 in sales last year with Instagram and Facebook live shopping.
Designing pitch decks and presentations
Evan Fisher is a freelancer who creates pitch decks for startups.
Some people leverage knowledge gained from their previous jobs to find success as a freelancer on Upwork, like Evan Fisher.
Fisher was an investment banker for six years and switched to consulting before losing his job in 2017. He quickly discovered the freelancing platform and decided to specialize in designing pitch decks that startups could use to secure venture capital.
So far, Fisher has earned $1.6 million in payments, which Insider verified with documentation. He found success helping companies craft the best possible pitch decks because he doesn't follow a template — he customizes each deck according to that specific business' needs. His pitch decks have helped companies secure funding from leading VC firms such as Tiger Management and SoftBank.
Read more: How a 34-year-old freelancer earned $1.6 million on Upwork designing pitch decks for startups backed by SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz.
Read more: How a 32-year-old freelancer earned $1.3 million on Upwork designing presentations for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Coca-Cola.
Glamping events
Kenny Young is the founder of Pitched Glamping, a company that delivers at-home camping experiences to people's backyards.
Courtesy of Kenny Young
When international and domestic travel slowed during the pandemic, glamping's popularity skyrocketed as more people turned to nearby outdoor getaways. The growth of the glamping industry is expected to continue, with experts predicting it will grow at a rate of more than 18% between 2020 and 2026.
Kenny Young decided to build a glamping business at the age of 21, after he felt burnt out from his work as a youth pastor. He was passionate about the outdoors and soon launched Pitched Glamping, delivering at-home camping experiences to people living in Arizona and Minnesota. The business made more than $125,000 in revenue in 2020, according to documentation Insider verified, and now employs seven people, including Young's wife.
Read more: How a Minnesota youth pastor burned out, got fired, and started a 6-figure glamping business.
Aubree Malick, business coach and virtual assistant.
Sarah B. Photography
A recent report by remote-work-and-market analyst NanoGlobals showed that the virtual-assistant industry boomed in 2020, with 41% more assistants hired that year compared to 2019. As more companies look for contract workers to hire for short-term projects and administrative work, the industry will continue to grow, according to the financial-news company MarketWatch.
Aubree Malick quit her job as an elementary-school teacher in 2018 to build a virtual-assistant business, using her administrative skills to help companies with small tasks. In 2021, she earned $105,735 in revenue, according to documentation Insider verified. She also has her own course, called The Prep, to help other teachers and mothers become virtual assistants.
Read more: Aubree Malick left education to have more boundaries in her life and became a virtual assistant. Now, she helps other teachers do the same.
Read more: VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS: How to start your own business, create a flexible schedule, and make six figures in revenue.
More: Features Entrepreneurship Small Business Starting a Business | 2022-06-14T15:11:11Z | www.businessinsider.com | Unexpected Businesses to Start That Could Earn You Six Figures | https://www.businessinsider.com/unexpected-unique-businesses-to-start-earn-six-figures-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/unexpected-unique-businesses-to-start-earn-six-figures-2022-6 |
British Airways and EasyJet both plane to cancel hundreds of flights in July.
Victor Jiang/Shutterstock
Airlines globally have cancelled hundreds of flights, citing labor shortages.
Insider spoke to aviation consultants and a union boss to discover why airlines are short-staffed.
They blame COVID-19, uncertainty, and the tight labor market for leading carriers to cancel flights.
It's not a surprise if you're feeling nervous about flying at the moment. The list of global airlines to have canceled flights over the last few months reads like a departure board.
Delta, Lufthansa, British Airways, Southwest, EasyJet, Alaska, and JetBlue are among the long list of carriers to have all culled flights in by the hundreds. The result has been long queues at airports, lost luggage, long layovers, and acute disappointment.
There are multiple reasons fueling the disruptions from bad weather to the economic impact of the war in Ukraine, but labor shortages have been cited as a common reason.
Insider spoke to two aviation consultants and a union boss about why the industry is struggling with staff shortages.
Firstly, it's complicated …
The labor shortage is "not black and white," said John Strickland, of JLS Consulting. Different employers within the industry are affected in their own individual way.
Some aren't suffering from a shortage at all, either because they were able to retain more of their workforce during the pandemic, or received longer packages of support from their governments.
While highly disruptive for passengers, the cancellations represent a small proportion of flights globally, he said.
The pandemic exacerbated existing shortages and changed the labor market
Like many industries, staff shortages were a long-running problem before the pandemic but the pandemic made it much worse as airlines were forced to furlough or let go of workers in their thousands.
Oxford Economics estimates that globally, there were 2.3 million fewer people working in aviation by September 2021 compared with the beginning of the pandemic, per the FT.
"Now that you're coming out of COVID, and the demand is actually showing signs of rapid recovery. You're starting to see that they have fewer pilots, and the same amount of flying to do," said Umang Gupta, of Alton Aviation, a consultancy. Something that was made worse by airlines offering pilots voluntary opt-outs during the pandemic, Gupta added.
Add into that a squeezed post-pandemic labor market, which is making it harder for some aviation companies to recruit as workers demand higher pay, or reflect on their career.
"Now you're seeing that people are not ready to take the job at the salary levels that were offered before so they have to pay more to get the same people," Gupta said.
Perhaps the best example of this is a simmering battle ongoing at London's Heathrow airport, where 500 check-in operators for British Airways are threatening to strike June. Union bosses who are leading the strikes say the airline is yet to reinstate a 10% pay cut implemented during the pandemic.
British Airways did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the negotiations.
In general, industry leaders have "been too optimistic about the preparedness of people they've let go to come back," said Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, which represents air traffic controllers, licensed technical engineers, and air traffic systems specialists in the UK.
"At the present minute, if you are working in an airport environment, it's even more stressful than normal. Because the traveling public are not happy," Clancy said.
Uncertainty has not let bosses adequately plan
Airline bosses have been accused of failing to act quickly enough to counter staff shortages and of optimistically overselling tickets for flights that they knew they couldn't service.
Strickland — who used to work in network planning for airlines — insists amid two years of uncertainty, emergent COVID-19 variants and constantly changing travel restrictions, bosses have been unable to plan adequately because their normal planning cycle has been disrupted.
The swathe of cancellations the industry is seeing is an attempt to slim down capacity and stabilize operations.
No one knows quite how long it could last.
The dropping of the requirement for international travellers into the US to test negative for COVID-19 is likely to further boost international traffic. Gupta highlights that many East Asian airlines are still yet to resume full international travel.
"I can't see the summer being anything but lumpy and bumpy," Strickland said. "There are many uncertainties."
More: Airlines transporation Aviation labor shortage | 2022-06-14T15:58:30Z | www.businessinsider.com | Blame Flight Chaos on Lack of Planning, Tight Labor Market: Experts | https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-labor-shortage-cancelling-flights-aviation-jobs-market-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-labor-shortage-cancelling-flights-aviation-jobs-market-2022-6 |
Biotech execs share the 3 most important steps companies can take to increase diversity and inclusion in the industry
Nearly 8 out of 10 biotech companies say that diversity is a priority.
But executives and CEOs in the industry are still overwhelmingly white and male.
Experts say changes to clinical trials, CEO accountability and pay equity are essential.
It's not news in 2022 that diversity and inclusion are important tenets of running a successful company. Reports from McKinsey and Harvard Business Review have shown that companies with a diverse workforce are more profitable, for example.
But in the biotech industry, there's still plenty of room for improvement, according to a new survey from industry group BIO and nonprofit think tank Coqual. On Monday, the pair released their third annual survey measuring diversity in 99 biotech companies.
Some of the survey results were encouraging: Women now make up half of all employees at biotech companies, and 42% of companies surveyed said they increased the number of non-white executives.
The upper echelons of the industry, however, still remain homogenous. Nearly 80% of biotech CEOs are men, and 70% of CEOs are white, according to the survey. The lack of leadership diversity costs women in the biotech and pharma industry an estimated $532 million a year, according to an Insider analysis published last year.
However, there are some solutions. At the 2022 BIO conference in San Diego, biotech executives laid out three concrete steps that companies can take to increase diversity in their ranks and instill confidence in their workers.
Increase diversity in clinical trials
Veronica Sandoval, principal of patient inclusion and health equity at Genentech, said companies need to think about patients, not just workers. She said biotech firms need to start recruiting more diverse patients in clinical trials. Right now, she said, "we are not representing the patients that we want to treat."
It's a sentiment that was recently echoed by the US Food and Drug Administration. In April, the agency released draft guidance for companies to include more diversity in biomedical research.
Companies often go to academic medical centers to recruit people for clinical trials, Sandoval said, which results in over 90% of clinical trial patients being white. She suggested that companies instead bring clinical trials to community centers, and compensate participants for their involvement.
Recruiting diverse patients has also helped Genentech move through the recruiting process more quickly, she said. For a study that enrolled only Latino and Black patients to study multiple sclerosis, Sandoval says they completed enrollment two months faster than normal.
Hold CEOs accountable for their companies
While nearly 8 out of 10 biotech companies surveyed said that recruiting and keeping diverse employees was a priority, only 11% of companies said that their CEO's evaluations and compensation are linked to diversity and inclusion metrics.
"Adding diversity considerations to leader evaluations sends a clear message that the ability to lead employees of all backgrounds is a requirement of growth and seniority at a company," according to the BIO report.
Eric Dube, president and CEO of Travere Therapeutics, said it's essential for executives and boards to not only talk about diversity, but also measure it. He said that every company executive should have a stated objective on how to address diversity and inclusion within their company
"I can guarantee you that your employees are listening to your silence," he said, "and they will vote with their feet whether this is the company or industry for them."
Analyze and address pay inequity
According to the executives, there is one factor that makes the biggest difference in promoting diversity within a company: equal pay.
"Many of our research studies have shown that if you do not offer pay equity, many of your other DE&I initiatives are for naught," said Jyoti Agarwal, managing director of Coqual. 61% of companies that responded to the survey said they conduct a pay equity analysis, and only 58% said they take steps to ensure pay equity. More companies should be conducting these analyses, according to Coqual, because they are linked to perceptions of fairness at work.
"If we have to say what is the top thing an organization should do if they're not doing it now, pay equity would be right at the top of that list," she said.
More: Healthcare Dispensed Diversity Diversity and Inclusion
Pay disparity | 2022-06-14T15:58:42Z | www.businessinsider.com | CEO Accountability, Pay Equity Essential to Increasing Biotech Diversity | https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-accountability-pay-equity-essential-to-biotech-diversity-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-accountability-pay-equity-essential-to-biotech-diversity-2022-6 |
'I was caught off guard': 7 crypto influencers open up about the portfolio wreckage they've suffered in the crash — and how they're adjusting to their new reality
From left to right: WendyO, John Vasquez, Adrian Zduńczyk, Ken Mack, Brenda Gentry, and Ian Balina
The last quarter of 2021 marked peak crypto bullishness and six-figure bitcoin price targets.
Hyped forecasts didn't materialize and some experts are calling for a strung-out crypto ice age.
Crypto influencers open up about the turn of events and what they're doing during the slowdown.
The second half of 2021 saw the crypto market reach maximum bullishness among many enthusiasts who had stocked up on digital assets at peak prices. Many crypto influencers and fund managers alike called for a six-figure bitcoin price by the fourth quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of this year.
But near the end of last year, bitcoin sliding from its November peak — and early signs that inflation could prompt the Federal Reserve to end the era of easy monetary policy — made it clear that these hyped forecasts would not come to fruition.
On May 4, the central bank unleashed its second interest-rate hike of this cycle, and investors couldn't dump their risky bags fast enough. In the week that followed, the stock market plunged, and bitcoin tumbled by 27% in one week.
Over a month later, there's still no sign of relief, and the largest cryptocurrency's price has fallen from its peak by more than half. The carnage has extended to various other altcoins that online influencers have recommended investors buy, including terra luna (LUNC/LUNA, -98% from its peak), chainlink (LINK, -73% off highs), and solana (SOL, -84% from its apex).
In fact, some experts such as Paul Jackson, Invesco's global head of asset-allocation research, aren't just calling for a crypto winter, but rather an "ice age" where prices could stay low for years.
Insider caught up with seven crypto influencers to see how they're reacting to the turn of events, whether they expected the plunge, and what they're doing during the slowdown.
Adrian Zduńczyk, founder and CEO of The Birb Nest
Adrian Zduńczyk
"This definitely got me off guard, and my portfolio took some hits," Adrian Zduńczyk said.
Zduńczyk, a crypto technical analyst who amassed 660,000 followers on Twitter under the username crypto_birb, regularly tweets crypto charts and shares the signals he uses to analyze price action.
In November, he shared two bitcoin price targets with Insider: a near-term top at $70,000 — which bitcoin nearly tapped a few days after his interview — and eventually $120,000, which he anticipated bitcoin would reach at the end of the bull run.
He also predicted that other large-cap cryptos including ether, litecoin, chainlink, polkadot, solana, cardano, and polygon would trail behind bitcoin based on historical patterns. However, these cryptos are currently down between 76% and 86%.
So why was he caught off guard? Zduńczyk attributes this to the quick turn of global events that put a lot of selling pressure on the market. He believes the downward spiral began with the Chinese megadeveloper Evergrande's default, followed by interest-rate hikes, and finally the war in Ukraine.
He told Insider his losses are in the mid-six figures. However, he said he made his bets based on long-term outlooks, so he's holding his positions either way. In the meantime, he plans on buying up more bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin while their prices are down.
John Vasquez, aka Coach JV, crypto educator and investor
John Vasquez, crypto educator and investor
Courtesy of John Vasquez
"I was anticipating a bull market . I was anticipating it to go up. It was definitely shocking to see it go down," John Vasquez, a crypto influencer who has amassed over 1 million followers on TikTok, said.
His top picks for the bull run were ether, XRP, vechain, crypto.com, and decentraland. These altcoins are currently down between 64% to 88%.
Vasquez — who was a banker before becoming a crypto investor — realized that between inflation, interest-rate hikes, and the war in Ukraine, the global economy was in a bad spot.
His crypto portfolio is down by about 70%, but he says he's keeping calm and carrying on. He has multiple sources of income between his coaching academy, gym, and other small businesses he has invested in.
"The reason why I'm not panicking is the fact that I use cryptocurrency as an investment, not my retirement," Vasquez said. "I never mix investments in my retirement. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that people make."
Vasquez said while the market was up, he periodically pulled profits from his crypto portfolio and re-invested them into other assets. He invests in commodities like silver and insurance plans, such as a type of indexed universal-life-insurance policy, particularly a product pegged to the S&P 500 with managed returns that are within a margin of 0% to 10% per year.
"I never used my crypto portfolio as my ability to live or survive," Vasquez said. "So when it's up and it's thriving, of course, I'm pulling off profits, but when I pull profits, I take those and I secure my wealth somewhere else."
As for his crypto portfolio, he's continuing to buy the dip on projects he believes have strong fundamentals and will survive the bear cycle. He told Insider he has developed a "Warren Buffett-style" investment strategy in crypto, which means he's betting on fundamentals such as what these cryptos solve, their utility, and the team.
Brenda Gentry, aka Cryptomom
Brenda Gentry is focused on DeFi investing.
Brenda Gentry
"I was caught off guard by the luna crash, but I was prepared for the downtrend," Brenda Gentry said.
Gentry spent most of her career as a mortgage underwriter before deciding to quit her traditional nine-to-five to pursue crypto investing full-time. She's specifically bullish on investing in decentralized finance projects.
As @MsCryptomom1 on Twitter, she frequently participates in Spaces discussing nonfungible tokens, DeFi, and more. One of her main goals has been teaching and onboarding her entire family into crypto investing. A big part of that process included preparing them for the deep plunges and long winters ahead.
"I told them we're gonna have a few months that may not be that good, and your tokens could go down 80%," Gentry said. "So I did tell my family members that. I didn't want to be like those people who introduced their family during the bull run, and then they didn't know what to tell them when it's a bear market ."
Gentry earns her living in ether both by getting paid from projects she consults for and flipping her positions for profits. She didn't ride the wave down. She told Insider that she began selling her ether in December after a friend told her he was selling his Bored Ape NFT while ether was trading at around $4,000.
"I was like, wow, why are you selling now? And he said, 'Because this is the top for a minute.' And so I always follow his signals. So I sold some and I became liquid," Gentry said.
A large holding of her ether now sits in stablecoins such as USD Coin and tether where they can hold their value to the dollar. Currently, she's working with her daughters at their firm, Gentry Media, a marketing company for blockchain-based projects. They have contracts that run for a few months, which means they'll have a steady income for now. Her husband also holds a six-figure government job that keeps their family afloat.
David Gokhshtein, founder of Gokhshtein Media
David Gokhshtein, founder of Gokhshtein Media and CEO of PAC Protocol.
Courtesy of David Gokhshtein
David Gokhshtein was anticipating $100,000 bitcoin and $10,000 ether by the end of the year.
When the Federal Reserve announced a second interest-rate hike, he didn't expect bitcoin to plunge as low as it did. He thought the crypto would see a 10% to 15% drop. Gokhshtein believes the crash of Terra Luna's ecosystem dragged bitcoin and the overall crypto market down further than it should have gone.
He believes bitcoin would have hit six figures if it weren't for the Fed's rate hikes, though he admits they had to tighten their policy and stop the money printing at some point. He's now betting the central bank will halt plans for further rate hikes because it would be horrific for the economy. It could also send the US into a recession and this outcome would be bad for the current administration, he added.
"We are not in a bear market , we're just in a downtrend right now, which give or take in a few months, we can see if a turnaround happens," Gokhshtein said.
For him, it's just the perfect opportunity to acquire more bitcoin and ether.
Ian Balina, founder Token Metrics
Ian Balina, the founder and CEO of Token Metrics, a newsletter for early-stage cryptocurrencies and blockchains.
Ian Balina
Ian Balina, the founder of Token Metrics, a crypto-research platform that uses artificial intelligence, says he wasn't as surprised as some of his peers when the bull run wasn't extended.
"So this was to be expected," Balina said. "At Token Metrics our model turned bearish back in November. So since then, we were officially in a bear market ."
He told Insider his personal portfolio is down by about 80%. However, as a value investor, his playbook is to sell during bull markets, which meant he began taking profits in September and November of 2021.
One crypto he thought would weather the bear market was Terra Luna, a sentiment he shared when he last spoke to Insider in late March. At the time, luna was one of the top 10 cryptos, so people didn't have many concerns about it, he said.
However, by early April, the firm's flagship AI indicator began to show a sell signal for luna. The token then imploded about a month later, on May 4.
CryptoWendyO, crypto trader and influencer
WendyO, crypto trader and influencer.
WendyO
The pseudonymous crypto influencer who hosts "The O Show" on YouTube for almost 170,000 subscribers, told Insider her losses are in the upper-five figures or close to six figures.
WendyO covers everything from crypto news to technical analysis and instructional how-tos. One of her main strategies has been to reduce risk by regularly taking profits but leaving some money on the table. She calls this approach a "moon-bag strategy."
"A lot of my moon bags have gone to zero. I kept very small positions in those because you never know what can happen in crypto and that's OK. I plan for those to either do really well or to go to zero. So whatever happens with those, I'm content and I planned that risk.
"I remove my initial investment. I remove my profit. So whatever else I have left over, I own free and clear and I'll create multiple different bags like that, just so that I'm removing risk," WendyO said.
In September, she reposted a TikTok video agreeing with another influencer, BlockchainBoy, who said he was selling 60% of his crypto holdings, noting that she sells regularly.
"I think it got 730,000 views on YouTube. And a lot of people were upset about it, but I'm glad that I did because I would be in absolute shambles if I did not," WendyO said.
Her biggest losses came from DeFi tokens she bet on during the summer of 2020. They have since either been completely wiped out or have gone down by as much as 80% to 99%. Right now, she's being a bit more frugal in terms of how she spends her money. In the meantime, she's holding USDC and making short-term trades to gain a 10% to 20% profit. As for long-term investments, she's not betting on anything right now.
WendyO recently announced she'll be co-hosting a show on CoinDesk TV.
Ken Mack, crypto investor
Ken Mack
Ken Mack definitely didn't anticipate the de-pegging of Terra's stablecoin UST, a crash that cost many investors tokens that were attractive for being pegged to the dollar. When Insider caught up with him on June 7, he admitted that he took a bad hit when Terra Luna crashed, losing about $1.3 million of combined value in UST and luna.
Still, he has the bulk of his crypto in stablecoins, mainly USD Coin, with some in Tether USDT.
Mack did two previous interviews with Insider. His first was in October 2021, when he was pacing for a fourth-quarter bull run. He shared an exit strategy for each crypto he owned, marking the price points he would sell as prices climbed. But during his second interview in December, past the peak of several tokens, he told Insider that he was no longer holding out for higher prices. Instead, he said he was already exiting his positions.
For him, the end of 2021 marked shaky global and market conditions, which meant he no longer felt confident about bitcoin going to $100,000. Instead, he noted bitcoin could go to $10,000 in 2022 and 2023.
The Chinese developer Evergrande had also defaulted in December. Then, there was the anticipation of interest-rate hikes. His outlook wasn't popular at a time when many others were still bullish. He told Insider he later got a lot of heat from that interview but to date, he still stands by his forecast.
The main areas he said he moved his profits to include real estate, gold, silver, and even watches that have market-resale value.
He plans on buying back into bitcoin when its price drops to about $19,500, which he believes is likely. He also has buy orders set all the way down to around $13,700 and even at about $11,000. However, he noted that the deep dip could be very short-lived and he may not execute his lowest buy order.
More: Features crypto crypto 2022 crypto addiction
Influencer Content
influencer stock market
Influencer Strategy | 2022-06-14T15:58:48Z | www.businessinsider.com | Crypto Market Crash: 7 Influencers Share Losses, How They're Adjusting | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-crash-investing-influencers-market-losses-commentary-responses-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-crash-investing-influencers-market-losses-commentary-responses-2022-6 |
Amazon kicked a trans employee off the board of its 'Glamazon' LGBTQ group after she asked the company to stop selling anti-trans books
Protestors staged a "die-in" outside Amazon's corporate headquarters in Seattle over Amazon's sale of transphobic books.
Tensions inside Amazon are rising after employees protested the company's selling of books that portray being transgender as a disease.
Last month, Amazon kicked a worker off the board of an LGBTQ employee group after she questioned the company's stance on selling transphobic content.
In an email to colleagues, the employee said Amazon told her she was a "bad actor" exhibiting "blatant negativity."
A transgender Amazon employee was asked to leave the board of a company-sponsored LGBTQ group after she questioned why Amazon sells transphobic books, according to leaked emails and people familiar with the matter.
The move roiled Amazon workers who have protested its decision to continue selling books like "Irreversible Damage" and "Johnny the Walrus" that portray being trans as deviant and are widely seen as hateful and transphobic.
Insiders also saw the ousting of Shannon Hauck, the employee who was removed from the board of the Glamazon LGBTQ employee group, as further evidence the company is not committed to hearing their concerns, according to conversations with three current and former Amazon employees.
Amazon's refusal to stop selling transphobic books has emerged as a source of significant tension between employees and leadership in the past year. At least four workers have publicly resigned over the issue. A covert employee group, No Hate at Amazon, this spring gathered hundreds of employee signatures demanding the company stop selling the books. Earlier this month, nearly 30 employees staged a protest that disrupted an Amazon Pride Month celebration at its Seattle headquarters, accusing the company of "rainbow-washing" its reputation and once again demanding it stop selling the books.
Employees decided to protest after "exhausting all other avenues" of escalating the issue internally, a protest organizer told Insider in an interview. "We've seen the exact same pattern exert itself every time: A book is published, there's a massive internal escalation" of employees writing trouble tickets and emails, "but Amazon takes no action."
Amazon has said that it supports the transgender community and its trans employees. "As a company, we believe strongly in diversity, equity, and inclusion," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement to Insider. "As a bookseller, we've chosen to offer a very broad range of viewpoints, including books that conflict with our company values and corporate positions. We believe that it's possible to do both – to offer a broad range of viewpoints in our bookstore, and support diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Employee activism over transphobic content at Amazon is part of a blossoming movement of tech workers protesting their company's policies, including at Google, Twitter, and Facebook. Amazon's corporate employees have also spoken out about the company's climate impact and treatment of warehouse workers.
Hauck, who started at Amazon as a warehouse associate five years ago and now works in a corporate quality control role, according to her LinkedIn, joined the Glamazon board in February as its transgender engagement coordinator, according to one current Amazon employee familiar with the situation. Hauck declined to speak with Insider.
In early May, Hauck sent an email to a Glamazon listserv in response to a company-wide call for questions for Amazon's worldwide consumer CEO Dave Clark, according to a screenshot of the email seen by Insider.
"I'm asking: Why Amazon continues to do business with a fascist who takes pleasure in the trauma of Amazon associates?" she wrote, a reference to right-wing commentator Matt Walsh who wrote the anti-trans book "Johnny the Walrus." The right-wing social media account Libs of TikTok this spring published an internal video of Amazon employees discussing Walsh's book. Walsh discussed the video on social media and on right-wing news channels, including Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
"Why Amazon continues to sell transphobic material?" Hauck continued. "Why Amazon continues to tell transgender associates but yet sells material that says we're predators and need to be put in jail or worse? How Amazon can even begin to 'Strive to be Earth's Best Employer' when it won't listen to associates saying the company is WRONG?"
Within a week, Hauck had been asked to leave the board of Glamazon, according to another email she sent to the listserv on May 16. Hauck relayed that the group's leadership cited her "blatant negativity" and told her she was a "bad actor," according to one current Amazon employee and one former Amazon employee familiar with the situation.
Insider previously reported that some workers have said they've lost faith in the Glamazon group to represent Amazon's LGBTQ employees.
An Amazon spokesperson said that board members for Glamazon and other internal affinity groups, like Amazon's Black Employee Network, are expected to adhere to company policies. Affinity groups are self-directed, the spokesperson said, and boards can decide to remove one of their own members. The Glamazon board continues to have transgender representation.
The news of Hauck's removal generated an outpouring of support for her along with confusion among Glamazon members, according to two employees. Hauck is a beloved figure within Amazon's trans community, said former Amazon employee Lina Jodoin, who quit earlier this month over Amazon's refusal to stop selling transphobic books.
"Shannon has been such a wonderful leader for the trans community at Amazon," Jodoin said.
"She's spent her time just … welcoming people, helping people find resources and escalating all sorts of trans issues at Amazon. She's fixed so many sharp edges."
More: Amazon Transgender employee activism Pride 2022 | 2022-06-14T20:32:22Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon Kicks Trans Employee Off Board of LGBTQ Group After Book Protest | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-trans-board-glamazon-lgbtq-group-book-protest-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-trans-board-glamazon-lgbtq-group-book-protest-2022-6 |
Kimberly Leonard and Madison Hall
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado failed to properly report their spouses' stock trades.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Hickenlooper was late disclosing stock purchases by his wife that are worth as much as $1.2 million.
Rep. Jamie Raskin didn't properly disclose a stock share exchange for his wife.
Both have violated the STOCK Act before.
Two prominent Democrats in Congress have violated a federal stock trading law by blowing past deadlines to report their spouses' stock trades.
Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland are in violation of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act's disclosure provisions, according to an Insider review of financial filings the lawmakers made with Congress.
The senator's wife, Robin Pringle Hickenlooper, is the senior vice president of corporate development at the Liberty Media Corporation, a company with ownership stakes in the Atlanta Braves baseball team, SiriusXM radio, and Formula One racing.
The couple disclosed the stock trades between two months and 14 months late. By law, they should have been disclosed no later than 45 days after the trades were made.
Hickenlooper has filed disclosures late before. He was months — and in two cases, more than a year — late in disclosing five separate stock trades for himself or his wife that, taken together, are worth between $565,000 and $1.3 million, nonprofit news organization Sludge reported.
Hickenlooper did not respond to a list of questions posed by Insider about his latest disclosure.
Raskin pays fine
Jamie Raskin was late disclosing the exchange of stocks his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, received when I(X) Investments merged with Net Zero.
The companies invest in sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy — causes Sarah Bloom Raskin has championed. She was on the board of I(X) Investments and received stocks as compensation, but had left at the time of the merger while still retaining stocks.
The document Jamie Raskin filed shows his wife didn't learn of the exchange, valued between $250,001 and $500,000, until a month after it happened. But under House ethics rules the couple still only had until late March to file a report.
Jamie Raskin reported it June 9, about two months late and past the 45-day deadline from the February 9 exchange.
The congressman said he first learned about the exchange on May 17 through his family accountant who was preparing his annual financial disclosures. It then took him two weeks to figure out what happened with the exchange and how it needed to be reported to the US House, he said.
"I got in touch with Ethics staff and explained the situation and they advised filing a PTR," he said, referring to the periodic transaction report documents listing stock trades. "So I submitted the PTR and have also submitted a $200 check for an apparently late filing."
A fine of $200 is standard for late financial disclosures. To confirm payment, Raskin's office provided Insider with a copy of the check made out to the US Treasury as well as a receipt by the Legislative Resource Center.
The Raskins have had an eventful year. Jamie Raskin, who led the 2021 impeachment against former President Donald Trump, is a member of the January 6 Committee to investigate the attack against the Capitol.
In January, President Joe Biden nominated Sarah Bloom Raskin to be the Fed's vice chairwoman of supervision but she withdrew herself from consideration after Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the most conservative Democrat in the upper chamber, joined Republicans and said he wouldn't support her.
Insider previously reported that Jamie Raskin failed to disclose on his financial reports that Sarah Bloom Raskin held stock in fintech company Reserve Trust. He then didn't disclose that she sold the stock, valued at $1.5 million, until months after deadline.
Jamie Raskin previously explained that he disclosed the sale late because it happened around the same time his son died by suicide. He has not explained why his family didn't report owning Reserve Trust when his wife acquired it, and in the years they held it.
Late disclosures continue despite media scrutiny
Insiders' reporting also found numerous examples of conflicts of interest among federal lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans.
The consequences for violating the STOCK Act are generally minimal, inconsistently applied, and not publicly recorded, Insider has found.
In the US House members often have to keep track themselves of cases in which they might have run afoul of the law and whether they're supposed to pay a late fee.
In the US Senate the process is more automated, with an email going out to staff and members soon after they disclose their trades late.
Some government reform advocates want President Joe Biden to be more vocal about federal lawmakers and their stock trades.
Coming changes to the law?
Lawmakers on the left and right have introduced several bills to ban or otherwise limit their colleagues — and in some cases, spouses — from buying and selling individual stocks.
Raskin does not personally trade individual stocks, even though his wife holds stocks as compensation. Raskin is a co-sponsor of the Ban Conflicted Trading Act that would prohibit other federal lawmakers from trading stocks. He's also a member of the Committee on House Administration that is considering new rules on congressional stock trading.
Short of an outright ban, the committee may decide to improve ethics training for federal lawmakers and to increase the fine for violating the STOCK Act. Reporting by Insider found that some members and staff can fall short of following the law because they aren't always clear about what the the rules are, despite their best efforts to comply.
Ben Olinsky, senior vice president of structural reform and governance at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said that harsher disclosure rules wouldn't go far enough.
"To avoid both conflicts of interest and the perception of any such conflicts, members of Congress should either have to move their assets to a blind trust or be banned from owning or selling individual stocks," he said.
"In order for our government to function, voters need to trust that lawmakers have their best interests at heart," said Damon Effingham, the director of strategic partnerships at the watchdog organization RepresentUs. "Continuing to allow members of Congress to trade stocks with little oversight and accountability will further erode public trust in government, and gives additional fodder to anti-democracy forces who want to see our system fail."
Earlier this month a coalition of 16 reform advocates, government watchdog groups, and political organizations urged Biden in a letter to "publicly and actively" push Congress to ban its members from trading individual stocks. RepresentUs was one of the organizations that signed on.
"Legislators across parties, across both houses of Congress, need to unify around a proposal and get it done," Effingham said. "That's one reason we're calling on President Biden to get involved. His voice is critical to getting this issue across the finish line and delivering for Americans who are speaking very clearly on this issue."
More: Donald Trump Joe Biden Conflicted Congress Sarah Bloom Raskin | 2022-06-14T20:32:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | Democrats Hickenlooper and Raskin Violated the STOCK Act. Again. | https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-hickenlooper-raskin-stock-trades-congress-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-hickenlooper-raskin-stock-trades-congress-2022-6 |
In this September 8, 2018, file photo, a drag performer by the name of Champagne Monroe reads the children's book "Rainbow Fish" to a group of kids and parents at the Mobile Public Library in Mobile, Alabama.
Republicans have targeted drag performers and drag shows during Pride month.
The anti-gay social-media influencer Libs of TikTok has stoked online outrage against performers.
Five alleged Proud Boys extremists targeted a drag event for children at a California library.
Five men believed to be affiliated with the far-right extremist Proud Boys entered a library on Saturday in San Lorenzo, California, where local authorities say they shouted homophobic and transphobic slurs at a Drag Queen Story Hour event for children and their parents.
"The men were described as extremely aggressive with a threatening violent demeanor causing people to fear for their safety,'' the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the incident as a hate crime, said in a press release.
The same day in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, police arrested and charged 31 people they said were associated with the white-nationalist group Patriot Front with conspiracy to riot after they were seen gathering near a Pride parade. The men arrested came from around the country, and the town's police chief said they brought riot gear, metal poles, and at least one smoke grenade.
The incidents occurred less than a week after a crowd of demonstrators showed up outside a Dallas bar holding "Drag the Kids to Pride," a drag show and brunch for families. Around a dozen protesters chanted "Christ is king" outside the bar, and a local news station reported one woman in the crowd held a sign accusing those involved in the show of pedophilia.
The bar, called Mr. Misster, in a statement said: "We had a group of protestors outside yelling homophobic threats, transphobic remarks and vile accusations at these children and parents."
Hate and harassment targeting drag performers have escalated in recent weeks as events to celebrate LGBTQ Pride month have ramped up, but the harassment is also indicative of a resurgent right-wing campaign to associate gay and trans people with predatory behavior and pedophilia — falsely labeling them as "groomers" intent on coercing children into sex.
Much of the campaign has played out in plain sight, with right-wing influencers inciting online outrage against LGBTQ events and performers. Before the wave of far-right protests and harassment in the past week, the anti-gay Libs of TikTok Twitter account repeatedly posted information about family-friendly drag events to its 1.2 million followers.
Libs of TikTok specifically posted about the Pride events in Dallas, San Lorenzo, and Coeur D'Alene in the weeks before extremists and far-right protesters targeted those events and rallies.
Drag performers and organizers mentioned in Libs of TikTok tweets told Insider they faced vicious, targeted harassment campaigns and attempts to shut down their shows.
Drag performers face threats and harassment from conservative outrage campaign
Nick, a 34-year-old drag performer who has been working in California's Bay Area for seven years, has felt the backlash targeting drag performers. Nick was the focus of intense online harassment after the Libs of TikTok account reshared a video of their Pride Month performance for students during an event at a California charter school.
Nick, who asked Insider not to publish their last name to fears of further attacks, said they were one of three drag performers who were asked to perform at a school assembly for students in grades 6 to 12. Nick tweeted a clip of the performance days later and said the video was positively received until "right wing people found it."
The 15-second clip showed Nick performing onstage in a long dress for a small crowd of students and staff, who cheered enthusiastically as Nick removed a series of wigs while Whitney Houston's song "I Have Nothing" played over the speakers.
After Libs of TikTok shared the video, which now has over 510,000 views on Twitter, Nick said they received numerous death threats and messages calling them a "groomer." Others claimed Nick was harming or otherwise "corrupting" children. Nick received hate messages on every one of their social-media platforms, leading them to either temporarily set the accounts to private or delete the profiles entirely.
A post shared by Nicki Jizz (@nicki_jizz)
Part of the attacks focused on Nick's performer name, Nicki Jizz, but Nick said that when performing for children or at corporate events, they go by "Nicki J." The performance was also not sexual in nature, Nick said, and they opted to wear a full-length dress despite performing outside on a hot day. None of that deterred the harassment campaign.
Nick said their mother recently died, and right-wing trolls began writing comments underneath a post about her death. "That's how far these people are going," Nick said.
The renewed hate campaigns against drag queens is "sad and kind of makes you feel a little defeated at times," Nick said. "I feel like people, especially since they're behind a keyboard, feel more empowered. Sadly, even some of them go out in person and express it in very sad and hateful ways in front of children."
"Something that was supposed to be really sweet and fun has just gone the opposite," they said.
Libs of TikTok posts have targeted drag events across the country, as cancellations and protests follow
Over the past week, Libs of TikTok has posted dozens of times about specific drag shows or Pride Month events that involve children, claiming without evidence that these events harm kids. The account, which The Washington Post reported is run by a Brooklyn real-estate agent named Chaya Raichik, has targeted libraries, zoos, botanical gardens, and LGBTQ youth organizations for organizing events that involve drag performers.
The account claimed in its most recent post to Substack that it had been limited by Twitter three times, though most of the tweets targeting drag performers and venues that host them have been allowed to remain on the platform. Twitter's hateful conduct policy prohibits accounts that exist to "promote violence" or "directly attack" individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Neither Twitter nor Libs of TikTok responded to Insider's request for comment.
"The left has no idea what they are unleashing," the account said in a now-deleted tweet. "They keep trying to censor and silence me but unbeknownst to them, I actually thrive even more under those circumstances."
In Apex, North Carolina, a suburb of Raleigh, a Drag Queen Story Hour event scheduled for June 11 was the subject of a Libs of TikTok tweet. On May 31, shortly after the account tweeted about the event, the town's mayor, Jacques Gilbert, announced the city's festival commission decided to remove it from Pride celebrations due to a "variety of feedback."
The move sparked backlash from LGBTQ advocates, who argued that officials caved to a vocal minority who did not represent the interests of the town. The LGBTQ advocacy group Equality NC later in the week announced it would take over as the sponsor of Apex Pride, allowing the story hour to resume.
Raafe Purnsley, a North Carolina drag artist who performs as Stormie Daie, told Insider that Drag Queen Story Hour events offered an opportunity to hold important conversations with children on topics like LGBTQ history, Black history, body image, and anxiety.
A post shared by Raafe Ahmaad Nathaniel Purnsley (@stormiedaie)
"Those are things that I have done specifically with drag and story hours since I've been here, mostly because I'm pretty adept now at talking to children about a myriad of subjects," Purnsley said. "My background was in environmental science, and I was a science teacher for a little bit of time before I started doing drag."
Having conversations with children as drag queens brings elements of fun and joy to difficult subjects, Purnsley said, noting that drag queens have often been at the forefront of bringing conversations about topics like gender identity to the mainstream.
"I think people need to grow up," Purnsley said. "They also need to recognize that all we are talking about when we are talking to children is accepting people for their differences, teaching them about the fact that there are options and possibilities for their life other than getting married and having a wife or a husband."
GOP legislators have increasingly targeted drag shows and LGBTQ rights
As right-wing influencers such as Libs of TikTok have fomented online harassment against drag and LGBTQ events, lawmakers in both Texas and Florida have proposed legislation attempting to ban family drag shows.
Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton, a Republican, last week filed legislation that would ban drag performances in the presence of children. In a press release announcing the legislation, Slaton said the bill was the result of a "disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children."
Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a Republican who is also running for Congress, said in a tweet he planned to propose legislation that would make it a felony and terminate the parental rights of "any adult who brings a child to these perverted sex shows." Sabatini called for an emergency session of the Florida legislature to consider his proposal.
The proposed anti-drag legislation follows a raft of other bills this year targeting the LGBTQ community.
In Texas, Slaton has also said he would work toward passing legislation that would make providing gender-affirming care to minors "child abuse." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in February signed an order that instructed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate and prosecute parents of transgender kids if they give their child gender-affirming care. A judge last week temporarily blocked the state from executing that order.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in March signed into a law a bill known as the "Don't Say Gay" law, which aims to limit the teaching of topics like sexuality and gender identity in schools. LGBTQ advocates decried the law, saying it would harm children who identify as gay or trans, or who have LGBTQ parents. DeSantis last week said he was considering directing state officials to investigate parents who take their children to drag shows.
"It's just outrageous that this is something that is taking up so much energy," Cathryn Oakley, the state legislative director and senior counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, said.
Such efforts by lawmakers to target and misrepresent drag queens and other LGBTQ people are meant to distract from real issues facing people in states like Texas, Oakley told Insider.
"They're taking their failure to address the real challenges that are facing Texas and then trying to twist that into something that'll get people riled up with moral panic," Oakley said.
The number of anti-LGBTQ bills enacted in state legislatures across the country reached a new high last year, according to data from HRC. Much of this legislation targeted trans youth, like laws enacted in Alabama and Louisiana that prevent trans athletes from playing on the sports teams that match their gender identity. Other bills and laws aim to criminalize doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors.
"In 2022, we're on the precipice of setting those records yet again," Oakley said.
Drag shows are the latest venue for the right's attacks on gender identity
The attacks against drag culture have come as the art form has gone increasingly mainstream. "RuPaul's Drag Race," which premiered on Logo in February 2009, is in its 14th season and now airing on MTV. It's also spawned numerous international franchises across the globe and spinoff series in the US. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, has appeared on the program twice, mostly recently in an episode that aired last week.
—RuPaul's Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) June 12, 2022
In North Carolina, Apex Pride and the story hour were "very lovely and very well received," Purnsley said. The backlash against drag comes from people's fear of changing ideas around gender constructs and identity, Purnsley said, leading to old panics that the LGBTQ community is somehow "corrupting children."
"I just want to read to children, and it is not lost on me how mundane and basic this desire or this mission is," Purnsley said. "I hope that people will stop taking my life and my community's life for granted, that they will see that we want good for the world."
Purnsley believes that if critics truly cared about kids, they would focus on issues legislating against gun violence and mental health rather than on drag performances and children's story hours.
"Children are growing up hurting. They are killing themselves. They are being murdered," Purnsley said. "We could do so much more than protest my padded Black ass."
More: LGBTQ Pride 2022 Pride Texas | 2022-06-14T20:32:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | Right Wing Influencers Are Stoking a Moral Panic About Drag Performers | https://www.businessinsider.com/drag-queens-children-lgbtq-right-wing-libsoftiktok-idaho-patriot-front2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/drag-queens-children-lgbtq-right-wing-libsoftiktok-idaho-patriot-front2022-6 |
Ford is recalling nearly 49,000 Mustang Mach-E SUVs.
Ford is recalling nearly 49,000 Mustang Mach-E SUVs in the US.
The electric vehicles could lose power due to a potential defect.
Ford told dealers not to deliver new Mach-Es until it issues a fix, likely in July.
Ford is recalling tens of thousands of electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs and instructing dealers to stop delivering the model until a potential safety defect is resolved, a company spokesperson confirmed to Insider.
CNBC first reported the news on Tuesday, citing a notice Ford sent to its dealers on Monday. The safety issue comes as Ford works furiously to ramp up production of electric vehicles and catch up to Tesla.
According to Ford, DC fast charging and repeated instances of intense acceleration can cause a component in the high-voltage battery system to overheat. Over time, this could cause a loss of power, which could elevate the risk of an accident, Ford said.
The potential defect impacts 48,924 Mustang Mach-E SUVs in the US.
Ford expects to send out an over-the-air software update to remedy the issue by July. In the meantime, it has told its dealers they can still sell Mach-Es but can't hand over SUVs to customers until the update occurs, the spokesperson said.
The Detroit automaker and others are in the midst of a massive transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean, battery-powered vehicles. The shift hasn't come without its stumbles.
Last year, General Motors recalled every Chevrolet Bolt EV after reports of battery fires and halted production of the model. Hyundai faced a similar issue, recalling electric models over fire risks. There is no evidence that fires are more likely in electric cars versus gas vehicles. | 2022-06-14T20:32:52Z | www.businessinsider.com | Ford Halts Mustang Mach-E SUV Deliveries Amid Massive Recall | https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-mustang-mach-e-recall-deliveries-halted-battery-overheating-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-mustang-mach-e-recall-deliveries-halted-battery-overheating-2022-6 |
GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, left, and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio confer as the House Judiciary Committee holds an emergency meeting to advance a series of Democratic gun control measures on June 2, 2022.
Gaetz called Jordan "the spiritual and intellectual leader" of the House GOP in a Time interview.
Gaetz has disparaged House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who's widely viewed as a potential future House speaker.
In April, Gaetz tweeted that Jordan was "the hardest working" member of the House GOP conference.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz heaped praise on conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, calling the Ohio lawmaker "the spiritual and intellectual leader" of the House Republican conference, in an interview with Time Magazine published Tuesday.
The Florida lawmaker downplayed senior GOP leaders in the House, pointing to Jordan — one of former President Donald Trump's staunchest congressional allies — as a revered figure among lawmakers in a caucus dominated by its most conservative voices.
"Where Jim goes, the conference goes," Gaetz told the publication of the Ohio Republican. "I don't even remember who holds which austere titles that append to what corner offices and expanded staff budgets, but they are the followers."
He added: "Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene [of Georgia], myself — we are the leaders."
In the Time interview, Gaetz also stated that no one has yet to reach out to him regarding the upcoming vote for House Speaker, which will come after the midterm elections in November.
Democrats are clinging to narrow 220-208 majority, and Republicans feel confident that they can win the 218 seats needed to control the chamber, driven by President Joe Biden's middling approval ratings and the party in power historically shedding congressional seats in the first midterm election when they also occupy the White House.
In recent months, Gaetz has been highly critical of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is poised to ascend to the speakership if Republicans retake control of the lower chamber.
After The New York Times published an audio recording in which McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana expressed concern about comments that Gaetz made about Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming following the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, the Florida congressman tore into GOP leadership.
"Rep. McCarthy and Rep. Scalise held views about President Trump and me that they shared on sniveling calls with Liz Cheney, not us," he tweeted in April. "This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders."
He added: "On the bright side, you no longer have to be a lobbyist with a $5,000 check to know what McCarthy and Scalise really think. You just have to listen to their own words as they disparage Trump and the Republicans in Congress who fight for him."
Jordan has previously stated that McCarthy would be his choice to become the next Speaker.
Meanwhile, Gaetz has hyped Jordan. In April, he tweeted that Jordan was "the hardest working and most talented member of the Republican House Conference," and added that "every member knows it." The congressman reiterated to Time that Jordan personified what he would want in a GOP leader.
Gaetz also told Time that in 2015, then-Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin supported McCarthy to become the next speaker, only to see the current minority leader withdraw his candidacy at the last minute — which paved the way for Ryan to lead the House.
"Paul Ryan was for Kevin McCarthy last time Kevin ran for Speaker," he told Time. "I think one of the first steps to becoming Speaker is initially supporting Kevin McCarthy."
More: Matt Gaetz Jim Jordan House Republican Conference Kevin McCarthy | 2022-06-14T20:32:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | Gaetz: Jim Jordan 'the Spiritual and Intellectual Leader' of House GOP | https://www.businessinsider.com/gaetz-jordan-house-republicans-intellectual-leader-conservatives-mccarthy-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/gaetz-jordan-house-republicans-intellectual-leader-conservatives-mccarthy-2022-6 |
Goldman-backed supply-chain tech startup Slync.io hasn't paid some employees in over a month, leaked messages show
Slync CEO Chris Kirchner (center) in the stand during the Sky Bet Championship match at Pride Park Stadium, Derby Saturday May 7, 2022.
Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images
US-based Slync.io employees told Insider they haven't been paid since May 10.
Slync raised a $60 million Series B led by Goldman Sachs' growth equity arm in February 2021.
Management has blamed the delay on banking and payment software issues.
Despite multiple assurance from management that the money's on its way, US employees of Goldman-backed supply chain tech startup Slync.io have not received a paycheck in over a month.
Insider viewed financial records from seven current or recently departed Slync employees, confirming May 10 was their last payment and that the company usually issues paychecks every two weeks. All these employees should have been paid on at least one subsequent pay period.
"I will honestly be lucky to make it until my first paycheck in my new position," said a former Slync employee who was forced to resign when the payments stopped. The employees said the two payments prior to May 10 were late. Before the payment issues began, Slync had roughly 100 employees worldwide and around 70 in the US, according to insiders.
Slync also owes tens of thousands of dollars to multiple vendors, according to records viewed by Insider and one of the vendors with outstanding payments. The Athletic, which was first to report that Slync employees haven't been paid on time, reported Friday that the company was also behind on payments to the NHL's Dallas Stars, which the company sponsors.
On Tuesday, CEO Chris Kirchner told Insider via email that Slync has "always been and remains a financially viable company."
Slync has raised more than $70 million in total venture capital since 2017 to build a technology that helps shippers and large logistics firms orchestrate transactions using automation. Its most recent round, a $60 million Series B, was led by GS Growth, Goldman Sachs' growth equity investment arm.
Goldman's John Giannuzzi joined Slync's board after the round. Giannuzzi did not respond to a request for comment. Board members and investors David Blumberg, Jim Atwell, and cofounder Rajan Patel also did not respond to requests for comment.
'We have broken your trust in the company'
Kirchner has communicated several different reasons for the lack of payment to employees over the last month. In a June 2 email he sent to the entire company, which Insider obtained, Kirchner described the situation as "an operational error with our corporate banking and investment practices."
"We have broken your trust in the company as well as our leadership group. I cannot say sorry enough," he wrote. "As a company commercially we have never been in a better position."
In that email, Kirchner said the problem has been fixed and the employees would be paid Friday June 3 or early the following week. Employees' financial records show they were not paid at that time.
On June 9, Kirchner told staff that the funds for their payment were available but the company had been terminated by its payroll processing company ADP, according to screenshots obtained by Insider.
"This has left us in a difficult situation as we scramble to get another provider online," he wrote on Slack . In the same message, Kirchner said he was "travelling completing a deal that solidifies the future of our company." He went on to warn the staff not to talk to the media.
"Once a new payroll provider comes online we will process the payrolls immediately and sequentially," Kirchner's Slack message read.
In the emailed statement to Insider, Kirchner said: "The company's recent payroll issues resulted from the company's inability to timely liquidate funds from an otherwise attractive investment vehicle in order to make recent payroll and not from any funding shortfall. As a result of the company's failure to make payroll, our payroll processor terminated its relationship with the company, further complicating our efforts to restore payroll. The funds needed to make payroll have now been liquidated and we have engaged a new payroll processor," he said, adding that payroll would be caught up "in the coming days."
"We have already begun the process of issuing payroll checks at this time. As you can imagine, this has been a difficult time for all of us involved and most of all our US employees," Kirchner said.
While Slync employees have been waiting for their pay — some report leaning on family to pay bills and racking up debt — Kirchner has been vying to purchase an English football club. Kirchner (not Slync) was named as a preferred bidder for the Derby County football club April 6. Kirchner withdrew his offer as of Monday June 13.
In the last four months, Slync has lost its chief marketing officer, chief revenue officer, and its chief financial officer, according to sources inside the company.
Regarding departures Kirchner told Insider: "While there have been several recent departures from the management team, those are not related to any payroll issues the company has been confronting. Both the board and the executive team are confident the company has an extremely capable management team that will provide the leadership needed for future growth."
One former employee said the company would be different even if payments resumed since so many had left.
"Lots of people are hiring lawyers and seeking proper recourse," said the same employee. | 2022-06-14T20:33:02Z | www.businessinsider.com | Goldman-Backed Startup Slync.io Hasn't Paid Staff in a Month | https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-backed-startup-slyncio-hasnt-paid-staff-in-a-month-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-backed-startup-slyncio-hasnt-paid-staff-in-a-month-2022-6 |
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia at a Capitol Hill news conference on gun safety in 2019.
36 House Democrats rolled out a bill to impose a 1,000% tax on AR-15-style weapons.
It's intended to bypass Republican opposition in a party-line spending bill.
Three experts said the plan would qualify for reconciliation.
Thirty-six House Democrats introduced legislation on Tuesday to levy a 1,000% tax on AR-15-style rifles in an effort to try and severely restrict access to the weapons through a maneuver that wouldn't require any GOP support.
Rep. Donald Beyer of Virginia formally rolled out the "Assault Weapons Excise Act" alongside 35 House Democrats spanning the ideological spectrum. Some of them are centrists who face difficult re-election bids in November.
"Congress must take action to stem the flood of weapons of war into American communities, which have taken a terrible toll in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa, and too many other places," Beyer said in a press release, referring to a recent string of high-profile mass shootings.
"I have voted in the past for commonsense gun safety reforms only to see them run aground on Senate Republicans' filibuster; my bill presents a pathway to bypass that obstruction and enact lifesaving measures," the Virginia Democrat said. The filibuster is the 60-vote threshold that most bills need to pass in the Senate, meaning any Democratic bill needs 10 Republican votes to advance at the moment.
Co-sponsors included Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, chair of the House Progressive Caucus; Rep. Katie Porter of California; Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey; and Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York.
The bill is intended to pass through budget reconciliation, a legislative maneuver allowing Democrats to sidestep GOP resistance and approve legislation with a simple majority vote. Democrats employed the tactic to pass President Joe Biden's stimulus law as well as the House-approved Build Back Better bill that later died in the 50-50 Senate.
Only measures that are deemed to have a distinct impact on the federal budget can be put into such a bill. Three budget experts told Insider that the bill would likely qualify to be included in a reconciliation bill that Democrats hope to revive by summer's end, as it is structured as a tax.
"I think it passes the tests on the various requirements to qualify for reconciliation," William G. Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and GOP budget expert, told Insider.
His view was shared by Ben Ritz, director of the Center for Funding America's Future at the Progressive Policy Institute, another think tank. Ritz said the bill's tax rate is easy to adjust to ensure it generates enough revenue so it complies with the strict rules of reconciliation. It's unclear how much money the tax would raise.
The measure lacked a Senate Democratic co-sponsor, typically considered a sign of support for a bill in both chambers. Senate Democrats appear to be treading cautiously around the legislation as they seek to hash out a final agreement with Republicans on a package of gun safety measures that include a modest expansion of background checks among other initiatives.
More: Policy Congress Republicans Democrats | 2022-06-14T20:33:14Z | www.businessinsider.com | 36 House Democrats Roll Out Bill for 1,000% Tax on AR-15-Style Weapons | https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-ar-15-tax-gun-control-reconciliation-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-ar-15-tax-gun-control-reconciliation-2022-6 |
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stands behind Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at a ceremony at the Capitol on June 8, 2022.
Mitch McConnell signaled that he's likely to support a new Senate proposal to curb gun violence.
It would be the first major gun legislation taken up by Congress in decades.
He said he's "comfortable with the framework" and will be "supportive" if the legislation ends up being similar.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered his public blessing to a nascent framework on new gun safety legislation struck by senators over the weekend.
"For myself, I'm comfortable with the framework, and if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I'll be supportive," McConnell told reporters at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Taking questions from reporters, he also noted that Sen. John Cornyn of Texas — the main Republican involved in the negotiations — had shown GOP lawmakers a poll during their Tuesday caucus lunch indicating that gun owners are supportive.
"Support for the provisions of the framework is off the charts. Overwhelming," McConnell said.
"I think if this framework becomes the actual piece of legislation, it's a step forward," he said, adding that the framework "further demonstrates to the American people that we can come together, which we have done from time to time on things like infrastructure and postal reform, to make progress for country."
The proposal, first announced on Sunday, includes providing resources to state and tribes to allow them to enact so-called "red flag" laws, expanding support for community behavioral health centers, closing the "boyfriend loophole" by keeping guns from unmarried people found guilty of violence against a partner, and funding for school security.
Cornyn and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut led the negotiations among senators alongside Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
"There's no doubt that our framework is a breakthrough," Murphy told reporters at Senate Democrats' weekly press conference on Tuesday. "The bill in and of itself is going to save thousands of lives."
Crucially, Senate negotiators secured the support of ten Republican senators, enough to overcome a potential filibuster and reach 60 votes.
Those Republican senators include:
Senate negotiators have not yet introduced text for the legislation, but Cornyn told Fox News on Tuesday that he hopes to get it done "this week" in time for a vote next week.
The deal does not go as far as Democrats would like; perhaps most significantly, it does not involve an assault weapons ban or raising the minimum to 21 for purchasing an assault rifle.
But the Democratic-controlled House could still approve the measure. Asked by Insider on Tuesday whether he believed his caucus would support the bill, House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York offered praise for the framework.
Citing gun violence prevention advocacy groups and families affected by gun violence, he said the package was a "strong, meaningful, positive step in the right direction" and said that the "overwhelming majority of House Democrats share that view as well."
More: Congress Mitch McConnell gun safety gun violence | 2022-06-14T20:33:26Z | www.businessinsider.com | McConnell 'Comfortable' With Senate Gun Deal, May Vote for It | https://www.businessinsider.com/mitch-mcconnell-comfortable-senate-gun-deal-murphy-cornyn-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/mitch-mcconnell-comfortable-senate-gun-deal-murphy-cornyn-2022-6 |
One chart shows who's feeling the most burned out at work — and teachers are especially stressed
In a Gallup study, 44% of those in K-12 education said they are "always" or "very often" feel they're burned out at work.
Tetra Images - Jamie Grill/Getty Images
Results from a February Gallup study of US full-time workers shows who is feeling burned out.
Forty-four percent of K-12 education workers said they're feeling this way at work.
The following chart shows the share of respondents who said they're feeling burned out at work.
Americans in education are feeling especially burned out, according to a Gallup survey from February.
Gallup surveyed over 12,000 full-time workers in the US. According to the survey, K-12 education had the highest share of those reporting they feel "always" or "very often" burned out, at 44%. College or university workers followed behind this share, where just over a third said this.
"K-12 workers have consistently been among the more burned out workers nationally, but the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing challenges — and introduced new ones to a profession already struggling," Gallup wrote in a recent post about the results. "School openings and closures; parent and community member frustrations with school pandemic responses; and social, academic and mental health challenges students faced only furthered K-12 burnout."
According to Gallup, just over half of K-12 teachers are feeling burned out. Gallup noted that that makes them "the most burned out" among workers in elementary and high schools.
The following chart shows how burnout varies in 14 industries:
Among the industries in the chart, finance workers had the lowest share who said they are "always" or "very often" burned out at work.
There are also differences by gender. According to the Gallup poll, 55% of female K-12 teachers are feeling burned out "always" or "very often", higher than the 44% of male K-12 teachers who said this. Outside of just teachers, a higher share of female K-12 employees said they are feeling this way than their male peers in K-12. Overall, 34% of female workers regardless of industry feel this way compared to just 26% of male workers.
There are different ways workers can deal with feelings of burnout. According to Jonathan Malesic, who wrote "The End of Burnout", he suggests people "need to lower our ideals for work" and work less as two ways to address burnout.
Indeed Editorial Team wrote in a post about how to know if you should resign due to burnout. They suggested that you should also talk to your manager about "their expectations for your position", to connect with coworkers, and to "think before agreeing" to new work as some other ways to avoid feeling burned out.
Specifically for those working in education, educators "strongly support" increasing pay and hiring more teachers as two solutions to burnout in the field, according to a member survey from the National Education Association.
More: Economy Gallup Gallup Poll Teachers | 2022-06-14T20:34:02Z | www.businessinsider.com | One Chart Shows Who's Feeling the Most Burned Out at Work: Gallup | https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-burnout-chart-gallup-study-teachers-education-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-burnout-chart-gallup-study-teachers-education-2022-6 |
Also voting no were seven of New Jersey's nine members of Congress, who were unhappy since the bill did not include protections for lower court judges;Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherill had introduced a bill that would've allowed judges to shield personal information from the public after New Jersey District Judge Esther Salas' son was shot at their family home in 2020.
House Democrats who voted against the bill include:
More: Congress Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | 2022-06-14T22:03:39Z | www.businessinsider.com | 27 Democrats Vote Against Extending Police Protection to SCOTUS Families | https://www.businessinsider.com/27-house-democrats-vote-against-police-protection-supreme-court-kavanaugh-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/27-house-democrats-vote-against-police-protection-supreme-court-kavanaugh-2022-6 |
Clime: NOAA Weather Radar Live
The best free weather apps tend to offer more features than the basic app on your iPhone or Android.
Most free weather apps also have paid subscription tiers that add premium features or an ad-free experience.
Here are five of the best free weather apps that offer a dramatically better set of features than your generic app.
You can get the weather from your phone with the built-in weather app, but third-party apps tend to offer so much more. Not only can you get a quick weather forecast, but some apps can deliver severe weather warnings, radar imagery, and even hour-by-hour precipitation forecasts. Here are five of the best free weather apps for both iPhone and Android phones.
You probably already know the Weather Channel (iOS, Android) as a staple of basic cable television. The app is like an extension of that channel on your smartphone, with a wealth of quality content. You get hourly and extended forecasts, radar imagery, and even video clips and other content pulled straight from cable TV. The app also includes sunrise and sunset times, air quality reports, tides times and moon phases, as well as optional weather alerts. While much of the app is free, The Weather Channel app is ad supported. If you prefer, you can subscribe to the premium service for $4.99 per month for ad-free content.
The Weather Channel app includes video clips along with weather data and forecasts.
AccuWeather (iOS, Android) isn't just a full-featured weather app — it also has a modern, clean interface that makes it a joy to browse for weather updates. The Today tab tells you everything you need to know, like temperature, precipitation and more, in a simple but attractive format, and you can scroll for tons of additional details, including air quality, allergy data, and sunrise/sunset times. You can also get an hour-by-hour weather forecast, radar imaging and a hurricane tracker. You can use AccuWeather for free with ads, or subscribe for the ad-free version for $19.99 per year (there is a free trial as well).
The attractive interface makes Accuweather a joy to use.
While you can use Clime (iOS, Android) for free, there are a slew of premium features (and no ads) tucked away behind a $19.99-per-year subscription. If you pay to upgrade, you get hurricane and lightning strike tracking and detailed precipitation forecasts, for example. Even if you sticker with the free version of Clime, you get a lot of weather info. There are one- and seven-day forecasts, severe weather alerts and NOAA's satellite imagery for a detailed look at precipitation, temperature and other weather data. Beware, though: Perhaps more than any other of these free weather apps, Clime isn't shy about repeatedly and annoyingly asking you to upgrade to the paid service.
Clime includes severe weather alerts and NOAA satellite imagery.
Perhaps the best reason to use Yahoo Weather (iOS, Android) is its beautiful interface. You can set up weather pages for multiple cities and swipe among them, and each page gets a gorgeous full-screen image that makes the app fun to use. The images are both time-of-day and weather-condition appropriate, so when you're looking at New York's weather, the background image will be dark and rainy if you are checking it during an evening rainstorm. Swipe up to see an hourly and 10-day forecast, and keep scrolling for air quality, pollen count, coronavirus data, wind, precipitation, radar imagery, and more.
Each city has its own gorgeous background photo that’s appropriate to the local time and weather.
If you're looking for some personality with your weather forecast, Carrot Weather (iOS) can dispense a healthy dose of snark. Carrot's wit is so integral to the app that you can tweak a slider to choose how sarcastic the app will be, from professional to "homicidal" to "overkill," along with the option to let the app get political and use profanity. Also in the app: You can unlock weather-related achievements and kill time by going on "missions" to find locations on the world map, plus an augmented reality mode that overlays the weather forecast in a view of the world around you. Clearly, Carrot is not your average weather app. Even so, weather prediction it does, pulling data from the excellent Dark Sky service, with seven-day forecasts, infographics, radar and more.
Carrot's snarky voice and gamification make it a lot more than a standard weather app.
TECH The 7 best free video editing apps for your phone
More: Weather apps Free Roundup iPhone | 2022-06-14T22:03:45Z | www.businessinsider.com | The 5 Best Free Weather Apps for iPhone and Android | https://www.businessinsider.com/best-free-weather-app | https://www.businessinsider.com/best-free-weather-app |
Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images
The crypto world is once again reeling.
Two days after Celsius, a major crypto lending platform, froze all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers, citing "extreme market conditions," customers tell Insider they have no idea what will happen to their money.
Three customers, with holdings between $2,300 to $105,000, verified by Insider, said their funds are trapped on the app until the freeze is lifted — and they still have no idea when that might be.
Their frustration shows how the decentralized finance movement, despite its promises to empower individuals, can leave customers in a tight spot without the protections afforded to more traditional accounts.
No one knows what will happen to their money
Celsius takes customer crypto deposits in exchange for high returns, lending the tokens out to other companies and individuals. As of May, the roughly five-year-old company managed $11.8 billion in assets from a customer base of 1.7 million.
But as the crypto market at large faced a brutal selloff, customer despots slowed. To stabilize things, Celsius on Sunday stopped allowing users to withdraw funds. In place of the withdrawal button is now a message saying they had been paused, customers said.
Raphael Miller, a software developer, told Insider he has almost .1 bitcoin, or about $2,300 USD as of Tuesday, stuck on Celsius
"I've already decided that I won't be able to withdrawal [sic] anything for the foreseeable future," he said.
In its memo on Sunday, Celsius said it's working to restore withdrawals "as quickly as possible" but offered no timeline.
Jake Greenbaum, another Celsius customer, is in the same boat. Known online as "Crypto King," he told Insider that he has $105,000 worth of Solana locked on the platform.
Greenbaum said he "felt something was coming" and successfully withdrew his entire $250,000 in ether holdings five days before the news dropped on Sunday. But he said he tried to withdraw other Solana funds 12 hours before Celsius announced the freeze and couldn't.
"They knew they were closing withdrawals prior to announcing and froze them beforehand," Greenbaum said. "Screwing me out of 5,000+ Solana. And their motto [sic] was literally your coins anytime," referring to the company's marketing slogan, "access your coins whenever."
Timbre Cierpke, a musician and Celsius customer, said she has been accumulating bitcoin slowly over the course of the last five years and had been storing it on Celsius.
"Unless something happens where they open up again, I will have lost about a year's worth of income," she told Insider, later clarifying that it might be closer to two years' worth.
"It's the smaller customers like me that this could wipe out," they said.
'The clock is ticking for Celsius'
Celsius said it froze withdrawals to "stabilize liquidity ," meaning its deposits were not equal to the number of assets that it was holding on the blockchain. Miller said he wouldn't be using this platform until they resolved the crisis.
"At the end of the day, the poor liquidity is due to bad decisions in investing. So unless they try a more conservative approach, then I can't put my money back in," he said.
Customers, meanwhile, worry that the company may have a larger insolvency problem or that it may be forced to file for bankruptcy.
Either way, they'll have angry customers to reckon with when things normalize.
"The clock is ticking for Celsius and the longer the withdrawal button is gone the more likely their entire customer base will leave," Miller said.
More: crypto crypto lending DeFi Celsius Network | 2022-06-14T22:04:03Z | www.businessinsider.com | Celsius Crypto Customers Are Anxious and Don't Know Where Their Money Is | https://www.businessinsider.com/celsius-crypto-lending-customers-frozen-withdrawals-liquidity-defi-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/celsius-crypto-lending-customers-frozen-withdrawals-liquidity-defi-2022-6 |
The recent Celsius freeze is a prime example of why some crypto platforms are promising yields that are too good to be true, Web3 experts warn
April Joyner and Morgan Chittum
Celsius founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky speaks at the Web Summit conference in 2021.
Crypto lending platform Celsius has frozen customer accounts after facing liquidity challenges.
Its dilemma shows the risks of platforms promising high yields, industry experts told Insider.
Celsius held a large portion of illiquid ether and had also suffered losses from the Terra meltdown.
Celsius offered investors yields up to 14% on an array of cryptocurrencies such as ether, synthetix, and polkadot. Now, as the crypto lending platform has temporarily barred its customers from moving money, founders and investors in Web3 say those promises of hefty earnings were likely too good to be true.
Celsius recently announced that it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers on its platform in order to "stabilize liquidity and operations" in light of the "extreme market conditions."
It's among several Web3 platforms and financial companies that have come under pressure as cryptocurrencies have plummeted. Companies such as Coinbase and BlockFi have slashed their headcount in response to the challenging market environment.
Regulators have previously cast a critical eye toward crypto lending platforms. Gary Gensler, the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, has suggested that such services should come under the agency's purview. In February, BlockFi, which also offers a lending platform, paid a $100 million settlement after the SEC said that the company did not properly register its lending service.
One risk with companies such as Celsius and BlockFi is that their investment and risk-management strategies are not entirely transparent, Joey Krug, the co-chief investment officer of Pantera Capital, told Insider.
Decentralized platforms and protocols that offer crypto yields, such as Compound and MakerDAO, are open-source, but Celsius and BlockFi are not. Krug said he believed BlockFi's risk protocols were "robust," based on his interactions with the company several years ago, but Celsius "had a bit of a perception as a riskier shop."
In general, "most of these methods work well in environments that are less volatile and bullish," Vijay Ayyar, the vice president of corporate development and international at the crypto investing company Luno, wrote in an email to Insider. "But when things turn ugly, and people want to get their money out, this essentially becomes a bank run."
Celsius' liquidity issues stemmed in large part from its holdings in ether, several people told Insider. Customers could "stake" ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, in order to earn yield, similar to how savings-account owners deposit money to earn interest. And like savings-account owners, Celsius customers could withdraw the tokens they staked at any time.
But staked ether is tied to the Ethereum blockchain's yet-to-be-launched upgrade, Ethereum 2.0. As a result, that token isn't fully liquid, Krug said.
Staked ether is supposed to trade at the same value as ether, but if too many people seek to withdraw the staked ether, the token can end up trading at a substantially lower price. That's what happened as crypto prices fell, and the discrepancy placed pressure on Celsius' assets, several people said. Celsius had 600,000 ether, roughly equivalent to $729 million, locked up as a result of staking, according to data from the fintech company Nexo.
Further compounding Celsius' challenges, it had about $500 million in exposure to the stablecoins terraUSD and luna, which collapsed in May, Ayyar said.
Crypto lending platforms typically exchange customers' tokens for other cryptocurrencies as part of their yield strategies, but some of those tokens can be very risky, as terraUSD's collapse showed. The crypto platform Stablegains shut its doors after investing customers' money in the ill-fated stablecoin, causing some to lose virtually their entire savings.
According to Ayyar, Celsius' woes show that the fallout from the collapse of terraUSD and luna isn't completely over.
"The Luna/Terra debacle potentially has a lot of hidden skeletons in the closet, which we're now potentially seeing come out," he wrote.
More: Venture Capital Startups crypto | 2022-06-14T22:04:09Z | www.businessinsider.com | Crypto Investors Warn of False Yield Promises After Celsius Freeze | https://www.businessinsider.com/celsius-freeze-crypto-web3-investors-warn-yield-farming-promises-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/celsius-freeze-crypto-web3-investors-warn-yield-farming-promises-2022-6 |
Credit Suisse exec's ouster over messaging sends shockwaves across Wall Street. The crackdown has bankers scared for their jobs — but they say quitting WhatsApp won't be easy.
Aaron Weinman, Rebecca Ungarino, and Hayley Cuccinello
"This sucks," one banker said. "My clients love WhatsApp, so it's a hassle to have to be more careful with how we use it."
Credit Suisse reportedly removed a 28-year veteran over his use of unauthorized messaging apps.
The news has many Wall Street insiders scared for their own jobs amid a broader regulatory probe.
But clients often prefer apps like WhatApp to email, making it hard to quit, bankers says.
The departure of a well-known Credit Suisse investment banker over what a report said was his use of an unauthorized messaging app to communicate with clients is rattling some of his peers on Wall Street.
On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that Anthony Kontoleon, the bank's former global head of equity capital markets syndicate in New York, left his position in New York in April after nearly three decades at the bank.
Credit Suisse had decided to remove him from his role "after an audit of several dozen of its bankers found that he had used personal messaging applications to communicate with clients," the FT reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The bank's audit did not find that Kontoleon had shared "inappropriate information," the report said.
David Hermer, the global head of equity and debt capital markets at Credit Suisse, told staff in a memo in April that Kontoleon told him that he would be departing "to pursue other opportunities," according to the FT's report.
A representative for Credit Suisse declined to comment to Insider for this story or answer questions about the nature of Kontoleon's exit. It is unclear which unauthorized messaging app Kontoleon reportedly used. Kontoleon did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Bankers who spoke on the condition of anonymity in interviews with Insider said Kontoleon's departure has them scared for their own jobs. They say they use WhatsApp frequently, as so many of their colleagues do, for ease and for casual conversations with clients and colleagues out of the eyes of their compliance departments tasked with scouring every message sent.
Yet they wavered over whether they could stop using them.
One banker told Insider that "AK," as he is known to colleagues, was "one of the most respected" equity capital markets bankers on Wall Street. This banker said Kontoleon's departure "shocked" him.
Still, that Kontoleon left over the matter of how Wall Street interacts with business associates outside of firms' internal platforms struck this banker as a sort of new normal.
The banker said in a WhatsApp message: "It's the new reality for people."
Their reactions to Kontoleon's exit, ranging from surprised and worried to confused about how they can use these apps at all, underscore the finance industry's complicated relationship with WhatsApp — and similar apps Signal and WeChat — that are now in US regulators' crosshairs.
'I'm thinking about deleting every single conversation on all mediums'
Wall Street has long dealt with bankers and other employees using non-authorized messaging apps to talk to clients and colleagues. But the report of Kontoleon's departure comes as client-facing professionals' communications are under a microscope by regulators.
Last month, Bloomberg News reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission requested that banks review more than 100 dealmakers' and traders' personal phones. The report followed a Reuters report from October that the SEC had opened a broad inquiry into the ways banks are monitoring their employees' digital communications to ensure that banks are preserving business-related messages.
Bank employees are not the only ones who use these apps to communicate. Clients can prefer them for informal conversations, too, and if the SEC's crackdown intensifies, staffers may need to start changing their ways.
"I'm thinking about deleting every single conversation on all mediums," a banker told Insider over WhatsApp. "Because literally, me talking to you is a fireable offense."
The issue of monitoring employees is part and parcel of a universal truth of working on Wall Street: People must comply with strict regulations or face fines and other discipline. Firms are required to supervise employees and review their business communications to ensure, for example, that no-one is being unfairly tipped off to market-moving deals. The SEC, to be clear, is not concerned with non-business related communications, with colleagues, clients, or even reporters.
Still, the lines can be easily blurred and employees who even unwittingly handle business on WhatsApp have effectively created unauthorized and unsupervised records and books, said David Porteous, a business litigation partner at law firm Faegre Drinker in Chicago.
"To the extent those communications are benign, it is still a books and records and supervisory systems issue for the firm," he said.
The ubiquity of messaging apps like WhatsApp are not lost on banks. They are the go-to platforms for "massive amounts of business between financial institutions," said Oliver Blower, a former fixed-income trader who is now chief executive of VoxSmart, a mobile communications surveillance firm.
"This is why monitoring tools are there," Blower told Insider. "To protect good people from falling out of compliance."
'We've done this forever'
Some employees' confusion stems from what is permitted on unauthorized messaging apps like WhatsApp.
One banker said there are "blurred lines" with what banks consider business activity, or whether they can go ahead and schedule a lunch meeting via WhatsApp with a client. Bankers can use Whatsapp to coordinate logistics, like setting up meetings, but they are not supposed to "conduct any business," this person told Insider. A spokesperson for Credit Suisse declined to clarify the company's policy.
A securities industry employment lawyer who spoke with Insider said it may seem silly to view activities such as arranging lunch dates as consequential.
"On the other hand, if there were an internal inquiry, it might be relevant whether such a lunch took place on such a day," the lawyer said.
Another banker who works frequently with clients based outside the US was upset over the FT report, he in a message to Insider over WhatsApp. "This sucks," the banker said. "My clients love WhatsApp, so it's a hassle to have to be more careful with how we use it."
"We've done this forever, but this is the new rule, and if they are cracking down on it, I'd rather keep my job," this banker said, referring to crackdowns from regulators. He added that he worries other departures are on the way.
The securities industry employment lawyer noted that staffers' communications have, too, generally become harder to track because of more people working remotely.
"We're living in a world that's getting more and more complicated and tightening up more and more on what you can and cannot do in this industry," the lawyer said.
More: Finance Banking WhatsApp Credit Suisse | 2022-06-14T22:04:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | Credit Suisse Messaging Crackdown Sends Shockwaves Across Wall Street | https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-suisse-anthony-kontoleon-removal-messaging-app-06-2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-suisse-anthony-kontoleon-removal-messaging-app-06-2022 |
Best second chance bank accounts of 2022
Chime Checking and Savings Accounts
Dora Financial Everyday Checking Account
Dave Spending Account
The First Bank First Aid Checking Account
Other joint bank accounts that didn't make the cut
Are these banks trustworthy?
Why trust our recommendations?
Experts' advice on choosing the best account
Second Chance Account Editor's rating Why we like it Learn more
Chime Checking Account
Chime Savings Account
Bank On certified and bilingual mobile app
Low membership fee for app and unique banking features
The First Bank First Freedom Checking Account
Bank On certified and brick-and-mortar banking
If a bank previously closed your account due to significant fees or you were previously incarcerated, you may struggle to open a new bank account at some financial institutions because of your history.
Select financial institutions, however, provide second chance bank accounts so you still have access to banking services regardless of your what happened in your past. You may open a second chance bank account to improve your banking history and have access to more financial opportunities in the future.
We've reviewed over a dozen institutions to find the best second chance bank accounts.
Our favorite second chance bank accounts have low monthly services fees and unique savings tools. Our top picks also have low minimum deposits and most are available throughout the US.
Receive your paycheck up to 2 days early
Rounds debit card purchases up to the nearest dollar and puts spare change in your Chime Savings Account
No overdraft fees for overdrafts up to $200 with SpotMe, if you qualify
Request checks be sent to recipients online
No overdraft protection for overdrafts exceeding $100
Deposit cash at Green Dot locations, which may charge fees
No physical checkbook
Limited to $200/day or $1,000/month transfers from external bank accounts, if initiated through Chime
38,000+ free ATMs nationwide through MoneyPass® and Visa® Plus Alliance
Rounds debit card purchases up to the nearest dollar and moves spare change into your Chime Savings Account
Qualify for SpotMe overdraft protection by receiving $200 in direct deposits per month
Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by, and debit card issued by, The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank, N.A.; Members FDIC.
No monthly service fee
Option to round debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and put spare change in savings account
Option to automatically save a percentage of your paycheck
Must open Chime Spending Account before savings account
Deposit cash at Green Dot locations, which may charge fee
Round debit card purchases to the nearest dollar to put spare change into savings account
Set up a percentage of your paychecks to be put into savings account
Why both stand out: Chime checking accounts and savings accounts do not require a credit check or review by ChexSystems.
Chime also stands out because it doesn't charge monthly service fees, and you may open an online account from anywhere in the US.
What to look out for: Before you open a savings account, you're required to open a checking account. This is also an online-only account, so you'll have to be comfortable with online banking.
Bank On certified bank account
Early direct deposit
App fully in English or Spanish
Limited customer service support
Access to 30,000 surcharge-free ATMs
The Everyday Checking Account serves as a second chance bank account, so it won't allow you to overdraw from your account
NCUA insured through US Alliance Financial
Why it stands out: The Dora Financial Everyday Checking Account is Bank On certified, which means it meets the program's requirements of low costs and low fees. It's a great option if you'd like to open an online account with a $0.
Dora Financial may also stand out if you primarily speak Spanish. The platform's mobile app is available in English and Spanish.
What to look out for: Customer support may be limited since it's only available through the platform's mobile app or email. If you prefer telephone customer support, you might consider other accounts.
Dave card included
$1 monthly membership fee
1% fee per transaction if you use Google Pay or Apple Pay
Doesn't allow you to overdraw from your account
Doesn't accept wire transfers
Limited ways to deposit cash
Dave charges a $1 membership fee to access the Dave Spending Account and apps budgeting features
Dave will deny your purchase if you overdraw from your account
If you'd like to deposit cash, you'll have to visit a Green Dot location (can't deposit cash at ATMs)
Dave Spending Account may only be opened as an individual bank account
FDIC insured through Evolve Bank & Trust
Why it stands out: Dave is a mobile fintech platform with a bank account and financial tools for building your credit and financial history.
You might like the Dave Spending Account if you're searching for a banking option with budgeting features and rewards. You may set up individual personal finance goals or keep track of how much you spend in a specific category by creating a budget. Dave also has a unique feature called Dave Side Hustle. You can find remote work opportunities by setting up a profile through the app.
What to look out for: There's a $1 monthly membership fee to use the Dave mobile app. If you don't want to deal with monthly fees, you might consider choosing one of our other top picks.
Debit or ATM card option
May upgrade to a traditional checking account after 6 months
Over 65 branches and ATMs in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana
Meets the Bank On National Account Standards
No checks included for First Aid Checking; Debit or ATM card available upon request
May upgrade to a traditional checking account at The First Bank after 6 months
Can't overdraw from bank account
Why it stands out: The First Bank is one of the largest community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to offer a second chance bank account in multiple states. The First Bank First Aid Checking Account might be ideal if you'd like to open an account with a brick-and-mortar bank.
Compared to other second chance bank accounts at brick-and-mortar financial institutions, it has a low monthly service fee.
What to look out for: The First Bank only serves residents in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The account also doesn't include checks. You'll need to upgrade to a traditional checking account after six months to have access to check writing.
Other second chance bank accounts that didn't make the cut
Carver State Bank: Carver State Bank is a Black-owned bank with a second chance checking account and a first-time checking account. However, the bank only serves residents in Savannah, Georgia.
Citizens National Bank: Citizens National Bank is a community development financial institution. The bank's CleanSlate Program lets you open a second chance checking and savings account, but you're eligible only if you live in Mississippi.
Commonwealth National Bank: This Black-owned bank might be a good option if you live in Mobile, Alabama. There's an $8.95 monthly service fee on the second chance checking account that can't be waived, though.
First Independence Bank: First Independence Bank is a Black-owned bank in Michigan. The bank's second chance checking account is only accessible if you live in Detroit and Clinton Township.
First Imperial Credit Union: The Hispanic American-led credit union's Opportunity Checking Account is available to anyone who struggles to open a traditional checking account. You'll be eligible for the account if you or a family member live in specific areas in Southern California.
GECU: GECU is a Hispanic American-led credit union with 12 branches in El Paso, Texas. You may like the bank's second chance checking account if you'd like an account with a low minimum opening deposit, but bear in mind the second chance checking account has a $15 monthly service fee.
Guadalupe Credit Union: This Hispanic American-led bank might be worthwhile if you want to open a second chance checking account with zero minimum balance requirements. To qualify for membership at Guadalupe Credit Union, you or a family member must live in a specific New Mexico county.
Hope Credit Union: Hope Credit Union is a Black-owned credit union, and it might be worth looking into if you live in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. There's a $9.95 monthly service fee with the bank's second chance checking account, though.
OneUnited Bank: OneUnited Bank is the largest Black-owned bank in the US and it offers online accounts. The bank's second chance checking account has a low minimum opening deposit, but there's a monthly service fee of over $5 if you don't meet certain requirements.
Rio Bank: Rio Bank is a Hispanic American-led bank in Texas. It only serves a few cities in Texas, while some of our top picks are more available in more areas.
River City Federal Credit Union: This Hispanic American-led credit union could be a decent choice if you'd like to open a second chance checking account with a debit card. To qualify for the credit union, you must live, work, or go to school in Bexar County, Texas.
St. Louis Community Credit Union: St. Louis Community Credit Union is a Black-led financial institution with 17 branches in Missouri. You might find the bank's second chance checking account appealing if you'd like a bank account with checks and a debit card. To open an account, you must meet the bank's membership requirements.
Sun Community Federal Credit Union: You might like Sun Community Credit Union if you'd like to open a second chance bank account and live, work, or volunteer in Imperial or Coachella Valley, California. If you don't live in the area, you can't become a member of the credit union.
Transit Employees Federal Credit Union: TEFCU is a minority-led credit union that might be worth exploring if you live in Virginia and Washington, DC. You'll need to meet the credit union's membership requirements to open a second chance bank account, though.
Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo has the most branches in most US states, but its trustworthiness rating is lower than some of our top picks. The bank's second chance checking account also requires a $5 monthly service fee.
Woodforest: Woodforest has 17 branches on the East Coast. The bank's second chance checking account has a low minimum opening deposit, but there's a $9.95 to $11.95 monthly service fee, depending on whether you receive a monthly direct deposit or not.
The Better Business Bureau assesses businesses based on responses to customer complaints, honesty in advertising, and transparency about business practices.
Below are the BBB ratings of our favorite banking options. Dora Financial is a new online banking platform that hasn't been rated by the BBB, yet.
We used the BBB rating of USAlliance Financial for Dora Financial since the Dora Financial Everyday Checking Account is federally insured through USAlliance Financial.
Institution BBB rating
Chime A+
Dora Financial C- (US Alliance Financial grade)
The First Bank A+
Dora Financial and Dave have the lowest grades.
The BBB cites the number of customer complaints filed against the business as the reason for both company's grades. A poor BBB grade isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all, though. You might consider reaching out to current customers or reading online customer reviews to get a more well-rounded perspective of each bank.
Only Chime has been involved in a recent public controversy.
The platform previously used the URL "Chimebank.com" and the words "bank" and "banking" but Chime isn't licensed as a bank. Chime is a banking platform, and is insured by a bank.
At Personal Finance Insider, our goal is to create useful content that helps you make good decisions about your money. We recognize every person has distinct preferences, so we provide ample options to help you find the most suitable financial product or account.
We research extensively to make sure you know the standout features and limitations of a financial institution.
How did we choose the best second chance bank accounts?
First, we researched to find financial institutions that offered second chance bank accounts. We looked at our Hispanic American-owned banks and credit unions state guide, our Black-owned banks and credit unions state guide, best banks of 2022 guide, and CDFI reviews to compile a list of institutions to consider.
Then, we reviewed second chance bank accounts to find the most-well rounded banking options. Our top picks have low minimum opening deposits and low monthly services fees. Several of our favorite accounts can be easily opened from anywhere in the US.
What is a second chance bank account?
A second chance bank account is a unique type of bank account that doesn't review a person's past banking history.
Most financial institutions use the credit reporting agency ChexSystems to evaluate a person's trustworthiness to open a bank account. If you have a negative banking history — for instance, due to paying frequent overdraft fees or monthly service fees — you might be denied from opening up a bank account at some institutions.
Second chance bank accounts, however, allow you to have access to banking tools and services. Usually, banks only offer second chance checking accounts . A few may offer a second chance checking account and savings account, though.
Which bank has the best second chance bank account?
Second chance bank accounts are only available at some banks and credit unions . The best second chance bank account for you will depend on your preferences and where you live.
If you'd like to open a second chance bank account with a brick-and-mortar bank, you might consider looking at regional banks, CDFIs, or minority depository institutions.
If you prefer bank accounts with budgeting tools or strong mobile and online banking, some online banking platforms have second chance bank accounts.
How does a second chance bank account work?
Online institutions usually offer bank accounts that don't allow you to overdraw from your bank account. They also may not charge any monthly service fees.
Meanwhile, second chance bank accounts at brick-and-mortar banks may have limited banking features to avoid potential bank fees. For example, some accounts will not come with checks or debit cards, so they're a bit easier to manage.
Second chance bank accounts at brick-and-mortar banks also tend to be temporary banking options. After a certain time — anywhere from a few months to a few years — you'll be able to open a traditional checking account with the bank.
To learn more about what makes a good checking account and how to choose the best fit, four experts weighed in:
Tania Brown, certified financial planner at SaverLife
Roger Ma, certified financial planner with lifelaidout® and author of "Work Your Money, Not Your Life"
Mykail James, MBA, certified financial education instructor, BoujieBudgets.com
Laura Grace Tarpley, editor of banking, Personal Finance Insider
Here's what they had to say about checking accounts. (Some text may be lightly edited for clarity.)
How can someone determine whether a bank is the right fit for them?
Tania Brown, CFP:
"Obviously, you want to make sure it's FDIC insured. Also, your banking experience — do you like walking into a bank? Well, then you need someone local.
Do you just not care if you ever see your bank? Then you're okay online. Do you write checks? Do you not write checks? So it's thinking through how your experience with it is going to be before you make that decision."
Laura Grace Tarpley, Personal Finance Insider:
"I would look for the bank that charges you the least in fees. This means either no monthly fees, or you qualify to waive the monthly fees. If you expect to travel in retirement, you may want a bank that doesn't charge foreign transaction or ATM fees."
What should someone look for in a brick-and-mortar bank?
"How can that bank grow with you? If you are 25, single, or newly married, and all you need is a checking account, that's going to look very different 15 years from now when you may have had a couple of jobs, you may have an IRA roll over, or you may want a financial adviser."
Mykail James, CFEI:
"How accessible it is. So where are the branches? And if I am to go out of town or something, how accessible is my money to me?"
What should someone look for in an online bank?
Roger Ma, CFP:
"How onerous the transfer process is, transferring money in and transferring money out. Is it same day, next day? Is it pretty easy to sync a brick-and-mortar checking account to this particular high-yield savings account?"
"When it comes to online banks , you want to be a little bit more strict about what type of interest rates they're providing. That's the biggest thing because online banks are supposed to have the higher interest rate because they don't have the overhead of the brick-and-mortar. You want to make sure that it's well above the national average.
"What types of securities do they provide? Do they have two-factor identification? If it's an online bank, they should definitely have — at the bare minimum — two-factor authentication in how easy it is to change your passwords and things like that, because you want to be a little more hypersensitive about the cyber security for a strictly online bank."
Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank, N.A., Members FDIC.
PERSONAL FINANCE What to know about second chance banking — and how it opens up access for formerly incarcerated and underserved groups
PERSONAL FINANCE The cost of opening a bank account may require less money than you think. Here's why.
PERSONAL FINANCE How to qualify for a bank account if you have a bad banking history
More: Second Chance Bank Accounts Chime Chime Spending Account Chime Savings Account
Dora Financial
Carver State Bank
Commonwealth National Bank
First Independence Bank
First Imperial Credit Union
GECU Credit Union
Guadalupe Credit Union
Hope Credit Union
OneUnited Bank
Rio Bank
River City Credit Union
St. Louis Community Credit Union
Transit Employees Federal Credit Union
Woodforest National Bank | 2022-06-14T22:04:39Z | www.businessinsider.com | Best Second Chance Bank Accounts of June 2022 | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-second-chance-bank-accounts | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-second-chance-bank-accounts |
3VC writes checks worth up to $30 million to Series A startups. Check out the 11-slide deck it used to close the first tranche of its new $157 million fund.
The 3VC team.
3VC has closed the first tranche of its new $157 million fund that will back Series A startups.
Founder Peter Lasinger said valuation multiples had gotten "a little crazy" before the downturn.
The VC backs three to four startups a year and writes checks worth up to $30 million.
Austrian venture capital firm 3VC has always had a selective approach to investing.
Since launching in 2017, the company's mission has been simple: make high conviction investments in just three to four companies a year. Now, it has made the first close on a new fund set to be worth €150 million ($157 million) that will target European startups at the Series A stage.
The investor's second fund, known as 3VC II, follows its inaugural $50 million fund launched in 2018, with the larger fund size reflecting the increased capital needed to back startups following a period of swollen valuations.
3VC's first close comes amid a market downturn triggered by rising inflation and uncertainty that has left investors cold on startups.
Peter Lasinger, founder and partner at 3VC, said it was clear that before the downturn the valuation multiples – a tool used by VCs to value companies – were "a little crazy." However, Lasinger still sees opportunities to invest despite the adverse market conditions.
"There are still companies that are cash flow-oriented on the edge of profitability, they do really well," he said. "For these very fast-growing companies that have high burn rates, for them, it's getting more difficult because capital is just getting more expensive."
Lasinger said he was not concerned about investor appetite for startups as 3VC looked to complete the rest of the raising process for its new fund. He said there were still a "lot of people who understand that in such a correction you can make good investments."
He acknowledged that some LPs may be "a little slower" investing in VC as they rebalanced their allocations, but remained confident that fundamental trends such as digitalization – accelerated by the shifts in work triggered by the pandemic – will still create a lot of value.
"We have a pretty broad range of LPs, from former founders to family offices and institutions, so it's a good mix that isn't fully impacted by these macroeconomic considerations," Lasinger said.
3VC's second fund will continue to make just three to four investments per year into businesses that it thinks can "solve massive problems through software", whether business-to-business or business-to-consumer.
The firm did not disclose the size of the first close of its new fund, but told Insider that it was bigger than the total size of its first fund. 3VC typically invests in rounds ranging from $2 million to $30 million.
At present, portfolio firm Picsart, a photo and video editing app, has achieved unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion, while others backed by 3VC such as blockchain gaming business Gamee have successfully been exited through acquisitions by unicorn companies.
The firm has also appointed Eva Arh, its first hire, and Sok-Kheng Taing, head of its investment committee as an LP in its first fund, as partners.
More: Features Venture Capital Europe | 2022-06-15T07:11:18Z | www.businessinsider.com | 3VC Has Closed the First Tranche of Its New $157 Million Fund | https://www.businessinsider.com/3vc-has-closed-the-first-tranche-of-its-new-157-million-fund-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/3vc-has-closed-the-first-tranche-of-its-new-157-million-fund-2022-6 |
I was laid off from Coinbase. Working in crypto was a dream but now I am frustrated and angry at the company's failed promises.
Miguel Cuevas, a global BPO learning and development program manager, was one of 1100 employees laid off from Coinbase on Tuesday.
Miguel Cueavs
On Tuesday, Coinbase announced that it plans to lay off 1,100 employees.
Miguel Cuevas, a learning and development program manager, was one of those affected.
He says the company broke its promise to employees and that he is frustrated and disappointed.
This is his story, as told to the reporter Jessica Xing.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Miguel Cuevas, 35-years-old, a global BPO learning and development program manager at Coinbase. Yesterday, after Coinbase announced it would be laying off hundreds of employees, Cuevas was informed that he would be among those the company was letting go. He describes the surprise and disappointment of being laid off from a dream job.
I've been working at Coinbase for a little over a year in global learning and development. At Coinbase I managed a team of 5 people specializing in building training and education initiatives across Coinbase's different global sites.
Today — just a week after the company rescinded over 300 offers — I found out I was one of the 1100 people the company laid off.
This past week, tensions at the company have been high. Many people through Slack or through their direct managers wanted to know if layoffs were imminent.
The questions culminated in a town hall hosted a couple days after the firm announced it was rescinding job offers. CEO Brian Armstrong and chief people officer L.J. Brock took responsibility for the company's current situation, but still asked us to keep our heads down and to not get distracted. They told us to keep chugging along as if things were normal.
Yet, people were resigning left and right.
My own manager immediately resigned after Coinbase announced they'd be rescinding offers.
Because of this my team had to hold an emergency meeting.
My direct reports had a lot of questions — on financials, on company direction, and more importantly, if they would have a job in the next few weeks.
I had to tell them that I had no information. But I said I wasn't going to resign, that I planned to ride out the crypto winter, and that we'd be able to overcome this.
Then, this morning, while checking in on one of my direct reports in India, I received a message from a teammate saying the CEO had sent us a message about a company-wide update.
But then, before I could even find out what it was, all of sudden, all of my devices were blocked out and I didn't have a chance to check my email.
Next, I received a text message from human resources asking to please look at my personal email. The email told me I had been laid off.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
Instead, I was just frustrated, angry, and disappointed. I saw how badly the company handled rescinding job offers.
A lot of employee frustration came from the fact that Coinbase was planning to more than triple their headcount just a year ago.
The company actively recruited me from Uber. They drew me in with an incredible compensation package:the firm let me work from anywhere I wanted, and even though I worked at Uber, Coinbase was going to pay me more money than I'd ever seen in my life.
I have always been really interested in crypto, so the opportunity to work anywhere while making money in a field I am passionate about, seemed like a dream.
However, I quickly saw how management consistently misdelivered on promises.
We just kept seeing failure after failure — from the hiring freeze last week to this week's layoffs.
Through LinkedIn I spoke to every member of my team. I let them know that it was a pretty shitty situation but it was the best possible outcome. I was the only member of my team that was laid off, every other person got to keep their jobs.
Yet, I just have never experienced such lack of empathy, transparency, political savviness, and care for their employees. This is ironic: I loved what I did at Coinbase because of its promise to provide decentralization and transparency for all.
More: Enterprise Tech Tech Coinbase Layoffs | 2022-06-15T10:13:18Z | www.businessinsider.com | I Was Laid Off by Coinbase. I'm Frustrated but Not Surprised. | https://www.businessinsider.com/coinbase-layoffs-after-cryptocurrency-crash-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/coinbase-layoffs-after-cryptocurrency-crash-2022-6 |
Summertime childcare is a logistical and financial headache for working parents — and the pandemic has made it worse. Here's how employers can help.
The average cost of day camp has swelled to $178 per day this year, compared to $76 per day in 2021.
Beshots/Getty Images
As a third pandemic summer approaches, many working parents are stressed about childcare.
The average cost of day camp is $178 per day, and some camps are dealing with staffing shortages.
Experts say employers need to provide parents with resources, accommodations, and flexibility.
Ah, summer. That languorous season of impromptu cookouts, carefree patio happy hours, and sun-drenched beach vacations. But for many of the 43 million working parents in this country, including me, summer is also two months of childcare headaches.
With school out for the year, my husband and I have managed to piece together a patchwork of day camps, town rec programs, and activities with benevolent relatives to ensure coverage for our tween daughters. It's horribly expensive — the cost of day camp has doubled in the US this year.
It's also inconvenient: We're already wondering how we'll manage multiple drop-offs and pickups at different times and in different locations — let alone what we'll do those last three weeks of summer when camps are finished — and still keep our heads above water at work.
Childcare is costly, hard to find, and a logistical hassle at the best of times. But today, as a third pandemic summer approaches and at a time when parental burnout has reached epidemic proportions, childcare stress has hit a new level. Roughly half of working parents say they have reached their breaking point as the pandemic continues, and childcare challenges are the prominent stressor.
"Even before the pandemic, summer was definitely a challenge for working parents," Jennifer Sabatini Fraone, a director at the Boston College Center for Work & Family, said. "This summer, parents have been in pandemic-survival mode for two years. They're already feeling drained, so it's just that much harder."
Experts say that employers need to not only recognize the constraints that working parents face this summer, but also provide them with resources, accommodations, and flexibility. "If we've learned anything during the pandemic, it's how complicated people's lives are," Sabatini Fraone said. "Hopefully, one of the long-term effects is a little more empathy for working parents."
What the summertime-childcare crunch feels like
It's difficult to describe what the summertime-childcare crunch feels like for working parents in terms that corporate America understands.
Daisy Dowling, an executive consultant and author of the childcare book, "Workparent," puts it this way: "Imagine that your head of HR, CFO, and head of technology all quit on the same day. Poof! That's what it feels like when your kids get out of school for the summer."
School provides many essential functions, and once it goes away, there's a huge gap to fill, Dowling said. "It's not just a matter of making sure kids are safe and cared for, it's also, Are they engaged? Are they interacting with other kids? And are they learning something?"
The pandemic economy has exacerbated the standard childcare problems of cost, access, and availability. The average cost of day camp has swelled to $178 per day in 2022, compared to $76 last year, according to the American Camp Association. Meanwhile, many camps around the country have scaled back their programming or announced closures due to staffing shortages.
"Everything is heightened this summer," Dana Sumpter, a professor at Pepperdine's Graziadio Business School whose research focuses on the intersection of work and family, said.
Summer is supposed to be a magical season for kids, but the burden on working parents remains heavy.
ASIFE/Getty Images
With the labor shortage and inflation, parents have fewer options than in the past. "And even when you do have the right plans in place, things can quickly fall apart. Camp might shut down due to staff sicknesses or your child could be exposed to COVID and need to stay home," Sumpter said.
But it's not just logistics and finances that have amplified this summer's stress, she said. There's a heavy emotional layer, too. Amid widespread concern about kids' mental health and guilt over missed milestones and lost experiences that kids will never get back, the "trauma of the past two years has caught up with parents."
"We're worried about the well-being of our children and on top of that feel a sense of guilt and sadness about what our kids have missed during their childhoods," Sumpter said.
The upshot, she said, "is that people desperately need employer and manager support."
How employers and managers can help
Experts say there are a few practical ways organizations can help parents this summer.
Employers could provide backup childcare and subsidized summer-camp programs. They could partner with virtual-class suppliers, like Varsity Tutors and Sitter Stream, which offer programming designed for school-aged kids. Employers could also allow employees to work flexible schedules, or work remotely if their jobs allow it.
Compassion is also key and front-line managers might need to make adjustments, said Dowling. Monday-morning meetings may work in the rhythm of the school year, for instance, but when summer arrives, Mondays are manic. Friday afternoons are also often tricky. Many camps dismiss early that day, and caregivers are eager for a head start to the weekend, which can put working parents in a bind.
Dowling's advice to managers: "Don't create undue stress by sticking to weekly routines that aren't workable in the summer."
Working parents, for their part, ought to be as transparent as possible about their childcare situations, said Liz Gulliver, the founder of Kunik, which helps employers with corporate-culture development while especially focusing on work-life issues.
"You would think that two years into a pandemic when childcare has been such a constant source of strain, this would be a given," she said. "But a lot of parents have become increasingly hesitant to talk about personal issues, like childcare, for fear of repercussions."
Nearly a third of working parents don't feel comfortable talking to their boss about childcare issues, according to a survey from Betterup, a coaching platform.
Gulliver urges parents to push through their discomfort. "You need to be proactive, not reactive, about your needs and what they might mean for your team and your manager," she said. "You don't want to be gasping for air at the end."
Parents should also try to keep these challenges in perspective. Yes, the camp drop-off shuffle is stressful and can be a pain, but it's only for a couple of months a year. Work is work; but summer is fun, magical, and fleeting — kind of like childhood itself. I plan to bear that in mind.
More: Working Working parents Working Mothers
working dad
Child care US | 2022-06-15T10:13:36Z | www.businessinsider.com | Employers Can Help Working Parents Manage Summertime Childcare | https://www.businessinsider.com/employers-can-help-working-parents-manage-summertime-childcare-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/employers-can-help-working-parents-manage-summertime-childcare-2022-6 |
Stocks still look expensive and might fall another 40% before they reach fair value, says GMO's cohead of asset allocation who has warned about a market bubble since 2013
The pain in the stock market may just be getting started, according to a longtime bear.
Stocks have fallen 20% year to date into a bear market, but there could be far more downside.
Ben Inker, a cohead of asset allocation at GMO, has warned about a bubble for years.
Here's why Inker said the S&P 500 could drop an additional 40% in the coming years.
Calling a stock-market bubble takes conviction, courage, and a willingness to be mocked until you're proved correct. It's a lonely way for professional investors to make a living — until doing so becomes popular.
Plenty of market pundits are now predicting that US stocks, which entered a bear market on Monday, will continue to plunge. They're joining a club that two of the top minds at GMO, aka Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo, a Boston money manager, have been in for years.
Jeremy Grantham, who founded GMO and is its chief investment strategist, earned widespread respect by successfully calling the market crashes of 2000 and 2008. But in the past decade, his warning that stocks were overextended fell on deaf ears as investors bailed on his firm. As US stocks kept charging higher, Grantham stuck to his view that a bubble was forming.
"It is highly probable that we are in a major bubble event in the US market, of the type we have every several decades and last had in the late 1990s," Grantham wrote in a note published on January 5, 2021.
Ben Inker, a cohead of asset allocation at GMO and a longtime colleague of Grantham, also has viewed US stocks as wildly overvalued since at least 2013. Nine years later, Inker isn't backing down from his bearish thesis — in fact, he thinks a massive market slump is just beginning.
"The market still looks expensive relative to fair value," Inker told Insider in a recent interview. "In the one case, kind of the old, normal, 'Man, we're not close to fair value.' The market has another 40% it could fall to get to fair value."
From bad to worse: Why stocks could drop 40%
Inker sees two paths forward for US stocks, and neither is encouraging. In the rosier scenario, the asset-allocation cohead sees the S&P 500 sliding at least another 10% to 3,400 or 3,300, though he believes a 20% drop to 3,000 or 2,900 is also in play. His worst-case scenario for the widely followed US stock index is even scarier: a nearly 40% decline to 2,400.
While there's no perfect way to project fair value for the S&P 500, Inker bases his models on equilibrium interest rates, expected earnings for companies in the index, and the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio. The CAPE is viewed by many as more useful than a simple price-to-earnings ratio because it's based on 10 years of earnings expectations.
Inker's issue with US stocks isn't necessarily their underlying quality. First-quarter earnings reports were generally impressive despite a few high-profile disappointments, and the market expert went as far to say that "profit margins are the best they have ever been."
Instead, Inker's concern is that investors are paying too much for those earnings as interest rates rise meaningfully for the first time in years. Lower interest rates encourage investors to pay a higher multiple for stocks because future cash flows become relatively more valuable.
Given where interest rates are rising to now, Inker believes that an earnings multiple of 17 times to 18 times is fair value for the S&P 500, which is still slightly above the 15 times to 16 times ratio that investors have historically been willing to pay for exposure to the earnings of the largest companies in the US.
At first glance, it appears the S&P 500 is near fair value, given that it's trading at a multiple of 19.1 times, according to Multpl. That mark, though still lofty, is down sharply from the 23.1 times multiple it was commanding at the start of the year.
But the CAPE, which is also called the Shiller P/E ratio, indicates that US stocks are still in bubble territory and may sink far further. The S&P 500's CAPE is at 29.6 times, down from about 37 times on January 1. Inker said the CAPE could contract by 40%, from 30 times to 18 times, which he said would drag down the S&P 500 by 40% as well.
For that doomsday scenario to materialize, Inker said interest rates would have to resettle at a far higher level than they've been and earnings would have to wildly miss expectations.
"I'm saying one of the things that's going to happen is that over the next 10 years, profit margins are just not going to be as good as they are today," Inker said.
He added: "Analysts are forecasting that next year's earnings are going to be substantially higher than this year's earnings. So if your view is that today is normal for corporations, then I am understating the attractiveness of the market."
If earnings don't disappoint too much and inflation-adjusted interest rates stay somewhat low, "we've still got a chunk we need to fall, but you can see the bottom from here," Inker said.
No matter what, avoid growth traps
While Inker isn't sure how much further US stocks will decline, he remains confident that there's more downside than upside. That's especially true for richly valued growth stocks.
"Growth stocks, to my mind, have a farther way to fall than the overall market in order to get to a buying opportunity," Inker said.
Value stocks, which tend to have cheaper valuations, are finally starting to catch up to their high-flying peers after years of underperformance. The reversal is well underway, but Inker said the value-over-growth trend would continue since the premium for growth names remained.
"Now is probably not the time to play the hero and try to catch the falling growth knife," Inker said. "Unless you are really good at understanding which growth companies are going to pull off growth and which ones aren't, and that's harder than normal because predicting the economy over the next six to 12 months is a lot harder than normal."
Above all, Inker recommends that investors steer clear of "growth traps," which, in essence, are companies whose businesses can't generate the growth that their valuations imply.
In a May note to clients, Inker cited Netflix (NFLX), Peloton (PTON), Coinbase (COIN), and Palantir Technologies (PLTR) as stocks that he considered growth traps. He thinks many more stocks will experience the "painful transition" that each of those unlucky stocks did.
"Conditions today suggest that it is likely there will be more growth traps in the next year than there were in the last one," Inker wrote in the note. "And there is good reason to believe their underperformance will remain worse than usual until a full unwinding of the growth bubble occurs."
More: Investing Jeremy Grantham Jeremy Grantham GMO
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value vs growth | 2022-06-15T10:14:24Z | www.businessinsider.com | Stock-Market Crash: the S&P 500 Could Fall Another 40%, GMO Says | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-investing-outlook-recession-risk-sp500-gmo-grantham-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-investing-outlook-recession-risk-sp500-gmo-grantham-2022-6 |
Bitcoin's all over the headlines, but for a very different reason than just a few months ago. Far fewer conversations today are about riding the token to the moon, since it's as close to Earth as it's been since December 2020.
I'm Phil Rosen, and it'd be my pleasure to take you on a tour of some of the biggest bitcoin losers on the market right now.
Prices have slumped, raising fears about a crypto winter.
1. Bitcoin is weighing on some corporate balance sheets, as the token's precipitous fall these last few days has amounted to some serious losses for well known companies, at least on paper.
Take Elon Musk's Tesla for example. According to the most recent filings, the EV-maker owns an estimated 42,000 bitcoins, and it is looking at unrealized losses of nearly $400 million.
Or, even more dramatic, consider Microstrategy, which owns 129,219 bitcoin. It has an estimated unrealized loss of about $1.1 billion.
And El Salvador, which made bitcoin legal tender in September, owns 2,301 bitcoins. Since its first purchase, bitcoin has shed roughly 50% of its value (although the nation's finance minister doesn't seem concerned).
Crypto's meltdown is a "tail wagging the dog" moment. At least that's how veteran trader Mark Mobius described it. He expects the crypto downturn to get worse, and it'll drag stocks lower, too.
"Billions of billions of dollars have been put into cryptocurrencies," he told CNBC Tuesday. "As you can see, bitcoin goes down, the S&P 500 goes down. It's a very unusual situation."
As if the above weren't concerning enough, the Bank of England governor dished out a grave warning of his own: "Be prepared to lose all your money."
2. US stock futures edged higher Wednesday, as investors brace for a crucial Federal Reserve policy decision on interest rates — Aaron Weinman, writer of Insider's 10 Things on Wall Street newsletter, appeared on CBS News to break down the impact of an interest rate hike.
Meanwhile, the euro is soaring after the European Central Bank called a surprise meeting to discuss a meltdown in the bonds of the region's more indebted nations. In the crypto market, bitcoin is trading just above $20,000. Here are the latest market moves.
3. On the docket: LAIX Inc, John Wiley & Sons, and Naas Technology, all reporting. Also, the Federal Open Market Committee will conclude its two-day meeting today, with the interest rate decision expected at 1 pm ET.
4. Seven crypto influencers opened up about the portfolio wreckage they've suffered in the crash. Hyped token forecasts have turned out wrong so far. These investors shared how they are adjusting to their new reality.
5. Russia's oil production has jumped 5% in June so far. Average daily production is at a higher rate through the first 13 days of June compared to May. All the while, China and India continue to snap up discounted barrels from the sanctioned nation.
6. Leon Cooperman predicted US stocks will plunge 40% in total as the economy crashes into a recession. The billionaire investor said the S&P 500 may have to hit 3,000 before US stocks bounce back — which suggests there's still plenty of room to fall from current levels.
7. Over 80% of investors expect stagflation to shock markets within a year. That's according to Bank of America. As its analysts put it: "Wall Street sentiment is dire."
8. The stock market is tanking but UBS said shares of companies targeting high-income spenders could surge as much as 50%. Rising rates and inflation are dishing out a beating on the market. But these 38 stocks highlight a corner of the market that could hold upside.
9. A financial coach who books $8,000 a month shared how to earn passive income. Lisa Andrea is also a blogger and marketing expert. These are 9 ways she pulls in thousands of dollars a month.
10. The US endured a decline in employment during the pandemic that was twice as severe as the Great Recession's. But the rebound after COVID has been markedly faster. Nonfarm employment is now just 0.5% below the pre-crisis level.
Curated by Phil Rosen in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email prosen@insider.com or tweet @philrosenn.) Edited by Max Adams (tweet @maxradams) in New York and Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London. | 2022-06-15T11:44:52Z | www.businessinsider.com | Opening Bell: Everyone's Losing on Bitcoin | https://www.businessinsider.com/opening-bell-everyones-losing-on-bitcoin-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/opening-bell-everyones-losing-on-bitcoin-2022-6 |
PayPal just launched another buy now, pay later offering as the payments giant aims to build out a financial super app
PayPal announced the launch of Pay Monthly, an additional buy now, pay later offering, on Wednesday.
PayPal announced the launch of Pay Monthly, an additional buy now, pay later product, on Wednesday.
The offering will allow users to split larger purchases into monthly payments with interest.
The launch comes as BNPL competitors like Klarna and Affirm have struggled in recent months.
PayPal announced an additional buy now, pay later offering Wednesday as the payments giant builds out its suite of capabilities as it races to develop a financial super app.
PayPal Pay Monthly will allow users to split purchases between $199 and $10,000 into monthly payments that are spread over a six- to 24-month period.
To use Pay Monthly, customers complete a short application after selecting Pay Monthly as their payment method at checkout. If they are approved, they will be able to select from up to three different plans with different lengths and APRs ranging from 0% to 29.99%. PayPal said it would use information including proprietary data, past PayPal buy-now history, and soft credit checks to determine a user's creditworthiness. Pay Monthly loans will also be reported to credit bureaus.
BNPL fintechs Affirm and Klarna both offer similar products — Affirm's monthly payment product allows users to spread payments out as long as 60 months. Klarna's Financing product allows users to make payments over 36 months. Both products also offer APRs ranging from 0% to 29.99%.
Pay Monthly will automatically be available for merchants using PayPal and will not require an additional cost to use, unlike several other BNPL providers, which charge merchants a fee to appear on their platform.
The offering isn't PayPal's first foray into BNPL — it launched Pay in 4, an interest-free installment product, in August 2020, and also offers PayPal Credit, a revolving line of credit. With the former, users can spread out a purchase of up to $1,500 across four payments, made once every two weeks.
Over 22 million customers used PayPal's pay-later products last year, according to Greg Lisiewski, PayPal's vice president of global pay later products. By comparison, Klarna counts nearly 150 million global users, with 25 million of those in the US, while Afterpay counts around 20 million users worldwide.
"We believe having a full portfolio of buy now, pay later plans — in addition to our PayPal Credit revolving credit product — allows consumers more choice to select the option that best suits their preferences and budgeting needs," Apur Shah, PayPal's senior director of global pay later, told Insider via email. Shah highlighted travel, auto, tech, and home goods as areas where Pay Monthly could be particularly attractive for customers.
"As consumers plan summer activities and move into the back-to-school season, we want to provide them the choice to pay for their purchases in the way that best suits their budgets," Shah said.
Pay Monthly allows users to spread payments between 6 and 24 months.
The moves comes as BNPL providers, who were once darlings of the pandemic with eye-popping valuations and share prices, have stumbled in recent weeks. As interest rates rise and a recession looms, it's unclear how much consumer demand will be able to buoy their business models.
Klarna announced on May 23 that it would lay off around 10% of its 7,000 employees, citing the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, volatility in the stock market, and an impending recession as key reasons for the cuts in a memo sent to employees. Affirm's stock price has dropped more than 80% since the beginning of the year.
PayPal is counting on BNPL to help it engage more deeply with existing users
Despite BNPL's recent struggles, PayPal is betting on the offering as it seeks to rebound from poor performance in the first half of this year. During the company's most recent earnings call in April, PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman said the company would emphasize its checkout features and would engage more deeply with existing users rather than trying to attract new ones.
BNPL may be one way to help achieve those goals — Shah said that 90% of first-time users of PayPal's BNPL offerings are existing customers and that Pay in 4 had seen strong repeat usage since its launch.
Schulman's priorities will be key to success if PayPal aims to win the race to build the first financial super app in the US. The company revamped its app last fall in an attempt to bring together more of its services in the same place. In addition to BNPL features, the relaunched app also offers banking, shopping, crypto, and rewards features.
PayPal isn't the only company racing to bring together several financial services in one place. At a recent investor event, Cash App executives detailed plans to link the payments app even closer to BNPL service Afterpay, which was acquired by Cash App's parent company Block earlier this year.
Cash App will prequalify its 80 million active users for an Afterpay account, allowing Afterpay to potentially expand its reach by millions of users. Other significant planned developments include the addition of an Afterpay shopping and browsing feature to Cash App. Users will also be able to review Afterpay orders, check their balance and transaction history, and make Afterpay payments directly from Cash App.
More: BNPL PayPal E-Commerce | 2022-06-15T11:44:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | PayPal Pay Monthly Launches Amid Tough BNPL Competition, Market Slump | https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-pay-monthly-launches-tough-bnpl-competition-market-slump-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-pay-monthly-launches-tough-bnpl-competition-market-slump-2022-6 |
Hi, Aaron Weinman here! Today, I want to chat WhatsApp. It's easily my most-used app, and the simplest way to communicate with family and friends abroad.
I also talk to Wall Streeters on WhatsApp, but the US government's investigation into record-keeping at banks might nix my chances of getting folks to spill the tea.
Before we dive in, the Federal Reserve is making a crucial policy decision today, and is expected to take aggressive action on interest rates to tackle inflation. I stopped by CBS News to discuss the impact of an interest rate hike.
WhatsApp; Getty Images; Samantha Lee/Business Insider
1. Bankers are getting more jittery about using encrypted chat apps. Credit Suisse "removed" its global head of equity capital markets syndicate because he used unapproved chat apps with clients, the Financial Times reported.
Anthony Kontoleon, or "AK," is one of the "most-respected" folks in the ECM space, and bankers were surprised at his removal.
The thought that unapproved messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal could lead to such a senior departure has some bankers worried that similar removals are forthcoming.
The US SEC's investigation into record-keeping practices at banks — and banks' subsequent requests to review staffers' phones — forces dealmakers to rethink how they communicate with clients. Bankers told me they can schedule a meeting via WhatsApp, but business must be conducted through approved communication channels like email.
But one banker reckoned scheduling a meeting could be construed as business, so he's contemplating ditching WhatsApp. Another said he'll delete all our communication because talking to reporters is grounds for dismissal.
Importantly, bankers and clients regularly communicate via encrypted apps. Investment banking is a relationship business. Bankers spend years nurturing client ties, which inevitably leads to informal conversations. Parsing through these chats is a cumbersome process, and bankers will be loathe to ask clients to restrict their conversations.
What started as feelings of frustration is morphing into concern for bankers, as the SEC cracks the whip, and banks incorporate ways to ensure their communication methods comply with regulatory requests.
Here's a report from Rebecca Ungarino, Hayley Cuccinello, and myself on how Wall Street reacted to AK's departure and what this might mean for future communication efforts.
2. Coinbase has laid off 18% of its full-time workforce. The crypto exchange's CEO Brian Armstrong said the company grew "too quickly" during the good times, but now needs to cut costs and brace for a possible recession.
3. Goldman Sachs-backed Slync hasn't paid its staff in over a month. The Wall Street bank's growth-equity arm led a $60 million funding round for the supply-chain startup in February last year. Management blamed the payment debacle on software issues.
4. Celsius hires restructuring lawyers. The crypto lending firm hopes the lawyers will help it navigate its sticky financial situation, after it recently froze account withdrawals. Customers now have thousands of dollars trapped in the platform, and no idea what's going to happen to their money.
5. BlackRock, Invesco, and BankUnited dealmakers are tallying a $300 million fund. The Wall Street trio are launching a firm to back underrepresented entrepreneurs.
6. Vista Equity Partners' CEO is teaming up with Base10, the largest Black-led VC firm. The pair are coming together to support HBCUs. These college endowments have often been barred from investing in venture capital and private equity.
7. Twitter insiders fret that Musk will use a "firehose" of data to revise his $44 billion deal for the company. Musk's requests for more information around user data have been granted, and some suspect he'll leverage the knowledge to bolster his claim of fake accounts.
8. Deutsche Bank ignored "obvious red flags" when vetting the über-rich. US shareholders can now sue the German bank over alleged compliance failures, a New York judge has ruled.
9. An upscale, New York-based restaurant went vegan. Eleven Madison Park — where many a banker bonus has been spent — changed the menu, and it's been a chaotic mess of a year.
10. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman reckons US stocks will plunge 40%. The founder of Omega Advisors, who's net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion, predicted that the US would fall into a recession next year.
Citi made three new hires in its technology and communications team, hiring three experienced software bankers, according to an internal memo from Citi viewed by Insider:
Dan McDow is joining as its global head of software after 16 years at Credit Suisse, where he was last its global head of software investment banking.
San Francisco-based Steve Anderson will join Citi as a managing director in software. He comes to the US bank from Barclays, where he spent 12 years covering software companies.
Andrew Delia is also joining as a MD in software. He previously worked at Credit Suisse for 10 years, also covering software names. | 2022-06-15T13:15:46Z | www.businessinsider.com | Wall Street: WhoopsApp | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-wall-street-whatsapp-credit-suisse-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-wall-street-whatsapp-credit-suisse-2022-6 |
A UK regulator and government officials have criticized the rise in last-minute flight cancelations.
In a joint letter, they told airlines to "develop a schedule that is deliverable."
Airlines must act now to end the "unacceptable scenes" caused by the cancelations, the letter said.
UK lawmakers and an aviation regulator have ordered airlines to end the wave of last-minute flight cancelations, which have caused chaos for travelers.
The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) wrote a joint letter to the industry on Tuesday, which asked airlines to ensure summer flights are not canceled at very short notice, multiple outlets have reported.
The letter encouraged airlines to review their summer plans to "develop a schedule that is deliverable."
The DfT and CAA wrote in the letter: "While cancelations at any time are a regrettable inconvenience to passengers, it is our view that cancellations at the earliest possibility to deliver a more robust schedule are better for consumers than late notice on-the-day cancelations."
The UK authorities said airlines need to act immediately to ensure that the "unacceptable scenes" caused by recent cancelations did not continue throughout the summer.
Staff shortages, bad weather, and the economic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine have all been blamed for the increased number of flight cancelations.
In the letter, the CAA and DfT also encouraged airlines to look practically at their staff and resources. They wrote: "Your schedules must be based on the resources you and your contractors expect to have available, and should be resilient for the unplanned and inevitable operational challenges that you will face."
The UK government has previously expressed concerns over the number of flight cancelations.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said in a statement on June 1: "The scenes we're witnessing at airports are heart-breaking, with holidaymakers missing out on their first trips abroad after the pandemic."
More: Airline Flight Cancellations Airports | 2022-06-15T13:15:52Z | www.businessinsider.com | Airlines Must Stop Last-Minute Flight Cancelations, Watchdog Says | https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-must-stop-canceling-flights-last-minute-uk-regulators-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-must-stop-canceling-flights-last-minute-uk-regulators-2022-6 |
New data shows that spending on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google's cloud platforms declined in April as companies look for ways to cut costs
Adam Selipsky, the CEO of Amazon Web Services.
Spending on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google's cloud platforms fell in April compared to last year.
The deceleration comes amid the market downturn, which has forced some companies to cut costs.
Insiders say the cost of cloud is even higher than last year, and customers are locked in contracts.
The amount that companies spent on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google's cloud platforms fell in April compared to what they spent at the same time last year, according to new data from New York-based research firm YipitData.
Amid fears of an impending economic recession , cloud computing costs — which can be in the thousands for some companies, and up the millions for customers like Airbnb or Snapchat — are under the microscope. Even cryptocurrency trading firm Coinbase, which laid off 18% of its staff this week, said it was planning to cut its spending with Amazon Web Services in an internal memo as part of a broader cost-cutting move.
Though the magnitude of that cloud deceleration varied across the cloud giants, all three experienced this decrease in spending, said Daniel Katz, a product expert manager at YipitData.
AWS, the leader in cloud computing with 38.9% market share according to analyst firm Gartner's latest estimates, decelerated by approximately four percentage points in April. Microsoft Azure, which holds 21.2% of the market, decelerated by about two percentage points, and Google Cloud, which has 7.1% of the market, decelerated by eight percentage points, YipitData found.
While YipitData doesn't break down how much this is in real dollar terms, each percentage point is likely to reflect millions in revenue for the cloud platforms. Its analysis is based on about $5 billion of invoices it receives from customers of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and that data "indexes towards" large enterprises with annual revenue of at least $1 billion, Katz said. The invoices are provided to YipitData by a third-party company that helps those customers optimize their cloud spend, he said.
While Katz noted that the trend was partially related to the strength of last year's cloud spend numbers, especially considering that the cloud giants saw huge growth during the pandemic, he said the deceleration is still noteworthy.
"With the tough macro environment, a lot of tech companies are starting to cut costs and that could mean cutting initiatives, which means cutting cloud spend, potentially," Katz said.
Indeed, the economic downturn has hurt the tech industry, which grew at a rapid clip over the past two years. Many tech companies have already instituted layoffs or paused hiring, and funding has shown signs of drying up for startups.
Still, whether those cost cuts will impact the cloud is up for debate. Gartner cloud analyst Raj Bala told Insider that it's unlikely cloud spending has decreased among large enterprises as a whole because many — though not all — are locked into long-term contracts. Cloud providers typically encourage large businesses to sign those sorts of deals, whereas smaller customers more commonly pay based on their usage.
"Most enterprises with meaningful spend have signed multi-year agreements with committed spend levels, so they are locked into a spend regardless of the macro environment," Bala said.
But that won't necessarily be the case for long, says Martin Casado, a general partner at venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz.
Casado, who last year wrote a widely-shared blog post with fellow Andreessen partner Sarah Wang about the drag of cloud costs on public software companies, told Insider that the cost of cloud may be even higher now than it was when they ran their analysis last year, because "things like free cash flow and margins matter so much more."
"I think that the economic downturn has just made the problem more acute," Casado said, adding that "the cloud line item is under scrutiny."
Plus, more companies are opting to take their IT infrastructure in-house, rather than letting a cloud provider like AWS manage it, Casado says.
"Big companies are taking this very, very seriously and doing very aggressive things internally," he said. "And depending on how acute a problem it is, the level of aggression can be pretty high, including building their own infrastructure."
That all adds up to some fallout for the cloud businesses of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which had all boomed in what analysts call the "golden age" of digital transformation. That's their "fear at the end of the day," says Katz.
"The tech companies having the difficult environment, especially with these inflationary pressures, they could be pressured to cut costs more," he said. "And that's something that would definitely have an impact on cloud."
More: Amazon Web Services AWS Microsoft Azure Google Cloud | 2022-06-15T13:15:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | Cloud Spend on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Fell in April, Data Shows | https://www.businessinsider.com/cloud-amazon-microsoft-google-spending-declined-in-market-downturn-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/cloud-amazon-microsoft-google-spending-declined-in-market-downturn-2022-6 |
Anitram/Shutterstock
Insider identified the top power players in Oregon's burgeoning psilocybin industry.
They range from regulators to executives to advocates in the space.
These individuals will have a big hand in shaping the new market.
Oregon is expected to be the first state in the US with a legal psilocybin program.
Though regulations are still being formed, some key individuals will play a big role in shaping the market's future.
Oregon became the first state to legalize psychedelics in 2020, through a ballot initiative called Measure 109. Since then, regulators, advocates, and company executives have been preparing to create a first-of-its kind market that will allow adults over the age of 21 to undergo psychedelic experiences in clinics and centers designed specifically for administering psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms.
The power players we identified who are shaping this new market include regulators, like André Ourso and Angela Albee at the Oregon Health Authority, advocates, like Hanifa Nayo Washington of Fireside Project, and executives of the companies that are planning to operate in the state.
Once Oregon's market ramps up, some expect other states to follow suit, similar to the patchwork way that the cannabis market began to emerge across the US.
Click here to see the 18 power players who will shape Oregon's psilocybin market. This article is available exclusively to Insider subscribers.
More: Oregon psychdelics Power Players magic mushrooms | 2022-06-15T13:16:16Z | www.businessinsider.com | List: Top Magic Mushroom Executives, Advocates, and Regulators in Oregon | https://www.businessinsider.com/list-top-magic-mushroom-regulators-executives-advocates-in-oregon-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/list-top-magic-mushroom-regulators-executives-advocates-in-oregon-2022-6 |
Demand in May was 17% below expectations, Redfin said.
Real estate brokerage Redfin is laying off about 470 workers, or 8% of its workforce.
May demand was 17% below expectations and its CEO said there was not enough work for its agents.
Read the email its CEO sent to staff announcing the layoffs.
Real estate brokerage Redfin is laying off about 470 workers as the housing market slumps.
It blamed the layoffs on "market conditions" in an SEC filing. The cuts are equivalent to 8% of its workforce, or 6% including staff from RentPath and Bay Equity.
Redfin isn't alone. Compass said on Tuesday that it was cutting its workforce by around 10%, or 450 workers, as part of a plan to cut costs, along with reducing US hiring and not filling roles when staff leave.
Only last month Compass announced record first-quarter profits of $1.4 billion, 25% higher than the same period last year, after transactions rose by 18%.
A spokesperson for Compass told CNBC the cuts were due to "clear signals of slowing economic growth."
Redfin has been more explicit about why it is making layoffs. In an email to staff, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said that demand in May was 17% below expectations and that "we don't have enough work for our agents and support staff."
"Our culture has been making an important shift toward performance and profits," Kelman said. "If we hold our front-line agents to a high standard, we have to apply that same standard to all of us standing behind the agent. It isn't soulful to turn on people at their first sign of weakness; but it isn't soulful either to accept mediocrity."
Kelman said that laid-off colleagues would be offered 10 weeks of base salary, with an additional week of pay for every 12 months of service beyond one year, capped at 15 weeks of pay. Redfin would also pay departing employees the cost of extending its healthcare coverage for three months, he said.
"This should give you until the end of the summer to find work," Kelman told staff in the email.
Read the full email to staff, which was published on Redfin's website, below:
Ah Redfin,
I'm sorry to say that we're asking about 8% of our employees to leave Redfin today, or about 6% if you include the people of RentPath and Bay Equity. For the next few hours, managers will call the people leaving. When we're done with the calls, I'll send out a note. We'll host a brief all-hands meeting at 11 a.m. PDT to answer any questions, which you can submit via this form. Redfin will also announce the layoff to the public, posting this message to our blog.
Demand Is Off By 17%
To all the departing people who put your faith in Redfin, I'm sorry we can't keep our commitment to you. With May demand 17% below expectations, we don't have enough work for our agents and support staff, and fewer sales leaves us with less money for headquarters projects.
Two to Four Months of Severance
We're offering laid-off colleagues ten weeks of base salary, with an additional week of pay for every 12 months of service beyond one year, capped at 15 weeks of pay. For agent and support roles, severance pay includes the estimated value of productivity bonuses or sales bonuses. We'll also pay departing employees the cost of extending our healthcare coverage for three months. This should give you until the end of the summer to find work.
I Said We Wouldn't Lay People Off Unless We Had To. We Have To.
A layoff is always an awful shock, especially when I've said that we'd go through heck to avoid one, and that we raised hundreds of millions of dollars so we wouldn't have to shed people after just a few months of uncertainty. But mortgage rates increased faster than at any point in history. We could be facing years, not months, of fewer home sales, and Redfin still plans to thrive. If falling from $97 per share to $8 doesn't put a company through heck, I don't know what does.
It's Time to Make Money
We're losing many good people today, but in order for the rest to want to stay, we have to increase Redfin's value. And to increase our value, we have to make money. We owe it to everyone who has invested your time or treasure in this company to become profitable, and then very profitable.
A Performance-Oriented Culture
Today's layoff is the result of shortfalls in Redfin's revenues, not in the people being let go. But months before this layoff, our culture has been making an important shift toward performance and profits. There's a reason that Redfin, alone among brokers, employs our agents: to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Jason Aleem agreed to become the leader of our brokerage in February on the condition that he would run it as an elite sales organization. We can only introduce an agent to a dozen customers each month if we believe that agent is best for our customers. And if we hold our front-line agents to a high standard, we have to apply that same standard to all of us standing behind the agent. It isn't soulful to turn on people at their first sign of weakness; but it isn't soulful either to accept mediocrity. Having a soul is how we find our way between those two poles.
Profit-Driven Decisions
The other major difference between Redfin and other brokers is our level of investment in software and support, which includes coordinators and support agents as well as field managers, renovators, offer specialists and title specialists. There's a reason for that too: to create a competitive advantage for our customer and ourselves. Our software and support are the industry's best. But if our agents, lenders and customers wouldn't themselves pay for an improvement in our software or support, preferring instead to work with a company with less overhead and better economics, we can't pay for that improvement. This is a discipline that we need every leader, not just execs, to embrace. Fewer projects. Smaller teams. Shorter documents. Less analysis. Keep it simple.
Where We're Cutting
Because for every project we start, we have to think about another we'll stop. We've already built tools for teams to work together on a transaction, so we need fewer engineers to add to those tools. We'll spend less on analytics and user research. When we were turning away tens of thousands of customers in 2020 and 2021, we had to hire a thousand employees a month to catch up, requiring berserk levels of recruiting, training and licensing. There's no avoiding that those groups will be hardest hit today.
What We're Still Funding
What we're still investing in are exactly what our agents, lenders and customers value most: the online presence to drive demand; on-the-spot tours to see homes first; low prices for listing customers who need every penny from their property for their life's next stage; RedfinNow and renovations for selling homes quickly at high prices; and other innovative services that only Redfin agents can offer customers. We'll also look for ways to invest more in the agents who can be an engine of the company's growth: any agent can meet her first customers through Redfin.com, but our best agents cultivate repeat and referral sales via those customers over time.
Still a Place for Big Bets
We'll keep taking big bets, but only if there's a big payoff: in traffic to our site, in the success of our customers, in the range of services we can offer those customers. We bet millions on better brokerage service in 2022 because we believe that customer success rates will increase, making our most lucrative business more efficient. We bet on rental listings because becoming a complete real estate destination can let us surpass our rivals in traffic, increasing our value by billions. We're investing in online tools to guide RedfinNow offers, which should lead to faster service and more profits. We're shifting our software to the cloud, increasing reliability and lowering maintenance costs even as more innovations roll out from more teams. If you want to take a big bet, know your customer better than anyone else; be honest with yourself about whether the outcome would matter to that customer; and cut our losses if the outcome doesn't come.
Where Do We Go From Here
Redfin will grow more slowly in a housing downturn, but we'll still grow, and our share gains will accelerate. The world will write us off, as it has before. What will be most painful is the effort some of you will have to go through to think of ourselves as a good employer. Part of being good is accepting when the company has fallen short of that, without forsaking our determination to do better. We have broken our commitment to our people, twice now in three years. We can't shrink from doing what's best for the whole company, not just one part of it, today and every day. But I'll spend the rest of my life wondering how I could've avoided these layoffs. What's most important now is treating the people leaving with humanity and respect. As always, you can call or email me to vent, grieve, ask questions, or get help figuring out your next move. A list of frequently asked questions about the layoff is on our intranet.
Sincerely, Glenn
More: Compass Redfin Real Estate Jobs | 2022-06-15T13:16:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | Read the Email Redfin's CEO Sent to Staff Announcing 470 Layoffs | https://www.businessinsider.com/redfin-lay-off-workers-housing-market-read-email-mortgages-compass-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/redfin-lay-off-workers-housing-market-read-email-mortgages-compass-2022-6 |
The first rebranded former McDonald's just opened in Russia — see how it compares to the real Golden Arches
Photo by Semen Vasileyev/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
McDonald's pulled out of Russia amid the war with Ukraine, and sold its restaurants.
The first rebranded location just opened under a new name, with new logos and uniforms.
The menus and restaurants are mostly the same, with slightly different branding.
The first rebranded McDonald's just opened in Moscow on Sunday after the fast food giant pulled out of the country.
Ownership changed hands after all restaurants were purchased by Russian businessman Alexander Govor, but the experience seems to have stayed mostly the same.
The changes are mostly superficial, limited to signs, logos, and uniforms.
All McDonald's logos were removed from buildings...
A worker dismantles the McDonald's Golden Arches while removing the logo signage from a drive-through restaurant of McDonald's in the town of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region, Russia June 8, 2022.
...and replaced with the new logo for Vkusno & tochka, or "Tasty and that's it."
The biggest changes are to signs and displays, which used to prominently say McDonald's and show the iconic golden arches.
People walk past a closed McDonald's restaurant in Moscow, August 20, 2014.
REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
When they were still officially McDonald's restaurants, they featured ordering kiosks beneath prominent McDonald's logos.
Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Photos from the newly reopened location look nearly exactly the same, just with different logos on the signs.
The kiosks even have the new logo on their screens, though they remain otherwise nearly the same.
When the restaurant was McDonald's, it sold Big Macs, fries, McNuggets, and other McDonald's staples.
The new menu still has cheeseburgers, nuggets, and fries.
The paper bags and cups used to come covered in McDonald's logos.
Rudi Blaha/AP
Now, food at the rebranded restaurant comes in different packaging, though it's still in similar colors.
Some logos weren't changed over yet, leaving workers to cover McDonald's logos on sauce packets with black pen.
There's no Filet O'Fish on the menu, but the new restaurant does sell a fish burger that's similar.
"The Big Mac is the story of McDonald's. We will definitely do something similar," new owner Alexander Govor said. "We will try to do something even better so that our visitors and guests like this dish."
The rebranded restaurants will no longer serve Coca-Cola because the company isn't operating in Russia.
Most of the menu is made with the same ingredients and equipment as when it was McDonald's.
98% of ingredients for menu items are sourced from Russia, CEO of Vkusno & tochka Oleg Paroev told Reuters.
Worker uniforms have also changed.
The new uniforms share the colors of the logo.
Many of the workers themselves are the same ones who used to serve Big Macs and Filet O'Fish.
Govor agreed to employ and continue paying the roughly 60,000 Russian McDonald's employees for two years.
Vkusno & tochka plan to reopen 200 former McDonald's restaurants by the end of June, with all 850 running by the end of summer.
"Our goal is that our guests do not notice a difference either in quality or ambiance," Paroev said.
Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
More: Features Retail Fast Food McDonald's | 2022-06-15T13:16:59Z | www.businessinsider.com | Russia Rebranded McDonald's Photos: How It Differs | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-rebranded-mcdonalds-photos-how-it-differs-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-rebranded-mcdonalds-photos-how-it-differs-2022-6 |
Sam's Club memberships are soaring to record highs, and the retailer is about to give brands unprecedented power to target those shoppers with ads
Ben Tobin and Lauren Johnson
Sam's Club MAP is the company's new advertising business.
courtesy Sam's Club
Sam's Club's new ad platform is called Sam's Club Member Access Platform.
The move brings Sam's Club advertising in-house, similar to what Walmart did last year.
The platform is "very different" from the Walmart Connect ad platform, a Sam's Club exec said.
Just like its parent company did a few years ago, Sam's Club is overhauling its ads business in hopes of capturing a larger chunk of ad budgets.
The former ad business, called Sam's Club Media Group, will now be known as the Sam's Club Member Access Platform, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart subsidiary announced Wednesday.
"As a membership organization, we have an incredible amount of insight on our members. Not only do we have 100% visibility into their purchases, but we also know their search behaviors," the company wrote in a press release announcing MAP. "We can predict what our members want and need with great precision."
And Sam's Club memberships are at a record high.
Sam's Club MAP will include ads that appear on the company's website and app and eventually ones on outside sites. The platform is predicated on harvesting data from members' purchases and searches for Sam's Club merchants and suppliers to create targeted sponsored product ads for brands and other companies to reach customers more likely to be interested in their products.
"As a member-obsessed company and organization, our mission is to provide the most valuable and additive ads experience to our members while growing profit and revenue for Sam's Club," Lex Josephs, the head of Sam's Club's ad business, said. Josephs is a former Walmart ad exec who jumped to Sam's Club earlier this year.
On top of the new name, Sam's Club is rolling out new ad products, including:
Sponsored product ads in search results.
A self-service platform for advertisers to buy sponsored product ads in an automated way, starting July 1.
A programmatic partnership with the data companies LiveRamp, IRI, and The Trade Desk that will allow advertisers to buy ads beyond Sam's Club's properties later in the year.
With the programmatic partnership, Josephs said that the business hoped to help advertisers reach Sam's Club members when they're searching on other platforms like Pinterest and redirect them to purchase products from Sam's Club's app and website.
Sam's Club is overhauling its ad business.
Getty/Scott Olson
Michael Ellgass, the executive vice president of retail-marketing solutions for IRI, told Insider: "With the vast amount of data Sam's Club is able to collect on their member, their focus on an additive ads experience and their ability to offer complete, closed-loop reporting verified by our team at IRI, Sam's Club MAP is poised to be one of — if not the — most efficient and effective retail-ads business in the market."
Josephs said Sam's Club MAP had an advantage over other retail-ads platforms because of the company's ability to harbor data on all of its customers' transactions and the curated, limited product inventory it has at its stores.
A Sam's Club spokesperson did not disclose how many advertisers were working with Sam's Club. About 75 employees work for Sam's Club MAP, but that number will continue to grow, the spokesperson said.
Sam's Club's move comes more than two years after Walmart took its advertising business in-house with similar tools for advertisers. Since then, Walmart has rebranded its ad business to be called Walmart Connect and rolled out a programmatic partnership with The Trade Desk that uses Walmart's data to target digital ads outside Walmart's app and website. Walmart made $2.1 billion from advertising last year.
But don't be expecting a copycat of Walmart Connect. According to Josephs, Sam's Club MAP is "very different" from Walmart's retail media platform. For example, she said Sam's Club's would have more data about what members buy. Sam's Club also has a smaller inventory than Walmart and other stores, giving the company more insight into what people are likely to buy.
"We are making sure that we're leading with our member first and we're doing what's right for the member," Josephs said. "That's vastly different than what Walmart does."
More: Sam's Club Walmart retail media | 2022-06-15T13:17:17Z | www.businessinsider.com | Sam's Club, Like Walmart, Overhauled Its Retail Media Ad Business | https://www.businessinsider.com/sams-club-like-walmart-overhauled-its-retail-media-ad-business-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/sams-club-like-walmart-overhauled-its-retail-media-ad-business-2022-6 |
The talent manager whose 'Brit Crew' ruled early YouTube is eyeing OnlyFans and other subscription platforms for his next act
Will Vickers
Dom Smales is the mastermind behind Gleam Futures, which signed YouTube's iconic "Brit Crew."
Smales next venture is The Glo Project, a talent network for subscription-based platforms like OnlyFans.
Glo is also dipping its toes into original content alongside OFTV.
The year was 2012, and YouTube was ruled by a faction of UK creators known as the "Brit Crew." There was the chirpy beauty vlogger and Primark hauler Zoe Sugg, the sisterly makeup duo Pixiwoo, and the heartthrob challenge aficionados like Alfie Deyes and Marcus Butler.
They all had one thing in common: Gleam Futures, the London talent agency that represented them, founded by digital entrepreneur Dom Smales out of a Costa coffee shop in 2010.
"At the time, YouTube was exploding as if it were full of the hottest boy and girl bands," Smales told Insider. "There was this surge in Britishness in pop culture fueled by both my guys, the Brit Crew, and One Direction at the same time."
Gleam steered its clients to groundbreaking ventures at the time. Sugg wrote the New York Times Best Seller "Girl Online," Pixiwoo launched the multimillion-dollar makeup brand Real Techniques, and Caspar Lee and Joe Sugg (Zoe's brother) starred in a BBC-produced feature called "Joe and Caspar Hit the Road."
Today, Smales is less enthused by ad- and brand deal-driven platforms like YouTube and Instagram. He sees the future in subscription services like OnlyFans, Patreon , and Twitch .
And he calls his latest startup, The Glo Project – his first venture since departing Gleam – a multi-channel network for the subscription creator economy. While Smales has other projects in the pipeline, he is spending the majority of his time on Glo, a talent network focused on OnlyFans stars.
"People are chasing seven-figure follower figures in order to have 1% or 2% actually engaged in order to attract a big brand," Smales said. "It makes me nostalgic for the days when the creator only cared about what their audience wanted."
A talent network for non-explicit OnlyFans creators
Ad giant Dentsu Aegis acquired a majority stake in Gleam in 2017. Soon after, creators began departing the company – some, including Caspar Lee and Joe Sugg, to launch competing talent agencies – which Smales described as "culturally and emotionally hard."
Dentsu acquired the remainder of the business in 2020 and Smales formally stepped down as CEO in 2021, bidding farewell to his team over Zoom .
"It got to the point where I thought that my presence would hinder rather than help," he said. "It was a business that needed to take on board this scale of its new owner. My head was always back in the coffee shop."
The Glo Project was founded in 2020 by Smales' business partner – the OnlyFans model Sophie "Scarlett" Howard – whom he'd met at a photoshoot in the early aughts. Smales onboarded as cofounder with an undisclosed investment in early 2021.
Howard had become disenchanted by the modeling grind – "standing in a drafty studio in her pants and getting paid 300 quid," as Smales puts it – and launched a non-explicit OnlyFans account.
Today, The Glo Project comprises 25 creators, most of whom are former reality TV stars-turned-influencers, including former "Love Island" star India Reynolds and Ianthe Rose of "Made In Chelsea." The agency also works with fourth-generation dairy farmer Becky Houzé, Patreon lifestyle podcaster Jess Davies, and variety Twitch streamer Daniimee.
On OnlyFans, Glo works exclusively with non-explicit creators. This means no nudity, though creators share sensual photos in bikinis and lingerie.
"It's not because we're huge prudes," Smales said. "I think it's empowering, but it's not my expertise."
Leaning into original content in the subscription sphere
In addition to protecting IP, Glo furnishes creators with a community managers, facilitates photographers and videographers, hosts networking sessions, and gives technical support. It monetizes by pocketing a small cut of subscription earnings, though Smales declined to specify the split.
The company also vends a subscription service where creators can pay for DMCA protection, starting at roughly $118 per month (for 20 copyright takedowns).
Another area of focus is high-production, TV-style content that will be commissioned by partner platforms or self-funded, Smales said.
The cast of "Model Farmers."
James Rudland
To this end, the company's first original show, "Model Farmers," was commissioned by OFTV and debuted on OnlyFans' free app for non-explicit content last week.
"Model Farmers" comprises eight 10-minute episodes where six former "Love Island" contestants try their hands at farming tasks – cleaning slurry, for instance, or milking cows.
The purpose of the show is to drive subscribers to Glo talent. That's the greater thesis of OFTV, which was also conceived, per Bloomberg, to broaden the platform's horizons beyond adult content.
While the focus is currently on reality-style shows, Smales wonders if there's room for a scripted series down the road.
"In the future I would love brilliant, edgy, scripted drama to have exclusive spot on OnlyFans or Twitch or Patreon," he said. "That'd be incredible. We're not there yet, but one day."
More: OnlyFans talent management YouTube | 2022-06-15T14:47:11Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Dom Smales Is Building Glo Project, an OnlyFans-Focused Network | https://www.businessinsider.com/dom-smales-next-chapter-the-glo-project-onlyfans-patreon-twitch-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/dom-smales-next-chapter-the-glo-project-onlyfans-patreon-twitch-2022-6 |
I got my dream job at Spotify by posting my work on LinkedIn. Here's how I used my profile to boost my job prospects.
Zainab Ayodimeji was working for a fintech in Lagos, Nigeria, when a Spotify recruiter reached out to her.
Zainab Ayodimeji
Zainab Ayodimeji, an analyst, began making data visualizations on Salesforce's Tableau as a hobby.
She posted a visualization of Travis Scott's discography on her LinkedIn, and it went viral.
This is how the post led to a dream job offer from Spotify, as told to Lauren Crosby Medlicott.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Zainab Ayodimeji, a 27-year-old data scientist at Spotify. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I moved to the UK from Nigeria in 2017 to complete my master's degree in advanced mechanical engineering with management at the University of Leicester.
One of my modules was on statistics and data.
I loved it, so I signed up for an online Udacity course in statistics to learn more alongside my degree. The Bertelsmann scholarship program covered the course's £1,000 fee.
When I graduated from my master's program, I got a job as a "data ninja" for Winning Moves, a data research company in Birmingham. I worked on data processing and analysis.
I continued taking courses online, and one of the courses included data visualization
Rather than just throwing numbers at people, data visualization presents information in an easily digestible form.
I started wondering how I could use data visualization in my job to improve our reports for customers, but I was never able to act on my ideas because there was an issue with my visa.
I had to move back to Nigeria in January 2019. I was disappointed, but I had no choice except to leave a job I loved.
In April 2019, I found a job in Lagos with Smarterise, an energy analytics company, and started helping clients monitor their energy use — how much they used, how much money they spent, and if they had been energy efficient.
Again, I saw how data visualization could make data easier to consume.
If the client doesn't have to spend time combing through all the raw data, they have more time to ask questions about what the data shows and consider solutions.
Right before the pandemic, I started a new job as a data scientist at Gomoney, a fintech digital bank in Nigeria. I analyzed customer data and was constantly thinking about how data visualization would be an effective tool.
I decided to join a niche data-visualization group in Lagos to network with people who used Tableau, Salesforce's data-analytics-products platform, to present data visually.
The weekly meetings were good training, but I mostly appreciated being part of a community that shared my interests
Along with many members of the group, I participated in Makeover Monday, a global online community that comes together every week to challenge each other to create data visualizations.
When our community meetings moved online during the pandemic, we could access speakers from around the world to teach us about data visualization.
One of the speakers, a Tableau Public ambassador, said she'd give us feedback if we sent her one of our visuals. I used Tableau to create a visualization of female genital mutilation in Tanzania.
After I received feedback, I posted the visualization on Twitter. Loads of people got in touch to tell me they liked my work.
The tweet was my first foray into the Tableau community, and the support encouraged me to keep creating.
My visuals continued to improve the more I worked on them.
I created a visualization for Travis Scott's music in August 2020 and posted it on Twitter and LinkedIn
I had thousands of responses to the posts. People loved it.
In October, a managing data scientist from Spotify contacted me through LinkedIn and told me he liked my Travis Scott visualization.
He said there was an open data-scientist position primarily working on data visualization at Spotify, and that I should apply.
After completing the online application, the managing data scientist who initially contacted me called to discuss my background. He asked about my skills and basic questions, like why I wanted the job and if I'd be willing to relocate.
It was a job I would have never thought I could have qualified for because of the company's reputation, but I decided to go for it
For the third round of the interview process, Spotify asked me to use Structured Query Language to show how I was able to interact with data. Then I had to present the creative process behind some of my Tableau Public visualizations.
Finally, Spotify gave me a take-home assignment to create data visualizations for anonymized datasets. I then presented them to a panel of technical and nontechnical Spotify employees. This exercise was followed by one-on-one chats with people I'd be working with if Spotify offered me the job as a data scientist specializing in visualizations.
After a 3-month application process, I was offered a job with Spotify in January 2021
I started working from Stockholm in April 2021. Spotify organized the immigration approvals and provided me with a relocation allowance.
It's the biggest company I've ever worked for, and there has been so much to learn, but I love the chance to do what I have been dreaming about for years: data visualization.
If you have a story about getting a job at a big tech company in a unique way, we want to hear from you! Email kfields@insider.com.
More: UK Freelance BI-freelancer contributor 2022
Jobs in Tech | 2022-06-15T14:47:29Z | www.businessinsider.com | How I Landed My Dream Job at Spotify From One LinkedIn Post | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-job-spotify-linkedin-post-data-visualization-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-job-spotify-linkedin-post-data-visualization-2022-6 |
How to see chunk borders in Minecraft using Java or Bedrock Edition
Chunks in Minecraft have precise borders.
You can see chunk borders in Minecraft: Java Edition by pressing the F3 and G keys at the same time.
A multicolored grid will appear around the chunk you're standing in, and it'll follow you as you move.
There's no way to see exact chunk borders in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, but you can still see your coordinates.
In real life, we measure distances using units like "miles" or "kilometers." But in Minecraft, the world is made up of "chunks," spaces that are 16x16 blocks wide but massively tall.
There are a few ways to tell what chunk you're in, but if you're playing Minecraft: Java Edition, there's a quick tool that lets you see the exact borders of any chunk.
How to see chunk borders in Minecraft: Java Edition
In Java Edition, you can activate chunk borders. This feature surrounds the chunk you're in with a wireframe, showing you the chunk's exact boundaries.
To turn on chunk borders, hold down the F3 key on your keyboard, and then press the G key. A small message will appear in the bottom-left saying that borders are being shown, and you'll see a multicolored wireframe border around your chunk.
You'll see a confirmation message when chunk borders are enabled.
The wireframe only appears around the chunk you're standing in. When you move to another chunk, the border will move to surround the new area. You can turn the borders off by pressing F3 and G again.
If you get high enough into the air, you can look down and see all four sides of the chunk border at once. This is the best way to see the true size of a chunk.
You can fly up to see all the borders of a chunk.
How to find chunk borders in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition
There's no chunk border tool in Bedrock Edition. Instead, you'll need to use a bit of math.
First, you need to find your coordinates.
1. Open your Bedrock world and press Esc (keyboard) or Start (controller).
2. Select Settings, and then Game in the left sidebar.
3. Scroll down to World Options and toggle on Show Coordinates.
Click the "Show Coordinates" option.
4. Return to your game. In the top-left, you'll now see your character's XYZ coordinates.
When either of the X or Z coordinates are divisible by 16 (16, 32, 48, 64…), you're at the edge of a chunk. And if both X and Z are divisible by 16, you're in the chunk's exact north-west corner.
Quick tip: This coordinate trick works in Java Edition too. But in Java, you can see your coordinates simply by pressing F3.
TECH What does Smite do in Minecraft? How to give your weapons extra damage
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More: Tech How To Minecraft Borders Minecraft Java | 2022-06-15T14:47:35Z | www.businessinsider.com | How to See Chunk Borders in Minecraft Java and Bedrock | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-chunk-borders-in-minecraft | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-chunk-borders-in-minecraft |
Frances Haugen leaves the UK Houses of Parliament on October 25, 2021.
Haugen appeared at an event in London Tuesday evening with Daniel Motaung, a former Facebook moderator who is suing the company in Kenya accusing it of human trafficking.
From left to right: TIME journalist Billy Perrigo, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, Foxglove director Cori Crider, and ex-Facebook moderator Daniel Motaung
"Facebook is always trying to ... have more of the work, be done by computers, by AI, and less being done by people," Haugen said, saying this is because employing human moderators is more expensive than using automated systems.
Motaung said Tuesday the work left him "broken."
"Even saying: 'Hey, you are looking at things that traumatize you every day. We're going to pay you for a full week, but you only have to come in every other day ... that is a real intervention," Haugen said.
More: Frances Haugen Daniel Motaung Facebook Meta | 2022-06-15T14:47:53Z | www.businessinsider.com | AI Cannot Solve Meta's Moderation Problems, Whistleblowers Say | https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-facebook-ai-cannot-solve-moderation-frances-haugen-daniel-motaung-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-facebook-ai-cannot-solve-moderation-frances-haugen-daniel-motaung-2022-6 |
After getting vet bills totaling thousands of dollars, here's why a risk analyst quit his job to launch Pawlicy Advisor, a pet insurance comparison startup
Woody Mawhinney, cofounder and CEO of Pawlicy Advisor.
Pawlicy Advisors
Pawlicy Advisor offers a marketplace for pet owners to buy and compare pet insurance options.
Cofounder Woody Mawhinney got the idea after experiencing how hard it was to compare insurances.
The company raised $12 million in Series B financing from Stepstone, Defy VC, and Slow Ventures.
Like any new pet parent, Woody Mawhinney was already overwhelmed with training and caring for his Shar Pei that he had adopted.
But when his dog, Wrigley, started showing signs of a genetic disease, he took him to the veterinarian and was shocked by the thousands of dollars it cost to pay for Wrigley's medication, vet visits and surgeries. Mawhinney's vet recommended he get pet insurance, but said they weren't aware of the best way to evaluate pet insurance options.
"The advice was to Google pet insurance, and when I did, I immediately felt overwhelmed, confused, and ended up choosing an insurance policy more or less on the fly," Mawhinney told Insider.
That's when the wheels started to turn for Mawhinney. As a risk analyst with ABS Consulting, a company that works with the Department of Homeland Security, assessing options is a part of his everyday life. After some research, Mawhinney realized there wasn't a resource to compare pet insurances, and his startup, Pawlicy Advisor, was born.
The startup now offers a marketplace where pet owners can browse and compare insurance providers. Pawlicy recently raised $12 million in Series B funding from investment firm StepStone with participation from previous investors Defy VC, Slow Ventures, and Rho Capital Partners.. The company has raised $20 million in total funding.
Pawlicy also acts like an insurance broker that works with providers to reach customers. It also carries most major insurance providers on its platform. The startup also teamed up with Synchrony Financial to provide users access to CareCredit, a co-branded credit card for pet care.
When Mawhinney was researching pet insurance options, he had trouble comparing what each provider would or would not cover for his dog's host of medical procedures. That experience ultimately became the seed for Pawlicy. He looked at travel websites such as Kayak and Priceline for inspiration.
In January 2018, he left his job and started a program at Columbia Business School. Mawhinney continued working on his startup idea while in school, and by the time he graduated, Pawlicy was up and running.
Mawhinney met his cofounder, Travis Bloom, in September 2018 after he read about Mawhinney's idea in a post on CoFoundersLab after his own ordeal buying insurance. The two began talking about building the company, but it wasn't until a nine-hour hike up a mountain in upstate New York that Bloom signed on to Pawlicy.
"I decided one of the best ways to get to know each other would be to travel, so I took Travis on the toughest local hike I could find," Mawhinney said. "We spent nine hours talking and laughing, and we knew that not only did we have complementary skill sets and aligned visions, but we also meshed."
Bloom – who has a pet cat named Ginny – became the company's chief technology officer shortly thereafter.
Those early days were difficult, said Mawhinney, since they couldn't get pet insurers to speak to them. It wasn't until Mawhinney directly reached out to company CEOs that he managed to get them on board. Mawhinney said a large part of Pawlicy's work is to help veterinarians walk patients through more transparent care costs for their pets.
"We want to educate consumers on how to afford their veterinarian's treatment recommendations," Mawhinney said. "With this funding, we can grow our small team to better support pet owners and veterinarians across the country."
More: Insurtech Pet Industry start-ups | 2022-06-15T14:48:23Z | www.businessinsider.com | Why a Risk Analyst Quit His Job to Launch a Pet Insurance Startup | https://www.businessinsider.com/why-risk-analyst-quit-job-launch-pet-insurance-startup-pawlicy-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/why-risk-analyst-quit-job-launch-pet-insurance-startup-pawlicy-2022-6 |
BlackRock's expanded proxy voting program gives investors a voice
BlackRock expands its Voting Choice program, which gives institutional index fund investors greater control over ESG topics.
The increased clarity could be a model for all financial institutions, with more transparency around the long-term ESG outlook.
The news: BlackRock is expanding its Voting Choice program so more investors in indexed funds can vote their shares, per a press release.
Here's how it works: Clients like pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, and foundations will be able to vote their shares on topics like executive compensation, climate change, and other ESG issues.
Clients will have multiple voting options:
Clients can control all of their own voting.
They can choose to vote only on issues that concern them.
They can select one of seven different voting policies.
Or they can rely on BlackRock's stewardship team to vote.
The program will extend to include funds in Canada and Ireland and more funds offered in the UK. The expansion means nearly half ($4.9 trillion) of BlackRock's indexed assets are eligible to participate.
BlackRock will also begin a test program that gives individual mutual fund investors in the UK greater power in voting their shares. It will consult with lawmakers and regulators in the US on how to do this for US retail investors.
Regulators and lawmakers are watching: They've opened probes and levied fines against asset managers and banks as they offer more ESG products. But without standardized ESG definitions, it's tough to tell what's actually behind these investments.
Goldman Sachs is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for offering ESG-labeled products that breached the metrics promised in marketing materials.
Deutsche Bank headquarters were raided earlier this year for exaggerating ESG credentials on some of their funds.
And in May, the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK accused HSBC of greenwashing in two advertisements it placed at bus stops.
Asset managers have also come under fire by lawmakers who believe these giants have disproportionate influence over corporations. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street each hold more than a 5% interest in most S&P 500 companies.
So are investors: Global investment managers will be competing for roughly $9 trillion in fresh ESG AUM between 2022 and 2025. And total AUM is expected to exceed $50 trillion, per 2022 research from Bloomberg Intelligence.
Roughly half of global investors said they would choose investments with positive societal impacts, according to a Capgemini survey. And one-third of US asset managers reported that they were at risk of losing more than 20% of their institutional mandates due to dissatisfactory ESG products, according to July 2021 research from BCG.
The big takeaway: BlackRock's voting program opens a new door for institutional investors to influence ESG mandates and gives BlackRock its own ESG bona fides.
Voting their shares lets institutions reflect their beliefs with their dollars. Any financial institution sharpening their ESG practices would be wise to follow suit—or at least provide more transparency around what they offer and what their long-term ESG outlook is. Not only will this ease pressures from agencies cracking down on greenwashing, but it will put financial institutions ahead of an investment style that is poised to explode. | 2022-06-15T15:30:33Z | www.businessinsider.com | BlackRock Expands Its Voting Choice Program so Investors Have More Say | https://www.businessinsider.com/blackrock-expands-its-voting-choice-program-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/blackrock-expands-its-voting-choice-program-2022-6 |
Nfinite enables e-commerce retailers to create 3D visualizations of their products. Check out the 7-slide pitch deck it used to raise $100 million.
Founder and CEO of Nfinite, Alexandre de Vigan.
French visualization startup Nfinite has raised a $100 million Series B from Insight Partners.
It enables retailers to design 3D catalogs and product visualizations through its platform.
Check out the 7-slide deck Nfinite used to raise the fresh capital.
A startup that enables e-commerce retailers to design 3D product visualizations just raised $100 million in a round led by Insight Partners.
France-based Nfinite has developed a platform to curate and manage 3D models and digital catalogs that give consumers a better picture of the product they're purchasing. The company claims that "classic photography" is outdated when it comes to e-commerce.
Alexandre de Vigan, the Nfinite CEO, said that many e-commerce sites were lacking an interactive element from their operation.
"The sales experience that we have online is lagging from the immersion, customization, and visualization that consumers expect," he said.
Retailers can digitize their catalogs, and process the 2D information into 3D designs through Nfinite's SaaS tool, which uses CGI technology. These visualizations can be shared through omnichannel platforms, from websites to social media sites, to web3 applications, and can also be downloaded as JPEGs.
Currently, Nfinite provides subscriptions for a certain package of visuals, but de Vigan said he saw the value in eventually providing access to unlimited visualizations.
The startup's SaaS tool translates 2D information into 3D visuals in CGI.
Its clients include the likes of French grocery chain Leclerc and consumer chains such as La Redoute.
An uptick in interest around the metaverse matched with an exponential boom in global e-commerce last year led to increased investor appetite for the startup, according to de Vigan.
"We had a lot of market opportunities that arrived in the last year, and the FOMO around the metaverse made it a big thing," he said.
The round was led by New York-based private equity firm Insight Partners, which has previously backed educational marketplace Udemy and e-signature platform DocuSign, with participation from existing investor USVC.
The startup has "incredible growth potential" and is "redefining the e-merchandising space with a platform that enables high-quality visual content to be produced at scale", said Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director at Insight Partners.
With the cash injection, Nfinite will focus on developing its technology so that the features can be scaled and integrated with global software systems, and grow its marketing teams in the US.
Check out the 7-slide deck used to raise the fresh funds.
More: Features Pitch Deck eCommerce | 2022-06-15T15:30:51Z | www.businessinsider.com | Nfinite: Visualization Startup Raises $100 Million Series B | https://www.businessinsider.com/nfinite-visualization-startup-raises-100-million-series-b-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/nfinite-visualization-startup-raises-100-million-series-b-2022-6 |
Digital Twins are personalizing customer interactions. Here's how celebrity brands can benefit.
Created by Soul Machines with Insider Studios
Soul Machines is creating Digital Twins of celebrities with technology that could revolutionize how humans interact with AI.
Soul Machines, the leader in lifelike, autonomously animated AI, creates these Digital People™ using high-resolution image, motion, and voice capture. They are powered by unique technology the company calls "autonomous automation," which gives these Digital Twins a star's likeness, facial expressions, mannerisms, and speech.
Celebrity Digital Twins leverage artificial intelligence and extensive capture technology, so they can respond to unscripted questions, register emotional cues, interpret nonverbal communication, and modulate voice and expression. The result is accurate, empathic, and personalized interactions – not just scripted responses or bot-generated feedback.
"We refer to our avatars as 'Digital People,'" said Greg Cross, CEO of Soul Machines. "We've trademarked the phrase because, when you're interacting with them, they really do feel like people and have the same emotions, as if we were talking in real life."
A pioneer of the digital workforce, Soul Machines has been creating Digital People since 2016. Digital People help online users open bank accounts, give health tips, and assist with registrations, among other use cases. Celebrity Digital Twins are different, however, because they are modeled after a real-life person, such as a Hollywood star, entertainer, or sports talent.
The most recent Digital People include entirely new, advanced features like full-body autonomous animation, the ability to use nonverbal cues to direct users' attention to digital content, and a dynamic understanding of what users are looking at or drawn to. Digital People can also manage what the user sees with "Cinematic Cuts," giving them the ability to automatically change the user's visual perspective by zooming in or out of active on-screen content.
Soul Machines revolutionized human-machine collaborations with the introduction of Baby X, created by Soul Machines cofounder and chief science officer Mark Sagar, Ph.D., FRSNZ. Baby X is a lifelike simulation of a human using the company's patented "digital brain" technology, which animates the avatar in the same way a human brain animates the body. Soul Machines has adapted Baby X technology to empower Digital People and Digital Twins.
The way that the AI translates responses to facial expressions, speech, and hand gestures is the core of autonomous animation – a key differentiator for Soul Machines.
Personalized celebrity engagement through Digital Twins
Digital Twins can have an unlimited number of conversations at once, in any language, anywhere in the world where users can access the internet.
This gives celebrities the ability to reach an unlimited number of fans – simultaneously, wherever they happen to be. More importantly, it allows them to talk with all these fans, not just at them.
"This presents a major departure in how we think about celebrity brands, which used to be all about exclusivity and one-to-many broadcast communications," Cross said. "Now, fans will be able to interact with a celebrity one-to-one, creating many new ways for stars to connect with their fans and monetize their brands."
In addition to helping celebrity brands scale in new ways, Digital Twins also help stars overcome one of the biggest challenges they face in maintaining their fan base — the very human condition of aging.
Soul Machines' advanced, proprietary technology can turn back the clock, bringing older celebrities back to their prime in digital form.
Reinvigorating the 'Golden Bear'
For Digital Twins, like the one created by the Nicklaus Companies to replicate golf legend Jack Nicklaus, the sophisticated AI is trained on data provided by the celebrity brand. It's then locked into a specific age, presumably capturing the star at the prime of his career in the form of a Digital Person.
Nicklaus, winner of 18 of golf's majors tournaments and considered one of the greatest professional athletes of all time, has been retired from the game for more than two decades. He and The Nicklaus Companies were looking for a way to preserve a legacy built around golf excellence – as a player, instructor, and course designer.
Soul Machines began the de-aging process by doing scan and motion capture of Jack Nicklaus to assemble exact 3D data of Nicklaus' face and how his muscles move and change during different expressions.
Soul Machines also scanned Nicklaus' son, Gary, to aid in the de-aging process. This provided reference data for Nicklaus' skin when he was younger. Finally, the de-aging results were cross-referenced against scores of photographs and video clips from the Nicklaus archives.
"We de-aged Jack Nicklaus from 2021 to the late '70s," Cross said. "Focusing on one anatomical region at a time, Jack's age was meticulously reversed across the decades, and his Digital Twin will forever be 38 years old."
Web today, metaverse tomorrow
Nicklaus is Soul Machine's first sports-related celebrity Digital Twin. He won't be its last.
This summer, Soul Machines will launch a digital Carmelo Anthony, all-star forward for the LA Lakers. Soul Machines hopes to capture celebrity and sports talent from all backgrounds and decades with its expanded entertainment offering.
The initial use cases for digital Jack Nicklaus focus on brand partnerships and sponsorships. This Digital Twin could help customers make a purchase on the websites of one of the many companies already affiliated with the Nicklaus Companies' brand or other future retail collaborations.
Soul Machines has set the stage for digital celebrities to provide one-on-one experiences for customers in the metaverse. Further out, digital Jack might help users improve their swings, or even play a round of golf with them at the metaverse version of Whispering Pines golf course.
"This is just a starting point," said Rob Sample, vice president of business development for Nicklaus Companies. "He'll be updated as the technology, and the AI, advances."
Soul Machines, a leader in artificial intelligence, creates autonomously animated Digital People™ in the digital worlds of today and the metaverse. The company brings Digital Workforces to life for some of the world's biggest brands, as they innovate the future of brand interaction and personal, empathic customer experience.
For more information, visit SoulMachines.com.
This post was created by Soul Machines with Insider Studios.
More: Sponsor Post Studio Enterprise Studios Tech Tech
sp-soulmachines | 2022-06-15T15:31:03Z | www.businessinsider.com | Digital Twins Are Changing How Fans Interact With Celebrities | https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/digital-twins-are-changing-how-fans-interact-with-celebrities | https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/digital-twins-are-changing-how-fans-interact-with-celebrities |
The US government released long-awaited data on car crashes involving driver-assistance systems.
Teslas on Autopilot accounted for 273 of the 392 crashes reported since last July.
The report omits key information, making it difficult to draw a comparison between technologies.
Vehicles using Tesla's Autopilot software were involved in 273 crashes over roughly the last year, according to a report released Wednesday by the US road-safety regulator.
The report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offers the clearest picture yet of how bleeding-edge advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) from Tesla and others perform on US roads. ADAS features can automate vehicle functions like steering, braking, and acceleration but stop short of making a car fully autonomous.
The data comes from an order NHTSA gave to automakers last June instructing them to report any incidents involving their driver-assistance technologies, known as Level 2 systems. Regulators also told autonomous-vehicle companies like Waymo to share information about crashes as they occur.
Automakers reported 392 crashes involving their ADAS systems in total, with Tesla logging by far the most. Honda was next with 90 crashes. Subaru had 10, Ford had five, and Toyota had four. Seven other carmakers reported three or fewer incidents.
The research is part of a broader effort by the US government to understand the risks and safety benefits of ADAS features, which are becoming increasingly common and which encourage drivers to yield an increasing array of driving tasks to their vehicles, from parking to changing lanes.
Without crucial information about how many ADAS-equipped vehicles each manufacturer has on the road and the number of miles they travel, it's impossible to say whether one system crashes more frequently than another.
Every vehicle Tesla sells comes with Autopilot, which enables a car to automatically follow lane lines and maintain a set distance to the car ahead. Other manufacturers typically offer their comparable features as options, which may skew the data in their favor.
NHTSA also warned that some manufacturers can access crash data more readily, which may impact the data.
Self-driving vehicles were involved in 130 incidents, NHTSA said in a separate report. Waymo, the Google-owned startup that is experimenting with driverless taxis, reported the most: 62 incidents.
A Waymo spokesperson said: "We see value in having nationally standardized and uniform crash reporting during this early stage of the development and deployment of autonomous driving technology, and there's public benefit in NHTSA sharing its findings. We also believe any reporting requirements should be harmonized across all U.S. jurisdictions to limit confusion and potentially enable more meaningful comparisons, and NHTSA's effort is a step toward achieving that goal."
More: Transportation Tech Tesla Autopilot | 2022-06-15T15:31:09Z | www.businessinsider.com | Tesla Autopilot Involved in 273 Car Crashes in Last Year | https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-involved-in-273-car-crashes-nhtsa-adas-data-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-involved-in-273-car-crashes-nhtsa-adas-data-2022-6 |
Sequoia-backed $1 billion Glean just brought on one of Slack's first sales leaders as it looks to build a Google-style search engine for businesses
Arvind Jain, Glean CEO and founder
Ex-Google engineer Arvind Jain is building a search engine for businesses with his startup Glean.
Now it's bringing on long time Slack exec AJ Tennant to run its sales and success team as it grows.
Enterprise search has been an unsolved issue for a long time, Glean execs and investors say.
A universal headache for corporate employees comes when they aren't able to find the right information at the right time to get their work done. Arvind Jain, a former Google engineer, is trying to solve that problem with his new startup Glean, building a search engine for businesses.
With the modern way of working, an individual company can use dozens or even hundreds of different apps to communicate, collaborate, and get things done. While that's given employees more choice over the apps they use at work, it's also led to more challenges: specifically, searching across all those disparate apps to find the information you need.
Glean recently hit a milestone as it announced in May that it hit a $1 billion valuation in its most recent funding round, which was led by legendary venture firm Sequoia Capital.
Now as the company looks to grow, it's bringing on longtime Slack exec AJ Tennant to run its sales and success team. Tennant was Slack 's first-ever sales leader and built up its ability to sell into larger companies, so he has the expertise Glean needs in order to expand its customer base, Jain told Insider.
"We are so basically ready to scale the company in a significant way," Jain said of Tennant. "And we actually wanted to bring someone in who has seen a journey like this — building an iconic product that becomes like a household name."
Ultimately, if Glean is able to achieve its goals and grow accordingly, the possibilities are endless, Tennant told Insider.
"It is what we've all been looking for," Tennant said. "Of having a way to more easily search for information within your enterprise and, and create the knowledge graph that has been like impossible to create for the last decade or two."
Glean came from Jain's experiences at Google
Jain spent over a decade at Google leading various teams building its Search, Maps, and YouTube products. After leaving Google, he co-founded Rubrik, a cloud data management startup, where he began to see the need for an enterprise search product, he said.
Rubrik grew very quickly, and after four years already had 1,000 employees. Leadership soon found, however, that its rapid growth led to problems: People were struggling to do their jobs, becoming less productive as it grew. Via company surveys, Jain and his team found that it was because as the company got bigger, it became harder for individual employees to find the information or resources they needed to be effective.
When Jain and his team looked for a search product to help solve this, there was nothing available. A few companies said they would be able to build a custom search engine for them, but nothing that was simple and quick to implement. He asked other founders for advice, and heard that they too were struggling with the same issue at their companies. That's what motivated Jain to leave Rubrik to start Glean in early 2020.
"This is a big productivity issue. It impacts every single person who works in every single company in the world, and yet the problem was completely unsolved," Jain said. "And of course I'm a search engineer, and this is a search problem. So I was really excited to go and solve it too."
Jain spent the last two years building up a team, recruiting many of his former Google colleagues, and trying to build up a solid base of customers. Many prominent mid-sized cloud companies are now using Glean, including Okta, Databricks, Grammarly, Samsara, Confluent, and Outreach.
Building momentum as a startup
Ex-Slack exec AJ Tennant is Glean's new head of sales and success
Now with Tennant, Jain hopes to continue growing the business and make Glean an iconic productivity company like Zoom or Slack.
As he steps into this new role, Tennant said his main priorities will be to grow the sales team with a focus on large enterprise customers, and figure out new ways to get Glean into the market. That includes partnering with consulting firms like Deloitte and Accenture who do a lot of work in the knowledge management space.
Glean also has a unique pricing model right now, where it allows customers to do a free pilot of the product before purchasing it. The model is similar to the freemium model companies like Slack, Zoom , and Dropbox, with the difference that a Glean pilot needs to go through the CIO's office. Tennant said he'll also be focused on making that pilot program more efficient and automated.
He also thinks that because Glean is able to be hosted on premise in a company's own servers or in the cloud, it will be easier to sign on customers outside of the tech industry. One big challenge at Slack, for example, was getting customers who were still transitioning to the cloud to use the chat app because it became yet another area where information was stored and not connected to the rest of the company.
For those in the software industry, Glean scratches a meaningful and long-running itch for some kind of Google for the workplace, said Sonya Huang, a partner at Sequoia. Jain's experience at Google, and Glean's early momentum, convinced her team at Sequoia to invest in its recent round, she said.
"Google is the organizing force behind how we navigate the world as consumers. And that just doesn't exist in the enterprise," Huang told Insider. "We have more and more SaaS tools, people are working remotely. Knowledge work is just so scattered across all these different systems. It's very hard to find the information that you need to be productive."
More: Enterprise Software Glean Slack | 2022-06-15T16:18:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | Enterprise Search Startup Glean Has Hired Ex-Slack Sales Leader | https://www.businessinsider.com/glean-enterprise-search-hired-ex-slack-sales-leader-growth-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/glean-enterprise-search-hired-ex-slack-sales-leader-growth-2022-6 |
Mitt Romney introduces new plan to send most families up to $350 monthly checks per kid
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah at a hearing on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2022.
Romney rolled out a measure to provide up to $350 monthly checks to most families with kids.
Only families earning at least $10,000 annually would qualify for the full cash payments.
It's unlikely to reach Biden's desk anytime soon due to bipartisan resistance.
Sen. Mitt Romney introduced a new version of a proposal on Wednesday that would issue up to $350 monthly checks per kid to most American families in an effort to revive interest in Congress for a cash payment program during a stretch of painful inflation.
The updated measure would provide a $350 direct payment each month for most parents with children age 5 and under ($4,200 annually) while issuing $250 to families with kids between age 6 and 17 ($3,000 each year).
"We must do better to help families meet the challenges they face as they take on the most important work any of us will ever do — raising our society's children," Romney said in a statement. "This proposal proves that we can accomplish this without adding to the deficit or creating another new federal program without any reforms."
However, households would only qualify for the full cash benefit if they earned at least $10,000 every year. Families making less than $10,000 would recieve a proportional share of the total benefit based on how close they are to that income target.
That would shut out the poorest 6% of households from getting larger checks under the Romney program, according to data from the Census bureau. It's a break from Romney's earlier plan that would have provided checks to families who earned no taxable income.
Romney unveiled the plan along with Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Steve Daines of Montana. It would be paid for by modifying programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and eliminating a federal tax break for state and local taxes commonly used by wealthier Americans.
Scott Winship, director of poverty studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, wrote on Twitter that the measure would reduce poverty along with achieving conservative aims of stronger work and marriage incentives.
It's unlikely to reach President Joe Biden's desk anytime soon. Democrats are likely to balk at the plan's income threshold for families to qualify, a sharp change from the Biden child tax credit that was briefly in place last year. That program expired due to resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sided with Republicans in opposing an extension.
The measure also falls far short of gaining 10 Senate Republican backers, the amount needed for the plan to advance under the Senate's 60-vote supermajority threshold. Many GOP senators remain wary of providing advance payments to families with children.
More: Mitt Romney Child tax credit GOP child tax credit Congress
child allowance | 2022-06-15T16:18:38Z | www.businessinsider.com | Mitt Romney Rolls Out Plan to Send Families up to $350 Monthly Checks | https://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-child-allowance-monthly-checks-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-child-allowance-monthly-checks-2022-6 |
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban watches players warm up before the start of an NBA basketball game against the Miami Heat, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020, in Miami.
Over the past few months, the teen has begun tracking a wide range of aircrafts from stars like Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift to political and tech figures like former President Donald Trump or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Sweeney said that the accounts took some work to set up initially, but now he can put them together in about 15 minutes.
Sweeney appeared to agree to disable @MCubansJets in the spring after Cuban offered to give him future support on business endeavors. The account, which has nearly 3,000 followers, has not been deleted. Though, it has not shared Cuban's travel data since April 7. Sweeney told Insider he's no longer sharing the data to Twitter, but is still tracking the billionaire on his Discord .
Cuban gave Sweeney his public email in exchange, but the teen told Insider he felt disappointed by the offer. He followed up with a request to meet Cuban at a Dallas Maverick's game — the team that the billionaire bought in 2000 for about $280 million, but Cuban appeared to not respond.
More: Mark Cuban Elon Musk Private Jet Jack Sweeney | 2022-06-15T16:18:43Z | www.businessinsider.com | Teen Who Tracks Musk's Jet Made Deal With Mark Cuban | https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-tracks-elon-musk-jet-mark-cuban-deal-twitter-account-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-tracks-elon-musk-jet-mark-cuban-deal-twitter-account-2022-6 |
Burger King Austria's much-ridiculed, tone-deaf marketing campaign announcing the "Pride Whopper," a burger served with "two matching buns" sparked an apology.
Burger King Australia
Burger King Austria's ad agency apologized for its much-criticized Pride Whopper campaign.
The ad features burgers with "matching buns," including one with two tops and one with two bottoms.
"Unfortunately, we still messed up and didn't check well enough with community members on different interpretations of the Pride Whopper," the agency said.
Burger King Austria is trying to work its way out of a whopper of a PR gaffe.
The fast-food chain's advertising agency issued an apology on Sunday for a much-ridiculed, tone-deaf marketing campaign announcing the "Pride Whopper," a burger served with "two matching buns."
The ad, which was first featured on Burger King Austria's Instagram page on June 1, includes a burger with two bun tops and another with two bottoms, a seemingly misinformed nod to sex within the LGBTQ+ community.
Jung von Matt Donau, the German agency that worked on the campaign for Burger King Austria, wrote in a LinkedIn post that it "didn't check well enough with community members on different interpretations of the Pride Whopper."
"The intended message of the Pride Whopper was to spread equal love and equal rights," the post reads." Our strongest concern is if we offended members of the LGBTQ Community with this campaign. If this is the case, we truly apologize."
The post continues: "We've learned our lessons and will include experts on communicating with the LGBTQ community for future work as promoting equal love and equal rights will still be a priority for us."
Within days of the ad going live, people around the globe took to social media to comment on the campaign, citing the chain's failure to understand "how gay sex works" as well as critiquing corporate "rainbow-washing" during Pride Month.
—matt (@mattxiv) June 4, 2022
—Nicole Arbour (@NicoleArbour) June 9, 2022
Burger King isn't the only food company under fire for its Pride Month marketing. Postmates also drew scorn last week when it introduced its "Bottom-Friendly Menu," featuring menu items suggested for taking the bottom position during gay sex.
And in 2019, the UK supermarket chain Marks & Spencer received backlash for its "LGBT Sandwich" — a lettuce, guacamole, bacon, and tomato sandwich in rainbow packaging, launched during Pride Month to raise money for charity.
Burger King did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.
More: Restaurants Burger King Pride LGBTQ | 2022-06-15T17:49:39Z | www.businessinsider.com | Burger King Austria's Ad Agency Apologizes for Pride Whopper Campaign | https://www.businessinsider.com/burger-king-austria-ad-agency-apologizes-pride-whopper-campaign-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/burger-king-austria-ad-agency-apologizes-pride-whopper-campaign-2022-6 |
Setting the industry agenda for progress at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2022
Created by Cannes Lions with Insider Studios
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity returns after a two-year hiatus. At the center of a reimagined programme, five new Global Growth Councils for Progress will come together to work collectively during the festival and throughout the year to offer solutions and drive progress for business, the planet, and society at large.
Each Council — formed of creatives, marketers, activists, and industry leaders from brands and agencies — will focus on a theme, identified by the creative community as being the most pressing. These are sustainability; diversity, equity and inclusion; data and technology; brand creativity and effectiveness; and talent.
Chaired by Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G, the Councils will first convene at Cannes Lions from 20 - 24 June, and then meet virtually and in person throughout the year to make progress on the pledges agreed at the Festival.
Defining the agenda on stage in Cannes
Unifying the industry behind one collective agenda and agreeing to actions will be the Councils' sole objective during Cannes Lions, aiming to achieve measurable outcomes and progress for the industry and its stakeholders. The Council chairs will unite on the Festival's final day to define the agenda and their commitments for the year ahead on the global stage. Each Council will then prepare to return to Cannes in 2023 to update on its collective progress.
Formation of five global Councils from across the industry
"We're convening the most diverse and powerful industry voices to tackle the most pressing issues facing the creativity industry, and the world right now,'' said Simon Cook, CEO, LIONS.
25 - 30 entrepreneurial and visionary core members will sit on each Council, alongside 25 additional visionary creative professionals — appointed via an open call — from right across the world. Members will bring new perspectives and insights to accelerate the pace of progress at a greater scale, as part of a truly global collective voice of some of the most creative minds on the planet.
Expansion of the Global CMO Growth Council
The Global Growth Councils for Progress are an evolution of the Cannes Lions and Association of National Advertisers' CMO Growth Council. Since its 2018 launch, it has brought the brightest CMOs from around the world together in Cannes. Nick Primola, EVP, ANA Global CMO Growth Council, added "The Cannes Lions Festival will mark a pivotal moment to accelerate our progress in order to achieve greater international impact as the entire industry now aligns around a common agenda."
Invitation to the community
Every festival attendee and LIONS member is invited to contribute to the conversation by joining a Council community to debate, pledge, create, or lead an initiative that supports the collective move forward, and become part of the industry's first and only truly global leadership community that is united around the growth and progress agenda.
To enable delegates to discover the ambitions of the Councils, and to contribute their ideas around resolving the industry's most urgent issues, a networking event and activation space will run during Cannes Lions, and the official app welcomes ideas from professionals across the global community about how to solve the challenges of the Councils' five core themes.
LIONS' State of Creativity Study
Conducted in 2022, the LIONS State of Creativity Study collated views and insights from a diverse set of voices from across the creative ecosystem. The key issues identified by thousands of creatives and marketers in the study will now be tackled by the Global Growth Councils for Progress, setting the industry agenda for the year ahead.
More: Sponsor Post Studios Consumer Creativity Edit Series | 2022-06-15T17:49:45Z | www.businessinsider.com | Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Invites Fresh Ideas | https://www.businessinsider.com/cannes-lions-international-festival-of-creativity-returns-ready-to-set-new-agendas | https://www.businessinsider.com/cannes-lions-international-festival-of-creativity-returns-ready-to-set-new-agendas |
I lost my life savings in TerraUSD after putting about $20,000 in it. Now I live paycheck to paycheck and am weary to invest until there's more crypto regulation.
Morgan Chittum and Lisa Kailai Han
Before it collapsed, algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD was billed as a safe way to invest in crypto.
A 23-year-old investor, who wished to be identified as "Raiden," lost his savings from the crash.
After having his portfolio drained, he explains why he wishes there was more regulation in crypto.
This is an as-told-to interview with "Raiden," a 23-year-old recent university graduate whose identity is known to Insider, and who said he lost his life savings in the TerraUSD collapse. He describes the devastating impact of losing his money in what many have called a "Lehman moment" for crypto. He spoke with Insider reporters Morgan Chittum and Lisa Kailai Han about his experience. Han translated the interview from Mandarin to English.
CHONGQING, CHINA — A few weeks before my college graduation, I lost my life savings from my crypto investments. Now, I'm living paycheck to paycheck.
In May, I put in roughly $20,000 in algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, and it all quickly vanished. I decided to invest in TerraUSD because, well, I thought it would be stable. After all, it's in the name. I saw the price was declining and I thought I could buy in on its dip.
The project's founder, Do Kwon, tweeted that he had plans to revive the project and I believed him at the time. The stablecoin's ecosystem later collapsed and all the money, which I had originally made as a Taobao merchant throughout college, was gone.
Three years ago, I first got into crypto because on social media I saw that everyday people were making large returns on their investments in Bitcoin and Ethereum. I would spend around 4-5 hours a day tracking and researching my trades. At one point, I made $10,000 from various investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a few altcoins like Polkadot and Kyber Network. I also lost money, but none of it compared to the financial impact of my LunaUSD investment.
Once market conditions became more volatile this year, I allocated more to what I thought would be a safer asset, an algorithmic stablecoin.
'A learning experience'
I never dreamed this would happen to me or my portfolio, but I treat it as a learning experience. Thankfully, my parents have helped me financially and have been supportive during this time as well, as have my friends.
However, I think that the TerraUSD collapse could have been prevented if there were more regulation in crypto. Further regulatory oversight could protect investors from sketchy projects and also hold its creators accountable. The Luna and Terra crash ruined a lot of people financially and forced them into bankruptcy.
Given both volatile market conditions and the regulatory environment in crypto, I'm not actively investing right now. In the future, however, I'm going to keep my portfolio small with a handful of tokens like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and maybe a few alts. I'll allocate to less speculative assets in bearish markets.
As someone who has lost a lot of money in crypto, I recommend doing more research before investing and vetting projects thoroughly. Also, don't invest what you can't afford to lose and don't invest all your money at once.
I was gullible, believed a single source, and had too much exposure to one asset. As a result, I lost my entire life savings.
NOW WATCH: The CIO of a crypto hedge fund shares the 3 biggest risks of investing in cryptocurrencies
More: Investing terra crash crypto | 2022-06-15T17:49:57Z | www.businessinsider.com | Crypto Investing: How Terra Luna's Crash Cost Me My Life Savings | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-crash-terra-luna-lost-life-savings-stablecoin-ust-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-crash-terra-luna-lost-life-savings-stablecoin-ust-2022-6 |
'Big Magic' is a 2016 self-help book by Elizabeth Gilbert of "Eat, Pray, Love" fame. It's a must-read for any creative person, especially if you have writer's block.
By Ishani Singh
"Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote "Big Magic" to offer advice on being creative without fear.
Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
"Big Magic" is a 2016 self-help book written by Elizabeth Gilbert of "Eat, Pray, Love" fame.
It provides advice and anecdotes about unlocking creativity and getting through artists' block.
It helped me pursue writing more seriously by teaching me to let go of pressure and expectations.
I always knew I wanted to write.
I've spent years fighting the urge to truly do it because I fell for the typical traps: It either didn't pay enough, or I could never find the time, or someone else was already writing about the things I wanted to say.
As time went on, I comfortably nestled myself in more lucrative jobs. In actuality, I could never shake the desire to write — there were very few things that replaced the joy of that creative expression for me. But I didn't know how to overcome my constant self-doubt and need for perfection. Would I ever be able to bridge the gap between fear and joy?
Last Christmas, out of sheer coincidence, my cousin mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear," a 2016 book she came to love about living a creative life. She said it challenged her to think that living creatively wasn't only designed for those with exceptional artistic minds, but for any human being living with even an ounce of creativity.
The title immediately piqued my interest. I knew Elizabeth Gilbert for her inspiring bestselling memoir-turned-blockbuster "Eat, Pray, Love." Naturally, I was curious to know what she had to say about artistic fear.
Holding up a paperback copy of "Big Magic."
Ishani Singh/Insider
At its core, "Big Magic" is a self-help book drenched in anecdotes, life lessons, and advice. However, it does not give you tips on becoming a bestselling writer or acclaimed actor. Instead, it nudges you towards "living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear." In more ways than one, this book turned out to be exactly what I needed.
Here are 5 things I learned from reading "Big Magic":
1. Replace being fearless with being brave.
Telling myself to be fearless was an exhaustive exercise in the pursuit of creative expression. But at the time, that's all I knew.
Every artist has probably experienced fear and has deemed that ridding themselves of it is the path forward. However, Gilbert says that we need our fear for obvious reasons of survival — being fearless is not the goal. The goal is to be brave.
She distinguishes bravery as doing something scary while fearless is "not even understanding what the word scary means." Fear creeps up in times of creative expression because fear feeds on uncertain outcomes, and creative expression is nothing but a series of uncertain outcomes.
Once I accepted that fear will possibly always exist, I could spend more time ideating and writing. I have gradually accepted and even allowed fear to exist alongside my creativity. I spend less energy getting rid of it.
2. Create art for yourself first.
Gilbert's love of creativity is infectious, so much so that advises against creating only for the consumption of others. According to her, art can and should be made merely for ourselves. If others appreciate it along the way, it's a bonus.
I learned this the hard way. I believed I should write only when I could publish my work regularly, overlooking that writing is a therapeutic release for me. I'm slowly learning to detach from the idea that writing is more real and rewarding when others consume it. Now, if an idea begins to form in my mind, I make sure to carve out time in my day to work on it with the same rigor as with an article I'm working on for publication.
One of my favorite anecdotes in the book is when Gilbert recalls a conversation between a musician friend and her sister, asking, "What happens if you never get anything out of this?"
The musician replies, "If you can't see what I'm already getting out of this, then I'll never be able to explain it to you."
3. Follow your curiosity instead of your passion.
While Gilbert talks a lot about being passionate about your ideas and creating your art, she's against the preaching of passion, which she believes to be "an unhelpful and even cruel suggestion at times."
I cornered myself into thinking that the truest forms of art are about things we're most passionate about. While "follow your passion" is straightforward advice, it comes with a complicated path to achievement because passion can quickly falter or be unexpectedly snatched from you.
Gilbert urges us to replace finding our passion with following our curiosity, especially since "the stakes of curiosity are also far lower than the stakes of passion." Curiosity is intended to evoke inquisitiveness. Ideally, through curiosity, we can live our most creative lives. After all, my curiosity about fear and creative living led me to this book and eventually to writing this.
4. Don't quit your day job.
There were a couple of things I took away from this lesson, mainly that we need to abandon the notion that we must upend our lives to be creatively free. Our creative dreams can co-exist with our regular lives.
I admire Gilbert for not recommending that we quit our jobs or move cities to tap into our creativity. She didn't quit any of her jobs. She waited tables and worked on a ranch while writing and pitching stories to magazines.
However, the more gratifying takeaway was that it is unfair to my creativity to demand it to pay my bills. I've learned over time that the things I create without the constraints of money are some of my most pleasurable works. Now, I'm a lot more patient with my creativity. I remind myself that my dream to write can be woven into my everyday life. As Gilbert says: "I held on to my day jobs for so long because I wanted to keep my creativity free and safe."
5. Allow Big Magic to come to you.
Ultimately, what is Big Magic?
Elizabeth Gilbert believes in the power of the universe. The book contains glimpses of her definition and experiences navigating through the laws of attraction and the power of manifestation. In no way does she urge us to believe in these concepts the way she does — she only encourages us to believe in Big Magic.
In one of her most quotable lines from the book, she says: "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels — that's creative living. The result of this hunt is Big Magic."
For me, Big Magic is what I feel when I'm writing. The feeling of excitement, of not being able to let an idea go till I've exhausted it. Big Magic is the therapeutic release I mentioned earlier. It's a big sigh of relief to relinquish all that was brewing in my mind. Big Magic is what I have come to believe in that brought me back to writing.
Ishani Singh
Ishani is a Story Production Fellow at Insider Inc. She earned her Masters in Publishing: Digital and Print Media from New York University.
More: Insider Reviews 2022 Insider Picks IP Reviews E-Learning | 2022-06-15T17:50:15Z | www.businessinsider.com | 'Big Magic' Review: Elizabeth Gilbert Breaks Through Writer's Block | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/big-magic-book-review | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/big-magic-book-review |
Increased violence against trans people in the past two years, a wave of anti-LGBTQ bills, and other events have been weighing on the queer community, new research shows.
Half of LGBTQ workers said their mental health had been harmed by anti-LGBTQ news, a survey found.
About a third wanted their managers to offer more support and speak up, the LinkedIn data revealed.
LGBTQ consultants and activists shared how managers could better support their queer employees.
Ashley Brundage, a trans woman, runs a company that offers leadership development and motivational speaking. Despite having a role that requires her to be upbeat, recent news of anti-LGBTQ incidents and legislation has been weighing on her.
On Saturday, police in Idaho arrested 31 men from a white-supremacist group called the Patriot Front. The group had plans to riot at a Pride event, authorities said. The same day, a small group of men hurling homophobic and anti-trans insults disrupted a children's event at a Northern California library where a drag queen was reading.
Brundage, the CEO of Empowering Differences, connected the events to the almost 240 anti-gay, anti-trans bills that lawmakers in the US have proposed this year.
"These bills are filled with misinformation and pushed by politicians who use vile and false rhetoric about us," she said. "Now we see how it can inspire and incite violence, and members of my own family are having to care even more for my own safety in daily settings."
The bills, which some critics see as culture-war salvos, follow the deadliest year for trans people in the US. And 2022 has proved violent as well: At least 14 transgender people have been killed. For many LGBTQ workers, businesses have become unlikely safe havens amid a flurry of legislation aimed largely at trans people. Yet given the scope of the challenges, some LGBTQ people say businesses could be doing more. With more young people feeling safe to identify as LGBTQ, it's an issue that isn't going away.
"When personal safety is threatened, when you have to worry about finding lifesaving healthcare, when you worry about your kids being censored and bullied at school, when leaders are spreading lies about you and your community and your allies, it takes energy to absorb the outrageousness of it all," Brundage said.
She's not alone in feeling strain. In a recent LinkedIn survey of 1,000 LGBTQ+ workers, half reported that their mental health had been harmed by anti-trans and anti-queer legislation and news. And about one in three said they didn't feel sufficiently supported by their managers and would consider quitting if their companies didn't speak out more boldly against discrimination and anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Ashley Brundage is the president and CEO of Empowering Differences, a leadership consultancy and motivational-speaking company, and a board member of GLAAD.
"This news, this legislation, is really impacting the mental health of queer professionals. We've never seen anything quite like this," said Drew McCaskill, a career expert and marketing professional at LinkedIn, who is gay. "For a lot of queer professionals, they feel it every single day."
A coming reckoning
The so-called Great Resignation is evidence that many workers are moving to companies with more inclusive policies and practices, McCaskill said.
"We're already seeing the beginnings of what a reckoning looks like," he said. "Employees have more voice and more choice than they've ever had before. And they won't leave their company quietly either. They'll share their experiences on social media."
Indeed, some workers are speaking out about inequality, as evidenced by tweets from employees at companies such as Refinery29, Glossier, Adidas, and Everlane.
Brundage said some members of the LGBTQ community are considering moving to states where they might face fewer barriers to healthcare, and where they won't encounter what they see as discrimination from the legal and educational systems.
Drew McCaskill, an executive at LinkedIn, said members of the LGBTQ community are looking to business leaders to lead on social-justice issues.
"Being anti-LGBTQ is anti-business. It divides teams rather than draws people together," said Brundage, who is a board member of the nonprofit advocacy group GLAAD.
Looking to business leaders for protection marks a turnabout for the nation's queer community. For generations, many queer workers feared being ostracized or even fired if they were outed at work. Activists lobbied government officials for protections, yet progress took decades. But by 2015, the US Supreme Court sided with proponents of same-sex marriage, and momentum appeared to be on the side of the queer community in the courts and in public polling.
Now, once again, at least some of the threat comes from the government itself in the form of proposed legislation that advocates say harms LGBTQ people.
With many LGBTQ workers feeling they lack support in their communities, their religious institutions, and from the government, they're turning to their business community to provide safe spaces, McCaskill said. Members of the LGBTQ community as well as diversity consultants told Insider that corporate leaders need to advocate for queer rights or face workers and consumers who will voice their concerns and vote with their feet.
Research shows this change. People trust CEOs more than elected officials to solve global problems, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, a widely cited annual survey of 36,000 people on their views of world leaders.
"There's never been a more important time for business to lead, to step in to fill the void," Richard Edelman, Edelman's CEO, previously told Insider about CEOs speaking out on social issues. "Business needs to make societal issues a core part of business strategy."
And a 2019 survey of about 2,000 US workers by the Brunswick Group, a corporate-leadership firm, found that two-thirds cited "the values of the company" as the most important issue about which a CEO should speak out. More than half of workers identified a leader's stance on social issues as an important consideration when weighing a job change.
How to move beyond performative DEI
While companies are featuring more queer couples in advertisements and painting their products with Pride flags, some in the LGBTQ community are calling on business leaders to engage in more meaningful support.
Enough of the rainbow washing. We are being outspent when it comes to funding efforts to push back on this assault on our community.
Sean Ebony Coleman is a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and the founder of Destination Tomorrow, a nonprofit LGBTQ community center in the Bronx. He's worked with major companies, such as Unilever, to drive more meaningful support.
"Enough of the rainbow washing. We are being outspent when it comes to funding efforts to push back on this assault on our community. Businesses should be putting their money up in support of the LGBTQ community. Supporting us one month per year during Pride is not enough," said Coleman, a Black trans man.
Doris Quintanilla, the executive director and a cofounder of The Melanin Collective, a DEI consultancy, agreed and said managers should make changes to how they lead as well.
"It's hard to navigate everything that's going on these days," she said. "Allow people to take space. It comes down to allowing humans to be humans."
Brundage echoed Quintanilla and said a mix of personal and institutional action would drive the most change.
"GLAAD is urging corporations to do more than market with rainbows during Pride month — to resolve to speak up for LGBTQ employees and customers year-round, to not donate to anti-LGBTQ lawmakers, to speak up forcefully against legislation that harms their families and well-being," Brundage said. "It is a manager's role to learn and then work to develop their team to be future leaders. Inclusion is one part of how to do that."
More: DEI Voices of Color Transgender LGBTQ | 2022-06-15T17:50:27Z | www.businessinsider.com | How Employers Can Help Workers Affected by Recent Anti-LGBTQ News | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-employers-help-workers-affected-by-anti-lgbtq-news-bills-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-employers-help-workers-affected-by-anti-lgbtq-news-bills-2022-6 |
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) outside the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2021.
Rep. Ilhan Omar sent a letter to Education Sec. Miguel Cardona on student-loan forgiveness.
She requested information on how the department will carry out the relief efficiently.
While a final decision on relief has not been announced, Cardona recently said he will be prepared.
A progressive Democratic lawmaker wants to ensure President Joe Biden has all the resources he needs to carry out broad student-loan forgiveness.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar led 55 of her colleagues in sending a letter on Wednesday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona regarding the looming student-loan forgiveness announcement. Biden is reportedly considering $10,000 in relief for borrowers making under $150,000 a year, and while the announcement likely will not happen until July or August, Omar wants to ensure the department is prepared to effectively carry out whatever Biden decides.
"Under the expected executive order by President Biden, millions of student loan borrowers will be eligible to receive the benefit of loan cancellation," Omar said. "It is important that borrowers get relief quickly and aren't hampered by unnecessary roadblocks and obligations. The American public will depend on your agency's ability to deliver debt cancellation quickly and efficiently, no matter the effort and resources required."
She also noted that "we cannot abandon the millions of Americans who are still shackled to thousands of dollars in student loans and who are equally in need of urgent relief given the impacts of the pandemic and, more recently, the surge in consumer prices and interest rates."
—Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 15, 2022
Omar requested a "comprehensive timeline" from the department for implementing student-loan forgiveness, including steps it plans to take to:
Contact borrowers and ensure they can access the relief
Work with student-loan companies in carrying out that relief
And clarifying whether the cancellation amount would go toward interest or principal, and the additional resources the department might need to implement the relief.
And with regards to the potential of placing an income cap on student-loan forgiveness, Omar wrote that "should the administration not follow the strong advice of experts and academics against including an income cap or other means-testing," how will the department get the income information it needs given it cannot access that data from the IRS.
Insider previously reported on the administrative burden income caps on student-loan forgiveness would bring to both the department and borrowers. The department doesn't have data on hand to verify income, meaning the borrower itself would likely have to submit an application for relief and could result in paperwork errors and a backlog.
Top Republican on the House education committee Virginia Foxx also expressed concerns regarding the department's preparedness for student-loan forgiveness. She wrote in a letter last week that "action is a comprehensive, smooth operation that follows careful planning and thoughtful consideration about all aspects of an initiative, from communications to implementation."
"You said you are ready to act on student loan forgiveness, but you can only be ready if you know the plan; therefore, please describe, what is this plan?" Foxx wrote.
Amid those concerns, Cardona told reporters a few weeks ago that while an announcement on relief has not yet been made, he will be ready to carry out whatever it ends up being. | 2022-06-15T17:50:33Z | www.businessinsider.com | Biden Must Prepare to Carry Out Student-Loan Forgiveness 'Quickly': Ilhan Omar | https://www.businessinsider.com/ilhan-omar-biden-student-loan-debt-forgiveness-quickly-biden-education-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/ilhan-omar-biden-student-loan-debt-forgiveness-quickly-biden-education-2022-6 |
A video of Ivanka Trump speaking is displayed as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2022.
Trump tried to discredit his daughter Ivanka for not "studying" or "looking at" election results.
But the January 6 hearings are revealing Trump's willingness to cling to false election theories.
The spotlight on Trump's false election claims comes as he lays the groundwork for a 2024 bid.
Former President Donald Trump last week accused his daughter, Ivanka Trump, of not understanding or "studying" election results in seeking to discredit her eight hours of testimony before the January 6 committee.
But the committee's second hearing on Monday highlighted how the former president eagerly latched onto each and every false election conspiracy theory — and revealed how he forged ahead with progressively outlandish claims in defiance of his closest advisers.
The clips of witness testimony featured in the hearing are also significant as Trump is seeking to shape the Republican party in his image in the 2022 midterms and lay the groundwork for a 2024 presidential campaign — in which he'll ask Americans to vote for him in a system he's spent over two years trashing as rigged from top-to-bottom.
The committee's first public hearing, on June 9, featured deposition clips from key witnesses close to Trump, including his eldest daughter and former senior advisor, who simply but powerfully rebuked her father in saying that she "accepted" former Attorney General Bill Barr's public statements that the 2020 election wasn't rigged by massive fraud.
"Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results," Trump posted on Truth Social after the first hearing, seeking to discredit his daughter. "She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!)."
The panel's second hearing on Monday zeroed in more extensively on Trump's election lies, the fantastical nature of the conspiracy theories he spread, and how his campaign leveraged those lies to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who believed their money was helping overturn a stolen election.
The January 6 hearings again reiterate Trump's lack of understanding of how elections work and his affinity for baseless theories, both of which were on full display throughout the 2020 election cycle as Trump raised outlandish conspiracies in tweets and in spoken remarks.
In video clips featured by the committee from those chaotic weeks after the election, Trump famously declared that "frankly, we did win this election" in the early hours of November 4 on election night. He stoked doubt in the election over "late-night ballot dumps" created, in part, by Republican-controlled state legislatures not allowing election officials to get a head-start on processing ballots.
He also, incomprehensibly, claimed that nefarious forces were turning "dials" and pressing buttons on voting machines to "flip" votes from him to President Joe Biden — despite the fact that every voter in a key swing state and over 90% of voters nationwide cast their votes on verifiable, auditable paper ballots.
Trump twisting tall tales about the integrity of the election wasn't new. But some of the most revealing clips out of the second hearing came from depositions with those closest to Trump, including Ivanka, Barr, his former campaign manager Bill Stepien, and senior adviser Jason Miller, who knew the election wasn't rigged and privately pushed back on Trump.
"I was saying that we should not go declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers," Miller recalled in a deposition.
"It was far too early to be making any calls like that," said Stepien of Trump's November 4 victory declaration. "Ballots were still being counted. Ballots were still going to be counted for days. And it was far too early to be making any proclamation like that."
Stepien, an experienced campaign professional, described his view of the numbers as "bleak." He himself "checked out" as Trump doubled down on his false election fraud claims, describing the two developing camps as "Team Giuliani", referring to Rudy Giuliani, and "Team Normal."
In the end, "Team Normal" lost out — a key stepping stone in the chain of events that led to the Capitol riot.
"I didn't think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional," Stepien said. "So that led to me stepping away."
Barr detailed in his testimony how he walked Trump through how paper ballots are scanned and verified, how the central counting of ballots led to large batches of results getting reported overnight, and how, in his view, the claims about Dominion voting machines flipping votes were "idiotic" — a process he likened to a game of "Whac-a-Mole."
"I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit and I didn't want to be a part of it," Barr testified. "And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did."
More: Ivanka Trump January 6 committee january 6 Capitol Siege | 2022-06-15T17:50:39Z | www.businessinsider.com | Jan. 6 Hearings Show How Trump Latched Onto False Election Claims | https://www.businessinsider.com/jan-6-hearings-show-how-trump-latched-onto-false-election-claims-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/jan-6-hearings-show-how-trump-latched-onto-false-election-claims-2022-6 |
Steve Bannon appeared in federal court Monday after being charged with criminal contempt of Congress.
Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, rejected Bannon's challenge to the House January 6 committee.
Nichols said he had "serious issues" with prosecutors obtaining a Bannon lawyer's phone records.
Bannon is set to go to stand trial on July 18.
A federal judge on Wednesday refused to throw out criminal contempt of Congress charges against Steve Bannon, greenlighting the July jury trial to proceed against the onetime Trump advisor over his defiance of the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
During a three-hour court hearing, Judge Carl Nichols rejected Bannon's arguments challenging the validity of the House committee. Bannon centered his argument, in part, on the structure of the nine-member House committee, noting that the resolution forming the congressional panel called for it to include a total of 13 lawmakers.
But Nichols, a Trump appointee confirmed in 2019, said it was "not a basis by which the court can or will dismiss the indictment."
With that ruling, Nichols joined with another Trump appointee, Judge Tim Kelly, who had previously found that the House January 6 committee was validly constituted in spite of not having 13 members. Nichols acknowledged Wednesday that, in the resolution creating the January 6 committee, the House said it "shall" include 13 lawmakers, including five appointed after consultation with the minority leader.
But, citing Supreme Court precedent, Nichols said "shall" could also be construed to mean "should," "will," or "may."
Federal prosecutors secured an indictment against Bannon in November charging him with two counts of contempt of Congress over his refusal to sit for a sworn deposition or turn over records to the House panel investigating January 6. The indictment came within weeks of the House referring Bannon to the Justice Department for prosecution.
In his decision Wednesday, Nichols said he was giving "great weight" to the House's interpretation of its own rules concerning the January 6 committee. Nichols said the House effectively ratified its view of the January 6 committee's validity with three subsequent referrals recommending that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, along with onetime Trump advisors Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, face criminal prosecution over their own decisions to defy the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack.
The Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges against Meadows and Scavino, who served as Trump's deputy White House chief of staff. But federal prosecutors in Washington, DC, charged Navarro in early June with two counts of contempt of Congress.
Navarro is set to appear in federal court Friday for an arraignment where he is expected to formally plead not guilty.
In the months since Bannon's indictment, his defense lawyers have argued that the House committee investigating January 6 sought to make an example of him at a time when several Trump allies were snubbing their noses at the congressional inquiry. Bannon threatened to make his criminal case the "misdemeanor from hell" for the Biden administration and, in the course of his defense, has pushed for access to documents and made claims of prosecutorial misconduct.
During the court hearing Wednesday, his lawyer Evan Corcoran said the Justice Department resorted to an "outrageous investigative technique" by obtaining the phone records of another lawyer, Robert Costello, who represented Bannon in talks with the House January 6 committee. The Justice Department did not obtain the content of Costello's communications with Bannon but instead received access to the so-called toll records, such as the date and duration of calls.
But, with that move, Schoen said a "wedge was driven between Mr. Bannon and his lawyer."
"If they're allowed to do it here, they'll do it in every case," Corcoran said.
Nichols declined to dismiss the case on those grounds but said he had "serious issues" with the move. The Justice Department previously said that the phone records were needed to show Bannon was aware of his subpoena from the House January 6 committee, but Nichols said Wednesday that he was also troubled by how prosecutors did not seem to see any issue with that investigative step.
The hearing played out just days after the House January 6 committee held its first public hearings to air the findings of its months-long investigation. In the first two hearings, the House panel has underscored how Trump pushed to overturn the 2020 election results even after close aides and advisors — including former Attorney General Barr — told him his claims of widespread election fraud were utterly baseless.
In recent days, members of the House committee have publicly split over whether to recommend criminal charges against Trump or anyone else based off the panel's investigation. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the House committee, said that's "not our job."
But Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said he would "like to see the justice department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump."
Bannon's defense David Schoen on Wednesday indicated that he might seek to delay the July 18 trial based on the recent talk of criminal charges linked to the January 6 attack and efforts to overturn the election.
More: Steve Bannon Capitol Siege january 6 cases House january 6 committee | 2022-06-15T19:20:58Z | www.businessinsider.com | Bannon Just Lost His Bid to Toss Criminal Contempt of Congress Charges | https://www.businessinsider.com/bannon-just-lost-his-bid-to-toss-criminal-contempt-of-congress-charges-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/bannon-just-lost-his-bid-to-toss-criminal-contempt-of-congress-charges-2022-6 |
An entrepreneur who turned his side hustle selling items on Amazon into a full-time job shares 5 things that always fly off the shelves
Neil Lassen has been selling merchandise online for about 10 years, and consults for other sellers.
He says competition is fierce, so successful sellers need to find a niche.
Popular items for him include adult coloring books, novelty T-shirts, political gear, and puzzles.
Neil Lassen was a college student in his early 20s working at Target when he decided he wanted to learn how to make money online. He decided to learn more about ecommerce as a side hustle — specifically about selling physical merchandise on platforms like Amazon and Etsy.
Today, about 10 years later, Lassen has a thriving online business and provides consulting services to others who want to find the same success that he did selling goods online.
Lassen told Insider that the key to make a lot of sales is "finding your niche," because competition in online merchandise sales is very high.
"There's a niche for everything, though," he continued. "Every little tiny thing that you'd think would make no sense? There's typically a market out there for that."
He shared with Insider five items on Amazon that he's found always sell incredibly well, based on his decade of experience selling items online.
1. Coloring books for adults
According to Lassen, one of the "higher margin" book genres on Amazon is coloring books. He added that any kind of coloring books will do well, whether for kids or adults, but added that adult-themed coloring books are surprisingly popular.
"I had no idea when I got started that there were so many adult-related coloring books," Lassen said. These coloring can be targeted toward different, specific demographics.
"Imagine you're a nurse, and you're really upset after work because of all these people that you're dealing with in the middle of the day," Lassen said, giving an example. "You just want to sit down and color things that are related to nurses ... but that have like, swearing all over them."
"I've seen stuff like that sell incredibly well because it resonates with people," he continued.
2. Novelty T-shirts
According to Lassen, novelty t-shirts are a really big seller online and have been high-sellers consistently.
"I have certain T-shirts on Amazon that are just hilarious, and they're bought as gag gifts," he said. "They're going to continuously sell, and I don't see that going away."
Lassen added that people respond and buy them if the shirt "gets a rise out of people." When he wore a novelty T-shirt that said "Have you tried trying" to the gym, multiple people stopped to laugh and ask him where he got the shirt.
"People will comment on it: 'Where did you get that? I need one of those for my daughter. I need one of those for my son," he said. "That'd be really great for someone I know,' — go on Amazon and search for it."
3. Merchandise with political or religious messaging
Merchandise with political and sometimes religious messaging can get a lot of traction on Amazon, but you have to tread carefully if you want to get into this niche. "You really have to pay attention to copyright and trademarking," Lassen said. "You can't just put Bernie's [Sanders] face on there and sell it to everyone."
Lassen said that Merch by Amazon takes intellectual property very seriously, and will take things down if you're not authorized to use the images for your merch. However, generalized political messaging is fair game.
Lassen said that there's a market for all sorts of political messaging merchandise, whether it's right wing, left wing, libertarian, or even merchandise for apolitical people who are sick of hearing about politics. "That does really well pretty much all year, if it's somehow relevant to some event going on in the world or some sort political position that's going on in the world," said Lassen.
Items that tackle religion also sell really well — even stuff you wouldn't expect. One product Lassen found sold really well was a shirt that said "Jesus is a mushroom."
4. Seasonal holiday items
Lassen said that depending on the time of year, seasonal holiday items can do really well for online merchandisers.
"Every single holiday — 4th of July, Easter, Christmas ... but those aren't really evergreen products," Lassen said. "So people will put some up, hopefully sell a bunch of them, and then it'll drop off until next year."
Currently, we are in a season that Lassen said is particularly lucrative — LGBTQ Pride season. "Pride month always kills it on Amazon. Those items just speak to people and they fly off the shelves," Lassen said.
5. Puzzles
According to Lassen, puzzles, mazes, hangman, crosswords, and Sudoku are all really hot sellers on Amazon, which he credits to the pandemic. "Those spiked in the pandemic and they're just staying up there, doing ridiculous amounts of volume," he said.
However, he added that breaking into this kind of online merchandising can be hard because of how particularly fierce the competition is in this area. "There are a lot of products out there," Lassen said. "So you really have to niche them down."
RETAIL Ecommerce helped uplift retail in 2020—and it could be the key to merchant success in 2021 and beyond
RETAIL The pandemic accelerated online retailers' need for customer data, and platforms like Shopify and TikTok made it easier to acquire
STRATEGY At-home kits, online classes, and buzzy campaigns are affordable ways to improve your business' online shopping experience this year
RETAIL More consumers are shopping on social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok, and it could end up benefiting smaller brands
More: eCommerce merchandise Online sales | 2022-06-15T19:21:16Z | www.businessinsider.com | An Entrepreneur Shares 5 Items It's Been Easy to Sell on Amazon | https://www.businessinsider.com/entrepreneur-ecommerce-sell-amazon-popular-items-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/entrepreneur-ecommerce-sell-amazon-popular-items-2022-6 |
By Angela Tricarico and Kevin Webb
We expect lots of deals on Kindles once Amazon Prime Day starts.
Early Amazon Prime Day 2022 Kindle deals
Prime Day 2022 early Kindle accessory deals
Early Amazon Prime Day deals on Kindle Unlimited
Which Kindle should I buy in 2022?
Is Prime Day the best time to buy a Kindle?
How to trade your old Kindle for Amazon Credit
Amazon Prime Day kicks off in July, and we're expecting great deals on tons of products, including big discounts on Amazon's Kindle e-readers.
Kindle Oasis, Kindle Paperwhite, and the standard Kindle all made our list of the best e-readers, so we highly recommend snagging one of these models when they're on sale. During Prime Day last year, individual Kindle devices were discounted up to 40%; we also saw deals on bundles with Kindles and accessories.
Though official Prime Day 2022 deals haven't been announced yet, we'll likely see similar discounts this year. Here's a full rundown of what to expect, along with a few early Kindle discounts you can get right now.
Best early Amazon Prime Day deals on Kindles right now
While we don't know exactly what deals Amazon has in store for Kindles on Prime Day 2022, it's expected that discounts will be similar to those of past Prime Days.
The basic Kindle, which normally starts at $90, was on sale for $55 in 2021. The Kindle Paperwhite (normally $130) was priced at $80, and the Kindle Oasis was $185, down from $250.
Since last year's Prime Day, Amazon released two new Kindles: the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition ($190) and the Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition ($160). Both of these models could be discounted this year.
Though we still have to wait for official Prime Day deals, right now, the basic Kindle is already on sale for $60. That's only $5 more than the Prime Day sale price we saw last year.
Due to its affordability, Amazon’s basic Kindle, which has a front-lit screen and space for thousands of books, is the best e-reader option for readers on a budget. Right now it’s even easier to buy with a $30 discount during Amazon’s Father’s Day sale, though we’ve seen it drop even lower during major deal holidays in the past.
Prime Day 2022 early Kindle case deals
Amazon's line of cases for the Kindle can be fairly expensive, so Prime Day is an especially good time to snag one for a discounted price. Last year we saw fabric and leather cases for the Paperwhite, Oasis, and basic Kindle models up to 27% off.
Ahead of Prime Day, cases for the 10th Gen Kindle — both printed and fabric — are already on sale. The fabric costs $26, down from $30, and the printed case (normally $25) is $21.
Amazon Kindle Fabric Cover (10th Gen)
The Amazon Kindle Fabric Cover offers the best balance of great design and protection. Ahead of Prime Day, you can get Amazon's Kindle Fabric cover at a $5 discount in every color. Note: This version only fits the Kindle 10th Gen model.
Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service offering thousands of ebooks and magazines. This makes it an excellent complement to any Kindle purchase.
During Prime Day 2021, members could get a free four-month trial of Kindle Unlimited, so it's expected that there will be similar deals this year. Ahead of Prime Day, there are no special deals yet but new members can still take advantage of the regular 30-day free trial.
Amazon Kindle Unlimited 30-Day Free Trial
Best Prime Day Kindle deals FAQ
Amazon Prime Day 2022 will take place sometime in July.
Prime Day deals are exclusive to Amazon Prime subscribers, so you'll need to sign up to get Kindle discounts. Amazon Prime costs $15 a month or $139 per year, but new users can get their first 30 days with full benefits for free.
Amazon Prime Monthly Subscription
When choosing the best Kindle for your needs, start by figuring out how frequently you think you'll use it, and where. If you're on a budget and only plan to occasionally use your Kindle at home, you'll likely be satisfied with the standard model.
However, if you plan to read on frequent camping trips or beach days, the more expensive Oasis is a better fit thanks to its more advanced, travel-friendly features like automatic brightness and water resistance.
You can also save $20 by buying an ad-supported Kindle, which means the lock screen will feature advertisements for Kindle Unlimited books. While these ads aren't that annoying, some buyers may prefer to pay more for an ad-free experience.
If you're not a frequent reader, you may want to download the free Kindle app and try downloading a few ebooks to read on your phone, tablet, or computer. You may realize you're just fine without a dedicated e-reader, or maybe you want a device with a bigger color screen for comic books and magazines, like the Fire HD 10 tablet.
Also, keep in mind that Kindle is Amazon's brand of e-reader, but it's not the only one out there. For example, Kobo also earned top marks in our buying guide with its easy to use, water-resistant models.
Yes, Prime Day is one of the best times to buy a Kindle. Amazon devices, including Kindle e-readers, typically drop to all-time low prices during Amazon's annual sale.
Amazon offers an upgrade program for Kindle owners to trade in their old devices for store credit and get a 20% discount on a new model.
The amount you'll receive for your trade-in will depend on how old your Kindle is, and it will be applied to your account as an Amazon gift card. A separate credit for 20% off a new Kindle will also be added to your Kindle account, regardless of how old or broken your Kindle is, and you can apply that to Prime Day discounts.
Most Kindle models are worth between $5 and $25 in Amazon trade-in credit, while the latest Kindle Oasis can be traded for $75.
More: Amazon Prime Amazon Prime Day Kindle Reading | 2022-06-15T19:21:40Z | www.businessinsider.com | Amazon Prime Day Kindle Deals 2022: Early Discounts and What to Expect | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/kindle-deals-amazon-prime-day | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/kindle-deals-amazon-prime-day |
What is an employee stock purchase plan?
How does an ESPP plan work?
Example of how an ESPP works
How are ESPP stocks taxed?
What happens to my ESPP when I leave a company?
ESPPs vs 401(k)s
An employee stock purchase plan lets you buy stocks at the company you work for at a discounted price
An employee stock purchase plan can help you build equity.
An employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) lets employees at publicly traded companies buy company stock at a discounted price.
Employees can enroll in an ESPP by making contributions that are deducted automatically from their paycheck to save up until the purchase date.
How ESPPs are taxed depends on whether it's qualified or non-qualified — and whether you decide to sell your shares later.
Landing a new job at a publicly traded company can be exciting. In addition to a 401(k) match and health insurance, publicly traded companies may also offer an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP).
An ESPP allows employees to buy stock for the company they work for at a discounted price, typically up to 15% off. Some companies offer ESPP as soon as you start, while others wait until you've been there for at least a year.
If you truly believe in the company's mission and that its value will grow, it might be beneficial to hold equity — another word for shares or ownership — in the company that you work for.
Your employer's plan might have a limit on how much you can purchase, and they might also have a cap on what percentage of your take-home pay you can actually contribute, says Charly Kevers, chief financial officer at Carta, an equity and ownership management company. "The IRS currently doesn't allow the employee to purchase more than $25,000 worth of stock per calendar year through ESPP," he adds.
How does an employee stock purchase plan work?
An ESPP allows you to buy stock in the company you work for through automatic post-tax paycheck deductions. Up to 15% of your paycheck after taxes and retirement deductions gets automatically deposited into an account held by your employer brokerage during the offering period, the period of time between starting ESPP and the purchase date. At the end of the offering period, all the money you saved will be used to buy the stock at the agreed-upon price.
"Similar to a 401(k), you choose how much you want to contribute. Your company takes that amount out of your paycheck post-tax and holds onto it. Then, on designated purchase dates, your employer uses that money to purchase and issue shares back to you," says Kevers.
The IRS limits you to a maximum contribution of $25,000 for 2022, although your employer may cap your contributions further or even as a percentage of your income.
For example, let's say you start working at Company ABC Inc. and it offers its employees an ESPP, and its shares are currently trading at $100. If you choose to participate, the ESPP might allow you to buy 100 shares at $85, which is 15% lower than the current price of $100. No matter how much the price of the stock increases at the time of your purchase date, you'll still be able to secure 100 shares at the price of $85.
If you plan on buying 100 shares of Company ABC Inc.'s stock at $85 and your purchase date is in two years, you might ask your employer to hold $177.08 per month from your paychecks to cover the $8,500 you need to buy those 100 shares.
Example ESPP Calculations for Company ABC Inc.
Current stock purchase price
$100/share
Stock purchase price with ESPP discount
$85/share
ESPP offering period
Total purchase over two years
$85/share x 100 shares = $8,500
Automatic paycheck deductions for two years
$8,500 / 24 = $354.16 / 2 = $177.08 per paycheck
How your ESPP is taxed depends on what type of plan you have. "There are two types of ESPPs, which affect tax treatment," Kevers says. He recommends checking in with your employer to see if they offer qualified section 423 ESPPs or non-qualified ESPPs.
Here are the key differences:
Qualified plans
Non-qualified plans
Meets the criteria outlined in Section 423 of the Internal Revenue Code
Does not meet the criteria of Section 423 of the Internal Revenue Code
Must be approved by company shareholders within 12 months of the date the plan is implemented
Shareholder approval is not required
Contributions made with after-tax dollars
Restrictions on the maximum price discount allowed
No prices restrictions
Favorable tax treatment given if employees hold shares for at least two years from the grant date and one year from the purchase date
When shares are purchased, the excess of the fair market value at the time of purchase is taxed as ordinary income
Plan design less flexible
Plan design is flexible
You might pay less in taxes with a qualified ESPP, but there are more restrictions
Kevers explains, "If you have qualified ESPPs and you hold your shares at least one year after your purchase date and two years after your offering date, you'll pay ordinary income tax on the difference in price between the discounted price and the offer date price. The difference between the offer date price and the final sale price is treated as long-term capital gain or loss."
According to Fidelity, US tax law states that employees cannot be taxed on profits because of the discount. Going back to our Company ABC Inc. example, if the price of the company's stock is $125 by the time of your purchase date, you're looking at a total profit of $4,000. However, only $2,500 of your total profit can actually be taxed.
Example calculations for stock in Company ABC Inc.
$100/share = $10,000 value
Price of stock after the two-year offering period
$125/share = $12,500
Total profit after two years
$12,500 - $8,500 = $4,000
Profit from stock appreciation (taxable)
$12,500 - ($100/share x $100 shares = $10,000) = $2,500
Profit from ESPP discount (non-taxable under a qualified ESPP)
$4,000 total profit - $2,500 = $1,500
Quick tip: According to the US tax law, an employee cannot be taxed on any gains accrued from the discount they receive on the stock purchase price.
If the stock was valued at $100 during your offering date and you sold your shares at $125, you'll be taxed only on the difference between those two prices. However, a holding period will be required to reap those tax benefits.
If you hold onto that stock for one year after your purchase date and two years after your offering date, says Kevers, you'll have to pay long-term capital gains taxes on the $2,500 profit that you made. Depending on your income, long-term capital tax gains are usually lower than the ordinary income tax rate.
"If you don't hold qualified shares for at least one year, you pay ordinary income tax on the difference. The spread between the sale price and purchase date fair market value is treated as short-term capital gains," says Kevers.
Non-qualified ESPPs are less restrictive, but you pay more in taxes
On the other hand, non-qualified ESPPs aren't as complicated or restrictive as qualified ESPPs, but you may end up paying more in taxes.
"If you have non-qualified ESPPs, you pay taxes on the difference between the value of the shares at purchase and the price you paid when you purchase the shares," says Kevers.
Using the Company ABC Inc. example again, you'll have to pay taxes on the total profit of $4,000, though the main benefit over a qualified section 423 ESPP is that you can sell the stocks at any time.
Total profit after two years (taxable under a non-qualified ESPP)
If you leave your job after the purchase date, your shares can be sold or transferred to your personal broker.
Just keep in mind that during the offering period, you haven't actually purchased stocks yet. The offering period is the time that your employer holds contributions from your post-tax payments to use on the purchase date.
"During the offering period, the individual will be exited from the plan and given a refund of the monies contributed to that point," says Kevers.
Generally, an ESPP is not a replacement for a traditional retirement plan, like a 401(k) or Roth IRA. An ESPP is similar to buying individual shares of stock in the market to sell at any time, while a 401(k) or Roth IRA is specifically for retirement purposes to be withdrawn later in life.
"Employees might consider consulting a financial advisor for their particular situations. A 401(k) or IRA tends to be invested in a basket of stocks — it's more diversified — whereas an ESPP only allows employees to purchase stock in their employer," says Kevers.
ESPP
Contributions made via payroll deductions
Contributions made after taxes
Contributions made pre-tax
5% to 15% discount on stocks purchased
No discount on stocks
Only buying stock in one company
Generally, a diversified basket of stocks
Taxation is based on whether the plan is qualified or non-qualified
Contributions are pre-tax and withdrawals during retirement are taxed at an ordinary income tax rate
Contribution limit of $25,000 a year
Contribution limit of $20,500 a year, and an additional $6,500 in catch-up contributions if over 50
Offers a lookback period where the plan can use a previous closing price of the stock
No lookback period offered
Plan designed to offer equity and a form of compensation to employees
Plan designed to help employees save for retirement
Ability to sell stocks at any time
Penalties for withdrawing from your 401(k) before the age of 59 ½
PERSONAL FINANCE Stock vs. share: What's the difference?
PERSONAL FINANCE What are stock options and how do they work?
PERSONAL FINANCE Preferred stocks supply steady dividends to investors — here's how to evaluate them for your portfolio
More: Employee Stock Purchase Plan ESPP Investing Equity | 2022-06-15T19:22:22Z | www.businessinsider.com | What Is an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)? | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/espp | https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/espp |
Bryan Metzger and Grace Panetta
Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina and former President Donald Trump.
AP Photos/Alex Brandon and Charlie Neibergall
Rice became the first pro-impeachment Republican to lose to a Trump-backed primary challenger.
Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, four are retiring and one won renomination.
The next four are set to face Republican voters this August, and some have better chances than Rice.
Former President Donald Trump got his first official victory on Tuesday night in his quest to oust congressional Republicans who voted to impeach him after the January 6 Capitol riot.
Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina — a five-term, otherwise low-key conservative who has likened Trump to a tyrant and a dictator in the year and a half since the attack — lost handily to South Carolina State Sen. Russell Fry, who had the former president's endorsement.
Results from Insider's partners at Decision Desk HQ showed Fry trouncing Rice by a greater than 2-to-1 margin for the Republican nomination in the state's 7th district, beating Rice outright and avoiding a runoff.
Rice's defeat marks the first time in the 2022 midterm cycle that a Republican who voted to impeach Trump after January 6 has actually lost to a primary challenger.
Four of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach have chosen to retire, including:
Rep. Anthony Gonzales of Ohio
Republican Rep. David Valadao of California appears likely to advance to the general election in California's 22nd Congressional district, and is currently leading right-wing challenger Chris Mathys by just under four percentage points.
The remaining four House Republicans are set to face voters this August, including:
Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan on August 2
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington on August 2
Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington on August 2
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming on August 16
While Trump has endorsed former Housing and Urban Development official John Gibbs over Meijer, campaign finance disclosures reveal that Meijer has outraised Gibbs nearly ten-fold: $2.1 million versus $227,000 to date.
And in Washington, both Herrera Beutler and Newhouse may benefit from the state's top-two primary system as they seek to fend off Trump-backed opponents Joe Kent and Loren Culp, respectively.
Like in California, all primary candidates from all parties run on the same ballot in Washington's primaries and the top two, regardless of party, advance to the general election. All registered voters can vote in Washington's primary elections, allowing both candidates to potentially draw support from independents and Democrats.
But in Wyoming, Cheney — the vice-chair of the January 6 committee and perhaps Trump's most outspoken Republican critic — appears to be in political peril.
Insider's Oma Seddiq recently spoke with Cheney supporters who believe they are the "silent majority" in the state, even as Trump, the state party, and other national Republicans have shunned the one-time leader of the House Republican conference. Polling has also shown Cheney trailing Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman, and Trump garnered nearly 70% of the vote in Wyoming in 2020 — the highest margin of any state.
Meanwhile in the Senate, just one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, will face voters this year. But she too may benefit from the mechanics of the election system in her state. In 2020, Alaska voted to enact top-four primaries where candidates of all parties run on the same primary ballot similar to California and Washington, ensuring that Murkowski won't face only Republican voters in her primary.
Then, in the general election, voters will pick between the top four candidates with ranked-choice voting, guaranteeing that the winning candidate will win with the majority of the vote.
Murkowski also previously waged a successful write-in campaign in 2010 after losing to a conservative primary challenger.
More: Congress Tom Rice Liz Cheney Adam Kinzinger | 2022-06-15T19:22:34Z | www.businessinsider.com | Tom Rice Is First Pro-Impeachment Republican to Lose to Trump Challenger | https://www.businessinsider.com/tom-rice-first-pro-impeachment-republican-lose-trump-primary-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/tom-rice-first-pro-impeachment-republican-lose-trump-primary-2022-6 |
A Capitol police officer recalled how Kevin Seefried jabbed at him with a Confederate flag.
Seefried and his son Hunter Seefried elected to have a judge rather than a jury render the verdict.
The Seefrieds joined an initial wave of rioters who entered the Capitol through a broken window.
A man who carried a Confederate flag inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was convicted Tuesday on several charges tied to his involvement in the pro-Trump mob that attempted to block the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory.
Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, found Kevin Seefried guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, and disorderly conduct following a two-day bench trial. The proceeding featured testimony from Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who was celebrated after January 6 for diverting rioters away from lawmakers who were sheltering in place.
Seefried, of Delaware, waived his right to a jury trial to instead have McFadden hear evidence and render a verdict. On the obstruction charge alone, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but he is likely to receive a much shorter period of incarceration.
The verdict marked the latest trial victory for the Justice Department in a case stemming from the January 6 attack on the Capitol. In the months since the Capitol siege, the Justice Department has brought more than 800 prosecutions, securing scores of guilty pleas and winning convictions in more than a half-dozen trials.
Seefried stood trial alongside his son, Hunter Seefried, who joined him inside the Capitol on January 6. Federal prosecutors presented video footage showing Kevin and Hunter Seefried climbing through a broken window on the Senate side of the Capitol as they joined a group of rioters who were among the first to breach the building.
McFadden also found Hunter Seefried guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, and disorderly conduct. But the judge acquitted him on charges that he entered the Capitol with physical violence and destroyed property.
The judge set Kevin Seefried's sentencing for September 16, Hunter Seefried's for September 23.
Prosecutors alleged that Hunter Seefried broke a window. But McFadden said the window was already broken by two other rioters who used a police shield and piece of lumber to breach the Capitol.
"Here, I think the job already was finished by the time the defendant acted," McFadden said, adding that the shard of glass Hunter Seefried pushed out was "utterly useless" by the time he breached the Capitol.
With McFadden, federal prosecutors tried their case before the only judge who has dealt the Justice Department setbacks at trial. In a previous bench trial, McFadden acquitted a New Mexico man on January 6 charges. McFadden previously found a New Mexico county commissioner guilty of trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds but acquitted him of a separate disorderly conduct charge.
The Justice Department has otherwise won guilty verdicts on all counts with juries summoned from Washington, DC. Those proceedings have featured vivid video footage and testimony from police officers who defended the Capitol against the pro-Trump mob on January 6.
In his testimony Monday, Goodman said he remembered Kevin and Hunter Seefried from the group he encountered inside the Capitol and lured away from senators. Goodman recalled how Kevin Seefried used the base of his flagpole in a "jabbing motion" to create distance between the two of them. Of Hunter Seefried, Goodman said he remembered him having a "smirkish look on his face, like a 'we won' kinda look on his face."
Goodman described the elder Seefried as "very angry," "screaming" and the "complete opposite of pleasant." And he recounted how rioters demanded to know the location of lawmakers as they advanced inside the Capitol.
In closing arguments Tuesday, defense lawyers raised questions about the accuracy of Goodman's recollection of January 6. But McFadden on Wednesday credited Goodman's testimony, in which the police officer said he attached his memory of Kevin Seefried to the Confederate flag.
McFadden said it was "more likely he would stand out in Officer Goodman's memory" based on the Confederate flag Kevin Seefried "remarkably" carried inside the Capitol on January 6.
Defense lawyers also argued that Kevin and Hunter Seefried lacked a sophisticated understanding of the congressional proceeding they came to be accused of obstructing. But McFadden dismissed that argument, as well, noting that Kevin and Hunter were part of a group of rioters who were yelling, "Where are the counting the votes at?"
In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack, Goodman was hailed for leading the rioters away from lawmakers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to award him the Congressional Gold Medal, the institution's highest civilian honor.
Goodman returned to the limelight during Trump's second impeachment trial, which featured video footage of him sprinting toward Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, to warn him of the angry mob approaching.
For Goodman, it was among the most harrowing moments of a day he described as "like something out of medieval times."
More: Capitol Siege january 6 cases Justice Department Kevin Seefried | 2022-06-15T20:52:20Z | www.businessinsider.com | Guilty: Man Who Carried Confederate Flag Inside the Capitol Convicted | https://www.businessinsider.com/guilty-january-6-trial-confederate-flag-capitol-attack-police-seefried-2022-6 | https://www.businessinsider.com/guilty-january-6-trial-confederate-flag-capitol-attack-police-seefried-2022-6 |
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