Martin Roscheisen has been fired twice by the boards of startups he led.

Even so, Roscheisen says he would gladly work again with the venture capital firm that pushed him aside in one of the two episodes. 

Roscheisen, who is now chief executive of venture-backed diamond-maker Diamond Foundry, described that incident as a mutual decision he reached with a venture capital firm partner on the board who asked him to resign when it became clear that the startup was struggling to grow users.

But to take money again from the "the backstabber of all founders"?

Unthinkable, Roscheisen said.

The "backstabber" he's talking about is Benchmark Capital, a renown Silicon Valley venture capital firm which was in the news in September for its role helping to remove WeWork's charismatic and controversial cofounder Adam Neumann from the helm.

Benchmark is one of the most respected investment firms in the tech world, with a history of backing big hits like Twitter and Snap and a carefully crafted reputation of supporting, and understanding, entrepreneurs. This reputation is now under scrutiny as the events at WeWork and other startup interventions by Benchmark raise questions about the firm's true character.

The spotlight comes as the notion of the "founder-friendly" venture firm — a trend that Benchmark is largely responsible for creating — is being reconsidered across Silicon Valley and the broader investment community. The idea that startup founders are infallible looks more tenuous amid tales of excess and bad judgement at some high-profile firms. 

"There's just so much competition for the best deals and the best founders, that venture capitalists were tripping over themselves to say who could be the most founder friendly," said Mark Suster, a two-time entrepreneur and general partner at Upfront Ventures in Los Angeles.

"Then there are people who are old enough and wise enough, to have a long enough lens, to say, 'You know what, governance matters.' ... It's not the popular thing to say right now," Suster said, in defense of Benchmark's behavior.

A spokesperson for Benchmark declined to comment.

A pattern or a co-incidence?

For critics of Benchmark, the last few years provide plenty of ammunition.

In 2017, the San Francisco firm along with other investors pressured Uber's cofounder and chief executive Travis Kalanick to quit. It also sued Kalanick, alleging that he misled them in order to add board seats under his control. Benchmark was expected to see its stake hit approximately $8.25 billion in value after Uber went public.

Benchmark partner Bill Gurley also helped the board at Nextdoor relieve founder Nirav Tolia of his duties as chief executive last year, sources familiar with the talks told The Wall Street Journal. Tolia did not respond to a request for comment.

"I don't know how you explain to founders, 'Hey, the way I do early-stage investing is — I bet on founders,' and then you have this track record of explicitly not betting on founders," said Delian Asparouhov, a principal at Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Founders Fund.

"That to me is what feels morally corrupt (about firing founders). You have this dichotomy between what you're pitching to the next founder and what your actions actually reflect," Asparouhov said.

Benchmark, based in San Francisco, attracts founders with its impressive track record. The firm has modest fund sizes and still managed to take 25 companies public in the last decade, including Uber, Dropbox, GrubHub, and Yelp, PitchBook said. It now has 33 startups in its portfolio, compared to Kleiner Perkin's 90 and Sequoia Capital's 74.

Read more: How WeWork spiraled from a $47 billion valuation to talk of bankruptcy in just 6 weeks

Some investors say the chief executive ousters at WeWork and Uber, which was also backed by Benchmark, are more coincidence than correlation. The firings happened in the span of two years and took place at consumer-facing companies, which gave them more prominence in the media, said Semil Shah, a seed-stage investor at Haystack and a venture partner at Lightspeed in Menlo Park.

"There is a risk that if the collective board does not feel like the CEO is the best steward of the enterprise, that option is on the table," he said, referring to the option of ousting a CEO. "It's not a Benchmark thing. This happens at other funds."

Benchmark owes part of its success to the way it actively manages its portfolio. But as the firm tries to woo founders, its reputation among them and its response to the unfolding founder-friendly debate could determine its future ability to land the hottest deals.

Founder Fund's Asparouhov said any venture capital firm that has a history of firing founders could lose out on the most sought-after deals. A small number of founders who have prior experience working at a white-hot startup are more likely to create "extraordinary returns," he said, and are also more likely to know about the firm's track record.

Though these insider-founders are in the minority, "when it does come up, it tends to be painful for the investment firm," he said.

'Bill wants to win'

Heather Fernandez's account of working with Benchmark shows the firm's appeal. Her company Solv, which is working to bring convenience and transparent pricing to healthcare, raised money from the firm in 2017 and had partner Bill Gurley join the board.

Fernandez described the Benchmark partner as a "thought partner." Before the startup raised a cent of capital, they met and spoke on the phone often to fine-tune the idea and plan for challenges ahead.

"The role of an early-stage investor is to dig in with you," she said.

Others say Benchmark can turn on a dime if it feels its payday is at risk.

An entrepreneur who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the firm helped unseat him at his own startup when it was underperforming so the firm could replace him with a chief executive "in their network who they already know and trust."

Roscheisen, the entrepreneur who was ousted twice, felt scorned.

His firm Nanosolar, founded in 2001, had raised half a billion dollars to develop a cheaper and highly efficient solar cell. The problem was getting the technology to market. It was still untested at scale by the time Nansolar signed more than $4 billion in orders in 2009.

As a board member, Gurley had a latent presence, Roscheisen said.

"Gurley was stunningly clueless about the industry that Nanosolar was operating in even after eight years on the board," he said, adding that the investor was "weak in the knees at the first blow of a bit of wind."

After years of delays and unsolved product issues, Roscheisen said the board forced him to resign. Geoff Tate, a former chipmaker executive who replaced Roscheisen as chief executive, confirmed.

"Bill wants to win," Tate said. "Bill has a smart mind, and he's going to question things if he thinks it's going the wrong direction."

Gurley did not return repeated requests for comment.

Fernandez, the healthcare founder, said she expects her investors to have her back. But she knows being founder friendly has limits.

"If a board is hearing from the executive team, from employees, from customers, that there is a problem with the CEO, or if you see a destruction of value happening, I have a hard time believing that they'd say 'We're going to stand by this person no matter what,'" she said. 

In defense of Benchmark

The setup at WeWork meant that removing the CEO was not simple, and ultimately required founder Adam Neumann to agree to step down.

Neumann had locked up control of parent corporation The We Company ahead of the planned initial public offering. Its filings to go public, called an S-1, revealed that Neumann had 20 votes per share with his superpowered stock, about double the industry standard. He also owned an interest in four buildings that WeWork leased, received personal loans from the company, and bought the trademark to the "We" name so he could license it at cost.

Read more: WeWork details CEO Adam Neumann's web of loans, real-estate deals, and family involvement with the company

Outside observers have criticized investors, including SoftBank, for giving the founder so much power.

"People will say why would the VCs ever do that? How could they be that stupid? Sometimes, it is what it is," Mike Maples, Jr., a partner at venture firm Floodgate, said. "Your job is to make money for your investors."

Maples said if he passed on an investment opportunity because the founder had more voting shares than other directors, and the company went on to give massive returns, his firm lost. So did the university endowment or hospital that's invested in the firm as a limited partner and could have built another building on campus.

There are other stakeholders to consider, said Shah, an investor.

"I think when any top firm — it doesn't matter if it's Benchmark or your next top firm — I think they're making a decision on behalf of a number of key constituents," he said, "which include everyone from employees to the key executives at the company who may mutiny to their limited partners and protecting their principle investment."

Being founder-friendly is overrated

Venky Ganesan, managing director of Menlo Ventures, said being seen as founder unfriendly can hurt a venture firm's reputation.

The problem is, he said, what it means to support entrepreneurs has changed since he joined the venture business almost 20 years ago. Ganesan related founders to teenagers and investors to parents.

"These are people who have great potential, but we need to make sure they turn into responsible adults," he said. "You set boundaries, curfews, and consequences. ... Now the role has changed. They have become friends. We want to go and have a beer with them."

The events of the last few months could shift expectations again.

"People think founder friendly is you saying yes to everything," Ganesan said. "It's about helping you make the best decisions you can. Sometimes, it might mean saying no. We help you by saying no."

For Benchmark, which needs to win favor with a new generation of startups, the ability of founders to take such a nuanced perspective could make all the difference.

Warner Bros. has got something special with "Joker." The super serious (and ultra violent) origin story of DC Comics' greatest villain continues to put up record-breaking numbers for October.

After having the biggest opening weekend for the month last weekend, in its second go around "Joker" brought in an estimated $55 million. That's just a measly 43% drop from last weekend and an October record for best week two performance, topping the studio's release of "Gravity" ($43.1 million) in 2013.

Budgeted around $55 million (north of $60 million when you count marketing), "Joker" now has a global cume to date of over $540 million. WB is raking in the money!

Read more: Kevin Smith rekindled his friendship with Ben Affleck thanks to a private jet and getting "ghosted" by Snoop Dogg

But while Warner Bros. soaks in the fruits of its labor, across town Paramount is in full crisis mode with "Gemini Man."

Will Smith's latest movie, which showcased technological feats rarely seen in theaters, was supposed to be a worthy adversary to "Joker," but the Ang Lee movie didn't put up much of a fight.

"Gemini Man" came in third place (United Artists' "The Addams Family" came in second with $30.2 million) only bringing in $20.5 million this weekend. That's below its industry projections and setting the stage for Paramount and the other companies that shared the financial burden (Skydance Media, Fosun Pictures, and Alibaba) to potentially lose millions as the movie cost $138 million to make.

Whether it was its tired story, which had been floating around in development for almost 20 years, or the decision by Lee to shoot it in the high frame rate of 120 frame per second, which gives the picture a sharpness audiences aren't huge fans of yet (it's so advanced no theater in the US could show it the way Lee intended), nothing worked for "Gemini Man."

Now Paramount, whose biggest earner in 2019 is the Elton John biopic "Rocketman" with over $195 million earned worldwide, will put its hopes in "Terminator: Dark Fate" (opening November 1) providing a lift for the studio to close out the year.

Meanwhile on the arthouse side, Neon's "Parasite" showed that the hype is real for the latest movie by Bong Joon-Ho ("Snowpiercer," "Okja"). Playing in only three theaters this weekend, it brought in $376,264 and had a per-screen average of $125,421. That's the best screen average of any movie this year. It's also the highest per-screen average since 2016's "La La Land."

 

The adage goes: It's a board's job to hire and fire the chief executive.

That's a gross exaggeration. But in the hyper-competitive world of tech startups, the cold truth behind the saying helps explain the rising profile — and the demand for — a special "outside" member of the board who can bring clout and credibility during difficult periods of infighting and fractious management shake-ups. 

Often referred to as an independent board member, the outside director is a person who sits on a startup's board and has voting rights but is typically not an investor in the company. They don't have a financial stake, which makes them more objective than the venture capital partners looking for a return on their investment.

And in the wake of brutal board battles at Uber and WeWork, in which company founders were ousted from the CEO job, there's a growing appreciation on all sides for the role that impartial independent directors can play.

Outside directors "don't have millions of dollars riding on the outcome," said Mark Suster, a two-time entrepreneur and general partner at Upfront Ventures in Los Angeles. "They are truly more independent of (any) decision."

Andy Ruben, whose company Yerdle helps retailers like Patagonia sell used goods, is currently conducting interviews in his search for an outside director, his board's third.

The ideal candidate brings operating experience as a chief executive or operating officer at a retailer that Yerdle sees as a potential partner, who can provide the "voice of the customer."

"You're baking a cake, and you're putting in the right ingredients," is how Ruben puts it.

There are no rules for startups

Rules laid down by the stock exchanges require public companies to supply their boards with a majority of independent directors, but there are no such prescriptions for privately-held firms. That's made the process more haphazard for privately held startups, which typically bring on outside directors at various milestones, like raising new funding or preparing to go public.

On average, companies add three outside directors before going public, and as many as 40% of startups add their first outside director more than three years before an IPO, according to research by Brian Tayan, a researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Read more: WeWork's had a terrible month, and now CEO Adam Neumann is stepping down — here's everything that has happened since the embattled company filed to go public

Most often, founding chief executives recruit an outside director to the board who provides industry experience, said Tayan, who has surveyed dozens of entrepreneurs on their corporate governance. They're also looking for a management background, prior governance experience, or knowledge of banking and accounting.

Those individuals aren't too hard to find. Silicon Valley has a surplus of people with domain expertise and a supercharged network, said Niko Bonatsos, managing director of venture firm General Catalyst.

"Why wouldn't you utilize this eclectic bench of individuals to help the founders level up like an avatar in a video game?" he said.

Asana and Gusto, both late-stage startups that make tools for businesses, tapped seasoned operator Anne Raimondi to join their boards as an outside director earlier this year. She is a expert on executive compensation — something that public companies must disclose — having led operations at Zendesk before it went public in 2014. Her work at Asana and Gusto focuses on this strategy.

"As an operator, you're in the weeds. You're so close to the business," Raimondi said. Her job is to help them see around corners.

"Sometimes that help can be very threatening"

The outside director may also bring experience as a founder or chief executive. That's not always true of an investor on the board.

Mimi Chan, whose startup Littlefund lets people send money that's earmarked for savings instead of material gifts to the children in their lives, recalls an investor telling her she needed to take a closer look at what a competitor was doing. It shook her confidence.

She turned to an adviser who she considers an outside director, though her company is so young it doesn't have a board yet.

"Other venture capitalists, many of them, have not been in the founder's shoes," Chan said. "It's nice to have someone that maybe doesn't have all the answers but can at least relate to you."

Investors said they often see founders run to the outside director with problems. They may fear that a venture capitalist on the board will influence their ability to raise the next round of funding. The worst case scenario includes their removal from the company.

"When a company is not performing well, the instinct of all board members is to try to help," said Rob Chandra, an early-stage investor at Avid Park Ventures who teaches a class on entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "Sometimes that help is taken and is constructive, and sometimes that help can be very threatening and can make the entrepreneur feel like they are at risk of losing their job." The founder may become reluctant to share information with the board that they think reflects badly on them.

The outside director's feedback "may have more credibility," said Bonatsos, the investor, because they're seen as a neutral party.

'Founder control' is not what it used to be

How independent an outside director is varies from board to board.

An angel investor may graduate from the role of adviser to board member. "There's a natural evolution," Chandra said, as they develop a relationship with the founder and show they add value.

Suster, who sold his last company to Salesforce where he became a vice president before joining the venture capital business, gives this unconventional advice to founders: Ask the candidate for a check.

"The funny thing is, when you write a $100,000 check, even if you're a multimillionaire, you feel a sense of ownership," Suster said. "'... Feeling that sense of ownership — that I have skin in the game — really matters I think for you to truly make good business decisions."

The demand for a competent outside director comes as the notion of "founder control" is being reconsidered across Silicon Valley and the broader investment community. Venture capital investors are showing less willingness to support founders like WeWork boss Adam Neuman, who amassed major company ownership before his forced departure. And the next crop of entrepreneurs are taking a more moderate approach.

Aditi Shekar is a first-time founder and chief executive. Her company, Zeta, makes a budgeting tool designed for couples and has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors.

She doesn't report into a board of directors yet, but Shekar said she is building good governance habits now. Every month, she sends an email with the company's financials to all of her investors and has a follow-up phone call with her lead angel, who she considers a board adviser-type, to go over what at Zeta went well and what didn't.

"If you know someone is going to check your work, you're just going to be a little more thoughtful about it," Shekar said.

For much of Generation Z, the trendy meme of the summer was the VSCO girl, an aesthetic consisting of scrunchies, pastel clothing, and Hydroflask water bottles.

Whether you love her or hate her, there's not a lot of the internet that hasn't been touched by the VSCO girl this year. Summer 2019's "it" girl developed into an iconic look across YouTube and TikTok, resulting in a flurry of teens sporting — and parodying — her look. Don't be surprised this Halloween to see a number of people breaking out a costume of high ponytails and puka shell necklaces, metal straws and Fjallraven backpacks, Birkenstocks and Polaroid cameras.

Read more: The VSCO girl is taking over the internet — here's the ultimate starter kit for becoming the latest 'it' girl

The origins of the "VSCO girl" name trace back to a photo-editing app that launched back in 2011. VSCO — with a pronunciation that rhymes with Cisco — is known for its preset filters with cult-like followings used by photographers and Instagrammers alike to produce artsy, aesthetic-focused pictures. It's also a platform devoid of likes and follower metrics, which social networks like Instagram have been built on.

So if you're wondering exactly what inspired the VSCO girl trend, you may want to start at the source. Here's how to use the popular photo-editing app VSCO:

 

For the last 25 years, writer-director Kevin Smith has built a career making light of everything — including his own death.

On February 25, 2018, after performing on stage at a show in Glendale, California, Smith suffered a massive heart attack that he would learn when he got to the hospital was a "widowmaker," in which there's 100% blockage of the heart. He was told by his doctor that in 80% of cases like this the patient dies.

At that moment, before the surgery to try to save him, Smith said he took stock of his life.

Read more: Kevin Smith rekindled his friendship with Ben Affleck thanks to a private jet and getting "ghosted" by Snoop Dogg

"I was fine with dying," Smith told Business Insider. "I was totally comfortable. 47 is young to die but you had a great life. But then I realized if my life might end tonight the last movie I will have made was 'Yoga Hosers.' That's not the way to go out."

Smith is known best for his indie comedies from the 1990s like "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," and "Dogma." But recently Smith has been making outlandish movies like "Tusk," starring Justin Long as a podcaster who becomes the captive of a recluse who turns him into a walrus, and a spin-off of that movie two years later, 2016's "Yoga Hosers."

Starring Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter) and Smith's own daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, the creepy comedy goes even deeper into the strange and bizarre than "Tusk" did. It resulted in one of Smith's biggest flops, as it was bashed by critics and audiences alike.

When he had the heart attack, Smith was in preproduction on "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot," a sequel to 2001's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." After surviving the heart attack, he doubled his efforts to make the movie.

"One year from the day of the heart attack was the first day of shooting the movie," he said. "We scheduled it that way. It was a big f--k you to the heart attack."

Since the heart attack, Smith has lost a considerable amount of weight after going vegan and he said he has a newfound drive to his work because he knows the next project may be his last. Along with promoting "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" (which opens in select theaters October 15), he's the showrunner on the upcoming Netflix anime series "Masters of the Universe: Revelation," and recently announced he will be making "Clerks 3," which will focus on the franchise's main character, Randal, recovering from a heart attack. 

"I've learned to let go of myself as who I thought I was as an artist," Smith said of life after the heart attack. "My self-esteem is fine. I don't need the ego blow of, 'Now everyone knows my movie is coming out.' I made 'Tusk,' I got no ego."

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd went on medical leave last month, prompting speculation that Safra Catz, with whom he shared the post, will likely become the tech giant's solo CEO.

But Oracle founder Larry Ellison has indicated that the Silicon Valley company plans to keep its dual CEO structure — even though some people find it "weird."

"A lot of people have said, 'God, you guys are weird. Two CEOs? That's ridiculous. That's bad governance,'"  Ellison told analysts at the company's OpenWorld event in San Francisco last month. 

"I believe in a dual CEO structure. The normal case [at Oracle] would be dual CEO here for obvious reasons. That it's good to have capacity and good to have specialization. And then, God forbid, if something untoward should happen, you have capacity, you are not incapacitated."

In fact, Oracle's archrival, SAP, appeared to following Ellison's lead. SAP just announced this week that it was shifting to its own dual CEO structure.  The German software giant said its longtime CEO Bill McDermott was stepping down and has been replaced by Jennifer Morgan, who had led SAP's cloud business, and Christian Klein, who had served as SAP's chief operating officer.

It would seem Ellison meant what he said about the dual CEO structure. At the meeting with analysts, Ellison said he was planning to give the Oracle board give five potential internal candidates in the event Hurd is unable to return.

Here are five Oracle executives — including two that Ellison himself mentioned at the meeting with analysts, as well as three that experts suggest might make the shortlist — who could one day serve as the company's chief executive.

Hello!

You might not have heard of Jesse Cohn, but you've almost certainly heard of the companies he's been shaking up.

As Bradley Saacks and Casey Sullivan report, Cohn, the 39-year old right-hand man to billionaire investor and Elliott Management cofounder Paul Singer, is the driving force behind an activist campaign targeting AT&T. 

Bradley and Casey write: 

A review of his career should be required reading for AT&T's board: From falling into finance as someone who didn't know what he wanted to do in his early 20s to becoming Paul Singer's attack dog on some of his most influential campaigns, Cohn has developed a reputation as a feared investor with the means to change America's blue-chip corporations.

Conversations with more than two dozen of his colleagues, competitors, detractors, and friends also reveal an evolution. Cohn has developed a more diplomatic touch, as his targets have become larger and overhauls need approval by long-term shareholders, such as BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. 

This gives Cohn even more influence when he goes after a company like AT&T. 

Read their story: We talked to 24 people about the hedge-fund wunderkind at Elliott who wants to shake up AT&T. Here's why management should be terrified.

OnePlus recently announced its new OnePlus 7T Pro just a few days after announcing the regular OnePlus 7T.

If you were waiting to see both new OnePlus phones before making a decision on which model to buy, I'd totally understand. 

The OnePlus 7T has a lower price tag than the 7T "Pro," and there's a decent price gap between the two models — in the UK, the OnePlus 7T costs 550 pounds, and the OnePlus 7T Pro costs 700 pounds. In Europe, it's 600 euros versus 770 euros. For India, it's 37,999 rupees compared to 53,999 rupees. You get the idea. 

One of the best things about OnePlus phones is that, despite the price gap, the "Pro" model is still cheaper than a lot of comparable phones from the competition. 

Still, that doesn't mean you need to spend more than you need to. The OnePlus 7T is a formidable device that makes the "Pro" seem like the frivolous option. The phones have more similarities than differences.

Check out the major differences and similarities between the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro:

When an influencer wants to take easy money to promote the latest detox tea for weight loss, it's often a talent manager who steps in and advises them that it might not be such a great idea.

The best talent managers are there to help clients make smart choices and construct a lasting brand. With YouTube creators taking over the influencer space, earning income through brand deals and scaling their engaged audiences into a full-time business, managers can be a key to success for many. 

Talent managers advise clients against making choices that could damage their careers and help in operating companies and selling direct-to-consumer products. Some even own product lines under venture arms.

Reed Duchscher, who managers creators like MrBeast (24 million YouTube subscribers), told Business Insider that he focuses on helping clients create and structure new businesses and build out their internal teams.

"One core reason I think YouTube talent managers are important is due to the fact that most successful channels are run by young people," he said. "We're seeing 15- and 16-year-old kids garner hundreds of millions of views each month, before they even graduate high school. We help them avoid the pitfalls of working through this industry."

Managers earn revenue by receiving a cut of the influencer's earnings, which typically ranges from 10% to 20%, depending on how much the manager does for the client, according to industry insiders.

See which talent managers made Business Insider's inaugural list of power players:

And for more on the business of being an influencer, and a breakdown of how YouTube creators make their money, check out these Business Insider Prime stories below:

Hours after fans cheered him on-stage in South Texas, Elon Musk walked into a morass: a private meeting with perturbed locals whose properties that SpaceX, the rocket company Musk founded, had recently offered to buy out.

Residents say Musk attentively listened to their concerns and squashed some of their fears about the buyout process. But they described their roughly half-hour encounter with the tech mogul as "awkward," "tense," "heated," "confused," and "exhausting" — though it ended with handshakes, selfies, and some sense of progress.

Musk heard out his tough audience just before midnight on Saturday, September 28, during a visit to Boca Chica. The remote strip of land is located at the southeastern tip of the state, and it's where SpaceX is building a private launch site and spaceport.

But it's also where about 20 retiree-age residents live in the formerly sleepy residential neighborhood of Boca Chica Village, some of them for decades.  

"We weren't playing nice with him. We made it clear we were not happy," Cheryl Stevens, a resident who attended the meeting, told Business Insider.

Why Musk met with villagers in southeastern Texas

Musk's main task for the trip was delivering a highly anticipated update on SpaceX's plans for a next-generation rocket system, called Starship.

If realized, an operational 39-story launch vehicle may one day fly people to the moon and help colonists move to Mars, perhaps for the price of a modest home.

"The critical breakthrough that's needed for us to become a space-faring civilization is to make space travel like air travel," Musk said during his presentation while standing before a 16-story steel prototype.

Critical to making such a breakthrough, though, is room to safely build, test, and launch such Starship prototypes — vehicles which Musk has said last year might explode (though this is a risky reality of any rocket-test program). SpaceX has mostly used Boca Chica for this work, and Musk's presentation, which featured a new Starship launch visualization showing off big plans for the coastal site, underscored the company's hopes for its nascent spaceport.

"I think it's definitely possible that the first crewed mission on Starship could leave from Boca [Chica]," Musk said.

However, SpaceX has set up its rocket skunkworks close to residents' homes. The company built its launch pad just 1 1/2 miles from properties on the eastern edge of the community — twice as close as NASA permitted spectators to get to its space shuttles in Florida.

Facing increasingly vocal complaints from residents about excessive security, road closures, a large brush fire started by a prototype launch in July, notices that warned of possible rocket malfunctions, and other disruptions — plus a mandate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to boost its liability insurance coverage 33-fold — SpaceX in mid-September mailed every homeowner a "non negotiable" buyout offer.

"[I]t has become clear that expansion of spaceflight activities as well as compliance with Federal Aviation Administration and other public safety regulations will make it increasingly more challenging to minimize disruption to residents of the Village," the company's cover letter said.

Some told Business Insider that they planned to permanently retire in the area and weren't interested in moving.

Nearly everyone had concerns about the offer's base appraisals, claiming they were abnormally low, and thus even a three-fold offer wouldn't come close to paying for a comparable coastal home in South Texas. (Some residents described the appraisals as "lowball" and "drive-by," since they did not evaluate the interior of homes.

Residents also told Business Insider that property comparisons, which were used to inform value, relied on properties that SpaceX purchased under duress, as well as suburban homes in Brownsville that didn't compare to their bucolic coastal setting.

Some who wanted to stay said they feared a eminent domain process led by Cameron County, in which Boca Chica is based, may eventually force them out to make way for SpaceX's out-of-this-world ambitions.

With tensions peaking and Musk in town, SpaceX decided to put their CEO and a cadre of residents into a room to work things out.

SpaceX stopped one resident from trying to record the meeting. But according to interviews with five people who were in the room, here's what happened.

Residents said at first they 'felt like we'd been set up'

Days before Musk's Starship presentation, SpaceX invited village residents to come. Around 10 people RSVP'd, and SpaceX picked them up with a shuttle. Helping corral and greet everyone was a senior legal counsel for the company from Washington, DC, as well as a government and business-affairs liaison who worked on-site in Boca Chica.

The last shuttle drove into SpaceX's work yard compound shortly before 8 p.m., where workers had finished assembling a 16-story prototype of Starship's spaceship the day before. Residents say their handlers directed them to a sandbagged area just a few yards to the left of a small riser, which Musk stepped onto and spoke for about 40 minutes.

Immediately after he walked off-stage, SpaceX cued the residents to head to the shuttle, which they expected to drop them off at their homes less than a mile away. But once everyone had boarded, SpaceX invited the residents to join them at Stargate: a two-story technology park funded by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley facility (which SpaceX uses as a launch control center).

"They turned around and said, 'Well, we're going to take you over here to the Stargate, upstairs, and we're going to have a special guest come meet you there,'" said Patricia Mitchell, who's owned a home in the village since 2005 with her husband, Walter.

As the residents were settling in at Stargate, Musk returned to the stage at SpaceX's work yard to take questions from media. Christian Davenport of The Washington Post asked about SpaceX's long-term plans for the Boca Chica site.

"It will definitely get fancier than it currently is. The reason it's not fancier is because it would have taken too long to build the buildings," Musk said. "I think it will be a lot more buildings and a lot more stuff. Way more stuff than is currently here."

Later on, Jeff Foust of Space News asked about the future of residents in light of the FAA's apparent safety concerns.

"We're going to make sure that the risks to the public is extremely, vanishingly small. Almost nothing, basically," Musk said. "I don't see any fundamental obstacles. We are working with the residents of Boca Chica Village because we think oh, it's time, it's going to be quite disruptive to their — to living in Boca Chica Village. Because it'll end up needing to get cleared for safety a lot of times."

He added: "I think the actual danger to Boca Chica Village is low but is not tiny. So therefore we want super-tiny risk. Probably over time, [it's] better to buy out the villagers. And we've made an offer to that effect."

Most residents in the room at Stargate didn't learn about the Q&A or Musk's comments — the clearest yet from the company regarding the villagers' futures — until just before 11 p.m.

"We would have rather been down there or streaming. We just weren't savvy enough," said Maria Pointer, who was there with her husband, Ray.

"Everybody felt like we'd been set up," Walter Mitchell said. "We had questions we wanted to ask right there and have media exposure."

Read more: Watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's new plan for Starship, a rocket system designed to populate Mars

As some residents in the room played back streaming video of the Q&A session, agitated at having missed the remarks — and at being in their second hour of waiting for Musk — SpaceX's senior legal counsel addressed the room. She announced that Musk would arrive in about 15 to 20 minutes, noting that anyone who needed to leave could be driven home. She also opened the floor to concerns or questions to pass along.

"She invited a dialogue at that time," Stevens said of the moment. "And suddenly everyone wants to unload on her."

Residents began heatedly questioning the "non-negotiable" wording in their buyout offers. They also brought up what some described to Business Insider as an "aggressive" two-week deadline to accept the deal, as well as what seemingly everyone felt was an undervaluation of their properties.

"We all felt that deadline, and three times, and 'not negotiable' — we felt that was a threat," Walter Mitchell said.

As the complaints petered out, a few residents left. One person forgot her pain medication, and her husband followed her out. Another left from exhaustion. Silence came over the room just before Musk walked in, which was sometime around 11:20 p.m.

'Nobody knew how to talk to this guy'

Musk arrived with an entourage of about five or six people, and immediately walked up to the residents, most of whom were sitting in a small semicircle of chairs and a couch. Everyone stood up, and Musk shook their hands, then he started speaking about why SpaceX picked Boca Chica to be the company's private spaceport.

"He talked about the regulations in Florida and why it was better for them to be here rather than in Florida, because things could get done a bit faster," Mr. Pointer said.

After a few minutes of opening remarks, Musk paused and there was a brief pause.

"It was pretty awkward. Nobody knew how to talk to this guy," Mrs. Pointer said. "You could tell people were feeling excited or flattered."

But Mr. Pointer apparently broke the silence. In an interview with Business Insider, he said he wasted little time expressing to Musk how he thought the appraisals and SpaceX's buyout offer process generally was unfair.

"I said I thought it was unconscionable that we were having to see ourselves — in so many words — dispossessed with a short-notice letter and the sword of Damocles over our heads concerning eminent domain. Those aren't my exact words, but that's certainly what I wanted to get out," Mr. Pointer said. "And then the Mitchells chimed in with their feelings about that as well — similar feelings — and then everyone started going at it."

The Mitchells explained how the offer they received for their property, which the couple planned to pass down to their children, wouldn't buy them a somewhat comparable setup in nearby South Padre Island, the nearest beachside real-estate market (though a much hotter one as a popular tourist destination).

"He was very polite and listened to what we had to say on that matter," Mr. Pointer said. "He just absorbed it and waited for the next blow."

When someone brought up the "non-negotiable" issue with the buyout offer letter, Musk chimed in with an edit.

"He goes, 'It's negotiable.' And everyone goes, 'It is negotiable?'" Mrs. Pointer said. "It surprised us and floored us."

While the three-fold number was not negotiable to be fair to everyone, Musk apparently explained, SpaceX would consider new appraisals that addressed residents' concerns. Shortly after that, two residents said they asked about eminent domain and whether or not those who chose to stay would eventually be forced out for reasons of safety or convenience.

"He said that he didn't want to do that, that's not what he wanted to do," Mr. Pointer said. "But that's not an answer to the question."

Read more: SpaceX wants to buy a small Texas neighborhood. It can't force residents to move, but a nonprofit that supports the company wields that power.

Two other residents allegedly said that they "didn't mind" SpaceX's presence and inquired about staying, according to others in the room. (One of residents previously described himself to Business Insider as "the biggest SpaceX fan in Texas," so much so that he moved to Boca Chica in 2015 to retire amid the company's launch site.)

Residents brought up a community meeting SpaceX held in 2015, not too long after the company had broken ground on its launch site. According to residents, officials allegedly said the company would — during temporary launch evacuations under a previous (and now-abandoned) plan — house residents in hotels in Brownsville, about 20 miles west of Boca Chica.

Walter Mitchell made himself clear: "There are people here that want to keep their property," Mitchell said he told Musk. "I said, 'You guys said in that meeting that you would take us and put us in hotels.' I said, 'Can that work? And they can keep their property?'"

"Well, if they don't mind frequent shuttles to a hotel frequently, we could probably do that," Musk responded according to Mitchell.

Residents also brought up other grievances and needs: a request for soundproof windows, a more courteous and helpful on-site contact with the company, and more transparency from the company about its activities.

Free Teslas and selfies

After airing their complaints and feeling heard by Musk, residents told Business Insider the "heated" and "exhausting" mood of the room began to change. That shift appears to have happened when the Mitchells cracked a joke: Could Musk throw a free Tesla electric car into everyone's buyout offer?

"We started laughing, almost all of us," Stevens said, though Musk then explained that even as CEO he is required to buy his own vehicles from the company. 

From there, residents said the previously "heated" conversation shuffled between a mix of joking and technical explanations. The SpaceX fan struck up a conversation about metals used in Starship. Musk apparently also described a long-term plan to move away from land-based launch pads and instead use offshore platforms near Boca Chica Beach to fly Starship with less risk to the ground.

The above animation of SpaceX's "Earth to Earth" rapid-transportation concept revealed the concept years ago, but the company has not yet publicly mentioned it in the context of Texas.

"He mentioned that they have to take off right offshore, but they have to land somewhere, right? And you can't do that on land in the middle of Paris, I think he said," Mrs. Pointer recalled. "So you have to have offshore facilities everywhere."

As the conversation loosened up a bit more, an aide called an end to the meeting.

"He shook everyone's hand, and at the end of it, everyone took selfies," Mr. Pointer said of Musk (though he noted that he himself did not).

'I don't think we were supposed to live next to a rocket ship yard'

Residents returned home after midnight and began to soak in what had transpired.

"I don't feel like I'm on the dark side of the moon as much as I was before," Mrs. Pointer said. "I feel like they are seriously learning where all the fault lines were, where all the gaps were, where things were just falling through because they move so fast, and we don't move that fast."

Residents say SpaceX has not only extended its buyout offer deadlines, but also dispatched an appraiser to more fully evaluate their homes and consider properties in coastal areas. If those assessments come back with a more fair valuation, multiple residents who initially said they'd decline the deal told Business Insider they would reconsider selling to SpaceX.

But some residents say they still feel doubtful and pained about their futures. For instance, the Pointers have invested years of work into their Boca Chica property to make it a customized and comfortable retirement homestead. Others said rely on their properties for rental income or planned to pass them down to their kids.

"I appreciate where he's going. I understand the Mars thing — I got it — and I'm happy with everyone going forward with that. I think that's an important thing to do; he's doing a good thing, and that's fine," Mr. Pointer said. "But as far as I'm concerned — for me? — he's ruining my life and my situation out here. That being said, I just have to move on under the circumstances."

Mrs. Pointer later added: "I just don't think this is our life. I don't think we were supposed to live next to a rocket ship yard."

SpaceX did not return multiple requests comment for this story ahead of its publication.

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This story has been updated.

This week, Business Insider published the 2019 edition of its UK Tech 100 list — an annual feature celebrating 100 of the most impactful and innovative figures shaping the British technology industry. 

From budding entrepreneurs building exciting new startups in London to regulators grappling with how to keep Silicon Valley titans in check, the UK's tech scene is thriving.

We're highlighting 30 women who made the list, a rundown of the most influential women in British tech today, such as Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden, whose business goes from strength to strength, to Joanna Bryson, who has been outspoken about ethics and artificial intelligence.

The wider industry still has some work to do. As entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors, women continue to face systemic bias and sexism. Diversity VC, some of whose founders are on this list, found in 2017 that 83% all UK venture capital funding went to startups with no women on their founding teams, among other shocking statistics.

Without further ado, here are the 30 most innovative, interesting, and influential women in UK tech who are changing the narrative.

Editing by Shona Ghosh, Rob Price, and Steven Tweedie. Jake Kanter, Callum Burroughs, Shona Ghosh, and Rob Price contributed reporting.

UNITED STATES – JULY 16: David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet service, prepares to testify during the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations” on Tuesday, July 16, 2019. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Pegging Libra to just the $ could soothe regulators, a16z says

New details and documents obtained by The New York Times reveal a much closer connection between Bill Gates and the late Jeffrey Epstein than what the Microsoft founder had previously admitted. 

The Times reported that the billionaire met with the disgraced financier at least three times. Epstein also hatched a plan with JPMorgan, which never came to fruition, to use Gates' foundation money for a charitable fund. 

Gates spokeswoman Bridgitt Arnold told Business Insider in a statement that the men met "multiple times" to discuss philanthropy, but they did not socialize or attend parties together. She also said it appears that "Epstein misrepresented the nature of his meetings with Gates while also working to insert himself behind-the-scenes without Gates's knowledge."

She did not say say how many times Gates and Epstein met. 

"Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so," Arnold said. "Gates recognizes that entertaining Epstein's ideas related to philanthropy gave Epstein an undeserved platform that was at odds with Gates' personal values and the values of his foundation."

She told Business Insider in August that, while Epstein aggressively pursued a relationship with Gates, "any account of a business partnership or personal relationship between the two is categorically false."

The disgraced financier went to jail for 13 months starting in 2008 after he pled guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution from underage girls in Palm Beach, Florida. The Times reports that the two first met face-to-face in January 2011 at Epstein's Manhattan residence, and that Gates visited the townhouse at least two more times, meeting him as late as 2013.

During that first meeting on the Upper East Side in 2011, the two wealthy men were joined by Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin and her 15-year-old daughter. Dubin, who once dated Epstein, and her billionaire hedge fund manager husband Glenn Dubin maintained close social, financial and philanthropic ties with Epstein, including after he went to jail. Six sources told Business Insider that Epstein was a godfather to their oldest daughter, which the family denies.

Spokespeople for the Dubins have previously said the family spent less time with Epstein after he left jail in 2009, and if they had known about this year's allegations, they would have cut ties with him. Representatives for the Dubins declined to comment on Saturday about The Times' story.

After the meeting, Epstein emailed friends and associates to boast, writing "Bill's great" in one email reviewed by The Times. In an email Gates sent to his own colleagues the next day, he wrote, "A very attractive Swedish woman and her daughter dropped by and I ended up staying there quite late." 

A source close to Epstein told Business Insider that Epstein and Gates liked to talk about science and philanthropy together, and said their relationship preceded 2013. The source said Epstein liked to work with senior businessmen at the end of their careers, and that Epstein's dynamic personality often reminded those men of the son they wished they had, or even of themselves at a younger age. 

Gates flew on Epstein's private plane in 2013 from New Jersey to Palm Beach, according to flight logs released in connection with an Epstein-related case. Epstein has a large home in Palm Beach, and often flew friends, including the Dubins, on his plane. A spokeswoman for Gates told The Times that Gates was not aware it was Epstein's plane.  

Read more: Bill Gates made donations to MIT through Jeffrey Epstein —here are all of the tech mogul's connections to the financier

Epstein also sought to work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to The Times. He wanted to join the foundation's efforts with JPMorgan as the groups created the Global Health Investment Fund.

He also wanted to start a separate charitable fund, seeded with Gates Foundation money, to focus on global health projects. Epstein would bring in more donations, which would earn him fees potentially in the tens of millions. 

Gates' spokeswoman told The Times that the foundation was not aware of the fee, but that he "did propose to Bill Gates and then foundation officials ideas that he promised would unleash hundreds of billions for global health-related work."

Foundation employees visited his New York mansion multiple times, per The Times. Some, after learning that he was a sex offender, were wary of damaging the foundation's reputation. One team was incredulous of Epstein's claims of having access to trillions of dollars that could go in the charitable fund. 

The JPMorgan fund work never came to fruition. At least two senior Gates Foundation employees stayed in contact with Epstein until late 2017, The Times reported. 

"Over time, Gates and his team realized Epstein's capabilities and ideas were not legitimate and all contact with Epstein was discontinued," Arnold told Business Insider.