I don’t know whether it was Jerry Colonna or my therapist who recommended this to me, but I listened to David Whyte’s Midlife and the Great Unknown yesterday on my evening run.

As part of my acceptance of midlife, which I define as the transition into the stage where you know you have fewer days to live than the number of days you have already lived, I’ve been exploring a bunch of different things. One of them is poetry, which has always been extremely difficult for me to read.

So, I decided to try a combination of poetry, memoir, and reflections by David Whyte on Audible. I usually run without headphones, but I’m trying to reacclimate to the roads around my house in Boulder after spending the summer on the trails in Aspen, so I thought I’d listen to a book on tape. I’d downloaded Midlife a few months ago and it was at the top of the Audible list on my phone, so I just rolled with it.

About two miles up St. Vrain, as I was approaching the left turn on 47th, I settled into a groove where everything fell away. Whyte has a beautiful voice and I realized that listening to poetry is a lot easier for me than reading poetry. And, as I transitioned into the flow state that is a good run after the first 20 or so minutes, a smile crossed my face.

When I finished my eight miles, I was almost done with the two-hour-long Audible recording that I listened to at 1.25x speed. Amy was downstairs watching the US Open so I made my recovery smoothie, got in the hot tub, and had a wonderful half-hour phone call with my dad where we just talked about life as the sun went behind the Flatirons.

As I get comfortable with midlife, I see more poetry in my future.

As has the case at many startups that have gone public lately, insiders at Peloton will have shares that give them extra votes after its initial public offering.

But Peloton's insiders will get more votes than most — 20 for each of their shares. And, at least as things stand now, its CEO, John Foley, wouldn't be the number-one vote holder once Peloton is public.

Holders of the super-voting shares "will continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock and therefore be able to control all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval" after the IPO, Peloton advised potential shareholders in the offering paperwork it made public this week. It continued: "This concentrated control will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future."

A growing number of startups that have gone publicly lately or are about to have multi-class stock structures that provide disproportionate numbers of votes to certain insiders, typically founders, CEOs, and early investors. The structures help those insiders to retain control over the companies even after selling shares to public investors.

In general, though, the super-voting stock held by insiders usually comes with 10 votes per share. The stock held by Foley and other Peloton insiders will come with twice as many votes per share. That would allow the holders of those shares to continue to control the company with as little as a 5% combined economic stake in the company — half that needed to retain control at a firm that had shares with 10 votes per share.

Dual-class structures in general are bad for investors, because they insulate corporate managers from accountability to the people who actually own the company, said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

"Whether it's 10 [votes] or 20, it's still a structure where your control is complete over the company without the same level of economic interest," Elson said. "Twenty is simply adding insult to injury."

'Twenty is the new 10'

Although Peloton's 20-vote-per-share arrangement for insiders is unusual, it's not unprecedented. WeWork also plans to assign insiders, particularly CEO Adam Neumann, stock with 20 votes per share. Lyft and Pinterest also give certain insiders 20 votes per share.

"Twenty is the new 10," said Glenn Davis, director of research at the Council of Institutional Investors. "We're very discouraged by that."

In the tech world, dual-class structures usually are designed to empower founders and CEOs. The companies and their early backers typically argue that they allow such leaders to focus on realizing their long-term visions for their companies rather than having to be distracted by the concerns of short-term investors.

But at least as things stand now, Foley, who cofounded Peloton in addition to serving as its head, wouldn't be the primary beneficiary of its dual-class stock structure. Foley owns 15 million shares of Peloton's Class B stock, which will come with 20 votes per share. That's about 6% of the outstanding Class B shares.

Peloton director Jon Callaghan controls a larger amount as the representative of True Ventures' stake in the company. Callaghan and True Ventures own 28 million Class B shares, or about 12% of the total. Meanwhile, Tiger Global Management, whose own representative on Peloton's board resigned earlier this month after he left Tiger, owns 47 million Class B shares, or about 20% of the outstanding number.

Peloton didn't disclose in its paperwork how many shares its insiders and early investors plan to sell in its IPO. Callaghan and True Ventures did not respond to a request for comment about the venture firm's stake in the company. Scott Shleifer, a partner at Tiger Global Management, did not respond to an emailed interview request.

However, it's possible — maybe even likely — that Foley will emerge from the offering as Peloton's largest Class B shareholder and its dominant stakeholder overall. Venture capital firms frequently sell a sizeable portion of their stakes in startups in public offerings, and often continue to sell after.

"That's their mantra, they won't stay," Elson said. "And when they exit, management takes control."

Peloton's structure has a sunset provision

Peloton did throw one bone to potential investors, with regards to its dual-class structure — a sunset provision. The arrangement will go away in 10 years, when two-thirds of Class B shareholders vote to get rid of it, or when Class B shares only account for 1% of the total outstanding shares of company stock, whichever comes first.

In contrast, most of the companies that have gone public in recent years with multi-class stock structures do not have any kind of time-based sunset provision, according to data from the CII. Companies such as WeWork don't have a such a path to getting to one vote per share for all stockholders, noted CII's Davis.

"Peloton has a path," he said. "It's not as aggressive as we'd like to see, but at least it's a path."

But Peloton could renege on that sunset provision, Elson said. And even if it doesn't, things could happen at the company well before then that would make investors want to wrest control from Foley and other insiders.

"What happens if in five years you have a managerial disaster?" Elson said. "Ten years is a long time. It's very investor unfriendly no matter how you look at it."

Indeed, even before going public, Peloton acknowledged in its filing that it has flaws in its internal controls, processes companies put in place to ensure the accuracy of their financial reports and prevent fraud. There's no suggestion than anything nefarious has happened at the company, but the shortcomings raise the risk that something could have or might in the future, accounting experts have said.

Read this: In its IPO documents, Peloton warned it's got some particular shortcomings as a business that could lead to fraud or financial restatement

While many public investors frown on multi-class structures, they've become more common. According to recent data from CII, at the end of June, there were 255 US public companies with a market capitalization of at least $200 million that had dual- or multi-class stock structures that gave certain shares disproportionate voting rights. Of those, more than a third went public after 2013, and more than half went public after 2005.

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Jeffrey Epstein may have been involved in the epicenter of yet another financial powerhouse: Silicon Valley venture capital.

After revelations that Epstein helped fund an investment firm led by MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito, speculation has grown about whether Epstein — the now-deceased financier charged with sex trafficking — may have had more extensive ties to the VC industry at the heart of Silicon Valley's booming tech economy.

The possibility that Epstein invested his money as a so-called Limited Partner in the gilded venture capital firms that fund and advise tech startups would represent an embarrassing, and potentially problematic development, for any firms involved.

Business Insider contacted 34 of the top venture capital firms in the tech industry to ask whether or not Epstein had ever been a limited partner, or investor, in any of the firms or whether he had worked with the firms in a personal or professional capacity at any point.

Of the 34 VC firms, 27 confirmed that Epstein had no direct involvement.

These are the firms, representing some of the most prominent names in venture capital, that said they have no direct involvement with Epstein: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Baseline Ventures, Battery Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, CRV, DFJ Growth, Day One Ventures, FirstMark Capital, First Round Capital, Forerunner Ventures, GGV Capital, Greylock, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, L Catterton, Lightspeed Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Menlo Ventures, NEA, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, TCV, True Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, and Union Square Ventures.

Read More:'I've suffered and he has won': More than 20 of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers gave emotional testimonies in court as prosecutors moved to shut down his case

Several firms, however, did not respond to Business Insider's multiple requests for comment or confirmation. The VC firms that would not respond to requests for information about Epstein are: Felicis Ventures, Floodgate, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, IVP, Softbank, and Venrock.

Not a single VC firms that Business Insider reached out to has said that Epstein was a limited partner.

However, even for those VC firms that disavowed any direct involvement with Epstein, it's not yet possible to rule out the possibility that he was invested in the firms. That's because many of the limited partners in VC firms are not specific named individuals, but rather a family office, a "fund of funds," and other types of wealth funds not legally required to disclose whose money they manage.

So, unless someone working at a VC firm had reason to be cautious of one of those investors and had asked for more details, it is unlikely they would know if any of the money in their funds came from Epstein.

Epstein was charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. He was found dead by apparent suicide on August 10 in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after being refused bail.

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Tesla vehicles are, in some cases, more expensive to insure than competing vehicles, a problem the electric-car maker has tried to address by introducing an insurance product, Tesla Insurance, for California customers on Wednesday.

Tesla said the program is designed to give its customers a discount of up to 30% due to the company's more sophisticated understanding of its vehicles' technology, safety features, and repair costs.

Consumers often buy multiple kinds of insurance or insurance for multiple vehicles at once to get a bulk discount, said Maryann Keller, the principal at the automotive consulting firm MK&A. "A very high percentage of Tesla owners have another car, and this insurance will not cover the other car if it's a brand other than Tesla," Keller said, asking: "In the grand scheme of their overall insurance planning, is this going to be worthwhile?

While it is not possible to insure a Tesla vehicle and a non-Tesla vehicle together on the same Tesla insurance policy. The company says it can help customers place their non-Tesla vehicles with another provider.

It remains to be seen whether many customers who choose to insure two or more Tesla vehicles will see savings that are comparable to a similar multi-vehicle discount with another insurance carrier.

Read more: Elon Musk says humans communicate so slowly with computers that it will sound like whale speech to future AI

The information Tesla initially offered about its insurance product left some questions unanswered, like whether Tesla would underwrite the product itself or serve as a broker for an insurance company that would collect premiums and pay out benefits.

A Tesla spokesperson told Business Insider on Thursday night that the automaker is working with other companies in the insurance industry, and plans to become a full-fledged insurance carrier in the future.

Publicly available documents from the California Department of Insurance show Tesla is working with at least two insurance providers: State National Insurance Company, headquartered in Bedford, Texas, and Liberty Mutual, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Tesla's state of California insurance license lists the automaker as a property-broker agent and a casualty-broker agent. The documents show the license has been active since August 2017.

Like the auto industry, insurance is a low-margin business, as increased competition has made the costs of acquiring customers more expensive, Krzysztof Kujawa, the chief product officer at the insurance-shopping website Gabi, said. That means Tesla Insurance may not be a profit-generator for a company that has posted losses in all but four quarters since going public in 2010.

But earning a profit on a standalone basis may not be the objective of Tesla Insurance, Kujawa said. Tesla may instead see the product as a marketing tool designed to boost vehicle sales by addressing the perception that Tesla vehicles require higher-than-normal insurance costs.

"I think that issue is more important than ever," Kujawa said.

While customers of Tesla's high-end Model S and Model X SUV — which start at around $80,000 — may not be worried about higher insurance costs, that isn't necessarily the case for customers of the Model 3 sedan, which starts at around $39,000. And affordability could become an even bigger concern in the future, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk's intention is for the company to become a mass-market automaker that sells millions of vehicles each year.

Tesla briefly removed the option to get a policy quote from its website hours after the product was announced on Wednesday. The company said internal errors were impacting rates quoted to some customers. That functionality came back online as of Thursday night.

This story has been updated.

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The Lambda School, an online coding bootcamp with an unusual business model, has been fined $75,000 by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education for not complying with state regulations.

In short: It didn't register with the bureau, which is under the Department of Consumer Affairs and oversees the private higher education market in the state of California. Its mandate is to guard against so-called diploma mills — fradulent colleges and universities that award degrees to paying students, with little or no academic effort on their part.

"We're in close contact with BPPE and it should all be resolved pretty soon," Lambda School CEO and co-founder Austen Allred told Business Insider. He said that it's in the process of getting its registration in order and that it's agreed to pay the fine after recieving the citation in July,

"Because we're talking with BPPE, it doesn't affect students at all," he said.

The Lambda School, which launched out of the Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator and has raised over $48 million from investors including GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Ashton Kutcher, has won attention for how it charges students - or, more properly, for how it doesn't.

It's free for students, but after they find a tech job, Lambda takes a cut of their salary for two years. This income share agreement model that it pioneered has proven popular in Silicon Valley, with several new startups adapting it for their own businesses.

However, according to the citation, the issue is that Lambda School also offers the option for students to pay $20,000 for tuition, which, in the bureau's view, means that it should have registered with the BPPE.

The citation requires that Lambda School stop recruiting or enrolling students, disconnect its phone numbers, and cease instructional services and advertising. Allred says that since the school is now working with the BPPE, the order has been stayed while its application is pending.

"We're happy to be regulated," Allred said. "We're happy to work with regulators. We're not trying to be one of those companies that avoids regulation. It makes a lot of sense when schools are regulated when they charge tuition so we're happy to comply."

Allred says that Lambda School's previous counsel told him that it did not need to register with the BPPE, but this was a mistake. The Lambda School has recently hired a new general counsel.

"We were told it doesn't apply to us because we didn't have physical classrooms, and if we don't have physical classrooms, we don't need to register in California," Allred said.

Matt Woodcheke, public information officer with California's Department of Consumer Affairs, confirmed that Lambda School's application is now under review, and he said that the review process involves looking at the quality of education being provided, as well as the finances of the school to make sure it's in a "stable operating position."

Now that Lambda School is undergoing the registration process, Allred says he expects that the entire process will take about six months before it's all sorted. He says, again, that the company isn't eager to pick a fight with educational authorities over this matter, and that he respects the bureau's position.

Read more: This online coding school started in Silicon Valley's hottest startup incubator is completely free for students until they find a job

"I want to reiterate that as frustrating it can be for a young school to have to be registered in the state, I totally understand why it exists," Allred said. "Nobody at Lambda School is like, we should be able to run free and do what we want. It's difficult to comply with, but we're happy to do so."

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OtterBox, a brand most associated with rugged cases for phones and other personal technology, has just reimagined wireless charging, and it's going to make my life, for one, much more seamless.

The OtterSpot Wireless Charging System comes with one main charger meant to be plugged in — be careful not to take this one out with you as it needs to be wired to work — and one Wireless Charging Pad, which you can grab and take off with like any power bank, sans wires. As always, the fewer wires you need in your life, the better.

Specs

The 36 watt power base charges up to three Wireless Charging Pads and one Qi-wireless-enabled device all at once, and the pads themselves, which pack 5,000 mAh (milliampere hours) batteries can fast-charge phones at 10 watts. An iPhone, for reference, has a 1,900 mAh battery, and accounting for omnipresent inefficiencies, can be charged almost twice on one fully charged OtterBox pad. For the record, I found this to be about right in my experience, but do yourself a favor and let Sciencing explain milliampere hours over me, which would be a headache for you and me both.

At 2/3 inch thick and 4 1/2 inches in diameter, the Wireless Charging Pads are pretty slimline and packable. An anti-slip synthetic rubber surface keeps your device in place while charging (yes, even when it vibrates), and the polycarbonate body is good and sturdy (read more about that below).

And when your device is done charging, the whole charging pad shuts off rather than overcharge (and burn up) both its battery and your phone's.

First impressions

iPhones, Apple Watches, and wireless headphones all work with the Qi Wireless Charging Pads. Owen Burke/Business Insider

Anything you might charge wirelessly should do so flawlessly with the Wireless Charging Pads. Even with a thick waterproof case like my LifeProof, I've had no trouble.

These Wireless Charging Pads which you can purchase separately ($49.95 for one, $89.95 for two) stack neatly like coasters, and if you happen to stray too far from your charger with one, you can simply plug it in using the USB-C-to-USB cable that comes along with it. You'll just need to find a USB charging port or brick.

OtterBox claims these puppies are durable, and they're not wrong. I repeatedly dropped them onto a poured cement floor up to shoulder height (about 5 feet) and produced not so much as a scratch. Yes, it still works: I'm charging my iPhone on the very device I just repeatedly flung at the office floor.

Otherwise, there's not much to these things, which is precisely the idea. They're easy to use — just make sure to align the brass pins to the respective connections on the underside of each charging pad, and the four LED lights on the front let you know when they're fully charged.

Final thoughts

If you still really want to live in a tangled-up world, you can still do that with the OtterSpot, too. Owen Burke/Business Insider

If you're someone who's constantly misplacing or destroying cables, the OtterSpot Wireless Charging System is for you. If you're just plain sick of the clutter of cables, be it the unsightliness or the frustrations in their constant tangling, this thing is for you, too.

Pros: declutters your house (and life), durable and portable charging pads, simultaneous charging of three pads and one device

Cons: not cheap (but neither is replacing cables, or buying enough of them in the first place)

Buy the OtterSpot Wireless Charging System from OtterBox for $129.95

Buy multiple OtterBox Wireless Charging Pads from OtterBox for $49.95 for one or $89.95 for two

Buy the OtterSpot Wireless Charging Base alone from OtterBox for $69.95

The vibrate feature on the iPhone is one of the best ways to receive notifications when your device is on silent or simply to add an extra element to get your attention when you have an incoming call, message, or email.

Luckily, it's also possible to utilize this feature on your Apple Watch with a few quick tweaks to the settings.

While Apple Watch does offer a small amount of haptic feedback by default, it's possible to increase the intensity of those vibrations via the device's Settings app.

Doing so is quick and easy and will ensure you never miss an important notification even when you're not looking at your phone.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone Xs (From $999.99 at Best Buy)

Apple Watch Series 4 (From $399 at Best Buy)

How to make your Apple Watch vibrate

1. On your Apple Watch, press the digital crown on the right-hand side of the device to access the home screen.

2. Tap the Settings app icon, which appears as a small silver cog.

3. Scroll down until you find the Sounds & Haptics menu and tap to open.

Press Sounds & Haptics on your Apple Watch. Jennifer Still/Business Insider

4. Under the Haptics header, make sure the slider next to Haptic Alerts is green, indicating the feature is active.

5. Select the Prominent option just beneath it to increase the haptic feedback on your Apple Watch. The watch will then give you an example of the increased settings by vibrating as you change the option.

Make sure Haptic Alerts is green and Prominent is checked. Jennifer Still/Business Insider

How to make your Apple Watch vibrate from your iPhone

You can also change the haptics on your Apple Watch via your iPhone.

1. On your iPhone's home screen, tap the Watch app icon to open it.

2. Tap the My Watch option on the menu bar that runs along the bottom of the screen.

3. Tap the Sounds & Haptics option. Then, under the Haptics header, ensure the alerts are set to Prominent. You will know this is active because a check mark will appear to the right of the option.

Tap Prominent so it is checked. Jennifer Still/Business Insider

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Johannes Eisele/Contributor/Getty The healthcare industry has been notoriously resistant to change, but its transformation at the hands of digitization has recently picked up pace. With that shift, nontraditional players are starting to see new openings to establish a presence in the lucrative industry. One area where these firms are stepping in is transportation.

Access to affordable and convenient transportation heavily impacts public health — transportation issues cost the US health system around $150 billion annually — so improving the process for patients has become more of a priority for the healthcare industry. Tech-facing mobility companies like Uber and Lyft have seen this as an opportunity to leverage their reach and advanced technical capabilities to help get patients to appointments and, in turn, tap into a multibillion-dollar nonemergency medical transport (NEMT) market.

However, the opportunity in healthcare transportation isn't limited to new mobility challengers. Legacy automakers should also consider entering the space as they continue their shift toward service-based business models in response to global declines in auto ownership. One company that's already doing this is Detroit-based Ford Motors, which introduced an on-demand NEMT service, dubbed GoRide, in 2018. GoRide provides patients with rides using its fleet of wheelchair-accessible vans.

But entering a space as complicated and heavily regulated as healthcare doesn't come without challenges. To take full advantage of the lucrative industry, transportation firms will have to navigate the complex regulatory landscape, make patient privacy a top priority, and meet a wide array of patient needs, such as having to travel with a wheelchair.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence discusses the forces that are opening opportunities for transportation companies in healthcare, the value that can be gained from entering the space, and what hurdles they must overcome to become go-to service providers. We look at interviews with executives at Lyft, Uber, and Ford to unpack their companies' services, identify best practices, and determine what opportunities may lie ahead.

The companies mentioned in this report are:Advocate Health Care,American Logistics Corporation, Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute, CareMore, Change Healthcare, Ford, General Motors, Lyft, MedStar Health, and Uber.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

In full, the report:

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access: