Jul
19

Amazon reportedly had a 300-person conference call to deal with the Prime Day glitches (AMZN)

Zoom, the only profitable unicorn in line to go public, priced its initial public offering at between $28 and $32 per share Monday morning. The video conferencing business plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ZM.”

Zoom, valued at $1 billion in 2017, initially filed to go public in March. According to its amended IPO filing, the company will raise up to $348.1 million by selling 10.9 million Class A shares. The offering will grant Zoom a fully diluted market value of $8.7 billion, a more than 8x increase to its latest private market valuation.

Although the company has garnered praise for its stellar financials — Zoom posted $330 million in revenue in the year ending January 31, 2019, a remarkable 2x increase year-over-year, with a gross profit of $269.5 million — the road to IPO hasn’t been without hiccups.

The company’s founder and chief executive officer Eric Yuan last night published an open letter concerning the conduct of Zoom’s chief financial officer Kelly Steckelberg. According to the letter, Zoom was recently informed by an anonymous source that Steckelberg had an “undisclosed, consensual relationship” during her tenure at a previous employer.

Steckelberg was most recently the CEO of the online dating site Zoosk; before that, she was a senior director in consumer finance at Cisco . The letter does not specify where the relationship took place, when or with whom.

Losing a CFO mere days before an IPO would have been a major loss for Zoom. CFOs often become the face of the IPO, handling the grueling tasks associated with crafting an IPO prospectus, leading the roadshow and more, while also maintaining day-to-day financial operations.

Yuan writes that the Zoom’s board of directors conducted a full investigation into the matter and determined that Steckelberg would stay on as Zoom’s CFO: “Kelly expressed regret for what transpired at her former employer, took ownership for the situation, and made clear to us that she had learned valuable lessons from the experience,” he wrote.

“We appreciated Kelly’s openness and candor during this process,” he continued. “It is clear that this matter related only to circumstances at her former employer. During Kelly’s tenure at Zoom, she has been an incredible contributor, as well as a model steward of our culture, values, and high standards since joining the Company.”

We reached out to Zoosk for comment. Zoom declined to comment further.

Zoom, expected to make the final call on its IPO price next Wednesday, will likely price at the top of the range and see a clean pop on its first day on the markets given its clean track record and positive financials. The business was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, an early engineer at WebEx, which sold to Cisco for $3.2 billion in 2007. Before launching Zoom, he spent four years at Cisco as its vice president of engineering.

Zoom has raised $145 million to date from investors, including Emergence Capital, which owns a 12.2 percent pre-IPO stake; Sequoia Capital (11.1 percent pre-IPO stake); Digital Mobile Venture (8.5 percent), a fund affiliated with former Zoom board member Samuel Chen; and Bucantini Enterprises Limited (5.9 percent), a fund owned by Li Ka-shing, a Chinese billionaire and among the richest people in the world.

Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are leading its offering.

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Apr
08

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Matt Holleran of Cloud Apps Capital Partners (Part 1) - Sramana Mitra

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Matt Holleran as recorded in February 2019. Matt...

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Original author: Sramana Mitra

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Apr
08

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Arihant Patni of Ideaspring Capital (Part 1) - Sramana Mitra

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Arihant Patni as recorded in February 2019. Arihant...

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Original author: Sramana Mitra

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Apr
08

438th Roundtable Recording on April 4, 2019 - Sramana Mitra

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

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Original author: Maureen Kelly

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Apr
08

184th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Bill Bice, Verge Fund - Sramana Mitra

Bill Bice, Partner at Verge Fund, discusses New Mexico’s startup ecosystem and his fund’s activities in that region.

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Original author: Sramana Mitra

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Jul
04

ISAI closes new $175 million fund

According to Market Research Future, the Indian online food ordering market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.2% to $17.02 billion by 2023 driven by the rising number of logistics providers. A...

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Original author: Sramana_Mitra

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Apr
07

Catching Up On Readings: Q1 Startup Funding - Sramana Mitra

This feature from TechCrunch looks at the trends in funding of startups in the first quarter of 2019. US startups raised $30.8 billion in the quarter, up 22%. For this week’s posts, click on the...

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Original author: jyotsna popuri

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Apr
07

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (Part 6) - Sramana Mitra

Sramana Mitra: Where do you see the blitz scale style of the businesses being the most successful? This is acknowledging the fact that you’re not going after that model. You have stated clearly...

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Original author: Sheldon Chi

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Apr
06

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (Part 5) - Sramana Mitra

Rebecca Kaden: One of the great things that I really love about entrepreneurship and company building and being an early stage investor is, there’s definitely no one way to build a company....

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Original author: Sramana Mitra

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Aug
15

4 ways to build ESG business value with satellite data 

It's hard to argue with Acuras. My colleague Ben Zhang and I can certainly find things to pick on, such as the awkward two-screen infotainment system. But when we got down to the important stuff, the Acura MDX Sport Hybrid delivered a fantastic payoff. Some car companies simply build a fine automobile that checks off all the boxes.

Acura adds luxury to Honda's already stupendous engineering and quality. It isn't Mercedes-level luxury, but it's about what you see in BMW and Audi. In my experience, Acura can't quite match BMW for driving dynamics, and Audi offers some snazzier tech. But those brands cost more, and it's not always clear it's worth the extra scratch, given how well-executed Acuras are.

Driving the MDX Sport Hybrid ranges from relaxing to invigorating, depending on how you've managed the settings. Ben was particularly impressed with the buttery smooth power delivery, something we'd already experienced with the NSX supercar. I like the steering, which combined gentleness at low speeds with precision at higher velocities.

The MDX Sport Hybrid is brisk off the line, and in corners, it exhibits a refreshing lack of body away. It isn't a sports car, but the "Sport" in the name isn't a ruse. You can have some fun with it.

Otherwise, the vehicle is an ideal suburban family hauler that won't make parents feel like minivan-piloting schlubs if they want to enjoy date-night at an establishment with a valet line. For an oomphy V6, the hybridized MDX drivetrain yields decent fuel economy numbers without sacrificing performance: 26 mpg city/27 highway/27 combined. And the MDX is crammed with driver-assist technologies and safety features, under the "AcuraWatch" banner.

The upshot here is that the 2019 Acura MDX Sport Hybrid is well-priced, offers good fuel-economy, and won't bore you behind the wheel. At $60,000 well-equipped, it's a bit pricey, but you're getting a lot of car for the money (and Acuras tend to hold up over the long term).

It's the thinking person's mid-size, three-row luxury crossover.

Original author: Matthew DeBord

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Aug
15

Google Stadia is expanding to support new regions

After years of investing in harmon.ie, VCs started pushing the company to find and acquirer and sell itself. Instead, the harmon.ie leadership rewrote its story and bought out the VCs.

harmon.ie, which creates collaboration tools that classify emails and documents by topic, was previously backed by various VC firms, including Catalyst Investments. But as its biggest VC's fund neared the end of its lifespan — the time period where the VC is expected to exit from the fund's investments and return profits to the fund's limited-partner investors — the VCs started pushing harmon.ie to sell itself. The VCs had already pushed back that intended exit date once and didn't want to do it again for the startup.

"They didn't see a longer term view of the company," harmon.ie co-founder and CEO Yaacov Cohen told Business Insider. "They were already pressed by time to get rid of it."

But harmon.ie had its own vision and the management felt the timing wasn't right for an exit.

Cohen says that the VC had a seven-year lifecycle, but building a successful software as a service business can take longer than that. The pressure made him conclude that the VC model is driven by an "exit obsession" and he was over it.

He wanted to focus on satisfying his company's customers, not its VCs.

The VC model is "very time driven," Cohen said. "I think in today's environment, it's not the right model. Having the management buying the company creates commitment from employees within the company where we are really dedicated to what the customers are doing."

"I didn't like being run by moody VCs"

As the pressure from VCs mounted, harmon.ie reached out to various banks to put together an offer to buy out the company. Finally, one local bank agreed to a loan big enough to cover 75% of the acquisition costs, while the management team chipped in the remaining 25%. This deal closed at the end of September.

They also sweetened the pot to the bank by offering the bank stock warrants at the acquisition price. Warrants are options to buy the stock. So if the company does well and its value grows, the bank can get in the profits. With these warrants, the bank essentially owns 18% of the company, but in a non-voting way.

The rest of the company is owned by employees and management. And they added Yoram Yaacovi, a former general manager at Microsoft, as a board member. And recently, the management team announced the buyout to the company, distributing 25% of the company to employees.

However, this transaction had plenty of challenges, Cohen says. The management team had to negotiate with the shareholders that the price they were offering was as good or better than what they would have gotten had they found an outside buyer.

"Obviously, they would rather have one of the big guys acquire the company, so we had to come up with a valuation. That was a long and complex negotiation," Cohen said.

The management team also had to convince the bank that their money was not at risk.

The team was able to show them that harmon.ie is a sustainable recurring business because of its revenue, its customers, and its retention rate.

"It was a lot of very hard work and a lot of very tense moments," Cohen said.

What's more, Cohen says he had to dip into his pension account and savings to chip in to buy the company.

And before he spent his life savings and retirement money on the company, he took time off to do some soul searching: should he really buy the company? Or sell it to someone else, take the cash and move on.

He realized what he wanted in life was to continue working at this company that he loved and he valued independence.

Read more:Six Strategies For Escaping From The Work That Always Manages To Find You

"We are taking a significant risk. I have talked to my family about it and we didn't take it lightly," Cohen said. "I don't want to be dependent on VC's, who are always changing mood dependent on their last investment. I didn't like being run by moody VCs, and I liked the independence of the company."

"More excited to go to work"

Cohen believes the risk is worth it. Employees have a longer term view of the company, and customers can see that, he says.

harmon.ie co-founder and CEO Yaacov Cohen harmon.ie

That being said, the leadership team now has debt on the books that it has to pay.

That's making it be more responsibility in managing the business, being aware of expenses, efficiently using resources, building a team and hitting goals. The company also communicates its financials and goals to employees, who are also shareholders.

Harmon.ie also now has a four year business plan, and Cohen believes that within that time period, it can get a tenfold return on its initial investment. Another goal is to grow 30% year over year. In four years, harmon.ie may look into an exit, but that's not its main goal, Cohen says.

Cohen also said that buying out the VCs might not work for everyone. It only works if the company has a clear business model and a competitive product offering.

But, he adds, the VC model isn't right for everyone either.

"Other companies look at the VC models as a default," Cohen said. "In some situations, you're better off running your company cash positive and finding yourself having more independence, making more rational decisions, and decisions that are not based on VC perception."

Now that employees own the company, they're taking responsibility, too. And this buyout will help with retaining employees, he believes, because they're more excited to work for a company they own, Cohen says.

And although the bank owns about 20% of the company, harmon.ie is still more independent, Cohen says, and a bank won't hound the company or try to make decisions for the company the way VCs might.

"I'm much more excited to go to work, and that's the same with the management team," Cohen said. "At the same time, we see a potential reward because we're investing in technology, we're investing in AI. We have a board with a high quality board looking at a four-year vision of the company so it's a lot more exciting to work for a company like that."

Original author: Rosalie Chan

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Jul
05

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bruce Cleveland of Wildcat Venture Partners (Part 4) - Sramana Mitra

For millions of programmers and IT professionals worldwide, Atlassian's products are a major part of how their work gets done. So much so, in fact, that Joel Fishbein of BTIG Research recently advised his clients that Atlassian is so integral to customers' working lives, it could probably raise prices without complaint.

Atlassian's first-ever product is still its biggest: Jira, first released in 2002. It has become the standard way for software teams to track their progress as they develop new features and squash bugs. In the years since, the portfolio has expanded into products like the make-your-own-Wikipedia tool Confluence and code-sharing service BitBucket.

The company has always held that its very reason for being is teamwork: All of its tools help people work together, one way or another. Indeed, when Atlassian went public in 2015 — making cofounders and co-CEOs Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes into Australia's first tech billionaires — it chose to list under the ticker symbol TEAM.

Now, the $26 billion company is in the middle of a transition, doubling down on products for software teams while trying to broaden its appeal to other workers.

To that end, it's been pitching a product called Jira Core at non-tech workers and making acquisitions like the popular productivity app Trello.

Atlassian went public in December 2015. Atlassian

Atlassian wants to go after every team, in every industry — a theme you can expect to hear more about at its annual Atlassian Summit in Las Vegas, starting on Tuesday.

"For us, it's that journey from solving one particular very, very, very, important use-case that's been more and more important over the years, through to using that to be a jumping ground ... for us to do more," Farquhar tells Business Insider.

Cannon-Brookes says that Atlassian has been laying the groundwork for this shift since the beginning.

To his mind, the original success of Jira is that it focused more on helping improve the dynamics of a software team, regardless of what technology they were using to build their products. That philosophy gives Atlassian a strong foundation go after other types of teams, too.

"That was a really smart decision of ours," Cannon-Brookes says. "Not sure we fully processed it at the time, but that was a pivotal, pivotal difference."

No Bulls--t

Atlassian does things differently than most of its peers. Atlassian famously employs no traditional sales force; rather, it relies on word-of-mouth and customers coming straight to its website for the vast majority of its business. It's also well known for its very plain-spoken corporate values, displayed prominently at most of its offices, including "pen company, no bulls--t," and "don't f--k the customer."

Read:We visited the new San Francisco office of $19 billion Atlassian, where every little detail is designed to help people work together

These values guide the way Atlassian does business, say the cofounders: Atlassian told employees about its IPO, including the planned date, nine months before it actually happened.

Atlassian recently opened this swanky new office in San Francisco. The flags hanging from the ceiling represent the company's values — the teal flag represents "don't f--k the customer." Katie Canales/Business Insider

In some ways, Cannon-Brookes says, it was a test of whether or not those principles would stand up to the rigors of being a growing, public company. If the date leaked, it would have been a big hole in Atlassian's big bet that openness is the future of work.

"If we want to keep being open, we're going to have to be able to keep things like this inside the building, and we did," says Cannon-Brookes. "And we've continued to be a very open company about a whole lot of things, as we've had to make lots of different choices that come with being a growth company."

Open by default

That kind of openness translates into key product decisions from Atlassian, say the cofounders.

Farquhar contrasts Atlassian's approach to the likes of Google Docs: When you create a new file in most services, it's only visible to you by default, and you can choose to add other people as collaborators. But in Atlassian's products, creating a new Jira ticket or Confluence page is visible to the whole team by default, and you choose to lock it down.

It's reflective of where Atlassian sees the puck moving in the way decisions get made at large companies. Farquhar says that as younger people especially join the workforce, they're rejecting the traditional "command and control" managerial structure, where the top layers of management issue edicts to those lower on the org chart.

"That's not the way companies work today," says Farquhar. "It's more of a network approach where decisions are made at all levels, information gets passed to all levels, and you need to be open and transparent."

Farquhar says there's an additional benefit to being open about its values, too: It helps Atlassian find workers who are comfortable working in collaboration while turning away those who aren't. This includes what he describes as "genius a---holes' who believe themselves too good for this approach to teamwork.

"If you're not collaborative, you're not going to work out," he continued.

What's next

Love it or hate it, there's no denying the influence of Jira. The cofounders credit the product with helping shepherd in the era of so-called "agile development," a process now standard across most of the industry for building software faster.

Atlassian has doubled down on this strategy: Recently, it acquired startups including Opsgenie and AgileCraft, in a play to appeal further to software developers with tools for responding to IT service outages and plan software projects, respectively. It's also recently revamped Jira significantly, in a bid to address user complaints that it had grown somewhat staid with age.

Read: $20 billion Atlassian explains why it's blowing up its oldest product to evolve with today's software teams

However, it's also worked to go beyond those origins by expanding Jira to appeal to more types of teams, while betting on Trello as a simpler, more lightweight way to plan projects, that even many consumers appreciate.

The bigger picture, says Farquhar, is that it's a time of digital transformation, when every company is turning to tech for competitive advantage over their rivals. At the same time, programmers themselves have become a tactical advantage, as so many companies turn to building their own software to stay relevant.

And so, Atlassian's experience with software teams in particular, and teamwork in general, becomes a real asset, Farquhar says. In fact, he wonders what took the world so long to realize that software is the secret sauce capable of changing the world.

"I don't think we've ever not believed that software is going be a big part of industry," says Farquhar. "You know, it's actually surprising that it's now front of mind whereas it should have in front of mind 10 to 15 years ago."

Jira recently got a visual refresh to match the times. Atlassian

There are other advantages, as well, says Cannon-Brookes. Tools like Atlassian's are a boon for the increasing number of companies hiring remote workers, freelancers, and other specialized experts from all over the world. Tools like Jira, Bitbucket, and Trello help keep everyone on the same page, no matter where in the world they are.

"There's a reason companies are choosing to do that — they can get a lot of great talent from a lot of different places in the world, and a lot of different capabilities," says Cannon-Brookes. "But that's increasingly, I think, a challenge for companies that are used to working very hierarchically."

Atlassian isn't the only company trying to tackle these problems, by any means. Microsoft has enhanced its Office 365 suite to include several features that do at least some of what Jira does, and recently purchased GitHub, Bitbucket's largest single competitor, for $7.5 billion. On the smaller side, startups like Airtable and Clubhouse have tried providing their own take on Jira's core software-project planning features.

Cannon-Brookes says that Atlassian pays attention to its competitors, but would rather not be defined by reacting to what they do. Instead, he says, he'd prefer that Atlassian stays focused on what customers need.

"We've always tried to think of competitors after customers just because I find putting it in reverse is a really hard direction," says Cannon-Brookes.

Original author: Matt Weinberger

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Jul
05

405th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting In 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M - Sramana Mitra

At first glance, the four-legged creature above might seem like an otter or a platypus. But in fact, it's an ancient, 13-foot-long whale that lived 42.6 million years ago.

In a new study published in the journal Current Biology, paleontologists have documented their discovery of this whale ancestor, whose skeleton was unearthed in Peru in 2011.

Named Peregocetus pacificus, which means "the traveling whale that reached the Pacific" in Latin, this recent finding is upending scientists' understanding of how these creatures evolved and spread around the world millions of years ago.

"This is the first indisputable record of a quadrupedal whale skeleton for the whole Pacific Ocean," study co-author Olivier Lambert said in a press release.

This ancient whale could walk and swim

Peregocetus had four legs, with small hooves of the tips of its fingers and toes. That adaption, along with the orientation of its hip and leg bones, suggests this whale ancestor could maneuver on land.

Its tail and webbed feet, however, indicate that Peregocetus could swim well, too, much in the same way modern-day otters do. So Lambert and his colleagues categorized the creature as amphibious (meaning it lived partially in water and partially on land).

But that doesn't mean the animal was good at walking, and "certainly not at running," according to the Los Angeles Times. It likely ate in the water and only took to solid ground for activities like breeding and giving birth, Lambert told the LA Times.

Excavation of the skeleton of Peregocetus in Playa Media Luna. C. de Muizon

Paleontologists uncovered the animal's bones just inland of Peru's western coast at a site called Playa Media Luna, a three-hour drive south of Lima.

They excavated the whale's tail vertebrae, jaw bones, some of its spine, and its front and hind limbs. The animal's skeleton suggests it was just over 13 feet long, and there's evidence it had a pronounced snout filled with sharp teeth for chomping on fish.

Peregocetus' tail bones appear similar to those of beavers and otters, suggesting that the limb played a large role in swimming, the authors wrote. Unfortunately, the bones from the tip of Peregocetus' tail were missing, so the researchers weren't able to determine whether it had a well-developed tail fluke (like modern whales have) to help propel it through the water.

The left half of Peregocetus's left mandible. O. Lambert

Whales' new evolutionary story

Scientists agree that today's massive, flippered whales evolved from small, four-legged ancestors in south Asia more than 50 million years ago. Fossils from one of the oldest quadrupedal whales that lived 53 million years ago were discovered in India.

The ancient creatures likely migrated west from Asia to Africa, and then swam across the Atlantic until they hit the shores of the Americas.

Until now, paleontologists thought these ancient whales had only made it to North America, and hadn't strayed south.

This is the first time a whale ancestor with four legs has been found in South America. And according to the study authors, Peregocetus might also be the oldest quadrupedal whale found in the Americas.

Whale ancestors with four legs are ample in the North American fossil record. Researchers found a 41.2 million-year-old whale ancestor off the shores of South Carolina in 2014. This led scientists to hypothesize that amphibious whales likely reached North America after leaving Africa's western shores.

But discovery of Peregocetus — which is 1.4 million years older than the South Carolina fossil — in Peru suggests that the animal may actually have arrived in South America before spreading to North America.

Read More: This ancient sea creature had 18 tentacles that funneled food into its gaping mouth — and it may be the ancestor of an even creepier ocean animal

Schematic drawings depict the skeleton of Peregocetus in walking and swimming stance. Solid lines indicate the main preserved bones, while dotted lines indicate reconstructed parts. O. Lambert

So the study authors suggest that, contrary to previous ideas, Peregocetus and other whale ancestors likely traveled from Africa to South America. The distance between those was far smaller during the era in which Peregocetus lived — a period called the middle Eocene — than it is today. At the time, the distance between South America and Africa was about half of what it is today.

During the Eocene, North and South America were also separated by ocean, which created a channel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. So the researchers now think that four-legged whales sliced through this gap between the Americas, then traveled north.

Original author: Aylin Woodward

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Apr
06

Here's why investors shouldn't be too worried about MacKenzie Bezos becoming one of Amazon's largest individual shareholders (AMZN)

Don't expect MacKenzie Bezos to go on a selling spree after her divorce from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is finalized.

Nearly all of MacKenzie's newly independent wealth will be likely be tied up in the Amazon shares she will get as part of the divorce settlement, making her one of the comapny's largest individual shareholders. A regulatory document Amazon filed concerning the divorce agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that the settlement itself places no restrictions on her ability to sell her shares in the open market.

This could, in theory, have some serious ramifications for Amazon investors: While MacKenzie Bezos is granting Jeff Bezos voting control over her block of Amazon stock as part of the divorce agreement, it raises the possibility that she could try to sell off her stake in a move to liquidate her assets — a manuever that would almost certainly have an adverse affect on the stock price.

But practical considerations and potentially some legal limits will likely prevent or discourage her from selling off her stake in huge chunks, securities law experts told Business Insider.

One practical consideration is the sheer size of MacKenzie's stake. After a Washington court finalizes her divorce from Jeff, which should happen in about three months, she will hold around 19.7 million shares of Amazon's stock, or around 4% of its outstanding stock — an allotment that's worth around $35.7 billion.

But MacKenzie could easily undercut the value of her shares and any amount she saw from selling them were she to sell off a sizeable portion. About 5 million shares of Amazon are bought and sold daily. Even if she sold just 5% of her stake, that would involve moving nearly a millions shares, or about 20% of that daily volume. Such an uptick could overwhelm demand for the shares and send Amazon's share price downward.

Public perception will be a problem for MacKenzie

Another thing she'll have to consider before selling any sizeable stake is the signal that might send to the market. Post-divorce, MacKenzie almost certainly won't be legally considered an insider at Amazon any more. But any trade on her part, particularly any that happen soon after the divorce, is likely to trigger concerns among investors about the reasoning behind it.

"The public will question whether her sales are motivated by insider information," said Mercer Bullard, a securities law professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He continued: "Perception will be a problem. Her actions may be market moving for the wrong reasons."

"If she does plan to sell off a significant portion of her shares, MacKenzie would be wise to set up a planned trading program along the lines of those that corporate executives use to immunize themselves from charges of insider trading," he said. Such plans usually are configured to sell off set numbers of shares on a regular basis regardless of a company's stock price or its recent financial results.

"The way to keep her actions out of the negative limelight is to be as transparent as possible," Bullard said.

The SEC could consider her to be in league with Jeff

Legal restrictions may also limit her ability to sell off large portions of her stake at once, experts said.

When it comes to public reporting requirements and trading limits, securities regulations generally focus on large shareholders and corporate insiders. At first glance, such rules wouldn't appear to apply to MacKenzie Bezos. She doesn't have a position at the company, and her individual stake in Amazon will be below the 5% threshold the SEC sets for when shareholders have to report their stakes in a company and what they're doing with their shares.

But the calculus may change because she's getting her shares from Jeff Bezos, who is an insider, and because, as part of the divorce settlement, she agreed to let him vote her shares. Because of that voting agreement — and the fact that Jeff Bezos will hold 12% of Amazon's shares after the divorce — the SEC may deem her to be part of a shareholder group that controls more than 5% of the company's stock, securities lawyers said. If so, she may have to publicly file regular updates on the size of her stake. She may also have to disclose each and every trade she makes in Amazon's stock.

Read this:Jeff Bezos' divorce won't affect his voting power at Amazon, because MacKenzie is giving him control

"She won't have enough stock on her own," said Paul Fasciano, a partner at Sadis & Goldberg. "But if she's considered to be part of group then, yes," she'll have to report her holdings and trades.

She may have legal limits on her trades

Amazon spokeswoman Halle Gordon declined to comment on whether MacKenzie will be subject to any reporting requirements or trading limits.

And yet another set of regulations may come into play when it concerns MacKenzie's holdings — the SEC's Rule 144, which governs certain kinds of stock transactions involving insiders. Because she will be getting the shares in a private transaction from an insider at the company, the SEC may consider her shares to be restricted, securities lawyers said. Such a designation could require her to hold the shares for six months or even a year before selling any of them.

Additionally, because of the voting agreement she struck with Jeff Bezos, the SEC may consider her to be essentially an affiliate of the company. Such a designation would limit her to selling in any three-month period to either a 1% stake in the company or 1% of the average weekly trading volume, whichever is greater.

"She may have 144 restrictions," Fasciano said.

Got a tip about Amazon or another tech company? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

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Apr
06

I tried YouTube's live TV streaming service for one month and I'll likely stick around — but just for the sports (GOOG, GOOGL)

Like many millennials out there, I don't have cable TV.

Instead, I watch a mash-up of Netflix Originals, HBO documentaries, and Amazon Prime Video when it feels like a random-movie night. I've also taken full advantage of my (and my wife's) free Hulu trial to watch nothing other than Seinfeld re-runs.

My bases, you see, are pretty much covered when it comes streaming content, minus one glaring exception — sports.

Growing up, I loved watching sports on TV. But since leaving for college (over a decade ago), my sports consumption has relied mostly on friends who still have their parents Xfinity logins, as well as bars showing the game.

That's why I was so excited to try out YouTube's live streaming service known as YouTube TV, which has been touted as one of the best cable alternatives on the market.

Announced at the beginning of 2017, YouTube TV is now available nationwide and offers viewers in most local markets access to the major networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. That means you can watch live sports, as well as live news and cable shows via the streaming service. YouTube TV also offers access to movies, YouTube Originals, and a DVR feature that allows you to easily record shows and live sports to watch at a later time.

I tried YouTube TV for one month to see if it would be added to my repertoire of streaming services.

Here's what I found when trying out YouTube TV for the first time:

Original author: Nick Bastone

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Apr
06

Tesla and Trump both thrive on chaos — but Elon Musk's car company needs to chill out if it's going to succeed (TSLA)

I've argued that there are no minds on planet Earth more different that Donald Trump's and Elon Musk's. However, Musk is a canny operator and always has been — and it's clear that he's learned a few things from the Tweeter In Chief.

Trump loves chaos. His latest salvo — a petulant threat to shut down the entire US southern border with Mexico, thereby trashing the relatively robust but still fragile surge in the economy his tax cuts delivered — is a classic example. Nobody knows what the plan is supposed to be, including Trump, and he likes it that way.

Trump sows confusions and dismay so that all anybody winds up talking about is ... confusion and dismay. It's an unfortunate addiction because although his approval ratings are terrible by historical standards, his economy is the strongest in decades and he's been able to plod forward on a broad campaign promise that's become sort of invisible: extracting the nation from never-ending foreign wars.

Read more: Tesla is proof that the next 20 years in the tech industry won't be like the last 20

Don't confuse my positive view on those issues with a positive view of Trump. But it would be pointless to ignore Trump's extension of the post-financial crisis boom, and if I can find one thing to admire about the guy, it's that although he appears to like military pomp and circumstance, he's something of a pacifist down deep. Or at least he recognizes that stupid wars shouldn't be fought on open-ended timetables.

From Trump to Tesla.

Steve Bannon, Musk, and Trump. Evan Vucci / AP

What about Musk and Tesla? Well, it would also be pointless to ignore the all-electric carmaker's monumental achievement: creating ther first new American auto brand in decades. Tesla's first-quarter sales were up a staggering 110% from the same period last year, the carmaker reported last week.

Tesla is now manufacturing and selling three vehicles, and it has come to dominate the nascent electric-car market in just about five years. Even if its financial challenges end up dooming the company's mass-market ambitions, it still has a viable life-raft in its luxury business, with appealing profit margins to go along with it.

You wouldn't necessarily know any of this because the Musk/Tesla chaos engine has been in overdrive for more than a year now. I can forgive you if you've lost track of Musk's many, many controversies, but we got a reminder this week when his latest dustup with the Security and Exchange Commission had a hearing before a judge in New York (both sides were told to don their "reasonableness pants" and come up with a deal they could live with).

Musk is extremely good at designing, engineering, and serving as head cheerleader and top salesman for electric vehicles. I've driven everything Tesla has ever built, and the cars have all been great. That's a hard trick to pull off, especially for a guy who's on his first car company.

Musk is bad at the dreary yet necessary plod of auto manufacturing (he dislikes it so much that he's been actively trying to reinvent it for three years). His reaction isn't to step back and ask for help. Rather, it's to double down on the chaos.

This doesn't always lead to #TOTALFAIL. Musk's dream of a massively automated assembly line for Model 3 sedans ran into the same problem that every effort at massive automation has in the auto industry — it didn't work — and so Tesla quickly threw up a tented line in its factory parking lot. It wouldn't have looked unfamiliar to Henry Ford. And it was widely ridiculed.

But lo and behold, it worked fine and helped Tesla deliver almost 250,000 vehicles in 2018.

It's time of Elon to hire a COO.

Musk in the Tesla tent. 60 Minutes

It was a big, beautiful tent and Musk could have celebrated the seat-of-the-pants innovation a bit more. Instead, he went back to the nutty tweeting and the dank memes and along the way conducted a fairly low-key unveiling of Tesla's next vehicle, the Model Y SUV.

He doesn't seem to have it in him to change, much as Trump doesn't. And maybe he shouldn't. One does need to simultaneously hold two ideas in one's head about Musk: that he's a merchant of chaos; and that he's up there with Henry Ford and Enzo Ferrari and the small number of crazy, complicated visionaries who've created car companies.

Allow me to toss in a third idea: Tesla would benefit from putting the overall chaos in its past while accepting that Musk isn't going to renounce the madness. This is kind of already happening. Scrappy carmakers with out-there leaders don't usually manufacture hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually.

General Motors, for example, is a rigorously disciplined business that racked up over 650,000 vehicle sales in the first quarter. Even when GM has been in trouble — it did go bankrupt during the financial crisis, after all — it's essential character has never been chaotic.

The best way to hasten Tesla's maturation has already been widely discussed: hire a chief operating officer to effectively run the company while Musk changes nothing. That would've happened already if Tesla (and to his credit, Musk) wanted it to. And in truth, Musk has a capable, long-serving lieutenant in JB Straubel who has already assumed some of this responsibility.

Tesla could benefit greatly if Elon lays low for a few months.

Tesla's factory. Tesla

I like to say that I'm more comfortable with Tesla's chaos because I've been watching the Elon Musk show for a decade and I've seen it before. It's not all that difficult to put the chaos in a box and focus on the business, which as I've already noted has enjoyed the most robust sales growth of any automaker in the industry and is reaping the rewards as revenues rise dramatically each quarter. Car companies are supposed to have massive amounts of cash flowing through their balance sheets, and Tesla is increasingly no exception.

Unfortunately, the business surge has amplified the chaos, raising the stakes. There is a viable strategy here, and it's called "layin' low." Does that mean Musk retired the Twitter handle? No, but it does mean that he could at least consider giving his chaos-lovin' side a few months off.

The business might actually compel him to do this. Tesla is probably going to post a lower profit for Q1, after two consecutive quarters with solid margins. The carmaker might even swing to a loss. That doesn't mean Tesla is tanking, but it does mean execution is more important than image. For his own and Tesla's sake, I hope Musk has figured that out.

Original author: Matthew DeBord

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Jun
05

Coya raises $30 million to launch its insurance service in Europe

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an official complaint on behalf of Andreas Gal — Mozilla's former chief technology officer and a current Apple employee — that alleged his constitutional rights had been violated when he was detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at San Francisco International Airport in November 2018.

Gal told Business Insider that he returned home from an international business trip and was detained shortly after his arrival in San Francisco. He said CBP agents demanded access to his Apple-issued mobile phone and laptop, and when he asked to consult with a lawyer and his employer, he was threatened with federal charges. Gal said the agents searched his belongings and confiscated his Global Entry card. He said that when he checked the next day, his Global Entry and TSA Precheck statuses had been revoked. You can read Gal's story in his own words here.

"These agents look like an occupying force. They are heavily armed and each one looks like they are geared up for war. They treat citizens with maximum suspicion, and we are completely helpless," Gal told Business Insider. "When I come back to the US I should not be fearful of the people greeting me."

Read more: Federal agents can search your phone at the US border — here's how to protect your personal information

The ACLU lodged a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the US Department of Homeland Security over Gal's story — a move the organization believes was warranted because of its concerns over why Gal was chosen and what it sees as an unlawful attempt to search and seize his devices, according to Bill Freeman, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California.

In an emailed statement, a CBP spokesperson said that although the agency is unable to comment on specific cases, it's within its authority to search electronic devices.

"Searches of electronic devices at the border are often integral to a determination of an individual's intentions upon entry and provide additional information relevant to admissibility determinations under immigration laws," the CBP spokesperson said in part in the statement. You can read the full statement below.

For his part, Gal said that he's shaken by the notion that his phone could be subject to this kind of search.

"You know, this is my cellphone. It contains at least the last 10 years of my life, every photo, every email, every text. My entire life day-to-day is on my smartphone. To think they have the right to inspect the last 10 years of my life is terrifying," Gal said.

Gal said he now wipes every phone he travels with despite the inconvenience. He told Business Insider that he has lawyers on standby every time he has to go through customs, and they have instructions to act if they haven't heard anything from him within a certain span of time. Gal said he regrets that he finds this necessary.

Read more: US customs reportedly took away a man's life savings of $58,000 — even though he was never charged with a crime

"The government should not be treating citizens this way," Gal said.

Gal, who became a US citizen three years ago, said he wants CBP to explain why he was chosen for this process and that he wants Congress to hold the agency accountable for its actions. Gal's theory, which is supported by Freeman, is that he was singled out at least partially because of his vocal opposition to the Trump administration's privacy and immigration policies on social media. Gal said he now tries to be more conscious about what he posts online.

"It chills free speech," Freeman said. "People start to think 'if I say this' or 'if I take this controversial client' or 'if I take this controversial stance' and change their behavior. Does the government have a right to know what I'm saying? I don't think so."

Freeman said the ACLU of Northern California has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents relating to Gal to learn more about why he was flagged for additional CBP screening in November. If the government doesn't cooperate, Freeman said the ACLU is prepared to sue the agency to get the information.

"We need to shine a light on these practices because they are quite troubling, particularly in the case of someone who is an advocate of privacy and encryption rights is even more so," Freeman said.

Although Gal said he'd like his Global Entry status reinstated, he also hopes that his complaint will spur congressional or legal action to protect others from having a similar experience. He said he is prepared for a lengthy legal battle but that he hopes it leads to reform at the CBP. He said he wants to "fix it for everyone."

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

"Searches of electronic devices at the border are often integral to a determination of an individual's intentions upon entry and provide additional information relevant to admissibility determinations under immigration laws. They are critical to the detection of evidence relating to terrorism and other national security matters, human and bulk cash smuggling, contraband, and child pornography. They can also reveal information about financial and commercial crimes, such as those relating to copyright, trademark and export control violations."

Original author: Megan Hernbroth

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Apr
06

Whole Foods shoppers blast Amazon's Prime member discounts as the company announces it's slashing prices (AMZN)

Some Whole Foods shoppers say Amazon's Prime member discounts are worthless, with customers claiming to save close to nothing on hundreds of dollars of purchases.

"There is no benefit whatsoever," said Claudia Cukrov, an Amazon Prime member who shops at a Whole Foods store in Brooklyn, New York, on a near daily basis.

She said her Amazon Prime member code, which she scans with every Whole Foods purchase, has never saved her any money. She accused Amazon of using the codes to collect data on what she buys, without offering any value in return.

"They are building a full consumer profile on us in the guise of a discount," she told Business Insider.

Amazon rolled out Prime member discounts in Whole Foods stores nationwide last year, about 10 months after completing its $13.7 billion acquisition of the grocery chain in 2017. The discounts consist of weekly rotating specials on a handful of products, as well as an extra 10% off sale items.

Read more: Amazon's 10% discount for Prime members is now hitting all Whole Foods stores

Spencer Somers said he was excited when he found out about the new Whole Foods discounts last year. But nearly a year later, he has stopped scanning his Amazon Prime member code at the checkout of the Los Angeles Whole Foods store where he spends upwards of $100 every week.

"I was scanning it every time, but it wasn't worth the under $1 savings," he told Business Insider. "I know how data collection works. They want to look at my receipt and all the stuff I bought, so if that's not worth a good amount of savings, then it's not worth me giving to them."

The concerns of Cukrov and Somers are echoed by dozens of complaints on social media.

In a statement to Business Insider, Amazon said shoppers' response to the Prime member discounts has been positive.

"Our Prime customers tell us they love the Prime member discounts at Whole Foods Market. In fact, Prime members have adopted the Whole Foods Market benefit at one of the fastest rates we've seen," an Amazon spokesperson said. "Since introducing Prime member discounts last summer, Prime members have already saved more than $100 million shopping at Whole Foods Market. And we expect Prime customers will save even more over the next few months."

Amazon announced this week that it would slash prices by 20% on hundreds of items and double the number of Prime-member deals available to Whole Foods shoppers.

Customers should expect more than 300 Prime-member deals in stores over the next few months, such as a 40% discount on asparagus and strawberries and a 35% discount on all Justin's branded products, the company said.

Read more: Amazon is slashing Whole Foods' prices by 20% on hundreds of items

Whole Foods shared the news with shoppers in an email sent Thursday with the subject line: "Prime Members: You Asked For More Deals."

"Weekly deals for Prime members are growing. As in multiplying. As in more big savings across the entire store. Turn down almost any aisle and — boom — you'll find a way to save," the email stated.

With the new discounts, Amazon and Whole Foods appear to be addressing customers' complaints. But it remains to be seen whether the deals will win back customers who have already stopped scanning the Prime member codes.

"So far I've only gotten a discount on one item I purchased," said Jean-Michel Boudreault, who said he shops at Whole Foods twice weekly in New York City. "It almost seems like a waste of time to pull up the barcode and show it to the cashier each time I shop there."

Original author: Hayley Peterson

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Jun
05

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Paul Daugherty, CTO and Chief Innovation Officer of Accenture (Part 2) - Sramana Mitra

Lyft shareholders could come to regret giving up substantial power to CEO Logan Green and President Josh Zimmer, the company's cofounders.

Lyft shares closed at $74.55 on Friday, nearly $4 below its first trade when the company went public on March 29. While the stock has seen a slight recovery from its all-time-low of $66 in its first week of trading, Wall Street isn't quite certain on how to treat the stock in the long-term.

In a post published Wednesday, Harvard Law School's Lucian Bebchuk and Kobi Kastiel argue that Lyft's corporate governance structure "can be expected" to decrease Lyft's per-share value in the future, and increase the discount at which Lyft's low-voting shares trade.

"Each of these effects would operate over time to reduce the market price at which the low-voting shares of public investors would trade," wrote Bebchuk and Kastiel. "These effects should thus be taken into account by any public investors that consider holding Lyft shares."

At the heart of their argument is Lyft's dual-class share structure. Shareholders that buy Lyft's stock on the public markets buy Class A shares, which come with one vote each. This is compared to the Class B shares that make up the majority of Green and Zimmer's respective holdings. Lyft's Class B shares each grant 20 votes on the holder.

Read more: $1 billion Sequoia-backed data startup Health Catalyst has picked lead banks for its IPO

Following the IPO, Logan and Zimmer had an "absolute lock" on power while owning just 4.96% of Lyft's equity. This collective stake nets them 48.6% of the voting power at Lyft.

Bebchuk and Kastiel found when taken to an extreme, Green and Zimmer could still retain "effective control" of the company with 2.65% of equity in the company, which would still give them 35% of the voting rights, the researchers found.

This is significant, they argue, because "tiny-minority controllers" can distort corporate decision making and ultimately harm other shareholders. Even with less than half of total voting power, their combined block could still swing any vote one way or the other.

In one scenario, Bebchuk and Kastiel found that Lyft's founders would be incentivized to reject a wide range of strategic acquisition offers due to "private incentives," even if all of the other shareholders would benefit from such a transaction. In other words, even if Lyft shareholders wanted to sell, Green and Zimmer could unilaterally turn down the offer.

Original author: Becky Peterson

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Jul
05

405th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M - Sramana Mitra

Google+, the search giant's failed attempt to create a Facebook-killing social network, officially died this week.

The company began deleting user accounts, permanently erasing profiles, photos and other content posted on the social network — including the profile pages of Google's own executives.

The purge of Google+ accounts from the likes of Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, current CEO Sundar Pichai, and former CEO Eric Schmidt means that important company announcements and insights into the company's decision-making process are gone from the public record.

That's a significant loss and it's raising concerns among advocates of corporate accountability, journalists and people interested in preserving history.

It also means that the sillier posts from Google's top brass, as well as posts that are now eerily ironic years later, have vanished from the public view as well.

Luckily, before these accounts were deleted on Tuesday, Business Insider snagged some screenshots of the finest posts from Google executives we could find.

Original author: Nick Bastone

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