Silicon Valley giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Snap will hold a private meeting on Friday to discuss the problem of misinformation ahead of the US midterm elections in November.

The meeting was first reported by BuzzFeed, which obtained an email sent by Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher. In the email, he invited representatives from 12 companies to meet at Twitter HQ in San Francisco.

"As I've mentioned to several of you over the last few weeks, we have been looking to schedule a follow-on discussion to our industry conversation about information operations, election protection, and the work we are all doing to tackle these challenges," wrote Gleicher.

According to Gleicher's email, the meeting will have a three-part agenda. Each company will present the work they've done to combat misinformation, then the companies as a whole will discuss the particular problems they each face, and finally, they will decide whether they should hold the meeting on a regular basis.

Eight tech giants held a similar meeting in May of this year, with US government representatives present. Christopher Krebs, an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security and Mike Burham from the FBI's "foreign influence" taskforce, provided the companies with scant information, reportedly leaving them frustrated.

Foreign influence campaigns on social media ahead of the midterms have been in the spotlight in recent weeks. At the end of July, Facebook announced it had it had banned 32 pages after it uncovered a coordinated effort to influence US politics. It said it was not sure of the provenance of the operation, but that it bore similarities to previous Russian disinformation campaigns.

Microsoft also recently announced it had detected Russian hacking attempts targeted at Republicans, just weeks after it came out that Russian hackers had tried to infiltrate the systems of Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill.

Business Insider has contacted Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Snap for comment.

When you own inanimate objects worth as much as several houses, no cost is too great for the safe in which you store those objects securely.

Peace of mind, as they say, is priceless.

If you did want to put a price on it, though, German luxury brand Buben & Zorweg would like it to be $263,800 for their Solitaire Vision model.

For that princely sum, clients receive a safe hand-crafted in Germany, protected by 16mm-thick bulletproof spy glass, housing 46 watch-holders, a humidor and, of course, a Bluetooth-enabled HiFi speaker system.

If you really wanted to push the boat out, you could opt for the Treasury — Buben & Zorweg's most expensive base model — which starts at $386,000 in the US.

The Buben & Zorweg Treasury. BUBEN&ZORWEG

The 600 kg (1,323 lb) Goliath is adorned with Italian nappa leather and features a giant flying minute tourbillon clock right in the middle.

If you thought that Buben & Zorweg's safes were just for show, though, think again — all their safes are VdS-certified (the highest mark of quality available).

So, who buys them?

Unsurprisingly, it's rich people — the company estimated that their average customer has around $4 million in disposable income.

BUBEN&ZORWEG

Speaking to Bloomberg, Eberhard Hagmann, head of design, said: "More and more, they want a good design, so when you see this object, you don't know if it's a safe or not.

"It's furniture."

Apparently, clients come to the company with photos of their homes so that the safes can match their decor, and the level of customisation available is infinite.

"Everything is possible at Buben & Zorweg," the company's head of international marketing, Michael Arnsteiner, told Business Insider.

He says the company also builds bespoke safe rooms for clients, which start at €400,000 ($463,000).

Hagmann recalled once designing a safe to match the interior of his client's Aston Martin One-77.

As far as what customers put in these safes, which alone are worth more than the average person's most prized possessions, Hagmann says it varies, from guns to a Jimi Hendrix guitar. The designer once made a safe to hold one antique for a client worth $40 million.

The Buben & Zorweg Galaxy Deluxe in its natural habitat — a luxury home. Buben & Zorweg

Alex Wong/Getty

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday.

1. Microsoft is reportedly being investigated by US authorities for potential bribery and corruption over software sales in Hungary. The Department of Justice and SEC are probing how the company sold software like Word and Excel to firms who then sold them on to Hungarian government agencies, the Washington Post reports.

2. Leaked documents and interviews show Facebook's struggle to moderate two billion accounts. A large-scale Motherboard investigation dove into the heart of Facebook's moderation struggles.

3. Lisa Brennan-Jobs revealed more details from her memoir about life with her father Steve Jobs. A new memoir titled "Small Fry," written by Steve Jobs' daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, provides a brutal window into the Apple cofounder's relationship with his child.

4. Facebook has hired a new CMO to try and repair its image after its scandal-filled year. Facebook has hired a new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Antonio Lucio who previously held the same role at HP, and was at Visa and Pepsi before that.

5. Sony is relaunching the "Aibo" robot dog released in 1999, and it says the new version uses 'deep learning' and has cloud-based memories. The "Aibo" was originally discontinued in 2006, this is an updated model of the robot dog companion, which saw a release in Japan last year.

6. A ton of Tesla employees are getting poached by Apple, once dubbed the "Tesla Graveyard" by Elon Musk. Tesla and Apple compete for the same talent in fields like software, batteries, supply chain, and mechanical engineering.

7. It looks like Microsoft is planning a new 'Xbox All Access' monthly subscription which includes a console. According to Windows Central and The Verge, the subscription would include an Xbox console, Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions — and it would be cheaper than buying each item individually.

8. Russian trolls were discovered to be "spreading discord" about vaccinations online. Researchers at George Washington University discovered the Russian accounts, which disseminated both pro- and anti-vaccine content.

9. The wood pellet salesman who spent more than three years as a fugitive after being charged with trying to defraud Mark Zuckerberg out of 50% of Facebook has been arrested in Ecuador. The New York man may be extradited.

10. Apple is making a TV show out of the book that inspired Elon Musk to go to space. The series will be based on "Foundation," a classic 1951 novel by Issac Asimov, which is considered a cornerstone of science-fiction.

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.

Dave Mosher/Business Insider

ARK Investment Management — which owns 580,000 shares of Tesla, worth roughly $163.84 million — has published an open letter to CEO Elon Musk urging him to not take the electric-car maker private, arguing the stock could be worth nearly ten times the billionaire's $420 target.

"Tesla should be valued somewhere between $700 and $4,000 per share  in five years," Cathie Wood, the firm's founder and chief executive, said.

"Taking Tesla private today at $420 per share would undervalue it greatly, depriving many investors of the opportunity to participate in its success. In our view, given the right investment time horizon, TSLA is a deep value stock today."

Of course, there's a lot standing between Tesla and its stock being worth $4,000 a share.

ARK's investment thesis counts on the company fully transitioning from a manufacturer to a full-fledged "mobility-as-a-service" company. When it reaches that point, ARK estimates, its profit margins could be as much as 80%. In it's most recent quarterly filing this month, Tesla reported total gross margins of 15%.

"In the $4,000 scenario, our assumptions are conservative: we incorporate profits only from cars and certain autonomous taxi networks, not from trucks, drones, utility scale energy storage, or the MaaS opportunity in China," ARK, which manages $5.9 billion, wrote.

"Further, we incorporate the roughly $20 billion in dilution that might be necessary to penetrate and scale the latter four markets."

For context, Tesla's average price target among sell-side research analysts is $333, according to Bloomberg. Even the most bullish analyst on Wall Street, Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research, has a target of $533 — a little more than one-eighth of ARK's target.

Musk has argued that going private will ease the burden and shortsightedness that comes from analysts and investors every quarterly earnings report, but ARK argues the opposite will be true.

"I understand why you may want to take Tesla private, but I must try to dissuade you," the letter says.

"First, as a private company, Tesla will be unable to capitalize on its competitive advantages as rapidly and dramatically as it would as a public company, an important consideration given the network effects and natural geographic monopolies to which autonomous taxi and truck networks will submit.

"Second, in the private market, Tesla would lose the free publicity associated with your role as the CEO of the public company not only with the bestselling mid-sized premium sedan in the US, but also arguably in the best position to launch a completely autonomous taxi network nationwide in the next few years." 

Shares of Tesla have whipsawed since August 7, the date of Musk's initial announcement that he would attempt to take Tesla private. After soaring to near-record highs of $389, shares fell back below $300 amid reports of a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission and a slew of class-action lawsuits. It's currently trading near $321.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Musk has hired Morgan Stanley in his bid to take Tesla private. That follows the bank's analyst, Adam Jonas, suspending coverage of the stock on Tuesday, which is typical when a bank's investment banking division is involved in a deal with a company covered by its research department. Goldman Sachs suspended coverage on August 15, admitting that it is involved in the deal in some capacity.

"As public equity markets continue to go passive, I believe we are witnessing a massive misallocation of capital, with innovation the most inefficiently priced part of the market," ARK said.

"Tesla epitomizes this capital allocation problem and, when the market understands it, your stock should enjoy significant upside, serving as a valuable lesson for public market investors to reconsider their short-sighted ways."

Markets Insider

Every year, for a week in August, the glitz and glam of the automotive elite descend upon the streets of Monterey, California,

Traditionally, Pebble Beach has been an opportunity for the rich and famous to see and be seen among a sea of automotive exotica. These days things are a bit different. The exotic cars are still there, but it's also developed into another auto show for manufacturers to exhibit their latest and greatest.

On Thursday, Audi did just that with the introduction of its new PB18 e-tron concept sports car. It's a futuristic technology demonstrator created especially for Pebble Beach. In fact, the "PB" in its name stands for Pebble Beach.

Audi The rest of its name is in reference to Audi's all-conquering R18 e-tron Le Mans prototype race cars.

The PB18's stand out feature is a driver's pod complete with integrated pedals, steering wheel, controls, that can be slid laterally inside the cabin. When on a race track, the driver's compartment can be positioned in the center of the cockpit like that of an open-wheel race car.

"We want to offer the driver an experience that is otherwise available only in a racing car like the Audi R18," Audi Design Loft boss Gael Buzyn said in a statement. "That's why we developed the interior around the ideal driver's position in the center."

Audi However, the compartment can also be slid to the side to create a traditional road car setup that also allows for a passenger thanks to an integrated seat mounted low in the cabin.

As with every Audi to carry the e-tron moniker, the PB18 e-tron is all electric. The Audi concept is powered by a trio of electric motors — one up front and two in the back. The motors send roughly 200 horsepower to the front wheels and a whopping 600 hp to the rear. Thus creating a virtual quattro all-wheel-drive system.

Working together, the motors develop 670 hp that can be temporarily boosted to 764 hp. Sadly, you can't simply add up the output of the front and rear motors.

Audi According to Audi, 0-62 mph can happen in about two seconds.

The PB18 e-tron is equipped with a 95 kWh liquid-cooled, solid-state battery that, Audi claims, can be fully recharged in 15 minutes. The pack also gives the PB18 a range of more than 310 miles on a single charge.

Fire crews in Fremont, California, responded to a fire that erupted near the Tesla factory on Thursday afternoon.

The Fremont Fire Department said the flames started in a cardboard pile around 8:20 p.m. ET, on the southern end of Tesla's property, igniting some grass and an unidentified building. It has since been contained.

Aerial video from local news outlets showed firefighters dousing the flames with water. Another video showed a building engulfed in flames. A Tesla spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

This story is developing. Updates to come.

It's official: Apple has given a series order to "Foundation," a TV drama based on the 1951 Isaac Asimov novel of the same name, as Variety reports.

The show itself comes with a pedigree, with David S. Goyer (of "The Dark Knight" screenwriting fame) and Josh Friedman (creator of "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles") at the helm as showrunners. It's the latest high-profile project for Apple's still-nascent plans to take on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon in original TV programming.

The novel, and its two direct sequels, hold an important place in the science fiction canon. To make a very long, generations-spanning story short, that trilogy deals with the titular Foundation — a scientific think tank founded by "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon to preserve the collective knowledge of humanity through a centuries-long dark age following the collapse of a 12,000-year-old intergalactic civilization.

The ideas put forward by Asimov in "Foundation" have stood the test of time. Indeed, no less than Elon Musk has said that "Foundation" is one of his favorites, and reflects his fears for the future of human civilization and why it's so important for humanity to push out to Mars and beyond.

In 2013, Musk told the Guardian:

"The lessons of history would suggest that civilizations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China.

"We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline.

"Given that this is the first time in 4.5 billion years where it's been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we'd be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time."

Indeed, it seems that Musk's admiration for the novels hasn't faded over time, either.

Earlier this year, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket famously launched Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space, with a space-suited dummy in the driver's seat and David Bowie on the stereo. Less well-known is that it carried a quartz-based data storage device loaded with the "Foundation" trilogy; a testament to the message of the novels.

It's not currently known when the series will premiere, or the details of Apple's TV streaming service. However, it's been acquiring the rights to several properties for TV series, most recently those of a New York Times article on climate change.

Facebook is trying to repair its image after its chain of scandals — and it has brought in a veteran marketer to help.

On Thursday, the Silicon Valley social network announced that it has hired Antonio Lucio to be its new chief marketing officer. Lucio was previously the CMO of computer firm HP, and served in the same role at Visa and Pepsi before that. He fills a role left vacant when Gary Briggs left Facebook in January 2018.

In a post on Facebook, chief product officer Chris Cox welcomed Lucio aboard.

"Facebook's story is at an inflection point," Cox wrote. "We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world — in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy — by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside."

Facebook hasn't had a great year, it's fair to say. It's been battered by successive crises, from the spread of Russian propaganda to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to the ongoing furors over the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation on the service.

The company's executives have found themselves on the defensive, and the company has tried to signal contrition to its users with ad campaigns declaring that "fake news is not your friend." One of Lucio's challenges, then, will be to try and repair its ailing image with the public.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also posted about Lucio's hire, writing:

"Antonio has a lot of experience leading marketing for major brands like HP and Visa - and he's been recognized for both his talents and commitment to diversity. Now he'll help us share Facebook's story with the world. Every day people use our apps to connect with family and friends and make a difference in their communities. It's what motivates me and our teams - and I'm excited to see how Antonio brings our mission to life."

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Hailstorms can be terrifying and expensive. Suddenly, balls of ice start falling out of the sky with enough force to smash cars and vineyards, causing serious injury or death to anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside.

An attempt to control these storms is causing controversy, despite questions about whether it's possible to prevent hail in the first place.

A Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico, has incurred the wrath of nearby farmers who say that by firing "hail cannons," which blast shockwaves into the sky to theoretically prevent hail from forming, the automaker is causing a drought.

The AFP reports that farmers believe the cannons have prevented any precipitation from falling since May, during the rainy season. The farmers are now seeking almost $3.7 million in compensation for at least 5,000 acres of affected crops.

When the cannons are fired, "the sky literally clears and it simply doesn't rain," Gerardo Perez, a farmer leading protests, told AFP.

In response, Volkswagen reportedly has said it will install mesh netting to protect the cars, and turn off the mechanism that causes the cannons to auto-fire under certain weather conditions.

"Once the anti-hail nets are installed in the yards, they will be used as the main measure for the protection of vehicles, while the devices will serve as a secondary tool and will only be used in manual mode," a VW spokesperson told the Financial Times.

But even manual use is unacceptable, local environmental official Rafael Ramirez told AFP.

"The company can take other measures to protect its cars, but people here can't live off anything but their land," he said.

A 1901 image of a hail cannon meeting.Plumandon/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Shooting hail out of the sky

According to the FT, the German automaker installed the cannons earlier this year.

Even though these particular hail cannons are new, the idea of preventing hail by preemptively shooting it out of the sky first is not.

According to a 1965 paper by the Royal Meteorological Society, Herodotus and Caesar made note of the fact that barbarian tribes tried to shoot arrows at oncoming storms. In parts of Europe, guns were used to shoot at storms, until Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa prohibited the practice in 1750 — apparently, it was a source of complaints by neighbors of the storm shooters, who were upset about the way the weather changed as a result. (History repeats itself.)

By 1896, new types of hail-cannons had been designed, according to a paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (and spotted in a history of hail cannons published in Atlas Obscura).

These cannons were like mortars, firing large and loud smoke rings — the idea being that smoke particles might stop hail from forming. When these first cannons, designed by a winemaker, were tested during storms, it didn't hail. The idea caught on, with winemakers throughout Europe trying to get a hold of the devices to protect valuable crops. There were 2,000 cannons operating in Italy by 1899.

Storms would approach, cannons would be fired. Sometimes, it wouldn't hail and cannons were praised. Other times, hail would fall, with the failure chalked up to operator error. Within a few years, these smoke cannons fell out of favor. No one could tell if they did anything.

Shutterstock/Paolo Gallo

Blasting ice with soundwaves

Instead of using smoke or projectiles, modern hail cannons — like those used at the Puebla Volkswagen plant — rely on loud shockwaves, fired repeatedly every few seconds as a storm approaches.

As one New Zealand hail cannon manufacturer explains it, they fire a burst of explosive gas inside the cannon to generate the shockwave.

"This shockwave, clearly audible as a large whistling sound, then travels at the speed of sound into & through the cloud formations above, disrupting the growth phase of the hailstones," the manufacturer wrote.

Winemakers and auto manufacturers make use of the cannons to try to protect their valuable goods. In 2007, a California NPR station reported that winemakers were using the cannons to try to prevent hail formation. In 2005, CNN reported that a Nissan plant in Mississippi upset neighbors by repeatedly blasting the loud cannons to break up hail.

But still, no one knows if the cannons actually work.

"Scientists say there is no way to prove if these cannons really work, but farmers say it is cheaper to try the cannons than to buy hail insurance," reported NPR, in that story.

"There's no evidence that they actually do anything," meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Severe Storms Laboratory told Automotive News in 2005. "It may be possible. But if they really do something, they're doing it through some unknown science that we don't know about."

Skeptics have also pointed out that like hail cannons, thunder produces loud shockwaves — but hail shows up anyway.

Modifying weather isn't theoretically impossible, but it has proven to be unpredictable and difficult to control.

It's unclear whether the VW cannons in Mexico can prevent hail or cause drought. Either way, it sounds like mesh netting to protect the cars might be a safer option.

After initially losing out to Sony, Nikon has hopped aboard the mirrorless camera bandwagon.

The camera company just showed off the two newest additions to its high-end camera lineup — the Z6 and the Z6, part of the new Z series of mirrorless cameras.

One of the hottest trends in the camera industry right now, although they come at a high price point. The Z6 starts at $1,999, and the Z7 starts at $3,999, plus the cost of any additional lenses, and they will be released this fall. The Z7 is the flagship model, with a higher resolution and more available focus points.

Though the prices are a bit steep, and mirrorless might seem like a meaningless buzzword, the new cameras do have some notable improvements over existing technology.

Mirrorless cameras don't use the traditional, mirrored viewfinder design found in most cameras to date. Instead, they use an electronic viewfinder or a live-view screen on the back. This allows for a reduced size and overall simpler design — which means you can get a full-frame camera in a much smaller package.

Nikon's new mirrorless lineup will be competing with Sony, which has dominated the mirrorless DSLR market for years.

. Paired up against Sony's Alpha a7R III mirrorless camera, Nikon's Z7 boasts slightly more megapixels (45.7 to Sony's 42), but has continuous shooting of 9 frames per second compared to the a7R III's 10 frames. The Z7 also features a slightly lower ISO speed of 64, when the a7R bottoms out at 100. However, Sony beats Nikon in price — the Alpha a7R III starts at around $2,800, while the Z7 starts at $3,400.

A bartender performs tricks at Nikon's unveiling of the Z series cameras in Manhattan on August 23, 2018. Image taken with Nikon Z7, 50mm lens. Captured with a pre-production model. Sean Wolfe/Business Insider

With the new series comes a new mounting system for lenses, however. After years of utilizing the popular F mount design, Nikon has developed the Z mount for these new mirrorless cameras. The Z mount lenses differ in look from the traditional F mount Nikon lenses you're probably used to seeing. However, with the additional ($250) FTZ lens adapter, you can use the old F mount lenses on the new lens system.

Two Z mount lenses will be available upon launch — a 24-70mm f/4 kit lens, and a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Nikon has plans to release additional lenses in the future.

The Nikon Z series sits on display at Nikon's Manhattan event on August 23, 2018. Sean Wolfe/Business Insider

The Z series will have some improvements over previous lineups, as well. The mirrorless format allows for silent shooting — meaning no distracting shutter sound, if desired. They'll also have in-camera vibration reduction, which compensates for shaky hands, which is a first for Nikon cameras with interchangeable lenses.

Additional specs include a 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen, 4K video recording at 30 frames-per-second, 1080p video recording at 60 frames-per-second, and built-in wifi and bluetooth capabilities.

View the Z6's full specs here, and the Z7's full specs here.

Given our coverage of the video game industry, we've had behind closed door discussions with game developers who claim that [Apple] and [Google's] commission structure is unfair and that they may take a more public role in pushing back against the business model," the analysts wrote in a note.

"We've also heard directly from the CEO of a major game publisher that 'Apple is a monopoly' that is taking way too big of a cut. As [Google] and [Apple] continue to add more services and directly compete with app developers, we suspect some of these voices from the music, video, game business, and others may become louder."

In other words: Games companies are privately griping inside the industry about the problem, and more and more are thinking about finally going public with their concerns — a radical move that could inflame the debate around the appropriateness of Apple and Google's fees to a level not seen in years. (Outside of the games industry, Netflix is now also experimenting with a way to avoid app store fees.)

Google and Apple did not respond to Business insider's request for comment.

There are limits to what games companies can do short-term, of course. For consumers, the process of side-stepping Google's Play Store to get apps is technical, and requires users to change settings on their phone, potentially compromising their security — something users would arguably be less inclined to do for anything other than the megahit that is "Fortnite."

And on Apple's iOS such a maneuver simply isn't possible: The operating system is locked down, with no way in for developers other than the App Store. It's Apple's way, or the highway.

But a very public display of displeasure could still put pressure on Google and Apple to make concessions, in an era of extreme sensitivity around tech companies' public images amid increased dissatisfaction with the industry from regulators, lawmakers, and the general public.

If app publishers do win concessions, it could be an absolute bonanza for games companies.

Macquarie calculates that King, a mobile games publisher owned by Activision Blizzard, would see a 12% boost to its EBIT (a measure of profitability) in 2020 if the fees were cut to 15%. EA's 2021 EBIT would surge 8%. And Zynga's 2020 EBIT would soar 53%.

These are multi-billion dollar companies — meaning there's a whole lot of money potentially up for grabs. But Facebook and Google are unlikely to give up easily either; they risk losing billions of dollars from a reduction in fees.

It's too early to say which way this will play out, but it sounds like the issue is drawing towards a crisis point — and the tech giants have a lot to lose.

Elon Musk once called Apple the "Tesla graveyard."

"We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding," Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt in 2015.

These days, it seems like there is an increasing number of headstones popping up in Cupertino, California.

CNBC reports that Apple is on a hiring spree, poaching "scores" of ex-Tesla employees for a variety of projects, citing better pay at the iPhone giant.

A Tesla spokesperson seemed to say that was the reason for the attrition, too, in a statement to CNBC:

"We wish them well. Tesla is the hard path. We have 100 times less money than Apple, so of course they can afford to pay more. We are in extremely difficult battles against entrenched auto companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so of course this is very hard work."

LinkedIn shows 46 people who jumped from the carmaker to Apple so far this year, and there are more that haven't updated their profile.

One person who hasn't updated his profile is Doug Field, a high-powered executive who oversaw engineering for the Tesla Model 3. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year he planned to take a "six-week sabbatical."

In August, it came out that he took a job at Apple, returning to the company he had worked before Tesla. Field is said to now be working on Project Titan, Apple's car project. Apple has a team of at least hundreds working on autonomous vehicles, with test vehicles driving on California streets today.

But not all the new Tesla hires are working on Project Titan at Apple. Others are working on software, displays, and batteries, according to CNBC.

Tesla has had a tumultuous year, with near-daily controversies, and the stock options that Tesla employees receive may be less desirable given the stock's volatile price — at least compared to Apple, which became the first company to be valued over $1 trillion earlier this month.

Read the entire report over at CNBC.

Intuit's executive suite will get a major shake up at the end of the year.

Intuit CEO Brad Smith will step down from his role in December after 11 years in the job, the company announced Thursday.

"I never wanted to be that athlete who loses half a step or can't complete the pass," Smith, who is 54, told Fortune ahead of the announcement. "I wanted to step down when I was still in my learning zone and still had gas in the tank."

Sasan Goodarzi will take over as CEO at the start of 2019. Intuit

On January 1, 2019, Smith will pass the torch to Sasan Goodarzi, senior vice president and general manager of the small business and self-employed group —a rapidly growing segment which includes QuickBooks.

Goodarzi first joined the company in 2004, and has since led the financial institutions division as well as the TurboTax division.

"Sasan is better prepared to be CEO than I was 11 years ago," Smith, who will stay at the company as executive chairman of the board, told Fortune.

Smith, a West Virginia native who rose through the ranks at Intuit to become CEO, leaves with an impressive record. Under Smith's decade-plus tenure at the top, Intuit's annual revenue has doubled to nearly $6 billion and the company's stock has increased roughly 600%.

Wall Street didn't take well to the news. Intuit — which includes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Turbo — fell 4% on Thursday following the announcement, which corresponded with strong Q4 2018 earnings.

Intuit's Chief Technology Officer Tayloe Stansbury will also step down on January 1. He is replaced by Marianna Tessel, a former VMware and Docker engineer who joined Intuit in 2017 as chief product development officer for Goodarzi's division.

During Intuit's recently completed fiscal fourth quarter, revenue Revenue increased 17% for the quarter adjusted earnings per share were up 60%.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has almost every feature you could want in an Android phone. With specs like a 6.4-inch super AMOLED display, S Pen, dual-aperture camera, 128GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and more, the $1,000 price tag is much more justified for the Note 9 than the iPhone X. Business Insider tech reporters Antonio Villas-Boas and Avery Hartmans share their thoughts on Samsung's latest premium phone. Following is a transcript of the video.

Avery Hartmans: I've been really impressed by the Galaxy Note 9 so far. My favorite Android phone is the Google Pixel 2. But I've been really impressed with it for a couple different reasons. I think it's a really powerful phone. If this was your only device, you didn't have a laptop, you didn't have a tablet, you just had this, you would be totally fine.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I mean the combination of the large screen and the stylus as well, it just lets me like feel more comfortable doing things on the phone that I would normally save for like a computer or a laptop. So talking about the screen, this is a Samsung screen. Which means it's the best in the business.

Avery Hartmans: I never really understood the need to have a huge OLED display, I was like, ah, mine's fine, I don't need it, until I started to use this. And I was like, wow, this screen is amazing. Watching videos on this thing is unreal. I didn't really mind the top and bottom bezel, I thought that that was fine. I was glad that Samsung did not include a notch on this phone.

Antonio Villas-Boas: In terms of the size of the phone, it's a big phone obviously. It's not for everyone, right? But yeah, it's not a one-handed phone.

Avery Hartmans: But I thought that it was relatively easy to use. It's not unmanageable for people with smaller hands, I think.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I'm actually on the Note 9 and its massive screen, I'm actually using the Android multitasking thing and I was like, wow, like I'm watching a YouTube video while talking to people. And I was like, wow, this is working. And I got an S Pen and it's like, wow, this works really well. It's doing two things at once. I'm doing two things at once.

Avery Hartmans: Do you find yourself using the Bixby button and do you find yourself using Bixby at all?

Antonio Villas-Boas: I find myself accidentally pressing the Bixby button while I'm watching a YouTube video and being frustrated that the Bixby button is there.

Avery Hartmans: What about the camera?

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, I tried it against the Google Pixel 2. And I was really impressed. I think this phone actually, like, competes with the Pixel 2. It's actually the closest competitor to the Pixel 2's camera.

Avery Hartmans: Two of the really standout features of this camera, in my opinion, are the zoom, which I was really impressed by. It's really nice to have when you do need it. And this is like the best zoom that I've seen on a recent smartphone. The other thing that I think is really cool is the dual-aperture. And I notice that when you were taking photos in low light, that it really was, it blew away the competition.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, right?

Avery Hartmans: Kind of the initial thought that I had about this phone was, it could suit two types of people really well. One of them is, you know, a person who has a really crazy job, is kind of on the road a lot and needs a lot of, a really powerful phone. Needs like, a lot of battery life, you know, a lot of storage space. But it would also be really good for someone who wants this to be like, their whole world. Samsung updated the stylus a little bit this year. And it can now act as a remote. So there's a button on the stylus, you can press it. And it will take a photo from a distance, it can put you through a PowerPoint presentation. And I think that's really cool.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I think it's cool. I don't know how many people will use it. I don't think it's like, oh my God, buy this phone because of this feature, kind of thing, you know?

Avery Hartmans: What about the storage?

Antonio Villas-Boas: The base model comes with, I think there's 128 gigabytes. And then it can go up to 512 gigabytes inside this phone which is more than my MacBook Pro has. And then if you want, you can add another 512 gigabytes of storage through the microSD slot.

Avery Hartmans: That's a total of a terabyte of storage.

Antonio Villas-Boas: That's one terabyte of storage. That's more than most computers come with.

Avery Hartmans: So one of the really cool features of the Galaxy Note 9 is this thing that Samsung calls DeX, which allows you to use the phone as a computer basically.

Antonio Villas-Boas: DeX does look pretty cool. Samsung presented this little dongle that you connect into the phone's USB-C plug and then you can connect it to HDMI, to a monitor. And you basically have a desktop operating system. It kind of looks like Windows, maybe a little bit. I haven't tried it yet. I think it could be cool. As you'd expect, you know, it's a high-end Android phone. It comes with USB-C. It also comes with a fast charger too. Headphone jack. Headphone jack. Please. It does have some bloatware. But honestly, it's really not that bad. One thing it came with which I don't like at all is the Facebook app. And I can't delete it from this phone. I guess one thing I'm not a fan of, is the price tag. A thousand dollars. I still think a four-figure price tag for a smartphone is a little much. But I think it makes a lot more sense on the Galaxy Note 9 than it does for the iPhone X. It has more functionality. You can do more on it and more with it.

Avery Hartmans: Right. I think spending a thousand dollars on this is much more justified. I think that it makes me feel much more productive. I think I can get a lot more done at once. If I was ready to switch away from an iPhone, I would strongly consider this. Before I was only - Pixel was the only other option that I would consider. Now, this is in the running. I would give it a chance.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Great phone. Fully recommend it. Would buy if I had more money.

Avery Hartmans: Sort of on par with I would say like Siri.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Um hm. Yeah, not better, not worse. Yeah, it's not like a compliment, but it's not like an insult either. Or is it, I don't know.

The San Francisco Bay Area as a whole may be a huge metropolitan region, but Silicon Valley can often seem like a small town.

"Small Fry," the new biography by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, illustrates that point.

Brennan-Jobs is the daughter of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. After spending her early years with her mother, artist Chrisann Brennan, Brennan-Jobs went to live with her famous father as a teenager.

While in high school, Brennan-Jobs got into journalism and became the editor-in-chief of her school's newspaper. Her journalism teacher, who was also her mentor, was Esther Wojcicki.

If that last name sounds familiar, it's because it should. That's because she's the mother of Susan and Anne Wojcicki.

Susan Wojcicki, of course, is the CEO of YouTube, and it was in her garage that Larry Page and Sergey Brin first got Google up and running. Anne Wojcicki is the CEO of genomics company 23andMe, and was once married to Brin.

To be sure, Esther Wojcicki is notable in her own right. She's a well-respected educator who has taught journalism at Palo Alto High School for more than two decades and founded the school's Media Arts Center.

In an interview with The New York Times, Wojcicki praised her former student's new book.

"The dialogue that she had in there between her and Steve was just exactly right," Wojcicki said. "The book is a gift to all of us."

The photo of Esther Wojcicki is used under a Creative Commons license.

Tesla

UBS has published the final lap of its complete teardown and analysis of a Tesla Model 3 to compare it to the competition.

Despite winning the first two laps — powertrain and electronics — the bank said Elon Musk’s newest sedan came in last place behind the Chevy Bolt and BMW i3 when it came to build quality.

"Our teardown experts noted numerous Model 3 quality issues including inconsistent gaps & flushness throughout the car, missing bolts, loose tolerances, and uneven & misaligned spot welds," the team of analysts led by Colin Langan wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

"The car scored 'below average' on the fit & finish quality audit which looked at >1, 500 gap measurements," UBS' Colin Langan wrote in the note to clients. "The team also found the body-wind noise was 'borderline acceptable.'"

"The results confirm media reports of quality issues & are disappointing for a $49k car," UBS said.

They won't be easy fixes, either, UBS added, especially when it comes to the structural issues creating excess noise.

After speaking to manufacturing experts and former Tesla employees, the bank said "many of the issues have to do with the basics of stamping out frame parts or the attachment thereof, which requires extensive retooling investment and shutdown time to fix."

This verdict comes at a time when Tesla is racing to build enough cars to become profitable. The company built an entire assembly line in a tent next to its main plant in Fremont, California, as it ramped to build 5,000 cars per week at the end of June. Documents seen by Business Insider showed roughly 4,300 of those required significant work to fix production issues.

UBS' findings reaffirmed what 12 Tesla owners have told Business Insider over the past 12 months. The customers have reported problems before, during, and after receiving their vehicles, including delayed deliveries, broken door handles, and internal computer systems crashing and leaving their cars inoperable. Accounts of early, persistent problems — some that become apparent within days of delivery — contrast with the high customer-satisfaction scores Tesla's vehicles have received from independent surveys.

"Beyond the build quality issues, the serviceability of the Tesla Model 3 comes into question as well," UBS said. "Many aspects of the vehicle are inaccessible to even experienced mechanics and the containment of the battery pack makes fixes complex and expensive.

"In general, the car has fewer components, which are often more advanced than previous generations, but each component is more complex, expensive, and harder to service or replace."

Tesla has pushed back against UBS' claims, telling Business Insider after the initial publication of this article that it will fully refund customers who are unhappy with their vehicles. 

"Our customer satisfaction scores for Model 3 quality have averaged about 90% since January, with steady improvement through the year, even as the number of cars delivered has rapidly multiplied," a spokesperson said in an email. "Tesla customers never have to worry because if they are unhappy with their car when they receive it, they can either give it back for a full refund, allow us to address any issues, or ask for an entirely new Tesla.

"As of April 2018, the standard deviation of all gaps and offsets across the entire car had already improved by nearly 40% on average, with particular gap improvements visible in the area of the trunk, rear lamps and rear quarter panel. Today, Model 3 panel gaps are competitive with Audi, BMW, and Mercedes models, but in the spirit of relentless improvement, we are working to make them even tighter. Our goal is to produce a perfect car for every customer."

With two leading laps and a hiccup under its belt, UBS said it would name an overall winner of the electric-car race in a coming note.

You can read about the first two tests here: