The Bentley Bentayga helped create a segment of the market where none had existed before.

Objectively, the Bentayga is a great vehicle. It's fast, powerful, luxuriously appointed, and can handle a corner about as well as one could reasonably expect for a large SUV.

But it's far from perfect. First, the looks. Simply put, it's not pretty. Every one of the members of Bentley's design team I've met has been highly credentialed with impressive resumés.

Unfortunately, the Bentayga isn't one of their best works. Here, Bentley fell victim to the need to design an SUV that looks like a "Bentley." Porsche has been guilty of this a couple of times while trying to make its early Cayenne SUVs and Panamera sedans look like the 911.

The Bentayga certainly looks like a Bentley. Just not a particularly attractive one. The front end is ungainly while the overall profile looks more like an overweight wagon than muscular off-roader.

And then there's the spirit and feel of the car. The stylish interior and monster engine couldn't inject the kind of soul and spirit we have come to expect in a Bentley.

To drive a Bentley is more than just a matter of getting to from point A to point B, it should be an experience.

The minute you climb behind the wheel, there should be no doubt in your mind that you are experiencing automotive royalty. It should make you feel special. It should make you feel like a freaking boss.

Sadly, the Bentayga falls short. It just seems to lack that Bentley mojo. The same mojo that oozes from the Continental, the Flying Spur, and the flagship Mulsanne.

Instead, it feels cold and way too VW Group corporate.

Matt DeBord agreed with my assessment and found the Bentayga disappointing. He felt the premise of the vehicle was highly cynical and simply a way for Bentley to maximize profits in a hot SUV market.

If feels like Bentley wanted to be first and they found a cost-effective way to do it by rolling out a re-skinned Audi Q7.

I'm aware it's not as simple as that, and there's nothing wrong with drawing heavily from the Q7, which itself is one of the finest SUVs in the world.

However, the technocratic brilliance of the Q7 makes for a best buy at $95,000, but not at $195,000.

Which brings us back to the Bentayga. Our verdict? There's too much VW Group and not enough Bentley. And that just doesn't do it for us.

Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes had a fateful discussion with Mark Zuckerberg on Harvard's campus in 2004. Adam Hunger/Reuters

One rainy night in March 2004, Chris Hughes had a conversation with his Harvard roommate that would radically change the course of his life.

His roommate was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the conversation would lead to Hughes making half a billion dollars eight years later.

Hughes is one of the four cofounders who helped turn one of Zuckerberg's dorm projects into a real company, and despite working on the site for three years, he's come to terms with the major role luck has had in his life.

It's a theme he explores in his new book "Fair Shot," and one he discussed with us for an episode of Business Insider's "Success! How I Did It" podcast.

You can listen to the full episode below:

Hughes, 34, explores how his unlikely and sudden rise from a privileged but solidly middle class upbringing to a spot among the United States' wealthiest has recently made him reconsider his role in the world — and it's why he's now advocating for a guaranteed income for working low-income Americans.

He told us he has firsthand knowledge of how the wealth gap in the US can seem so illogical.

"But that is how the economy is working today," he told us. "These small decisions, small conversations like the one I talk about in the book, where Mark Zuckerberg and I went on a walk a couple of months after Facebook had launched and we had an equity conversation," are all that it sometimes takes to separate the 1% from the rest.

The night of that conversation, Hughes was working his $10/hour job at the Hicks House library, checking student IDs. He and Zuckerberg were chatting over AOL Instant Messenger about Facebook, which was about to expand beyond Harvard to new schools. They decided to discuss Hughes' ownership stake in person.

Hughes grabbed his umbrella and met Zuckerberg by their dorm entrance and, sharing the umbrella, went for a walk — it was a conversation they needed to have in private, without risk of their roommates overhearing.

"I came out of the gate saying, 'I want 10% of the company,'" Hughes told us. "He was stressed; I was stressed. It was not the best setup."

Hughes had helped with the site's user experience, and as the cofounder Zuckerberg had deemed him the most socially adept, helped with marketing and arranging the company's earliest media coverage. He felt the 10% ask was "ambitious, but not entirely unreasonable."

As Hughes remembered it in his book, Zuckerberg replied: "I just don't think you've earned that much. I appreciate what you are doing, and I think you could do a lot more as we grow the site, but I need to keep control. And the others need fair equity too."

Facebook cofounders Dustin Moskovitz, Hughes, and Zuckerberg in their Harvard dorm.Mark Zuckerberg/FacebookHughes said he stayed in silent thought, considering that the conversation might be more important than friends discussing just another startup. The rain was coming down heavily, and they walked quickly under the single umbrella around campus.

"I am conflict-averse by nature," Hughes wrote, and realized he wasn't as confident about his request as he thought, noting that "my role was secondary and I knew it. I wasn't in a position to make demands, but I was anxious to become more involved."

Hughes made a case for himself as they walked, but caved by the time they reached Harvard's central library, Widener.

"Just give me what you think is fair," Hughes remembered telling Zuckerberg. "I know it's hard to balance all of us." Zuckerberg replied with just an "OK" and walked off into the rain, without even a hood on.

A few weeks later, Hughes discovered Zuckerberg gave him 2%, the lowest stake of the cofounders by multiples, and the stake would shrink a bit when Facebook was reincorporated later in the year.

This stake, however, still brought Hughes about $500 million after the company's IPO in 2012. He told us that for that reason, that discussion in the rain "was at once a spectacular failure of negotiation and also the most successful conversation of my life."

He's reflected on it lately, extrapolating it to the rest of American society. "But what keeps happening in this economy is these small chance events have these outsized impacts, because there's a snowballing effect, because of the winner-take-all kind of system," he said.

"So that what seemed like passing conversations in the rain, in college, can have these outsized effects. That's a new phenomenon. Never before in history have 20-somethings been able to create these companies."

Bloomberg TV

Fundstrat, the research firm, is predicting the next two years will be big for bitcoin and the world of crypto.

In a note out to clients, analysts led by Tom Lee said at least three companies could issue their own digital tokens in 2018 and 2019. They also doubled down on their bullish forecast for bitcoin, which they say could reach $25,000 by year-end.

"The fundamental story of crypto is improving in 2018," according to Fundstrat. "And improving apps, such as Robinhood, and now Circle (acquiring Poloniex), are [creating] new on ramps for users this year."

Robinhood, the California brokerage known for its popular stock-trading app, launched Robinhood Crypto in February. On Monday, payments company Circle announced its acquisition of crypto exchange Poloniex. It is also working on launching its own crypto-trading smart phone app, Circle Invest.

Bitcoin gripped the attention of Wall Street and Main Street as its soared to almost $20,000 in December 2017. The start of 2018 was rough to the digital coin, throwing it all the way down to $5,900 at the beginning of February. But a quick read of the chart indicates that the rest of the year will be bullish for bitcoin. Here's Fundstrat:

"In 6 of the last 7 years, bitcoin posted its annual low within the first 60 days, before March. In 2018, bitcoin was down 50% by Feb 6 (36 days), which falls within that time frame. In other words, as we enter March, this is another reason to view 5,900 as THE LOW for the year and we see bitcoin reaching $20,000 by mid-year and $25,000 by year-end."

As for the crypto ecosystem more broadly, Fundstrat notes three non-financial companies are in the process of issuing or could issue their own digital coins in 2018 or 2019.

Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee maker, is one company that could dive into crypto in the next 12 to 24 months, Fundstrat said. It's something the company has hinted at before.

"I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of," Howard Schultz, the company's executive chairman, told Fox Business on Tuesday.

Schultz mentioned the possibility of launching a "proprietary digital currency" as part of those efforts.

Line, a Japanese company, could also launch a digital currency exchange in the next 12 to 24 months.

"The company said it has started the process of registering a virtual currency exchange with the Financial Services Agency but gave no indication as to when this will likely bear fruit," Fundstrat wrote. "Likely to launch a token in conjunction with this effort."

Also, ecommerce company Rakuten is one company that has already announced it's launching a cryptocurrency based on its loyalty program.

Meanwhile, Wall Street banks are staying far away from digital currencies. Financial advisers employed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch were instructed to not hawk Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, an investment product that seeks to mirror the price of bitcoin, to clients. JPMorgan head Jamie Dimon famously called bitcoin "a fraud," and he once said he would fire bankers who trade it for being stupid.

In response to the Quora question "What are the weirdest things flight attendants have seen in their line of duty?" Heather Wilde, a former flight attendant, said that among the strangest were people who made soup using the airline water.

"Guys, the water lines haven't ever been cleaned — ever," she said.

Another flight attendant told Business Insider: "Flight attendants will not drink hot water on the plane. They will not drink plain coffee, and they will not drink plain tea."

"I bring my own," one flight attendant with four years of experience told Business Insider. "Plane water isn't the best."

"Bottled water only," said a flight attendant with 40 years of experience.

Of course, not everyone avoids the water. Robert "Bingo" Bingochea, a flight attendant with United Airlines, readily drinks the coffee and told Business Insider he trusted the water's cleanliness.

Riley, a flight attendant for three years, told Business Insider that all the drinking water was bottled.

"As for the coffee and tea, it does get very hot, and I like to think that kills all the germs," she said.

Another flight attendant said that whether or not he drinks the water depends on the time of year.

"During the winter, I'll drink tea, because the water tanks are so cold that there's less bacteria buildup and the water comes out so hot that it kills most germs," the flight attendant said. "But during the summer and warmer months, I'll bring my own tea from home."

A crane moves the lower stern into place on the USS John F. Kennedy in June. US Navy

The USS John F. Kennedy, the second of the US Navy's Gerald R. Ford-class advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, has reached 70% completion, according to shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls.

Like the first-in-class Gerald R. Ford, the Kennedy is being constructed using a modular technique, in which smaller parts of the ship are welded to form larger chunks, called superlifts, that then come together.

The latest construction milestone came earlier this month when crews at Huntington Ingalls' Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard dropped an 888-ton superlift — a 171-foot-long, 92-foot-wide section composed of berthing areas, electrical-equipment rooms, and workshops — into place between the carrier's bow and midship.

Below, you can see footage of the superlift being moved into place by the company's 1,157-ton gantry crane at Dry Dock 12.

The latest superlift, which took 18 months to construct, "represents one of the key build strategy changes for Kennedy: building superlifts that are larger and more complete before they are erected on the ship," Mike Butler, the program director for the Kennedy, said in a Huntington Ingalls press release.

Construction on the Kennedy started in February 2011 with the "first cut of steel" ceremony at Newport News. The ship's keel was laid in August 2015, and it hit the 50%-constructed mark in June when crews moved the 1,027-ton lower-stern section — containing rudders, tanks, steering-gear rooms, and electrical-power-distribution rooms — into place.

"We are pleased with how construction on the Kennedy is progressing, and we look forward to additional milestones as we inch closer to christening of the ship," Butler said in the release. The Kennedy is set to launch in 2020.

The USS Gerald R. Ford in dry dock during construction.US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Joshua J. Wahl

Like the Ford, the Kennedy contains an array of advanced features, including the Electromagnetic Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear, both of which assist with launching and landing aircraft. (The Ford, however, lacked one notable feature: urinals.)

The Ford was delivered to the Navy two years later than planned and cost about $12.9 billion, 23% more than estimated.

The Government Accountability Office said last summer that the $11.4 billion budget for the Kennedy was unreliable and didn't address lessons from the building of the Ford, The Associated Press reported. The Pentagon partially agreed with those conclusions.

In August, Huntington Ingalls completed the "first cut of steel" ceremony for the third Ford-class carrier, the USS Enterprise.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Around Silicon Valley, "regulation" is a dirty word, and one that strikes fear in the hearts of even the wealthiest and most successful executives.

Look no further than a recent panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff expressed worry. Meanwhile, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat deflected questions on the prospect of more regulatory oversight, calling an inquiry about whether Google is too big an "unanswerable question."

Matt Moberg, a portfolio manager who oversees the $5 billion Franklin DynaTech Fund, shares no such worries or reservations.

As a long-term investor, he's focused on the big picture. And he says even if mega-cap tech titans like Facebook and Alphabet are forced to — heaven forbid — break up, historical precedent suggests that things could end up OK in the end, if not better.

In an interview with Business Insider, Moberg elaborated on those thoughts and also discussed how his European history degree informs his investment decisions and outlined his unique approach to diversification. Read the full story here. Here's what Moberg had to say (emphasis ours):

"Even big concerns like the regulations that could affect mega-cap tech companies, we've seen that play out before. So we have a playbook. And while it's not the same, they're great reference points.

Quite frankly, things rarely end that poorly. Even if these companies get broken up, their break-ups actually end up being great companies themselves. Doing this gives us some confidence over the long term."

Kairos Society founder Ankur Jain. Sarah Jacobs

Perhaps you are looking to move to a new apartment. You find a great place, but you'll need to pay first month's rent plus a security deposit equal to at least one month's rent.

In big cities like New York, where rent prices are exorbitant to begin with, many millennial renters struggle to come up with the extra cash for a security deposit. Even for those who can afford it, it's frustrating to have thousands of dollars tied up in a landlord's hand until you move out.

Rhino, a company launched by venture-capital fund Kairos Ventures, is aiming to help eliminate those cumbersome housing costs for renters. Rhino allows renters to pay the company a monthly fee — typically between $10 and $20 — in lieu of a one-time security deposit paid to a landlord.

Upfront rental costs are a "huge financial burden for folks at a time where most people don't have that kind of savings available to them," Kairos Society founder Ankur Jain told Business Insider. "Our goal is to make cost of living cheaper whether you're a low income household or renting a luxury apartment."

Landlords, meanwhile, will receive double the protection through Kairos' partner insurance company. They will have more security by receiving money within 48 hours and not worrying about small claims suits.

Rhino's deposit-free program will be available in other US cities soon. Courtesy of Rhino

"By replacing traditional deposits with a small monthly fee, Rhino is able to cut down the cost of a new apartment significantly," Jain said. "That means more access to better apartments for more renters."

In November, Jain announced a fund to fix problems facing middle-class Americans, including child care and retirement planning, along with a $25 million commitment to help "make housing more affordable for everyday people." Tackling the obstacles associated with sky-high rent in urban centers is a priority.

Rhino's deposit-free program is currently available for 22,000 New York City apartments, where renters will also be able to get any existing security deposits returned to them. Jain told Business Insider the service will be available throughout "a significant portion" of the US within six months.

Rhino fits into a greater trend of deposit-free housing, which is as of now restricted to the luxury market, according to Jain.

Watch the video below to learn more about how Rhino works:

FILE PHOTO - A monitor shows various cryptocurrencies' exchange rates against Japanese Yen including NEM coin (middle in the top) at 'nem bar', where customers can pay with NEM coins, in Tokyo Thomson Reuters

If you know someone looking for a job in the crypto, tell them the exchanges are hiring en masse.

Exchanges - the gate keepers of the crypto world where buyers and sellers come together and tokens change hands -- struggled to shepherd a niche market into the mainstream during the crypto boom of 2017.

At the end of 2017 - when bitcoin was trading close to $20,000 - 24-hour trading volumes across the cryptocurrency market soared as high $70 billion. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of new users jumped on the bandwagon. This precipitated countless exchange outages and even forced a handful of exchanges to close their doors to new users.

Volumes have since come back down to Earth since the beginning of 2018. Still, at around $20 billion, they are still four times higher than they were in November of last year. But the relative calmness of the market has provided a chance for crypto exchanges to take a breath and ramp up hiring.

Coinbase, Kraken, and Circle, which recently announced its acquisition of crypto exchange Poloneix, are all looking to double their headcount in 2018. Many of those positions will be in the back office, working on building out systems to fend off the type of outages that were wide-spread in 2017. Bulking up customer service teams is another priority.

"We're effectively doubling the numbers in terms of headcount, from roughly 250 to 500," Dan Romero, VP and general manager at San Francisco-based Coinbase, told Business Insider.

The company has more than 50 job posts on LinkedIn, spanning positions from compliance to tech to customer services to human resources.

It's the same story over at Kraken, another San Francisco exchange. A person familiar with the company's operations said it is on the fast track to 1,000 employees and it's prepared to add 800 people to its staff in 2018.

Sean Neville, the cofounder of Circle, told Business Insider that the company, which has under 200 employees, is set to double its head count within the year.

"There is some work to do in addressing customer support requests and technical issues," Neville said.

There's no doubt that this will be a tough feat, especially considering how rare crypto and blockchain talent is.

"There is a significant shortage of people who have expertise and acumen in this space," said Mike Poutre, the chief executive of The Crypto Company, a crypto market structure firm. "A lot of them who are well-versed in these topics are pretty financially independent."

National Police Air Service

An incredible photograph taken from a police helicopter shows the moment a freezing cold weather system hit London with its worst snow and cold in years.

The image, taken on Tuesday afternoon, shows a huge cloud formation moving over the centre of the city, partly obscuring its skyline.

The cold air, which originated over Siberia but moved west due to unusually warm weather over the North Pole, has earned the nickname "The Beast from the East" in Britain.

Familiar buildings like The Shard, western Europe's tallest skyscraper, and other landmarks in London's main business area could just about be identified in the image.

National Police Air Service/Business Insider

It was posted to Twitter by the National Police Air Service, which operates a helicopter over London that helps with searches, reconnaissance and, on the odd occasion, taking amazing pictures.

The photograph was taken over Hampstead, a northerly area of London, and shows the view south towards the centre.

The officers in the helicopter were on their way to another task at the time, and did not take off specifically to take pictures of the weather.

They also recorded video of the snowy front moving through the city:

The photo encapsulated the gravity of the weirdly cold and snowy weather engulfing Britain, much of Europe, and especially London, where all the national newspapers are produced.

As a result, it produced the relatively rare spectacle of the same image being used on the front page of half of the national papers on the newsstand:

The Snapchat hotdog. Shona Ghosh/Business Insider

Good morning! Here is the tech news you need to know this Wednesday.

1. Amazon will spend a reported $1 billion to acquire smart doorbell startup Ring. Ring offers a video-enabled doorbell that beams footage of whoever's outside to the homeowner's phone.

2. Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth has disputed claims that Donald Trump's camp paid more for Facebook ads during the 2016 election campaign than Hillary Clinton's. Bosworth shared a chart showing Trump's cost-per-impression surged in the final weeks.

3. Snapchat downloads surged after its redesign, despite massive criticism over the changes. Snapchat's average growth in first-time installs was up 55% week on week, when comparing the week before and after the redesign.

4. Bill Gates said cryptocurrencies had "caused deaths in a fairly direct way" unlike almost any other technology. In a Reddit AMA, Gates noted cryptocurrencies were used to buy drugs, launder money, and fund terrorists.

5. Ex-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has shut down his new venture, a fitness app called Chorus. The idea was that a group of friends would sign up and declare their fitness goals to motivate each other, but the app struggled to keep users beyond a few weeks.

6. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak said he had $70,000 in bitcoin stolen from him. A scammer paid him for the bitcoin via a credit card, but the card number turned out to be stolen.

7. Secretive data firm Palantir has been quietly using New Orleans as a testbed for its "predictive policing" technology, according to The Verge. The tool traced gang members' connections to other criminals.

8. Uber executive Frances Frei, who was hired to fix the company's culture, is leaving after less than a year. Now that ex-CEO Travis Kalanick is out, many of the company's cultural problems have seemingly been resolved.

9. Google said it's complied with about 43% of 2.4 million "right to be forgotten" takedown requests received over three years. Most requests come from individuals, but a growing number come from celebrities and politicians.

10. A pple has hired another big-name director to create an original series. M. Night Shyamalan has signed up for a 10-episode show.

Lithuania's fans wave flag and cheer on their team during their FIBA Basketball World Championship game against France in Izmir September 1, 2010.REUTERS/Sergio Perez

LONDON — Lithuania is betting that Brexit can help it become a global fintech hub, as the Eastern European country seeks to attract British companies setting up subsidiaries in the EU.

"I cannot deny that," Marius Jurgilas, a member of the board of the Bank of Lithuania, told Business Insider when asked if Lithuania saw Brexit as an opportunity.

"We are not saying that we will be attracting top firms from the fintech hub of the world, which is and always will be London, to the new booming financial sector in Lithuanian, no," Jurgilas said. "But there is a huge flow of firms — and we want to participate in that flow — who want to hedge the risk of Brexit."

"This is the state of affairs that everyone has to deal with and we're just part of the game," Jurgilas said. Lithuania's position in Europe. Google Maps

Britain's future relationship with the European Union remains up in the air and finance firms fear they could lose passporting rights, which allow them to sell services across the 27 member bloc. To hedge against this risk, many businesses are setting up licensed subsidiaries in other EU countries.

Lithuanian MEP Antanas Guoga told BI: "I think [Brexit] is a big opportunity because we're cost-wise a very competitive country, people are very diligent and hard-working, and, because of Brexit, a lot of companies are in a position to move out of the United Kingdom to make sure they're safe and secure."

Guoga helped to set up a Blockchain Centre in the country's capital Vilnius last year, dedicated to exploring applications of the new technology that banks are excited about. The centre launched in January with the support of PwC among others.

'One of the most exciting fintech hubs in Europe right now'

Lithuania is an unlikely contender to become Europe's next fintech hub.

Unlike Paris or Amsterdam, it does not have a strong history of financial services. Unlike Berlin, Vilnius does not have startup scene of any international renown. The entire country has a population of 2.8 million, around a third of London.

TransferGo's CEO and founder Daumantas Dvilinskas. TransferGo

But its pitch appears to be working. Invest Lithuania announced in January that 117 fintech companies are now operating in Lithuania, employing 2,000 people. It may not sound like a huge amount but the growth is impressive — 35 new businesses were registered in 2017.

Hot London-based banking startup Revolut and fellow UK startup TransferGo are among the fintech businesses to choose Lithuania. Revolut praised the country as "one of the most exciting fintech hubs in Europe right now" in a statement last year announcing they were applying for a banking license there.

"They recognise the opportunity of Brexit," TransferGo CEO Daumantas Dvilinskas told BI. Dvilinskas is originally from Lithuania but said he chose Vilnius for an EU office not just because of personal ties, but also because of its "innovative regulating body."

The Bank of Lithuania has a "business-friendly attitude," according to board member Jurgilas. The central bank has got the licensing process down to as little as three months, for example.

"We identified that the thing that is really tilting the scales in the decision-making process is time," Jurgilas said. "It's not about monetary cost or regulatory burden, it's about how much time do I have to invest to get a decision? Firms want certainty and quick decisions."

Other fintech-friendly initiatives include the central bank's regulatory "sandbox", where firms can try out innovative new business ideas with the regulators blessing, and a blockchain sandbox, dubbed LBChain, that will give companies a safe space to experiment with blockchain projects under the regulator's supervision.

Can Vilnius compete with Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam?

Lithuania is not alone in looking to attract fintech business off the back of Brexit. Many European capitals are trying to woo businesses, with Paris lobbying particularly hard. Why should firms choose Vilnius?

"Being in the eurozone gives us the same status of Frankfurt," Guoga said. "We've got a lot of hard-working people with knowledge of fintech who are not costing as much as they would in other cities because of the living costs. The country is very clean. There's a lot of different benefits and that's why there's only more and more people coming here."

Established players are also choosing Lithuania for development facilities, which helps create an ecosystem Guoga argued.

"I'm just in the blockchain centre here and I can see the building next to me is all filled by Barclays," he said. "Barclays has the biggest centre of development here in Vilnius. Further on I can see Nasdaq. A lot of the IT is all done from here.

"Having Barclays here, having Danske Bank, having Nasdaq here and having many many other startups and also big multinationals have cemented our place as a place for fintech development."

"I think we'll be on target to do a lot more [e-money licenses] this year. The momentum is definitely there. We should aim to issue 100 a year as soon as possible. The demand is very wide."

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Since the Tesla Model 3 launched in July and started its uneasy path as a mass-market vehicle, Tesla watchers have been carefully scrutinizing the vehicle's quality.

Last April, Reuters reported that Tesla skipped the "soft tooling" phase, which is a pre-production process that helps automakers work out manufacturing problems before starting mass production.

The company took a big risk by skipping this stage before commencing deliveries, and it has paid off. Holdups have kept Model 3 production well below its expected levels, with fewer than 3,000 cars officially delivered.

CEO Elon Musk has called this "production hell" and reminded everybody that no Tesla vehicle has enjoyed a smooth rollout. And naturally, all over the internet, there have been deep dives into how well the Model 3 is bolted together.

Tesla let us borrow a Model 3 for a few hours, and we gave it a good once-over. While there were some glitches here and there, the so-called build quality of our top-of-the-line vehicle — a press car — was good.

But what, exactly, is build quality? And why does it matter?

For many years, it wasn't the forte of US automakers. American cars may have looked cool, but when Japanese and European vehicles began to show up in real numbers in the US in the 1970s and '80s, US manufacturing started to look sloppy by comparison.

These days, build quality of American cars and trucks is generally excellent.

Tesla has been an exception, but the company is still relatively young. Ford and General Motors are each more than 100 years old, while Tesla has been around for just 14 years.

Build quality is both general and specific. If you look at a Tesla vehicle, the overall impression is usually pretty good. They're beautifully designed, with a vibe that's classic and futuristic.

But if you focus, you may notice body panels that aren't consistently spaced, known as "panel gaps." Or misaligned door handles. Or interior plastic components that look really plasticky. Or upholstery that's crinkled. Or other various minor components that aren't up to snuff for a vehicle that can cost $100,000.

On our Model 3 tester, for example, I was bothered by some steering-wheel stitching that was too far toward the back of the wheel.

Build quality tends to improve over time as a carmaker gets better at building its vehicles and learns from customer feedback.

Interestingly, Tesla has been somewhat immune from build-quality criticism because owners think of its vehicles as rolling technology, completely different from gas-powered cars, regardless of how well those machines are made.

We're under no illusions about Tesla's build quality — it's better than it once was, but it could be improved.

A comparable German or Japanese car creates a superior impression, and for some buyers, that will matter. But Tesla sold 100,000 vehicles last year and has a tremendous level of customers satisfaction.

So while the auto industry has across the board learned to respect build quality, Tesla has proved that it isn't the only thing that matters.

A self-driving Ford vehicle. Screenshot via YouTube

Ford has big plans for full autonomous vehicles. By 2021, the carmaker intends to launch a car that can drive itself and deliver goods — and have no steering wheels or other controls.

That ambitious objective took a leap forward on Tuesday when the company announced that after considering several US cities in which to test new services and businesses and develop autonomous technology, it had settled in Miami as the location for its pilot program.

"We've spent years researching and developing self-driving technology, studying changing customer behaviors, serving some of the largest fleets in the country with help from our dealers, and working with governments big and small," Sherif Marakby, the Ford vice-president overseeing autonomy and electrification, said in a Medium post.

"Now it's time to pull it all together head for the finish line!" he added. "So now, we're headed to Florida to test and prove out our business model. With the help of Miami-Dade County, we're taking our service directly to the streets of Miami and Miami Beach."

Why Miami?

The Miami area presents unique development opportunities.Wikimedia Commons

The Miami area was chosen, Marakby said, because it combines a dense urban environment with suburban spaces. Miami itself is the "the tenth most congested city in the world and the fifth most congested city in the United States," Markaby noted.

But the weather is also relatively predictable and, for the purposes of AV and EV testing, more benign than what one might find in Michigan or the Northeast. Companies diving into autonomy have favored environments in regulation- and rain-light Arizona, but as General Motors has learned with its Cruise self-driving unit and operations in San Francisco, a viable autonomous business will have to contend with urban density at some point.

"Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos A. Giménez is a champion of innovative technology and applying it to help improve life for residents of the county," Marakby wrote on Medium. "He's on the forefront of thinking about the future of transportation."

Ford is designing an all-new, fully autonomous vehicle that it will roll out in three years and that can be used, Marakby said on a conference call with reporters, to transport people in a robotaxi framework or deliver stuff. The company will rely on ArgoAI to shepherd the technology. Ford made a $1-billion investment in the startup last year.

The carmaker isn't waiting for that car to begin working on logistics and business models, however. In Miami, Ford will create a centralized self-driving hub.

"Situated close to downtown, it will be the base from which we'll develop our vehicle management processes and house our test fleet," Marakby wrote on Medium. "The vehicles will be washed and have their sensors cleaned here; routine maintenance will be conducted, including troubleshooting problems that arise and more."

Ford has partnered with Domino's. Ford

The pizzas are coming

Ford will also expand its partnerships with Domino's and delivery service Postmates in Miami.

"What we learn from this customer experience research will be applied to the design of our purpose-built self-driving vehicle that we plan to launch in 2021 to support the expansion of our service," Marakby wrote on Medium.

He also told reporters during a press call that Ford will look to add additional partners, including local Miami businesses.

Ford could be accused of putting the cart before the horse in Florida, as it will essentially be conducting a trial-and-error process for several years before it has a truly autonomous platform. GM has taken a different tack with Cruise, rapidly developing an all-electric self-driving vehicle and putting it on the street to amass real-world experience. At some juncture, GM will link Cruise with its ride-hailing and sharing service, Maven, and possibly make its autonomous fleet available to ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft.

But under CEO Jim Hackett, who took over last year when Mark Fields was ousted amid a lagging stock price, Ford has been taking a broader view of new businesses. In Miami, the goal is clearly to have coherent businesses and reliable partners signed up before injecting autonomous vehicles into the system.

"We have to map the city and map the area before we can run in autonomous mode," Marakby said. "But the business and technology will converge in future."

He also told reporters that by 2021, Ford will be adding thousands of vehicles per year to its self-driving fleet.

"Starting the business two or three years ahead of launch is perfect," he said.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Companies like Apple are starting to take a more active role in their employees' healthcare.

That includes confronting the rising cost of healthcare, along with attempts to try and improve the quality of the care their employees receive.

One way to pull that off is by building healthcare clinics built solely for employees. Clinics located in or near company headquarters have traditionally been a benefit at certain companies, including banks, and of course hospitals.

Now, Apple's joining in.

Apple's clinics, called AC Wellness Networks, will be run independently from Apple but will be exclusively for its employees, CNBC first reported on Tuesday. Apple employs about 25,000 people in the Bay Area in California, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

"AC Wellness Network believes that having trusting, accessible relationships with our patients, enabled by technology, promotes high-quality care and a unique patient experience," wrote on one of its job listings. AC Wellness is expected to launch in the spring, according to its website.

According to the clinic's website, Apple's hiring everything from exercise coaches to primary care doctors and blood-testing experts.

The goal of having healthcare facilities onsite or near where employees spend most of their day is that they might have better access to healthcare with fewer excuses not to go to the doctor's office for routine check-ups or when they're feeling under the weather. That way, you might be able to prevent more costlier visits down the line, which companies like Apple would be on the hook for covering.

The move, along with news that JPMorgan, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway are forming a new independent nonprofit venture aimed at lowering healthcare costs for their employees, has people looking at employer-sponsored health plans in a new light.

The insurance companies are there in the middle to handle the logistics of getting the claim from one place to another, which means you might not realize your employer's footing the entire bill on the other end. Employers pay insurance companies for their services on a per member, per month basis. More than half of the non-elderly population is covered by an employer-sponsored plan, and almost 80% of large companies are self-insured.

"I tell people, JPMorgan Chase already buys a $1.5 billion of medical, and we self-insure," JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Business Insider. It's why his company, along with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, two other massive self-insured employers, are looking for new options. "Think of this, we're already the insurance company, we're already making these decisions, and we simply want do a better job," Dimon said.

But, in order to make an impact that extends massive employers like Apple, JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway, it'll take new initiatives that don't just focus on cutting a few costs.

"It isn't difficult to shave a little bit off here," Warren Buffett said on Monday. "The question is whether we can come up with something better. I'm hopeful, but don't expect any miracles."

Because the companies cover so many people, they might have the negotiating power to make that happen, at least in one of a number of ways, like negotiating better prices or building out better plans of their own.

Screenshot taken from the Yakuza 6 teaser trailer Sega

Sega quickly pulled the highly anticipated "Yakuza 6: The Song of Life" demo from the PlayStation Store after discovering some players had inadvertently gained access to the full game using the demo.

This discovery came only hours after the demo was initially released for PlayStation 4.

The Japanese video game company tweeted, "We are as upset as you are, and had hoped to have this demo available for everyone today. We discovered that some were able to use the demo to unlock the full game."

In a follow-up tweet, Sega explained they don't yet know how players were able to access the full game via the demo.

At the time of publishing, Sega has not yet returned Business Insider's request for comment on the decision to take down the demo.

When the demo was initially released it required more than 36 GB of storage, to the surprise of many video game critics. Kotaku, an online entertainment publication, suggests that the demo was so large because it actually contained the entire game, but was supposed to restrict everything beyond the first few stages of the game.

Some players, who had downloaded what they thought was the free demo, simply continued playing through the rest of the game when the restrictions failed, according to Kotaku. It's still unclear how many people gained access to the full game, or whether they will be allowed to maintain the progress they achieved before Sega pulled the plug.

The action RPG was supposed to be released in full in April 17, and is expected to be one of Sega's biggest titles of the year.

Here's the official teaser trailer:

MixMax cofounders, left to right: Brad Vogel, Olof Mathé, and Chanpory Rith Mixmax

If Chanpory Rith learned one thing during his time at Google, it's that email isn't dead. Now, he's at the helm of Mixmax, a small, but profitable, company that's trying to prove it.

In 2011, Rith was leading the design the Gmail app for iOS. His team wanted to measure if people how often people were using Gmail. Unsurprisingly, they found college students didn't really use email much. But when they graduated and entered the workforce, their email use skyrocketed.

That gave him an idea: What if he could make using email at work easier? That idea eventually led to the creation in 2014 of Mixmax, a small company co-founded by Rith, that makes handy tools to improve Gmail — including the ability to track emails, schedule when emails are sent, make in-email polls, and schedule meetings with one click.

With Mixmax, users can schedule when emails are sent. Mixmax

And not only is Mixmax already profitable, with about 10,000 customers — earlier in February, it announced $10.4 million in new funding in a round led by personal investments from venture capitalists Jason Lemkin (of SaaStr Fund) and Carl Fritjofsson (of Creandum). All told, Mixmax has raised $13.4 million since its inception.

Prices range from $9 per month for individual users to $50 or more per month for businesses. Mixmax's customers are mostly small businesses: It says its products are especially popular with sales, customer support, and recruiting teams.

"People still use email," Olof Mathé, Mixmax's CEO and co-founder, told Business Insider. "And one of the biggest problems we've seen is communicating with people outside of your organization. It takes five or six emails to schedule a meeting."

Right now, the company employs 20 people. With the additional funding, Mixmax wants to expand to 50 employees.

Here's how a long commute put Rith — now a designer with Mixmax — on the path to starting his own, profitable, growing company.

Rith left Google in 2012, after about a year working as Gmail's iOS design lead. He had been pushing the company to build a features, like email tracking and scheduling, specifically for businesses — but was told that Gmail would continue focusing efforts on its broader audience, Rith told Business Insider.

Plus, he was commuting two hours in traffic from San Francisco to Google headquarters in Sunnyvale, California every day and it was beginning to take a toll.

"Although I really loved working at Google, the commute really got to me," Rith said. "And I wanted to work on something that gave me a lot for space for expressiveness, like I wanted customers to be able to express themselves much more richly, and Gmail at the time was still very text based."

That brought Rith to Inkling, a company that lets users make visually appealing e-textbooks. That's where Rith met Olof Mathé and Brad Vogel, with whom he would eventually go on to start Mixmax. Mixmax allows users to schedule meetings with one click. Mixmax

Rith and Mathé, a former Skype employee, are both immigrants and self-proclaimed "communication geeks." Growing up — Rith in Cambodia, and Mathe in Sweden — they became interested in making communication better, especially because both were bilingual and often had to translate for their families. Both see Mixmax as a key utility to make it easier for people to communicate with one another.

Rith and Mathé got along so well, they left Inkling with Vogel in 2014 to found Mixmax, using the idea Rith had while working at Google: Email for work, but better.

They experimented with making Mixmax a free product, but ultimately decided to "make a product so good, people will want to buy it," Mathé said. That was one of the most important decisions they made, putting them on the path to profitability — and it's their advice to other entrepreneurs.

"Always charge for the things you build," Rith said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg AP Photo/Noah Berger

The media industry's worst fears about Facebook's huge algorithm tweak are coming true.

The women-focused publisher LittleThings is shutting its doors, in large part due to Facebook's recent move, the company's CEO Joe Spieser told Business Insider.

LittleThings' demise was first reported by Digiday's Lucia Moses.

LittleThings focused on a mix of feel good news and service content along the lines of Valentine's Day dinner recipes. The company also produced a regular slate of live video content on Facebook, even featuring celebrity guests.

Since launching in 2014, LittleThings had amassed over 12 million Facebook followers and its videos regularly generated thousands, if not millions of views.

But Spieser said that the recent algorithm shift, which Facebook has said was designed to tamp down content that is consumed passively - and would instead focus on posts from people's friends and family - took out roughly 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic, while hammering its profit margins.

Back in 2016, Spieser told the Wall Street Journal that he was highly optimistic about Facebook and its desire to help web publishers.

Now, as one source close to the company put it: "Facebook is the destroyer of worlds."

LittleThings was actually born out of a pet e-commerce venture. In 2015 the company raised an undisclosed amount of cash through debt financing as it shifted towards becoming a full fledged media company, according to TechCrunch.

This past November LittleThings had hired a bank to explore strategic options.

Here's the memo the company issued on Tuesday:

"Urgent: LittleThings Closure"...

Today, February 27th, LittleThings will be permanently closing its doors. It comes after 8 years of starting as an e-commerce company, and then 4 years ago as LittleThings. I've watched a rag tag group of talented hardworking individuals create one of the largest and most emotional brands on Facebook. So many of you have become super stars in the social media space it's incredible. I've never felt so proud and blessed to be part of such an amazing group of people. It pains me to have to write this and hang up our hat, but there are only so many hits a digital media company can afford to absorb in this day and age, and we just exceeded ours.

As most of you remember, we took some especially large setbacks in August 2017, but were able to quickly right the ship, and rebuild the company with new business lines and revenue streams. Instead of waiting for the next Facebook newsfeed update, we entered into a sale-process in November that would allow us to merge with a large media entity that could bring our business diversification of both traffic and revenue. By early February we had numerous acquisition offers for LittleThings that would have generated a substantial return for everyones' options, as well as guarantee their careers well into the future.

Unfortunately, as we were receiving those offers a full on catastrophic update to Facebook's algorithm took effect. The prioritization of friends/family content over publishers was the last straw. Our organic traffic (the highest margin business), and influencer traffic were cut by over 75%. No previous algorithm update ever came close to this level of decimation. The position it put us in was beyond dire. The businesses looking to acquire LittleThings got spooked and promptly exited the sale process, leaving us in jeopardy of our bank debt convenants and ultimately bringing an expedited end to our incredible story.

What happens to the LittleThings brand, we all know and love, is uncertain at this point. It's my deep hope that we can find a way to resurrect it and reemerge from the ashes with a new will, but that may take many months.

What this means for you:

All wages earned will be paid with no exceptions, payroll has already been submitted for tomorrow. Marcella is preparing information on healthcare (Cobra), and other important transition documents. While severance will not be up to us, as the bank now has control over the outgoing payments, we feel confident that everyone should be seeing additional money soon. We will get the specific amounts after the bank transition is complete. (This may take a few weeks)

What this means for the office:

You can take as long as you need, and come back tomorrow as well, the doors will not be locked. The only restriction, and it's an important one, is that all electronics, cameras, computers, etc stay behind. Anything non-personal removed from the office will be against the bank's policy and could jeopardize severance.

Marcella, Gretchen and myself are available tonight and all day tomorrow to talk through this with any and all of you. I'm also more than willing to be a reference for any of you when necessary. In addition I'm close with a media recruiter with which I can help you connect if you are interested. Please make sure you lean on the resources we make available. What happened here is not any of your faults, and I don't want this to slow down your career growth and success.

For LittleThings.com and social accounts:

We won't be shutting down the site yet. I want to make sure we have enough time to inform our readers, fans and viewers that LittleThings is closing. If you want to do one final farewell video, editorial post, FB/IG post, etc now is the time. I've also paid to keep all of your emails open for another 30 days so you have that additional access.

If any press reaches out please forward them over to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and one of us will answer it.

Again, if you want to talk, please don't hesitate. It's going to be an emotional time for all of us, please reach out to anyone struggling and be their shoulder.

While LittleThings may be winding down, the friendships, and connections we have made here will continue to endure.

Sincerely,

Joe + Gretchen