Enterprise automation startup JIFFY.ai raised an $18 million Series A round led by Nexus Venture Partners in June.

JIFFY.ai is an AI-first platform focusing on the highly regulated fintech industry.

Its tech draws on robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, and artificial intelligence to simplify process automation and app development for companies. 

CEO Babu Sivadasan says the startup's client base has grown 200% in the first half of 2020, as an increasing number of companies look to streamline their operations.

"[In] the second quarter, actually a lot of organizations started seriously looking at automation," said Sivadasan. "Because the fundamental notion that you're going to have people working in office operating your infrastructure, operating your applications, that has been challenged."

Since it was founded in 2018, JIFFY.ai has built a global team of 150 employees and over 30 clients. This includes Fortune 500 companies like Southwest Airlines, which use JIFFY.ai to automate a wide range of processes, from bookings to pilot timesheets.

The US-based startup was co-founded by a team of 20, largely former founders and C-suite executives to disrupt the growing automation market. Almost all companies will use RPA within the next five years, according to a survey by Deloitte.

Its majority stakeholder is the non-profit organization Paanini Foundation, which partners with the startup to retrain workers whose jobs are displaced by automation. 

"We are also concerned about the potential impact of automation to existing jobs ... so we wanted to pursue build a company with a strong sense of deep social responsibility and moral character," says Sivadasan. "Being ruthless about innovation ... but at the same time being compassionate."

JIFFY.ai competes with a number of other tech giants in the RPA space like $10.2 billion UiPath, which plans to go public in early 2021, and UK-based market leader Blue Prism.

"We have had good success competing against the big players. We've just been selected by, for example, AirAsia in Malaysia," says Sivadasan. "Where we have seen success in competition is when a decision is being made based on the merits of the product."

Check out the pitch deck it used to bring investors on board:

Lyft president John Zimmer warned that the company may temporarily stop operating in California due to a court ruling earlier this week ordering the ride-hailing giant to reclassify drivers as employees.

"If our efforts here are not successful it would force us to suspend operations in California," Zimmer told investors during Lyft's quarterly earnings call Wednesday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Zimmer's comments echoed a similar warning from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who told MSNBC earlier on Wednesday that "it's hard to believe we'll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly."

On Monday, a California court ruled that Lyft and Uber must treat their California drivers as employees rather than independent contractors under the state's  gig work law, AB-5. The ruling dealt the companies a major blow in their legal battle with the state over drivers' status.

The judge in the case issued a 10-day stay on the ruling in order to give the companies time to appeal. Both have argued that reclassifying drivers would significantly hurt their business.

"Lyft cannot comply with the injunction at the flip of a switch," Zimmer said, according to the Chronicle, adding that doing so during the coronavirus pandemic would be "nearly impossible."

He told investors that rides taken in California account for roughly 16% of the company's total trips.

Lyft and Uber have refused to reclassify drivers as employees under AB-5, initially arguing the law doesn't apply to them. But the state's top rideshare regulator determined the opposite in a June ruling, and a group of city attorneys from California cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego filed suit against the companies over the issue in May.

Uber and Lyft have a long history of making — and in some cases acting on — similar threats about leaving markets when faced with regulations they don't like.

Researchers from the University of California Berkeley noted in 2018 that Lyft and Uber used similar tactics in Chicago, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio in response to the cities' efforts to require drivers to undergo more rigorous background checks in order to work for the platforms. Both companies temporarily left Austin, and Uber also left San Antonio, before the regulations were revised or overturned with legislation supported by the companies.

"Uber's threats to leave a market have been an effective tool of overturning regulations," the researchers concluded.

The researchers also pointed to Uber's regulation-busting strategies such as leveraging its app to mobilize drivers and consumers in support of legislation or ballot initiatives it supports and "manipulation of public opinion data available to regulators."

Uber and Lyft have deployed similar approaches in their effort to avoid having to comply with AB-5. The companies poured $30 million each into a ballot measure that would exempt rideshare and food delivery companies from the law.

Zimmer used Wednesday's call as an opportunity to push the Lyft and Uber-backed measure, telling investors that "California voters can make their voices heard by voting Yes on Prop. 22 in November," according to the Chronicle.

The companies argue that, in addition to helping their own bottom lines, drivers also benefit from the flexibility of working as independent contractors. They have also said that new benefits that they would provide under Proposition 22 will give drivers the best of both worlds.

But driver advocacy groups have pushed back on those talking points, saying that it lets Lyft and Uber off the hook for denying drivers more robust pay, benefits, and labor protections guaranteed to traditional employees in California, and that it's the companies' own fault if they curb flexibility in response to regulations.

The state's labor commission brought a separate lawsuit against the companies earlier this month on similar grounds, claiming that Lyft and Uber have committed wage theft by misclassifying drivers. Driver advocacy group Rideshare Drivers United, which has been rounding up driver wage theft accusations, claimed that Uber and Lyft owe more than $1.3 billion in payments to drivers in California.

In 2015, Google's corporate structure was completely reimagined, as the search giant moved under the new parent company of Alphabet. 

The company's core business — search, YouTube, and Android — would remain a part of Google, under the watch of CEO Sundar Pichai. The rest would be broken out into separate companies, each with their own CEOs. All would fall under the auspices of the new Alphabet construct, led by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. 

These non-Google companies that make up the Silicon Valley conglomerate are usually referred to as the "Other Bets," which is how they are labeled on Alphabet's financial statements.

But bets don't always work out, and some have proven more successful than others. Over time, some have been either reabsorbed into Google (Chronicle, Nest, Jigsaw) or killed off entirely (Makani).

Though their revenues and losses are lumped together each quarter, Alphabet's "Other Bets" share little else in common, with company's ranging from anti-aging labs to drone delivery services to startup investment funds.

Also, because the top executives of these companies are not named Larry or Sergey or Sundar, these leaders often fly under the radar. But that doesn't mean their backgrounds aren't worth considering. 

One was a child chess prodigy, who created a smash hit video game by the age of 17. Another is the largest individual shareholder in Apple. Notably, none are women. 

Here are the top executives at Alphabet's "Other Bets:"

The $1.3 billion conversational support startup Intercom is eyeing an IPO and just hired a chief financial officer to help it get there.

Intercom announced the appointment of Dan Griggs in August, though he actually began his role in April after spending nearly six years at customer experience company Sitecore. As chief financial officer of Intercom, he's  preparing the company to go public

"We have no specific timeline — I envision it a few years out," Griggs told Business Insider. "Nothing is set in stone: We're really focused on realistic strategic growth objectives and building a long term sustainable business."

Griggs says the company is "near profitability" this year, but is willing to invest in areas that will help it grow — like sales to mid-market and large enterprise customers — even if it pushes the timeline for profitability back. Ultimately, Griggs expects Intercom to become profitable within the next two years. 

Griggs worked at the adtech company Rocket Fuel as vice president of financial planning and analysis, prior to Sitecore, where he was working when he heard about the opportunity through a recruiter. At the time, he wasn't looking for anything new, but Intercom caught his eye. He was further drawn in his first interactions with founder and then-CEO Eoghan McCabe, as well as Karen Peacock, who was COO at the time but became CEO in July.

"[It] really felt like there was an opportunity to make a difference here," Griggs said. "It's a chance to build a really great team and really take the team to the next level and help build out our infrastructure to support the scale we're looking for."

Griggs has already had an eventful year as he's been tasked with navigating Intercom through the coronavirus pandemic. In May, the company laid off 39 employees, representing about 6% of its workforce. Many of its smaller customers scaled back on their contracts as they took a hit during the crisis, Griggs said. 

Read more: Intercom, a $1.3 billion messaging startup backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, laid off 39 employees and is relocating 47 roles to Dublin

Still, he says the company is seeing a rebound from the initial market reaction to the pandemic from March to May, and he says he's "optimistic about the business."

"We really have a great story to tell to both customers and to the market about what we're doing and what problems we're solving," Griggs said.

Intercom competes with other customer support companies like Zendesk, but relies on a more conversational approach where humans and chatbots interact with customers. 

As CFO, Griggs plans to invest in scaling the company's R&D, sales, marketing, and business operations, and doesn't expect Intercom to need to raise money again anytime soon. In total, it's raised $240.5 million at a $1.3 billion valuation, via PitchBook. 

"As I think about it, we have plenty of liquidity," Griggs said. "We're not struggling for cash. For me, it's really about finding that balance between profitability and growth. We have really big ambitions and have every right to believe in continued growth to our company."

Do you work at Intercom? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. 

Facebook and Snap both recently approached a TikTok-like platform expressing interest to acquire it for "hundreds of millions of dollars," according to The Information.

The app in question is called Dubsmash, a social platform for creating lip-syncing videos that has been around since 2013. Facebook and Snap's interest in a rival video-sharing app comes as TikTok faces off against the Trump administration's threat to ban the app next month.

Dubsmash and other video-sharing platforms have recently seen boosts in downloads and user numbers as TikTok's 100 million monthly users in the US prepare for a future without the viral app. TikTok is currently facing an executive order from Donald Trump that bans "any transactions" as of mid-September with the app and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Although it's unlikely a nationwide ban will be implemented, the threat to TikTok has been enough to send users into a panic about where to make videos and find their favorite creators.

The Information reports that although Dubsmash's acquisition talks with Snap and Facebook occurred in "recent weeks," the discussions are no longer active.

A Snap spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement, "We admire the team but aren't in active talks to acquire." Facebook cited company policy of not commenting on "rumor or speculation," but confirmed they're not in "active discussions" with Dubsmash. Dubsmash did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Snap have been working on their own features drawing from TikTok's popular format. Earlier this month, Facebook launched Instagram Reels in the US, while Snap started to roll out a music-overlay feature for videos.

Dubsmash was an early adopter of the audio-based, video-splicing format later made popular by TikTok. As reported by the New York Times, Dubsmash is where some of the internet's most viral dances have originated, before spreading to TikTok and getting picked up by the platform's most popular creators.

However, Dubsmash has not seen the same level of success as TikTok, nor rivals like Triller and Likee. Sensor Tower indicates Dubsmash has been downloaded around 2 million times in the last six months, and had only one-third of TikTok's lifetime installs in January.

Dubsmash was originally founded in Germany, but the app's creators restarted the company from the ground level in 2017, TechCrunch reported. Dubsmash established itself in Brooklyn with a team of around a dozen employees, and has raised $20 million from investors — although it's receieved no funding since last year, according to PitchBook.

Annie Hwang and Jason Cui met on the first day of college at Harvard, where they later started dating. After graduating in 2018, they worked as product managers and launched their tech careers.

After the coronavirus pandemic struck, the power couple started brainstorming new ways to get audience members to interact with, and pay, content creators that use live streaming platforms like TikTok. In April, they launched the private beta version of Jemi, a Patreon alternative that landed the couple a coveted spot in Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch.

"We want to build this next generation of creator entrepreneurs," Hwang told Business Insider in an interview. 

The country's ongoing shelter-in-place orders means that many actors, comedians, and musicians are unemployed and turning to live streaming, she explained.

Creators "deserve to be monetizing their time and individuality," Hwang added, noting that "not all creators are making money."

Jemi allows creator entrepreneurs to offer merchandise and experiences, such as autographed pictures, 1-on-1 virtual hangouts, and acting classes. The startup takes a cut from each transaction, Cui explained, though he didn't reveal specifics. 

When Jemi launched in April, Hwang started reaching out to creators. So far, Jemi has brought on ex-Guns N' Roses lead guitarist Bumblefoot, Olympic figure skater Karen Chen, and actor Sean Whalen, who is best known for his role in the films 'The People Under the Stairs' and 'Twister'. 

"We're not going after the typical celebrities," Hwang said. "They see themselves as content creators."

Whalen, who most recently appeared in the 2020 film 'American Pickle' starring Seth Rogen, told Business Insider in an interview that, before he discovered Jemi, he'd been looking for new ways to make money from his TikTok live streams, where many of his 100,000+ followers tune in weekly.

Whalen said that Jemi has been helping him make extra cash, as "there's no production going on" in the film industry. 

"I gave Patreon a try," he said, "but my followers weren't into the subscription model."

Many of his followers, Whalen explained, are die-hard horror fans that come from rural parts of the Midwest.

"They know me as Roach from The People Under the Stairs or from Twister," he said. The actor's name also got a boost from Netflix, which added Twister to the streaming platform at the beginning of June (before removing the film 2 months later).

Whalen, who sells merchandise like autographed photos, DVDs, and Blurays, said he also tried including links to his PayPal and Venmo accounts on his TikTok live streams.

But many of his fans would tell him "I don't have Venmo! I don't have PayPal," the actor said, explaining that the payment platforms aren't as popular among fans in rural areas. 

Jemi made the process simple: Followers make one-time purchases by inputting their shipping and credit card information, all in one place.

"Almost everyone has a credit or debit card," the actor said of his fanbase.  

Since switching from Venmo and PayPal to Jemi, Whalen says his sales have increased by more than 30%. On his Friday TikTok live streams, his busiest days, he said that he sells about 40-50 items in 2 hours, and that Jemi makes it easier to manage the influx of requests. 

There have been some hiccups, Whalen admitted, but he also said that the young entrepreneurs who founded the company "are willing to learn, and there's no ego around that."

NOW WATCH:

Several high-profile conservatives including Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas shared Russian misinformation, the The New York Times reported Tuesday.

In Portland, Oregon, protests against police brutality have continued for more than 70 consecutive days. The protesters themselves have been largely peaceful, but have also on some occasions lit bonfires. 

In one of those instances, footage from Ruptly, the video arm of Russian state-backed media outlet Russia Today, showed some protesters using a Bible and American flag to start a fire, which others eventually put out, according to The New York Times.

Multiple local media outlets reported that the protests had been peaceful throughout the day and that the fire was started only at the end of the night as a dwindling crowd of somewhere between a few dozen and 100 people spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement, while only one mentioned a Bible being involved at all.

But Ruptly, which has livestreamed the protests and published highlight clips nightly, focused its summary video that night on the burning of what appeared to be a single Bible, The New York Times reported. Twice, it tweeted the video, noting the Bible being set ablaze both times.

A Twitter user with just a few followers also tweeted the video shortly before deleting their account, but not before  right-wing agitator Ian Miles Cheong retweeted them, adding his own false claim that the protesters burned "a stack of Bibles." 

Cheong's tweet then went viral, sparking coverage from prominent and conservative media outlets and blogs including the New York Post, The Federalist, Gateway Pundit, and The Blaze, as well as retweets from Trump Jr. and Sen. Cruz.

The success of Ruptly's misleading coverage of the Portland protests reveals how Russia's misinformation tactics have evolved since the 2016 presidential election, where American intelligence agencies have repeatedly concluded that Russia interfered with the aim of hurting Hillary Clinton's candidacy.

In 2016, Russia relied heavily on fake Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media accounts to artificially amplify fake news stories created by the Internet Research Agency, its in-house troll farm.

But Russia is deploying new, more sophisticated tactics this time around, and the Portland protest story shows how it has learned to leverage hot-button issues that are likely to resonate with highly partisan or ideological groups in order to sow dissent.

Cybersecurity experts have found that Russia is exploiting the coronavirus pandemic and racial tension in the US, and US intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is attempting to sway the election toward Trump again in 2020, though Trump has repeatedly downplayed the assessments of US intelligence agencies, instead giving deference to fringe agitators who support him.

Lyft on Wednesday revealed its lowest quarterly revenue since 2017, as the coronavirus pandemic wallops its business.

Here are the key numbers from the earnings report, covering April 1 through June 31:

"While rideshare rides in the quarter were down significantly year-over-year, we are encouraged by the recovery trends we are beginning to see, with monthly rideshare rides in July up 78% compared to April," CEO Logan Green said in a press release. "Lyft's second quarter results reflect an operating environment that was not only challenging for our core ridesharing business, but also for our valued riders and drivers and the communities we serve."

Despite the rebound from April lows, active riders declined by 60% from the same period in 2019 thanks to shelter-in-place orders and a near shutdown in business travel. The gains outpaced the rate at which Lyft could get drivers back on the platform, executives said. 

Unlike Uber, Lyft had no food-delivery business to lean on as the coronavirus pandemic hobbled rides requests. Moreover, Lyft only operates in North America, so the United States' failure to contain the spread of the virus has exacerbated its financial difficulties.

Shares of Lyft initially jumped as much as 4% in after-hours trading following the announcement, before sinking about 2% below Wednesday's close. The company's EBITDA loss was 20% better than it had forecast earlier this year, CFO Brian Robert said, but the bottom line beat was largely fueled by massive layoffs that helped to cut costs. 

"These steps position the Company to achieve adjusted EBITDA profitability with 20 - 25% fewer rides than originally contemplated in our fourth quarter 2021 target," Roberts said. 

On a conference call, executives said Lyft would also possibly shut down temporarily in California amid a long-running dispute with labor advocates over its classification of drivers as contractors instead of employees. The state makes up about 16% of total rides, Lyft said. 

The companies, along with other gig-economy startups, hope to fund a shared benefits pool that can follow workers between apps while allowing them the same flexibility. 

"Lyft cannot comply with the injunction at the flip of a switch," Green said. 

Uber and Lyft could temporarily shut down in California if a court ruling saying their workers must be classified as employees, not contractors, holds.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told MSNBC Wednesday morning that "it's hard to believe we'll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly" after a state judge ruled Monday that Uber, Lyft, and other gig-work companies must reclassify drivers and couriers as employees.

Lyft made its threat on a conference call Wednesday afternoon, based on the same ruling. Executives said the shutdown could occur as soon as August 20. The state makes up about 16% of Lyft's total rides, the company said. 

Uber's Khosrowshahi said the shutdown could last until the company's stay on the court ruling, which it requested in filings Tuesday night, is granted. Otherwise, it could continue until California voters decide on Proposition 22 in November, which would allow the company to classify drivers as contractors.

The reclassification as employees would give workers access to benefits and other perks of full-time employment that activist groups have been fighting for over the years. It would also create massive overhead expenses for the companies, whose business models largely rely on independent contractors and lower labor costs.

In fighting the new rules, which were made law by California legislators last year, Uber and others have said workers will lose the flexibility many love about working on the platforms. Instead, a consortium of firms has proposed a third way of classifying employees and wants to pay into a floating benefits fund that will follow workers across ride-hailing and delivery platforms to pay for healthcare and other expenses.

Uber previously accused labor groups of being driven by politics in their fight for driver rights.

"We've got terrific supporters [of Proposition 22] in the community as well who actually care about drivers, versus labor unions and politics. They actually are taking into account the wants and needs of drivers," Khosrowshahi told investors last week.

Advocacy groups say the pandemic makes clear the need for driver healthcare benefits. Monday's ruling "means Uber and Lyft must put an end to their lawless actions that deny benefits and protections to drivers who urgently need them," Uber driver Mekela Edwards, a member of driver advocacy group We Drive Progress, told Business Insider at the time.

A complete shutdown in California would be the first time Uber exited a US market over legal disputes but not the first time it's adapted to changing regulatory environments. Since 2019, the company has not allowed new drivers in New York to sign up on the app, citing new rules about minimum pay in the city.

California's attorney general likely won't be sad to see Uber leave, if it makes good on its threat.

"Any business model that relies on short-changing workers in order to make it probably shouldn't be anywhere, whether California or otherwise," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told CNBC earlier this week.

Uber and Lyft have about a week to appeal, CNBC reported. If that doesn't work out, voters will decide on the consortium's proposal, which has more than $90 million in supportive funding from the companies, in November.

When he was pressed on if his threat was serious, Khosrowshahi said "hopefully, the courts will reconsider. By no means do we want this to happen."

This post has been updated to reflect Lyft's similar threat, Uber's requested stay on the ruling Tuesday night, and to clarify that the shutdown would only occur if the 10-day stay was not granted. 

When Sundar Pichai was appointed Google's CEO in 2015, one of his early ideas was an initiative to explore how emerging markets were coming online — and how Google's products might not be suitable for many of those users.

The division was named Next Billion Users (NBU) and set out to build products for countries where perhaps Wi-Fi is less available, mobile data costs are higher, or phones lack the mammoth amounts of storage that they often have in the US.

NBU started out looking at India, Indonesia and Brazil, but has since expanded its scope to include Mexico and Nigeria. Today, the division has around 300 central employees and "hundreds" of other members across teams including YouTube, Play, and Chrome, said Josh Woodward, NBU's director of product management, in an interview with Business Insider.

Projects have included Google Go, a stripped-down search app built for lightweight data use. Some of the products have even gone on to become surprise global hits, such as offline Google Maps directions, and Files Go (now named Files by Google) which was, funnily enough, originally built to seek and destroy unwanted memes.

 "One of the big problems we were seeing was people forwarding WhatsApp memes to each other, that was filling up a lot of storage [on their phones]," said Woodward.

"So, the team in Mountain View connected with the Google Photos team who had built a lot of interesting computer vision stuff and we were able to train that model to detect these memes."

But the app has boomed well outside of its target market. "The US today is the fourth most popular country for the files app, which is interesting because we never designed it for the US," said Woodward.

NBU's work is split between adapting existing Google products in ways that make sense for other markets, and building entirely new products that are more locally relevant. And as time has moved on and smartphone use has increased, says Woodward, the team has focused more on people who are coming online for the very first time.

"If you were to try to boil down the three big trends happening in NBU today, I would say it's voice, vernacular – which is how people who don't usually speak English are coming online in massive quantities – and then video," said Woodward.

The team has offices and conducts field research in the countries where it's focused, so the pandemic has posed an obvious obstacle to much of its work. "Our whole culture we had built around empathy, either building teams in a country or flying people in for two weeks into NBU studios, we've had to shift entirely," said Woodward.

To compensate for not being in the field, the team has been finding other ways of instilling some level of empathy in a Google engineer for a first-time internet user in Mumbai, said Woodward.

For example, there's a mind-boggling internal game called 'Gorm the Zop,' which NBU employees are made to play to try to understand how confusing smartphones and the internet can be for a first-time user. 

"We usually call people up in front of an all-hands meetings and have them play it in front of their peers." said Woodward.

But the new normal has also changed the way NBU is thinking about the future, especially on the themes of employment and digital payments, said Woodward.

"These both feel like areas where we've almost hit a fast-forward button to 2030 and we're seeing the pace of change in these areas really fast," he said.

"For most workers in a lot of countries where we're doing research with right now, they're printing out CVs and dropping them in wooden boxes to try to get jobs," he added. "That world is going to change and become digital." Video calling replacing face-to-face interviews are a big part of that shift that the pandemic is only accelerating.

Meanwhile, the team sees a lot more opportunities to build on its success in digital payments, particularly in India where Google Pay allows merchants to display digital storefronts in the app where users can even browse and order from menus. There's been speculation that Google will bring some of these features to the US, too, where Google Pay has been slower to grow but could be invigorated by a pandemic-driven push toward contactless payments.

Then there's Jio, India's telecom platform giant, into which Google just put a $4.5 billion (7.5%) stake. The two are now working together on a custom version of Android for entry-level phones – a way for Google to get its range of apps and services in the hands of even more people.

"We're still in the early stages of defining the exact specs and products and what not," said Woodward. "[Jio] of course understand India, they have distribution, they have key assets in the country."

NBU has had its failures along the way, too. In February, it shuttered Google Stations, a program which put free Wi-Fi in more than 400 railway stations in India and other parts of the world. It was a project that made much more sense in late 2014, and less so when India's Jio network arrived and data costs plummeted.

Then in May, Neighborly, an app launched in Mumbai for residents to connect with locals, was shuttered after it failed to gain traction.

"If people tended to have an important local question, they might ask it on Neighborly but they had that really important question maybe once a month.... so the frequency of use just wasn't there," said Woodward.

With Alphabet focusing on bringing the internet to other parts of the world via fiber networks or internet balloons, there also may be more opportunities for these teams to work with NBU. Woodward says NBU is less focused on the infrastructure side right now, but said the team worked with Alphabet's Loon for its rollout of internet service in Kenya.

Woodward says the "beating heart" of NBU right now is how Google learns from users who are mobile-only, but the finding could affect Google's broader, global product strategy ahead.

"We used to say in 2015 the future of the internet looks like the next billion users, which was kind of a rallying cry to come and join our team. But actually I would say that future is the present now. These are the users who are determining a lot of the trends we're going to see play out in the US and the rest of the world."

Brex, simply put, is a startup for startups.

A venture-backed company can have millions in the bank and not get approved for a credit card. That's because the traditional financial institutions want to see a credit history, which few new companies have, before issuing that precious piece of plastic. Brex solved for the problem by giving corporate credit cards to startups based on their available cash balance — including money raised through venture funding — and using data to predict a startup's future ability to pay.

In the past year, Brex grew beyond its roots as a "black card for startups" to include a bank-account product that gives customers the ability to send payments, new credit cards with rewards tailored for e-commerce and healthcare businesses, a members-only lounge, and a restaurant.

Each new product brings Brex closer to the financial-services leaders it wants to unseat. Henrique Dubugras, the company's 24-year-old cofounder and chief executive, told Business Insider that in the long run, the goal is not to become a bank — but to create a collection of products for saving and spending money, in the same way that Apple owns computing through its product suite.

With a private-market valuation of $2.6 billion, Brex has plans to double its staff to 800 employees this year, adding to a powerhouse team of financial-services veterans and tech-giant alumni.

This list of top employees is focused on staff who are helping the company take on legacy finance institutions, as opposed to the technical talent at the startup. They include the people tasked with raising funding, rolling out new products, keeping customers happy, and signing on rewards partners, as well as the people responsible for plastering San Francisco with Brex advertisements.  

Meet the 13 power players of Brex:

Microsoft just bolstered the organization responsible for Windows, Surface devices, and its Microsoft 365 bundle of business applications with some internal cloud talent.

The company recently relocated a team from its Azure cloud business to this organization, known as "experiences and devices," according to longtime Microsoft pundit Brad Sams, writing for Petri.com, "to help the Windows/Surface teams build more cohesive experiences that the company hopes customers will love and push the Surface team to create better products as well."

The experiences and devices team is responsible for a big part of Microsoft's business. Microsoft 365, for example, is the company's a bundle of business apps, introduced in 2017, that includes Office 365 – cloud-based versions of the company's flagship productivity applications such as Word and Excel – collaboration tools like OneDrive and SharePoint, the Microsoft Teams chat app, and even the Windows 10 operating system itself. The strategy, the company has said, is to make it easier for customers to adopt the best of Microsoft, all at once.

The latest changes come after the company earlier this year notified employees about a significant reorganization, which took effect Feb. 25, affecting the Windows experience and devices teams, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider. 

That represents a big chunk of Microsoft's lineup of cloud software products, an area where it has a clear advantage in the cloud wars with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. AWS doesn't have a cloud software business to speak of, while Google's G Suite only accounts for a sliver of the market compared with the juggernaut that is Microsoft Office.

United under the banner of Microsoft 365, these power players are helping the company in "moving closer toward a comprehensive enterprise application ecosystem," Nucleus Research analyst Andrew MacMillen recently told Business Insider.

Here are the 21 power players behind Microsoft 365:

Healthcare providers have been turning to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) to facilitate their digital transformation since before the coronavirus hit the US — but the pandemic has caused a sea change in providers' willingness to implement IoT solutions that augment efforts in preparing for, containing, and diagnosing the virus. 

Airbnb is feeling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — the short-term rental startup's revenue plunged 67% in the second quarter of 2020, according to Bloomberg.

Revenue reportedly fell to $335 million during the period ended June 30, down from more than $1 billion during the same period last year. By contrast, Airbnb reportedly saw $842 million in sales in the first quarter of 2020.

But the company is still planning an IPO this year — possibly as soon as August, sources told Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Airbnb was reportedly planning to make its public offering earlier this year, but those plans were thrown off track by the unexpected impact of COVID-19 on its business.

An Airbnb spokesperson declined to comment.

CEO Brian Chesky warned in May that the company expected its 2020 revenue to be less than half what it was last year. In the months that followed, the company recently laid off 25% of its staff and hundreds of contract workers, froze its marketing, and borrowed $2 billion to help stay afloat through the pandemic.

According to Bloomberg, Airbnb recorded a loss of $400 million in the second quarter before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That loss likely does not include restructuring charges related to the 1,900 job cuts or other items it could classify as one-time charges, meaning its net loss is almost certainly wider than that.

Airbnb hosts have felt the pain of COVID-19 related travel restrictions for months. As coronavirus lockdowns first began to set in, hosts protested the company for allowing guests to cancel bookings free of charge. Months later, hosts are still complaining of missing payments, CNBC reported this week.

Airbnb announced Wednesday that it will pursue legal claims and damages against a guest who threw a party that descended into mayhem at a Sacramento, California rental over the weekend.

Three people were injured Saturday night after someone opened fire at the party, which was attended by roughly 50 people despite ongoing state mandates preventing large indoor gatherings, according to local NBC affiliate KCRA3.

This marks the first time that Airbnb has taken legal action against a guest accused of violating its policies. The company first banned house parties in November 2019 after five people were killed in a shooting at a Halloween party hosted at an Airbnb rental in San Francisco. Before that, one person was killed and at least three were injured at Airbnb house parties across Northern California in 2019, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit said in a statement to Business Insider that the guest who threw the Sacramento party this week booked the rental under false pretenses, acted with negligence, and violated public health orders.

"Airbnb has no tolerance for unauthorized parties, which are expressly banned in its Community Standards," Breit said.

The short-term rental startup has previously taken steps aiming to prevent parties at its listings. In February, the company encouraged hosts to install "party sensors" that detect high humidity and noise that may indicate a party. The company also altered its policies in July to ban guests under the age of 25 from booking rentals.

Airbnb is reportedly planning to file for an IPO later this month despite harsh conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. CEO Brian Chesky said the company expects its 2020 revenue to be less than half what it was last year, and the company recently laid off 25% of its staff and hundreds of contract workers, froze its marketing, and borrowed $2 billion.

Talk with Hyperion CEO Angelo Kafantaris for a few minutes and it rapidly becomes obvious that he isn't in the auto business, despite the fact that he just launched a wild-looking hypercar, the XP-1, that could notch 0-60 mph in under 2.2 seconds.

Hyperion Motors represents just one facet of an ambitious hydrogen-powered business strategy. Along with Hyperion Aerospace and Hyperion Energy, the auto arm and its debut product are designed to achieve Kafantaris' ultimate goal: to reinvent and revitalize hydrogen power.

Hydrogen fuel cells have been a viable form of energy generation — they've long been used by NASA — and automakers including Toyota, Honda, and GM have pushed them as a way to leave the internal combustion engine behind. But advances in battery-electrics and the ascent of Tesla over the past decade have put fuel cells in the rear view mirror, even if not everyone agrees with Elon Musk's dismissal of the tech as "fool cells."

Kafantaris is eyeing a comeback, and that starts with changing the narrative. 

"We needed to focus on a car, to tell the story in a compelling way to the consumer," Kafantaris said in an interview with Business Insider. Thus, the XP-1, a car that's quicker to 60 mph than any Tesla, with double the range to boot. 

Show them the hypercar, and they will come

The XP-1 is "designed to function as an educational tool for the masses," Kafantaris said. The overarching point is that hydrogen's combination of abundance and portability makes it an ideal fuel for all-electric vehicles. And, of course, the only by-product is water, which is synthesized by a fuel cell's power-generating process.

Kafantaris, who studied engineering at Ohio State before moving to Transportation Design at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, is quick to point out that hydrogen is actually a way to store useful energy, particularly if you want an efficient, zero-emissions way to go fast.

"You don't have the extra battery weight," he said, referring to the bulk of lithium-ion batteries, which are the main way that energy is currently banked for EVs. "So you can have better acceleration and handling — and the same amount of energy as a car that weighs twice as much. This is why NASA has been using hydrogen for 60 years. When you go to space, you want to be as light as possible."

The XP-1, at 2,275 pounds, is a potent featherweight. Made of composites, Kevlar, aluminum, and titanium, it has no hefty engine or battery pack to haul around, just electric motors serving up punishing torque, so using hydrogen to max out performance made sense.

True, hydrogen refueling infrastructure is in its infancy. But with just 300 vehicles slated for production, Hyperion doubtless expects to localize XP-1 sales in places like California, where a smattering of hydrogen stations serve those few buyers who drive one of the three fuel-cell cars on sale in the US today: the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai NEXO, and Honda Clarity. 

While those cars have their fans, Kafantaris bills the XP-1 as the far more compelling pitch for what the most abundant element in the universe can do.

Energy is the focus

"The XP-1 will be the least exciting vehicle from Hyperion," Kafantaris said, but he doesn't plan on becoming another Tesla rival. "I don't want our focus to be manufacturing," he said, echoing sentiments recently offered by Henrik Fisker, whose struck a deal with contract builder Magna to assemble his new Ocean EV.

"Our focus is on the energy side," Kafantaris said, adding that hydrogen has its most "impactful applications in aerospace and industrials." To support that vision and enhance the consumers' understanding of hydrogen as a medium of energy storage, he said Hyperion would undertake the assembly of a nationwide network of refueling stations. But he's also managing expectations. 

"To be an innovator, you have to set aside your biases," he said. "In five years, if hydrogen isn't the best solution, I'll know that." 

Still, he puts a lot of stock in atomic number one.

"Until we have cold fusion, hydrogen will be best."

On January 13, the marketing team at Sony Music Entertainment noticed that one of its artist's songs was surging on TikTok. 

Like most record labels, the company had been monitoring activity on TikTok for months as the short-form video app had emerged as a major driver of song streams on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.

Sony had seen Doja Cat, who signed with its RCA Records imprint in 2014, blow up on the app in December after 17-year-old TikTok star Haley Sharpe created a popular dance to her song "Say So" (a dance that Doja Cat ultimately ended up using in her music video).

But this time, it was one of the label's older catalog songs, a Matthew Wilder track from 1983 called "Break My Stride," that had caught the fancy of TikTok's largely Gen-Z user base.

"Our entire music catalog is effectively tracked on a daily basis," said Andy McGrath, the senior vice president of marketing at Legacy Recordings, the division within Sony that manages Wilder's song catalog. "We're constantly monitoring actions, reactions, and trends that happen on TikTok. We watch what's happening and how many people are creating their own challenges and sharing existing challenges, et cetera, and then we start to say, 'Okay something's happening here.'"

For large music conglomerates like Sony and independent labels alike, TikTok has become an essential marketing tool.

Songs can rise on TikTok by accident, as was the case with Wilder's "Break My Stride." In other instances, marketers or artists try to make songs take off by tapping into existing TikTok fads, creating original songs, or adapting tracks for TikTok's short-video format and hiring influencers to promote them.

"Every music label, every record label, they have a budget now for TikTok because it's becoming so huge," Ariell Nicholas Yahid, a talent manager at the TikTok-focused talent-management upstart the Fuel Injector, told Business Insider. 

In addition to helping artists and labels launch new tracks, song promotion has become an important source of revenue for TikTok's top creators who are looking for ways to make money on an app that still has limited monetization features.

And for up-and-coming artists, TikTok can offer an effective way to build an audience quickly. You can see that clearly in the seemingly instantaneous music careers of TikTok stars like Dixie D'Amelio, Jaden Hossler, and Josh Richards.

Artists like Abigail Barlow and the group Avenue Beat have also used TikTok to test out new tracks before releasing them on streaming platforms. Avenue Beat's recent smash hit, "F2020," blew up on TikTok first before the group committed to recording a full version of the song in July. It's since landed on Apple iTunes' top 50 chart for pop songs.

"We hadn't finished writing the song, we'd literally just written a verse and chorus," Avenue Beat's Savana Santos said. "We just threw it up on TikTok, not thinking that anything was going to happen because we'd never had a video really take off before. We went to bed and we woke up and the next day it had 4.5 million views."

TikTok isn't the first social-media platform to leave its mark on the music industry.

YouTube has long been a key promotional tool for record labels and artists alike (Justin Bieber was a YouTuber before he became a pop star). And artists have recently used other social platforms like Instagram and Twitch to perform shows remotely for fans as live performances have come to a halt during the coronavirus pandemic.  

But music is at the core of the TikTok experience.

The short-form video platform's song-friendly interface (adding a "sound" is part of each user's video upload process) harkens back to the app's roots as the dancing and lip-syncing app Musical.ly, which TikTok's parent company ByteDance acquired and merged with TikTok in 2018.

Some of TikTok's biggest stars are dancers who can spark the creation of millions of user-generated videos and streams of a new song by posting a single dance video. And TikTok's content recommendation page (the "For You" page) serves up an algorithmically determined assortment of posts that can make any song go viral, whether a track is being used in a paid promotion by a top influencer or in an original dance routine conceived by a non-famous teenager.

One need look no further than the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50 to see the app's imprint on popular music in recent months.

To understand the power players driving music on TikTok forward, Business Insider compiled a list of the music marketers, artists, digital creators, record labels, and other industry insiders who are using TikTok to define popular music in 2020.

The list was determined by Business Insider based on our reporting and the nominations that we received. We took into consideration how a company or individual has used TikTok to grow an artist's, song's, or label's prominence in the industry.

Here are the 24 music industry players that are using TikTok to reshape popular music in 2020 (listed in alphabetical order):

The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a period of rapid change and uncertainty across the global economy.

Prolonged lockdowns, government stimulus, and accelerated digitization have fundamentally changed how businesses operate and how consumers are spending. Due to this disruption, our outlook for the rest of 2020 has changed significantly from when we made predictions for the upcoming year in December 2019.

Considering the impacts of the pandemic, Insider Intelligence has put together a list of 18 Big Tech Predictions for the Second Half of 2020 across Banking, Connectivity & Tech, Digital Media, Payments & Commerce, Fintech, and Digital Health.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

Fitness subscription startup ClassPass still sees an IPO as its next major milestone, despite the fitness industry taking a hammering from the pandemic. 

"Traditional revenue streams from gyms and fitness facility have become nearly obsolete due to non-essential
business closures," says Andrea Wroble, senior analyst at research firm Mintel. "As shelter-in-place restrictions continue, fitness facilities are challenged to stay relevant with their members."

This has had a significant knock-on impact for fitness subscription unicorn ClassPass, a platform aggregating classes from over 30,000 fitness studios for a monthly subscription of $19 to $79. 

"The impact of COVID on the fitness industry has been, in the short term, catastrophic," says Chloe Ross, VP international at ClassPass. "In the space of 10 days, [we] lost over 95% of our revenue. This came at a point at which we were in this incredibly rapid growth phase."

Like many other fitness businesses, ClassPass was forced to pivot to digital, setting up an online platform to live stream classes in the first few weeks of the pandemic, which has been used by some 4,000 studios. It decided to forgo its commission on live stream classes until June to help struggling studios.

This is consistent with a surge in digital fitness offerings. According to a survey by wellness app Mindbody, over 80% of its consumers are using live streamed workouts during the pandemic, compared with only 7% in 2019. 

But, studios still rely on in-person classes to make the bulk of their income, so reopening fitness facilities is critical for startups like ClassPass.

"The industry will recover, and it will recover leaner and stronger as it comes out to this period," says Ross. "The only uncertainty is on what timeframe."

The first signs of recovery are beginning to show as some economies open up.

"We have been pleasantly surprised with the rapidity at which studios reopen and at which consumers come back to their old routines," says Ross. "[But] obviously it's not come bouncing back yet to pre-COVID levels."

A survey by Mintel in July found that only 21% of US customers said they were comfortable going to the gym, compared with 55% who they were not comfortable.

The timing has slowed the pace of the ambitious global expansion ClassPass started in 2018. Over the past two years, it has launched into 26 new markets and at some points in 2019 it was entering a new market every 2 weeks. 

But, ClassPass still has big aspirations: It plans to continue scaling its global operations and sees an IPO as the "next meaningful milestone," according to Ross. 

So far, ClassPass has raised $549 million in total from investors including L Catterton and Apax Digital to fuel its growth. But, it believes it has now hit on a successful business model that it believes will lead to profitability further down the road. 

This comes after the startup spent years finessing its subscription model. 

When ClassPass was first established, users could pay a monthly fee for an unlimited number of classes. In 2018, this was changed to a system of credits, which allows the platform to differentiate the price of the most in-demand classes and drive users towards those at less popular studios and times.

The model has also changed for the fitness studios ClassPass partners with — to some backlash.

Where before they were paid a pre-negotiated fixed rate, now a dynamic pricing algorithm is used to maximize the price paid to fill empty slots.

London-based Sweat IT cut ties with ClassPass in October 2019, saying its model slashed revenue.

CEO and founder Ben Paul said the changes that ClassPass made to the pricing of Sweat IT classes undercut his business and cannibalized his customers.

He said he was given very little control as ClassPass changed the model so that it could decide who to sell the credits to, how many spots to offer, and at what price.  

"They are effectively in direct competition with the studios," Paul says. "Yes, ClassPass might drive you more revenue, but they're literally gouging your own client base and then delivering you back less money overall."

He adds: "I guarantee they will be the death of a lot of studios that remain on them, because you just can't make the money to be able to support the costs of running a bricks-and-mortar studio from what they pay you."

Other studios have made similar complaints, per a February report from Vice.

ClassPass told Business Insider the new dynamic pricing model is aimed at maximizing revenue for the studios. 

"[It] is really the hangover of the old broken business model that we had," said Chloe Ross in relation to the criticism, adding that 95% of partners stick with them annually. 

"This is a way to make sure as many slots get filled and done so the highest price any user is willing to pay for it," she continued, adding that higher prices creates higher lifetime value for ClassPass. "This is really a model that aligns our incentives with the studios' because the more revenue we send to them, the more we're able to make as a company."