Hello everyone! Welcome to this weekly roundup of Business Insider stories from executive editor Matt Turner. Please subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Sunday.

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Hello!

I want to start by highlighting two stories focused on toxic work environments at Pinterest and CrossFit. 

Julie Bort and Taylor Nicole Rogers spoke to 11 former Pinterest employees who said that despite the company's upbeat product, it was a toxic and difficult place to work. From their story: 

Multiple Black people who had worked on Pinterest's ad sales team say they were fired or "pushed out" of the company with no real explanation.

Other employees say they were publicly yelled at by managers or dealt with such severe "head games" from managers that they grew stressed and were later hospitalized. 

Some employees described CEO Ben Silbermann as a kind person focused on the product and who either didn't know or didn't care how workers were treated.

You can read the story in full here:

Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'

For their story on CrossFit, Katie Warren and Gabby Landsverk spoke to more than 30 former HQ employees, and current and former affiliate gym owners and CrossFit athletes. From their story:

Insiders claim the culture of the workplace demeaned women, operated off retribution, and was ruled by a fear of getting on Glassman's bad side.

You can read that story in full here:

A 'frat party' workplace, a tweet that led to the CEO's resignation, and a culture that demeans women: Insiders say this is the reality of working for the cult-following gym CrossFit

Those two stories follow earlier reporting on a toxic culture at companies like Bon Appétit and Reformation. Meanwhile, employees at companies ranging from Adidas to Red Bull are expressing concern about their employer's response to the Black Lives Matter movement, protesting systemic racism, and demanding change. For example:

As Weng Cheong and Caroline Hroncich report, US companies spend $8 billion annually on diversity and inclusion initiatives, yet research shows that they're actually more segregated now than they were 40 years ago. From their story:

Experts told Business Insider that a major reason D&I efforts are ineffective is that companies continue to invest in one-off trainings, instead of complementing them with company-wide diversity initiatives.

To dismantle systemic racism in the office, employers need to promote people of color internally, listen to stories about discrimination, and collect workforce data, among many other things.

Read their story in full here:

'Diversity' and 'inclusion' are the emptiest words in corporate America. Here's what we really need to dismantle systemic racism in the office.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Reuters

100 days that changed Microsoft

"On March 6, Microsoft employees began inexplicably returning to the company's Redmond, Washington headquarters, just 48 hours after the company enacted a remote work policy in response to the coronavirus."

So starts a story from Ashley Stewart, Jeff Elder, and Patrick Coffee on how CEO Satya Nadella led $1.4 trillion tech giant Microsoft through the coronavirus pandemic. From their story:

"Why are they coming back?" Microsoft chief information security officer Brett Arsenault wondered with concern at the time, as related to Business Insider in a recent interview. "What's going on?"

The employees had left their work computers at their desks as usual — after all, they didn't know when they left that it was the last time they would be at the office for many months. But Microsoft couldn't condone letting them back into their offices, which to this day are deemed unsafe.

The company needed to act fast.

You can read the story in full here:

100 days that changed Microsoft: How Satya Nadella led the $1.4 trillion tech giant through the coronavirus pandemic

Original author: Matt Turner

Snapchat has armored its camera was a flurry of augmented-reality features in recent years that allow users to apply face filters and play with interactive lenses.At the Snap Partner Summit last week, the company debuted new partners for Scan, its press-and-hold-activated feature that gives users more information when they point their camera at various objects and surroundings. In addition to solving math problems and finding online links for real-life products, users can now use Scan for identifying dog breeds, plant species, and nutrition information for food.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If the wildly popular dog filter hasn't given you enough puppy-related content on Snapchat, you'll soon be able to use the app to identify the breeds of dogs you encounter offline.

Snap has debuted new partners for Scan, its feature that lets users gather more information on real-life objects just by pointing the app's camera at them. Now, Snapchat users will be able to use the feature to identify breeds of dogs, species of plants and trees, and nutritional facts about packaged food.

Snapchat has long invested in AR, including object recognition technology. The Information reported back in 2017 that Snapchat was working on a way to scan objects in the real world. Since then, the Snap Camera's scanning ability has grown, ranging from the silly to the handy.

Users can access dancing figures and animations when they point their phone at a flat surface or a piece of pizza, and also harness the technology for more useful tasks — like identifying a song playing using Shazam, recognizing real-life items to buy on Amazon, and even solving math equations on homework.

Snapchat's Scan objection-recognition feature debuted in 2019 at Snap's Partner Summit, the invite-only event the company launched just last year to compete with annual developer conferences from tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google. This year's Snap Partner Summit — which took place on June 11 — was forced to go virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Snap says the additions to Scan — including Dog Scanner, PlantSnap, and Nutrition Scanner, and various brand experiences — will be made available to users later this year. 

At the Partner Summit, Snap also unveiled a new "action bar" for navigating Snapchat, additions to its slate of original content and games, and in-conversation Minis for friends to coordinate and plan activities together..

Original author: Paige Leskin

The Tesla Model S debuted in 2012, making it the longest-running vehicle in the all-electric automaker's lineup. The luxury sedan has received just two significant design and mechanical updates in eight years (a revamped nose and an all-wheel-drive variant), but over that same period, the car has been incessantly tweaked.

Most recently, the Model S's range was boosted to 402 miles, in the "Long Range Plus" configuration, which sells for about $75,000 new. This platform, when it was first rolled out in 2012, delivered just 208 miles per charge for the less expensive, smaller-batteried version, and 265 miles for the larger option.

The improvement is, in a word, staggering. The Model S of 2020 is basically the same vehicle as what we first saw in 2012, built on the same assembly line in California. Over time, it's acquired supercar-beating performance,  added more premium elements to its interior, and acquired semi-autonomous driving technology. The range has gradually ticked up.

Pricing has remained relatively stable, and high, raising the question of whether an "aging" platform is still worth the steep sticker. The timeless design and the steady march of improvement provides an answer.

The issue, then, is that as I've noted before, we take the Model S and its brilliance for granted. The Model 3 captured far more attention when it launched several years ago, and the Model X SUV is much flashier, tech-wise. But the Model S, now with yet more range, remains probably the best Tesla money can buy.

Here's why:

Original author: Matthew DeBord

Design studio Grimshaw created a concept for a floating home that can survive rising sea levels.The dwellings are modular, so components can be mass-produced in factories and assembled at a low cost.Energy will come from solar panels, with shaded lower pontoons using little energy.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Design studio Grimshaw and manufacturers Concrete Valley collaborated on their design for Modular Water Dwellings. The structures are essentially floating homes, designed to withstand the upcoming effects of climate change and use energy more sustainably.

The floating homes will be made on an assembly line, creating a modular final product from several standardized pieces. This is an approach taken by many tiny home companies to make construction more affordable, and allow customers to customize their homes based on available pieces.

Grimshaw Modular Water Dwelling. Grimshaw

Concrete Valley's manufacturing facility sits on a waterway in the Netherlands, which will allow for the homes to be assembled at the factory and transported to their destinations, ready to move into. Grimshaw told Business Insider that this also reduces the total energy used in construction because no on-site assembly is required.

Grimshaw Modular Water Dwelling. Grimshaw

The designers cited affordability and sustainability as reasons for making this design, which they say would offer "affordable housing, free of the constraints of land-based construction and resilient to the mounting threat of flooding from rising sea-levels."

According to a UN report from last year, sea levels could rise as much as three feet within 80 years, which would displaces hundreds of millions of people. 

Grimshaw Modular Water Dwelling. Grimshaw

Designers use the water under the dwelling as part of temperature regulation, using it to heat and cool. The upper level also has solar panels to collect energy during the day, and harvest rainwater for an off-the-grid possibility. Heat exchangers also create a communal energy supply for a group of dwellings, with the potential for almost zero net energy use.

 

Grimshaw Modular Water Dwelling. Grimshaw

The rest of the design also contributes to low energy use. Each level is well insulated, with lower levels that naturally stay cool due to shade and the concrete pontoons. 

Designers believe that the aspects of the home that make it so unique, like its location on the water, and the potential community of other water dwellings, can contribute to the health and wellbeing of residents. People living in the homes would be close to nature, with beautiful views and access to water. They also promote the idea of communal water activities, like fishing or parasailing, or even using the pontoons to create shared communal spaces like floating gardens and terraces.

Grimshaw Modular Water Dwelling. Grimshaw

For now, the Modular Water Dwellings are still in the development stage as Grimshaw and Concrete Valley continue to create prototypes, though they say that they plan to bring them to the market once they're satisfied with the quality and affordability.

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

The open source community is moving to reject software terms like "master," "slave," "blacklist," and "whitelist" in an effort to be more inclusive. Advocates say that more inclusive terminology not only helps Black developers and other developers from marginalized groups feel more welcome; the new terms are often also more technically accurate in describing what the software does.The changes can already be seen at companies like GitHub, as well as in open source projects like OpenZFS, Google's Chromium browser engine, and even the Android operating system. They aren't the first open source projects to drop the terminology: Django, Drupal, and Python all took similar steps years ago.These moves have historically been met by pushback by those who believe tech is apolitical, but advocates say that software should reflect the values of those who make it, and that such a small change can have an outsized impact.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Over his two decades-plus in the tech industry, Michael Brown, now a senior software development engineer at Microsoft, frequently found himself as the only Black engineer on whichever team he was on.

That makes it extra-grating when he runs into industry-standard terms — "master" and "slave," as two common examples — that are as problematic as they are common. He first ran into them early in his career, working on an IT hardware project, but they can be found in wide use today.

These outdated terms often constitute microaggressions, or subtle incidents of discrimination, against Black developers by using the language of slavery, Brown says.

"The simple fact is that Black people are very underrepresented in technology," Brown told Business Insider. "What a lot of them fall back on is that it's a pipeline. The problem is starting in the college level, where you'll see very few Black people. Of course, you get the microaggressions that makes us feel unwelcome and that we don't belong to begin with."

Besides, he says, they're also technically used wrong in many instances: In his early-career hardware experience, the "master" device was actually a client to the "slaves," not the other way around. In more modern usage, "master" is used to refer to the main version of a software project; advocates say that "primary," "trunk," or "main" might be more accurate.

Now, amid the national conversation around systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd, the tech industry is taking action to remove "master," "slave," and other terms like "blacklist" from common usage. Another example is "whitehat hackers," who hack to help companies find bugs, and "blackhat hackers," who hack for malicious purposes. These terms can reinforce biases, advocates say.

Already, the Microsoft-owned GitHub has announced that it's working to drop those terms, and other software projects like Google's Chromium browser engine and Android operating system have made similar moves.

Advocates say that while it's only a small step, and doesn't do much to address the wide gaps in diversity across Silicon Valley, it's still an important trend that signals to Black developers that there's room for them in the industry.

"I think it's important in general to create an environment that's inclusive that doesn't detract people from feeling comfortable at work and feel like they're just as valuable as others," Sebastien Roy, director of systems platform development at Delphix, told Business Insider. Roy also organized a Juneteenth hackathon to add more inclusive terms to Delphix's products.

Michael Brown, senior software development engineer at Microsoft Michael Brown

GitHub and other projects are updating their language

GitHub, the Microsoft-owned code-sharing site, is one of the most prominent voices in the effort to drop the "master" terminology. Now, GitHub is working to change its default branch name from "master," making it easy for users to choose their own default branch name for new projects, and releasing guidance and tools for users who want to rename it.

Other projects are making similar moves.

Google's Android operating system and Chromium browser engine projects are moving away from terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" in favor of the terms "blocklist" and "allowlist," 9to5Google's Kyle Bradshaw first reported. This change was first suggested by a Chromium contributor from Microsoft last year, the Register's Tim Anderson reported — not surprising, as Microsoft is using Chromium to power its own Edge browser.

OpenZFS, an open source storage project, has changed the terms "slaves" to "dependents." The Go programming language, which was created by Google, and Red Hat's OpenShift, its version of the Kubernetes cloud computing project, have also made similar changes.

Matthew Ahrens, creator of the OpenZFS project, was the one who submitted the change to remove references to "slaves" in the storage software. He told Business Insider that it first came to his attention after his coworkers at Delphix organized their Juneteenth hackathon.

That made Ahrens wonder if there was any similar terminology in OpenZFS, to which he still frequently contributes. He was surprised to find that it contained several references to "slaves." 

"I think using these terms, it's hurtful. It reminds people of really negative human interactions," Ahrens said. He later added: "It doesn't feel right to use a heavy term in a flippant way."

Terms like 'master' and 'slave' have been around for decades, but the tech industry is starting to make changes

This terminology has long existed both in hardware and in software — a computer handbook from 1969 refers to the terms "master" and "slave." The conversation over those terms, too, goes back decades, with complaints circulating since at least the '90s, as Ars Technica notes. 

In fact, back in 2003, Los Angeles officials asked manufacturers, suppliers and contractors to stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment. Some engineers also spoke out against these terms at the time. More recently, in 2018, the Internet Engineering Task Force also published a memo specifically on this topic to identify "oppressive terminology" in tech and suggest alternatives. 

Several other projects, too, have already replaced master/slave terminology. For example, the Drupal and Django web application frameworks started using "primary" and "replica" in 2014.

The popular programming language Python has also been making these changes over the past few years.

Python core developer Mariatta Wijaya recalls that in 2017, developers wanted to introduce a feature for a GitHub bot that checks if users have signed a contributor license agreement. Wijaya made a conscious decision that she didn't want to use the terms "whitelist" for users who have already signed one and "blacklist" for users who have not. Instead, she broke it down into "trusted users" and otherwise. 

Not long after, in September 2018, Python replaced the terms "slaves" with "workers," "helpers," or "child," and "master" with "parent." 

"I think it's important because I know there are people who are offended because of historical reasons," Wijaya said. "Maybe it triggers trauma within them. Even though we don't share the same experience, it's important to empathize with them and understand who we are excluding by keeping the terminology like the master and slave terminology."

Making these changes can create a ripple effect through the industry, Wijaya says, as new open source projects may look to popular ones as a model. And maybe it can set an example for members of the open source community to be mindful of their language elsewhere, too.

"I think maintainers have the responsibility to set up a good example and use more inclusive language, not just in master/slave terminologies, but when they address the audience as well," Wijaya said.

Developers often didn't speak up because they 'adopt this shell' to protect themselves

The terms in question are decades old, as are the arguments over them. But widespread change has been slow to come to the industry because developers may not feel comfortable speaking up, Brown, the Microsoft developer, says. Instead, he says, Black people in tech "adopt this shell," trying not to engage with the subject for fear of being excluded.

"We act like things don't bother us because we don't want to be rocking the boat," Brown said. "When we get into the field, and they say, 'here's a master slave device,' we're not very likely to bring it up because we know how that creates an aura that 'oh, he's a troublemaker.'"

For example, Adama Robotics CEO Dauda Barry, who is Black, says that when he first came across the terms "master" and "slave" in software while he was still in university, he wrote off his own discomfort, telling himself that he was just being sensitive. But amid the recent conversations on the topic on Twitter, he realized that he wasn't alone in disliking the terms. 

"When I came across it the first time, I raised my eyebrow and just brushed it off quickly," Barry told Business Insider. "[Changing these terms] makes the tech ecosystem more inclusive. There are many ways to make a place inclusive. We want to make sure more developers of color will feel comfortable working in tech and can be their true selves."

In addition, the open source community often fosters so-called "benevolent dictators," project creators and maintainers who have the final say on all decisions — and who don't always see inclusion as a priority, if they care about it at all. 

"This results in a very homogeneous group of people being able to contribute or ask these bigger questions," product designer Chris Messina, famed as the inventor of the social media hashtag, said. "The language you use affects the people who are able to participate."

A newfound sense of urgency to make the change

Even if this isn't a new debate, the movement has a newfound sense of urgency amid the national conversation on systemic racism, says independent product designer and regular open source contributor Tatiana Mac.

In the past, people who suggested a change to the language would get ignored or sidelined, Mac said. And when some projects do make a change, Mac says, some elements of the community the software revolt — on Twitter, and within the community itself — saying that they shouldn't be expected to make changes to their software for what they see as a political purpose. Changing the terminology is sometimes seen as a matter of "political correctness."

For instance, when Python replaced its terminology in 2018, Wijaya says that some maintainers ended up getting harassed over the matter. Those kinds of incidents have a chilling effect on future efforts to make change, Wijaya suggests.

"That is something that we've done and something that we care about," Wijaya said. "We also know that it is controversial. Some of our maintainers are just burned out from that incident. They did not have the mental capacity to continue with such discussions. The change was made, but it had the cost of open source maintainers having to deal with mental harassment."

Mac says that tech can't see itself as distanced from the conversation on race, however — even as Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon pledge solidarity with the Black community, critics say that their work with law enforcement could undermine their stances. Given the intertwining of the two, Mac says, it's important that software represents the values of the people who make it. 

"I think it's important that we evolve our technology to fit our ethical stances," Mac said. "There are so many people in tech who love to hide behind this concept that tech is apolitical."

Read more: Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce are taking a stand against systemic racism, but their work with law enforcement could contradict their stances

In fact, it shouldn't even be a debate, Brown says. He likens the discussion to people fighting to keep Confederate monuments standing. 

"You have millions of people in America who have trauma associated with that terminology, and you want to say that doesn't matter," Brown said. "You want to say, keep that technically inaccurate term and argue in upholding this rather than saying, this might cause problems for people. Let's take 30 seconds to change it out."

Advocates say these new terms are more inclusive and accurate

Terms like "master," "slave," "blacklist," and "whitelist" are not only hurtful, but unclear and often inaccurate, advocates say. Meanwhile, updated terms like "main," "primary," "allowlist," and "blocklist" more clearly reflect their actual meaning.

"All these other microaggressions, that's one more microaggression," Brown said. "It's not that hard to make the change. It's not even a technically accurate term, and you're defending it."

In software, developers have seen many other ways that language can be exclusive. For example, software projects often come with documentation to explain how to properly set up and run the code. Oftentimes, it will refer to engineers with "he" or "him" pronouns, excluding female or nonbinary developers.

"I see that a lot in documentation," Emily Kager, mobile Android engineer at Mozilla, told Business Insider. "It's a subtle thing. People feel less welcome in that they're not writing about you. We should make language as gender inclusive as possible."

Another example is the term "sanity check," a term that refers to when developers review code. This language can exclude people with mental illness or disabilities, Mac, the product designer, said. 

For this reason, Mac started a dictionary project for the tech industry called Self-Defined, which identifies problematic language, explains its impacts, and suggests alternatives that can be used.

"Language has a lot of power," Mac said. "It's embedded so passively in everything that we view. These conversations should happen more frequently."

While the tech industry still has a long way to go when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, these small changes would make the tech ecosystem more inclusive, earn the trust of more diverse community members, and help Black developers feel more comfortable, advocates say.

"Why are you not changing it? It's 30 seconds," Brown said. "It won't break anything. It will make your project more welcoming."

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Original author: Rosalie Chan

Ecocapsule announced a new, off-grid smart micro-unit called Space.With a minimalist design and solar panels, Space could be an office, guest room, or extra space.The 68-square-foot micro-unit is available for about $56,000.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

There are tiny houses, and then there are micro-units that make a standard tiny home look like a mansion.

Ecocapsule announced Space, an off-grid micro-unit with the "attractive design of a giant egg," as the company describes it, earlier in June.

Ecocapsule is headquartered in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2018 it released the original Ecocapsule, a tiny home powered by solar and wind power. 

Original Ecocapsule. Ecocapsule

In May, it announced an even tinier companion unit, the 68-square-foot Space, which also comes at a lower price point than the original, starting at $56,000.

"Based upon demand of our customers we've made Space affordable for broader customers scale, and more comfortable to use," Design Director and CEO Tomáš Žáček said.

Ecocapsule Space. Ecocapsule

Space is also more accessible to a broader range of customers because it can be connected to the energy grid if needed. Like the original, Space has removable solar panels that can be used for off-grid moves. 

The exterior is made of insulated fiberglass over steel, and color can be customized. 

Ecocapsule Space. Ecocapsule

Inside, Space is intentionally minimalist and can be adapted to different uses. The basic version includes just the laminate floor and a plywood cabinet wall, and the buyer can choose the finish. Despite the small size, it can sleep two people, and additional furniture is available from Ecocapsule for an added cost.

Ecocapsule Space. Ecocapsule

Depending on how the customer chooses to fill the space, it could be used for nearly anything. Ecocapsule suggests a home office, guest room, or additional space for a cottage or houseboat. It could even be the "daughter" of the original Ecocapsule for fans of the design who need more room. 

The company also suggests that it could be used for business travel or resorts as a lower contact option compared to traditional hotels. 

Ecocapsule Space. Ecocapsule

The petite 15 feet by seven feet micro-unit is only eight feet tall and weighs nearly 3,000 pounds, less than an average new car. 

It has solar panels and batteries, which can also be charged externally. That energy goes towards LED lights inside the unit, and the smart home system and sensors that come standard. Smart features can be controlled through a phone app, and there's also the option to add data coverage for the unit itself. Other add-ons include AC and heating, which might be necessary depending on where Space ends up.

Two years after launching the original Ecocapsule, they're located in countries all over the world. Maybe the Space Ecocapsule will follow. 

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

This week, Google announced several changes to improve racial equity and inclusion within the company.The list of commitments published by CEO Sundar Pichai included several promising concrete improvements.One of those promises was to increase underrepresented groups at a leadership level by 30% by 2025.But while it sounds like a big jump, the number of underrepresented groups in Google leadership is very low. A 30% increase in Black leaders would bring the total to just 3.4% by 2025.Do you work at Google? You can contact this reporter securely using encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or encrypted email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google, like the rest of Silicon Valley, is currently reckoning with the little progress it has made over the years to improve diversity and inclusion within the company.

Year after year, Google's diversity reports have shown very little improvement to the number of people from underrepresented groups it hires and retains. And year after year, the company has promised to do better.

According to the company's latest diversity report, Black employees comprise just 3.7% of Google's workforce, up from 3.3% the year before.

Now, the company is making some concrete promises to change things. In a memo from CEO Sundar Pichai published this week, Google set out a series of commitments to improve its efforts in racial equity.

The changes include doing away with the company's peer-based badge checking, new anti-racism programs for employees, and pledging $175 million to support Black businesses.

Google also promised to increase underrepresented leadership by 30% by 2025. "Our goal is a 30% increase in the proportion of Black+, Hispanic/Latinx+ and Native American+ leaders we have in the U.S. and technical women leaders globally," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

That 30% might sound like a big jump, but the math makes it unambitious. 

According to its 2020 diversity report, just 2.6% of Google's leadership is Black, 3.7% is Latinx, and 0.5% is Native American.

A 30% increase would boost that total of underrepresented groups from 6.8% to 8.8%. Or, if you take just the Black employees in leadership roles, it would boost the number of Black leaders from 2.6% to 3.4% by 2025. While each percentage point represents thousands of jobs, according to Google, that's still not a big improvement overall.

As Daniel Zhao, a data scientist at Glassdoor pointed out in a tweet, Google would need to increase the number of Black employees in leadership roles by more than 400% to reach parity with Black population of the US, estimated to be 13.4% by the most recent census data.

Pichai said Google will work to boost its leadership diversity by advertising senior leadership roles both externally and internally, and increase investment in Google officers outside of Mountain View such as London, Washington DC, and Atlanta.

Many of the other changes Google is proposing feel more encouraging than what we've seen in the past. For example, the company said it will introduce a new "multi-series" training program for employees which "explores systemic racism and racial consciousness." NBC recently reported that Google had been scaling back its inclusion and diversity training programs since 2018.

Pichai also said Google would convene a task force "to develop concrete recommendations and proposals for accountability across all of the areas that affect the Black+ Googler experience, from recruiting and hiring, to performance management, to career progression and retention."

Those changes are good and should be celebrated, but when it comes to its commitment to boosting diversity numbers within the company, it's a shame Google couldn't be a little more ambitious.

Original author: Hugh Langley

Nextdoor, the local social networking platform announced it was ending a feature that allowed users to share their concerns directly with local law enforcement.The site has faced years of criticism that its close relationships with local authorities that are accessible through the app amplified unfounded concerns and racial profiling by its users.The announcement came after Nextdor's CEO said in a blog post that the platform "exists to foster" conversations that can connect neighbors and drive change in systemic racism "in a civil, productive way." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Nextdoor, the online local networking platform for neighbors, announced it is ending its "Forward to Police" feature after it has long been criticized for facilitating racial profiling.

The feature was introduced in 2016 to allow users to directly share their posts with local police. It was one of several crime-monitoring tools on the site that have raised concerns about the ease with which users can trigger a police response based on unexamined suspicions as described by outlets like Bloomberg's CityLab and The Atlantic.

A statement posted on the company's site late Thursday said the decision came about "as part of our anti-racism work and our efforts to make Nextdoor a place where all neighbors feel welcome," and was ultimately cut because of its low engagement with users and law enforcement.

"After speaking with members and public agency partners, it is clear that the Forward to Police feature does not meet the needs of our members and only a small percentage of law enforcement agencies chose to use the tool," the company's post read.

Bloomberg's CityLab reported that the company is keeping other features that facilitate communication with law enforcement, including one that allows direct messages. The features are a small look at the site's extensive relationship with law enforcement agencies continues that has raised concerns with privacy experts.

In recent years, the platform has attempted to confront racially charged interactions from users, even using data-centric approaches and artificial intelligence to cut down on insensitive or profiling posts, but critical reports have persisted as the neighborhood forum has faced the questions of moderation and monitoring common to social networking.

The site, which was founded in 2011, not only connects neighbors but also provides a reliable link for local government, police, and fire departments to keep their ears to the ground in communities, cofounder Prakash Janakiraman previously told Business Insider.

As coronavirus spread across the US and more Americans found themselves stuck at home, the site's "engagement picked up at the end of February and then skyrocketed from March," Janakiraman told Business Insider, and "usage is up 80% in most neighborhoods."

Despite the climbing popularity, the most recent challenge for the platform came in the wake of protests across the US over racism and police brutality, when reports floated that community moderators were removing posts from local boards that mentioned Black Lives Matter despite the company's official statement of support for the movement.

Nextdoor's CEO Sarah Friar said in a June 11 blog post that "systemic racism in our nation will not be solved overnight," but the company was addressing racism in its corporate culture and on its site by emphasizing diversity in hiring, strengthening community moderation, and drawing "a firm line against racist behavior" on its forums.

Original author: Ellen Cranley

 

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week. 

If you aren't yet a subscriber to Wall Street Insider, you can sign up here.

It was a busy week for hedge fund news, with the finance team landing scoops on an upcoming launch, a fund that's giving outside investors their money back, and one that's winding down entirely. 

A new hedge fund run by a one-time minor league baseball player is set to spin off from billionaire Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors, Bradley Saacks reported. New launches have been few and far between during the global coronavirus pandemic, though, as meetings with potential investors turned into video calls and business travel was cancelled.

Bradley and Alex Morrell learned that billionaire Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management is returning all outside capital in its $350 million quant fund. The fund, started roughly a year ago, had pulled back its exposure from the markets significantly in March and April. Coatue will continue trading the strategy with internal money, though, and hopes to eventually reopen it to outside investors.

And Bradley, Dan DeFrancesco, and Meghan Morris reported that a $2.5 billion Tiger Cub emailed vendors on Tuesday evening to give notice that it has started winding down business operations and liquidating portfolios.

Read the full story here:

Keep reading to see the advice that value investors are giving each other after getting steamrolled by rising markets; a deep dive into the sports empire of Apollo Global Management cofounder Josh Harris; and a look at why live commerce could soon explode in the US. 

Have a great weekend, 

Meredith 

Advice for value-investing enthusiasts 

Value investors, who seemed poised to take control during the initial market crash from the pandemic, have since been steamrolled by rising markets. For value-seekers, it's been emblematic of a decade of futility. 

Rebecca Ungarino and Bradley Saacks attended a two-day virtual conference hosted by the New York chapter of the CFA Institute (the event is named after Ben Graham, the father of value investing.) Speakers flagged their picks in the quickly changing markets, and implored listeners to stick with the philosophy.

Read the full story here: 

Influencers and home shopping

Visual China Group/Getty Images

Live-streamed commerce has taken off in China on platforms like Alibaba's Taobao Live and Douyin, China's version of TikTok. Influencers are driving sales of everything from cosmetics to tech products — think home shopping TV networks, but with check-outs embedded in the platforms and payment details stored there. 

"It's entertainment plus shopping," Connie Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told Shannen Balogh. And it could soon arrive in the US.

Read the full story here: 

Apollo cofounder Josh Harris' sports empire 

Original author: Meredith Mazzilli

Investors are keeping their hands in their pockets as the COVID-19 pandemic causes economic turmoil around the world. In March, almost a third of investors pulled out of UK seed-funding deals over fears of an oncoming recession. Business Insider asked up-and-coming founders – backed by the likes of Tencent and Alibaba – how anyone hoping to raise a venture capital round can help score investments with the perfect pitch deck. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As the economic slowdown brought about by COVID-19 forces investors to tighten the purse strings, it's never been more important for founders to get their pitches just right. 

In March, almost one-third of investors pulled out of UK seed funding deals amid fears that the pandemic was about to trigger a global recession. 

SeedLegals, a London firm that specializes in legal advice for smaller startups, told Business Insider the number of venture capitalists participating in early-stage funding rounds for startups dropped by 28% in March.

Those who do find themselves successfully pitching to investors currently have to do so over Zoom rather than in person, making a strong pitch deck an even more crucial accompaniment.

We asked Anthony Rose, SeedLegals cofounder and CEO, for his expert advice on putting together the perfect pitch deck. 

Fellow founders Albert Liu, CEO of Alibaba-backed facial recognition firm Kneron, and James Dean, CEO of Tencent-backed AI firm Sensat, chipped in with some words of wisdom too. 

Read their words of wisdom below: 

Original author: Martin Coulter

Bethany Biron/Business Insider

The North Face announced its decision on Friday.

The clothing company said it would also stop advertising on Instagram, which Facebook owns.

"We know that for too long harmful, racist rhetoric and misinformation has made the world unequal and unsafe, and we stand with the NAACP and the other organizations who are working to #StopHateforProfit," Steve Lesnard, The North Face's global VP of marketing, said in a statement.

Original author: Julia Naftulin

On Friday, Twitter hid a doctored video Donald Trump posted on the social media platform. The video was doctored CNN footage that suggested racism is a fabricated problem meant to cause public outrage.The move came after Twitter previously labeled the tweet as "manipulated media."In response to Trump's tweet of the doctored video, CNN told Insider they want him to "be better."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Twitter blocked viewers from seeing a video President Donald Trump shared on the social media platform Thursday night. 

The social media network first labeled the post as "manipulated media" on Thursday. It then moved to completely hide it from Twitter users on Friday, saying it was "removed in response to a report from the copyright holder."

Trump tweeted a video on Thursday, June 18 that was first marked as "manipulated media" and then "removed in response to a report from the copyright holder." Twitter/Screenshot

The video appears to be a clip from CNN but is actually an edited version of a viral video from last year that shows two little boys, one Black one white, hugging and playing, Insider previously reported.

The video mocks CNN as "fake news" and also says "America is not the problem," to suggest racism is a fabricated problem created to simply cause public outcries.

Twitter's policy says users "may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm," and it will flag such posts to help other users "understand their authenticity and to provide additional context."

After the video was flagged as "manipulated media," a CNN spokesperson told Insider the media outlet doesn't condone Trump's tweet.

"CNN did cover this story — exactly as it happened. Just as we reported your positions on race (and poll numbers)," CNN wrote in an email to Insider. "We'll continue working with facts rather than tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children. We invite you to do the same. Be better."

Jukin Media, a media company that had a partnership with the person who owns the video that was doctored, told Insider it didn't give Trump permission to use the video.

"Neither the video owner nor Jukin Media gave the President permission to post the video, and after our review, we believe that his unauthorized usage of the content is a clear example of copyright infringement without valid fair use or other defense," a Jukin spokesperson wrote in an email to Insider. "We have submitted a DMCA takedown notice on behalf of the video's creator, and in accordance with Twitter's policy. Separately, in no way do we support or condone the manipulated video or the message it conveys. We hope and expect Twitter will take swift action to remove the video.

This isn't the first time Twitter has flagged one of Trump's posts.

In late May, Twitter used the "glorifying violence" tag to flag one of Trump's tweets that read "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," in which he referred to the violence in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.

Original author: Julia Naftulin

The North Face has become the first major brand to boycott Facebook on the heels of mounting pressure from civil-rights organizations over the platform's content-moderation policies and handling of hate speech in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.

In a tweet saying "We're in. We're Out" the clothing company announced Friday it would stop buying Facebook ads in the US in solidarity with organizations including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Sleeping Giants.

In a follow-up statement to Business Insider, the company said it would also halt paid advertisements on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

"We know that for too long harmful, racist rhetoric and misinformation has made the world unequal and unsafe, and we stand with the NAACP and the other organizations who are working to #StopHateforProfit," Steve Lesnard, The North Face's global VP of marketing, said in a statement.

The North Face is the first major brand to pull advertising from Facebook over content-moderation issues. Bethany Biron/Business Insider

A company spokesman said it was halting all US paid advertising with Facebook, effective June 19, until stricter policies are in place to stop racist, violent, and hateful content and misinformation from circulating on the platform. The North Face is not pulling ads from Facebook-owned Instagram, CNN reported.

Only a handful of smaller companies, including the meditation app Talkspace and the payment company Fons, had said that they won't advertise on Facebook before The North Face. 

Carolyn Everson, Facebook's VP of global business group, said that the company was in conversation with marketers and civil-rights organizations about how they could work with them to "be a force for good."

"We deeply respect any brand's decision and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information," Everson said in a statement.

The platform has been under fire over its content-moderation policies, particularly its handling of President Donald Trump's posts in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing. While it has faced criticism on its handling of user data and the spread of misinformation before, such calls have rarely translated to wider collective action against Facebook or dented its advertising business.

But advertisers say it's different this time. IPG Mediabrands' Elijah Harris said in a Business Insider interview last week that the reaction against Facebook was an issue of "brand safety, not political activism."

Another ad-agency source told Business Insider their agency anticipated a number of other brands to also walk out on Facebook, as the social-media giant's executives try to put out the fires in memos sent to various agencies this week.

Facebook, which generates 98% of its revenue through ads, took in $17.4 billion from advertising in its most recent quarter, despite marketers across the board pausing advertising in the face of the pandemic.

Update Friday, June 19, 2020: This story was updated to add that North Face will also be halting paid advertising on Instagram.

Original author: Tanya Dua

Robinhood, a commission-free trading app, said Friday it is making changes after a 20-year-old customer died by suicide thinking he incurred losses of over $730,000.Co-founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt said they're expanding options-trading educational content and hiring a specialist to further assist users.Robinhood is also working to improve messaging to customers about multi-leg options spreads, a complex style of options trading, and changing parts of its user interface.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After a young customer died by suicide and left a note expressing confusion over the platform's product, the founders of the trading app Robinhood said Friday they're introducing changes and hiring an education specialist to help users navigate sophisticated trading strategies. 

Alexander Kearns, a 20-year-old college student at the University of Nebraska, killed himself on June 12, his family said. Kearns saw a negative cash balance of $730,165 in his account, Forbes first reported, a figure that was likely the result of a glitch inside the app.

The next day, Robinhood was alerted to Kearns' death, and offered to speak with his family, cofounders and co-chief executives Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt said. 

The commission-free trading app is now making changes to various aspects of its product, including improving in-app messages and emails sent to customers about multi-leg options spreads, a sophisticated style of trading involving two or more options. 

Robinhood has raised more than $1 billion in outside funding. Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

It's also adding new details to the app's history page to better help users "understand the mechanics of early options assignments," and is working to change parts of its user interface. 

"We are considering additional criteria and education for customers seeking level 3 options authorization to help ensure customers understand more sophisticated options trading," Tenev and Bhatt said in a statement. 

They said the changes will "take a bit of time to roll out," but a spokesperson declined to comment on any timeline.

Robinhood also said it's making a donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Valued at over $8 billion after its most recent funding round, Robinhood has become one of the most well-funded and widely used financial-technology startups in recent years.

It accelerated a new generation of traders' appetites for commission-free trades using their phones, and ultimately pushed legacy brokerages like Charles Schwab to drop trading fees for retail investors.

Robinhood, which claims some 13 million users, has raised more than $1 billion in outside funding, according to Crunchbase. 

The startup has also come under scrutiny for the way it gives the masses, including inexperienced investors who may not have the risk tolerance or know-how, a way to trade complex products.

"I liken it to giving the keys of a sports car to a 12-year-old," Tara Falcone, founder of the financial education company ReisUP, told NBC News last year.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or has had thoughts of harming themselves or taking their own life, get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations.

Original author: Rebecca Ungarino

Facebook has removed a post by President Trump that featured a doctored video of two toddlers.A Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Friday a copyright complaint about the video prompted the removal of Trump's post.Twitter on Thursday had marked the same post by Trump with a "manipulated media" tag because the video had been altered to look like a CNN report.The copyright complaint appears to have been filed for Jukin Media, a company well-known for quickly snapping up the rights to viral videos.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook on Friday removed a post by Donald Trump that featured a doctored version of a 2019 viral video that shows two toddlers.

"We received a copyright complaint from the rights holder of this video under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and have removed the post," A spokesman told Business Insider.

The original video, which went viral last year, shows a Black child and white child running toward each other and embracing. But the altered version posted by Trump to Twitter and Facebook on Thursday is overlaid with a fake CNN graphic and edited to suggest news footage of the white child chasing the terrified Black child.

On Thursday, Twitter slapped the video with a "manipulated media" label.

While Trump's post remains live, anyone clicking on the label will learn the video has been altered, with Twitter adding the following: "In September 2019, CNN reported on a viral video about a friendship between two toddlers. On Thursday, the president shared a version of the video which many journalists confirmed was edited and doctored with a fake CNN chyron."

A screenshot of the doctored video clip. Twitter/Screenshot

According to CNN, the copyright complaint has come from Jukin Media, a company that frequently snaps up rights to viral videos. The firm filed a copyright complaint with Facebook on behalf of one of the toddler's parents.

Jukin Media said late Friday it had filed a similar complaint with Twitter.  

"In no way do we support or condone the manipulated video or the message it conveys," the company said. "We hope and expect Twitter will take action to remove the video."

Social media companies have taken more robust action against Trump's posts over the last month: Facebook removed a Trump campaign ad on Thursday that featured an inverted triangle, a symbol often used by the Nazis to demarcate political enemies.

The platform said the ad violated its policies on hate speech.

Original author: Shona Ghosh

Apple will re-close some stores in states such as Arizona, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida, the company said on Friday.Such states have seen upward trends in COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.Apple said back in May when it began reopening stores that it would re-close stores if necessary depending on how the situation develops. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple will re-close 11 stores in the United States after coronavirus cases have spiked in some states across the country, the company announced Friday.

The decision comes after Apple began re-opening stores in the US last month. Bloomberg first reported the news.

The store closures will occur in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Arizona. Specifically, Apple is closing two stores in Florida, two stores in North Carolina, one store in South Carolina, and six stores in Arizona.

These states are all seeing upward trends in new cases of COVID-19, particularly in June, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, and North Carolina are also among the 10 states that have seen record-high seven-day averages of new daily coronavirus cases, according to CNN. The increase in COVID-19 cases comes as stay-at-home orders have relaxed across the country and businesses have begun reopening under restrictions.

"Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas," Apple said in a statement to Business Insider. "We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible."

Apple said roughly one month ago in May, when it began reopening US stores, that its decisions could change depending on the situation.

"We look at every available piece of data — including local cases, near and long-term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials," Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, said in a letter last month. "These are not decisions we rush into — and a store opening in no way means that we won't take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant."

Apple temporarily closed all of its retail stores outside of China in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. It reopened its first store outside of China in mid-April when its location in South Korea resumed operations. The company began opening some stores in the US last month under limited occupancy with a focus on customer service at the Genius Bar. Apple said it would also be requiring face coverings and conducting temperature checks at the door in stores that are open.

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Facebook has been reaching out to ad agencies this week after a group of civil rights organizations urged media buyers and brands to stop advertising on the platform in July 2020.The platform has been facing mounting pressure over its content moderation policies and its handling of President Donald Trump's posts after George Floyd's death.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook is reaching out to ad agencies as it faces mounting pressure over its content moderation policies and its handling of President Donald Trump's posts in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.

Civil rights organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, Common Sense Media, Free Press, the NAACP and Sleeping Giants, urged media buyers and brands to stop advertising on the platform in July.

Three separate ad agency sources confirmed that they received a memo from Facebook to Business Insider, with two saying that they received it from Facebook's VP of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson directly, and another saying that it was forwarded by their Facebook rep. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of Everson's memo but did not provide additional comment.

In the memo, Everson acknowledged that organizations were calling for businesses to pause advertising on Facebook and said the company was open to meeting with them and welcomed their feedback.

"There are competing pressures every day when managing a platform," Everson wrote, adding that Facebook's focus was to act on "what is most important: removing hate speech and content that harms communities, while using our platform for efforts like providing authoritative voting information and registering people to vote."

She pointed to efforts Facebook had made, including a voter registration effort CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a USA Today op-ed this week, a move to let people see fewer political ads on Facebook and Instagram, and improved detection capabilities for hate speech.

While the company has faced criticism on its handling of user data and the spread of misinformation on before, such calls have rarely translated to wider collective action against Facebook or dented its advertising business. The company generates 98% of its revenue through ads and took in $17.4 billion from advertising in its most recent quarter, despite marketers across the board pausing advertising in the face of the pandemic.

But advertisers say it's different this time. IPG Mediabrands' Elijah Harris said in an interview last week that Facebook was an issue of "brand safety, not political activism." Two agency sources that shared Everson's memo told Business Insider that they were advising their clients to consider participating in the boycott.

"We've taken a hardline stance, and I think we will see a number of brands over the next day or two that come out and say they are not spending on Facebook in the month of July," one of the sources told Business Insider.

Read Everson's memo below:

As you're probably all aware, we were made aware last night that a group of organizations are calling for businesses to pause advertising and posting on Facebook during the month of July 2020. We remain open to meeting with any of these organizations and we welcome feedback on the issues they have raised, just as we continue to solicit feedback from our civil rights auditors. 

This new call to action to end voter suppression comes at the exact moment we're launching the largest voting information campaign in American history. There are competing pressures every day when managing a platform. Our focus is to act on what is most important: removing hate speech and content that harms communities, while using our platform for efforts like providing authoritative voting information and registering people to vote.

In this spirit, I wanted share a few points:

Voting: Last night, USA Today ran an Op-Ed by Mark Zuckerberg outlining our civic responsibilities and sharing our plans for a major effort around Voting. This will be the largest voter registration effort ever in the United States, designed to give citizens the resources and information they need to register and make their voices heard at the ballot box. These efforts will include a new Voting Information Center at the top of the Facebook News Feed and on Instagram, and will give millions of people accurate information about voting. We are also reviewing our policies around voter suppression.Political Content: In addition to voice, we are giving people choice. Starting in the US, people will be able to choose to see fewer political ads on Facebook and Instagram, if they choose.Hate Speech: We know hate speech is a weapon often wielded by those in a privileged majority. We recognize that we have to work harder than ever to ensure those whose voices are the most historically marginalized have the opportunity to make their voices heard. For us this means having the strongest policies against hate and the most advanced technologies in the world to remove it. As you know, we don't tolerate hate speech and remove it whenever we find it.  We have been working on improving our detection capabilities and in our last report we removed 89% of content for violating our hate speech policies before anyone reported it to us.  We are of course not stopping here, and will look to continue to build on the strides we have made in the last few years—up from 23% in 2017. 

As always, we will meet with anyone to hear feedback as we have a major effort across the company being led by Mark on how the platform can be used to combat systemic racism.  

I am of course available for a call to discuss this or any additional feedback you have at any time.  For now, we will continue to push as fast as we can to make progress on the specific areas of product, policy, talent and community as I shared in my note to you last week.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership and feedback….

Original author: Tanya Dua

Snapchat's Juneteenth filter has been removed after receiving criticism, per CNBC.

The filter displayed a Pan-African flag and read "Juneteenth, Freedom Day."

Like many other Snapchat filters, the Juneteenth filter promoted users to smile, after which chains appeared and then broke in the background of the filter. 

The filter began to receive attention and criticism after Mark Luckie, a digital strategist and former journalist, tweeted about it. 

Business Insider previously reported that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel announced that the company would keep its diversity report private on June 11.

Juneteenth celebrates the day that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas, the most confederate state in the U.S., freeing enslaved African Americans, on June 19, 1865. June 19 recognizes the effective end of slavery in the U.S.

Original author: Joey Hadden

A company called PRAAS is launching a new 'printing as a service' platform this week on Microsoft's Azure cloud system.PRAAS gives corporate IT teams a view of what is being printed – even on employees' home printers. Data theft or loss is a major issue with remote work, experts say, and PRAAS says it can address that.PRAAS is different because its service works with any printer, the company says.  Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As remote employees increasingly leak confidential company information during the coronavirus crisis, a New Zealand startup is launching a new product to ebb the flow. 

The company, PRAAS, is launching what it says is the first "Print as a Service" product that works on all printers – even home printers used by remote workers – to help enterprise cybersecurity teams monitor a key weakness in data loss and theft: employees printing sensitive information.  

"When COVID hit, we realized the world's knowledge workers weren't heading back to the office anytime soon," says Brendan Francis, the CEO of PRAAS. "Print is not secure, and there was no visibility into data loss."

The cloud-based product manages all enterprise printer use, meaning that when employees print a document from their work computers – whether in the office or at home – the PRAAS system provides the company IT teams with an audit trail, helping them to track sensitive documents. The PRAAS can manage any brand or model of printer, and the system gives IT teams other printer-related services, too, such as management of contracts, service, and supplies. 

A recent report from the cybersecurity firm Tessian showed that half of employees cited "not being watched by IT" as a reason for not following safe data practices. Meanwhile, 84% of IT leaders also said that data loss prevention is more challenging when employees are working from home.

A white paper from PRAAS says print-as-a-service may be a promising market because only a quarter of the 80 million remote printers used by employees are currently managed or overseen by employers.   

After rapidly transitioning to remote working, companies may lack security, visibility, and control of sensitive customer information, introducing data compliance dilemmas with legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to International Data Corporation in an independent market-research report. GDPR is the European data-protection legislation that carries major fines for companies' mishandling of customer data. 

"Some employees might be unknowingly managing customer data in a non-compliant way, while some might be aware of the risk, but decide to print anyway," the IDC report found.

With many employees desiring to continue remote work after the quarantine lifts, and companies seeing cost-savings as a result, addressing remote oversight of sensitive data is a longterm issue, the IDC report says. 

PRAAS will launch its service on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform this week,

"The advanced analytics featured in the solution will help organizations print in a more sustainable way, and the security and compliance features are important in the post-GDPR era," Microsoft New Zealand Chief Technical Officer Russell Craig said in a statement, "E specially with so many organizations now having staff working and printing remotely." 

Original author: Jeff Elder

Alexis Ohanian, who cofounded Reddit in 2005, has been called the "Mayor of the Internet."He and cofounder Steve Huffman built the company over 16 months, then sold it to Condé Nast in 2006 for somewhere between $10 and $20 million. Today, the company is worth $3 billion. Since then, Ohanian has become a venture capitalist, has helped launch two more companies, and has fought against a bill that would have stifled internet innovation. In 2015, he met tennis superstar Serena Williams. The couple had a daughter together, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in 2017, and got married two months later. More recently, in the wake of the protests following George Floyd's death, Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board and called on the company to name a Black board member in his place, which it has since done, appointing Michael Seibel. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Alexis Ohanian's path to becoming the "Mayor of the Internet" wasn't a conventional one. 

The Baltimore, Maryland-raised Ohanian initially thought he wanted to become a lawyer before an epiphany at a Waffle House made him realize he'd rather be an entrepreneur. He and his college best friend, Steve Huffman, went on to create Reddit, the online community site known as "the front page of the internet." Today, the company is worth $3 billion.

Since selling Reddit in 2006, Ohanian has gone on to invest in startups through his venture capital firm, fight against federal bills that would have stifled internet innovation, and marry tennis superstar Serena Williams. 

Here's how Ohanian got his start and helped build one of the cornerstones of the internet. 

Original author: Avery Hartmans