Virgin Orbit's first rocket launch failed due to an unexplained problem after it had a "clean release" from the Cosmic Girl jumbo jet.The airplane and flight crew safely returned to the base in Mojave, California, after the launch attempt on Monday. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared support with the company on Twitter, writing that the Falcon 1 took four attempts before orbiting around the Earth. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After postponing its long-awaited rocket launch by a day, Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket had a successful release from a jumbo jet.

However, an unidentified problem forced Richard Branson's orbital launch company to terminate the mission shortly after the jet, called the Cosmic Girl, dropped the rocket into the air. 

Virgin said in a series of tweets that Cosmic Girl and its flight crew had safely returned to their base in Mojave, California. The company also said that an unspecified "anomaly" occurred shortly after the rocket's engines ignited.

"After being released from the carrier aircraft, the LauncherOne rocket successfully lighted its booster engine on cue — the first time the company had attempted an in-air ignition. An anomaly then occurred early in first stage flight, and the mission safely terminated," the company said in a press release shared with Business Insider. "The carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl and all of its crew landed safely at Mojave Air and Space Port, concluding the mission." 

According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who closely follows spaceflight activity, the drop of the rocket occurred at a spot above the North Pacific Ocean. "First launches are tough," McDowell said in a tweet. 

A Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) system located in Los Angeles reportedly captured what appeared to be the breakup of the rocket, according to footage shared on Twitter. 

 

The LauncherOne rocket attached to the Cosmic Girl jumbo jet. Virgin Orbit

Elon Musk sent his condolences to Virgin for the failed launch attempt.

"Sorry to hear that. Orbit is hard. Took us four attempts with Falcon 1," the SpaceX CEO said in a tweet, referring to the aerospace company's first launch system that rocketed a payload into orbit around Earth.

"We appreciate that, Elon. We're excited about the data we were able to get today," the company responded on Twitter.

The launch was originally scheduled for Sunday, but Virgin Orbit postponed it to Monday morning out of an "abundance of caution" because a sensor had been "acting up," the company said on social media. Ahead of Monday's launch, Virgin Orbit said on Twitter that it felt "more ready than ever" to launch the rocket.

Despite the disappointing failure, Virgin Orbit noted its test flight wasn't entirely awash.

"The company successfully completed all of its pre-launch procedures, the captive carry flight out to the drop site, clean telemetry lock from multiple dishes, a smooth pass through the racetrack, terminal count, and a clean release," the press release said. In a tweet, Virgin added that the "goals today were to work through the process of conducting a launch, learn as much as we could, and achieve ignition. We hoped we could have done more, but we accomplished those key objectives today."

The company also indicated that it's ready to try again, sharing a photo of its next fully built rocket in a hangar.

In the press release, Virgin said its next rocket was in "final stages of integration" at a manufacturing facility in Long Beach, Calif.

"Our next rocket is waiting. We will learn, adjust, and begin preparing for our next test, which is coming up soon," CEO Dan Hart said in the press release. 

Original author: Rachel E. Greenspan and Dave Mosher

Fintech startup Brex has advice for other startups struggling through the economic crisis: It may be difficult to sell your wares to new customers right now, but there are things you can do to get more from the customers you already have.

Brex, which provides credit cards to startups, analyzed data from its own customers and worked with HR company Zendesk to produce a set of customer service and support guidelines. The idea of the project, which the companies presented this month in one Brex's ongoing series of webinars, is to provide insight and actionable tips that can help young businesses jolted by the coronavirus pandemic. 

According to Brex and Zendesk, customer service is a vital skill that more startups would do well to focus on.

"We really have to change our mindset in this moment away from selling and towards retention by trying to find growth, if possible, through that existing customer base that we have," Zendesk vice president of startups Kristen Durham said.

That's important because sales prospects are bleak for a lot of startups, especially those that cater to sectors hard hit by the virus.

"One of the things that really has been striking for us is some of this data around the fact that businesses are no longer selling," Durham said. "Sales teams are sending about 50 percent more emails to prospects than they were pre-COVID but the responses just keep dropping."

The drop in raw sales numbers is a scary situation for startups that have been advised by their investors to cut costs and extend their runways. Without much guidance on how exactly to make that happen, startup founders are walking something of a tightrope — if revenue drops off, they might have to resort to executive salary cuts or layoffs just to stay upright.

Keeping customers happy is as important as keeping employees happy, Brex chief customer officer Roli Saxena said, and requires founders to employ similar tactics to sales, such transparent communication. Overall, startups need to have a standardized plan in place to make it through the rough waters ahead, and out the other side, Saxena said.

Original author: Megan Hernbroth

One-click login and checkout startup Fast just raised a $20 million Series A led by the $36 billion fintech giant Stripe.Fast's one-click login product is live, and in the coming weeks, it will roll out it's checkout product.Fast's existing investors include Global Founders Capital, Index Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins. Fast's co-founder and CEO Domm Holland told Business Insider that the key to a pitch deck is to keep it simple, go sparse on text, and leave opportunities for investors to ask questions.Here's the 15-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise its Series A.Check out Business Insider's Pitch Deck Library here.

Password management and online checkout have always been pain points for online shoppers. Fast, a one-click login and checkout startup, is looking to solve that problem. And it just raised a $20 million Series A led by the $36 billion fintech giant Stripe. 

"The issue that we're actually solving is that there's basically a missing layer of the internet, which is the identity layer," Domm Holland, co-founder and CEO of Fast, told Business Insider. 

Fast integrates with online merchants to offer customers the ability to log in and checkout with one click.

The first time a consumer sees the Fast checkout button, they can sign up for free. After that, they can check out with one click everywhere they see the Fast button. So to grow its user base, Fast will look to integrate with as many online merchants as possible, from e-commerce retailers to online media companies.

While Fast's one-click password product is already live, with this latest fundraise, it will now roll out one-click payments and checkout features.

"Much of our growth over the next 12 months is basically putting the button on as many websites as possible," said Holland.

Part of that growth will come through its partnership with Stripe, as starting next month, all of Stripe's merchants will be able to integrate Fast into their checkouts. Long-term, the startup will look to build more online shopping products for consumers, like order tracking and returns management across different online stores, Holland said.

To be sure, Fast isn't the only one looking to solve this problem. PayPal, for one, offers a one-click checkout product, and credit card issuers like Visa and Mastercard have partnered up on a one-click checkout, too. 

But Holland says that a key differentiator for Fast is its platform-agnostic approach. Apple Pay, which also integrates into merchant check-out windows, is Fast's biggest competitor, Holland said. But its checkout product can only be used by iPhone users and when shopping online, only on Apple's Safari browser.

Fast's Series A, which closed at the end of March, comes at a time where venture investors are shying away from early-stage companies, focusing much of their capital on existing investments.

But founders could take this opportunity to meet with as many people as possible, albeit virtually, realizing that relationships may take longer to build, Holland said.

For founders looking to raise, keeping potential investors in the loop is also key.

"You want to be lines, not dots, and you want to show traction," said Holland. "The first thing I always say to anyone who's going to be fundraising is start putting out investor updates and send them to everyone who you would want to have in the round."

And while it's easy to try and answer all possible questions in a pitch deck, Holland instead advises to keep it light on text.

"You should be structuring a pitch deck in a way that you actually know what question they're going to ask you because it's missing a bit of information that you expect that they will want," Holland said.

Not only will this keep investors engaged, it will also demonstrate the founders' ability to articulate the pitch and answer questions live, Holland added.

Stripe's funding comes just months after Fast's November seed round, which was led by Index Ventures with participation from Global Founders Capital and Kleiner Perkins.

Here's the 15-slide pitch deck it used to raise its Series A.

Original author: Shannen Balogh

Consumers have more choices in wheels, direct from manufacturers and dealers, than at any time in automotive history.At Business Insider, the vehicles we test have often been shod with the finest in forged metal available in the marketplace.Over the years, I've become quite the wheel aficionado.Here are some favorites.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

I didn't used to think I was much of a wheel person. But in the six years I've been reviewing cars for Business Insider, I've come to appreciate what various automakers are offering consumers.

The choice is impressive. You can get a range of large and compelling designs standard, but you can also drop some extra cash on fancier wheels.

These days, my eye almost naturally looks to a vehicle's wheels when I first check it out. It's like studying a person's shoes, which as we all know, totally pull an outfit together.

Here's a run down of some of my favorites wheels — and the cars that wore them:

Original author: Matthew DeBord

Apple is expected to release four new iPhones this year, including two models expected to be called the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.While some features will be consistent across all models — like 5G support and OLED displays — others are expected to be exclusive to the Pro phones.Such features may include a triple-lens camera and refreshed design that resembles the iPad Pro.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's not unusual for Apple to release more than one version of its latest iPhone. But this year's rumored iPhone 12 is expected to come in a whopping four different variants, compared to previous years when Apple would launch two or three versions of its newest smartphone.

Two of those models are expected to be successors to the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. If the reports and rumors so far are to be believed, Apple's next "Pro" iPhone will have a triple-lens camera like last year's models, a Lidar scanner like the new iPad Pro, and a refreshed design among other changes. 

All of Apple's new iPhones, including the non-Pro models, are expected to come with support for 5G networks and OLED screens instead of LCD displays.

OLED screens are typically only found on Apple's more expensive iPhones and generally offer deeper blacks and better contrast.

Apple's next-generation mobile processor, expected to be called the A14 Bionic, will also likely be present across the lineup. Apple is expected to debut its new smartphones in the fall, although there's a chance that some models could debut later than usual because of the coronavirus' economic fallout.

Here's a look at what we know about the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max so far based on the latest rumors and reports. 

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Original author: Jessica Snouwaert

Two German designers created a concept for a safe playground during the coronavirus pandemic.Rimbin is a playground design that preserves the ability of children to play and talk together.The area is divided into separate platforms so that children aren't close enough to share germs. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Two German designers, Claudio Rimmele and Martin Binder, have invented a design for a playground that is safe for children during the coronavirus pandemic. 

They combined their last names to create what they call Rimbin, a playground where children can maintain social distancing while still playing with each other. The name is also a combination of the words rim, meaning edge, and bin, meaning container, a reference to the isolated pieces of the playground. They combined their separate experience in design and psychology to figure out this method for children to be able to play and keep social connections. 

"This virus really likes people being indoors in an enclosed space for prolonged periods of close face-to-face contact," William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told Business Insider. So far, studies have found transmission outdoors to be rare, though not impossible. 

Rimbin is outdoors, and keeps children at a safe distance apart, making it a potential option for children stuck at home. Here's what it looks like.

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

A 2017 proposal that would speed up vaccine production in the EU was blocked by major pharmaceutical companies, The Guardian reported.The proposal would fund improvements to testing, potentially allowing approval to be fast-tracked and for vaccines against viruses like the novel coronavirus to be developed before an outbreak begins.But it was rejected by the pharmaceutical companies on the IMI, a body dedicated to improving the EU's pharmaceutical research.Representatives of a group that includes GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson are part of that body, The Guardian reported.The IMI rejected the claim that it has focused on other illnesses to the detriment of the coronavirus, pointing to investments it has made in vaccines and in light of the Ebola outbreak.Companies are now rushing to try and create an effective vaccine to tackle the pandemic.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The world's biggest pharmaceutical companies blocked a 2017 EU proposal that could allow vaccines against viruses like the novel coronavirus to be developed before an outbreak begins, The Guardian reported.

Representatives of the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, who sat on a body dedicated to improving the bloc's pharmaceutical research put forward the proposal that could help fast-track vaccines, but the major drugmakers on the body rejected it.

The Guardian reported that the commission's argument had been that the research could "facilitate the development and regulatory approval of vaccines against priority pathogens, to the extent possible before an actual outbreak occurs."

A vaccine candidate used in a clinical trial in Oxford, England, in April 2020. Sean Elias/Handout via Reuters

The governing board of the body, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), includes representatives of a group that includes GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson as members.

The proposal would have involved improving computer simulations and testing analysis that would give more information and allow more confidence in approving vaccines, according to The Guardian.

But a new report from Brussels-based research and campaign group the Corporate Observatory Europe, which contains the revelation about the 2017 proposal, claims the IMI has been overly focused on the market and has not adequately addressed diseases like coronaviruses as a result. 

The IMI receives funding from the EU as well as contributions from private bodies, giving it a budget of €5 billion ($54.4 billion).

The Guardian reported that the IMI also decided to not help funding projects that wanted to fight coronaviruses like MERS and SARS.

An IMI spokeswoman told The Guardian that vaccines and such diseases are a priority for the group, and pointed to a €20 million bioprepardness project launched after the 2015 pandemic, as well as new funding for vaccines released in January.

She said that the CEO report falsely "seems to suggest the IMI has failed in its mission to protect the European citizen by letting pass an opportunity to prepare society for the current Covid pandemic."

A pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller, left, the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, Monday, March 16, 2020, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

"This is misleading in two ways: the research proposed by the EC in the biopreparedness topic was small in scope, and focused on revisiting animal models and developing in silico models to better define/anticipate the type and level of immune response elicited in animals and humans in order to increase regulators' confidence in the evidence base for alternative licensing procedures," she said.

She said the IMI has helped prepare for this pandemic through previous funding for infectious diseases.

She also added that the 2017 proposal was competing with other research at the time, like research into tuberculosis and auto-immune diseases.

But the CEO report questioned the group's focus on treatments for diseases like cancer and diabetes, given the huge focus already being given to those treatments by governments and pharmaceutical countries around the world.

Companies around the world are rushing to try and create an effective vaccine for the coronavirus, but there is no guarantee of success. Even the fastest vaccine rolllout in history would still mean nothing would be approved for months.

Original author: Sinéad Baker

A small number of London hospitals have given out 10 mixed-reality headsets to doctors as a way to reduce the amount of hospital staff coming into contact with COVID-19 patients.The headsets, called the HoloLens, are built by Microsoft and allow doctors to share their POV with colleagues remotely, while also showing holographic projections to the doctor wearing the headset.Dr. James Kinross, one of the doctors using the headsets, told Business Insider this means instead of six or seven doctors conducting a ward round, just one can go into the physical ward while the rest remain in a COVID-isolated room.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Doctors in London hospitals are using mixed-reality headsets from Microsoft to reduce the amount of staff coming into contact with COVID-19 patients. The headsets look like a visor that encircles the head, and are equipped with sensors and a camera around the headband. Inside the visor is a little screen where holographic images are projected for the wearer to see.

Dr. James Kinross, a surgeon and lecturer who has been using the HoloLens for three years, told Business Insider what it's like to work with the headset as a doctor.

"One of the things that you can do is that you can take, for example, a scan or an image taken from an x-ray. You can reconstruct it into three dimensions and you can project that as a holograph into the operating field," he said. Doctors can move and manipulate images in the lens using their hands by pinching the images.

The technology has been used in the past to help doctors when reconstructing limbs after surgery by identifying blood vessels, and for treating patients with pelvic cancer. At the onset of the coronavirus, however, doctors saw a new way the technology could be useful.

A doctor talks to a patient while wearing the HoloLens. Microsoft

"We started using the HoloLens during COVID because healthcare workers were coming to harm because they weren't adequately protected," Kinross said. The UK has struggled to provide staff in its National Health Service (NHS) with adequate amounts of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect them during the pandemic.

HoloLens comes with a piece of software called Remote Assist that works via Microsoft Teams to allow doctors to reduce the number of staff going out onto wards by essentially carrying a holographic image of their colleagues with them when they go on their rounds, rather than multiple doctors having to be on the same ward at once.

"Instead of you seeing my face, you would see my first-person view, and you would pop up as a holographic image and I would see you projected into the clinical space. So I could have a heads-up conversation with you whilst I'm performing a surgical task," Kinross said.

"We thought that was quite useful because what we were able to do quite quickly is instead of sending six or seven doctors in a team onto a COVID positive ward, we could send one lucky volunteer, and the remaining doctors could be kept safe," he added.

Junior doctors are kept in a COVID-isolated room and are able to see what a consultant is doing, communicate with them, and pull up relevant images and scans to project into their helmet. This method is also being used to teach medical students who are no longer allowed on the wards.

While one doctor wearing a headset goes on the ward, other doctors can watch and communicate with them from an isolated room. Microsoft

Kinross and his colleagues ran a four-week test and found that they were reducing the number of doctors coming into COVID contact by about 80%.

"There is significant momentum with HoloLens across many NHS trusts, including University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay, University College London Hospitals, The Leeds Teaching Hospital, and Alder Hey Children's NHS Trust," a Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider. "Together with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, these trusts are working collectively to advance the use of HoloLens to protect medical professionals in their fight against Covid-19."

Headsets help reduce the amount of PPE doctors need

The tech has also come in handy because it enables hands-free viewing of information while wearing PPE.

"Once you're scrubbed up and you're sterile, you can't go and touch a computer to find out any further information that you need or you may want," Kinross pointed out. With the HoloLens however, that information can be pulled up and manipulated in virtual space.

The HoloLens needed some physical adaptations to fit with PPE face shields. "We had to do a bit of 'Blue Peter' stuff where we were sort of cutting holes and face shields. You have this super expensive holographic computer, you know, and you've got sticky tape and scissors," said Kinross.

The doctor on the right is wearing a HoloLens 2 headset. Microsoft

Another side-effect of reducing the number of doctors on the ward was also a reduced usage of PPE overall. "We were saving around 700 articles of PPE clothing per week per ward," Kinross said.

As the pandemic abates, Kinross also thinks new communication technologies will be vital to doctors as they return to normal practice. "What you're going to see in healthcare is that we are going to have distributed networks of care," he said, pointing out that his own cancer surgery has had to move out of his usual hospital.

"I've got to be able to communicate. And if my colleagues are not with me in the building, I need to be able to share information quite quickly," he said.

Keeping humans in the loop

The coronavirus has brought with it strange and unnerving stories about hospital robots into the press, but Kinross says patient response to the headsets has been largely positive. "They generally are interested in it and like it, and they don't really mind doctors looking after them wearing a silly headset," he said.

Kinross, who specialises in robotic surgery, believes robots have an important role to play in the future of medicine, but the advantage of the HoloLens is it doesn't replace human interaction.

"With these technologies you can still hold someone's hand and you could still look them in the eye and when you're really sick — sometimes you just want someone to hold your hand," he said.

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

SpaceX is preparing to fly its first humans to orbit aboard a new Crew Dragon spaceship.The Demo-2 mission, as it's called, is a high-stakes test flight of the astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station.The mission on Friday passed a critical NASA safety review, teeing up the astronauts to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 4:33 p.m. ET on Wednesday.NASA told Business Insider it estimated there's a 1-in-276 chance the flight could be fatal and a 1-in-60 chance that some problem would cause the mission to fail (but not kill the crew).Behnken said he and Hurley were "really comfortable" with the risks of their flight.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

 

SpaceX is about to launch its first people to orbit and, in the process, resurrect human spaceflight from America.

Though SpaceX's flight is experimental, the two astronauts scheduled to pilot it say they accept the risks and are ready to fly.

The rocket company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, has worked for nearly a decade with NASA to design, build, and fly a new seven-seat spaceship called Crew Dragon. NASA's hope with its more than $3.1 billion effort is to once again launch astronauts from US soil — an ability the agency lost in July 2011 when it retired its last space shuttle.

NASA picked the seasoned astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to pilot the mission, called Demo-2. If all goes according to plan, the duo should lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:33 p.m. ET on Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship and Falcon 9 rocket await launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on May 23, 2020. Ben Cooper for SpaceX The crew would then fly to the International Space Station, dock with the football-field-size laboratory, and stay for up to 110 days before returning to Earth inside Crew Dragon.

But as NASA, SpaceX, and the astronauts themselves have made abundantly clear, Demo-2 is not only an experimental crewed test flight but the first of a brand-new spaceship in nearly 40 years.

"We're going to stay hungry until Bob and Doug come home," Kathy Lueders, who manages the Commercial Crew Program for NASA, said during a press briefing on Friday. "Our teams are scouring and thinking of every single risk that's out there, and we've worked our butt off to buy down the ones we know of, and we'll continue to look — and continue to buy them down — until we bring them home."

On Saturday, NASA told Business Insider just how risky it believed the flight would be, sharing two key risk estimates that the crew's mission would fail or that they'd be killed.

The chance of mission failure is about 4.5 times that of crew death

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft integrated with a Falcon 9 rocket in a hangar at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on May 20. The vehicle is scheduled to launch NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on Wednesday. SpaceX via Twitter

NASA's Commercial Crew Program requires providers like SpaceX and Boeing, which is also developing a new spaceship (called the CST-100 Starliner), to meet a raft of safety requirements before flying any astronauts.

Among that checklist, loss-of-crew and loss-of-mission stand out.

LOC is the chance of the crew dying in a phase of the mission. Historically, NASA's space shuttle had a LOC of about 1 in 68: The program launched 135 missions, but two (Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003) ended in tragedy, each killing seven astronauts.

LOM is the chance a mission might go awry — as Boeing's Starliner spaceship did during an uncrewed test flight in December (software errors were to blame) — but not leave the crew dead.

SpaceX's crew-risk number is 1 in 276 and its mission-risk number is 1 in 60, NASA told Business Insider in an email on Saturday. SpaceX did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

During an uncrewed safety test on January 19, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship fired its escape thrusters and successfully escaped an in-flight Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX

The risk to the mission is therefore consodered about 4.5 times the risk to the crew. This is in part because of SpaceX's work on its emergency-abort system, which in January proved it could fly the Crew Dragon spaceship to safety and away from a doomed Falcon 9 rocket. But SpaceX has also worked to limit the risk that space junk, asteroid and comet dust, and other debris might jeopardize a mission, both through additional spacecraft shielding work and a process to photograph the ship before it departs the ISS.

"You're flying at high speed in space and there are micrometeorites and debris out there. That's what we worry about the most, frankly," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut who launched to space four times, told Business Insider. "That's why all spacecraft have shielding, but of course if you get a big enough hit, the shields are not going to protect you."

The LOC number for SpaceX's coming mission is better than the Commercial Crew Program's requirement of 1 in 270 for the entire mission. (The LOC number must be better than 1 in 500 for launch and 1 in 500 for landing.) Its LOM number also beats the program's 1-in-55 requirement set in 2010.

That's why NASA, following a two-day safety review on Friday, indicated Crew Dragon was well on its way toward earning full approval to fly astronauts and private passengers after Demo-2.

"Today's review and the interim human rating certification went a long way to certifying the system for crewed flight," Stephen Jurczyk, NASA's associate administrator, said during a press briefing.

'We're really comfortable with it'

Hurley rehearsing putting on his SpaceX spacesuit in the Astronaut Crew Quarters inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday during a full dress rehearsal ahead of NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station. Kim Shiflett/NASA

For their part, Behnken and Hurley have accepted the risk calculated by NASA and SpaceX.

"I think we're really comfortable with it," Behnken told Business Insider just after the safety review for Demo-2 finished Friday.

Behnken added that, by he and Hurley working with SpaceX on Crew Dragon for roughly five years, they'd gained more insight into the ways the mission could fail "than any crew has in recent history, just in terms of understanding the different scenarios that are at play."

The astronauts also pointed out that LOC and LOM numbers were more like tools to track safety improvements during a development program rather than ultimate checkboxes.

"Whenever we hear those numbers, we dig a little bit deeper than just what the overall statistics might imply," Behnken said. "Those numbers are best used as you kind of compare different ways of doing things or hardware changes that you might pursue."

Lueders told Air & Space Magazine in 2018 that improving the numbers required tradeoffs: "You can say, 'Yes I would love to have tons of MMOD shielding'" — protection against micrometeoroids and orbital debris — "but if that makes the vehicle so heavy I have to add another booster, well guess what? Adding another booster adds more risk too."

Chiao said pushing too hard for safer numbers could cause a spaceflight program to spiral into never launching at all.

"What's the right balance?" Chiao said. "You can make your vehicle virtually impossible to build and operate, but on the other hand, you don't want to be cavalier about things."

Both LOC and LOM are modeled via computers that, whenever possible, lean on real flight data. For example, SpaceX has launched its latest Falcon 9 rocket dozens of times, generating measurements that can be fed into simulations. SpaceX has also completed a full (though uncrewed) test flight of its new Crew Dragon vehicle and about 20 flights of its Cargo Dragon, too.

"Its evolution has become more and more safe as it's been operated, and that's something that we really do appreciate," Behnken said. "It's just remarkable to see all the other missions that have contributed to the human spaceflight program by, in some sense, being a test mission for us before we had the chance to fly on the Falcon 9."

Original author: Dave Mosher

Some surveys suggest there may be an exodus of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area due to the COVID-19 pandemic.City-dwellers may relocate to less dense and more affordable locales as work from home policies become the norm.But a new study places San Jose, in the heart of the tech region, as one of the best-positioned cities in the US to benefit from the post-pandemic future.San Jose is much less dense, with only 5,300 residents per square mile compared to the 17,000 residing in San Francisco.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An "urban flight" could take off from the San Francisco Bay Area due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But some tech workers rooted in San Francisco may not be headed too far, according to one new study.

Data analytics firm Moody found that San Jose, about 50 miles to the south, is among the best-poised cities in the US to welcome an influx of residents fleeing crowded areas in a post-coronavirus future as The Mercury News reports. The firm analyzed the top 100 metro areas in the US that have well-educated and widely distributed populations. Joining San Jose on the list is Durham and Raleigh in North Carolina, Salt Lake City, and Boise, Idaho.

The pandemic has caused many to rethink their urban lifestyles in expensive cities as employers increasingly embrace work from home policies. Some are also skittish about remaining in dense environments that have proven to be the perfect breeding ground for the spread of an infectious disease such as COVID-19.

The researchers behind the Moody study suggest that less dense areas with established professional sectors could benefit from the expected exodus away from crowded cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, as The Mercury News points out.

It's worth noting that many of the same issues that have plagued San Francisco — such as a housing shortage and a subsequent rise in living costs — are also present in San Jose. But the South Bay city is much less dense than its cousin to the north.

About 881,000 residents live in San Francisco's 49 square miles, compared to a little over 1 million in San Jose's 180 square miles. More than 17,000 residents live in each square mile of San Francisco compared to 5,300 in San Jose, as The Mercury News notes.

San Francisco is a city of walkers and cyclists. San Jose is more suburban-like and car-friendly.

"Silicon Valley is nobody's idea of an up-and-coming area," the study's author, Adam Kamins, told Forbes. "But there is a notable contrast between the San Jose metro area, with its sprawling tech campuses, and tightly packed San Francisco."

 Many who work in the South Bay have opted for apartments in San Francisco to be closer to the city's desirable amenities like museums and a colorful restaurant scene. Tech companies have turned to private shuttles to ferry employees from their urban apartments to the sprawling corporate campuses in the heart of the Valley.

The Twitter building in San Francisco on March 16, 2020. Katie Canales/Business Insider

Some firms have looked past the Valley and into San Francisco to set up shop to cater to a young workforce. Salesforce, with its 61-floor, gleaming glass skyscraper, is an example of that. Twitter and Uber did the same, leading the charge on big tech's foray into San Francisco by planting their headquarters in the city's mid-Market neighborhood around 2011.

San Jose, according to the study, may be a desirable city to relocate to, but other surveys suggest that tech workers want to leave the Bay Area altogether. As Business Insider's Rob Price reports, social networking site Blind conducted a survey of thousands of techies in the region, two-thirds of which said they would consider leaving the Bay Area if their employer allowed them to permanently work remotely.

Tech employees were already growing weary of life in the expensive region, and droves of workers had begun taking off for cheaper cities, including Austin, Texas.

Fast-growing cities with burgeoning tech hubs will also likely continue to grow moving forward, as Forbes reports.

Original author: Katie Canales

SpaceX is preparing to launch its first people into orbit on Wednesday using a new Crew Dragon spaceship.NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will pilot the commercial mission, called Demo-2.But the rocket company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, first needed to test-fire its rocket and get permission from NASA and even other countries before attempting the launch.On Friday, SpaceX checked off both boxes, leaving one final pre-launch review on Monday before the mission can leave Earth. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk in 2002, is steamrolling toward its first-ever rocket launch of people into orbit.

The NASA-funded commercial mission is called Demo-2 and will fly two passengers: seasoned NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft in a hangar at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on May 20, 2020. The vehicle is scheduled to launch NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on May 27. SpaceX via Twitter If all goes according to plan, the team will lift off inside the company's new Crew Dragon spaceship at 4:33 p.m. ET on Wednesday, in effect resurrecting human spaceflight from America after nearly a decade of dormancy. If the weather or other conditions don't cooperate, SpaceX's next chance to launch Demo-2 will be Saturday, May 30, at a similar time.

But before Demo-2's launch can happen, SpaceX needs to clear a number of final safety hurdles, and the company on Friday passed two of those penultimate steps.

"We are now preparing for a launch in five short days," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a televised press briefing on Friday, later adding: "We are a go."

Musk: It's taken 'probably 10,000 meetings' and tests to get here

NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, Kathy Lueders, speaks during a flight readiness review upcoming for SpaceX's upcoming Demo-2 rocket launch of NASA astronauts. Kim Shiflett/NASA

The first milestone SpaceX achieved was a flight readiness review. Such pre-launch meetings are typically long, as stakeholders comb for any final issues and think of ways to reduce risk. When people are on the line, though, such reviews become even more painstakingly detailed.

Behnken and Hurley's mission has them docking to the International Space Station and living with a crew of three other people for up to 110 days, too. So Russia, Japan, and other member-states of the orbital outpost got a say in the decision to launch Demo-2 as well.

"Everybody in the room was very clear that now is the time to speak up if there are any challenges. And there were," Bridenstine said.

An illustration of SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle, a spaceship designed to fly NASA astronauts, docking with the International Space Station. SpaceX One apparently had to do with final discussions of an issue raised by members of Roscosmos. (The Russian space agency not only co-runs the space station with NASA, but also is — for now — the only way astronauts can reach the space station.)

Kirk Shireman, who manages the space station program at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said Roscosmos in 2019 made SpaceX aware of a "very, very remote possibility of a failure" with the Crew Dragon that might cause "catastrophic damage" when docking to the ISS.

"SpaceX said we understand, and we'll make a modification," Shireman added, noting the unspecified issue was resolved to Russia's satisfaction with the new Crew Dragon ship for Demo-2.

The meeting lasted nearly two workdays, but SpaceX came out the other end with permission.

SpaceX successfully test-fires the engines of a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 22, 2020, ahead of the company's first-ever crewed mission, called Demo-2. SpaceX

The second major hurdle that SpaceX cleared, shortly after the review, was a brief test-firing of the Falcon 9 rocket's engines.

SpaceX and NASA just have to conduct one last full mission dress rehearsal this weekend, and then take the results of it and the static fire test into another review.

Luckily for Musk, that should be the final meeting on the path to launch.

"There might have been 10,000 meetings" to get to this point, Musk said on May 17 for a Bloomberg story by Ashlee Vance. "There are probably 10,000 tests of one kind or another that have taken place."

NASA: 'We're going to stay hungry until Bob and Doug come home'

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken (left) and Doug Hurley (right) inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship. NASA

Kathy Lueders, who manages the Commercial Crew Program for NASA, also revealed that the estimated chance the astronauts might die during the mission — a figure called loss-of-crew — fell within a crucial 1-in-270 threshold set by the space agency.

Business Insider requested the exact loss-of-crew probability for Demo-2, but NASA did not immediately provide the figure. The agency also did not immediately provide a loss-of-mission estimate, which examines the likelihood astronauts survive yet can't complete their mission.

Whatever the risk of Demo-2 may be, Behnken and Hurley — who SpaceX's president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, has described as "badass" dads, test pilots, and astronauts — said they're ready to fly.

"I think we're really comfortable with it," Behnken told Business Insider just after the flight review finished on Friday. He added that, by working with SpaceX on Crew Dragon for roughly five years, he and Hurley have more insight into the ways the mission could fail "than any crew has in recent history, just in terms of understanding the different scenarios that are at play."

Lueders said no amount of reviews and tests would stop the team from continuing to imagine other possible problems and improve solutions for known issues.

"We're going to stay hungry until Bob and Doug come home," Lueders said. "Our teams are scouring and thinking of every single risk that's out there, and we've worked our butt off to buy down the ones we know of, and we'll continue to look — and continue to buy them down — until we bring them home."

Original author: Dave Mosher

Apple TV Plus sign-ups in March and April were no greater than February sign-ups, according to the research company Antenna, suggesting that the streaming service's subscriber growth is slow compared to others during the coronavirus pandemic.But audience demand for Apple's original TV shows has grown since March, according to Parrot Analytics, particularly its breakout hit, "Defending Jacob."Viewers of the series aren't watching other Apple originals on the platform, though, Parrot data suggests.Apple has recently bought old TV shows and movies to grow a library of licensed content, according to Bloomberg, but it may not be enough to break out in a crowded sea of streaming services with more bang for the buck. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

With people stuck at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, streaming is on the rise.

Disney Plus and Hulu are likely the services seeing the biggest gains in US subscribers since the outbreak began, according to a recent survey from TV analytics firm EDO (the former has gained over 54.5 million subscribers since launching in November, and the latter had more than 30 million as of February). And Netflix exceeded expectations in its Q1 earnings report last month, adding 15.8 million subscribers globally. It now has 183 million subscribers worldwide.

But the data isn't as clear cut for Apple TV Plus.

Data from the research company Antenna, which is based on a variety of anonymized transactional data sources (like credit card transactions), suggests that Apple TV Plus is the only major streaming service that hasn't surged in subscribers while people practice social distancing. Antenna said that Apple TV Plus sign-ups in March and April, when coronavirus guidelines were implemented, were no greater than February sign-ups.

But audiences might, however, be warming to Apple TV Plus' programming.

Data from Parrot Analytics provided to Business Insider suggests there's been increased "demand" for Apple TV Plus' original programming recently. The data company doesn't look at subscribers, but measures audience demand, which reflects viewership, engagement, and desire weighted by importance. The demand share in the US for Apple TV Plus' programming among other streamers had increased by more than 10% in the seven weeks after March 11.

"The impact the pandemic is having on audience demand has certainly helped Apple TV Plus so far," said Parrot Analytics partnerships director Steve Langdon, adding that "Defending Jacob," starring Chris Evans, had been a breakout hit for the platform.

In the six months since its debut, the service's content selection is slim, but there is high demand for what is available, according to Parrot.

Is that enough to grow a significant subscriber base?

It's unclear how many people are actually using Apple TV Plus

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, based on anonymous sources familiar with the matter, that about 10 million people had signed up for Apple TV Plus by February, but only half were actually using it.

Apple hasn't publicly revealed subscriber numbers. CEO Tim Cook has only said that Apple TV Plus was "off to a rousing start," as of January.

And while the Antenna data didn't specify exact subscriber numbers, the fact that they weren't increasing in recent months, as other streaming services have surged, does not bode well.

"The Morning Show" Apple TV Plus

'Defending Jacob' is a hit, but it may not be enough to inspire growth

Despite a lack of surging subscribers, Apple TV Plus might have its first real hit.

Deadline recently reported that the latest Apple original series, "Defending Jacob," was Apple TV Plus' biggest premiere since the launch. According to Parrot Analytics, "Defending Jacob" has been more than 32 times more in demand than the average show in the US since premiering last month. But while "Defending Jacob" is popular with audiences, its viewers aren't watching other shows on the platform, Parrot Analytics said.

Some of Apple's original series have received lukewarm to downright bad reviews from critics, with some exceptions like "Little America."

"Defending Jacob" has a 70% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, while others are labeled "rotten," like "See" starring Jason Momoa (44%) and "Truth Be Told" starring Octavia Spencer (32%). Its initial flagship series, "The Morning Show," starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, debuted with poor reviews that slightly improved as the season progressed (it sits at a 60% critic score now). 

Apple was probably hoping for a better reception after heavily investing in such star-powered shows.

With few original programs available, even its biggest shows might not be enough to sustain a strong subscriber base. And with film and TV productions shut down across the entertainment industry due to the coronavirus, it's safe to assume second seasons of some of its high-profile series like "The Morning Show" will be delayed, leaving the service starving for more content.

Apple TV Plus is still a disappointing deal

At $4.99 per month, Apple TV Plus is the cheapest major streaming service available right now, but it's still a disappointing deal. The service's original releases have been few and far between and despite how popular "Defending Jacob" is with its users, it still doesn't have a "blockbuster" series like a "Witcher" (Netflix) or a "Mandalorian" (Disney Plus) to drive interest. 

Apple is taking some measures to potentially remedy these growth and content concerns.

The company has purchased some older movies and TV shows and have taken pitches from studios about licensing content, according to Bloomberg. It's the first of what would be licensed content for Apple TV Plus in a space where rivals like Netflix and Disney Plus have large libraries of it. And Deadline reported on Tuesday that the upcoming World War II movie "Greyhound," starring Tom Hanks, will skip its theatrical release and head straight to Apple TV Plus.

But with so many other options on the table — from existing streaming giants like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu to upcoming competitors like WarnerMedia's HBO Max and NBCUniversal's Peacock — Apple TV Plus may struggle to break through the crowd even if Apple expands its content library.

Original author: Travis Clark

Hertz filed for bankruptcy Friday night after failing to reach an agreement with lenders, The Wall Street Journal first reported Friday.Hertz has around $19 billion in debt, including $4.3 billion in corporate bonds and loans as well as $14.4 billion of debt backed by their vehicles, according to The Journal.The car-rental business has been decimated as the pandemic has ground travel to a halt, forcing Hertz's CEO to resign as the company missed lease payments and laid off 10,000 workers last month.Hertz's stock plunged in after-hours trading following the news.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Car-rental giant Hertz filed for bankruptcy Friday night after it was unable to reach an agreement with its biggest lenders, The Wall Street Journal first reported.

Hertz filed for Chapter 11 protections in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, making it one of the largest corporate casualties of the coronavirus pandemic's widespread economic fallout as travel restrictions decimate the rental car industry.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hertz has around $19 billion in debt, which includes roughly $4.3 billion in corporate bonds and loans as well as $14.4 billion of debt backed by the company's fleet of vehicles, and lenders had asked the company for upfront payment on some of those obligations but couldn't get it to agree, according to The Journal.

Hertz's business had already been struggling even before the pandemic as it tried to fend off competition from other rental agencies as well as ride-hailing businesses like Uber and Lyft.

In April, as travel ground to a halt, it laid off 10,000 workers — roughly 26% of its total workforce — and even put at least 20 identical yellow Corvette Z06s up for sale online at a steep discount as it tried to preserve cash.

CEO Kathryn Marinello resigned last Saturday, and the company's board of directors named Paul Stone, who previously served as the company's executive vice president and chief retail operations officer for North America, to step in for Marinello.

Hertz, whose parent company, Hertz Global Holdings Inc., also owns rental brands Dollar and Thrifty, had said in a regulatory filing in April that it was considering seeking bankruptcy protections after it "did not make certain payments" on its operating lease. Hertz said it "could be materially and negatively impacted" if discussions with lenders to reduce those payments weren't fruitful by the first week of May.

Hertz's stock dropped by as much as 50% in after-hours trading following the The Wall Street Journal's initial report that the company would file for bankruptcy on Friday night.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker and Lauren Frias

Devoted Health wants to change the way the U.S. takes care of its senior citizens, and it has big plans in its first five years to do just that.

The startup, which has been gathering lots of buzz in the last year, was founded to sell private health insurance plans to U.S. seniors, a market that is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers age.

Using one pitch deck, Devoted Health managed to secure $300 million from investors in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz late last year, with a valuation of $1.8 billion — all before it signed up a single customer.

But the deck also outlined the company’s aggressive plans for its first five years. Devoted Health planned to sign up 5,000 members for 2019 and grow that to 103,722 by 2023. It expects to make about $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 while generating a small net loss.

Here’s what else Devoted Health laid out in the pitch deck:

How the company, in part, plans to make money by owning its own medical group in addition to the insurance operation Its plan to take on the healthcare giants in Medicare Advantage Why it thinks it can generate better margins than other Medicare Advantage health insurers How the company can eclipse 100,000 members And more about the company’s aggressive five-year plan

BI Prime is publishing dozens of stories like this each and every day, chock full of exclusive content and industry analysis. Get started by reading highlights from the Devoted Health pitch deck

Original author: Business Insider

The USS Portland disabled a flying drone with a "solid state laser" in the Pacific Ocean.Videos showed the Northrup Grumman-developed 150-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) destroying the drone."With this new advanced capability, we are redefining war at sea for the Navy," a Navy official said in a press release.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A US Navy ship downed a flying drone with a "solid state laser" in the Pacific Ocean, the service branch announced on Friday.

The USS Portland (LPD-27), a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, deployed its Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) against an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) last week during a demonstration, the first such use of a high-energy class solid-state laser, the Navy said.

"By conducting advanced at sea tests against UAVs and small crafts, we will gain valuable information on the capabilities of the Solid State Laser Weapons System Demonstrator against potential threats," US Navy Capt. Karrey Sanders, the ship's commanding officer, said in a press release.

"The Solid State Laser Weapons System Demonstrator is a unique capability the Portland gets to test and operate for the Navy, while paving the way for future weapons systems, " Sanders added. "With this new advanced capability, we are redefining war at sea for the Navy."

According to the Navy, the weapon system is being developed due to "an increasing number of threats" that include UAVs, armed small boats, and adversary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. The Navy has used other laser weapon systems on its ships, including its 30-kilowatt class Laser Weapon System (LaWS) aboard the USS Ponce.

The Navy hopes laser cannons can defend the fleet from drones and even the long-range missiles being fielded by rivals like China, which can outrange a US carrier strike group's jets and missiles. China's land-based missiles could overwhelm a carrier group's ability to intercept with a finite supply of missiles, which is where the laser comes in.

The US Army is developing its own laser weapon, the Indirect Fires Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL), which is expected to range up 300 kilowatts and intercept rockets, artillery, and mortars.

The Office of Naval Research first awarded Northrup Grumman an initial $53 million contract to develop the 150-kilowatt-class LWSD in 2015.

"For about the price of a gallon of diesel fuel per shot, we're offering the Navy a high-precision defensive approach that will protect not only its sailors, but also its wallet," director and program manager Guy Renard, said at the time.

Original author: David Choi

More people are working from home than ever before because of the coronavirus.That has created tension between managers concerned about productivity suffering and workers who are urged — or even required — to always be at their computer.Lurk From Home aims to fix that problem by letting people take breaks without appearing offline by tricking programs like Microsoft Teams and Slack into thinking they're still working.But he says his goal is actually to improve people's productivity by allowing them to release stress and maintain better work-life balance.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of people around the world to work from home full time — many for the first time in their lives — and the transition hasn't always been seamless.

By now, we've all seen plenty of horror stories about Zoom calls gone wrong, kids interrupting at the worst possible moments, and the difficulties of staying productive while also maintaining your mental health.

Research shows that a big part of that means taking breaks to parent, eat, or just get some fresh air and give your mind a chance to refocus.

But some workers haven't felt able to do that, either because of demanding employers and managers who are concerned about productivity suffering — or simply because employees don't want to give coworkers the impression that they're slacking off.

In-person workplaces allow your bosses and colleagues to see when you're on the job, but now many companies have become reliant on tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack to determine when someone's "at their desk." Some have even turned to virtual private networks and webcams to constantly monitor employees throughout the day.

That's increased stress levels for some employees — but it also inspired Rehaan Adatia, a consultant at KPMG, and Haris Akbar, a post-doctoral fellow at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, to find a way to help people working from home reclaim some control over their schedules.

"We were seeing an uptick in these micromanaging initiatives taken up by managers to really check in a little bit further on their employees," Adatia told Business Insider, adding that a survey they sent around online confirmed that others were having difficulties taking breaks without prompting questions from managers or judgment from coworkers.

So they built Lurk From Home, a tool that tricks work chats and productivity-monitoring software into thinking someone's still at their computer using a Java plugin to intermittently move the mouse or play a media clip in the background to keep their screen active.

It's invisible to the human eye, but Adatia said it was enough to trigger activity logs for Slack, Cisco Jabber, Microsoft's Teams, Skype for Business, and Lync, as well as VPNs that may track what workers are up to throughout the day.

Adatia said he and Akbar didn't build Lurk From Home to enable people to be lazy, and he's mindful of companies that might perceive it that way and try to block their tool.

"I can see why the perception would be that this is more of a laid-back tool," Adatia said. "But we believe that this gives our users peace of mind, and that actually helps them inversely perform better when they're at their desk."

Adatia said the original idea for Lurk From Home came about years earlier during a part-time internship he had one summer that let him work remotely but also gave him tasks that didn't take the entire week to complete.

"I had basically figured out how to automate all of my work," he said. But he was still worried that efficiency may be perceived as laziness if he wasn't available on his work chat.

Adatia's solution at that point was to open a blank document on his laptop, place a coffee mug on his keyboard, and clamp the lid down so it kept typing, making his work chat think he was online.

Lurk From Home may be a slightly more high-tech hack, but as more companies encourage remote work moving forward, Adatia said tools like it would become even more essential.

That's why he and Akbar are now building additional features to encourage productivity and make working from home less isolating, like reminders to take breaks and ways to connect with coworkers and network, Adatia said. While Lurk From Home is a free tool, he hopes the additional functionality is something employers might pay for.

"Long term, I think our goal is to develop an entire suite of different tools for those working from home, not specifically just related to productivity," he said.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

Amazon is a growing advertising and selling channel, and a group of companies promise brands e-commerce expertise and tools that they can't get directly from the e-commerce giant.Business Insider highlighted 18 of the third-party tech firms and agencies that are powering sellers' and advertisers' Amazon's business.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon's advertising business continues to balloon and along with it, the number of companies that help brands navigate the ins and outs of advertising and selling on the platform.

Business Insider identified 18 companies that are part of a cottage industry of Amazon-focused tech firms. These companies sell software that helps brands do things like set up digital storefronts, merchandise, and run advertising.

The companies range from tech firms that sell software to help third-party sellers manage sales to agencies that offer managed services like ad buying and strategy.

Some, like Pacvue and Orca Pacific, were founded by ex-Amazon employees and entrepreneurs that wanted to start their own firms to help brands understand Amazon's complex marketplace.

Click here to see the full list of 18 Amazon-focused firms solving selling and advertising problems.

Original author: Lauren Johnson

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Original author: Christian de Looper

PayPal Chief Marketing Officer Allison Johnson left the company this week after fewer than 18 months in the role.Johnson was formerly the vice president of marketing communications at Apple and reported directly to Steve Jobs.A PayPal spokesperson said her departure was part of an effort to simplify PayPal's global marketing department.People with knowledge of the business said Johnson established the company's creative lab and sought to elevate the brand amid increasing competition from Apple, Square, and Microsoft.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

PayPal Chief Marketing Officer Allison Johnson left the company this week after fewer than 18 months in the role.

A spokeswoman said her departure was part of an effort to simplify the fintech giant's marketing organization and that Johnson left as part of the shift.

"As PayPal moves into the next phase of its journey, we have made some organizational changes to reduce complexity, simplify our processes, and better align with our customers. As part of this change, we are streamlining our marketing teams under one cohesive function," the spokeswoman told Business Insider.

Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

PayPal hired the former Apple marketer to shake up its brand

Johnson, a former vice president of worldwide marketing communications for Apple who reported directly to Steve Jobs, joined PayPal in January 2019. She became its first chief marketing officer in six years as the company sought to expand beyond its ubiquitous payment button to products like the money-transfer app Venmo, the merchant gateway Braintree, and the deal-finding browser extension Honey Science.

CEO Dan Schulman told The Wall Street Journal at the time that the company needed more sophisticated marketing to address an increasingly complex market.

Two people with direct knowledge of the matter, both of whom are known to Business Insider but requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter, said Johnson conducted a clean sweep of PayPal's internal marketing department upon her arrival.

Several executives, including PayPal's vice president of global brand marketing, its director of global brand advertising and creative services, and its senior director of brand marketing, left over the following months.

The fintech giant faces increasing competition from rivals like Apple, Amazon, and Square 

One of the people said that before Johnson's arrival, PayPal's brand marketing focused on internal services for clients with separate divisions in regions around the world.

According to the two people, Johnson aimed to consolidate the department under a single global remit. She established PayPal's creative lab to elevate the brand as it faced increasing competition from companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Square, which offer their own payment products.

A third person close to the business said Johnson took on a lesser role when the latest reorganization began several months ago.

Before Apple, Johnson held top marketing and public-relations roles at HP, Netscape, and IBM. She also cofounded West, a combination marketing agency and consulting firm based in San Francisco. 

Original author: Patrick Coffee