Tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have announced plans — with varying degrees of specificity — outlining how employees might return to their offices this year.Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have set dates that their offices will tentatively reopen this summer, but will still allow most employees to keep working from home through the fall.Twitter has taken the boldest work from home stance, telling employees they can keep working remotely permanently.Tech giants returning to work are relying on safety measures like thermal cameras, mandatory face masks, and hand sanitizer to reduce the chance of COVID-19 outbreaks.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As states prepare to lift COVID-19 stay-at-home orders across the US, some of tech's biggest players have started to solidify their timelines for reopening their offices.

In the past month, companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have started to tell employees when they can expect to return to work in the coming year.

Twitter was the first major tech company to make a bold decision about the future of remote work — in the first week of May, the company went so far as to tell employees that they can keep working from home permanently if they want to. A slew of smaller tech companies have followed that lead, including Spotify, Shopify, and Box.

Meanwhile, Google and Facebook will both return to offices in the coming year, but are planning to limit office capacity to less than 30% in the months after they reopen. Most employees at those companies will be allowed to continue working from home at least through the end of 2020.

Companies returning to offices will face unprecedented challenges to stave off potential COVID-19 outbreaks among employees. Some, like Amazon, are turning to high-tech solutions like thermal cameras that screen workers for fever. Experts say offices may have to implement sneeze guards, one-way corridors, and staggered hours to reduce the density of employees.

Here's how tech giants are planning to return to offices in the coming year.

Original author: Aaron Holmes

A roughly $60 million block of private shares in Airbnb recent traded hands among institutional investors, sources have told Business Insider.  The deal signals a possible pickup in activity of Airbnb shares after a rough few months in which the company's business and its valuation were hammered by the coronavirus crisis. The sale is a sign of a wider increase in activity in the secondary market for private shares in companies that have not yet gone public as pricing stabilizes and buyers seek out discounts. The private securities market has grown rapidly in recent years as longer IPO runup periods encourage secondary market activity.   Click here for more BI Prime stories.

A roughly $60 million block of stock in the struggling home-sharing giant Airbnb traded hands in recent weeks, according to two sources in the secondary market for private securities who were briefed on the trade.

The deal was handled by Zanbato, according to one of the sources, a trading platform backed by the venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale. Zanbato and a spokesman for Airbnb both declined to comment.

The deal would be typical for a multi-billion dollar company such as Airbnb on a yearslong path to a public offering. The proliferation of unicorns and lengthening runup periods to an IPO have driven dramatic growth in recent years in the trade of private securities.

That activity, however, was doused by the pandemic, which has caused share prices in an already-opaque market to tumble to uncertain depths, scaring off buyers and stymieing trades.

And Airbnb's business has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with revenue plunging by more than half as shelter in place orders have brought travel to a standstill. Earlier this month, the company announced plans to lay off 25% of its staff and the high-profile IPO that Airibnb was planning for this year is now on hold.

The $60 million Airbnb deal, which sources say was done between institutional investors, such as hedge funds, venture capital firms, or wealth management offices, signals a potential reboot of activity for the company's shares - as well as a wider thaw in the private securities market.

"When the coronavirus hit the US in mid-February, we saw the number of buyers drop materially to the point where we had three sellers for every buyer on the platform," said Jose Cobos, the chief revenue officer for Forge Global, a private securities trading firm that reports it has handled the sale of about $2.5 billion of shares in over 100 private companies since its founding in 2014. "But it's been amazing since April, which was one of our best ever months. The number of buyers compared to sellers shifted to two to one."

Read More: Which is safer: Airbnb or hotels? Here's what doctors say

Last month, Airbnb raised $2 billion in two rounds of funding from a group of prominent private investment firms to strengthen its financial position amid the virus crisis.

The first funding round, a $1 billion loan from Silver Lake Partners and Sixth Street Partners, came with warrants allowing the firms to purchase up to a 1% ownership interest in Airbnb at a valuation of $18 billion. That was more than 40% less than the $31 billion price put on the firm in its most recent previous fundraising round in 2017 and a fraction of the over-$50 billion valuation some bankers had envisioned for the company's IPO.

Experts in the trade of private securities said the debt deal provided a key benchmark for value, however, allowing buyers and sellers to price shares and restart trading in Airbnb's shares.

"There's the old saying that you never want to catch a falling knife, but that's not what's happening with Airbnb," said Cris Palacios, the president of Iron Edge Venture Capital, an investor in private securities. "We're not sure where the dust settles, but the smart money believes that right now is one of the best buying opportunities in the venture capital market in a long time."

Read More: A memo from Airbnb's CEO announcing huge staff cuts is a case study in how leaders can conduct layoffs in a compassionate way

Airbnb stock on the secondary market has plunged in the wake of the virus crisis.

Private securities in a company are generally not homogenous and can come with different covenants depending on the fundraising round in which they were issued, creating varying values between shares. In general, the company's shares have careened from about $140 per share to $85, according to Jared Carmel, the founder and managing partner of Manhattan Venture Partners, a trading platform and investor in private securities, including Airbnb.

Another source in the secondary market estimated some shares have dipped even further, into the $70s. The sharp declines reflect how Airbnb's business, along with much of the rest of the hospitality industry, has been battered by the freeze on travel and tourism.

Trades of securities in private companies like Airbnb can require the company's signoff, although many investors get around the barrier by holding the shares in limited liability companies and trading the ownership of those LLCs.

While it's easy to see how buyers could be motivated to transact to seize on discounts, Carmel said the economic dislocation has also prompted selling, including among startup employees with equity whose jobs were recently cut.

"Since March 11, there have been over 450 startups that laid off nearly 60,000 employees," Carmel said. "The secondary market has never been as crucial as it is today in the venture capital ecosystem. This asset class is integral in helping the next wave of startup entrepreneurs self-fund their dreams by providing the liquidity they need."

The private securities market has been growing for years as companies pass through longer maturation periods before going public, creating larger windows for shareholders and investors to trade in and out of companies.

Nasdaq's private securities trading platform, the largest in the industry, saw trading activity balloon to $12 billion in 2018 in the run-up to Uber's IPO, and $4.8 billion in 2019, more than double the amount of dollar volume done in total on its platform in the preceding four years. In the first quarter, its platform handled $1.4 billion of activity, a record start.

"The fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 were incredibly busy," said Eric Folkemer, the head of Nasdaq Private Market, the exchange's private securities arm. "But that activity all preceded the crisis."

The exchange solely handles private securities transactions that are company-sponsored, a focus that allows it to handle far larger volumes of private shares than any of its peers, but also tethers its business to the willingness of companies to sanction trades. During covid, few, if any have sought to create trading windows to allow equity holders to liquidate stock.

"Companies have said they need to focus on their business, as they should, and liquidity was put on the backburner and the market dried up," Folkemer said.

That side of the market has begun to rebound too in recent weeks.

"We are seeing the market turn a corner with deal offerings growth of 20% for transactions that are expected to close in June 2020 versus June 2019," Folkemer said. "The market appears to be opening back up."

Have a tip? Contact Daniel Geiger at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 352-2884, or Twitter DM at @dangeiger79. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Daniel Geiger

Microsoft introduced a cloud initiative tailored specifically for the healthcare industry during the company's Build developer conference this week, following similar initiatives from Google, IBM, and Amazon.It's Microsoft's first industry-specific cloud, and the company hired Greg Moore, the executive running it, in 2019.The company also recently hired executives with expertise in the financial services and energy industry, which suggests that specific clouds for those industries could be coming next.The push towards industry-specific offerings also is indicative of what one Microsoft executive said is one of the biggest changes Nadella has made: changing the company from a "horizontal" one that produces products for general purposes to one with a focus on verticals, like the healthcare industry.View Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Microsoft introduced its first industry-specific cloud this week — Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare — and the company's recent hires suggest that the financial services and energy industries could be next.

Tailoring products to fit specific use cases is becoming more common for cloud companies. Google announced industry-specific cloud initiatives earlier this year, including for healthcare, financial services, media and entertainment, and manufacturing. IBM also has a specific cloud for financial services, and touts Bank of America as a client. Amazon Web Services offers industry-specific products too.

In Microsoft's case, its new healthcare cloud includes versions of existing products — such as Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Azure IoT — with tweaks designed specifically for the healthcare industry. The face of this healthcare cloud is Greg Moore, now corporate vice president of Microsoft Health, who Microsoft hired away from Google Cloud, where he held a similar post, in 2019. The company also bulked up its healthcare expertise in September by nominating Emma Walmsley – CEO of drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline and the most powerful woman in Big Pharma – to its board. 

Reading the tea leaves around other recent hires indicates which industries Microsoft may tackle next. In the fall, Microsoft brought on experts from both the financial services and oil and gas industries.

In September, the company hired Google Cloud's former vice president of oil, gas, and energy, Darryl Willis, to oversee Microsoft's strategy for energy company customers as its VP of the energy industry. Willis previously spent nearly two decades at BP, most recently as president and general manager.

Also in September, Microsoft hired Bill Borden, a former managing director at Bank of American Merrill Lynch, as the company's new corporate vice president of financial services. Borden leads Microsoft's global financial services strategy, which includes customers in banking, capital markets, and insurance. 

Generally, Microsoft's new healthcare cloud — and other potential industry-specific offerings — is indicative of one of the biggest changes Nadella has been driving within Microsoft: He's shifting the company from a "horizontal" mindset where it produces products for general purposes, to a vertical-focused vision. That's exhibited by how the company is now finding ways to tune products for specific problems and situations in industries such as retail, manufacturing, automotive, and healthcare.

Peter Lee, the head of Microsoft Research who started Microsoft's health care business at Nadella's direction, told Business Insider earlier this year that the biggest difference between Nadella and his predecessor Steve Ballmer is the way he thinks about Microsoft as a company.

"He's thought really differently about Microsoft's business," Lee, VP of Microsoft Healthcare, said of Nadella. "He's caused Microsoft to address vertical markets with more depth and expertise, pushed all of us to really focus on the future of the cloud, and [made] dozens of those profound changes that have put Microsoft in a position of being part of defining the future of digital."

Are you a Microsoft employee? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242.

Original author: Ashley Stewart

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company doesn't plan to move its workforce entirely remote, but is thinking about how it will adapt to a post-pandemic world."I'm curious to see what happens as we get into that three-to-six-month window and we get into things where we are doing something for the first time," Pichai told Wired regarding the company's current remote setup.Pichai also said that Google is still hiring, but less aggressively in certain areas.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

This week, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced that half of the company's employees could be working remotely by the end of the decade, while Twitter has said its workforce can work from home permanently.

But Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai isn't willing to make the same commitment — at least not yet.

In an interview with Wired, Pichai suggested Google is still working out what its remote work policies may look like once the pandemic is over, but that he believes there to still be good reason to get people together in the same space.

"I don't think we are going to come out of this and be back where we were before this all started. So I expect us to adapt but it's still too early to tell how much," he said when asked if Google might follow Facebook's lead.

"Early on, I'm excited that some of this is working well. But it is based on a foundation of all of us knowing each other and having the regular interactions we already had. I'm curious to see what happens as we get into that three-to-six-month window and we get into things where we are doing something for the first time," Pichai said. "How productive will we be when different teams who don't normally work together have to come together for brainstorming, the creative process? We are going to have research, surveys, learn from data, learn what works."

Google recently told employees that most should expect to work from home for the rest of the year, with a select few returning possibly as soon as June.

Over at Facebook, Zuckerberg said the company would ramp up its remote-hiring and allow a large number of its employees work permanently at home. If other companies such as Google follow its lead and move to a more remote-heavy workforce, there could be significant ramifications for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pichai was also asked if the pandemic and changing thoughts around remote work would impact its plans for major office developments in both the Bay Area and New York.

"In all scenarios I expect us to need physical spaces to get people together, absolutely," he said. "We have a lot of growth planned ahead. So even if there is some course correction I don't think our existing footprint is going to be the issue. I am positive we will put it to good use and I'm anxious to see some of those projects get done."

However, these expansions could be slowed by the pandemic. During Google's latest earnings call, CFO Ruth Porat said the company's capital expenditures for 2020 would see "a modest decrease" as the company paused or slowed various expansion projects.

Hiring is another area that Google is pulling back on right now. In the Wired interview, Pichai reiterated that the company is still hiring, but less aggressively in certain areas.

"We are moderating our hiring plans but we are still bringing in people," he said. "That doesn't mean we aren't looking for efficiencies. We are looking at areas where we can course correct, where we can be more efficient, where we can streamline."

Original author: Hugh Langley

The housebuilding startup Atmos is trying to encourage tech workers to relocate because of lockdowns.The startup launched a calculator showing workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and other big cities what their rents would buy them if they worked remotely elsewhere in the US.The pandemic lockdowns have forced huge numbers of people to work from home, and now some tech companies are introducing new permanent remote-work policies.The shift could help transform the San Francisco Bay Area, which has struggled for years from a high cost of living and housing crisis.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The pandemic has left hundreds of thousands of tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area unable to leave their overpriced homes — and some are now reconsidering their commitment to the region.

Nick Donahue keenly wants to encourage this.

He's the CEO of Atmos, a young housebuilding startup backed by former Y Combinator President Sam Altman that is trying to capitalize on the coronavirus crisis and get folks in Silicon Valley and other big cities to consider moving elsewhere in the US, where they can build their own home and enjoy a lower cost of living while working remotely.

"A lot of people are already thinking, 'Why am I here? I live in a shoebox for $3,000,'" Donahue said in an interview with Business Insider. "People start to see the massive difference and start getting jaded ... people are realizing most of our meetings don't need to be in person."

The tech industry has long had a fraught relationship with the Bay Area. Over the past few decades, the picturesque region has grown ever more crowded by tech workers, contributing to soaring costs of living, the worst housing crisis in the nation, heavy traffic, and myriad other issues.

There have been predictions and calls for the industry to geographically decentralize for years — but the pandemic has the potential to make that a reality. Tech workers blocked from visiting their luxurious offices or enjoying the region's bars, parks, and other amenities are talking about finally ditching the area. High-profile companies like Twitter, Square, and Coinbase have announced shifts to permanent remote-first workplaces. And perhaps most consequentially, Facebook on Thursday announced it was ramping up remote hiring aggressively and expected that by 2030 or sooner half of all its employees (about 50,000-strong) would be remote.

Workers at Atmos, including CEO Nick Donahue (center). Atmos

Atmos is trying to simplify the housebuilding process, providing an all-in-one service to make it easier for people to build homes to their exact specifications in emerging cities where demand often outstrips the supply. It's early days for the business — it's been going for a little more than six months and breaking ground on its first four homes.

Financial backers include Dropbox executive Adam Nash and Altman, a high-profile Bay Area investor who is now the CEO of OpenAI. Altman and Donahue met at a laser-tag event on Angel Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.

Its focus thus far has been in North Carolina, where the four-person cofounder team is from — in particular Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte.

On Monday, Atmos launched a calculator to show workers in the Bay Area, New York, and other metropolitan hubs what their rents could get them elsewhere in the country if they built there and to encourage them to take the plunge.

A techie paying $2,400 a month on a 390-square-foot one-bed apartment in San Francisco could buy a 2,500-square-foot three-bedroom house in Baltimore, Maryland, for example. A New Yorker paying $1,800 for a one-bedroom apartment could splash out on a three-bedroom place with more than twice the square footage in Kansas City, Missouri.

Since the tool's launch, it's been visited 40,000 times, Donahue said. One in 10 of those visitors were from the Bay Area, and of those, their top picks were Raleigh, North Carolina (42%); Austin, Texas (15%); Seattle (8%); Boulder, Colorado (8%); Chicago (4.5%); and Portland, Oregon (4%).

(Note: Raleigh seems to be No. 1 at least in part because it's the default selection in the calculator tool.)

Atmos' calculator designed to encourage workers to abandon the big cities. Atmos

Part of the appeal of relocating to somewhere like Raleigh, of course, is the understanding that workers could transfer their California tech-industry salaries to live large in a region with a much lower cost of living. But there's one potential wrinkle in this idea: Employers could decide to adjust salaries to reflect where remote workers are living. Facebook has said it will start doing this in 2021; it's not yet clear if others will follow.

Donahue is expecting a second wave of the coronavirus in the fall after lockdown restrictions are relaxed and predicts it may spur further companies to allowing remote work. "With the second wave — we've already gotten these initial companies like Twitter say you can stay remote indefinitely — I think you'll see more and more companies doing that, especially startups."

It's a trend that has the potential to radically reshape the Bay Area and the broader American economy — reducing pressure on workers to relocate to California to work in the technology industry and relaxing the strain on the region's economy and housing market.

There is already notable appetite among residents to move: A recent poll by the anonymous work social network Blind of thousands of tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area found that two-thirds would consider moving away if given the option to permanently work remotely.

Contact Business Insider reporter Rob Price via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), standard email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a nonwork device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

Original author: Rob Price

IBM is laying off employees, joining other tech companies that have been forced to reduce head count in the economic downturn.IBM is cutting "several thousand jobs," mainly in its global technology-services division, a source told Business Insider.Ed Barbini, IBM's vice president for corporate communications, said in an email to Business Insider: "Our workforce decisions are made in the long-term interests of our business. Recognizing the unique current conditions, IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021."Click here for more BI Prime stories.

IBM is laying off employees, joining other tech giants that have cut jobs amid the COVID-19 crisis.

IBM is eliminating "several thousand" jobs, mainly in the company's technology-services division, a source familiar with the company's plans told Business Insider.

Ed Barbini, IBM's vice president for corporate communications, confirmed the job cuts, which were first reported by Bloomberg.

"Our workforce decisions are made in the long-term interests of our business," he told Business Insider in a statement. "Recognizing the unique current conditions, IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021."

The company is also offering affected employees three months' pay and health coverage for a year, the source said.

IBM's global technology-services division, which offers support to clients that run their networks on on-premise data centers or the cloud, is the company's biggest business segment. The company had said in recent earnings reports that it planned to make changes to improve that business section's financials.

CEO Arvind Krishna announced last month, when he took over, that IBM was withdrawing its outlook amid the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

"These are unprecedented times, and this quarter is not the time to declare that we have clarity," Krishna told analysts during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

Got a tip about IBM or another tech company? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @benpimentel, or send him a secure message through Signal at (510) 731-8429. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Benjamin Pimentel

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the next edition of Insider Today. Please sign up here. 

Note we'll be off Monday for Memorial Day. Enjoy your weekends, everyone.

BLODGET & PLOTZ

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Getty

Facebook's remote-working plan is doomed

Silicon Valley, which adopts fads like it's a tween, has found a new one. The day before pandemic, the Valley was salivating over the Apple campus, goggle-eyed at Airbnb's conference rooms, passionately arguing whether the kombucha was better on the marketing floor or the engineering floor.

But now? Now let's all work from home, forever!

Twitter and Square recently announced that everyone could keep working from home when the pandemic ends. Facebook, right in character, has decided to move fast and break leases.

Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that he expected up to half of Facebook's employees to work remotely in the next five to 10 years.

"We're going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale," Zuckerberg jargoned.

The pivot to home offices is easy to explain. Pandemic uncertainty will make crowded workspaces feel unsafe for a while, and scare workers off public transportation. Companies can slash their real-estate costs with a remote workforce, and maybe even salaries. Zuckerberg advised that Facebook would cut wages for employees who live in places that are cheaper than the Bay Area.

I'm writing this from my bed, but I'm skeptical that remote work will remain so enthralling for big companies once COVID-19 recedes.

Yes, a surprising number of white-collar workers are finding lockdown life enjoyable — no commuting, no travel, no dressing up.

And it's tempting to think that if a little bit of working from home is good, a lot of working from home will be great. The history of human civilization, however, suggests this would be a mistaken conclusion.

Working from home is fine now because everyone is doing it. We've all been forced into it. You're not missing any important meetings or gossip around the water cooler or happy hours — because everyone is missing them.

Humans have a glorious capacity to adapt, especially when they feel what they're going through is fair, and this feels fair, because everyone is suffering the same way.

But once the possibility of office life returns, the career fortunes and experiences of people who repopulate the Silicon Valley headquarters and people who stay home are going to rapidly diverge.

Ask anyone who's ever worked at a partially remote company (say, me): The insiders and the outsiders have vastly different experiences.

Insiders build the small, socially lubricating connections that humans thrive on. They create stronger networks. They develop better reputations, more friendships. They know more about what's happening at the company. And that makes them more valuable employees.

Companies are deluding themselves if they think they can crush the human desire for that kind of knowledge, jockeying, and connecting. Office workers will become the elite overclass. Remote workers will be outsiders, sometimes confused, excluded from the in-jokes and cliques that develop in any real-world group.

Silicon Valley fantasizes that technology can fix this. Facebook, above all, is built on the notion that electronic relationships are the equal of in-person ones. But 15,000 years of human civilization says technology doesn't fix it. Slack, texting, Zoom happy hours — they're better than nothing. But anyone who's ever been remote at a meeting where everyone else is in person knows how much physical presence matters.

A prediction: Facebook and other tech companies will extend remote work, and for a certain class of employee it will be a godsend. Folks who generally work alone, who are temperamentally introverted, and who aren't ambitious will love it, and will thrive.

But everyone who wants to manage, to run things, to influence, to jockey, to make friends, to build a network — they will clamor to work in the office. Almost every single ambitious person in a company will be demanding a desk at HQ. Within a very short time, Silicon Valley will largely revert back to status quo, with centralized, crowded hub campuses where all the action happens, and smattering of happy introverts working remotely elsewhere. —DP

Come on, Plotz, some people will be stoked to work remotely forever!

My partner, Mr. Plotz, makes some excellent points in his argument above that the new remote-work-for-everyone-forever trend is just a fad.

Cities are amazing places, and, once it's safe to ride subways and buses again, most people will want to continue living in them.

Office life can be fantastic, especially at fun, tech-ish companies that offer food and fabulously smart and charismatic colleagues. Climbing the management career ladder will indeed still be easier to do in person: Relationships still matter, and in-person relationships are stronger than Zoom ones.

So, yes, once we finally vanquish the coronavirus, enthusiasm for cities, offices, events, business travel, and in-person work will rise again.

But!

A significant percentage of people, especially "individual producers" — writers, engineers, designers, and others who really do not need to interact with others to do amazing work — will take advantage of our collective epiphany to leave "the office" forever.

There are so many amazing places to live in this world. So many places that are cheaper, more beautiful, healthier, easier, and more fun than the "big cities." So many places where it's better and easier to raise kids; have dogs, cats, and farm animals; exercise and be outdoors.

For many of us, the benefit of being able to live in these places — while still enjoying the vibrancy, stability, compensation (even at lower levels), benefits, support systems, colleagues, and opportunities of working for larger companies and organizations — will make the trade-off worthwhile.

Well done, Facebook, Twitter, and others, for welcoming this new age! You'll now be able to hire and employ talented people all over the country and world who would have been miserable living amid the Silicon Valley and New York City rat race.

And well done, remote workers and tech providers, for showing hidebound managers that we all can now be amazingly productive from anywhere! You've helped create a better world! —HB

Brazil's coronavirus disaster confirms that the tough-guy approach doesn't work

Thanks to the various approaches to the coronavirus tried by different countries, humanity is getting real-time evidence about what works and what doesn't.

What doesn't work, it seems, is ignoring or playing down the virus and acting as though there's nothing that can be done about it.

This approach, flirted with by President Trump in the US, has been taken to its extreme by President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, as Insider's Sarah Al-Arshani reports. And Brazilians are paying the price.

The unfolding disaster in Brazil may soon give the US some competition for the worst outbreak in the world.

Confirmed deaths are nearing 20,000 and accelerating.

Our World in Data

Confirmed cases are also soaring.

Our World in Data

Even on a per-capita basis, Brazil's accelerating epidemic will soon make it a card-carrying member of the coronavirus Hall of Shame. And unlike most of these countries — Spain, Italy, France, the UK — Brazil is getting worse, not better.

Our World in Data

Countries that nipped the coronavirus in the bud — South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Denmark, Austria, Germany, among others — show that it can be done.

Countries that were initially blindsided, meanwhile — Italy, Spain, France — show that, with a coordinated, comprehensive, and overwhelming response, the virus can be brought under control.

Countries that denied the threat of the virus and then rinsed their hands of national responsibility, meanwhile — the US, Brazil — are still struggling. —HB

 

NEWS

Original author: David Plotz and Henry Blodget

As firms in virtually every industry get accustomed to working from home, remote hiring presents a unique challenge for recruiters and job-seekers, alike.On May 1st, PayPal saw a record number of transactions as digital payments surge.In addition to hiring remotely, PayPal will host its 350 summer interns virtually.PayPal's global head of talent expects that some elements of today's environment will stick, like increased communication from senior leadership and more flexible policies about remote work.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

As firms in virtually every industry get accustomed to working from home, remote hiring presents a unique challenge for recruiters and job-seekers, alike.

Payments giant PayPal has continued to search for talent and hire remotely. It currently has over 900 job postings on its website. While many of the listings are for software engineers, the payments giant is also hiring for roles in compliance, data science, and risk management.

"We're focused on hiring in multiple areas," Tracy Brown, global head of talent at PayPal, told Business Insider. "What I would highlight is the need for software engineers and risk analysts as key components of our evolving platform."

And while many of these roles are highly technical, Brown says that PayPal is still looking for candidates with soft skills like collaboration, innovation, and problem solving.

"As we move forward and continue to build out and add to our teams, in addition to those two core skill sets, we'll increasingly see the value of soft skills as well," Brown said.

PayPal saw a record number of transactions on its payments network and its peer-to-peer app Venmo on May 1st. Its stock price surged to an all-time high following the news, and has since continued to climb.

Read more: PayPal is hiring for hundreds of jobs amid the coronavirus slowdown. A hiring executive there lays out the exact skills you need to nail an interview.

PayPal is still hiring, albeit remotely

At PayPal, the recruiting process always started remotely, typically through phone interviews early in the process.

The challenge now is that PayPal can't invite candidates on-campus for in-person interviews, a key part of its recruiting process.

"In this new environment now, not being able to provide these in-person experiences has been a little bit of a lost opportunity for us and for many of our candidates throughout the process," said Brown.

The in-person phase of the interview process is also an opportunity for PayPal to sell itself to prospective hires. Without visiting the campus, it can be hard for candidates to get a sense of the company's culture and what it would be like to come in to work every day.

So until offices reopen, PayPal has focused on increasing communication with its job candidates. For candidates who may ultimately move to work at a PayPal office, recruiters have been able to connect them with employees that have had similar experiences.

"What we've tried to do is double down and make up for that with much more frequent and consistent communication with our candidates," said Brown.

PayPal's interns will join the firm virtually this summer

Some firms have canceled their internship programs given the circumstances, but for many, internships are a key pipeline for full-time hiring. So in mid-March, PayPal decided to shift its internship program fully virtual instead of forgoing it, Brown said.

"The need to have a pipeline and invest in that junior talent sector is also important for us," said Brown.

And while working remotely may come easy to many of PayPal's full-time employees, it poses unique challenges to the company's 350 interns, who typically spend their summers learning and networking with each other and their teams.

"There will definitely be some challenges that accompany this for interns," said Brown. "One of the key components that our interns take away from the experience is being able to interact and build a network with other interns."

In lieu of the usual in-person networking events, PayPal plans to host a series of virtual 'social hours' with ice breakers and trivia. Every intern will be assigned a buddy and mentor to help guide them through the program, in addition to cohorts within the intern class.

And PayPal's annual intern expo where interns present the projects they've worked on, will still happen, albeit virtually.

Read more: The ultimate guide to Wall Street's summer internships: Here's how they'll go virtual, and how to impress remotely

Some new norms are here to stay

While shelter-in-place orders won't last forever, there are some new norms to come out of today's work from home environment that are likely to stick around, Brown said.

From more frequent updates from senior leaders to daily check-ins with teams, there are some new norms that may be here to stay, Brown said.

"The access to leadership here at PayPal has really been phenomenal," said Brown. "I think it's going to change the way that we communicate and what our communication protocols will be post the crisis."

PayPal's CEO Dan Schulman has increased the frequency of global all-hands meetings and check-ins with his senior leadership team. And other leaders at PayPal have started hosting group check-ins to ensure employees feel connected and supported.

"There have been a number of new routines that have been introduced that I think employees really have appreciated given the physical distance," said Brown. "They feel much more connected."

And as PayPal looks toward a post-COVID world where offices reopen, Brown is expecting that the company's approach to remote work will change.

"We'll continue to evaluate the best path forward, but we're going to certainly take these learnings from this experience and no doubt we'll adjust some of our policies going forward around working from home," Brown said.

Read more: Facebook is eyeing offices in cities like Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver to act as 'hubs' to support 50% of its workers staying remote — and it's a move that could upend Silicon Valley and NYC real estate

Working remotely is different, but manageable 

PayPal, like most firms, has been working remotely amid shelter-in-place orders. But before the coronavirus pandemic, PayPal already had employees with flexible work arrangements, as not all its employees were going into its 50 global offices.

"Although now we are physically separated, and that presents a challenge, it was pretty easy for us to make that transition to have a completely virtual workforce [now] ," said Brown.

In addition to making sure employees had the tech and infrastructure needed to work remotely, PayPal started conducting a weekly wellness survey as a way to check in with its 23,200 employees.

"That was really done to make sure that we had a quick, easy way to get a pulse on how people were doing and managing in the midst of the current circumstances," said Brown. 

And the survey helped PayPal pinpoint what its employees were looking for in terms of assistance and support during the pandemic.

"The survey helped us understand very quickly that employees what they desire most was mental health and emotional wellness support," said Brown.

PayPal has also focused on continuing to offer professional development resources while working remotely. In March and April, PayPal saw a 43% increase in employee usage of LinkedIn Learning.

Original author: Shannen Balogh

Punithan Genasan, 37, was sentenced to death on Friday by a Singapore court in a hearing conducted over the video-conferencing platform Zoom, his lawyer said. The Malaysian man was sentenced for his role in a 2011 heroin deal. The city-state has a zero tolerance policy on drugs.  Like many court systems around the world, Singapore has turned to video conferencing to continue processing cases while coronavirus lockdowns make in-person hearings impossible. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A Singapore judge sentenced a 37-year-old man to death on Friday during a hearing conducted on the video-conferencing platform Zoom, Reuters and The Straits Times reported.

Punithan Genasan, 37, was sentenced at the Singapore High Court for his role in a 2011 heroin deal. The city-state has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drugs.

A spokesman for Singapore's Supreme Court says Genasan's death sentence is the first capital punishment to be handed down over a video-conferencing court hearing.

Genasan's lawyer Peter Fernando named Zoom as the site that was used, and said he had no issues hearing the judge, according to Reuters. Fernando added that the judge was only handing down a sentence, and no arguments were being heard.

He said, however, that they may launch an appeal.

Like many other countries, Singapore has turned to Zoom to hold court hearings remotely as coronavirus lockdowns make in-person hearings impossible.

The country has been on lockdown since early April and won't reopen until June 1 at the earliest. While initially lauded for its handling of the crisis, the city-state has now grown to have one of the highest coronavirus rates in Asia.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asian division, issued a statement criticizing the use of Zoom in Genasan's capital case. 

"Singapore's use of the death penalty is inherently cruel and inhumane, and the use of remote technology like Zoom to sentence a man to death makes it even more so," Robertson said, according to Reuters.

Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director at Human Rights Watch, also tweeted: "The tech may be new, but the inhumanity is archaic..."

Singapore isn't the first country to issue a death penalty via Zoom during the coronavirus outbreak. In early May, a man in Nigeria was sentenced over Zoom to hang for the murder of his boss' mother, according to the BBC. 

Original author: Ashley Collman

A former Apple contractor has decried the company in a letter to European privacy regulators.Thomas le Bonniec revealed to The Guardian last year that working for Apple he overheard Siri users' private moments including medical discussions, drug deals, and couples having sex.Although Apple apologized and suspended the program last year, le Bonniec is calling on privacy regulators to punish the tech giant.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A whistleblower who exposed that Apple was hoovering up people's Siri recordings has gone public in decrying the company.

Thomas le Bonniec was a contractor for Apple's Siri "grading" project, taking snippets of people talking to Siri and transcribing them to improve the smart assistant's accuracy.

Now le Bonniec, who is based in Cork, Ireland, has sent an open letter to European privacy regulators, published in the early hours of Wednesday, calling on them to take action against the tech giant.

"It is worrying that Apple (and undoubtedly not just Apple) keeps ignoring and violating fundamental rights and continues their massive collection of data," he writes.

"I am extremely concerned that big tech companies are basically wiretapping entire populations despite European citizens being told the EU has one of the strongest data protection laws in the world. Passing a law is not good enough: it needs to be enforced upon privacy offenders."

Last year le Bonniec revealed to The Guardian that working for Apple he heard a huge array of private and sometimes intimate voice recordings sent unwittingly by Siri users including medical discussions, drug deals, and couples having sex. These snippets were sometimes taken without a user deliberately activating Siri.

Apple's smart assistant Siri was sending off users' voice recordings to Apple contractors without users realising. Wachiwit/Shutterstock

"I listened to hundreds of recordings every day, from various Apple devices (eg. iPhones, Apple Watches, or iPads). These recordings were often taken outside of any activation of Siri, eg in the context of an actual intention from the user to activate it for a request. These processings were made without users being aware of it, and were gathered into datasets to correct the transcription of the recording made by the device," le Bonniec said in his letter.

"The recordings were not limited to the users of Apple devices, but also involved relatives, children, friends, colleagues, and whoever could be recorded by the device. The system recorded everything: names, addresses, messages, searches, arguments, background noises, films, and conversations. I heard people talking about their cancer, referring to dead relatives, religion, sexuality, pornography, politics, school, relationships, or drugs with no intention to activate Siri whatsoever," he added.

Apple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider about le Bonniec's letter. The company apologized for the privacy violation last year and suspended the grading program. The revelations were part of a wider trend of stories about smart assistant recordings being sent to contracted workers — Amazon had a similar program for Alexa, 

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

A US Air Force F-35A crashed during a routine night-training exercise near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.The pilot ejected from the aircraft and is in stable condition.The crash is the third incident involving the advanced fighter since it was first produced in 2006.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A US Air Force F-35A crashed during a routine night-training exercise around 9:30 p.m. near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on Tuesday, officials said in a statement.

The pilot assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron was transported to the hospital after successfully ejecting from the aircraft and is in stable condition.

No one was killed and no civilian property was damaged in the incident, Eglin Air Force Base said in a statement.

In a separate incident at around 9:15 a.m. on Friday, a US Air Force F-22 Raptor crashed near Eglin Air Force Base. The pilot also ejected safely and the incident is under investigation.

The crash is the third incident involving the advanced jet, which has been in production since 2006.

n 2018, a US Marine Corps F-35B crashed in South Carolina, after a "manufacturing defect caused an engine fuel tube to rupture during flight, resulting in a loss of power to the engine," according to a government report. The pilot ejected safely and survived.

One year after the F-35B crash, a Japanese F-35A crashed into the Pacific Ocean after the pilot was determined to have experienced "spatial disorientation" or vertigo, Reuters reported at the time. The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilot was killed.

The F-35A, the most common version of three different variants, is designed to be operated on conventional runways. Each aircraft is estimated to cost around $90 million.

The 58th Fighter Squadron and its parent 33rd Fighter Wing routinely trains its F-35 pilots on Eglin Air Force Base.

Original author: David Choi

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

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

Facebook is adding a new e-commerce feature called Shops to let businesses sell products through the social network. Facebook said it accelerated the rollout of the feature to help small businesses affected by COVID-19.
Google said it will no longer build custom AI tools for fossil fuel extraction as it looks to distance itself from the oil and gas industry. The announcement followed a Greenpeace report revealing a number of cloud computing services provided by tech companies to the energy industry.
Uber paid its laid-off hourly workers far fewer weeks of severance than others, but the company now plans to retroactively pay them more. The hourly workers are still largely unaware of Uber's plans to pay them more, according to a source familiar with the matter.EasyJet says hackers stole 9 million customers' personal data, including email addresses and credit card details. EasyJet said it has closed off the unauthorized access and will notify affected customers this week.Google CEO Sundar Pichai refuted a report that the company scaled back its diversity programs in order to avoid conservative backlash. "We probably have more resources invested in diversity now than at any point in our history as a company," said the Google chief.Mark Zuckerberg said he is "worried" about China setting the agenda for tech regulation during a live streamed conversation with an EU commissioner. "I think the best antidote to that is having a clear regulatory framework that comes out of Western democratic countries and that can become a standard around the world that we can show works well," Zuckerberg said.A court in Texas selected its first jury via Zoom. The case is a summary jury trial, which means the jury's verdict will be non-binding.Joe Rogan's podcast is moving exclusively to Spotify. It's the platform's latest addition to the podcast empire it's building to compete with Apple and GoogleWhen Facebook reopens its offices in July it will limit them to 25% occupancy and require employees to wear masks, Bloomberg reports. Sources told Bloomberg the company outlined to staff globally how it plans to handle a return to major job sites starting July 6.Zoom no longer lets users in China sign up for free accounts, Nikkei Asian Review reports. This is reportedly due to "regulatory requirements" in China forcing users to sign up for paid accounts.

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

You can also subscribe to this newsletter here — just tick "10 Things in Tech You Need to Know.

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

General Motors and LG Chem are doing preparatory construction on a new, $2.3 billion factory in Ohio.

The companies made the announcement on Tuesday and said that the new, 50-50 joint venture would be called "Ultium Cells LLC." Earlier this year, GM unveiled its new Ultium battery technology, intended to power 22 new electrified vehicles by 2023.

In 2018, GM "un-allocated" its Lordstown Assembly plant, later idling the facility and then selling it to Lordstown Motors. The closure became an issue when President Donald Trump got involved, and it remained an issue through the 2019 United Auto Workers strike against GM.

The new factory is located near the old Lordstown plant, and GM has said that it will be staffed with UAW workers and create 1,100 new jobs.

"During the pandemic, product development work on GM's future EV and AV portfolios continues to progress at a rapid pace," GM said in a statement.

"The Cruise Origin was revealed in San Francisco earlier this year, and production timing remains on track for the yet-to-be-revealed Cadillac Lyriq and GMC HUMMER EV, all powered by the Ultium battery system."

Automakers aiming to compete in the growing electric-car market want to secure a steady supply of batteries. Tesla operates a large Gigafactory in Nevada, manufacturing the thousands of cells that go into its vehicles, in partnership with Panasonic. 

Original author: Matthew DeBord

Doug Loverro, who led NASA's human spaceflight division, has resigned after just six months on the job.Loverro quit a week before SpaceX is scheduled to launch its first passengers — two NASA astronauts — on a mission called Demo-2.In an email to NASA employees, Loverro referenced an unspecified "mistake" in risk-taking that led to his resignation.Ars Technica reported the mistake is "not related" to SpaceX's first crewed mission, but seemingly NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the moon's surface.An industry veteran told Business Insider that NASA's interim replacement "has the experience and judgement to shepherd human spaceflight through the coming weeks."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a shock to the rocket-and-spaceship industry, NASA's human spaceflight chief abruptly resigned on Monday. Congress is also taking note of the rapid departure — the second from the critical agency role in less than a year.

The departure of Doug Loverro, who took command of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate on December 2, comes at a critical time for the US space agency.

On May 27, SpaceX is scheduled to launch its first passengers — NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — on a roughly three-month mission to space called Demo-2. The test flight is designed to show NASA that SpaceX, the rocket company Elon Musk founded 18 years ago, can safely launch people into orbit aboard its Crew Dragon spaceship, dock with the International Space Station, and return the crew to Earth.

If successful, the crewed mission would be the first to launch from American soil since July 2011, which is when NASA flew its last space shuttle mission.

Before joining NASA, Loverro served as a member of the Department of Defense's Senior Executive Service. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine previously described Loverro as "a respected strategic leader" who was to help execute the space agency's Commercial Crew Program, which Demo-2 is a part of. He also managed an ambitious (and controversial) plan to land humans back on the moon in 2024, called Artemis.

"He is known for his strong, bipartisan work and his experience with large programs will be of great benefit to NASA at this critical time in our final development of human spaceflight systems for both Commercial Crew and Artemis," Bridenstine said in an October 16 announcement of Loverro's hiring.

SpaceRef published an all-hands email that Loverro sent to NASA's human exploration division on Tuesday, the day after he officially resigned.

"The risks we take, whether technical, political, or personal, all have potential consequences if we judge them incorrectly. I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission," Loverro wrote mid-way through his email. "Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear the consequences. And therefore, it is with a very, very heavy heart that I write to you today to let you know that I have resigned from NASA effective May 18th, 2020."

He told his colleagues that he left "because of my personal actions, not anything we have accomplished together."

An artist's illustration shows the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docking to the International Space Station. SpaceX via NASA

The executive's departure from NASA on Monday was by all account unexpected. At 5 p.m. ET, for example, Loverro tweeted a NASA video explaining how the agency's forthcoming (and very over-budget and behind-schedule) Space Launch System works.

Loverro did not specify the nature of his perceived mistake in his email to employees, or to the press. Though Politico reporter Jacqueline Feldscher managed to reach Loverro by phone, for instance, he declined to comment on his "mistake." But he did reportedly intimate that his resignation was "not due to a disagreement with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine or any safety concerns about next week's launch."

Eric Berger, the senior space editor at Ars Technica, stated that Loverro's folly was "not related to Crew Dragon," which is the spaceship that's about to launch Behnken and Hurley. Rather, Berger said it seemed to stem from Loverro's selection of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics for nearly $1 billion worth of lunar lander contracts for the Artemis program. (The agency is struggling for resources to execute the program on-time.)

A spokesperson at NASA declined to comment on the matter. Members of Congress, for their part, have begun to speak up about the incident.

"I am deeply concerned over this sudden resignation, especially given its timing," Rep. Kendra Horn, a Democrat from Oklahoma, who chairs the space subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, told Politico in a statement. "Under this administration, we've seen a pattern of abrupt departures that have disrupted our nation's efforts at human space flight. ... The bottom line is that, as the committee that overseas [sic] NASA, we need answers."

Loverro's departure comes less than a year after the July demotion of Bill Gerstenmaier, who led NASA's human spaceflight division for nearly 15 years. Ken Bowersox, a former astronaut and the deputy associate administrator for NASA's human spaceflight division, is filling in for Loverro's role as he did following Gerstenmaier's departure.

Wayne Hale, an aerospace engineering consultant and retired NASA space shuttle program manager and flight director, says he was "surprised as anyone" to learn of Loverro's apparent ouster. But he did not express doubt about the agency's current position with Bowersox at the helm.

"I have great confidence in Ken Bowersox," Hale told Business Insider in a message, adding that he "has the experience and judgment to shepherd human spaceflight through the coming weeks."

This story has been updated with new information.

Original author: Dave Mosher

Uber had two enormous layoffs this month but it didn't initially treat the employees in both of those layoffs the same.The first group of employees, comprised of mostly hourly support workers, were told when they were laid off that they would get a base of four weeks severance pay, plus two weeks for every year of tenure.Two weeks later, the second group, mostly white-collar workers, were told they would get a base of 10 weeks, plus pay for every year.Uber plans to retroactively go back and give the first group of laid-off workers the same severance as the second group, at least 10 weeks.The hourly workers are still largely unaware of Uber's plans to pay them more, according to a source familiar with the matter.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Uber had two enormous layoffs this month but it didn't treat the employees in both of those layoffs the same in terms of severance pay, although the company plans to make amends and retroactively offer the initial group more pay, a source familiar with Uber's plans tells us.

Much attention was given to how the first crop of employees learned they were jobless via a group Zoom call, (after that, the second crop mostly learned in 1:1 calls, the company said).

But the difference in severance was arguably even more important. The 3,700 people let go on May 6 got four weeks of pay as a base severance, compared to 10 weeks of pay for those let go May 18.

About 3,500 of the laid-off workers on May 6 were comprised of the company's lowest-paid, hourly support workers (the rest were mostly recruiters), the company said. But the May 18 layoff hit its white collar workers such as engineers, people in finance, and so on, sources told Business Insider. 

According to documents seen by Business Insider, the group of people laid off on May 6 were laid off under the company's 2019 severance plan. Uber had several layoffs last year.

Uber offered the workers let go on May 6 four weeks severance plus two weeks of pay for every year worked based on the weekly wage the worker earned. It also offered them paid medical, dental, vision until the end of the year, just as it did for the second group of workers.

A week after that first layoff, at a company's all-hands, Uber told the remaining employees that the severance package for the upcoming layoff would be 10 weeks pay, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

So on May 6, laid-off support workers with two years of service were told they'd get eight weeks of pay in their official paperwork. On May 18, laid-off white-collar workers with two years experience were told they would be getting 14 weeks of pay.

Uber is retroactively granting the earlier group the 10 weeks of base severance, according to someone familiar with these plans. However, as of Tuesday, workers who were part of the group on May 6 are largely unaware of Uber's plans to provide more severance, said one person familiar with that situation.

The question is why has Uber increased its severance? It wasn't a matter of planning. Both of these layoffs were in the works for weeks, sources tell Business Insider. And since the second layoff consisted of higher-wage employees, by giving more severance for each one of them, it cost the company roughly triple the cash as the first wave. The first layoff was supposed to cost $20 million, but after the increase in severance, it will now cost $35 million to $40 million, excluding stock, Uber said in an SEC filing. The second layoff will cost between $110 million to $140 million, Uber said.

Uber made the change in response to "feedback" to how it was handling its layoff, Khosrowshahi said.

Uber's layoffs couldn't help but be compared to Airbnb, who conducted a 25% layoff of staff the same week Uber did its first round of cuts. Airbnb was widely praised for its handling of its layoff due to its upfront letter about it, generous severance of 14 weeks base plus one week per year tenure, one year of paid medical insurance, and other benefits, such as letting laid off workers keep their work PCs, and publishing a directory of terminated employees for recruiters to peruse.

With the second round of layoffs, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi followed much the same playbook, including sharing a heartfelt letter to employees, offering extra assistance to laid-off visa holders and employees on parental leave, promising a talent directory. And the company also increased severance.

 "As we previewed last week, we have taken a lot of feedback and worked to provide strong severance benefits and other support for those leaving Uber, like healthcare coverage and an alumni talent directory," Khosrowshahi said in that letter to the troops.

The issue of course is one of reputation. If Uber wants to be able to recruit when its able to grow again, it has to show a track record of treating its employees right when times are tough.

Are you an Uber insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188.  

Original author: Julie Bort

YouTuber Shane Wighton made a video showing off a robotic basketball hoop that he made.He wrote programs allowing the hoop to track the ball and move the backboard to get the ball in the basket.Except for occasional glitches, Wighton's basketball hoop is the secret to getting basket on every shot. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Not even professional basketball players make every shot they take, but they could with this gadget. Youtuber Shane Wighton posted a video on his channel, Stuff Made Here, showing how his robotic basketball hoop design works and demonstrating some shots. 

In a 16-minute video, Wighton gets into the technical details of how he made the robotic basketball hoop work and how he fixed bugs. Here are some of the highlights, and a video of how it all works. 

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

"Hi, am I caller number 12?" Wikimedia Commons It's easy to think modern technology has always been just that — modern.

The truth is, many pieces of today's technology have actually been in development for decades.

Here are some of the most vital pieces of technology that were born before most of us were.

 

Original author: Chris Weller

Apple is reportedly asking some employees to return to work throughout May and early June, signaling a departure from the reopening strategies of other major tech firms.The move illustrates how critical hardware is to Apple's business and how its culture of secrecy means it operates differently than other Silicon Valley companies.Other tech firms, like Facebook and Google, are allowing employees to work remotely over the coming months. Twitter and Square have allowed remote work permanently.Are you an Apple employee with insight to share? If so, we want to hear from you. Contact this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or through encrypted mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or send a direct message on Twitter to @LisaEadicicco.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple has reportedly asked some employees to return to the office over the coming weeks in what is likely an effort to resume regular work on critical and confidential products.

The company's push to get its global offices up and running as soon as possible comes even as many other offices plan to stay closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. It's also in stark contrast to competitors like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook that plan to settle into long-term remote work for the months to come.

The company has famously maintained a distinct culture of secrecy that has defined its working conditions as different from those of other Silicon Valley giants — and other large corporations period. That's seemingly evident in its office reopening strategy as Bloomberg has reported that Apple has already begun its first phase of bringing employees back to work in some regions.

That plan is expected to continue through late May and early June to the company's global offices, the report said. Even more employees are expected to return in July during Apple's reported second phase.

It's uncertain whether returning to work is mandatory for the workers included in phase one, and it's also unclear which specific teams have been asked to return. Employees will either be asked to report to the office regularly or only in certain periods, according to Bloomberg.

The first phase will include employees whose jobs are more challenging to execute from home. The report also says that work on upcoming Apple hardware projects, like the virtual- and augmented-reality glasses the company is reportedly developing, has been scaled back while employees have been working remotely.

Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The company's move to get corporate employees back to the office as quickly as possible during a pandemic appears to be a departure from the approach taken by other technology companies. Amazon has told employees that those who can work from home can continue to do so until October 2, according to Reuters. Microsoft, which like Amazon, Apple, and other tech companies has been remote since March, also said that most workers can continue doing their jobs from home through October.

Facebook's offices are expected to reopen in July, but the social-media giant said it would allow most employees to work from home for the rest of the year. Google, similarly, has told employees that they would likely be working from home for the rest of the year, although those who need to return to the office would be able to do so in June or July.

In what may be the most extreme remote-work policy change to come from a major tech company so far, Twitter is allowing employees to work from home permanently. Payments company Square, which Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also leads, is allowing workers to permanently work remotely, too.

But unlike many of these companies, Apple's business model is largely hardware-centric. The iPhone still generates more revenue than any other Apple product, and its wearables division has been booming in recent years.

Working on new hardware remotely is likely proving challenging, especially for a company that famously prioritizes secrecy. Doors on campus have blacked-out windows to preserve privacy, and staff are usually allowed to take home products only if they receive permission from their division's vice president, according to Bloomberg. Employees are also given access to only certain doors with their ID badges depending on which projects they've been informed of, a former Apple employee wrote for Vox in 2017.

But as the company has been forced to move to work-from-home arrangements, some engineers have reportedly been allowed to take home hardware products so that they can continue working. Certain employees considered business critical, like data-center engineers and some hardware testers, have also been allowed to work in the office as other employees stay remote.

There are still many lingering questions about what returning to work will look like. Even plans that are being set in place by companies like Apple could change depending on how the situation evolves given the coronavirus' unpredictable nature.

What Apple's reported decision tells us so far, though, is that it sees its work as very much tied to an in-office culture, even as other tech firms are embracing remote-work lifestyles. What Apple plans to do to ensure employee health and public safety as consequence of this decision remains to be seen.

Are you an Apple employee with insight to share? If so, we want to hear from you. Contact this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or through encrypted mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or send a direct message on Twitter to @LisaEadicicco.

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Joe Rogan's massively popular podcast will become a Spotify exclusive, the company announced Tuesday.The Joe Rogan Experience, which is downloaded nearly 200 million times per month and makes $30 million annually, will only be uploaded to Spotify starting in September. Rogan's YouTube channel will no longer host full episodes.It's a victory for Spotify, which is aggressively building out a podcast empire to compete with the likes of Apple and Google. The deal is reportedly worth over $100 million.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan has signed a multi-year licensing deal with Spotify, giving the platform exclusive rights to host full episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts on the planet.

The Joe Rogan Experience has over 8 million YouTube subscribers and is downloaded roughly 190 million times per month, according to Rogan, drawing in over $30 million annually. It has long been the most-searched-for podcast on Spotify, the company said, despite not being available on the platform before now.

Spotify did not disclose how much it spent, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal is worth over $100 million, citing a person familiar with the matter. Rogan's full catalogue will become available on Spotify in September and will be exclusive to the platform starting in 2021.

The deal will help bolster Spotify's rapidly growing podcast empire, and follows its acquisition of podcast networks including Parcast, Anchor, The Ringer, and Gimlet Media in the past year.

While those moves appeared to siphon listeners away from Apple's podcast app, the deal with Rogan is likely to draw in a significant portion of listeners who go to YouTube for podcasts.

 

Rogan's podcast will remain free to download once it's hosted on Spotify.

Original author: Aaron Holmes

Have you ever found a video on Facebook that you absolutely needed to show everyone, even your friends who don't use Facebook? Well, you're in luck – you can easily share Facebook videos with your friends on messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, through link sharing.

Link sharing is a process that mobile devices use to make sending media easier across devices. It essentially copies and pastes a website URL for you so that you don't have to. Here's how to share Facebook videos on WhatsApp by link sharing.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Apple)

Samsung Galaxy s10 (From $859.99 at Walmart)

How to share a Facebook video on WhatsApp

Please note that you will need to have both the Facebook and WhatsApp apps installed on your mobile device in order to share Facebook videos on WhatsApp. 

1. Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or Android. When you have found a video you want to share, tap on the "Share" button underneath the video. 

Tap on the "Share" button Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

2. Underneath the pop-up window, swipe across the icon bar and tap on the icon labeled "More" on an Android. On an iPhone, tap "More Options" and "Copy" to copy the URL for the post, since link sharing isn't available. 

Tap on the icon labeled "More." Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

3. If you're on an Android, tap on the icon labeled "Link Sharing." 

Click on "Link Sharing." Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

4. Tap on the WhatsApp icon. 

Tap on the Whatsapp icon. Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

5. Swipe down your list of contacts until you find the person(s) with whom you want to share the video. On an iPhone, open WhatsApp and access your contacts. 

Find the contacts you want to share the video with. Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

6. Tap on the person(s) with whom you want to share the video. Then, tap the green arrow button located in the bottom right corner of your screen on an Android. Or tap "Next" on an iPhone.

7. Type a comment if you wish. When you are ready to send the video, tap the green circle emblazoned with a white icon that resembles a triangle or a paper airplane on an Android. On an iPhone, paste the link and tap "Send."

Tap the airplane arrow or "Send." Chrissy Montelli/Business Insider

The Facebook video should now have been successfully sent over to your friend on WhatsApp. 

 

Original author: Chrissy Montelli