Heather MacDougall, the vice president of worldwide workplace health and safety for Amazon, gave us an inside look at Amazon's response to the coronavirus pandemic. "I've learned in my first year with Amazon that there's speed in business, there's Amazon speed, and now there's pandemic speed," she said. "We've had to think fast and move quicker."Read the full interview with MacDougall here. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The health and safety of Amazon's massive global workforce is the key responsibility of one top executive: Heather MacDougall.

In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Business Insider, MacDougall described how she spends her days in the midst of the pandemic, talked about when she realized coronavirus would be more serious than previous crises, and revealed what could change permanently about how Amazon operates as a result of the pandemic.

"I've learned in my first year with Amazon that there's speed in business, there's Amazon speed, and now there's pandemic speed," she said. "We've had to think fast and move quicker."

She said Amazon is tracking confirmed and suspected cases among employees and third-party workers, in addition to tracking the rate of employees going into quarantine due to close contact exposure. 

"We have seen the quarantine rate fall dramatically," she said. "We aren't done though, we're continuing to innovate, exploring technology, such as through an app, to assist in reminding our people of the importance of social distancing — and providing reminders when they get too close."

MacDougall said she spends her days in internal meetings assessing the company's new and existing protective measures, such as temperature checks and disinfectant spraying in buildings. As she helps manage the company's response internally, she has also been reaching out to "peer companies" to discuss issues impacting the global supply chain, she said.

"Like so many people, my days are long and blur one into the other," she said. "I have two teenage daughters, one home from college, and I try to take a break for dinner with them or to get outside to go for a walk or run but each day is consumed with planning and assessing Amazon's COVID-19 response. We can't rest."

MacDougall also addressed recent employee walkouts concerning safety issues and discussed the challenges of making decisions in an environment where information is rapidly changing, such as guidance on the efficacy of face masks.

"There are times when you don't know what you don't know; so we are at the tip of the spear in this," she said. "We faced a global lack of masks or knowledge as to the value of masks to slowing transmission of the virus. Guidance from various sources — whether that's WHO, CDC or OSHA — either initially hadn't been formed or continually evolves.

"This is one of the few times that I think employers are asking the government to issue guidance!" she continued.

Before joining Amazon, MacDougall was an attorney and served as a commissioner and chairman on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, an independent federal agency that reviews citations and penalties resulting from workplace inspections.

Original author: Hayley Peterson

Google's YouTube is the world's biggest online video company, and it's making a bigger push into TV and streaming.Business Insider identified the people at the company who are leading its businesses.These 33 insiders, from policy, engineering, content, and advertising wield the most power at YouTube and are working to rival TV networks and streaming giants including Netflix and Amazon.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, and it's turned into the world's biggest and most powerful online video company and an advertising juggernaut.

With original programming and user-generated content that reaches more than two billion people each month, YouTube rivals streaming giants including Netflix and Amazon.

It pulled in $15 billion in advertising revenue in 2019, more than TV networks ABC, NBC, and Fox combined. Another $3 billion came from non-ad revenue in products like YouTube Music and YouTube TV, though YouTube pays a portion of that money back to networks and publishers in distribution rights. And YouTube is making a bigger push into TV and streaming as more people shift from watching linear TV.

Business Insider identified the 33 executives there with the most power, from policy, engineering, content, and advertising, these insiders are leading all of YouTube's businesses.

The platform has turned content creators, from MrBeast to Emma Chamberlain, into stars with multi-platform businesses and major brand partnerships. With the help of partner managers, top YouTube creators are establishing new business models for Hollywood.

YouTube has also drawn regulators' antitrust and privacy questions. In September, YouTube got hit with a $170 million fee for reportedly violating the Child Online Privacy Protection Act. The company has struggled to keep out extremist content and ads that break its rules against misinformation.

Business Insider identified the top people behind YouTube's growing ad business. They include Kevin Allocca, who leads the global culture and trends team focused on analyzing and tracking trending content at YouTube. It also includes leaders like Neal Mohan, who reports directly to CEO Susan Wojcicki and oversees all of the products on the viewer and creator side.

Click to read the full list below:

Original author: Amanda Perelli

Finland's annual May Day celebration in the capital of Helsinki was cancelled because of coronavirus.Virtual reality company Zoan created a virtual version of Helsinki that anyone can access.The city hosted a virtual gathering and concert to celebrate May Day, and more than 10% of Finland's population tuned in.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Finland turned to virtual reality to compensate for some of the lost celebrations due to the coronavirus.

May Day is a major holiday in Finland, when people gather outside for parties and concerts. While a mass gathering isn't safe right now because of COVID-19, the city of Helsinki came up with a way to move the celebration online.

The country hasn't been hit especially hard by the coronavirus, but a city-wide party could be a big setback. Traditionlly, as many as a hundred thousand people gather in only a few parks. The city of Helsinki formed a partnership with VR company Zoan, which had already been working on virtual Helsinki, host a concert.

Finland has a population of around six million, and 700,000 viewers tuned into the virtual concert, according to the city of Helsinki, meaning that nearly 12% of the country watched the event. Of those attendees, 150,000 went beyond just watching and created avatars to participate. 

Here's what the first virtual May Day was like. 

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

Mike Sinyard, CEO of Specialized Bicycle, one of the world's biggest manufacturers of high-end bicycles, is paying for 1 million masks to be manufactured out of his own pocket.But, he tells Business Insider, what he thought would be an easy task turned into an almost impossible one between regulations preventing countries from exporting masks and price-gouging.So far, he's obtained 40,000 masks, and he finally found a contract manufacturer to make the rest, which will be delivered within a few months.Sinyard says its become the responsibility of business leaders to take on a social role, especially when government efforts are falling short, and people's lives are at stake.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It was the pictures of nurses coming to work wearing trash bags for protection against COVID-19 that riled up Mike Sinyard into doing something. 

Sinyard is founder and CEO of Specialized Bicycle, one of the world's largest high-end bicycle manufacturers. Its bikes can be seen all over the roads and trails among those who are willing to spend big bucks on their sport. The flagship S-Works bike frequently graces the podiums at mountain biking world cups and pro WorldTour races.

The private company, with an estimated $500 million in sales back in 2011 — the most recently published data — was founded by Sinyard in 1976 in the sleepy little town of Morgan Hill, California, the southern outpost of Silicon Valley. It now employs about 600 people worldwide, including the impacts from a layoff of 46 people (about 7% of its workforce) last week, mostly in Europe, where COVID-19 has been raging in bike-loving places like Italy. As part of that layoff, Sinyard is forgoing his salary and his top management is taking pay cuts, reports Bicycle Retailer's Marc Sani.

About a month ago, Sinyard heard the tales of hospital staff struggling to get enough protective gear and vowed to do something.

He looked to his own network of Asian manufacturers that produce all sorts of products for his company, from complicated bike parts to clothing. 

"Initially, we were stunned at the significance of this. We have a lot of colleagues in Europe and Italy," he said. After reading the story of the nurses wearing trash bags. "All the sudden I became obsessed with this thing."

At first, he thought his team could manufacturer face shields, as they love engineering and building stuff, he said. But then he realized that spinning that up would take too long. The immediate need was (and still is) professionally manufactured face masks, both N95 and surgical masks.

So he vowed to buy 1 million face masks and have them imported to the US. He also needed to procure masks to protect his employees. Bike shops are essential businesses in the US and have remained open.

"So I thought, 'Oh this easy. No problem,'" he says.  But it wasn't. With the whole world trying to buy masks, Sinyard ran into one road block after another. "Asia, Oh my God. Trying to get those face masks."

Although Sinyard says he's paying for the masks out of his own pocket, he turned to his right-hand man, Specialized's executive vice president Bob Margevicius, who spent days working with the company's Asian and worldwide manufacturing contacts. Sinyard and Margevicius didn't ask their existing manufacturers to retool into sewing masks. Instead, they wanted their contacts to introduce them to companies that were already capable of pumping out a million masks.

"We would go to certain countries and they'd say, 'We can't. The government won't allow us to export anything," he says. A few of his contacts were longtime friends in the manufacturing world. Even they refused to sell him masks, citing legal restrictions.

When he did locate some suppliers able to make the masks, he dealt with price-gouging. Prices were 10 times higher than normal circumstances. He wasn't having any of that. He told them, "Look, this is a humanitarian effort. This is not about business."

So far, Sinyard has managed to procure 40,000 masks, he said, and he's sent a batch of them to New York. But he's still determined to get a million. "We went through probably 20 or 30 different different suppliers and we finally ended up on a couple that we work with. So we're working with a couple right now," he said. He thinks he'll have the full million in less than 90 days.

In the meantime, Specialized donated 400 electric bicycles to medical staff to help them commute to work so they don't have to worry about exposure using public transit.

Sinyard says that in these difficult times, when the federal government has essentially left the states to fend for themselves, wealthy business leaders like himself have a social responsibility to help.

"I think business has to take on the social roles going forward and I think we already see that," he said.

Although "the sadness hasn't ended yet," he's optimistic about the post-coronavirus future. His company has learned that it can work remotely and he thinks the bicycle business will boom when the economy recovers, as people look for ways to keep fit that don't involve going to the gym. "I think it's kind of like a reset. "

As to advice to any other wealthy business leaders wanting to buy and donate masks or other medical grade protective equipment, he says, "Good luck!"

Original author: Julie Bort

The Trump administration has added 5 of Amazon's foreign websites to a "notorious markets" register.The US trade representative's office says the websites – serving the UK, Germany, France, India, and Canada – contributed to the sale of counterfeit and pirated products.Amazon told Business Insider the blacklisting was a "political act" made to advance "a personal vendetta against Amazon," and described itself as an "active, engaged stakeholder in the fight against counterfeit."Though the notorious markets register does not have any legal consequences, it draws negative attention to Amazon at a time when the tech giant is already under scrutiny for its handling of the COVID-19 crisis.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Trump administration has added five of Amazon's overseas domains to a "notorious markets" register, in what's become a fraught few months for the tech giant.

The US trade representative's office says the websites – serving the UK, Germany, France, India, and Canada – facilitate the sale of counterfeit and pirated products.

It says it received complaints from US businesses that the five overseas websites didn't provide clear information about sellers, and that the process to remove platforms selling counterfeit goods was "lengthy and burdensome."

The notorious markets register is a list of markets that are reported to "engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy." It includes both physical markets, such as malls or open-air stalls, as well as online platforms such as Amazon.

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that the blacklisting was a "political act" driven by "a personal vendetta against Amazon."

Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos have repeatedly clashed with Trump and his administration. Bezos owns The Washington Post, and Trump has often baselessly claimed that the newspaper is a lobbying tool for the online retail giant.

Amazon is also suing the government after the Pentagon handed a $10 billion defense contract to Microsoft, claiming the decision was motivated by Trump's bias against the company and Bezos.

It also described itself as an "active, engaged stakeholder in the fight against counterfeit."

"Amazon makes significant investments in proactive technologies and processes to detect and stop bad actors and potentially counterfeit products from being sold in our stores," it continued, also citing its past anti-fraud investments.

"In 2019 alone, we invested over $500 million and have more than 8,000 employees protecting our store from fraud and abuse. We also stopped over 2.5 million suspected bad actors from opening Amazon selling accounts before they published a single listing for sale, blocking more than 6 billion suspected bad listings before they were published to our stores."

The spokesperson also claimed that "more than 99.9% of pages viewed worldwide by customers on Amazon have never had a report of counterfeit."

Though the notorious markets register does not bestow legal consequences on Amazon, it does draw negative attention to the company at a time when it's already under scrutiny for its handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

A coalition of workers from Amazon – as well as Walmart, FedEx, Target, Instacart, and Whole Foods – will reportedly go on strike Friday over working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Original author: Charlie Wood

Activists protesting Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers during the pandemic painted a giant mural outside CEO Jeff Bezos' home in Washington, DC."We're calling him and Amazon out for leaving their workers out here without the proper personal protective equipment," one of the activists told The Washington Post.Amazon has faced criticisms that it is neglecting worker safety during the coronavirus pandemic amid spiking demand.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Activists gathered outside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' $23 billion mansion in Washington DC to paint a huge street mural to protest his firm's treatment of warehouse workers.

The activists were from climate change charity Shut Down DC, and their mural read: "PROTECT AMAZON WORKERS."

Washington Post reporter Marissa Lang was on the scene, and said no movement was seen inside the house.

Lang also added that police were present to ensure the activists remained socially-distanced during their work, which they performed wearing masks, although Lang noted that they did occasionally move closer than 6 feet apart. The mural took them about an hour to complete.

"We're calling him and Amazon out for leaving their workers out here without the proper personal protective equipment," Laura Beth Pelner, the activist who designed the mural, told The Post.

"We're calling all these essential workers heroes — grocery store workers and delivery drivers and everyone working at these Amazon warehouses filling people's orders — but corporations aren't doing enough to protect them. Essential workers are not expendable."

Lang reports that two hours after the mural was completed, a worker wearing a mask hosed it away.

As demand for Amazon deliveries has surged with people staying inside, warehouse and delivery workers have found themselves on the frontline of the pandemic. Amazon has had to counterbalance spike in demand with the health and safety of its own workers. The company has announced new policies around sick pay and time off, and introduced measures like temperature checks, handing out masks, and increased cleaning.

Workers, including ones which have spoken to Business Insider, have said the company's safety measures are either missing, inadequate, or unenforceable.

In France, Amazon has shut down all its warehouses after a court ruled its worker protections were lacking.

Meanwhile, Bezos' personal net wealth has swollen thanks to the unprecedented demand for Amazon's services. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bezos' net worth is $143 billion, more than double the wealth of Warren Buffet or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Original author: Isobel Asher Hamilton

Elon Musk. AP Photo/Susan Walsh

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

Amazon reportedly spent nearly $10 million on thermal cameras purchased from a Chinese company blacklisted in the US over allegations it helped the Chinese government detain Uighur and other minorities, according to Reuters. Zhejiang Dahua Technology reportedly sold Amazon 1,500 thermal imaging cameras, 500 of which are intended for use in the United States.Microsoft reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, reporting $35 billion in revenue and $10.8 billion in net income. Microsoft's overall commercial cloud business – which includes Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform, Office 365 and other cloud services – reached $13.3 billion in sales for the quarter, up 39 percent year over year.Facebook's stock surged 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, after the company announced surging user numbers and better-than-expected financial earnings for the first quarter. In the first three months of the year, Facebook netted $17.74 billion in revenue, up 18% year-over-year, though it says it experienced a significant drop in advertising demand.Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on a Twitter rampage protesting the various lockdowns meant to curb the novel coronavirus' spread in the US. Musk tweeted "FREE AMERICA NOW" and shared an article critical about lockdowns. Salesforce is canceling all its events for the rest of 2020 and moving them online, including the massive Dreamforce conference that takes over San Francisco every year. Salesforce said it made the decision as the "COVID-19 situation continues to evolve" and its "first priority is to help ensure the health and safety of our customers, partners, employees and communities."Apple and Google have released the first version of their contact-tracing API to developers. It means governments and public health organizations can test out the tech in their own contact-tracing apps and give feedback.Airbnb has postponed new grad hires until August 2021 but is giving them 10% of their offered salary right now — even if they turn down the job. Glassdoor says that Airbnb's average new grad base salary is about $133,000, meaning the average 10% stipend could be about $13,000.170 cybersecurity experts warned that the British government's contact-tracing app could be used to surveil people even after coronavirus has gone. Experts warn the app could result in a database that could then be used to de-anonymize users.Lyft said on Wednesday that it would cut nearly 1,000 jobs and had furloughed 288 workers. Collectively, the job cuts and furloughs represent more than 20% of Lyft's latest reported headcount of 5,683 employees at the end of 2019. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is now worth two Mark Zuckerbergs. Bezos is now worth $140 billion, while Zuckerberg is worth $70 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Original author: Shona Ghosh

During a Tesla earnings call on Wednesday, Elon Musk claimed the coronavirus response was "fascist," blasting stay-at-home orders.Earlier that day he tweeted "FREE AMERICA NOW."Many were shocked or outraged by Musk's statements — while others agreed.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk faced a myriad of responses after calling the lockdown measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus 'fascist.'

Musk went on a short expletive-filled rant during a Wednesday earnings call following an announcement about the company's surprise first-quarter profit, Business Insider previously reported.

"Frankly, I would call it forcible imprisoning of people in their homes against all of, their constitutional rights, in my opinion," he said. "It's breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why they came to America or built this country. What the f--k. Excuse me. Outrage. Outrage."

Elon Musk faced a myriad of responses after calling the US lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus 'fascist.'

Musk also called the government imposed shutdown of all-but-essential businesses undemocratic.

"If somebody wants to stay in their house, that's great and they should be able to," he said. "But to say they cannot leave their house and that they will be arrested if they do: that's fascist. That is not democratic; this is not freedom. Give people back their godd--n freedom."

Mike Murphy an editor at Protocol tweeted: "Elon Musk is a sweary constitutional scholar now."

 

The orders have been put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has thus far infected more than one million Americans and killed more than 60,800. Individuals are still allowed to leave their homes to get essential goods and exercise. Many governors have said the measures are not meant to imprison or arrest individuals.

Jim Kessler, the executive vice president for policy at the think tank Third Way, asked Musk how the Congressional Black Caucus would feel about lifting the lockdown, in a tweet:

Kessler wrote: "before you tell America to get back to work, talk to the black and brown people working the front lines and paying the price," and linked to a The Hill article on how members of the Congressional Black Caucus taking charge during the pandemic as black people have become disproportionately impact by the coronavirus in the US.

According to the article Kessler linked to, 70% of those who died after contracting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in Louisiana were black.

Some seemed to feel that this wasn't a surprising Musk response, like journalist Jake Hanrahan who tweeted "Elon Musk is on one again."

This isn't the first time Musk has been critical of the US coronavirus response. On March 6, Musk claimed that panic about the coronavirus "is dumb."

On Tuesday, the billionaire continued his attack on the response efforts and urged leaders to "FREE AMERICA NOW" on Twitter as well as praised Texas' relaxation of rules starting Friday.

However, some seemed to agree with Musk including Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association and former editor at Breitbart News.

On Twitter, Loesch claimed Musk's comments made her want to now buy a Tesla.

And others were still confused about Musk's logic for the statements he made. Ryan Houlihan, an editor at Input Magazine called said the billionaire's statements went "against all science and reason to the point of advocating for mass death."

Others wondered why any attention is paid to Musk at all.

Author Nancy Jo Sales tweeted: "Why does anyone listen to this a-hole? He got lucky early with some Internet stuff. After that, spotty record which includes insanity of shooting a car into space. What is Grimes thinking?"

On Wednesday night, Musk seemed to double down on his argument by tweeting a graph that showed a decline in hospitalization rates in California as a reason to ease lockdown measures.

However, a number of factors, including the elimination of elective surgeries, alongside a reduction in car accidents and trauma due to the lockdown, and that California's mitigation strategies have reduced the number of coronavirus cases, could be contributing to that reduction. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that car accidents in California were down by about half compared to previous years.

Musk later followed up on that tweet with a screenshot that showed the state's Human and Health Services server down and wrote "California HHS server crashed. Maybe it has covid."

Public health officials have urged states to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus — which has proven highly infectious and can be deadly, especially for those who are elderly or have other health conditions. The stay-at-home orders are also in place so that hospitals don't face a surge of patients, overwhelming staff and the PPE supply.

After initially reducing their projected death estimates, models used by the White House began increasing their expected death toll to more than 70,000 last week as states begin to ease stay at home orders.

Original author: Sarah Al-Arshani

Zoom quietly revised a blog entry to clarify that it has 300 million daily meeting participants — not 300 million daily active users (DAU), as it said at the time the blog was first published. Zoom says the change was made to correct an "oversight" in the blog's original wording.However, by the time the edit was noticed, many media outlets — including Business Insider — reported the 300 million daily active user figure. Zoom stock spiked soon after the blog entry was first published.The distinction, according to a Zoom spokesperson: A single person attending five Zoom meetings in a day counts as five meeting participants, while DAU measures unique, individual users.The episode calls attention to a time, earlier in April, when Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said that the company had 200 million daily meeting participants — a figure that was inaccurately reported in outlets including Business Insider as the company claiming 200 million DAU. Zoom declined to comment on why it didn't issue corrections on previous media coverage of its user figures.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On April 22nd, Zoom published a blog entry claiming that daily usage of its videoconferencing app "surpasses 300M Daily Users" and "that more than 300 million people around the world are using Zoom during this challenging time."

That figure was reported in a number of press outlets, including Bloomberg and Business Insider, and Zoom's stock surged soon after the blog post went out.

However, at some point since it was first published, the blog was edited — as first noticed by The Verge — to say that the company had "300 million daily meeting participants." That's a related, but different, measure to the more standard daily active user (DAU) metric. You can read an cached copy of the original post here.

"We are humbled and proud to help over 300 million daily meeting participants stay connected during this pandemic," a Zoom spokesperson told Business Insider. "In a blog post on April 22, we unintentionally referred to these participants as 'users' and 'people.' When we realized this error, we adjusted the wording to 'participants.' This was a genuine oversight on our part."

A Zoom spokesperson explained to Business Insider that the "daily meeting participant" measure allows for a single user to attend multiple meetings a day. Taking five Zoom calls per day would count a user as five meeting participants. A DAU is calculated as an individual user logging into the app. 

Notably, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan used language reflecting the "meeting participants" language in a webcast earlier on the same day the blog post went up.

The distinction is important because it gives more clarity on how much Zoom's user base has actually grown as its profile is raised amid the remote work boom sparked by the pandemic  — and calls attention to similar kinds of confusion in previous media coverage of Zoom and its user numbers.

On April 1st, chief executive Yuan published a blog post noting that amid the pandemic, Zoom saw a massive spike in usage up to "more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid." Several technology news outlets including Reuters, CNBC, and Business Insider inaccurately reported the figure as Zoom claiming to have 200 million daily active users, rather than meeting participants.

Asked why Zoom never corrected the record, the company had no ready explanation.

Zoom's skyrocketing user numbers have only served to spotlight the company's rapid ascent amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company went from a niche enterprise videoconferencing tool, to a vital tool for personal and professional socialization at a time when people are staying at home to stem the spread of COVID-19.

However, a focus on meeting participants, rather than DAUs, makes it harder to gauge how the company is doing against rivals like Microsoft and Slack, both of whom have similarly benefitted from the remote work surge. 

On Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told Wall Street analysts that its Microsoft Teams chat app has 75 million daily active users, and that the app had seen 200 million meeting participants in a single day earlier this month. While Microsoft's app isn't seeing quite as many daily meeting participants as Zoom at this point, it's impossible to know if Teams has more or fewer individual users than its rival. 

Zoom has faced a myriad of privacy and security issues as its usage grew, including the phenomenon of "Zoombombing," where hackers or trolls join calls uninvited and share indecent material. This has prompted Zoom to make fixes to its security settings like making virtual waiting rooms and passwords on by default for free users. On April 1 it enacted a 90-day feature freeze to focus on improving the privacy and security of its tool. 

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Original author: Paayal Zaveri

Facebook stands to be a major beneficiary of the pandemic.Its efforts to combat coronavirus may help revive the company's damaged reputation.Advertisers are likely to choose Facebook's precise ad tools over other mediums during the crisis.Unable to attract physical customers, businesses are going online — another trend that may help Facebook.And the company has also quietly been investing in ecommerce, an area that is growing rapidly due to the pandemic.

Businesses across the United States are being devastated by the coronavirus — losing customers, laying off staff, or being forced to shut down entirely.

But not Facebook.

The California-based social networking giant currently looks set to come out of the pandemic in an increasingly strong position, as the economic crisis reinforces its dominance, helps rehabilitate its image, and accelerates market trends that are working in its favor.

On Wednesday, Facebook announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2020, the period when the crisis began to bite. As expected, Facebook's advertising-business took a hit — but even then, it did better than Wall Street was anticipating and Facebook's stock jumped 10% in after-hours trading.

And in the first few weeks of April — when some of the pandemic and lockdown's impacts have been most acute — Facebook said that its revenue is at roughly the same level as it was during the year-ago period. To be sure, flat revenue is a significant slowdown from Facebook's typical double-digit revenue growth, but it's a sign that the fundamentals of the business remain healthy.

The future is foggier than ever, and a lot could change in the coming months. But for now, in both the near, and long-term, both financially and reputationally, Facebook is positioned to do well.

Advertisers are turning to ad formats that can deliver tangible results

In the midst of the crisis, advertisers are focusing on advertising campaigns and formats that can deliver direct, tangible results, and away from broader awareness-raising efforts, Facebook executives said on a call with analysts on Wednesday. 

For Facebook's business thus far, that has meant better performance in verticals like gaming (where the success of the ad can be easy to measure: did the viewer install the game?) over ones like autos (where an advertiser might be trying to less boost their company's reputation in less tangible ways).

It's a trend that will benefit Facebook, which can promise scared and hurting advertisers incredibly precise tools to target narrow segments of the population and track the success of their ads. Advertisers still looking to spend will likely turn to Facebook and similar platforms like Google in the coming weeks and months over other outlets that don't offer the same functionality — like news organizations, who are already reporting a cratering in ad revenues that have sparked industry-wide layoffs.

Coronavirus may do wonders for Facebook's reputation

Facebook has not had a great few years.

Since 2016, the company has been beset by scandals, from Cambridge Analytica's misappropriation of tens of millions of users' data to the social network's role in spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar. But now, coronavirus has the potential to help rehabilitate the company's reputation.

With huge swathes of the world unable to go outside, record numbers of people are turning to the company's apps and services to stay in contact with their friends and families. When life eventually approaches a semblance of normal (or some new "normal"), that utility Facebook offered people may translate into significant goodwill.

Facebook is also leaping to try and fill other gaps left by the pandemic shutdowns, including hosting a star-studded virtual graduation event for the Class of 2020 in May that will be headlined by Oprah.

Similarly, Facebook is handing out $100 million in grants to 30,000 small businesses in their time of need. For some companies, this cash injection may mean the difference between life and death. They likely won't forget who helped them stay afloat.

Businesses are being forced to develop online presences 

Due to lockdowns in place around the globe, the internet is many businesses' only hope of survival.

"With so many businesses forced to close their physical storefronts, more are looking to build their digital presences and those who already invested in their digital presences are increasingly viewing them as their primary storefronts," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.

In the short-term, Facebook may be a major beneficiary of this, as companies use the platform as a free way to build out a long-term presence, and perhaps even take out ads to try to attract customers.

But over the longer-term, it also points to a shift that will also work in the social network's favor.

Over the last decade, the rise of ecommerce and online shopping has been the defining trend of the retail landscape. With physical stores closed, the pandemic is drastically accelerating this, not only bringing more businesses online but forcing ever-more people to adopt online shopping to fulfill their needs.

For years, Facebook has quietly been investing in shopping tools, particularly on Instagram. While this functionality is likely too early to give a material short-term boost to Facebook's revenues, it means the company is well-positioned to take advantage of consumers' shifting shopping habits over the coming years.

It also sounds like Facebook is doubling down on this area: On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg said the company would have more to share on this front in the coming weeks.

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Original author: Rob Price

New York state paid $69 million for ventilators to an engineer with no background in medical supplies after he tweeted at President Donald Trump and the White House coronavirus task force recommended him as a vendor, BuzzFeed News reported.The ventilators reportedly never arrived.New York has since terminated its contract with the man, a Silicon Valley electrical engineer named Yaron Oren-Pines, and is working to recover its money.Reached for comment by phone, Oren-Pines told BuzzFeed News, "Neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this," and hung up.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The state of New York paid $69 million for ventilators to a man with no background in medical supplies after he tweeted at President Donald Trump and the White House coronavirus task force recommended him as a vendor, BuzzFeed News reported.

The ventilators never arrived.

On March 27, as the novel coronavirus was surging through the US, Trump urged Ford and General Motors on Twitter to "START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!"

Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, replied to the tweet, writing, "We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT."

BuzzFeed reported that New York shelled out $69.1 million to Oren-Pines three days later for 1,450 ventilators — at least three times the standard price for high-end models. A state official told the outlet that New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the "direct recommendation" of the White House coronavirus task force. It's unclear who specifically authorized the recommendation.

New York has since terminated the contract and the state is reportedly trying to recover its money. Reached for comment by phone, Oren-Pines told BuzzFeed News, "Neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this," and hung up.

In a similar case earlier this month, the Trump administration awarded a $55 million contract to a bankrupt company with no employees for N95 masks, according to The Washington Post.

The company, Panthera Worldwide LLC, describes itself as a tactical training company for the US military and other government agencies, has no record of producing medical supplies or equipment, The Post said.

Panthera's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last fall, and one of its owners last year said it'd had no employees since May 2018, The Post reported, citing sworn testimony. It is no longer listed as an LLC in Virginia, where its main office is located, after fees went unpaid.

The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, a pandemic last month.

As of Wednesday evening, 3,187,030 people around the world have been infected, and the US is the global epicenter of the outbreak, with more than one million confirmed cases.

New York is the hardest-hit state, with 305,024 cases and 23,317 deaths. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that the death rate in the state has been flat for three consecutive days but that the number of new hospital admissions for the coronavirus increased slightly for the first time in 12 days.

Original author: Sonam Sheth

Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized US infrastructure on Wednesday, calling for new investment."It's really quite sad that US infrastructure, especially roads and highways, is where it is today," Musk said.The US should focus on infrastructure projects that are oriented toward the future, Musk added.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk slammed US infrastructure on Wednesday during the electric-car maker's first-quarter earnings call, saying it was in need of new investment.

"I think it's high time we invested in infrastructure in this country," Musk said when asked what message he would send to the US government for the years after the country recovers from the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"We have a lot of crumbling highways and bridges and, frankly, when I visit China, I see their infrastructure as being much better than ours. It's great. Europe has better infrastructure. It's really quite sad that US infrastructure, especially roads and highways, is where it is today," Musk said. "And our airports, in a lot of cases, are an embarrassment."

Improving US infrastructure will require money to be spent wisely on projects that are oriented toward the future, Musk added.

"Sometimes we spend a lot of money on these things, but what do we gain for it? We really need to be thinking about what is the transportation of the future, not the transportation of the past," he said.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has criticized the state of American infrastructure, giving it a grade of D+ in its 2017 report card, the most recent one the organization has published.  At the time, the ASCE estimated the US would have to spend $4.59 trillion by 2025 to make the necessary improvements.

Tesla announced a surprise first-quarter profit on Wednesday, saying it made $1.24 per share, on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $5.99 billion, despite factory closures and sales disruptions caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus. Wall Street analysts had predicted an adjusted loss of $0.34 per share on revenue of $5.8 billion. The first quarter of this year marks the first time Tesla has posted three consecutive quarterly profits in its 17-year history.

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Original author: Mark Matousek

Salesforce is cancelling all its events for the rest of 2020 and making them virtual, including its annual Dreamforce conference. Dreamforce is the cloud giant's largest event of the year, with over 170,000 attendees at the 2019 event.This also applies to other Salesforce events, including Tableau Conference 2020, Tableau Conference Europe, TrailheaDX India and its World Tour customer events. Salesforce said it made the decision as the "COVID-19 situation continues to evolve" and its "first priority is to help ensure the health and safety of our customers, partners, employees and communities."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Salesforce is cancelling all its events for the rest of 2020 and bringing them online, including its annual Dreamforce conference that typically takes place in the fall. 

Dreamforce is Salesforce's largest annual conference, held in San Francisco, where the cloud giant's headquarters is located. The event usually draws up to 170,000 attendees, and has generated more than $150 million in annual spending for the local economy, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

This comes as the coronavirus pandemic has already canceled or moved online many tech conferences and tech company events in this past spring. Salesforce plans to move all upcoming 2020 events online, inlcuding Dreamforce, Tableau Conference 2020, Tableau Conference Europe, TrailheaDX India and its World Tour customer conferences. 

"As the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, our first priority is to help ensure the health and safety of our customers, partners, employees and communities. With this in mind, we have decided to reimagine our events through the end of the year in new and virtual ways," Salesforce wrote in a blog post.

It already took a similar approach with its World Tour Sydney event in March, and said the event, normally attended by 11,000 people, turned into one "viewed by 80,000 people." 

Salesforce says it will refund all passes purchased for upcoming events and will refund all sponsorship fees. 

Salesforce isn't the only tech company to cancel future events amid concern about the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook has canceled all events with more than 50 people through June 2021. 

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Original author: Paayal Zaveri

Elon Musk is unhappy with the US shutdowns of businesses deemed nonessential.The billionaire on Wednesday said the shuttering of Tesla's car factories remained a "serious risk" to its business."Give people back their goddamn freedom," he said on a conference call.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a short rant complete with expletives, Elon Musk doubled down on his stance against the shelter-in-place orders introduced by various US states in recent weeks in an effort to stop the novel coronavirus' spread.

The Tesla chief executive did not mince words on a Wednesday conference call following the company's surprise first-quarter profit when he said Tesla's forced factory shutdowns were a "serious risk" to the electric-car maker's business.

"Frankly, I would call it forcible imprisoning of people in their homes against all of, their constitutional rights, in my opinion," he said. "It's breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why they came to America or built this country. What the f---. Excuse me. Outrage. Outrage."

Back on March 6, as the US first began reporting cases within its borders, the billionaire first said panic about the coronavirus "is dumb." Known US cases now top 1 million. On Tuesday, he ratcheted up his complaints on Twitter, urging leaders to "FREE AMERICA NOW" and praising Texas' plan to relax rules starting Friday.

"It will cause great harm, not just to Tesla but to many companies," Musk said on the call. "And while Tesla will weather the storm, there are many companies that will not. Everything people have worked for their whole life is being destroyed in real time."

Musk even went so far as to call it undemocratic for state governments to order shutdowns of businesses deemed nonessential.

"If somebody wants to stay in their house, that's great and they should be able to," he said. "But to say they cannot leave their house and that they will be arrested if they do, that's fascist. That is not democratic — this is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom."

Original author: Graham Rapier

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he believes the company's Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system will be able to drive an owner from their home to their office by the end of this year.The system won't need human assistance for such a trip "most of the time," Musk said.Last year, Musk promised that capability would be available by the end of 2019, but Tesla missed that deadline.Since then, the company has added new features to Autopilot that have brought the system closer to Musk's vision.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he is "extremely confident" the electric-car maker's Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system will be able to drive from an owner's home to their office by the end of this year.

"Most of the time," the system will be able to do so without the driver having to take control, Musk said. A version of Autopilot Musk is testing is close to achieving this capability, he added.

Last year, Musk promised Autopilot would be able to pick an owner up and drive them to their destination without human intervention by the end of 2019.

"I would say that I am certain of that. That is not a question mark," Musk said at the time.

Tesla missed that deadline, but has in the past year added new features to Autopilot, like the ability to drive in parking lots and recognize stop signs and traffic lights, that have brought the system closer to Musk's vision while also raising safety concerns.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk has a history of making, and missing, aggressive timelines for Tesla's autonomous-driving technology. In 2015, Musk said the company's vehicles would be able to drive themselves by 2017. He also said Tesla would send a self-driving vehicle across the US by the end of 2017, and when the company missed that deadline, he pushed it to the first half of 2018, a target Tesla also failed to hit.

Tesla announced a surprise first-quarter profit on Wednesday, saying it made $1.24 per share, on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $5.99 billion, despite factory closures and sales disruptions caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus. Wall Street analysts had predicted an adjusted loss of $0.34 per share on revenue of $5.8 billion. The first quarter of this year marks the first time Tesla has posted three consecutive quarterly profits in its 17-year history.

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Original author: Mark Matousek

Google Cloud's revenue grew 52% from a year ago despite the coronavirus crisis even as the company's advertising business took a hit. Analysts say that the coronavirus pandemic may lead more businesses to move to the cloud. However, the coronavirus crisis is still causing some cloud-related challenges: Google is facing delays in building data centers and closing large deals.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Analysts see Google Cloud as one of the company's "bright spots" amid the slowdowns in its advertising business that it reported in its first quarter earnings on Tuesday.

Alphabet revealed that Google Cloud generated $2.8 billion in revenue, a 52% year-over-year increase that was in line with its 53% increase the quarter before. That's compared to sluggish 10% year-over-year growth for its ad business, which grew about 16% in 2019. 

These results show that Google Cloud is emerging as a "formidable competitor" in the cloud market, where it's up against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, Jefferies equity analyst Brent Thill wrote in a note to clients following the report. 

Not that Google Cloud is completely immune to the effects of the pandemic. It's started cutting costs,  slowing down both hiring and its rate of building cloud data centers.

Here's what analysts had to say about Google Cloud's biggest strengths and challenges during the pandemic:

The pandemic may be an 'accelerant' for both GCP and G Suite

While companies are slashing their marketing budgets – which in turn impacts Google's advertising business – analysts predict that the cloud division could see a major pick-up as more people work remotely and businesses move to the cloud.

As SunTrust managing director Youssef Squali put it, the pandemic may even be an "accelerant" for Google Cloud, which he described as one of the company's "bright spots."

Google Cloud's growth was driven in large part by GCP, especially its data and analytics platform. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic could prompt more businesses to move from on-premise data centers to the cloud, where they can rent out as much capacity as they need. CEO Sundar Pichai said on the call that business that were once "hesitant to shift their budgets" are now "asking the questions deeper" and moving to the cloud. 

Pichai said that that was a "longer-term trend" that the company is "excited about," and analysts agree:

"We believe the COVID-19 crisis will accelerate the overall shift to digital," Doug Anmuth, J.P. Morgan managing director, wrote in a note to clients,"And over time we believe that will result in incremental online ad dollars, greater adoption of the cloud, and increased dependence on technology." 

Google Cloud's productivity tools, G Suite, saw increased adoption, too, hitting 6 million paying customers.  

"The offering is helping companies and employees be productive in a distributed and remote work environment," Ralph Schackart, partner at William Blair, wrote in a note to clients following the report. "Continued growth in both seat count and average revenue per seat is propelling the ongoing growth of G-Suite."

But Google Cloud will still face challenges

Still, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for Google Cloud.

While analysts predict that it will continue growing during the pandemic, the unit still faces some significant challenges. 

Google Cloud had previously been on a hiring spree as it worked to triple its salesforce over the next few years. However, that ambition goal may be stunted as Google has slowed down hiring for the rest of the year.

The company also expects to face delays in data center construction because of the coronavirus pandemic, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said on the company's earnings call. That's particularly important because it needs those data centers to scale its cloud as it tries to catch up to AWS and Microsoft.

Finally, CEO Pichai also pointed out on the call that although Google Cloud is still winning deals, it's "taking a bit longer" as its customers also feel the impact of the economic downturn: 

"Naturally, as you would expect, our customers are impacted through moments like this, too."

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Original author: Rosalie Chan

Tesla's rescheduled battery event will likely be in late May, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday. On a conference call, Musk said it will likely be the "most exciting" in Tesla's history. In 2019, Tesla held a "autonomy day" where it showed off its partially self-driving tech. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The "most exciting" day in Tesla's history will happen in May, chief executive Elon Musk said Wednesday.

He was referring to "battery day," an event the electric automaker intended to host in April to show off its technology soon, but was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, Musk said on a conference call, that symposium is most likely set for the third week of May and will either be in Texas or California, "depending on what we are allowed to do."

Texas is likely an option because the state plans to lift some restrictions and restart businesses on Friday, starting with restaurants and retail stores at a quarter of their capacity.

Earlier this week, Musk praised Gov. Greg Abbott's plan, saying we must "FREE AMERICA NOW" and "Bravo Texas!"

When he first announced battery day, Musk heralded the event as "a comprehensive review of cell chemistry, module and pack, architecture, and manufacturing plan that has a clear roadmap to a terawatt-hour per year."

In 2019, Tesla held an "autonomy day" where it showed off its partially self-driving technology to journalists, investors, and analysts.

Original author: Graham Rapier

Microsoft Teams now has 75 million daily active users, CEO Satya Nadella said on the company's earnings call with analysts on Wednesday. This comes as the coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses to operate remotely, and has boosted the demand for Microsoft's products that enable communication and collaboration.The new milestone comes a little more than a month after Microsoft said Teams had 44 million daily active users. Microsoft has been adding new features to Teams in recent weeks amid all of this growth, as it steps up its push to beat out competitors in the space like Slack and Zoom. 

Microsoft's workplace chat app Teams now has 75 million daily active users, CEO Satya Nadella said on the company's earnings call with analysts on Wednesday. 

The announcement comes as the coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses to operate remotely, and has boosted the demand for Microsoft's products that enable comminication and collaboration. It also highlights the rapid growth of the tool: On March 18, Microsoft said Teams had hit 44 million daily active users. That was itself up from the 32 million daily active users Teams had just the week before that.

"As COVID-19 impacts every aspect of our work and life, we've seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months," Nadella said on the call. He touted Microsoft Teams as the only tool that combines meetings, calls, chat and collaboration in one place, given that it integrates with the rest of the Office 365 cloud suite. 

Indeed, Teams is part of the broader Microsoft 365 bundle of productivity tools offered by the company, meaning that customers of one are customers of the other, and have merely to turn it on to start using it. 

Microsoft also said it plans to release a consumer version of Teams later this year as part of a revamped bundle of its Office 365 tools for consumers, to try and capture that market as well. 

This comes as the landscape for video conferencing and communication have become increasingly competitive, as people's personal and professional lives rely on tools like Microsoft Teams to stay connected. 

Zoom, in particular, has seen its prominence rise amid the pandemic, with 200 million daily active users at last count. The company confused the issue when, in a recent blog post, it said that it had 300 million daily active users — but then later amended it to say that the number referred only to the number of Zoom meeting participants. Zoom has yet to comment on the matter, first spotted by The Verge.

Microsoft, for its part, says that it had 200 million meeting participants in a day this month. The distinction between the two metrics is that "daily meeting participants" count across multiple meetings: If you take five Zoom or Teams meetings in a day, then you're counted five times. 

Slack, which offers a competing chat app, has seen a boost recently as well, but has not released a new daily active user number since October when it said it had 12 million. On March 25, Slack did say it added 9,000 new paid customers about halfway through its current quarter. 

On the call, Nadella highlighted that healthcare and educational institutions using Teams, saying in healthcare there were more than 34 million Teams meetings in the past month and that over 183,000 educational institutions are using the tool.

He highlighted a few large customers who are using Teams including the NFL, which used it for its draft and Accenture which is the first organization to surpass 500,000 users on Teams.

"More broadly, we continue to see momentum with organizations across Microsoft 365," Nadella said. 

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Original author: Paayal Zaveri

The SBA has told banks and lenders that it will no longer accept stimulus loan applications submitted using robotic process automation tools.The SBA said RPA, which lets businesses automate common, repetitive tasks such as filling out forms, "burden the processing system and diminish its capabilities," the agency said in a notice to the financing institutions.But Automation Anywhere, a hot RPA startup, said the technology was not the problem."The reason this problem exists is because of the first-come-first-served policy," Max Mancini, a company executive vice president, told Business Insider.In fact, Mancini argues, the move to block RPA disadvantages smaller lenders, who can't process as many loans as quickly as their larger competitors. Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The Small Business Administration has told banks it will no longer accept stimulus loan applications processed using robotic automation tools as the agency began a new round of funding after the first ran out in just two weeks.

The technology, called robotic process automation, or RPA, helps businesses automate common, repetitive tasks, such as filling out forms or sending routine email responses. 

The SBA suggested the tool lets some lenders submit applications at a much faster rate — although Automation Anywhere, a leading RPA startup, argued that it was the agency's first-come-first served policy for securing the loans that created problems.

The SBA said banks and lenders that use RPA "burden the processing system and diminish its capabilities," the agency said in a Tuesday notice to the financing institutions.

Miryam Mora Barajas, an SBA regional communications director, said the agency also told lenders that it is also adjusting the "pacing of applications."

"All lenders would be able to submit at the same rate per hour," she told Business Insider. "The pacing mechanism prevents any one lender from submitting thousands of loans an hour" to the SBA system. "If a lender goes above the pacing limit they will get timed out."

'That's the reality'

Max Mancini, an executive vice president with Automation Anywhere, said the new guidelines meant banks would not be able to submit more than 350 loan applications in an hour.

The SBA put out the notice on the use of RPA as the agency came under fire after a big chunk of the first round of loans under the federal the Paycheck Protection Program went to public companies, instead of small businesses, including mom and pop shops that are struggling to survive in the downturn.

But Manicini argued that robotic automation was not the root cause of the SBA's problems. Instead it was the first-come-first served policy which caused the first round of funding to be exhausted rapidly without a system in place for making sure the funds went to the businesses that really needed the money, he said.

Over the past weeks, there's been a public outcry over the stimulus loans that went to public companies or large organizations Los Angeles Lakers, instead of smaller, local enterprises.

"The reason this problem exists is because of the first -come-first-served policy," Mancini told Business Insider. "Otherwise, they would have been able to take all the applications and figure out how to deliver them. Because it's first-come-first-served, the people with the best technology win. That's the reality. And that tends to not favor smaller players."

Contrary to the view that RPA is a tool used mainly by big financial institutions, he said smaller banks have actually turned to robotic process automation as a low-cost tool for processing loan applications faster.

"The small lenders can't manually process everything," he said. "They're not going to get through everything before the money runs out. My view is RPA helps level the playing field because RPA is a low cost way to implement automation without hiring a large IT team or consulting firm. So it's painful to hear them say in a broad stroke that RPA is a problem because it's not about RPA."

Mancini said Automation Anywhere has made adjustments to its technology to help clients who will still be able to use RPA on the backend of the process while preparing applications before they are submitted to the SBA.

UiPath weighs in

Another major RPA startup, UiPath, has not been impacted by the SBA rule, according to Chief Marketing Officer Bobby Patrick, who also cited the contribution of the technology.

"It is incredible that banks were able to process more than 14 years of loans in less than 14 days," he told Business insider. "This could not have been possible without RPA. The load on SBA's systems must be unprecedented. The good thing is that the SBA is delivering loans at volumes never seen before, saving American workers and saving the economy."

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Original author: Benjamin Pimentel

After Facebook reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg opined about the damage of reopening the US economy too soon."I worry that reopening too quickly will almost guarantee future outbreaks and worse health and economic outcomes," he said.Facebook is seeing surging use, but the company acknowledges this probably won't last after the pandemic. It also acknowledged a "significant reduction" in the demand for advertising.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It was good news in Facebook's first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with the company beating Wall Street expectations and announcing surging user numbers, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg began the company's earnings call with a somber tone as he pondered the harmful effects that opening up society too soon might have during the coronavirus pandemic.

"I worry that reopening too quickly will almost guarantee future outbreaks and worse health and economic outcomes," Zuckerberg said.

The CEO also said he was fearful that the health emergency and economic fallout of the pandemic would last longer than people might realize.

While Zuckerberg's comments may not seem all that controversial, the Facebook cofounder's remarks come as another high-profile tech exec — Elon Musk — has been busy protesting the coronavirus-related lockdowns, tweeting things like "Give the people their freedom back!"

Facebook said the coronavirus outbreak hit its ad revenue hard in March, as the prices of its ads plunged and businesses in sectors like travel and automobiles halted marketing efforts on the social network.

But users have flocked to Facebook's collection of products, which includes WhatsApp and Instagram, during the pandemic. The total number of people using at least one Facebook product per month reached 2.99 billion in the first quarter.

Facebook credited the surge in user engagement to the pandemic and the lockdowns in countries across the world, as people sought ways to stay connected with friends and family and to learn more about the disease. Even virtual reality — a technology that has struggled to catch on with mainstream users — appears to be getting a boost.

Facebook's "other revenues" category, which includes hardware like its Oculus VR headset and Portal smart speakers, were up 80% year-on-year.

"Technology that allows us to feel present" is appealing when people can't travel in real life, Zuckerberg said on the call. "It's possible that this accelerated some of the trends around adoption."

But Zuckerberg stopped short of predicting a long-term acceleration in virtual reality. And Facebook acknowledged that once the threat of the pandemic subsided, the crowds now visiting its various online services would thin out.

"We expect that we will lose at least some of this increased engagement when various shelter-in-place restrictions are relaxed in the future," the company said.

Original author: Hugh Langley