Alphabet's biggest revenue stream is set to be hit hard by the coronavirus, with digital advertising already dropping off.Key analysts predict that the effects could be felt throughout the year, with one predicting Google's first year-over-year decline in ad revenue.

As startups get battered by the economic shockwaves of the coronavirus, tech giants like Facebook and Google are in a stronger position thanks to large cash reserves and surging demand for their services by quarantined consumers.

But it will be far from smooth sailing, with spending on digital advertising — the primary business for Google and Facebook — set to take a big hit. Facebook has acknowledged that its ad business is feeling the impact, while Twitter has completely withdrawn its financial forecast.

And Google, the world's dominant search engine, has significant vulnerabilities that could erode its topline and even cause it to shrink — something that has never happened in the company's twenty year history.

"We've cut our Google revenue and earnings numbers three times in the last three weeks, and we now think Google will face its first ever year-over-year decline in ad revenue in the June quarter," RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney told Business Insider. "We have them down 5% year over year, for the first time ever."

Although Google's self-service ad platform provides marketers with a huge return-on-investment – which should allow it to fare better than smaller, competing online ad platforms like Twitter or Snap – analysts believe it is already seeing a reduction in advertising from the drop-off in global travel.

"They get about 10%—15% of their revenue from the travel and hospitality vertical." Mahaney told Insider. "We estimate that Booking Holdings generates about 3% of Google's ad revenue. So if you throw in Expedia, the airlines and hotels themselves, rental cars, cruise ships etc, that's probably 10-15%."

RBC's Mahaney now projects that Google parent company Alphabet's Q2 revenue will be roughly $37 billion, compared to $39 billion in the same three-month period of 2019.

Meanwhile, the cancellation or postponement of major events such as the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a global brand advertising bonanza, mean that Google will miss out on major ad opportunities this year. Financial firm Cowen estimates that Google and Facebook combined could lose more than $44 billion in ad revenue this year.

In his latest note on the company, MCH analyst Brian White recalled the 2008-2009 downturn which plummeted Google's growth from 42% in Q1 2008 to just 3% in Q2 2009. That was a significant slowdown, but it wasn't an actual revenue decline.

"Given this new economic reality, we believe it will be difficult for digital advertising spending to escape the impact of the COVID-19 crisis," White wrote.

Despite the loss of the Olympics, some analysts think Google may still be able to lean on big brand advertisers for support.

Daniel Salmon, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, reckons that Google's "higher exposure to larger enterprises versus small businesses" could give it better protection than Facebook in the coming months. In a research note on Monday, Salmon points to efforts by Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler to push "broader enterprise sales engagement" through ad partnerships with bigger companies like Disney.

And Google's cloud computing business is likely to benefit from the ongoing trend of large corporations and federal agencies shifting their computing resources to remote data centers. That's a potential win for cloud services operated by the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft. 

YouTube, the video streaming site owned by Google, represents another important service that should see a boost in usage from the quarantines and stay-at-home orders throughout the world. Whether all that usage translates to a revenue benefit or a growing cost for Google is unclear however.

"I think advertisers are pulling back from YouTube like every other channel, but I'm sure consumers are binging on YouTube," said RBC's Mahaney. "So I think they're seeing more usage across their properties, just less monetization."

Original author: Hugh Langley

Zoom is under scrutiny by the New York Attorney General's office for its data privacy and security practices. The NY attorney general's office sent a letter to Zoom asking what new security measures the company has put in place, if any, to handle its huge surge in usage, according to the New York Times, and how it's handling the data privacy of children especially.Zoom told Business Insider that it received the letter and that the company will be providing the attorney general's office with the requested information. Internet trolls have been infiltrating Zoom calls to share indecent images or other spam, a phenomenon called 'Zoombombing.' Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Zoom is now under scrutiny by the New York Attorney General's office for its data privacy and security practices. On Monday, the NY attorney general's office sent a letter to Zoom asking what new security measures the company has put in place, if any, to handle its huge surge in usage, according to the New York Times. 

Zoom confirmed to Business Insider that it recieved the letter and that the company will be providing the attorney general's office with the requested information. 

"Zoom takes its users' privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are working around-the-clock to ensure that hospitals, universities, schools, and other businesses across the world can stay connected and operational. We appreciate the New York Attorney General's engagement on these issues and are happy to provide her with the requested information," the company said in a statement.

Zoom has seen a tremendous surge in usage due to everyone being forced to stay at home and attend work or school remotely. It's also become popular as a tool for socializing. That's forced the company to address data privacy and security concerns that weren't as in-focus before, when it was primarily used in the workplace. 

The letter referred to Zoom as "an essential and valuable communications platform" but highlighted several concerns about its privacy and security settings. That includes concerns about hackers or other malicious third parties that could gain access to users webcams, the letter says, according to the report. 

"While Zoom has remediated specific reported security vulnerabilities, we would like to understand whether Zoom has undertaken a broader review of its security practices," the letter says, according to the report.

The NY attorney general is also concerned about the data privacy of children using the app. The office has asked Zoom to send a copy of its privacy policy for obtaining and verifying consent in primary and secondary schools, and a description of third parties who received data related to children.

Recently, internet trolls have been infiltrating Zoom calls to share indecent images or other spam, a phenomenon called "Zoombombing." That's especially worrisome as many schools — K-12 and colleges — now use Zoom for online learning.  

Zoom has addressed the issue and shown people how to prevent that from happening in a blog post. 

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Paayal Zaveri

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on Monday promised hosts that the company's business will bounce back following the coronavirus pandemic, saying that it has weathered crises before.He pointed to what happened after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico; thousands more property managers are offering accommodations via Airbnb now than they were before.The comparison could be considered to be in poor taste; Puerto Rico as a whole is still recovering from the storm, which killed nearly 3,000 people there.Chesky's message was part of a broader announcement in which Airbnb is setting aside some $260 million to help out hosts.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus-related hit to the travel industry may be unprecedented and unexpected, but Airbnb has survived economic crises before and has always come back stronger, company CEO Brian Chesky said Monday on a video message live streamed to the company's property-manager partners.

Airbnb was launched during the Great Recession, Chesky noted. More recently, the company's business in Puerto Rico — and that of its hosts — was hammered by 2017's Hurricane Maria. But it both cases, the travel industry startup's business thrived as things recovered, Chesky said.

Before Hurricane Maria, some 7,700 property managers were listing spaces on Airbnb in Puerto Rico, said Chesky. Now, there are some 12,000.

"We are going to weather this storm," Chesky said in his video message. "We are going to get through this together. There's going to be a huge amount of business on the other side."

Nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes on record in the US, and the island is still recovering from the damage it wrought.

Today, the whole world is coping with the coronavirus, not just one island. The epidemic is wreaking havoc on the travel industry well beyond Airbnb. With governments around the country and world encouraging or even ordering citizens to stay at home, many have aborted their travel plans. Airlines have cancelled numerous flights and hotel and cruise industry companies are ailing.

It's unclear how long the epidemic — or its impact on the economy — will last. Just on Monday, counties in the San Francisco Bay Area — Airbnb's home base — announced they would extend their shelter-in-place orders for several more weeks, until at least May 1. Meanwhile, Virginia and Maryland became the latest states to issue such orders to their residents. And some epidemiologists are forecasting the the peak of the pandemic could be weeks or even months away.

But Chesky vowed that Airbnb will come back stronger then ever once life returns to normal. People have an innate desire to travel and following this crisis, they're going to want to satisfy that need more than ever, he said.

"This storm — no matter how bad it is, no matter how long it goes on — this storm is going to end," Chesky said.

During his message, Chesky announced Airbnb's plans to aid hosts during the crisis. The company set aside $250 million to reimburse property managers for 25% of the revenue they lost due to bookings cancelled as a result of the pandemic. It set aside another $10 million for so-called Superhosts — highly rated managers of popular properties — to help them pay their rent or mortgages.

The moves come after widespread criticism of Airbnb by hosts. The company announced earlier this month that it would allow travelers to cancel their reservations and get a full refund, no questions asked, starting on March 14 due to the epidemic. The move, which Airbnb made without consulting hosts, overrode property managers own cancellation policies.

In his message, Chesky praised the company's property manager partners and acknowledge that Airbnb needed to do a better job communicating with them. Despite what the company did with earlier reservations, Airbnb will stand by and enforce hosts cancellation policies for any bookings made after March 14, he said.

"The last few weeks have been a bit of a wakeup call for us. We know we need to be closer to you," Chesky said. "We're going to build things in partnership with you. We really are partners — or at least I want us to be."

Got a tip about Airbnb? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Salesforce is awarding over $5 million in cash bonuses to its top five executives. CEO Marc Benioff alone will receive nearly half of that: He'll be paid $2.3 million in bonuses on April 15. While the bonuses are an annual occurrence, this year's awards come amid an economic downturn that has led to widespread of layoffs across the country and record unemployment. Benioff has pledged not to make any "significant" layoffs at Salesforce for the next 90 days, after urging all CEOs to take 90-day no layoff pledge. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Salesforce is awarding over $5 million in bonuses to its top five executives, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. CEO Marc Benioff will receive $2.35 million, or nearly half the total. 

The bonuses, which will be paid around April 15, are a standard annual occurrence and reflect the executives' performances over past year. This year's payouts, however, provide a starker-than-usual contrast to conditions across the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the economy, triggering mass layoffs and leading to record rates of unemployment. 

Benioff, who had a base salary of $1.55 million in 2019, recently called on all CEOs to take a 90-day "no layoff pledge" as part of an eight-point plan to deal with the coronavirus crisis. He then tweeted that Salesforce, for its part, would not to make any "significant" layoffs for the next 90 days, though notably did not ban them all together. Salesforce is also one of several tech companies that have committed to continuing to pay their hourly workers while offices are closed. Benioff said on the company's earnings call in late February that Salesforce would be able to withstand the impact of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, though in the company's March 9 10K filing it acknowledged several potential effects from coronavirus, including those it can't yet predict.

Beyond Benioff, the board also approved cash bonuses based on corporate performance goals for CFO Mark Hawkins ($750,000), CTO and cofounder Parker Harris ($750,000), COO Bret Taylor ($675,000), and chief engineering officer Srinivas Tallapragada ($675,000).

The board also approved these executives' salaries and bonuses for the 2021 fiscal year, which started February 1 and will end January 31, 2021. 

Here are the salaries and target bonuses for 2020 for Salesforce's top five executives:

Benioff: salary of $1.55 million with 200% annual target bonusCFO Hawkins: salary of $1 million with 100% target bonus CTO Parker Harris: salary of $1 million with 100% target bonus. Chief engineering officer Srinivas Tallapragada: salary of $950,000 with 100% target bonusCOO Taylor: a salary of $1 million with 100% target bonus (Taylor became COO on December 12, 2019)

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Original author: Paayal Zaveri

China has sought to portray itself on English-language social media as the global leader in the fight against COVID-19 rather than as the origin of the novel coronavirus, new research reveals. Through more than 32,000 social media posts from verified government accounts, China has bulled its way toward a different image of its role in COVID-19. "I really see China as embracing this seminal moment to take control on the narrative," the lead researcher on the report told Business Insider.  Posts have pushed back on Western leaders when they have been critical of China's handling of the pandemic. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Chinese government has orchestrated a social media campaign to shift the narrative of China as a source of COVID-19 to a view of it as a global leader in its response to the pandemic, according to new research released Monday. 

The campaign seeks to portray China's response to COVID-19 as the best in the world, according to a report from the cybersecurity data company Recorded Future, which analyzed more than 32,000 English-language messages from around 50 verified, state-run accounts on Western social media platforms, between January 1 and March 9. 

The report finds that the messaging around the coronavirus follows China's familiar crisis-response pattern: In the early days, "social media posts from state-run organizations are likely at their most transparent and accurate," but the messaging tends to "degrade over time as the propaganda machine kicks in to influence the message being sent abroad."

Priscilla Moriuchi, an analyst at Recorded Future, says that China has been "embracing this seminal moment to take control on the narrative" and push its larger agenda. 

"China has a very specific set of strategic goals related to their ascendancy on the global stage," she told Business Insider. "Their primary goal is to make other countries comfortable with the role they want to play in the world."

China's first phase of messaging, between January 9 and February 10, generally followed the progression of the outbreak and the country's responses. Social media posts initially sought to "minimize the outbreak and the potential for human-to-human transmission," the report found. 

From February 11 and onward, the tone of the postings shifted: Posts started shifting the blame away from the Chinese government and portraying China and President Xi Jinping as global leaders in COVID-19 response.

By late February and early March, messages started highlighting several other themes, including that the West was "using COVID-19 as an excuse and a tool to contain China's rise" and  that the "origins of COVID-19 are unclear and the Chinese government is not at fault," the report found. 

Moriuchi said the COVID-19 campaign was far more negative than prior Western-focused influence operations run by China, and included push back at comments that were critical of China from President Trump, US Sen. Marco Rubio, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

U.S. officials, including President Trump, have repeatedly referred to the global pandemic as "the Chinese virus," despite a rise in hate crimes toward Asians.

While the Chinese propaganda machine may be trying to frame the country as a global leader in its response to the virus, world leaders aren't convinced. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other UK officials reportedly believe that China has significantly misled the world about the virus and its severity, including by underestimating deaths of its citizens, while seeking to build its economic power by offering other nations help.

The Chinese government has disclosed 3,304 deaths from coronavirus, yet funeral homes in Wuhan have disposed of an estimated 42,000 corpses, according to Radio Free Asia.  

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Recorded Future's report.

Read the full report here. 

Original author: Jeff Elder

The Mickey Mouse of video games, Super Mario himself, is approaching a major milestone this year: His first major game, "Super Mario Bros.," turns 35 in September.In the decades since that first game, Mario has gone on to become an international icon with the starring role in dozens of games.But which games — of those dozens — are the best of the best? We've ranked the Top 10, and you've finally got time to play them all while stuck indoors!Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A mustachioed Italian plumber with a penchant for jumping on the heads of his enemies is, unbelievably, one of the most popular video game characters in the world. Hell, he's one of the most popular characters in the world period. 

Of course I'm talking about your friend and mine: Mario!

It's been more than 35 years since Mario first appeared in 1981 arcade classic "Donkey Kong," and, since then, he's been in a lot of games (the Mario Wiki estimates somewhere in the neighborhood of 170). These range from classics like "Super Mario World" on the Super Nintendo, to more esoteric fare like "Hotel Mario" and "Mario's Time Machine." He's even on smartphones now!

Perhaps you have kids at home who fell in love with Mario games through "Super Mario Odyssey," the latest in the franchise? Or maybe you did? Good news: There's a ton of history to dig through!

That's where this list comes in: We put together the 10 best Mario games ever made and where to find them (excluding spin-offs like the "Mario Tennis" franchise, "Mario Kart," "Mario Party" and "Paper Mario"). If there were ever a time to play these classics, the time is now!

Original author: Ben Gilbert

AIrbnb has set aside $250 million to pay hosts impacted by its coronavirus policy, the company announced Monday.Airbnb will pay hosts 25% of what they normally would have received through their own cancellation policies for trips with check-in dates between March 14 and May 31.Hosts had expressed outrage after Airbnb overrode their policies by allowing travelers to cancel reservations and get full refunds, leaving hosts bearing most of the financial burden."We have heard from you and we know we could have been better partners," CEO Brian Chesky wrote in a letter to hosts.Airbnb also announced other coronavirus-related efforts, including donations from its founders, enabling guests to financially support hosts, and enlisting hosts to house healthcare workers.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Airbnb announced Monday that it had set aside $250 million to help hosts regain some of the income they lose as a result of the company's coronavirus policy, which allows travelers to cancel trips and receive a full refund.

"When a guest cancels a reservation due to a COVID-19 related circumstance, with a check-in between March 14 and May 31, we will pay you 25% of what you would normally receive through your cancellation policy. This applies retroactively to all COVID-19 related cancellations during this period," CEO Brian Chesky wrote in a letter sent to hosts Monday. 

Chesky said Airbnb would begin issuing the payments in April and that guests who had booked trips on or before March 14 can still cancel and receive a "standard refund or travel credit equivalent for 100% of what they paid."

With few people traveling or plannings trips at all at the moment, it's unclear how many cancellations hosts will see during the time the policy is in effect, but an Airbnb spokesperson said the company expects that $250 million will be enough to cover any that are made.

The announcement comes after hosts expressed outrage at Airbnb for overriding their cancellation policies — which often only offer partial refunds for guests who cancel more than a few days after making the reservation — by allowing guests to receive full refunds for any coronavirus-related cancellations. 

While Airbnb's decision to allow full refunds likely pleased guests, hosts said they were unhappy about having to bear the vast majority of the cost of those refunds despite not having a say in the decision. Airbnb typically takes around a 12% cut from the amount guests pay, and when guests cancel, the company refunds those fees to them — meaning about 88% of the money being returned to travelers comes out of hosts' pockets.

"I believe we did the right thing in prioritizing health and safety," Chesky wrote in defense of the policy, before apologizing for making the decision without input from hosts. "We have heard from you and we know we could have been better partners," he said.

The company also announced several other coronavirus-related efforts, including: $9 million contributed by its founders and $1 million by employees to support its top hosts who may be struggling to cover rent and mortgage payments; building a tool for guests to donate money to hosts they've previously stayed with; and enlisting hosts to house healthcare workers for free or at a discounted rate — Airbnb said 40,000 hosts so far had commited to that service.

The company has been hit hard by the economic fallout of the coronavirus as travel has ground to a halt around the world. Airbnb has also been walking a tightrope as it tries to balance the interests of hosts, guests, employees, and investors — all amid plans to go public this year (though investors are concerned that those plans could be delayed amid tough market conditions).

As it tries to navigate an unprecedented and unexpected threat to its business, Airbnb has reportedly been listening to pitches from outside investors and has asked Congress for help by urging it to pass a collection of tax relief and loan measures that would specifically benefit its network of hosts.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

As the coronavirus closes schools and workplaces, people are increasingly turning to Zoom video calls.Some public Zoom calls have dealt with trolls joining and sharing graphic images, and online classes have faced people hijacking a meeting, called "Zoom bombing."Zoom has a setting called waiting room that lets an administrator screen people before allowing them into meetings. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, has closed schools and workplaces around the US as it becomes the hardest-hit country in the world.

In response, schools have turned to tools like Zoom for remote learning, even for children as young as two years old. As Zoom becomes central to daily life, "Zoom bombing," or trolls taking over an online meeting without permission and bombarding the meeting with pornographic images, has increased. The FBI reportedly noted two recent incidents in Massachussetts schools. 

 Zoom has a hidden tool to prevent Zoom bombing, called waiting room. The setting lets a meeting administrator screen who can enter the call, preventing uninvited guests from taking over. Here's how to enable it.

Original author: Mary Meisenzahl

It's possible to post highlights of your Instagram Stories to preserve a selection of your stories, which usually disappear after 24 hours. 

After you post Instagram Stories, they'll be saved in a private Stories Archive in your account. You can turn any of these stories into "Highlights," which will appear publicly on your profile page. 

Each highlight has a cover photo, and the default cover option is the first photo or video within that highlight. But it's easy to change the highlight cover to another image so it looks exactly the way you want on your profile. 

Here's how to do it. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

Samsung Galaxy S10 (From $899.99 at Best Buy)

How to make Instagram highlight covers

1. Launch the Instagram app on your iPhone or Android phone. 

2. Tap the profile icon on the far right of the bottom menu. 

3. Find your highlights under your profile bio and select the one you want to edit the cover of. 

Tap the highlight you want to change the cover for. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

4. In the bottom right-hand corner, tap the three horizontal dots above the word "More" — this will access the highlights menu. 

Tap More. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

5. Select Edit Highlight from the pop-up menu. 

Select Edit Highlight. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

6. Under Edit Highlight, tap Edit Cover. 

Select Edit Cover. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

7. Toggle through your highlights to find the photo you want to use as the cover. If the photo you want to use as the highlight's cover is not already in your highlights, you must add it. 

8. Resize it to your liking. 

Once you've selected and resized your cover photo, tap Done. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

9. Tap Done in the upper right-hand corner, and once more to save your changes.

Your highlight cover will now reflect the changes. Meira Gebel/Business Insider

Original author: Meira Gebel

You can sell items on eBay in a few steps, but you'll first need to have an eBay account.You should include as many details as you can on your item listing, including photos, condition, and brand. 
You can choose to auction your item to the highest bidder or sell it immediately to someone at a fixed price using the "Buy It Now" option. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Many of us are guilty of buying way too much stuff that we never end up using. While it's great to donate unwanted clothes, shoes, and other items to charities when possible, for items that are newer or of higher value, it might be worth making a few extra bucks by listing them for sale on eBay. 

Listing items for sale on eBay is a straightforward process. Once you create a listing, you can even customize it to best suit how you want to sell.

Here's how to get started so you can start raking in some extra cash. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Lenovo IdeaPad 130 (From $469.99 at Walmart)

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

How to sell items on eBay by listing them on the site

1. Log into your eBay account at https://www.ebay.com on your Mac or PC or make an account if you don't already have one. 

2. Click "Sell" in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

3. On the next page, begin by entering information on the item you're selling. This will help eBay determine which category your item should be listed in. 

Original author: Jennifer Still

Top Disney executives, including Bob Iger and CEO Bob Chapek, are taking pay cuts as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the media giant's stock and impede its operations globally. Iger will forgo his full salary, the company announced on Monday in a memo to employees.Iger's base salary was $3 million last fiscal year, and he made $47.5 million in total compensation.Chapek, who became CEO in February, will take a 50% salary cut.The cost-saving measures will start on April 5 and remain "until we foresee a substantive recovery in our business," Chapek said.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Disney's top executives, including executive chairman Bob Iger and chief executive Bob Chapek, are taking pay cuts as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the media giant's stock and impede its operations globally. 

The pay cuts will start on April 5 and remain in place "until we foresee a substantive recovery in our business," Chapek wrote in the memo to Disney employees that was reported by multiple outlets on Monday.

Iger, who has been criticized by Disney heiress Abigail Disney in the past for his "insane" pay, is forgoing his full salary. His base salary was $3 million last fiscal year, and he made $47.5 million in total compensation including stock options and awards and bonuses.

Chapek, who became CEO in February, will reduce his salary by half. 

Other execs will take pay cuts too:

Vice president salaries will be reduced by 20%Senior vice president salaries by 25%Executive vice president salaries by 30%

The cost-savings measure comes after Disney lost nearly one-third of its market value in the past month, as the coronavirus pandemic dragged on the stock market as a whole. 

Disney is one of media companies hit hardest by the pandemic, which impeded its operations around the world. The company was forced to shutter its theme-park operations globally, including closing its profitable US parks and hotels indefinitely. Its film releases have been delayed, and TV and movie productions have been halted. The loss of live sports has also hamstrung its cable network ESPN.

"The pandemic is also having a devastating impact on the global and US economies, and it's hitting businesses like ours particularly hard," Chapek wrote in the memo, published by Deadline. "In a matter of weeks, we've experienced widespread disruption across our company."

Disney has said it will continue paying the cast members who work at its domestic parks through April 18. 

The key factors analysts are watching at 5 major media companies including Disney and Fox to help determine whether their stock will keep falling or rebound: Combined, Disney, Fox, ViacomCBS, Discovery, and AMC Networks lost $92 billion in market value since the last market high on Feb. 19, largely thanks to Disney.Disney has closed its US parks 'until further notice' and risks losing $1.5 billion in revenue per month they are shut, analysts say: Disney is extending "until further notice" its closures of its US theme parks, Disney World and Disneyland, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced on March 27. Analysts lay out the financial damage each of Disney's businesses could face, as it closes parks 'until further notice' and delays films: Disney is one of the media companies most exposed the impact of the coronavirus because of its large theme park and theatrical businesses.Why analysts say Disney and Discovery are the media giants most threatened by the coronavirus, but Comcast could fare better: Companies that generate significant shares of their revenue from theme parks, films, and advertising are most sensitive to the pandemic, and a potential economic downturn it could ignite.Why Netflix's business could take a hit from the coronavirus, despite reports that 'stay at home' stocks could benefit: Much of Netflix's revenue growth is international, including markets like Europe and Asia, which are especially vulnerable to the virus.Disney's surprise CEO change makes sense because of the coronavirus' growing impact on its business, according to a Wall Street analyst: The day-to-day pressures of the Disney CEO may mount if the coronavirus continues to spread outside of China, drawing former chief Bob Iger's focus at a crucial creative moment.

Original author: Ashley Rodriguez

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Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told Business Insider that the coronavirus pandemic and the new, work-from-home reality is forcing a lot of companies to accelerate their digital transformation plans.Slack has experienced a huge influx of new customers and that's creating novel hiring challenges for the company, Butterfield said.It's clear that engineering talent is needed to ensure the product can support all the new users. But, Butterfield said, the company is still thinking about how to hire in other areas like sales and recruiting given that everyone is now working from home.Slack is also working on an integration with its rival Microsoft Teams video calling feature, to support customers who need video conferencing tools right now. Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Slack, the six-year old workplace chat app, has been thrust into the spotlight in the last few weeks. As most of the world has to work from home to stop the spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, tools that enable remote work have spiked in popularity. 

Though Slack wasn't built specifically to be a tool for remote work, its chat and collaboration features make it perfect for this situation. And although initially Slack said it was mainly seeing usage for the free version of the product, it appears to be benefiting from a huge increase in paid customers as well — adding 9,000 new paid customers since the beginning of February.

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told Business Insider the company is still grappling with how to deal with the influx of new business, while taking into account the current economic climate. 

The question Butterfield is considering is: "Do we want to be more conservative than we initially planned this year or do we want to be more aggressive because we're going to be in a good competitive position for recruiting?" 

It's a double edged sword. He, and other CEOs in his position, expect fewer people to leave their current jobs because people will be more conservative. That also means it might be harder to hire and recruit new talent because people are less willing to take a risk and leave their jobs at a time like this. Additionally, all job interviews for the foreseeable future are online, which changes the hiring process and how new employees are onboarded.

"So it's going to take us a while to figure out what that new reality is like and whether we're even able to hit the hiring targets that we wanted," Butterfield said in an interview with Business Insider. "It's just another area of uncertainty and you know, there's places where we know that we will hire absolutely as quickly as possible, that's in any area that's to support the ongoing growth because that's not optional," 

Handing a surge of new users

New teams of users are joining Slack at a record pace, Butterfield explained. Before, it might have taken a few months for a new organization to start using Slack and then eventually make the decision to pay for a more advanced version. That's now happening in days and existing teams are upgrading faster than before. 

So Slack needs to hire people who can support that growth. 

One of those areas is engineering, Butterfield said. In order to support the magnitude of new users using Slack, the back-end infrastructure that Slack runs on has to work even harder. In order to do that, the company needs more engineers.

"It's a big complicated system and we are continuing to scale, and both on the leadership side and regular old engineers. We really want to grow," Butterfield said. 

It's not quite as simple in other parts of the business, like sales, marketing, and recruiting. On the one hand not having to travel could make it simpler for salespeople to close deals, but on the other hand it could be harder to close deals when you're not face to face. The same goes with recruiting roles. Roles such as field marketing will have lower demand, because there aren't any upcoming field marketing events to attend. 

Those are areas Slack was planning to hire in where they might now hire less than planned, Butterfield said. 

But navigating the economic climate right now is difficult, even for those who were in the workforce during the 2008 Great Recession. "It's unlike anything that happened in my lifetime,and I worked through 2008. I worked through the dot com crash. This is just totally different," Butterfield said. 

It's got Butterfield a bit skeptical about if its surge in growth will last, which he acknowledged in a series of tweets last week.

Despite that, Slack is really focused on how valuable its product can be right now, during this situation, he added.

Competition with Microsoft

While Slack provides a chat and collaboration tool, the other tool that newly remote companies need now is video conferencing. While Slack has some basic video calling features, it's not building those out. Instead it's focusing on building integrations with the numerous existing video conferencing tools that already exist, like Zoom and Cisco's WebEx. 

And recently Butterfield also said that Slack is looking to build an integration with its largest rival Microsoft Teams, though he told Business Insider, all the details aren't quite ironed out yet. He said 70 percent of Slack's customers are also Microsoft customers and use its suite of productivity tools. The main use case they've seen for Microsoft Teams is video calling. 

"So just like we already integrate with Zoom, we already integrate with Cisco WebEx, we want to make an integration with those Teams calling functionalities so people can answer calls," he said. "It's basically bringing Teams to parity with the other voice and video calling services."

While this might be confusing to some because Slack and Microsoft Teams often compete for customers, Butterfield said people are misunderstanding how often they actually compete. 

"I think we don't really compete as much with customers. That's not to say that we don't ever, because four of the five biggest enterprise deals we did last quarter were head to head Teams vs Slack. But I think much more of the time, it's Slack versus email," he said. 

By that, Butterfield means, organizations choosing to use Slack for internal communication rather than email, despite the fact that they might also have access to Teams. And the longer we're all forced to work from home, the more companies will turn to chat and collaboration tools like Slack, Butterfield said.

So long term, software companies could see a positive impact, because so many companies are actually in the early stages of digital transformation. Right now, most companies just have emails and meetings as tools to get work done, but they're being pushed to find other ways to solve problems, he added. 

"Companies that were really resistant to technological change or, you know, were in the bottom 50 percentile in terms of digital transformation, they all just got a mandatory 'Use more software' command that they can't ignore," said Butterfield.

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Original author: Paayal Zaveri

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Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can afford almost any of America's public companies following the coronavirus sell-off.The billionaire investor's conglomerate held $125 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of December.Berkshire's cash pile exceeds the market capitalizations of more than 450 companies in the S&P 500, more than 80 in the Nasdaq 100, and 11 in the Dow 30.Ignoring all other factors, Berkshire could afford McDonald's ($125 billion), Boeing ($102 billion), Tesla ($97 billion), or Starbucks ($82 billion).Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can afford to buy almost any of America's public companies after coronavirus fears decimated their market capitalizations in recent weeks.

The famed investor's conglomerate boasted $125 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments in US Treasuries at the end of December. Assuming that figure hasn't changed, and looking purely at market caps — ignoring whether a purchase would be feasible, sensible, or even legal — Berkshire could buy one of more than 450 companies in the S&P 500, more than 80 in the Nasdaq 100, and 11 in the Dow 30 without needing a loan, as of the close of trading on March 27.

For example, Berkshire could afford McDonald's ($125 billion) or PayPal ($118 billion) in the S&P 500. On the Dow, it could snap up Boeing ($102 billion), IBM ($100 billion), or Goldman Sachs ($57 billion) without blowing its budget. In the Nasdaq 100, neither Tesla ($97 billion) nor Starbucks ($82 billion) would break the bank.

True, Buffett prizes financial security and has vowed to never exhaust Berkshire's cash pile.

"We consider a portion of that stash to be untouchable, having pledged to always hold at least $20 billion in cash equivalents to guard against external calamities," he said in his 2018 letter to shareholders.

Read more: A notorious market bear says stocks are still historically expensive after tumbling on coronavirus — and warns a plunge 'of about 50% from here' is still coming

Moreover, shareholders of a company on the auction block typically demand a premium to its current market cap to reflect its future earnings potential.

Assuming Berkshire wouldn't spend more than $105 billion in total, and had to pay a 20% premium, it could still afford the industrials titan 3M ($78 billion), T-Mobile US ($73 billion), United Parcel Service ($86 billion), or General Electric ($71 billion). It could even buy Target ($48 billion) and have enough cash left over to buy General Motors ($32 billion).

As a cautious investor, Buffett would undoubtedly snub many of these businesses. However, the raft of possible acquisitions in his price range highlights both the scale of the recent sell-off and the rich potential of Berkshire's huge cash pile.

Buffett is on the hunt for an "elephant-sized acquisition," and his choice of elephants has grown substantially.

Read more: Bill Miller's fund crushed the market for a record 15 straight years. He told us his strategy for the coronavirus meltdown, calling it 'one of the 5 great buying opportunities of my lifetime.'

Here's a chart showing how several blue-chip companies have fallen into Buffett's price range:

Business Insider

Original author: Theron Mohamed

As major movie-theater chains close in the US due to the coronavirus, studios are releasing movies early to video-on-demand.They include Warner Bros.' "Birds of Prey," Sony's "Bloodshot," and Universal's "The Invisible Man."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

This story was originally published on March 17 and will be updated as more movies become available on digital early.

As theaters across the US close due to the coronavirus pandemic, movies that were recently on the big screen are arriving early on digital rental or streaming for audiences to watch at home. 

Major theater chains like AMC Theatres and Regal have shut down all US locations in accordance with national guidelines to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. 

In an unprecedented move, Universal Pictures was the first to announce that it would make four of its movies available on video-on-demand. More studios followed.

Below is every movie coming early to digital and streaming:

Original author: Travis Clark

Netflix recently introduced daily top lists of the most popular titles on the service.Streaming search engine Reelgood keeps track of the lists and provides Business Insider with a rundown of the week's most popular movies on Netflix.This week, it includes Spanish-language thriller "The Platform" and disaster flick "2012."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Netflix recently introduced daily top 10 lists of its most popular movies and TV shows.

Netflix counts a view if an account watches at least two minutes of a movie or TV show. This is how it calculates the daily top 10 lists and the lists are updated each morning to reflect the previous day.

Every week, the streaming search engine Reelgood compiles for Business Insider a list of which movies have been most prominent on the streamer's daily lists over the previous week.

This week, they include Netflix's new Spanish-language thriller "The Platform" and the disaster movie "2012."

And "Spenser Confidential," Netflix's critically reviled original movie starring Mark Wahlberg, retains the top spot.

Below are Netflix's 7 most popular movies of the week in the US:

Original author: Travis Clark

When you buy through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more.

Hulu; Alyssa Powell/Business Insider For $5.99 a month (ad-supported) or $11.99 a month (ad-free), you'll gain access to Hulu's entire streaming catalog of TV shows, original series, and movies.While movies often aren't the main draw of Hulu, its collection of over 2,500 titles is nothing to sneeze at.Standout new releases include "Booksmart", "Mission: Impossible - Fallout," and "A Quiet Place."Classics like "Vacation", "When Harry Met Sally," and "Good Will Hunting," also make our list of top picks.If you're looking for a reliable device to stream Hulu on, check out our guides to the best 4K TVs and the best streaming players.

 

Though Hulu originally launched as a platform aimed at bringing TV series to streamers, over the years it's built a sizable movie catalog, with over 2,500 titles across genres. I've often viewed it as a nice supplement to my Hulu subscription rather than what drives me to the platform, which is still its collection of my favorite shows and its host of original content. 

But as I was browsing their film selection, I kept finding myself saying, "I didn't know Hulu had this," and adding it to my watch list. It's become clear to me that I have to turn my attention away from watching "30 Rock" over and over again and start streaming some of Hulu's vast movie collection. Clearly, I have a lot of content to catch up on.

If you don't yet have a Hulu subscription, the ad-supported option remains one of the most affordable streaming services on the market at $5.99 a month, or you can upgrade to the ad-free option — which I think is well worth it — for $11.99 a month. For those who want even more content, the ad-supported Hulu is also available as a bundle with Disney Plus and ESPN+ for $12.99 a month ($5/month less than buying each separately). 

Each tier gives you access to Hulu's entire movie catalog as well as the platform's entire collection of shows and Hulu Originals. And it couldn't be easier to stream. The Hulu app already comes installed on most smart TVs, so all you have to do is log in and start streaming. If you don't have a smart TV, any streaming box or stick will have Hulu available as an app as well. Or you can always stream on your phone or laptop.

Once you get set up, here's our list of the best movies available for streaming on Hulu. Our selection features a mix of recent releases and classic titles across multiple genres, ensuring that all viewing needs are accounted for. All of the movies we've selected are categorized as fresh by critics and audience members on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. 

Updated on 03/20/2020 by Steven Cohen: Removed films no longer available on Hulu and added new picks that you can stream right now. Updated formatting and added links to related guides and services to provide more home entertainment recommendations in light of current events. 

Original author: Jen Gushue and Steven Cohen

 

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

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

Deals, IPOs, and fund launches may be slowing to a near-standstill, but work is just as busy as ever for some on Wall Street.

Restructuring bankers are suddenly a hot commodity, and they're swamped with calls as companies look to navigate the coronavirus pandemic. Lawyers on the restructuring side told how us a sudden collapse of revenues in sectors like retail and energy is accelerating work, as one put it: "all hands on deck would be an understatement." 

In a firm-wide voice message, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon explained how important it is to avoid burnout, especially when WFH blurs the lines between work and home. (Solomon said he went for a two-hour ride on his road bike last weekend to unplug.) 

And as Dakin Campbell reported on Monday, extreme market volatility has been good for some trading desks. At Barclays, the bank's global-markets business took in about $250 million in revenue in just one day earlier this month. And JPMorgan has been racking up record daily volumes in forex, rates, futures, and algorithmic execution.

Read the full story here:

Wishing everyone a healthy and safe weekend. As always, my line is open at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

-Meredith 

Early adopters are looking for a data solution

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

As Wall Street's obsession with data continues to grow, firms are eager to make digesting information as easy as possible. Dan DeFrancesco and Bradley Saacks explain how Snowflake, a startup most recently valued at $12.4 billion, has launched a data exchange that already counts hedge funds like Philippe Laffont's Coatue and data vendors like FactSet as users. 

Read the full story here:

Getting creative on comp

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Bonus pay on Wall Street could fall by as much as 40%, according to compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates. As Shannen Balogh reports, firms may take steps including getting creative with non-cash bonuses and limiting executive pay to help boost morale and keep top talent. 

Read the full story here:

What a 'protracted slump' looks like for commercial real estate 

f11photo/Shutterstock

Alex Nicoll highlighted the must-know takeaways from a recent Moody's Analytics report that forecasts the effects of a coronavirus-fueled, Great Recession-sized hit to commercial real estate. Unsurprisingly, retail and hospitality assets will likely see the worst of it, but some niche parts of the multifamily segment, like student and senior housing, could also be at risk.

Read the full story here:

Launches in limbo

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Hedge fund closures have been outnumbering launches the last couple of years, and the novel coronavirus will likely only accelerate that trend. As Bradley Saacks reports, with allocators' portfolios hit hard and markets going haywire, both hedge-fund investors and money managers looking to start their own fund are slow to dive into something new. 

Read the full story here:

On the move

Other must-reads from the finance team

 

Original author: Meredith Mazzilli

Berlin-based Arweave is a startup which is building a decentralized internet archive that it calls its 'permaweb.'
This permaweb contains information from across the globe that Arweave says cannot be changed, bypassing censorship or disinformation. Arweave is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and says it is helping people in China accurately report on the coronavirus crisis.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Berlin-based startup Arweave hopes to change an internet dominated by misinformation and rumor.

The startup, founded in 2017, operates on two layers to ensure that internet content is not lost or deleted.

Despite the massive growth of data online, the internet does not really have any kind of permanent archive. Some 30% of internet links are broken in under two years and 98% of links are broken within 20 years, according to Arweave. 

In an attempt to fix the internet's memory issue, the company has built a "permaweb" with the goal of permanent data storage. Arweave has built a blockchain to do this. The blockchain is effectively a digital record or distributed ledger of activity, most regularly associated with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There is no one blockchain, rather copies of the blockchain are held on hard drives globally, all of which are updated when new details are added. The thinking is to make the system robust against hackers or censors.

Developers can build applications on top of Arweave's software. 

For example, apps built on top of Arweave are currently capturing information within China before it is censored by the government, with the startup supporting some 200 applications including WeiBlocked, a company which trawls Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, for information which might later be censored.

Arweave provides tools for developers, but regular users can also pay to access storage. Users effectively pay for the unused space on other people's hard drives, who are paid to keep files secure.  

"We are attempting to address the fragility of the information space," Arweave's cofounder and CEO Sam Williams told Business Insider in an interview. The company came through Techstars' Berlin incubator although Williams most recently was studying for a PhD in computer science at the University of Kent in the UK. 

"We help people in China speak about the reality on the ground, i.e. coronavirus without their voice being censored by the government," Williams added.

He told Business Insider that the idea for Arweave came from reading George Orwell's 1984 and studying authoritarian regimes such as those in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. 

Recently, the Chinese government appeared to remove or hide information about Dr Li Wenliang who was an early whistleblower on the coronavirus in Wuhan. He died from the disease but information that he promoted is still visible to users on Arweave's permaweb away from the reach of Chinese censorship. Users can potentially see said information on FeedWeave, a decentralized social media site which operates on top of the platform. 

Funding the future

The startup has received backing from some major names in venture capital, including Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures but in an unconventional manner. Unlike regular fundraising where founders exchange equity in their business in return for capital, Arweave has raised $22 million from investors by selling tokens in its blockchain. The idea is that the value of those tokens will increase in the future with only 66 million in existence and with increasing demand for Arweave's services.

The company also dispenses grants to fund startups and projects which will grow permaweb usage, alongside the recently announced Arweave Boost which provides $50,000 worth of storage to startups trying to build on the permaweb. 

"We back companies which are helping to ensure the future of the permaweb," Williams added. "Our work is very important for stopping fake news and disinformation so companies that help us build on that are starting to come through the pipeline."

Arweave users pay for storage on the permaweb for time spans as long as a century and users in more than 50 countries support the platform through storage nodes worldwide. 

Original author: Callum Burroughs

Scooter startup Bird cut almost a third of its workforce in an online call on Friday morning, as the cash-guzzling startup prepares for the 'black swan' event to dry up funding. "Due to the financial and operational impact of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, we are saying goodbye to about 30% of our team," a memo from Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden, circulated around the company, said. Bird said it is providing four weeks of pay, three months of health coverage and an extended time frame of 12 months for laid-off workers to exercise their stock options. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Electric scooter startup Bird, which raised $275 million in funding six months ago, is laying off about one-third of its staff as it races to slash costs amid the coronavirus outbreak that has stunted its business.

The three-year old company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., did not say how many employees were affected by the layoffs but told Business Insider they amounted to 30% of the company's staff. Bird said the affected employees, who have been working at home because of the pandemic, were notified of the layoffs on a web call on Friday morning.

As companies reckon with layoffs at a time when staff are working at home, some have broken the news to affected employees by using Zoom video conference calls. But Bird said that it made sure the video feature on the web call was switched off. 

"Layoffs are never easy or comfortable to do and COVID-19 has impacted the way they are done in at least the near term," Bird told Business Insider in a statement. "We purposefully and intentionally did not have any video on to protect privacy as we delivered the news live to individuals."

Instead of video, the company said it projected slides for laid-off workers to find out more about the benefits they were still entitled to — four weeks of pay, three months of medical coverage and an extended timeframe of 12 months to exercise options.

"Each individual then received a call or email from Bird's talent team as a follow up," the company added. 

Bird later circulated a memo from CEO Travis VanderZanden that broke the news to employees. Coronavirus, a "once in a decade black swan event" threatened to be a massive financial strain on the company and prompted the job cuts. 

"Due to the financial and operational impact of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, we are saying goodbye to about 30% of our team," the memo, which was obtained by Business Insider, said.

Last October, Bird raised $275 million in a funding round led by CDPQ and Sequoia Capital. But Friday's memo from VanderZanden said that costs still needed to be cut to extend the cash-guzzling startup's financial operability until the end of next year. 

"As you know, we just raised hundreds of millions from investors, but given all the uncertainty, we needed to ensure a cash runway to last through the end of 2021," the memo added. 

Bird said it is providing four weeks of pay, three months of health coverage and an extended time frame of 12 months for laid-off workers to exercise their stock options. 

The coronavirus outbreak has caused financial markets and the economy to reel, and has already prompted startups like Wonderschool and TripActions to begin laying off workers in an effort to cut costs. 

But scooter-rental startups are being hit especially hard as the coronavirus outbreak forces people indoors.

Bird and and its rival Lime have suspended services in response to the pandemic, cutting its source of revenue for the time being.

And although Bird stresses that its balance sheets remain healthy, raising more money is going to be increasingly difficult for venture backed startups in the future.

Bird competitor Lime is already looking for emergency funding, but the round could cost the firm heavily, cutting its valuation by 80%, according to a report from the Information's Cory Weinberg .

Original author: Bani Sapra