UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) has defied the Trump administration's wishes over Huawei. Getty

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

Huawei is set for a 'limited' role in Britain's 5G networks. The UK's decision comes despite US pressure to block the Chinese telecoms giant.The UK's top cyber officials have warned that Huawei has poor cybersecurity and that its processes are opaque, even as it's greenlit for 5G. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre warned that Huawei could be forced by China to hand over information about the UK.Strong iPhone holiday sales delivered record-breaking revenue for Apple. The tech giant reported record-breaking revenue in its first-quarter 2020 earnings on Tuesday as iPhone revenue returned to growth.Facebook's $130 million 'Supreme Court' will be able to overrule even Mark Zuckerberg, and it's now got its first director in Thomas Hughes, a longtime advocate for freedom of information and expression. The social media behemoth is spending $130 million to create an oversight board that can overrule even Mark Zuckerberg himself, and Hughes became its first director Tuesday.Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company is working to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus. It's thought the virus's outbreak could affect Apple's production performance, Bloomberg reports.A New York Times reporter who covers Saudi Arabia was targeted by the same spyware used to hack Jeff Bezos, according to a new report. The Saudi government has a well-documented history of retaliating against journalists who cover it critically.More than 350 Amazon workers slammed its climate policies in defiance of a crackdown on dissent. Employees put their names to demands such as reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2030; spending more cash on fighting climate change; and shuttering home security arm Ring.Apple CEO Tim Cook says 5G is still in its 'early innings' even though rivals like Samsung are already selling 5G phones. When asked about Apple's plans for a 5G iPhone in 2020, Cook said the networkFacebook's Jay Parikh, the veteran datacenter exec who helped the company cope with explosive user growth, is the latest insider to have left. Parikh helped Facebook scale the technology that powers its global network and was part of Mark Zuckerberg's inner circle.A robot named Little Peanut is delivering food to people in quarantine amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. "Hello everyone. Cute Little Peanut is serving food to you now," the robot said according to a translation. "Enjoy your meal."

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings. You can also subscribe to this newsletter here — just tick "10 Things in Tech You Need to Know."

Original author: Charlie Wood

A video captured a robot named Little Peanut delivering food to some of the people under quarantine in China amid the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus, 2019-nCoV.Passengers on a flight from Singapore to Hangzhou, China, are being held under quarantine in a hotel after two of over 335 people on the plane were found with a fever, according to a Reuters report."Hello everyone. Cute Little Peanut is serving food to you now," the robot said, according to a translation. "Enjoy your meal. If you need anything else, please message the staff on WeChat."As of Wednesday morning local time, the novel coronavirus had killed 132 people in China and infected nearly 6,000 people worldwide.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A robot named Little Peanut is delivering food to people being quarantined after traveling on a flight with patients thought to be infected by the Wuhan coronavirus.

A video filmed in a hotel in Hangzhou, China, shows a robot with shelves of food moving from door-to-door carrying food to residents, Reuters reported.

"Hello everyone. Cute Little Peanut is serving food to you now," the robot was saying, according to a translation. "Enjoy your meal. If you need anything else, please message the staff on WeChat."

Multiple robots were employed on each floor of the 16-story hotel on Monday and Tuesday to reduce human contact and prevent spread of the novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, Reuters reported.

The passengers from a flight to Hangzhou from Singapore are in quarantine after two of the more than 335 people on the plane were found with a fever, according to the Reuters report.

As of Wednesday morning local time, the novel coronavirus had killed 132 people in China and infected nearly 6,000 people worldwide.

It has spread outside mainland China to Australia, Cambodia, Canada, France, Germany, Ivory Coast, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam.

Original author: Lauren Frias

Apple reported quarterly earnings that blew away Wall Street expectations on Tuesday.Six years ago to the day, a pre-presidential Donald Trump said on Twitter that he sold his Apple shares, complaining about the fact that the company at the time didn't sell an iPhone with a smaller screen.Assuming Apple's post-earnings stock gains holds through the open of the markets on Wednesday, its price will have gone up 356% from the day of Trump's tweet in 2014. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple's stock price has surged to unprecedented heights of late, and Tuesday's earnings blowout looks likely to keep its shares rallying. 

The iPhone maker has climbed from strength to strength over the past six years. That's especially the case over the past year: Apple shares have climbed 103% in the last 12 months, and are up more than 7% in January alone. 

One telling sign of Apple's impressive growth over the past few years is a tweet from Donald Trump, back in the days before his presidency. Exactly six years ago, Trump took a bearish view of Apple's stock, and said he'd sold his shares in the company. 

His reason: the iPhone did not offer a large screen size at the time. 

 

Apple's stock fell as much as 8% in after hours trading on that day in 2014, following Apple's quarterly earnings results. 

We have no idea when Trump purchased his Apple shares and what his cost basis was, but it's possible that he made a smart trade — in the short term.

Of course, had Trump taken a longer term view and held on to his Apple stock, the president would now be holding an asset worth considerably more. Assuming that Tuesday's post-earnings bump in Apple shares holds through the open of the markets on Wednesday, Apple stock price will have increased by 356% since the day of Trump's 2014 tweet, when Apple shares closed at $70.77 (adjusted for dividends and splits).

Take a look at Apple's stock rally over the years: 

Yahoo Finance

When Apple announced a larger screen size in the next iteration of its iPhone back in 2014, Trump took the credit for that decision. "I'll bet if I didn't harass Apple for the last 2 years about the large screen iPhone, they wouldn't have done it—but it bends & breaks!" he tweeted. 

In the years since, the company has continued to feature in the president's tweets. Just this October, President Trump tweeted a complaint against the iPhone's Swipe feature just this October. "To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!" the tweet said. 

But Trump now has a closer relationship with Apple's management. As the costs of manufacturing Apple products amid a trade war with China have risen, Apple CEO Tim Cook has developed a personal rapport with the president. Cook's efforts appear to have so far had an impact - back in August, the president said he pays close attention to Cook's opinions because the famously-diplomatic CEO calls him directly.  

Original author: Bani Sapra

Download on the App Store

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Apple CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street analysts that 5G wireless networking technology is still in the "early innings," and sidestepped any questions on a potential 5G iPhone.His comments came on Apple's earnings call, in the wake of announcing a blockbuster quarter that far surpassed analyst estimates.5G networks are still scarce even in the United States, but major smartphone makers like Samsung, Huawei, and LG have already launched phones that support the next-generation wireless network.Cook's remarks come as Apple has been widely expected to launch a 5G iPhone in the fall. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Rivals like Samsung, Huawei, and Motorola are already selling 5G-enabled smartphones, but Apple CEO Tim Cook believes the next-generation wireless network is still in its early days — and sidestepped any questions about a potential 5G iPhone.

"With respect to 5G, we're in the early innings of its deployment on a global basis," Cook said in response to an analyst question about Apple's potential plans to bring 5G connectivity to future iPhones.

Cook's comments during the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings call comes as Apple has been widely rumored to be developing 5G iPhones for a September launch, as reports from Bloomberg and TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo have indicated.

However, Cook declined to comment on the company's plans for 5G, except to insinuate that the slow pace in the United States of the rollout of the technology may be a cause for concern at Apple.

"I think it's important when you think about 5G to look around the world at the different deployment schedules," he said. "Some of them look very different than what you might be seeing here. That's very important."

The term "5G" has been a buzzword for years, but 2019 was the year that many smartphone makers and wireless carriers began more widely implementing the technology. Samsung's flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10, is available in a 5G variant, for example. Android phone makers like OnePlus, Motorola, and LG also sell 5G-enabled devices.

But even in the United States, 5G coverage is fairly limited. Verizon's 5G network is only currently available in 31 cities, for example. AT&T launched its consumer 5G network in just five cities in December, as The Verge notes, although it said it would soon be deploying the network in an additional 10 cities. 

Apple posted record-breaking results on Tuesday during its fiscal first quarter earnings report, as holiday sales of the iPhone and Apple's wearables resulted in a 9% increase in revenue. Apple's iPhone revenue also returned to growth following four consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines, largely driven by the iPhone 11 lineup. 

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Veteran Facebook executive Jay Parikh, who helped build out company's global technical infrastructure, announced Tuesday that he will be stepping down.Parikh oversaw the massive expanse of software and hardware that allows Facebook to operate and also ran its internet drone project.He is the latest in a string of veteran executives to leave the social network in the past 18 months.Parikh did not say when he will step down or what he plans to do next, only that he'll be focused on transitioning the role "for the next few months."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook's vice president of engineering and infrastructure, Jay Parikh, announced plans to leave the company on Tuesday, the latest longtime executive to depart the social network as it faces one of the most challenging phases in its history. 

Parikh, who has worked at Facebook for more than a decade, was largely responsible for helping the company build out and maintain its massive technical infrastructure, a network of expensive datacenters stocked with thousands of computers and spanning multiple continents.

"Facebook's growth created incredible opportunities to tackle some of the hardest scale and technological challenges the tech industry has ever seen," Parikh wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday in which he announced plans to leave the company in the coming months. 

Facebook saw its reach explode while Parikh was at the company, requiring major investments and innovations to handle an onslaught of traffic from billions of users of the flagship social network and popular apps like Instagram and Whatsapp.  But Facebook has also come under intense criticism for its role in spreading misinformation, and for its slipshod approach to handling user data and privacy.

Parikh did not say what he will do after stepping down, only that he's focused for the next few months on transitioning his role and hopes to "explore what's next." 

His exit follows a string of other company veterans who moved on during the past year or so, including former product head Chris Cox and VP of partnerships Dan Rose. 

As one of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's top lieutenants at the company, Parikh spearheaded various ambitious initiatives such as internet connectivity and an internet drone project that was eventually abandoned.

"A lot of what we've achieved over the past eleven years just wouldn't have been possible without you. I don't think we even had a data center when you joined, and now we share our designs so the rest of the world can catch up!" Zuckerberg said in a comment in response to Parikh's announcement.

"I'm excited to spend time rediscovering what else is happening across our industry and to meet up with many new people," Parikh said.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

Hi! Welcome to the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. I'm Tanya Dua, a senior advertising reporter filling in for Lucia this week.

If you're new to this email, sign up for your own here. Send me tips or feedback at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

My colleague Patrick Coffee dug into WarnerMedia this past week, unveiling details behind how AT&T, its parent company, has plans to become the biggest media company.

He got his hands on a pitch deck that shows how AT&T plans to use the combination of its entertainment brands and Xandr ad platform to become the biggest name in media while selling more services to AT&T subscribers.

Leaked pitch deck shows how WarnerMedia plans to become the dominant media company by spending on HBO Max and adtech division Xandr

Patrick also reported how WarnerMedia is starting to put the squeeze on ad agencies, with sources saying that agencies were asked to reduce their fees and agree to longer payment terms in exchange for the possibility of more work with the company. 

AT&T's WarnerMedia is demanding tougher payment terms from its ad agencies as part of an effort to save $2.5 billion

Elsewhere, with advertising being a big part of Amazon's hiring effort, Lauren Johnson delved into the company's recruiting process, speaking to insiders about how to master the rigorous process.

Key takeaways: Candidates should memorize Amazon's 14 leadership practices and prepare to answer behavioral-based questions backed with data and examples.

Amazon is known for its ruthless interviewing process. We talked to insiders about how to get a job there.

And as we gear up for the Super Bowl, we've been tracking all the action. Some highlights from the Ad Bowl:

Here's the full list of Super Bowl commercials that will run this year

The Super Bowl's massive audience is a huge draw for advertisers. Here are 5 brands running Super Bowl commercials for the first time in 2020.

The 15 most iconic Super Bowl commercials of all time

Here are other great stories from media and advertising. (Not a BI Prime subscriber? You can read them all and more by subscribing here.)

Advertising

A top Unilever exec explains the CPG giant's about-face in combating harmful content online and why it's working with the platforms after threatening to yank budgets

The agency holding company model is broken. Ad vets from Disney and Droga5 just added four more agencies to their firm Plan A to offer a new kind of agency model to brands like IBM and Spotify.

JPMorgan Chase has named the president of its co-brand credit cards business as its new CMO

Anonymous spreadsheets allege sexual harassment and racism at some of the biggest ad agencies in Brazil

Media

James Murdoch-backed Human Ventures is launching a program to seek the next health- and wellness unicorn

The 7 types of social-media influencers, from 'nano' to 'macro,' explained by a top marketing agency

Hulu's head of HR reveals the 3 teams the company will be staffing up most in 2020

Bloomberg Media is making a 'strong investment' in climate coverage, claiming its new team will be unmatched by any other newsroom

The labor board ruled against Hearst in its union case. Here's what that could mean for the publisher and its employees.

Original author: Tanya Dua

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Original author: Tanya Dua

Amazon is steadily building an advertising business that competes with Google and Facebook.Amazon's ad business doubled year-over-year and made $10 billion in 2018. Analysts expect for it to grow significantly more over the coming years.Amazon is increasingly rolling out new ad video and search formats and measurement tools to win budgets from big brands.At the same time, Amazon's ad business is experiencing a number of growing pains like proving to advertisers that its platform can increase brand awareness and loyalty.Business Insider has pulled together all of our recent coverage chronicling Amazon's advertising business. You can read most of these stories by subscribing to BI Prime.

Amazon is increasingly taking on Facebook and Google for digital advertising dollars. Here's the latest on what we know about the company's moves to turn advertising into a larger revenue stream.

How to get a job at Amazon

Competing with Google, Facebook and Walmart

OTT advertising

Relationships with agencies

New ad formats and measurement tools

Amazon's move into private labels

Influencer marketing

Moving into New York

Original author: Lauren Johnson

Download on the App Store

Original author: Jeremy Berke

You can change the colors on your Google Calendar to differentiate it from your other calendars, or to simply customize its appearance.If you later change your mind, you can change to another color at any time.You can also change the color of individual events on your Google Calendar.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google Calendar makes it easy to keep track of all of the important events in your life. 

From keeping track of your friends' birthdays and anniversaries to ensuring you don't miss dentist appointments, you can create and sync multiple calendars across devices so that you're always on top of your schedule. 

One of the best ways to keep your calendars organized is to change the color of your Google Calendar, or specific events.

If you want to change the color of your Google Calendar, or a single event, here's how to do it using the desktop version of the app.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Lenovo IdeaPad 130 (From $299.99 at Best Buy)

MacBook Pro (From $1,299.99 at Best Buy)

How to change the color of your Google Calendar

1. Go to the Google Calendar homepage on your PC or Mac computer and sign into your Google account.

2. On the left-hand side of the screen, locate the calendar you want to change the color of, and hover your mouse over it. 

3. Click on the three vertically stacked dots to reveal a list of options — including a palette of colors. 

Original author: Jennifer Still

You can easily add a timer to your Google Slides presentations, to help you keep track of how long you're taking during a presentation. However, Google Slides has no built in timer function, which means the best way to do it is to add a YouTube video with a timer to each slide.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Time can be vital when you're giving an important presentation at work. Spend too much time on one slide and you could end up running too long and losing your audience, or go too fast and risk leaving people confused. 

Adding a countdown timer to your Google Slides presentation can help you avoid those missteps and stay on track.

Here's how to set it up.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Lenovo IdeaPad 130 (From $299.99 at Best Buy)

MacBook Pro (From $1,299.99 at Best Buy)

How to add a timer to Google Slides

1. Go to slides.google.com on your PC or Mac computer and create or open a presentation. 

2. Select the slide you want to add a timer to in the left sidebar. 

3. In the top toolbar, select "Insert" and then "Video."

Original author: Devon Delfino

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Getty

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

A number of state attorneys general will meet with Justice Department lawyers this week to discuss various concurrent investigations into Google, according to the Wall Street Journal. The meeting is reportedly seen as the start of a periodic dialogue that could expand into more formal cooperation as the probes continue. Tech and business giants are mourning the unexpected death of NBA legend turned investor Kobe Bryant, who was known for his 'obsessive' work ethic and used to call leaders like Tim Cook for advice. Tech and business executives have expressed shock, sadness, and respect for his legacy.YouTube has secured the rights to stream multiple major esports leagues, Bloomberg reports. This includes the rights to broadcast the Overwatch League, which had been broadcast on Amazon's Twitch.Google is walking back changes to its search design that blurred the lines between ads and regular results after user backlash. The tech giant said it had heard users' feedback and that it would begin testing different designs for desktop search results.Monzo is in talks with SoftBank about further expansion funding, according to The Telegraph. The fintech's CEO Tom Blomfield reportedly met senior Vision Fund executives as the company aims to raise up to £100 million ($131 million).Some YouTube content moderators are reportedly being told they could be fired if they don't sign 'voluntary' statements acknowledging their jobs could give them PTSD. There's a well-documented history of content moderators reviewing graphic and disturbing content, leading to psychological trauma and PTSD.British police will scan people's faces to see if they're criminals, and critics say it's a massive expansion of surveillance. UK police will use a new facial recognition system across London to catch criminals.12 teams have reportedly paid $25 million each to join a new 'Call of Duty' esports league. The league's kick-off weekend has just taken place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Facebook executive Sir Nick Clegg has been criticized for his response to the Jeff Bezos phone hacking controversy. Clegg was criticized after claiming that WhatsApp's encrypted messages could "not be hacked into," BBC News reports.Salesforce encouraged employees to buy and expense co-CEO Marc Benioff's latest book to boost sales. According to Bloomberg, the company sent a memo to its employees late last year saying that it would consider the book to be business material.

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings. You can also subscribe to this newsletter here — just tick "10 Things in Tech You Need to Know."

Original author: Charlie Wood

Tech and business leaders from Apple and Microsoft as well as high-profile investors reacted with shock, sadness, and respect for Kobe Bryant's legacy on Sunday, following the news that the NBA legend Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash at age 41.Bryant may be best known for his achievements on the court, but he became a savvy investor in his later career.The former NBA star is also said to have sought advice from business leaders like Oprah Winfrey, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and former Nike CEO Mark Parker.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Tech and business leaders mourned the unexpected death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday in California at age 41.

Executives from Apple and Microsoft as well as high-profile investors expressed shock, sadness, and respect for Bryant's legacy in Twitter posts on Sunday.

During his storied career with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant became the fourth all-time high scorer in the NBA and won five NBA championships. While much of his fame may be defined by his accomplishments on the court, he also became an established presence in the business world.

He launched a $100 million venture capital fund with investor Jeff Stibel following his retirement from the NBA in 2016, but he delved into the business world long before then. In 2014, for example, he invested a 10% stake in the sports drink BodyArmor, which is now said to be worth $200 million after Coca-Cola purchased a stake in the firm.

Bryant even said that he hoped to be remembered for his investments just as much as his NBA career when speaking with CNBC in 2016. "If you really want to create something that lasts generations, you have to help inspired the next generation, right?" Bryant said to the network. "They create something great. And then that generation will inspire the one behind them. That's when you create something forever."

Among those who shared their reactions on Sunday were Apple CEO Tim Cook, former Microsoft CEO and Los Angeles Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer, and billionaire entrepreneur and "Shark Tank" TV personality Mark Cuban.

 

Bryant was known to have a tireless work ethic. When speaking on Bill Simmons' podcast back in 2016, investor and former Shark Tank host Chris Sacca said Bryant would consistently text and call him with Ted Talks and other news while doing research for his business ventures.

"He was bringing the same obsessive work ethic to learning about startups that he does to training, to rehab, to his thousand makes a day, to everything," Sacca said. He also wasn't afraid to call other successful leaders for advice, as he told Alex Rodriguez and Dan Catz on an episode of "The Corp" in 2018, according to CNBC.

He said he learned a lot from Oprah Winfrey, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and former Nike CEO Mark Parker in particular, especially when it comes to handling mistakes. "We all make mistakes," Bryant said, according to CNBC. "We all make decisions. And you just continue to plow forward. You continue to figure it out."

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

 

 

Finance editor Meredith Mazzilli here, taking the final turn as guest host while executive editor Matt Turner wraps up parental leave. 

I'll get the shameless promotion for my own newsletter out of the way first — you can sign up here for Wall Street Insider to get a behind-the-scenes look at the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives. 

The world's most powerful leaders and execs (not to mention a sizable Business Insider contingent) flocked to Davos this week. Here are some interesting nuggets from the sidelines of this annual meeting of the minds: 

A generation of private-equity leaders is getting ready to hand over the reins to successors. Dakin Campbell spoke with Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who explained why he kept his next in line a secret for more than a year.Joe Ciolli chatted with Amy Webb, a quantitative futurist and professor of strategic foresight at NYU, who predicted that tech giants like Amazon and Apple will "completely dismantle the healthcare industry as we know it."Attention job-seekers: Andy Baldwin, the global managing partner of client services at EY, told Cadie Thompson that the firm wants to hire for more tech roles in the years ahead, and explained why it's changing what it looks for in candidates.Buzzwords are often maddening corporate-speak to soften the blow of big, unpopular decisions. And that's exactly why they're worth unpacking. As Joe reports, the word "upskilling" kept popping up during most of Business Insider's conversations with execs, investors, and strategists. Here's why.Spiked seltzer was everywhere in 2019. John Blood, the chief legal and corporate-affairs officer and corporate secretary for AB InBev, told Cadie how the company is thinking about the fizzy booze market now, and why it doesn't spend much time worrying about White Claw. 

Digging into buzzy healthcare startup One Medical 

Courtesy One Medical

Speaking of the rich and powerful — I'm a big fan of stories that sift through hundreds of pages of jargon and boilerplate in S-1 filings to uncover the juiciest stuff companies share before going public.

One of the fun things we get to learn is who's about to get richer.

Primary-care startup One Medical recently filed paperwork to go public, and Lydia Ramsey broke out the investors and execs with the biggest stakes, plus how much they stand to gain. Topping the list is The Carlyle Group, which led a $220 million private financing round for One Medical in 2018. The firm owns a nearly 27% stake that would be worth $450.5 million at the top of the IPO range.

Still, there's plenty of red ink: One Medical's net losses have been deepening for the membership-based platform even as users climbed (sound familiar?) 

Finance and Investing

The head of professional development at Steve Cohen's Point72 explains how to climb from fresh college grad to portfolio manager at the $16 billion hedge fund firm

Going from fresh-out-of-college, brand-new analyst to running an investment team as a portfolio manager at Steve Cohen's Point72 isn't a linear path. Here are the different ways to rise the ranks. 

Fortress CEO Wes Edens didn't show up to board meetings while his private-equity firm racked up a $115 million tab managing local newspaper chain GateHouse

Billionaire and Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Wes Edens was chairman of the firm overseeing one of America's largest newspaper chains, but skipped more than a quarter of its board and committee meetings in 2018. 

The legendary author of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' says he's avoiding stocks as he braces for the next market crash — and warns mom and pop investors are being set up for disaster

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the #1 personal finance book of all time "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," thinks public-market investors are being duped.

Tech, Media, Telecoms

Leaked pitch deck shows how WarnerMedia plans to become the dominant media company by spending on HBO Max and adtech division Xandr

AT&T has made no secret of its desire to lead the increasingly fractured media landscape through its newly acquired WarnerMedia entertainment properties and Xandr adtech division. 

72 startups that will boom in 2020, according to VCs

We asked a group of investors at successful venture capital firms to name the startups that will boom this year. 

The 17 hottest brands in influencer marketing that work with creators on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms

These brands have built lasting partnerships with creators on social media, and include names like SeatGeek, Sephora, and Chipotle.

Healthcare, Retail, Transportation

The CEO of troubled cannabis company MedMen told us investors were right to punish his stock. Now he says they'd be smart to bet on a turnaround.

MedMen, a flashy cannabis retailer with stores in Las Vegas, Los Angeles' Venice Beach neighborhood, and on New York's Fifth Avenue, has been punished by investors.

A startup run by a Tesla veteran and backed by Bill Gates is promising to build a long-duration battery that's 50 to 100 times cheaper than lithium-ion

There's a reason lithium-ion batteries are in nearly every electronic device — they're energy-dense, lightweight, and don't degrade quickly. Where they fall short is in the storage of electricity on the grid for multiple days. 

Inside Walmart's thriving TikTok account, which has over 127,000 followers and is luring a new generation of Gen Z shoppers to the superstore

Walmart joining TikTok might just be the crossover event of the century. The nearly 60-year-old retailer is surprisingly active on the social media platform that has gained explosive popularity among young people, especially Gen Z.

Original author: Meredith Mazzilli

"Bad Boys for Life" won the domestic box office for a second-straight weekend, bringing in $34 million.Its domestic box office total is over $100 million.Universal's Oscar frontrunner "1917" came in second place with $15.8 million.That movie has also crossed the $100 million milestone at the domestic box office.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sony's "Bad Boys for Life" continues to have an amazing run at the box office.

Saturday the action/comedy starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence crossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office, then on Sunday it topped the domestic box office for a second-straight weekend, bringing in an estimated $34 million. That's just a 46% drop from its opening weekend.

And it's possible the movie has enough witchcraft left in it to stay on the throne for one more weekend.

Next weekend the only competition is Paramount's gritty revenge tale "The Rhythm Section," starring Blake Lively as an assassin and directed by Reed Morano ("The Handmaid's Tale"). There's a chance audiences will favor the "Bad Boys" for a third weekend rather than Lively learning to become a contract killer. Time will tell.

Universal's "1917" has also crossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office and came in second place this weekend with a $15.8 million take. Over the weekend Sam Mendes won the best director prize at the DGA Awards, strengthening its frontrunner status for the Oscars. Because of that, audiences are heading to the multiplex to see what all the fuss is about.

"The Gentlemen." STXfilms STXfilms is starting off 2020 strong with a $11 million opening on 2,165 screens for "The Gentlemen." The Guy Ritchie-directed gangster movie performed better than its industry projections.However, Universal's horror "The Turning" had a disappointing opening weekend, only bringing in $7.3 million on 2,839 screens and receiving a CinemaScore grade of "F."

Original author: Jason Guerrasio

Airbnb started in 2008 as a way for people to rent out spare rooms to strangers. Since then, it has grown into a global travel company valued by private investors at $31 billion by offering everything from bespoke trips to property management services, with seven million rental listings in more than 220 countries. 

Last September, Airbnb announced its plans to become a publicly traded company in 2020, and some market watchers are speculating that the company could start that process in the first half of this year. It's also reportedly considering listing its shares directly rather than through a traditional initial public offering.

Airbnb's path to the public markets has been slower than some of its peers — a source of tension among both executives and rank-and-file employees. CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky has said the company is simply taking a long-term view of its business, or what Chesky has called an "infinite time horizon."

As Airbnb debated where a public offering should fit on that horizon, many of its fellow "unicorns" — companies valued at more than $1 billion — decided to take the plunge last year.

But Wall Street wasn't impressed. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and Slack have struggled to drive up stock prices, while WeWork abandoned its IPO entirely amid controversies surrounding its financials and governance.

It's against this backdrop — and amid fears of an impending economic recession — that Airbnb readies itself for public scrutiny. So, when investors finally get to kick the tires, they'll be paying especially close attention to these five things.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

The California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, is intended to give consumers a lot more control over the personal data that's collected by websites and apps.California itself estimates that companies will spend $55 billion this year to get into compliance with the law.Experts say that startups are well-positioned to capitalize on CCPA by going after a slice of that very large pie.While there are many companies, including Box and Very Good Security, that offer tools to help manage a company's data, there's no "single silver bullet" solution out there, experts say.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

On January 1st, the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, officially went into effect — a landmark new privacy law championed by Governor Gavin Newsom intended to give consumers in the state more control over the personal data collected by websites, apps, and other online services.

While California's attorney general is putting finishing touches on the law and isn't expected to start enforcing it until July, companies are already starting to worry about getting into compliance. Indeed, companies are expected to spend $55 billion this year to get in compliance with California's law, according to the state's own estimate. 

That's created a huge opportunity for tech companies, and perhaps especially startups, several Silicon Valley insiders have told Business Insider. The law requires companies to allow their customers to request a copy of all the data it's collected about them — and, furthermore, requires that data be deleted upon request.

That's a problem for a lot of companies, who may simply not have the tools to process all of their customer data across various systems and software and put it into a tidy report, let alone to delete all of it as required by the law. For tech companies that specialize in data management, then, this could be a boon.

"We want to be an enabler to companies being able to stay compliant with all of these new, emerging privacy laws. So for us, realistically, this is actually a tailwind to our business model, it's a positive trend for us," Aaron Levie, CEO of business cloud-storage company Box, told Business Insider.

That's good news for established companies like Box, for sure, but also for smaller startups. The scale of the problem is such that no single company can currently tackle it on their own, said Bart Willemsen, an analyst at Gartner.

There are lots of different pieces of the puzzle, here, he says: Not only how companies handle the data they've collected, but also the ways and tools they use to collect it in the first place, as well as the customer experience for making it easy and seamless for customers to access that data, as required by law. No one company can do all of it — and, indeed, it falls on the company itself to figure out the best combination of tools to get there.

"There are those that present themselves as the, 'we do everything for you with the one single silver bullet,' but I don't believe that. Nobody makes an organization compliant other than the organization itself," Willemsen told Business Insider. 

The opportunity

Robert Cattanach, a lawyer who specializes in data regulations and data breaches, said right now most companies aren't equipped to deal with a request from a consumer asking what data they have on them.

"I see the biggest issue as understanding where data is and how to access that data...their data systems have not been developed with that kind of functionality in mind, so they're having to create it...so I think that response to consumer requests is going to be the biggest challenge," Cattanach said. 

In-Sik Rhee, a partner at Vertex Ventures, said data privacy and compliance is a space where his firm is looking for investment opportunities in the next year. He adds that there's going to be a huge need for companies to organize and better manage their data. 

"I think for a lot of companies they're not really selling your data or doing other things, but they are capturing the data. But those that have captured data, they now need to have better hygiene in terms of sorting it properly or protecting it," Rhee said. "So there's companies that are helping just manage the data as you've collected it."

Marshall Jones and Mahmoud Abdelkader, cofounders of Very Good Security Very Good Security

And there are already many smaller companies being born with the goal of meeting those needs.

Very Good Security (VGS) is one such startup, which layers itself on top of a company's software and parses out which data is most sensitive. That data then gets shunted to VGS's own systems for safeguarding and processing, taking the burden of protecting it away from the customer while also making it easier to make sense of all of it. That approach got a vote of confidence from investors from Visa and Goldman Sachs.

"We understand the intent of where and how you're receiving that data so that you can perform operations on it without necessarily having it. So you've shifted custodianship to VGS and all you have is a reference that looks like the real data, but it's useless," Mahmoud Abdelkader, co-founder and CEO of VGS, told Business Insider. 

Indeed, Rehan Jalil — the founder of a company called Securiti.ai, formed by ex-Symantec employees — says that regulations like CCPR and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are going to require a rethinking of how data is handled, with a focus on making it as easy and automatic as possible to protect customer data. Jalil calls this approach "privacy ops." 

"That's where I see the biggest opportunities and a lot of companies are working on it and will continue to work on it, how to operationalize privacy and automate privacy inside a company," Jalil said.

No magic bullet

It also remains to be seen what new data privacy regulations come about in other states or nationwide.

Willemsen, the Gartner analyst, said tackling this long term means companies have to acknowledge that data privacy and management is an integral part of their organization, regardless of if laws require it. Those that already see that, and are taking moves to better protect and serve their customers, are further alone the curve than the rest, he says.

"Privacy in itself is infinitely more than just regulatory compliance," he said. "And if an organization gets it right and understands the principle here, you'll see that they are further ahead in terms of many different things compared to their opposition." 

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

Business Insider/Lisa Eadicicco

The Apple Watch has steadily grown to become one of the company's most important products, helping skyrocket the Cupertino-based tech giant to become the market leader in wearable technology. The company has unveiled a new model every September since 2014, when the first version made its public debut before launching in spring 2015.

Early versions brought crucial upgrades that boosted the value proposition of owning a smartwatch in the first place, like better performance and support for cellular connectivity. But while more recent models offer impressive technologies that have turned the Apple Watch into a more comprehensive health monitoring device, such features aren't necessarily critical to the overall Apple Watch experience. That's especially true considering several of the Apple Watch's most important new features are pushed through software updates and don't depend on the latest hardware.  

The second generation Apple Watch, for instance, included several meaningful improvements over the first, such as water resistance and the inclusion of integrated GPS — two features that were substantial in establishing the Apple Watch as a viable fitness tracker that could compete with offerings from companies like Garmin and Fitbit. And the Apple Watch Series 3 that launched in 2017 brought cellular connectivity to the device, a capability that made the watch significantly more independent of your iPhone. 

But as the smartwatch market has matured, the Apple Watch's progression has started to feel different. Some new features feel minor, like the Series 5's compass, while others are significant but only immediately useful under specific circumstances for targeted use cases.

Take the Apple Watch Series 4, for example, which was released in 2018 and started at $400. That release marked a milestone for the Apple Watch since it introduced more sophisticated health-oriented features that made it more than just a fitness tracker. The Series 4 was the first model capable of capturing an electrocardiogram, making it possible to use the watch to detect atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat. It also comes with a feature that offers the option to dial emergency services straight from the watch when it understands that the wearer has taken a hard fall.

Both capabilities are undoubtedly useful for those who need them. But potential buyers who just want an Apple Watch for viewing notifications on their wrist and measuring steps and activity would probably be happy to pay less for an Apple Watch with a standard heart-rate monitor. Apple could easily launch a "Pro" model that includes these more specialized features alongside a standard version with simpler capabilities.

A similar statement could be made about the $400 Series 5, which has many of the same features as the Series 4 but with an always-on display and a compass. The former enables the screen to show the time and other information even when the display isn't activated, while the latter allows for more precise location tracking.

Again, while these additions are appreciated and certainly make Apple's smartwatch better, I'm still able to get the biggest benefits the Apple Watch has to offer without them. I don't need these features to see if I've closed my Activity Rings for the day, or to view the text message I received while my phone has been tucked away in my bag. I don't need them to see the latest headlines from Apple News on my wrist.

And apparently I'm not alone in how I use my Apple Watch. When it comes to smartwatch functions that wearers use daily, notifications and text alerts, activity tracking, and news updates topped the list, according to a 2017 survey from market research firm NPD Group.

That's not to say features like ECG monitoring, fall detection, and always-on display technology aren't useful and innovative. They are, but the experience of using an Apple Watch wouldn't necessarily be hampered without them either. Some may argue that the same can be said for the earlier versions of the Apple Watch, but some of those advancements — like cellular connectivity support — at least helped answer the question as to why you may want to purchase a smartwatch in the first place.

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Emil Mikhailov, founder of XIX, a computer vision startup, and Nic McKinley, founder of Deliver Fund, a nonprofit started by an ex-CIA agent, have teamed up to use AI to fight human trafficking.Deliver Fund uses XIX's technology to scan and analyze massive numbers of online images to identify and expose sex trafficking rings. The XIX platform looks for "signals" in the photos — visual elements that suggest a link to the illicit sex trade."Human traffickers oftentimes will brand their victims as property," McKinley, who has been dubbed "the Real Jack Ryan" in a documentary, told Business Insider.Deliver Fund will use XIX's platform while working with law enforcement agencies in the upcoming Super Bowl weekend in Miami. The Super Bowl typically leads to an uptick in sex trafficking activity in the city where it is to be held, creating opportunities for law enforcers to identify them.Click here for more BI Prime stories.

One is ex-CIA, dubbed the 'real Jack Ryan, who's looking to stamp out modern-day slavery. The other, a tech entrepreneur from Moscow who hopes to deploy AI for noble causes.

Nic McKinley, founder and CEO of Deliver Fund, a Dallas nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking, and Emil Mikhailov, founder and CEO of XIX, a San Francisco AI computer vision startup, have teamed up for an unconventional use of artificial intelligence: battling human trafficking.

McKinley's exploits as a CIA field agent were highlighted in a 2018 Vice News documentary which dubbed him "The Real Jack Ryan," referring to the fictional CIA analyst and operative in a popular TV series. (He says "the real Jack Ryan character doesn't exist, because you're either an operative or an analyst. You're not both.")

Deliver Fund uses XIX's AI-powered software to gather intelligence on criminal rings in a $100 billion global industry that coerces people to work in the illicit sex trade or other forms of forced labor. The partnership underscores how AI, now known mainly either as a powerful business tool or an Orwellian weapon against dissidents, is also being deployed by startups and advocacy groups against crime and exploitation. 

In fact, Deliver Fund, working with law enforcers and using the XIX's platform, is gearing up for an event that's known to spark an uptick in sex trafficking: The Super Bowl, slated to be held on Feb. 2 in Miami.

"We're taking all the skills that we've learned in the fight against terrorism and applying that to the fight against human trafficking here in the United States," McKinley told Business Insider.

For Mikhailov, sharing the XIX technology with McKinley's team is not about making money.  "We don't sell it to Deliver Fund," he said. "We do it for free."

Using AI to scan trafficking images

They're also applying XIX's AI-powered platform, which is able to quickly scan and analyze information on the web, specifically photos and images posted on social networks, porn and other sites where traffickers are known to look for customers.

"Those are very explicit imagery," Mikhailov told Business Insider. The XIX platform, he said, scans for "signals," or visual elements on images that are known to be associated with trafficking.

"Human trafficking has its own featured signals, meaning specific attributes," he said.

McKinley cited one example, tattoos.

"Human traffickers oftentimes will brand their victims as property," he said. "If you have a victim who has, say, a tattoo of a clown on her face and her trafficker's name tattooed right underneath it, we'll have the algorithm that can go out and find every other photo within the system that has that clown on it."

Deliver Fund shares the information they collect through the XIX platform and other methods with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. 

Their efforts have led to some dramatic successes. In 2018, they helped rescue a young woman in the southwest who was betrayed by a boyfriend by turning her over to a sex trafficker, who subjected her to horrific abuse. The girl escaped and went to the police who sought Deliver Fund's help in hunting down her traffickers. With the help of the XIX platform, Deliver Fund found them in days.

"A few days later, a SWAT team kicked in his front door and arrested him and freed the other girls that were in his custody," McKinley said.

Deliver Fund CEO and cofounder Nic McKinley Deliver Fund

A 'centralized brain' to fight human trafficking

A former CIA special agent and US Air Force pararescue instructor, McKinley said he launched Deliver Fund in 2014 after realizing a huge gap in the federal government's capabilities in fighting trafficking, McKinley said. 

While there's a federal agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), dedicated to fighting the illicit use and sale of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, which are legal commodities, no such infrastructure exists to fight a worse, and totally illegal activity, human trafficking, he said. 

"We have an entire government bureaucracy around fighting the illicit use and sale" of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, McKinley said. "You know, 100% of human trafficking is illegal, yet we don't have a single centralized brain for fighting the issue."

He started Deliver Fund with other veterans of the military and intelligence services, including the Navy SEALs and the National Security Agency. 

"We equip, train and advise law enforcement and regulatory authorities for their fight against human trafficking," he said. "We're able to do that because most of us are coming from an intelligence background."

'Okay, there's something new here'

The Vice documentary on McKinley mentioned Deliver Fund's work which caught Mikhailov's attention. He was intrigued, thinking, "This is a very important problem to work on, interesting from a technological perspective."

He emailed McKinley who quickly became impressed with XIX's technology. "I get hit up by companies routinely wanting us to use their technologies," he said. "I saw what he was actually doing. I was like, 'Okay, there's something new here that I haven't seen before that we actually desperately need."

What was new was XIX's ability to analyze fast and on a massive scale images associated with sex trafficking. "They had cracked the nut on data collection and computer visualization coming through on the same platform," he said. "That was something we really needed."

The XIX platform was particularly effective in analyzing online advertisements for purportedly legal services, such as massages or escorts and sex chats, but which sex traffickers use to find customers. 

"At the end of the day, the commercial sex advertisement is a starting point," he said. "It's not enough just to look at a commercial sex advertisement and and say, 'I believe this is human trafficking.' When you can start connecting those advertisements with other data coming out of social media or other databases, that's the true magic."

Other tools are able make those connections using text-based AI, he said. "But if you have a trafficker on Instagram, and he's just posting an Instagram photo, and there's no text, well, that becomes irrelevant data to those other platforms."

He said Mikhailov's team figured out how to "pull metadata that we'd never seen anybody pulling before and be able to use their algorithms to connect advertisements that we'd never seen anybody able to connect before."

Deliver Fund has also tried other tools that rely only on facial recognition technology, which is now commonly used by some law enforcement agencies in the search for known victims, McKinley said. 

But "a lot of the human trafficking victims have their faces covered or blurred out, because the traffickers are on to the fact that law enforcement is using facial recognition," he said. "Facial recognition doesn't work in those instances."

Because it's able to analyze more elements of an image beyond a person's face, the XIX platform has proven to be a more powerful tool, giving Deliver Fund the ability to "pull other things out and connect them across platforms."

Sex trafficking at the Super Bowl

The XIX platform has proven to be a critical tool in what has turned into an annual major anti-trafficking operation. 

As fans of the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs gear up for Super Bowl LIV in Miami, McKinley's team will be working with law enforcement agencies, to take on a loathsome fallout from the yearly football showdown: sex trafficking.

"Wherever a Super Bowl or a large sporting event in particular is being held, it attracts a large number of people who are there for something more than the event itself,"  McKinley said.

He used a military analogy to explain why the Super Bowl is an opportune time to target sex traffickers. "If you're in Afghanistan, and you have snipers on a hillside, you're not going to see them until they move, then that's when you see them. The Super Bowl is the incentive for these traffickers to move. And so it allows us to identify them."

The Super Bowl anti-trafficking operations actually highlighted the effectiveness of the XIX platform. The startup was not involved in the 2018 Super Bowl operation in Minneapolis which led to the arrest or identification of about 40 traffickers, McKinley said. 

But XIX became part of the anti-trafficking operation's arsenal in the 2019 Super Bowl in Atlanta. The platform helped Deliver Fund and law enforcers identify and build cases on 50 sex traffickers. More importantly, they were able to do so faster and with fewer staff.

"That's the beauty of the XIX platform, is it reduces the man-hours needed to build one of these cases," McKinley said.

Ultimately, operations similar to the ones conducted in connection with the Super Bowl are just a small part of a bigger and longer campaign, McKinley said. 

The business of human trafficking 

Human trafficking, which rakes in about $100 billion to $150 billion a year according to some estimates, is such a huge, global problem that it cannot be solved just by taking down individual traffickers.

"We are not going to arrest our way out of this problem," he said. To have a meaningful impact, he said, they need to focus on the tools and institutions used by the traffickers, such as banks and hotel chains.

Major human trafficking rings typically rely on banks and hotels to operate. Greg Switzer, vice president of Deliver Fund's commercial operations, said the organizations is also working with and sharing information on confirmed human trafficking groups with major financial institutions and hotels that may be inadvertently offering services to criminal organizations.

"They may be looking for a tool that meets some regulatory compliance needs," he told Business Insider. "They may want to protect their company from brand damage once association is made with their products and services involved with human trafficking."

McKinley said Deliver Fund has helped open money laundering investigations on 20 suspected human trafficking organizations.

"The way that we're going to solve this problem," he said, is to "permanently disrupt this market."

"If a human trafficker can't rent a hotel room, if they can't rent a car, if they can't open a bank account, then you know how difficult we just made it for them to make money," McKinley said. 

XIX founder and CEO Emil Mikhailov XIX

For Mikhailov, working with Deliver Fund, while not a money-making partnership, has been valuable in terms of developing its technology and defining the startup's direction.

Working with McKinley's team has given his team an opportunity to develop XIX's computer vision technology based on a real-world dynamic application. The startup, which has raised $2 million from angel investors, aims to be a leading AI-powered computer vision platform. 

One of their first investors is Arjun Bansal, founder of the AI startup Nervana, which was acquired by Intel in 2016  and who recently launched a new AI startup, XOKind. 

"Purely from a social good aspect, that's amazing what they're doing," Bansal told Business Insider. "I'm really happy as an investor to support that kind of work. With this product, it's always about keeping yourself open to finding where the product market fit is going to happen. So I think that continuing to explore that in a bunch of different domains and I think the outcome that they've seen with this engagement is really, really great."

XIX does have paying clients. One is a company that uses the tool to filter out "not-safe-for-work" images on its site. Another client is a fintech company that uses the tool to verify account holders to comply with anti-money laundering regulations.

AI for social good

XIX is a rare example of a startup deploying AI for social causes. Another is Hatebase, a Toronto-based startup which uses AI to monitor hate speech online, which has been used by the Sentinel Project, a nonprofit to assist vulnerable communities that are potential targets of violence and genocide. In 2017, the Sentinel Project, which is based in Canada, used other tools, including a heat map, to monitor false reports that a gang was about to attack some slum communities in Kenya.

Working with McKinley's team also speaks to how Mikhailove hopes to build XIX as an AI company. 

AI has also been used by federal agencies, such as ICE, or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to hunt down undocumented immigrants and refugees. Mikhailov said it's an area that his startup hopes to avoid. "It's not something that we feel comfortable with," he said.

Mikhailov also hopes XIX can go beyond the typical business uses of AI is now commonly deployed to generate leads or sales faster and more effectively.

XIX is aiming higher, Mikhailov said. His big hope for XIX, he said, is to "actually build a metric that translates to saving lives."

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

Original author: Benjamin Pimentel