"Fortnite" has added Batman and Catwoman from DC Comics as playable characters, the latest guest stars in a constantly growing roster of crossovers that includes "John Wick," "Stranger Things," and "Marvel's Avengers."

DC Comics celebrated Batman's 80th anniversary on September 22, and the "Fortnite" crossover event will run until October 6. Players can spend $20 or 2,000 v-bucks on the Caped Crusader Pack For to unlock two Batman outfits — one based on the comic books, and another based on "The Dark Knight" trilogy staring Christian Bale. The pack also includes a Batman-themed pick axe and glider.

The $20 Caped Crusader Pack includes all of these items. "Fortnite"/Epic Games

Read more: Teens are putting 'Fortnite' virtual money 'V-Bucks' at the top of their holiday wish lists

A separate Catwoman outfit is available for 1,500 v-bucks ($15) and her Cat's Claws can be purchased as a pick axe for 800 v-bucks. The Catwing glider and several Batman-style sprays can be unlocked for free by completing the Heroic Challenges before October 6.

Catwoman's items are not collected in a bundle. The outfit costs $15 alone. "Fortnite"/Epic Games

Batman and Catwoman aren't the first comic-book characters to join the cast of "Fortnite" — Epic games added outfits for Black Widow and Starlord from "Marvel's Avengers" earlier this year.

"Fortnite" has had more than half a dozen crossover events in 2019 and still has one of the most active player bases of any video game in the world. More than 250 million players have registered to play "Fortnite" since 2017, and the game earned $2.4 billion last year.

Typing on an iPad can be a frustrating affair. The faster your fingers fly, the more typos you make. And while all of the numbers and punctuation marks you find on a standard keyboard can be accessed when typing on an iPad, you have to cycle through several screens to locate many of them.

Pairing a wireless Apple Magic Keyboard to your iPad allows you to enjoy a standard typing experience with full-sized keys and ready access to all the numbers and symbols you use every day. And the process of connecting the Magic Keyboard takes all of 30 seconds.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPad (From $329.99 at Best Buy)

Apple Magic Keyboard (From $99.99 at Best Buy)

How to connect an Apple Magic Keyboard to your iPad

1. Turn the Magic Keyboard on via the rear switch — if the device is already on, switch it off, then on again, as this puts it into pairing mode.

Turn on your Magic Keyboard using the switch in the back. Apple

2. Open your iPad's Settings app.

3. Tap the "Bluetooth" tab.

4. Once it appears on the bottom of the next screen, tap "Keyboard" or "Magic Keyboard."

Once the "Keyboard" option appears for pairing, tap it. Steven John/Business Insider

Once your iPad says that the keyboard is "Connected," you're done.

The next time you type in an app, email, or text, enjoy typing on your full-sized keyboard rather than the screen.

Adam Neumann does not seem like the kind of person you'd want running a public company — or maybe any company at all.

But anyone who thinks removing him as WeWork's CEO is going to solve the company's problem and get its initial public offering back on track is seriously deluding him or herself.

The commercial real estate giant's fundamental problem is not that it has an entitled, hard partying, apparently self-dealing egomaniac as its head. Its core trouble is that it has a business model that just doesn't work.

By itself, replacing Neumann as CEO isn't going to change the fact that WeWork loses about a $1 for every $1 that it takes in revenue. Putting someone on the order of Jack Welch or Steve Jobs or even real estate titan Sam Zell at the helm at WeWork alone isn't going to change the fact that the company is burning through cash like a wildfire going through a California forest after a seven-year drought and is on track to run out of money as soon as this spring.

And getting rid of Neumann isn't going to alter the fact that WeWork has an order of magnitude mismatch between what it owes its landlords in coming years and what its tenants are committed to paying for its services.

This is a company that — at least as it stands now — has a fatally flawed business. The only reason it's stayed operating as long as it has is because investors were foolish enough — or so entranced by Neumann's cult-leader-like personality — to keep pouring copious amounts of cash into it to the tune of nearly $13 billion.

Read more: WeWork's competitors are scrambling to distance themselves from the co-working giant, but many are following the same script

Removing Neumann might make some lenders and investors more comfortable with putting even more money into the company. But unless WeWork's new leadership overhauls the company's basic business model, the coworking giant's not going to be any more likely to survive into the future than it is now.

Scrutiny of Neumann has been increasing

It's no surprise that the board is considering removing Neumann. He has long inspired skepticism even as he built WeWork into a real estate titan with a $47 billion private valuation and an immense portfolio of leased office space. He has drawn increasing amounts of scrutiny in recent months amid a series of revelations about his personal finances and dealings with the company.

By selling stock and borrowing against his WeWork shares, Neumann has cashed in some $700 million of his holdings in the company. He made millions more by buying stakes in buildings and leasing space in them to WeWork and by registering the "We" trademark and selling it to the company.

Meanwhile, the company e mployed at least two of his relatives and gave his wife the power to help name his successor should he die or become incapacitated. And it set up a corporate structure right before it made its IPO paperwork public that insulates him from outside shareholders and can shift the tax burden on future profits from him to them.

After such deals and arrangements raised eyebrows among investors, WeWork and Neumann made a few changes. He agreed to return the money he made on the trademark and to accept some limitations on his ability to profit from the buildings leased to WeWork. His wife was removed from her role in succession planning. And Neumann agreed to reduce his voting power from 20 votes per share to 10 votes per share.

But a Wall Street Journal article last week raised fresh concerns about Neumann's fitness to lead WeWork. The article included anecdotes about Neumann's substance use and seemingly capricious and chaotic management style.

Read more: JPMorgan and UBS private wealth execs explain why they're doing more private share-backed lending to Silicon Valley. Both banks have lent to WeWork CEO Adam Neumann.

Neumann was forced to find his own way home from Israel after the flight deck of the private plane that flew him there found a stash of marijuana left there, presumably for the ride home, according to the article. Executive meetings and company parties involved prodigious amounts of tequila, the Journal reported. And the company held a booze-soaked party immediately after Neumann held a meeting to discuss his decision to lay off 7% of WeWork's staff.

In the wake of that article — and WeWork's scuttled IPO, which it postponed even before the article amid Wall Street resistance — the company's investors and board reportedly began discussing Neumann's future role at the company. The board is meeting this week to figure out what to do. Among other things, it's reportedly considering forcing Neumann to step down as WeWork's CEO, possibly to remain as its non-executive chairman.

Uber offers a cautionary tale

Forcing Neumann out could be a positive step. When Uber made a similar move two years ago, first ousting founder Travis Kalanick as its CEO and then replacing him with Dara Khosrowshahi, it led to something of a corporate makeover. Uber settled a legal dispute with Google spin-off Waymo, restructured its corporate governance, fired a slew of people for sexual harassment, and vowed to be a better corporate citizen. Crucially for investors, it eventually was able to complete its long-awaited public offering.

Dara Khosrowshahi replaced Travis Kalanick as Uber's CEO but has been unable to fix the company's business model. Carlo Allegri/Reuters But Uber's experience also serves as a cautionary tale for WeWork. Because replacing Kalanick with Khosrowshahi didn't fix Uber's underlying business problems. The app-based taxi company is still losing billions of dollars and burning through huge amounts of cash. Khosrowshahi has proven no better than Kalanick at figuring out a sustainable business model. If anything, his task has become more difficult amid sustained competition, growing regulation, and increasing unrest among Uber's drivers.

Read more: JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon met with WeWork's Adam Neumann this weekend to hash out how to get its botched IPO back on track

And Uber's job is arguably much easier than WeWork's. After all, Uber is basically a technology service. Although it duplicates a taxi business, it doesn't own cars or employ drivers, at least not yet. It just provides a kind of online marketplace that connects riders with drivers. And eBay showed nearly two decades ago that operating a marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers of goods or services can be a significantly profitable business.

But unlike Uber, WeWork has few real claims to being a technology business at heart. Its basic business is leasing space from building owners on long-term leases, subdividing those spaces, and then subleasing them to other companies on much shorter-term deals. It's had to spend billions of dollars leasing space — and has had to commit to spending billions more in the future so that it can keep growing. It's also had to spend billions of dollars building out and furnishing those spaces.

Read more: WeWork cofounders Adam and Rebekah Neumann are close friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and invited them to Rebekah's extravagant 40th birthday bash in Italy

It's not unusual for commercial real-estate companies to invest a lot of money upfront. But typically such companies are buying buildings or are building out spaces for long-term tenants.

Some big numbers point to WeWork's problems

That's not the case with WeWork. It owns exceedingly few of the buildings it leases out. And its tenants aren't committed for the long-term. Even after WeWork has stated to sign more large companies as tenants and pushed its members to sign longer deals, the average WeWork customer is still only committed to being in its space for 15 months.

WeWork has spent billions of dollars leasing and furnishing office spaces. WeWork The basic problem with WeWork's business can be seen in just two pairs of numbers:

The first set of numbers represent the total amount WeWork has committed to paying its landlords on its leases on into the future and the average length of time of the leases it has signed.

The second set of numbers represents the commitments WeWork's tenants have made under deals they've signed with the company and the average length of time of its tenants' deals.

Read more: The CEO of $1 billion WeWork rival Knotel says the idea of coworking is 'over'

A new CEO is going to have a likely impossible time closing the gap on those numbers without either fundamentally changing WeWork's business model or dramatically scaling back not only its growth, but its current operations and lease commitments.

And there's another set of numbers that together represent a much more urgent problem than whoever's name is on the door of the CEO suite: $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion.

The first number is the amount of cash WeWork had on hand in June. The second is the amount of cash it burned through in the first half of this year.

At that pace, WeWork could be out of cash by early May. With the IPO on ice for now and, with it, a promised $6 billion credit line, WeWork's CEO is going to have to figure out how to find more money to keep the business afloat — or how to make some huge cuts to save what cash is left.

Read this: There are 6 billion very good reasons for WeWork to go public this year, even though Wall Street doesn't want it

WeWork needs a massive makeover

While massive change could help WeWork stay in business, it's unclear whether the company's existing investors, such as SoftBank, can stomach such a radical overhaul. The promise of WeWork — what helped it garner a $47 billion valuation in the first place — was that it was essentially a tech company with the growth to match. Eventually — once it got big enough — it would be able to show the kinds of returns that other former money losers like Amazon now deliver.

Recognizing that WeWork is really in the real estate business and needs to reshape its business to focus less on tech-like growth and more on boring things like operating expenses and lease costs is certain to further depress its already deflated valuation. After all, IWG, a coworking pioneer that's around the same size as WeWork and actually profitable, trades at less than $4 billion.

Read more: 3 VC investors in flex-space startups slam WeWork's governance and leadership as its valuation crumbles

SoftBank, which is trying to raise a second $100 billion VisionFund, is reportedly loath to write down its investment in WeWork to even $15 billion or $20 billion. Taking it down even further may be out of the question.

Maybe another CEO, one who isn't the founder and isn't so personally tied to the company as it is, might have the kind of perspective to tackle all of WeWork's problems — how to placate investors such as SoftBank, how to get costs and revenue more in line, how to build a sustainable business.

But by itself, replacing Neumann CEO doesn't solve WeWork's problems. And no one should let themselves be fooled into thinking that it does.

Got a tip about WeWork or another 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 @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Although they're not for everyone, the enduring popularity of tablets stands as a testament to their appeal. Tablets inhabit a middle zone between a smartphone and a laptop, giving you more computer-like capabilities for work and entertainment without the bulk. Apple virtually pioneered the tablet market and still leads the way with its excellent iPad lineup.

Apple hardware can get pretty expensive, but the good news is that compared to other tablets, iPads actually aren't terribly pricey. There is certainly a plethora of cheap Android tablets available today, including the very budget-friendly Kindle Fire lineup, but you'll typically pay around the same price for most iPad models as you would for a good name-brand Android tablet.

Apple's tablet family runs the gamut in pricing from as low as $250 for a standard iPad to around $1,900 for the latest iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles, so whatever you're looking to spend, there's probably an iPad out there for you. Below, we've rounded up all of the current iPad models available online right now so you can find the right Apple tablet for your needs and budget.

For more shopping advice, check out our full buying guide to the best iPads.

*Prices may vary as iPads go on sale. Prices are also based on the lowest amount of storage available.

Updated on 09/23/2019 by Monica Chin: Added the new 10.2-inch iPad (2019). Updated prices and formatting.

Google Hangouts is a tool that can help connect teams or companies through text chats and video meetings. And when it comes to sharing vital information, recording those meetings can be a valuable tool to add to your arsenal.

Recording a Google Hangouts meeting is great for people who can't attend the meeting when it happens. Once it's recorded, you can send out a link to those who weren't able to attend the meeting, and thus be sure everyone knows what's going on.

Before you get started, you should be aware that the ability to record a Google Hangout is only available in the G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise Education editions, which are paid subscription services.

For more information on which G Suite memberships have what features, see our article, "'What is Google Meet?': A guide to Google's professional video-conferencing service, including pricing options and how to join a meeting."

Assuming you have one of those two memberships, here's what you'll need to do to record in Google Hangout:

How to record a Google Hangouts session

The process is simple:

1. Start or join a video meeting — if you don't have a link to the meeting, go to hangouts.google.com and then start the meeting by pressing "Video Call."

If you need to start a video conference, you can do so from the Hangouts homepage. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

2. If you're creating a new meeting without a guest list, invite the participants by clicking the "People" button in the top-right corner, clicking "Add People," and then typing their email addresses into the pop-up window.

Hangouts will automatically suggest inviting people in your contacts. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

3. Once you're ready to start the meeting, click the three dots in the lower-right corner of the screen.

4. Select "Record meeting."

Once you've opened the three dot menu, you can start recording. William Antonelli/Business Insider

After that, simply wait for the recording to start. Anyone in the meeting will get a notification that the meeting is being recorded, as well as another notification when the recording stops.

To stop the recording, click the three dots again and select "Stop recording." It takes about ten minutes or so for the recording file to be generated. Once it is, the video will be saved to the meeting organizer's Google Drive, in a folder labeled "Meet Recordings."

The organizer will also get an email letting them know when the recording is ready, including a link to the recording.

How to play, save, or share a Google Hangout recording

To play or share the recording, simply double-click the file link in Google Drive. Or if you get the email, click the included link, wait for it to open, and then select whether you want to play it immediately, share it, or save it to your Drive.

For those who aren't the organizer, the event link in Google Calendar will automatically be updated so it leads to the recorded video file.

Netflix lost some major Emmy awards on Sunday to HBO and Amazon Prime Video, marking another year when the streaming giant failed to land a series win.

HBO's "Game of Thrones" and "Chernobyl" won the Emmy for best drama series, beating Netflix's "Bodyguard" and "Ozark," which won the prize for best directing for a drama series. Heading into Sunday night, Netflix's "When They See Us" was a favorite to win the award for best limited series, but lost to its biggest competition, HBO's "Chernobyl."

Prime Video dominated the comedy category, including a best comedy series win for "Fleabag," beating Netflix's "Russian Doll."

READ MORE: We compared Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO to find the best service for every kind of viewer

But Netflix makes up for those losses in other ways and doesn't necessarily need a series Emmy win to prove its worth.

With over 150 million subscribers worldwide, 60 million of which are in the US, Netflix is the streaming champion. And its TV library is still stronger than most of its competition.

Netflix has 1,966 total shows available to stream, second only to Prime Video in terms of streaming services, according to data from streaming search-engine Reelgood provided to Business Insider. Netflix has the most original shows of its competition by far and is expected to spend up to $15 billion this year on content.

"When They See Us" Netflix

And when it comes to high-quality TV shows, Hulu and Netflix are neck-and-neck, according to the data. Hulu has 213 high-quality shows while Netflix has 203. Reelgood defined a high-quality show as any with an 8 rating or higher on IMDb.

READ MORE: We compared Netflix's top assets to new rivals like Disney Plus and HBO Max as the streaming battle heats up

But Hulu and Amazon Prime Video have still never been the kind of Emmys powerhouse that Netflix is (despite Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale" winning a series Emmy).

Netflix won 27 Emmys total this year (including the Creative Arts Emmys), second only to HBO. And while HBO reclaimed the crown this year, Netflix beat HBO in the number of Emmy nominations last year and tied for the most wins.

While Netflix is in a solid place right now, it could become more vulnerable in the near future.

As Business Insider's Ashley Rodriguez wrote, Netflix's second-place Emmys status came at at a time when the streaming battle is dramatically heating up with incoming competition from Apple (Apple TV Plus), Disney (Disney Plus), WarnerMedia (HBO Max), and NBCUniversal (Peacock).

A recent search for lipstick on Amazon showed a Revlon ad at the top of the page that promoted a pack of themed lipsticks created with Amazon for the Prime Video show "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." Underneath that ad, a Burt's Bees lipstick was labeled as an "Amazon's Choice" product, helping it appear high up in search results. Further down the page, an "editorial recommendations" section showed lipsticks picked by InStyle magazine as part of an Amazon affiliate program, followed by lipsticks that offer quick shipping through Amazon Prime.

The example shows how Amazon's approach to advertising is getting harder for advertisers to navigate.

After years of Amazon testing and adding new ad formats and retail placements on its platform, some advertisers now say it's getting harder for them to stand out.

Advertisers are increasingly looking to Amazon as an alternative to Facebook and Google, which dominate digital advertising, and such challenges could dampen Amazon's growth as it starts to build out its advertising business.

Some of Amazon's tests, like mobile video ads, are available for advertisers to buy. Others support Amazon's own private-label products and programs like Amazon's Choice that are run by Amazon's retail teams and are not available to advertisers.

"It makes it hard for an advertiser to figure out how to best position their brand because it's largely out of their control," Travis Johnson, the head of Dentsu Aegis Network's Amazon-focused arm Sellwin Consulting, said. "It feels as though lots of brands are getting hijacked at the last minute by all of these labels and badges across their products."

Read more: Inside Amazon's growing ad business: Everything we know about how the e-commerce giant is making inroads with marketers

A spokesperson for Amazon pushed back on the idea that its promotions and retail programs hurt advertisers, pointing to 150 new tools the company has rolled out this year to help third-party sellers. The tools include new bidding controls and dashboards that sellers can use to promote their products.

"We continue adding tools to help selling partners maximize advertising effectiveness," the spokesperson said. "We're also creating more opportunities for brands to focus on storytelling — helping customers to easily shop for and discover brands in our store, in the same way we work to make it easy for them to find, discover, and buy great products from across our vast selection."

Brands have to fend off competitors on Amazon

In interviews with a handful of agencies, sources named a few new placements that show how the number of placements on Amazon are growing and getting harder to cut through.

For example, a placement being tested called posts shows a carousel of recommended items that users can browse and buy from product pages. Sellers cannot pay for their products to appear in the carousel, but Johnson said he expected that would change and that advertisers would eventually have to pay if they wanted to keep competitors from showing their own products.

Another example is a new ad format called sponsored display that uses machine learning to target shoppers. The ad format shows up on Amazon product pages — including those of the advertiser's competition — and on external publishers' websites.

Melissa Burdick, the president of Pacvue, which helps brands buy Amazon ads programmatically, estimated that about 30% of the copy on a seller's product page actually ends up promoting other products. It's formats like these that Amazon often tests and introduces, making it hard for advertisers to keep up, she said.

"There's no announcement, it just rolls out — the bigger challenge is explaining that to executives who aren't in it every day," she said.

Ad prices are a mixed bag for advertisers

With more placements in search results and on product pages, agencies are seeing a mixed bag in pricing.

Marin Software found that prices for sponsored brands and sponsored products, two of Amazon's most popular ad formats, have decreased over the past year. In August, the average cost per click of Amazon's ads was $1.17, down from $1.46 in the same month last year, according to the company.

But John Ghiorso, the founder and CEO of Amazon's ad agency Orca Pacific, said the cost per click for all Amazon ad formats has increased by a low-double-digit percentage over the past year.

"The easy wins that a lot of brands could get two or three years ago by just showing up are not nearly as available," he said.

Advertisers are learning new ways to hack Amazon

Ghiorso said advertisers were increasingly using vendors to help them navigate Amazon's ad business. Amazon even put out a directory to help advertisers find such companies.

"If you look hard enough and are sophisticated enough, there's still a lot of positive ROI opportunity there — it just isn't staring itself in the face like it used to be," he said.

Orca Pacific has used third-party tools to do sophisticated targeting like dayparting. It found that the best time to advertise toys on Amazon was between 6 and 9 p.m., when parents are home, for example.

Another agency, Mindshare, tried to hack Amazon's algorithm of recommended products. The agency worked with Cheerios to offer a free box of cereal to shoppers who spent more than $40 on Amazon Prime Day in 2018. Sending out the boxes got Cheerios to be a "recommended" product on Amazon that appears at the top of searches for "cereal."

"It is only too crowded if the message being delivered to you is not customized to what you want," Jeff Malmad, the executive director and lead at Shop Plus at Mindshare US, said.

Earlier this month, Apple unveiled its newest iPhones: the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

In theory, these each have a predecessor. The iPhone 11 is the new generation of the iPhone XR, the iPhone 11 Pro is the new iPhone XS, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max is the new iPhone XS Max.

But if you own an iPhone XS, you may be considering upgrading to the iPhone 11 instead of the iPhone 11 Pro. After all, the iPhone 11 is $300 cheaper, comes in more colors, and sports almost all of the same high-end specs as the 11 Pro.

Here's the tl;dr. The iPhone 11 is $300 cheaper. Both phones have a dual-camera setup, but the components differ, with the iPhone 11 sporting an ultra-wide lens where the iPhone XS has a telephoto lens. The iPhone 11 has a longer battery life, a better front shooter, and an upgraded processor. The iPhone XS, meanwhile, has a better screen (an OLED, where the iPhone 11 has an LCD), smaller bezels, and a slimmer design (5.8 inches to the iPhone 11's 6.1, and 7.7 millimeters thickness to the iPhone 11's 8.3).

But what do these specs actually mean? Below, we've broken down the key differences between these two flagship phones. We've also included four reasons why most people should stick with their iPhone XS and two reasons why photography enthusiasts may be an exception.

If you're upgrading from a device that's more than a year old, you may be torn between upgrading to the iPhone XS and upgrading to the iPhone 11. On that front...

Apple includes several Accessibility features which make it easier for everyone — especially users with low vision, hearing, and limited motor skills — to navigate the iPhone easily and conveniently.

VoiceOver changes the way iPhone gestures work and will also give you audible screen descriptions. This way, you know what something is going to do before you tap on or select it, so you can control your iPhone with confidence even if you can't see the screen.

There are many ways to customize the VoiceOver feature, but here are the major changes to your iPhone when VoiceOver is enabled:

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

How to turn on VoiceOver mode on an iPhone

1. Start the Settings app.

2. Tap "General."

3. Tap "Accessibility."

To find VoiceOver, open the Accessibility page. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. On the Accessibility page, tap "VoiceOver."

5. Turn on VoiceOver by swiping the button to the right.

When you turn on VoiceOver, ordinary gestures change, so be sure you know how to navigate around your iPhone. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

6. A pop-up appears that warns that the way gestures work will change if you turn on VoiceOver. Tap each part of the pop-up to hear it read aloud. To continue, double-tap "OK."

You can fine-tune the way VoiceOver works using the other settings on this page. You can control the speed at which VoiceOver reads text aloud using the Speaking Rate slider, for example.

How to turn off VoiceOver mode on an iPhone

1. Start the Settings app (tap the Settings app to choose it, then double tap to open the app).

2. Tap "General" to choose it, and then double-tap to open it.

3. Tap "Accessibility" to choose it, and then double-tap to open it.

4. Tap "VoiceOver." Then double-tap to turn it off.

Other ways to turn VoiceOver on or off

There are several other ways to turn VoiceOver on and off:

You can enable or disable VoiceOver from the Control Center. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

WeWork's original plan to go public collapsed this month after intense scrutiny and lacking investor interest threatened the company's ability to raise the $3 billion necessary to access its $6 billion credit line.

Since the company publicly filed its IPO paperwork in August, WeWork's spiraling losses, corporate governance, and the behavior and business dealings of its eccentric CEO have been increasingly criticized, eventually leading it to shelve its plan to go public until at least October.

Top staffers continue to pour out of the company. CEO and cofounder Adam Neumann was criticized for potential conflicts of interest after filings revealed that he owned buildings used by WeWork spaces and rented them back to the company, and also paid himself for the trademark rights to the word "We."

This past month, arguably the worst in its history, has seen the company scramble to make changes in an attempt to reclaim investor interest and salvage its IPO. Now, WeWork's largest outside investor is pushing the board to consider removing Neumann as CEO. To bring you up to speed, here's everything that happened at WeWork since its publicly filed its paperwork to go public.

After months of grim headlines and an exodus of top staffers at WeWork, the office-sharing startup may be on the verge of losing another key employee before the end of September: its CEO, Adam Neumann.

The news that some of WeWork's investors and board members want to fire Neumann comes in response to the CEO's bizarre management style, reports of his possible drug use, and a year in which the startup's valuation dropped to below $20 billion from $47 billion in January. WeWork planned to go public this month, but the company has since shelved its IPO until later this year.

While these factors are unique, the possible ouster itself is part of a growing tradition in tech: Nearly a dozen of the largest tech startups in recent memory have seen their founders pushed out.

The trend represents a tension that repeatedly surfaces between tech founders and their companies: Wunderkind startup founders capture investors' attention with bold ideas and eccentric management strategies, but those assets can quickly become liabilities in the eyes of shareholders, especially with billions of dollars on the line.

Here's a look back at nine founders who were forced out of the tech companies they started.

Meira Gebel and Kevin Webb contributed to an earlier version of this post.

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The Apple Watch's always-on display is undoubtedly its most compelling feature. All of Apple's watch faces have been optimized to work in always-on mode, which made the experience feel consistent whether the display was activated or not.

This is a noticeable departure from the approach Fitbit has taken with its always-on display on the $200 Versa 2, which shows the time, battery level, and two key fitness metrics of your choosing.

Fitbit does allow you to customize the always-on display, for example, so you can choose whether to show an analog or digital clockface and select which fitness statistics to display.

But it's not as comprehensive as Apple's, which can serves up most of the information that would be normally visible as a complication on the clock face. The switch between always-on mode and standard mode on Fitbit's Versa 2 also doesn't feel as natural as it does on the Apple Watch.

That's because the always-on clock face on the Versa 2 is different than Fitbit's normal watch faces, which means you're most likely moving from the always on display that tells the time to the regular clock face which provides very similar information. The Apple Watch Series 5, comparatively, just brightens up and makes some other minor changes to the existing watch face, which feels more seamless. 

When your Apple Watch kicks into  always-on display mode, you'll notice a few changes. The screen becomes dimmer and certain metrics that refresh often — such as the seconds hand on an analog watch face — are suspended. The time and complications shown on the watch face update once per minute, and complications that show live data become inactive. That also means dynamic watch faces like Breathe and Vapor are essentially reduced to a basic analog clock when in always-on mode.

When you raise your wrist to wake the watch, the screen will brighten and those suspended metrics will resume.

I find the always-on display to be particularly useful as I'm working throughout the day, since it allows me to glance down at my wrist while typing to see how much progress I've made on my activity rings without interrupting my workflow. It's also helpful in movie theaters since you can keep track of the time without the display becoming disruptively bright. 

But if you leave an app open on the watch, the always-on screen will only show the time. You'll notice the currently opened app will fade out of focus so that the content on screen is indistinguishable, and the time will be displayed in the top right corner. 

It's not just watch faces that work in always-on mode: workouts remain on screen too, making it easier to see metrics mid-exercise without having to raise your wrist to wake the watch.

I only wish, however, that timers worked in always-on mode. I often like to set timers during my workouts or when I'm cooking, two scenarios in which having an always-on display is particularly useful. When I was holding a plank position during a workout, for example, it would have been great to see how much time was left on my 30-second timer.

It's an understandable omission considering the Apple Watch lowers the refresh rate of its screen to 1Hz when in always-on mode to preserve battery, making it challenging to display metrics that quickly refresh such as seconds on a timer. 

That's not to say it's impossible to use a timer on the Apple Watch in always-on mode. You can do so as a complication on the watch face, but that means you need to be using a watch face that offers that option. Time complications such as the timer and stopwatch also round their displayed information to the nearest minute when in always-on mode, so if you're using it to keep track of seconds during a workout it may not be as useful anyhow.

Here's a closer look at what Apple's watch faces look like in always-on mode on the Series 5. 

Read more: Apple's iPhone 11 launch is proof that the smartphone industry is going through a massive change

Saudi Arabia is building a futuristic mega-city 33 times the size of New York City from scratch.

Saudi officials describe it as "the world's most ambitious project."

It's called Neom, a planned 16-borough city on the Red Sea coast in the northwestern Saudi province of Tabuk.

Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg in October 2018 that Neom will be completed in 2025, and phase one is nearing completion.

Here's everything we know about it so far

When open source developer Seth Vargo found out that his software was being used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he decided to make his disapproval known.

Vargo previously worked at Chef, an automation software startup, and he had been hosting Ruby Gems — an open source packages of code and documentation — on his personal account. Chef's software had been relying on Vargo's Ruby Gems for its software to run.

Vargo, who left Chef in 2014, recently learned that Chef had a contract with ICE through Twitter, and then he verified it on USAspending.gov, as well as with current and former Chef employees.

"I discovered that my code was being included in a distribution used by ICE, which I personally believe to be evil," Vargo told Business Insider.

So on Thursday morning, Vargo removed several Ruby Gems from his own account.

That resulted in an outage for some of Chef's customers because Chef's software depended on these gems being available. Chef had an all-hands meeting on Thursday afternoon, and the team worked to restore services for its customers.

Now, Chef CTO Corey Scobie says, the Ruby Gems have been restored to their original state, and as a company, Chef is focusing on its customers' health and success.

The tech industry's ties to ICE has already caused controversy and turmoil for companies like Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce, as company employees and outsiders have protested and called for contracts to be scrapped.

But the incident with Chef reveals a new, perhaps more intractable risk for tech companies whose products often rely on building blocks made of open source software that's outside their control. As Chef discovered, a company's employees are not the only group with the power to react to controversial business practices — and even a small change to an open source component can create ripples that cause chaos for the business.

"Yesterday we were faced with a significant and serious customer event that was the result of actions that were taken outside of our immediate span of control," Scobie told Business Insider. "We weren't consulted before those actions were taken. Our employees rallied around putting our customers first and making sure we repair the damage that was done to the employee ecosystem."

'This decision is not about contract value'

Chef CEO Barry Crist wrote in a blog post and email to the company that Chef started working with ICE during the previous administration "to modernize their IT practices." Regardless of whether they personally agree with their policies, Crist says he made a "principled decision" with the support of the Chef executive team to work with government institutions.

"I want to be clear that this decision is not about contract value — it is about maintaining a consistent and fair business approach in these volatile times," Crist wrote. "I do not believe that it is appropriate, practical, or within our mission to examine specific government projects with the purpose of selecting which U.S. agencies we should or should not do business. My goal is to continue growing Chef as a company that transcends numerous U.S. presidential administrations."

Crist also wrote that he disagrees with such policies, saying, "I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country." Scobie echoed these sentiments.

"I think generally speaking, on an emotional level, a lot of people, Barry and myself included, are quite distraught with what's happening with ICE in particular with the actions of the current administration in our government," Scobie said.

Chef had been working with ICE since 2015. Scobie says that originally, the Department of Homeland Security was using Chef's open source software before becoming a contracted customer.

"For context, we began working with DHS and ICE during the Obama administration to modernize their IT and to the best of our knowledge, no Chef software is being used in systems that further the separation of parents and children at the US border," Scobie said.

According to USAspending.gov, ICE awarded a $95,500 contract to C&C International Computers & Consultants, which uses Chef software licenses. This year-long contract began on Aug. 29. Chef had previously had another contract with ICE that started in 2015.

Scobie also says that in the past, the company had several discussions on its position around ICE's contract, and Chef decided to accept this contract. He says employees have had mixed opinions.

"There's lots of opinions about both the correctness and the business relationship and also the ethics and the moral angles to it," Scobie said. "One of the things we value at Chef is to have open, anonymous dialogue, and that's certainly something we attempted to have on this particular topic."

Later on Friday, Scobie published a blog post further expressing his personal views: "I thought we as an executive team had shown empathy for the issues at hand, but it is clear now as I reflect that it wasn't nearly enough. I'm committed to doing a better job of being personally transparent - starting with my own team in the coming days," he wrote.

'Software used for evil'

Before yanking the Ruby Gems, Vargo said that initially, he explored options for changing Chef's software license. However, open source licenses allow people to use the software however they want, and groups cannot be prohibited from using it.

Vargo says that since he removed the Ruby Gems, Chef had not contacted him.

"I don't feel comfortable having my name and software used for evil," Vargo said. "...I think the community's response echoes louder than any words I could provide."

As for Chef, Scobie says the team is evaluating vulnerabilities and the code it depends on to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.

"Our goal will be to reduce that footprint and close that gap as much as humanly possible," Scobie said. "That's our goal to provide a stable computing environment..."Ultimately at the end of the day, we're depending on many many downstream things that are out of our control and could have vulnerabilities. That's the nature of open source. It's a web of dependencies."

Read more:$360 million IT automation startup Chef is 'bucking' a 'distinct trend' in open source software with a big bet on making all of its products totally free

Although working with ICE has been controversial in the tech industry, Scobie says he's not worried about it impacting Chef's business.

"I think we have seen no evidence at this point to suggest that there's a business risk at play here," Scobie said. "Our customers are extremely happy with our response to the outage that was caused yesterday and how we've been dealing with it in the past 24 hours."

Do you work at Chef? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

There's no rallying cry like the idea that the US government is hiding evidence of aliens.

Almost 2 million people signed up on Facebook to storm Area 51 on Friday, and another 1.5 million said they were "interested" (whatever that means). Amid warnings from the US government, the college student who created the event changed it to a music festival.

About 75 people showed up to the police-enforced Area 51 boundary early Friday, and a total of about 1,500 actually traveled to the area.

"It started as a joke, but it's not a joke for us," guitarist Alon Burton told the AP. "We know people will come out. We just don't know how many."

Area 51 is a high-security Air Force base in Nevada, but its secretive nature has given rise to various conspiracy theories about extraterrestrials over the years. The belief that evidence of alien visitors has been hidden from the American public extends beyond Area 51, though: It can be traced back over 70 years, to Roswell, New Mexico.

An unidentified flying balloon

In July 1947, a mysterious aircraft made of thin metal foil crashed in a ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico during a thunderstorm. The US Air Force quickly collected the debris for examination. The local newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, reported that a "flying disk" or "flying saucer" had been found at the ranch.

Jesse Marcel, a local Air Force head intelligence officer, who initially investigated and recovered some of the debris from the Roswell UFO site 1947.Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Air Force said the debris was from a weather balloon. But in the early 1980s, a former nuclear physicist named Stanton Friedman stumbled across the 1947 news story. Friedman was convinced that the strange weather balloon had been an alien spacecraft, and that alien bodies had been inside.

He claimed the Air Force had covered up the whole thing ⁠— a "cosmic Watergate," in Friedman's words.

Friedman got others riled up about Roswell: People filed Freedom of Information Act requests, held conferences about the incident, and published books about the crash.

A group of protesters marches in front of the General Accounting Office (GAO) in Washington, DC on March 29, 1995. Joshua Roberts/AFP/Getty Images

The outcry spurred New Mexico Rep. Steven Schiff to request an audit of government records on the Roswell incident from the Air Force's General Accounting Office (GAO).

The GAO released a tell-all report in September 1994. The flying object, it turned out, was a top-secret government surveillance balloon. It was part of "Project Mogul," a surveillance effort that used high-altitude balloons to listen for the reverberations of Soviet nuclear-testing blasts.

A different kind of cover-up

Project Mogul was led by geophysicist Maurice Ewing, who proposed a system of sound-detecting aircraft to monitor distant nuclear blasts, according to a 1994 report in The New York Times.

The Mogul team successfully detected a Soviet nuclear detonation before the project was cancelled in 1950. The project pioneered the use of polyethelene balloons, according to the Times, which are used today to lift scientific instruments into the upper atmosphere. The balloons proved too difficult to use for nuclear surveillance, however, since strong winds could easily push them out of range for radio communications.

For its report, the GAO interviewed Project Mogul personnel as well as a person who helped recover the debris from the Roswell crash site in 1947. Investigators also reviewed archived Air Force records, photos, and blueprints related to the project, as well as one of the actual balloons.

Despite all of this evidence about the true story of the Roswell incident, a 1997 CNN-Time poll found that 80% of Americans believed the government was hiding knowledge of alien life.

A portion of the site where a vehicle crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 is marked with flowers and two small flags.Reuters Photographer

"This won't lay it to rest," Albert Trakowski, an Air Force officer who ran Project Mogul, told the Times when the GAO report came out. "The psychology is simple: People believe what they want to believe. In New Mexico, flying-saucerism has become a minor industry. There are whole museums dedicated to the presentation of outrageous fictions."

Today the Roswell still boasts a local museum and festival dedicated to the incident. Area 51, similarly, offers visitors alien-themed lodging, and there's even a legal brothel called the Alien Cathouse.

In late 2013, WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and his wife made a splashy purchase befitting his rising status as a major player in the New York real estate market — a $10.5 million townhouse in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

The couple soon got to work remaking the property, hiring contractors for a $6.5 million project to extensively renovate it. Within a few years, though, the work on the Neumann's dream home became embroiled in bitter battles, with contractors complaining about unpaid bills.

The disagreements got so bad that four different contractors collectively filed legal documents, or liens, charging that the Neumanns owed them money and staking a claim to the value of the townhome. All told, the contractors alleged the Neumanns owed them a combined $1.1 million.

At least two of the disputes, involving more than $1 million of that amount, have either been settled or appear to have been. It's unclear what happened with the other two disputes.

The attorney that represented the Neumanns in at least one of their legal battles with contractors did not return a call seeking comment. WeWork representatives did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The contractor disputes occurred as Adam Neumann was cashing in on his WeWork stake to the tune of a reported $700 million through stock sales and taking out loans, using his shares in the company as collateral.

The existence of the liens, which has not previously been reported, comes as questions around Neumann's character and judgement have unnerved investors and clouded WeWork's IPO prospects. Neumann's history of cashing out his WeWork shares as well as controversial transactions such as the company paying Neumann $6 million to buy the "We" brand from him, have become red flags to critics of WeWork, which at one point was valued by private investors at $47 billion.

WeWork has since announced a series of governance changes, including curtailing some of Neumann's power and reimbursing the $6 million We deal, but it still ended up delaying its IPO earlier this week.

The Neumanns wanted to transform their $10.5 million townhome

The Neumanns' battles with contractors all revolved renovation work done to their townhome, a four-story edifice built in 1847, the purchase of which was big news in the New York real estate world at the time. The listing for the building, posted online prior to the sale to the couple, describes and shows an elegant home, with large sitting rooms, a glassed-in sun room, and a small patio in back.

The Neumann's renovation plan called for combining the townhome's two units into one large one. Google Maps However grand the 5,186 square foot townhome may have been when they purchased it, the Neumanns decided to completely transform it. Their plan was to combine its two units into one jumbo-sized one, expand, the footprint of the building, and raise its height, according to a response the couple filed to a lawsuit over alleged unpaid bills. They also planned to replace a staircase, adding touches such as new fireplaces, and upgrade the electrical and plumbing systems, according to the court documents.

The cost of all that work, which appears to have started in 2014, soon became the subject of some bitter battles. Four different contractors ended up taking legal action to try to compel the Neumanns to pay their alleged outstanding bills.

The disputed amounts included:

The liens were filed against the townhome, not the Neumanns by name. Iridium's lawsuit was filed against an entity called Residence 72 LLC. In 2016, the Neumanns transferred the deed and mortgage to Residence 72, according to New York City property records. The New York Secretary of State's office doesn't list an owner for Residence 72, but lists as its contact person a WeWork attorney. In its suit, Iridium alleged that Residence 72 was essentially the Neumanns by another name; the suit says that the Neumanns transferred money to Residence 72 for the renovation project.

According to Iridium's lawsuit, the contract with the Neummans specified a budget of roughly $6.5 million for the renovation project.

The Neumanns repeatedly changed the size, scope, and sequencing of the project, the contractor claimed in its suit. The plans they provided were also insufficient or defective, Iridium said in its legal complaint. Such factors increased the cost of the renovation project, it said.

At some point, the Neumanns stopped reimbursing Iridium for its work, according to the lawsuit.

The Neumanns countersued, via the Residence 72 entity, charging that Iridium performed "substandard work." As part of the construction work, the interior of the townhome was exposed to the elements and was damaged in the process, they said in their countersuit. The result was peeling and chipped paint in the house's entrance, unspecified damage to construction materials and other parts of the house. The Neumanns also charged that Iridium failed to complete some work, didn't follow their architect's plans, or did a poor job working on other areas.

The contractors were sending the Neumanns a "message"

In all four disputes, the contractors resorted to something called a mechanic's lien. In New York and some other states, contractors and construction companies that haven't been paid for the work they've done can file a lien, essentially a claim, against the property on which they've been working.

The mere existence of a lien does not prove that a property owner has done anything wrong. It just means that a contractor is in a dispute of some sort with the property owner and is claiming to be owed something. But it allows the contractor to stake a claim to any value seen from selling the property. The lien can even be used to force a sale of the property to pay the outstanding debt, said Neal Eiseman, a construction law expert and a partner at Goetz Fitzpatrick in New York.

Filing a lien sends a "message" to the property owner, Eiseman said.

Contractors typically use the liens as a way to pressure property owners to pay outstanding bills, he said. Mortgages often have clauses in them that forbid owners from having any outstanding mechanic's liens on the property, he said.

Read this: There are 6 billion very good reasons for WeWork to go public this year, even though Wall Street doesn't want it

It's not uncommon for construction work to lead to disputes over bills and to contractors filing mechanic's liens over unpaid bills, especially in high-end residential construction, he said.

"People are demanding, as they have a right to be," he said.

Even so, most disputes that lead to liens or even lawsuits end in settlements, he said.

That appears to be the outcome with the two biggest contractor disputes the Neumanns were involved in over their townhome project.

Iridium and the Neumanns both agreed to dismiss a lawsuit and countersuit over their disputed amount, presumably because they settled out of court. Court records don't indicate if or how much money changed hands between the two.

Meanwhile, Mimar owner Ambel Durdia told Business Insider his company had reached a settlement with the Neumanns over their alleged unpaid bill. He said he couldn't discuss the details of the dispute or the settlement.

"We make a settlement," he said. "I'm very happy with" Neumann.

It's unclear what happened with the other two disputed contractor bills.

A representative for Iridium declined to comment. Representatives of Pinnacle and Cardella did not return calls or email seeking comment.

Got a tip about WeWork or another 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 @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

The CEO of YouTube has apologized for the "frustration and hurt" caused to creators, a day after the company notified many of them that their channels would lose their verification checkmarks in October.

YouTube announced this week that it was overhauling the qualifications for creators to get verified on its video platform. Almost immediately, some YouTubers with hundreds of thousands — and millions — of subscribers took to social media to post screenshots of emails from YouTube, which notified them that they no longer met the criteria for verification, and they were set to lose their checkmarks the following month.

The news was met with outrage from creators frustrated about YouTube's actions. On Friday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote on Twitter that the platform had "missed the mark" with its new verification process. Wojcicki said that YouTube is "working to address your concerns."

Later on Friday, Wojcicki issued an update on Twitter that all verified users would be able to keep their checkmarks, "without appeal." She also shared revised authentication criteria— essentially, that a verified channel must have over 100,000 subscribers, and that the channel is "authentic" and "complete." In other words, a verified YouTube channel must be claimed by a real person, brand, or entity, and be active in sharing public videos.

Read more: Popular YouTubers with millions of fans are losing their verified status and coveted grey checkmark thanks to a policy change

YouTube has said that the goal of tightening its verification criteria is to "reduce confusion about what being verified means." Under its new policies rolling out in late October, YouTube will prioritize "prominent channels that have a clear need for proof of authenticity" above all else, specifically those belonging to "highly searched" figures and those that have a "strong presence online" outside of YouTube.

The tightening of verification criteria is just the latest in a series of YouTube policies and stances that have been unpopular among the platform's content creators. YouTube has struggled to deal with incidents of "creator-on-creator" harassment on the platform, and its inaction has been criticized heavily. YouTube has defended its decisions, and said it strives to maintain a platform that is open, even if it means offending some.

In August, a group of LGBTQ creators sued YouTube, alleging the video platform discriminated against them by unfairly applying its policies in a way that restricts queer content from making money and being seen by a wide audience.

Many people inside Oracle were not shocked when the company announced earlier this month that co-CEO Mark Hurd was ill and taking a leave of absence.

Employees had been speculating about his health for over a year, several of them told us. They had noticed a dramatic change in his hair and weight, and that he was uncharacteristically canceling meetings and public appearances at the last minute.

Despite decades in the public eye as a tech exec, Hurd is a notoriously private individual. So the company has said very little about what kind of illness Hurd is battling, or how likely it is he will return to his job. And internally, employees tell us that many believe the situation is so serious, he may never return. Oracle declined to comment for this story.

Read: A former WeWork executive who made $300,000 and is now suing describes strange cultlike culture, including endless flows of alcohol at mandatory sleepover camp for employees and the CEO's children on his lap during an all-hands meeting

This means that right now, Safra Catz is the one and only CEO of the company. She previously said she had no desire to be Oracle's sole CEO and that she plans to retire from the company whenever Ellison leaves. She could, of course, change her mind and stay on after Ellison retires — if he ever does. Ellison never discusses retirement, but he is 75 and will presumably hand the reins over at some point.

On Thursday, during Oracle's annual OpenWorld tech conference held in San Francisco this week, the company held a financial analyst meeting, where chairman and CTO Larry Ellison was asked about succession planning with Hurd gone. And it sounds like Catz is, indeed, getting a new co-CEO.

When Ellison was asked about succession planning he said he promised to provide the board of directors with a list of five internal candidates who could be named CEO.

"A lot of people have said, 'God, you guys are weird. Two CEOs? That's ridiculous. That's bad governance,'" Ellison quipped. "I believe in a dual CEO structure. The normal case [at Oracle] would be dual CEO here for obvious reasons. That it's good to have capacity and good to have specialization. And then, God forbid, if something untoward should happen, you have capacity, you are not incapacitated."

A 'well-functioning' triumvirate

The Ellison/Catz/Hurd combo was a "well-functioning" triumvirate executive team, as one former Oracle employee described it. Ellison handles the technical/engineering parts. Catz is Oracle's finance and M&A wizard. Hurd was in charge of sales and marketing.

Ellison emphasized that Catz is not planning on leaving any time soonm but he also described Oracle as a "complicated" company. It offers a lot of products including making its own hardware, as well as a large sales and service organization. That's why he likes the dual CEO structure, and why Oracle wants to promote someone internally, who knows the company, into the top job.

"We should have people in the company capable of being promoted into that position. So when there is a succession, we're not running out and doing a search," he said.

He didn't specify if this person could expect to be promoted to the co-CEO spot alongside Catz, should Hurd be unable to return, or if these people would be groomed for an eventual CEO role later.

Some analysts in the room believed that Oracle is leaning towards maintaining the co-CEO role — such as Instinet's Christopher Eberle, who wrote about the CEO search in a research note.

So who, internally, could take Hurd's place?

Ellison actually tossed out a couple of names on stage while answering the question. One of them was Steve Miranda, executive vice president of Oracle Applications product development, who's been with the company since 1992.

He also mentioned Don Johnson, vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure product development. Johnson gave his own presentation to the assembled analysts that morning.

Johnson has also risen high in Ellison's estimation, particularly since Thomas Kurian, Oracle's former cloud boss, left to run Google Cloud. Some employees say Johnson's rise within the company was even one reason why Kurian left, after swatches of the engineering team were peeled from Kurian and assigned to Johnson.

Ed Screven is probably Ellison's go-to engineering mastermind. He's on the board as a named officer, with the title of chief corporate architect. He's internally known as a brilliant engineer and Oracle's real chief technologist — however, the people we've talked to don't see him as the CEO type.

Not everybody wants the job

Ellison said that not everyone who could be on the list wants the job, including himself.

"By the way, not everyone who's doing a spectacular job even wants to be CEO. Let me tell you, I'm really happy about not being CEO," he said. "I much prefer my job I have now. I like it better than being CEO."

That said, Oracle is still very much Ellison's company. He still sets the strategy and makes decisions.

As for Miranda and Johnson, they are both more on the technical and engineering side of the house. Hurd's job was sales and marketing.

Some potential candidates in that vein could be Dave Donatelli, a former HP executive who followed Hurd to Oracle during Meg Whitman's reign at HP. Donatelli is executive vice president for the worldwide sales and marketing strategy for Oracle Cloud, reporting to Hurd.

Employees also tell us that Oracle's EMEA group has been really crushing their sales numbers recently, too, particularly with the company's all important autonomous database cloud products. The head of EMEA is Loïc Le Guisquet.

Tropical Storm Imelda, now a tropical depression, has flooded southeastern Texas with rainfall totals of up to 43 inches. That makes Imelda the seventh-wettest tropical cyclone in US history.

The flooding appears to be worse than that of Hurricane Harvey, and it's impacting similar areas in and around Houston. Homes that weren't flooded by Harvey are flooding now, Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick told the Associated Press on Thursday.

"What I'm sitting in right now makes Harvey look like a little thunderstorm," Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne told ABC 13.

Experts called Harvey a "500-year flood," despite having experienced three previous floods of similar severity in the previous decade. The storm killed 103 people and caused around $125 billion in damages.

Three people have died in Texas due to Imelda floods.

"It's as bad as I've ever seen it," Hawthorne later told NBC News.

The deluge follows Hurricane Dorian, which battered the Bahamas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas just two weeks ago. The record-breaking storm was slow and devastating — it stalled over the Bahamas and pummeled the islands with 185-mph winds and up to 30 inches of rain. The hurricane killed at least 50 people and left 76,000 in need of urgent support.

Bahamas officials say about 2,500 people are still missing.

Police officers search for the dead in the destroyed Mudd neighborhood after Hurricane Dorian hit the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas. Reuters

Read More: Hurricane categories tell only part of the story — here's the real damage storms like Dorian can do

Scientists can't definitely say whether Imelda, Hurricane Dorian, or other individual storms this year are directly caused by climate change, but warming overall makes hurricanes more frequent and devastating than they would otherwise be.

That's because higher water temperatures lead to sea-level rise, which increases the risk of flooding during high tides and in the event of storms surges. Warmer air also holds more atmospheric water vapor, which enables tropical storms to strengthen and unleash more precipitation.

Here's what to know about why storms are getting so much stronger, wetter, and slower.

How a hurricane forms

Hurricanes are vast, low-pressure tropical cyclones with wind speeds over 74 mph.

In the Atlantic Ocean, the hurricane season generally runs from June through November, with storm activity peaking around September 10. On average, the Atlantic sees six hurricanes during a season, with three of them developing into major hurricanes. The storms form over warm ocean water near the equator, when sea surface temperature is at least 80 degrees, according to the NHC.

As warm moisture rises, it releases energy, forming thunderstorms. As more thunderstorms are created, the winds spiral upward and outward, creating a vortex. Clouds then form in the upper atmosphere as the warm air condenses.

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As the winds churn, an area of low pressure forms over the the ocean's surface. At this point, hurricanes need low wind shear — or a lack of prevailing wind — to form the cyclonic shape associated with a hurricane.

Cyclones start out as tropical depressions like Imelda, with sustained wind speeds below 39 mph. As winds pick up and pass that threshold, the cyclone becomes a tropical storm. Once the wind speed hits 74 mph, the storm is considered a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projected a 45% chance that teh 2019 Atlantic hurricane season would see above-average activity. That could mean five to nine hurricanes in the Atlantic, with two to four of those becoming major hurricanes (defined as Category 3 or above, with winds greater than 110 miles per hour).

So far this year, we've seen four hurricanes, two of which — Dorian and Humberto — reached or surpassed Category 3..

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Hurricanes are moving more slowly and dropping more rain

Hurricanes use warm water as fuel, so once a hurricane moves over colder water or dry land, it usually weakens and dissipates.

However, because climate change is causing ocean and air temperatures to climb — last year was the hottest on record for the planet's oceans — hurricanes are getting wetter and more sluggish. Over the past 70 years or so, the speed of hurricanes and tropical storms has slowed about 10% on average, according to a 2018 study.

Over land in the North Atlantic and Western North Pacific specifically, storms are moving 20% to 30% more slowly, the study showed.

Houston residents navigate streets in boats due to flooding during Hurricane Harvey. David J. Phillip/AP

A slower pace of movement gives a storm more time to lash an area with powerful winds and dump rain, which can exacerbate flood problems. So its effects can wind up feeling more intense.

Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was a prime example of this: After it made landfall, Harvey weakened to a tropical storm, then stalled for days. That allowed the storm to dump unprecedented amounts of rain on the Houston area — scientist Tom Di Liberto described it as the "storm that refused to leave."

Climate scientist Michael Mann previously wrote on Facebook that Hurricane Harvey — which flooded Houston, killed more than 100 people, and caused $125 billion in damages — "was almost certainly more intense than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming, which means stronger winds, more wind damage, and a larger storm surge."

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office inmate workers move free sandbags for residents in Chalmette, Louisiana, July 11, 2019 ahead of Hurricane Barry. Associated Press

To make matters worse, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, so a 10% slowdown in a storm's pace could double the amount of rainfall and flooding that an area experiences. The peak rain rates of storms have increased by 30% over the past 60 years — that means up to 4 inches of water can fall in an hour.

"Precipitation responds to global warming by increasing," Angeline Pendergrass, a project scientist at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, said last year.

Storms are also getting stronger

A hurricane as seen from space.Flickr/NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

As ocean temperatures continue to increase, we're also likely to see more severe hurricanes because a storm's wind speed is influenced by the temperature of the water below. A 1-degree Fahrenheit rise in ocean temperature can increase a storm's wind speed by 15 to 20 miles per hour, according to Yale Climate Connections.

"With warmer oceans caused by global warming, we can expect the strongest storms to get stronger," James Elzner, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University, told Yale.

That can also mean that storms are able to intensify and develop into powerful hurricanes in a shorter time span.

Panicked dogs, left behind by an owner who fled rising flood waters due to Hurricane Florence, are rescued by volunteer Ryan Nichols of Longview, Texas, in Leland, North Carolina, September 16, 2018. Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Generally, a strong storm brings a storm surge: an abnormal rise of water above the predicted tide level. This wall of water can flood coastal communities — if a storm's winds are blowing directly toward the shore and the tide is high, storm surges can force water levels to rise as rapidly as a few feet per minute.

Higher sea levels, of course, lead to more destructive storm surges during a hurricane. Such surges are likely to become a more regular threat, since even if we were to cut emissions dramatically starting today, some sea-level rise is inevitable. The planet's oceans absorb 93% of the extra heat that greenhouse gases trap in the atmosphere, and water (like most things) expands when it's heated.

Kevin Loria and Jeremy Berke contributed to an earlier version of this story.