In its document, WeWork portrayed Neumann in glowing terms and central to its success.

One indication of the importance the company places on Neumann was just the sheer number of times it mentioned his name in the filing — 169 times. By contrast, Uber's IPO filing mentioned "Dara" — the first name of its CEO — just 29 times, Galloway noted in a blog post.

But there was more. In one of the risk factors, the company warned that it didn't have an employment agreement with Neumann, but said that "our future success depends in large part on [his] continued service," calling him "critical to our operations."

In the section where it described the various transactions Neumann and his family members have engaged in with the company, WeWork explained that they were a function of "his deep involvement in all aspects of the growth of our company" and prefaced its descriptions of them by talking about how crucial he is to WeWork.

"From the day he co-founded WeWork, Adam has set the Company's vision, strategic direction and execution priorities," WeWork said in the filing. "Adam is a unique leader who has proven he can simultaneously wear the hats of visionary, operator and innovator, while thriving as a community and culture creator."

The document acknowledged that Neumann had sold shares of WeWork in the past, but said he hadn't sold any since 2017, wouldn't sell any in the IPO, and had committed to not transfer any of his shares or options for a year after the offering.

In terms of his real estate purchases, the company said he did them with its interests at heart.

"In the early days of our business, at a time when landlords were reluctant to recognize the benefits of WeWork as a tenant, Adam bought four buildings in order to help prove WeWork as a viable tenant to landlords," the company said in the filing. "In December 2017, Adam expanded his participation in purchasing real estate by buying a majority interest in downtown San Jose development projects, a first step in pursuing the Company's vision for the future of cities."

Neumann has since agreed not to purchase any additional properties with the intent to lease them to WeWork, the company said. Wanting to address any conflicts of interest with the past transactions, he and the company set up a real estate fund primarily owned by WeWork that will manage his interests in 10 properties, including four leased by the company. The fund has an option to buy the properties for a year.

On the governance front, the company said it adopted its new corporate structure to allow it to more easily expand into new areas, acquire new businesses, or enter into partnerships. It also said the structure would help insulate each one of those business lines from each other so the failing of any one of them wouldn't necessarily bring down the whole company.

While acknowledging that Neumann would retain majority control of WeWork after the offering, the company said that was good, because it is "a founder led company." It also said that Neumann had committed to giving up majority control if the number of shares he owns dips below 5% of the outstanding number.

On Thursday, VMware shocked no one by confirming that it was re-acquiring Pivotal, the software company it spun out in 2012, not long after it confirmed that it was in acquisition talks. It agreed to pay roughly $2.7 billion for the company, which, like VMware, is a Dell subsidiary.

VMware did shock everyone by announcing a second multi-billion acquisition the same day — specifically, endpoint security company Carbon Black, in a deal valued at $2.1 billion. That's $4.8 billion total for both companies.

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger Business Insider All of this was on the tail of reporting a respectable Q2, 2020, in which VMware beat expectations slightly on profits and handily on revenue: It reported quarterly revenues of $2.44 billion when $2.43 billion were expected (up 12%); it reported non-GAAP EPS of $1.60 per share, when $1.55 was expected, up about 4% from the year-ago quarter.

For the most part, Wall Street did not seem thrilled with the acquisitions. While many analysts reiterated their buy ratings, RBC, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch also lowered their share price target.

The stock dropped almost 10% on Friday, the day after VMware reported earnings. That could have come from a few different factors: It's true that VMware executives offered a tad softer-than expected Q3 guidance on the earnings call ($2.4 billion, versus $2.45 billion expected) — but it could have also been a part of the broader market sell-off on Friday, after tweets from President Trump apparently spooked investors.

But one of VMware's few steadfast bears, Nomura/Instinet's Christopher Eberle, pointed out in his research note the elephant in the room. Often when a company announces a spectacular acquisition during its earnings call, it's an attempt at slight-of-hand: look at this shiny new object we bought, and don't look at these other, less pleasant areas.

Eberle points out that both of the new companies have less-than-spectacular growth, and that some of VMware's own business units are also experiencing a slowdown in growth.

"Deal or no deal(s), we still have concerns," Eberle writes. "VMW announced not one, but two acquisitions in conjunction with 2Q earnings, both of which are among the largest in company history ... however, a concerning aspect that both deals have in common is steadily decelerating top-line revenue coupled with uncertain product strategies."

Eberle reiterated his "sell' rating and lowered his target price from $130 to $114. That's extremely low, mind you. The average target price for VMware is $188, as determined from the 26 analysts tracked on Yahoo Finance.

Tepid growth = slowing growth = bearish outlook

Pivotal offers software for developers to build, test and deploy their apps on a variety of cloud platforms. It's also known for its services business, where companies can hire its consultants to help them build their cloud apps.

The modern incarnation of Pivotal was born in 2012, when it spun out of VMware and EMC. It landed in Michael Dell's possession when he bought EMC, which, in turn, owned most of VMware. It went public in April 2018, about 16 months ago, opening at $15 per share.

VMware offered $15 a share to buy it back on Thursday. While a premium over Pivotal's $13.70 closing price on Thursday, it was basically a Hail Mary break-even price for the institutional investors who bought in at the IPO.

Michael DellREUTERS/Brendan McDermidThis, even though in June, Pivotal's shares crashed 40% to under $11 when it reported an okay quarter but then cut its full-year revenue outlook to 15% growth, year over year.

That's the kind of tiny growth expected of mature companies in aging industries, not newly public cloud players with less than $1 billion in revenue. Pivotal expected to end the year at about $760 million in revenue.

Meanwhile, Carbon Black's outlook was to hit just under $250 million in annual revenue for its current fiscal year and its expected growth at about 17%.

To give a comparison, Salesforce, which also announced earnings this week, hit quarterly revenue of $4 billion and is growing at 23% in constant currency, it says.

And that's the bear-case that Eberle sees. He believes that VMware is itself seeing slowing growth in some of its most promising areas, including its networking product NSX and its storage product vSAN.

And he thinks the VMware just spent over $4 billion to buy two startups with tepid growth.

"The financial impact of both deals combined is likely to weigh on operating margins over the next few years," he dourly predicts.

So why buy Pivotal?

Michael Dell may have wanted VMware to take this struggling public company off his hands and work it into its bigger cousin.

Interestingly, Pivotal's last proxy statement filed in June doesn't even pretend that Michael Dell, his company, Dell Technologies, and VMware are separate entities.

Pivotal's most recent proxy statement says that because Dell Technologies controls these companies, and Michael Dell controls Dell Technologies, "Mr. Dell may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of all of the shares of our common stock beneficially owned by Dell Technologies."

Often when a billionaire wants one company he owns to pay a premium to buy another one he owns it's not a good sign for anyone but the billionaire.

Read: Oracle is suing Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the $9 billion NetSuite deal, thanks to letter written by 3 Oracle board members

But this deal doesn't really shift power between VMware and its overlord Dell, nor does it shift cash into Dell's hands (as much as he needs it with $54 billion in debt on Dell's books).

VMware is paying just over half a share of itself for each Class B share that Dell owns. That will increase Dell's stake in VMware a smidge, from just under 30% to just over. But Dell already owns all of VMware's super-voting right class of shares, with 10 votes of shares, controlling 97% of VMware votes anyway.

Now, one could argue — as VMware's executives are doing — that what VMware really needs is at least some of Pivotal's technology, especially a product called Kubernetes. This is a mega-popular method of managing cloud software "containers." Containers are the preferred method for running software in the cloud.

Containers are viewed as the technology that will make VMware's 20-year-old, bread-and-butter software management tech, known as virtualization, obsolete. So VMware is sort of looking at Kubernetes like a Motorola flip phone might look at an iPhone.

VMware needs to be seen as a major containers/Kubernetes player if it's to have a future in the cloud.

"Kubernetes is driving the biggest shift in enterprise architecture since Java virtualization and cloud, and Pivotal has begun a major shift to Kubernetes," VMware Pat Gelsinger told analysts on Thursday.

On the other hand, VMware and Pivotal had collaborated to create VMware's current Kubernetes offering and they were sister companies. So one could also argue that VMware had no real compelling business to buy Pivotal instead of to continue to partner with it, if it were free to escape Dell's will.

Why buy Carbon Black?

As for Carbon Black: It makes security software that helps software run securely on any device. It has all the buzzwords: cloud, AI, advanced threat detection. VMware has been increasingly running secure software on devices, not just computer servers, ever since it bought a major mobile device security vendor called Airwatch some years back.

Just like VMware needs the next-new thing Kubernets to stay relevant in software, it needs the next new thing in cloud-based security to stay relevant in device management.

This deal was likely the brainchild of VMware's resident dealmaker Sanjay Poonen, who made his marks with the Airwatch deal and has since worked his way up to COO.

Even the bear Eberle notes that Poonen's area of VMware, known as end-user computing, has been "a bright spot" for growth at VMware.

In 2015, Murthy Renduchintala quit as co-president of Qualcomm, where he had spent the last 12 years of his career, to join Intel's leadership. Then-CEO Bryan Krzanich welcomed him with a letter, saying: "Intel is truly an inspirational place to work."

But Murthy, as Renduchintala is fondly called, was nervous about "the general reputation that Intel was a very difficult place for executives from the outside to come and be successful," he said.

"My initial concern was: is this going to be an experience of trying to get my fingernails into granite," he told Business Insider. "Half of my nervousness was the calibration of how much I had to learn and my own sense of, 'Could I surmount those learning curves?'"

It's worked out so far: Murthy is now Intel's chief engineering officer, in charge of a team of roughly 75,000 people. He eventually brought in two other outsiders, both known as heavy hitters in the semiconductor world.

Jim Keller, described by VentureBeat as a "rock star chip architect," and by Wired as a "chip wizard," was lured in 2018 from Tesla to lead Intel's silicon engineering group. He's in charge of the Intel teams developing the designs and architectures for new microprocessors that the company hopes to build.

And Raja Koduri, one of the leading graphics chip engineers in the world, joined Intel in 2017 from rival AMD, where Keller also had a distinguished career. Koduri leads the teams developing Intel's high-performance graphics, an area where the company has historically lagged rivals such as AMD and Nvidia. Keller and Koduri are both also veterans of Apple.

Together, these three outsiders have been given a gargantuan task: Take Intel beyond its core PC and server business, and help it conquer what the company's leadership sees as a $300 billion opportunity in cutting-edge markets like high-performance computing and the cloud, autonomous cars, AI, graphics, and networking.

Their efforts are already starting to come to fruition. Intel just introduced the next generations of its current PC and server chip lines, and will unveil its first AI processor built from the ground up later this year.

But their bigger, longer-term goals woud mean transforming Intel into a more agile competitor in multiple arenas.

"90% of a static market is a very different picture than 25% of a large and growing market," Keller told Business Insider. "The company over the last number of years has pivoted to have a lot more market segments, a lot more designs in those market segments. That will generate a lot more chips, a very large amount of IP [intellectual property]."

Murthy used a sports metaphor to illustrate what they needed to do: "Intel was a gold medal winning single sport Olympic winner. We now have to win at Decathlon. We have to be good at sprinting. We have to be good at pole vaulting. We have to be good at javelin. .. We don't have to be a great single sport athlete, but we have to be really good at everything because at the end of the day, a single sport is no longer sufficient."

Asked about the biggest hurdle they face, Murthy, Keller and Koduri offered the same answer: scale. Transforming a 51-year-old tech behemoth with 107,000 employees in 46 countries into a heavyweight that could compete in all these new markets is not going to be simple task.

"You don't turn like a Navy Seals speed boat," Murthy said. "You turn much more systematically because you have to take 100,000 people with you."

There have already been challenges

Even in his short term at Intel, there have already been challenges.

Barely three years after Murthy joined Intel, Krzanich resigned amid revelations that he had an illicit relationship with an employee. He was replaced by chief financial officer Bob Swan, who had joined Intel just a few months after Murthy did.

Suddenly, Murthy, the outsider, found himself reporting to another outsider. Not only was Swan an Intel newbie, he was also a non-engineer tapped to lead a company of mostly engineers which raised questions about his ability to lead Intel.

Jim Keller and Raja Koduri at the 2019 Intel Hot Chips event in Palo Alto, California. Walden Kirsch for Intel

The changes hit Intel at a critical time. Its core PC market is shrinking, and it was facing stiffer competition in the data centers. Suddenly, the company famous for the "Intel Inside" logo found on millions of desktop and laptop computers powered by its processors and for looking within for leadership, was being led by outsiders as it sought to reinvent itself.

In 2016, Intel also acquired an AI chip startup called Nervana as it took aim at the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence, where it is looking to catch up with rival Nvidia.

The shift was underway even before Swan took over, though it shows little sign of stopping now.

Led by Murthy, the three technologists' mission is to help Swan lead Intel's grand pivot — from focusing squarely on a $52 billion market, the world of PCs and servers, which Intel has dominated for the past 30 years, to a nearly $300 billion market, including new and fast growing arenas where Intel is just another contender, and in some cases even an underdog.

Intel is making the move in a challenging time. While it remains dominant in the data center market, rival AMD just rolled out a new server chip that has won rave reviews. Intel is also looking to reestablish itself as a chip manufacturing trailblazer, especially after AMD overtook it in adapting a 7 nanometer process, referring to the manufacturing technology based on the line-width on chips.

Intel has historically led the way in producing smaller and less expensive processors, guided by Moore's Law, the chip industry trend named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, in which the number of transistors that companies are able to put on an integrated circuit has roughly doubled every two years.

This trend has allowed chip makers to make smaller, more powerful, and less expensive processors, but Intel and competitors like AMD alike have acknowledged that it's increasingly a challenge to stay on that curve.

Outsiders who failed showed 'a lack of appreciation for what Intel had achieved'

Intel has a long history from which they could draw knowledge and insights, which can also be a challenge, Koduri said. He compared Intel to one of those old gigantic libraries found in Europe, with huge amounts of material.

"Intel is like that. It's great," he told Business Insider. "Lots of knowledge and lots of history. But also like an old library, it's hard to find information. They're not easily Google-searchable."

To be sure, the company had great talent, three of whom Keller named in a recent interview: Ann Kelleher, who leads Intel's manufacturing operations; chief technology officer Mike Mayberry and Rich Uhlig, who leads Intel Labs.

But Intel is also a gargantuan organization, and Murthy identified the challenges he faced early. In a memo to Intel senior managers a few months after he joined, he cited "a lack of product/customer focus in execution that is creating schedule and competitiveness gaps in our products."

But Murthy now says that he understood that the outsiders who joined Intel only to fail showed "a lack of appreciation and a lack of respect for what Intel had achieved."

"It was all about, 'Let me show you how good I am and how I can transform the company,'" he said. "It was a case of, 'Move aside. Let me show you.'"

'I don't want you to come in and bounce off'

Murthy also stressed the importance of adapting to Intel's culture for the people he brought in, including Keller and Koduri.

"His one comment was: 'I don't want you guys to come in and bounce off,'" Keller recalled. "He had seen it happen and I took that heart."

That has meant putting extra effort in adapting to Intel's culture even as they pushed for change. Keller said he has met Intel people who have been at the company for a long time.

"People have said to me, 'We tried to make that change 10 years ago,'" Keller said. "I'm relentless. I'm not really a bounce-off kind of guy."

When a team in Texas said they were wrestling with problems with a project, Keller told a manager, "Get them in a room at 8 o'clock in the morning and I'll go catch a plane." He spent two days "in a room with big white boards" working out problems and answering questions.

"Sometimes, it's tough," he said. "Sometimes, I feel like a beat-up puppy."

Koduri said persistence will be key, citing the technological principle first proposed by Intel's co-founder.

"Moore's Law is relentless, and Intel is relentless," he said. "Relentless and persistent. That's what we need to survive."

Analyst Linley Gwennap, president of the Linley Group, it wasn't surprising that the company was turning to outsiders to pursue that strategy.

"I think when things aren't working, the natural tendency is to turn to outsiders," he told Business Insider.

But it won't be easy.

"Intel is a battleship and it is taking a long time to turn," he said. "There's a lot going on, but we're probably not going to see how well this experiment works for another couple of years."

Got a tip about Intel 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. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

The world's largest rainforest is ablaze. On Tuesday, a new fire started every minute in Brazil.

Since August 15, more than 9,500 fires have sparked in Brazil, most of them in the Amazon basin. The blazes can be seen from space, and the smoke even temporarily eclipsed the sun in Sao Paulo on Monday.

So far this year, Brazil has recorded more than 76,000 fires— an annual record, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

The vast majority of these fires were deliberately started by people: Farmers and loggers purposefully set fire to the rainforest during the summer months to clear swaths of the Amazon for industrial or agricultural use in the coming year.

An aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle burning as it is being cleared by loggers and farmers near the city of Novo Progresso, Brazil, August 23, 2019.Nacho Doce / Reuters

Here's what's really going on in the Amazon.

Why is the Amazon burning?

Unlike wildfires in California, or the current blazes in Siberia, the Amazon fires aren't natural.

About 99% of Amazon fires start from human actions, "either on purpose or by accident," Alberto Setzer, a senior scientist at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), told CNN.

As CNN meteorologist Haley Brink explained in the network's report, "[Farmers] wait for the dry season and they start burning and clearing the areas so that their cattle can graze. That's what we're suspecting is going on down there."

The Amazon's dry season runs from July to October and peaks in late September, and with it comes this annual burning, called the "queimada." The rest of year, wetter weather minimizes the risk of fires.

"The important thing to know about the Amazon is that few fires occur there naturally," Mikaela Weisse, who tracks deforestation and fires for the World Resources Institute, told Vice.

A tract of Amazon jungle burns as it is being cleared by loggers and farmers in Novo Airao, Amazonas state, Brazil August 21, 2019.Bruno Kelly / Reuters

In addition to farmers, illegal loggers and miners sometimes light fires as well, in order to destroy evidence of their activities or drive away indigenous people, Vox reported. At least 400 indigenous tribes live in the rainforest, and their cultures and livelihoods are intimately linked with the state of the Amazon.

If fires are set every summer, why are this year's a big deal?

What's unprecedented this summer is how many individual fires were sparked at the same time. In 2019, Brazil has recorded more fires than in any other year since researchers began keeping track in 2013 — and there are still four months to go.

This surge of fires in Brazil mark an 83% increase from the same time period last year, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research reported. All told, Brazil only had about 40,000 fires in 2018, about half of this year's current total of 76,000.

These fires also come on the heels of another worrisome milestone for the world's largest rainforest. The month of July set a new record for the most deforestation ever in the Amazon in a single month, The Guardian reported. The Amazon shrunk by 519 square miles (1,345 square kilometers). That's more than twice the area of Tokyo.

Data from Brazilian satellites indicated that about three football fields' worth of Amazonian trees fell every minute last month. The total deforested area in July was up 39% from the same month last year.

Deforestation and fires are linked, since setting blazes is one of the main ways people clear land in the Amazon.

An aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle recently cleared by loggers and farmers near the city of Novo Progresso, Brazil on September 22, 2013. Nacho Doce/Reuters

Experts and environmentalists say this high deforestation rate can be linked to the policies and rhetoric of Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro has indicated that protecting the Amazon is not one of his top priorities. He supports development projects like a highway and hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.

His administration has cut down on the seizing of illegally harvested timber. In 2018 (under the previous administration), 883,000 cubic feet of illegal timber was seized. As of May 15, Bolsonaro's government agencies had seized only 1,410 cubic feet, Pacific Standard reported.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil on August 20, 2019. Adriano Machado/Reuters

What's more, between January and May, Bolsonaro's government lowered the number of fines it levied for illegal deforestation and mining (down 34% from the same period in 2018) and decreased its monitoring of illegal activity in the rainforest.

Do the fires have to do with climate change?

Individual events like forest fires, hurricanes, and winter storms can't be directly linked to climate change; however, climate change does increase the likelihood and frequency of wildfires around the world. Warmer conditions also allow blazes do start to grow bigger than they otherwise might have.

The Amazon's humidity usually stifles these fires before they get too big, but this year was particularly hot and dry worldwide.

Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, Amazonas State, Brazil on August 17, 2019. Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Overall, this year is on pace to be the third hottest on record globally, according to Climate Central. Last year was the fourth warmest, behind 2016 (the warmest), 2015, and 2017.

Hotter air sucks away the moisture from trees and soil, while decreased rainfall makes for parched forests that are more prone to burning. In that sense, climate change and uncontrolled rainforest blazes are interconnected.

How will this affect the planet?

As the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a crucial role in keeping our planet's carbon-dioxide levels in check. Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the air in their process of photosynthesis. This is why the Amazon, which covers 2.1 million square miles, is often referred to as the "lungs of the planet": The forest produces between 6% and 20% of the oxygen in our planet's atmosphere.

An aerial view of a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil August 22, 2019. Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

But when trees burn, they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, where it contributes to climate change.

Scientists also fear that over time, the Amazon could suffer so much deforestation that a feedback loop could turn it into an African-savanna-type landscape. If another 20% of the Amazon were to disappear — roughly 20% of the Amazon has already been cut down in Brazil in the past 50 years, according to the Intercept— some experts think that could trigger a process called a dieback, in which the rest of the forest dries out and burns.

If that happens, up to 140 billion tons of stored carbon could get released into the atmosphere, which would cause a further uptick in already rising global temperatures.

"The Amazon is incredibly important for our future, for our ability to stave off the worst of climate change," Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organization Amazon Watch, told CNN. "This isn't hyperbole. We're looking at untold destruction — not just of the Amazon but for our entire planet."

Mortgage tech company Better.com, fresh off its $160 million Series C funding round, is already eyeing the public markets— bucking the trend of startups spending lengthy stays under the auspices of private investors.

Vishal Garg, founder and CEO of Better, told Business Insider he's aiming to take his company — which plans to hire 400 people before the end of the year — public in two to three years.

The company's quest to quickly embrace the public markets stands in stark contrast to the broader startup culture, where tech giants are staying private ever longer amid a flood of cheap funding, contributing to a multi-decade decline of the IPO market.

Uber, Slack, and Pinterest each existed for about a decade before their public debuts this year, and WeWork, founded in 2010, is next up to take the plunge. Airbnb, founded in 2008, still hasn't crystallized its plans, and neither have some of the industry's largest and oldest fintech startups, such as Stripe, SoFi, and Credit Karma.

Why is Better racing to publicly list when so many others have been holding out?

In part, it's a difference in philosophy: Garg says once startups reach unicorn status, they should grow-up and embrace transparency rather than taking what amounts to a college victory lap.

Better

"We think the strategy of holding out and having VCs fund the growth and keeping companies private longer actually prevents companies from becoming healthier, from growing up," he said. "It'd be kind of like staying in college six years rather than four years. It's a lot more fun. Nobody's watching. You can do keggers all day long for two extra years."

But that stunts maturation, he says, and all too frequently companies and their leaders can't match the sky-high expectations, leading to a deflating initial experience as a public company.

"They go public at this really crazy valuation, and they can't live up to it," Garg said. "I'd much rather like go public at this lower valuation and then grow with my customers and grow with my shareholders."

Read more: Tech companies have raised billions of dollars from outside of venture capital like Fidelity and T. Rowe — but there's a costly downside as these investors pile on

There are other calculations at play as well. Given the highly regulated nature of the mortgage industry, Better is already accustomed to a higher level of scrutiny and transparency than many startups.

As a startup with a retail product, Garg is also attracted to the notion of enabling mom-and-pop investors who get a mortgage via Better to also buy shares of it.

And then there's the company's ambitious growth plans that will require extensive capital investment, well beyond its Series C funding round.

Better's proprietary mortgage business is blossoming — it originated $1.3 billion in mortgages in 2018 and said it was on pace to eclipse $4 billion this year.

But that's only one of the opportunities the company is trying to finance. It launched mortgage insurance and title insurance this year — businesses Garg said could be as big as their original mortgage offering in the next two to three years — and is delving into life insurance next. They're also building out realtor and appraisal networks.

Read more: The SEC is stepping up scrutiny of mutual funds that have poured money into unicorns like WeWork and Airbnb

And on the back of the company recently with Ally, which is outsourcing its mortgage operations to the startup, Better is also in talks with other financial institutions about partnering up, Garg said.

The company is aggressively hiring to manage these ambitions. Garg said it expected to have 1,100 employees by year-end, up from roughly 400 at the start of 2019. Right now, Better has around 700 employees.

"Our strategy is: We're going to do one more round and then we're going to IPO. The company's growth is really strong. We're making money on a gross-margin basis," Garg said. "We don't have a crazy voting structure. We don't have a lot of the bells and whistles that other people have. We just have a really clean, nice little business."

Xbox users beware, Microsoft may have listened to your conversations.

A new report from Motherboard reveals that Microsoft hired contractors to listen to audio recordings captured by Xbox consoles in people's homes to improve the functionality of the product. Specifically, Microsoft wanted to improve the Xbox's voice command features.

Former contractors told Motherboard that audio recordings should have been triggered only by specific voice commands when the user was speaking to the Xbox, but occasionally the recorder would be triggered in error and record other bits of speech.

One contractor said that they analyzed recordings between 2014 and 2015 when the voice commands were controlled through the now-defunct Kinect system. Listening continued when the Xbox stopped using Kinect and starting using, Cortana, Microsoft's virtual assistant that was launched in 2016.

Xbox commands "became about half of what we did before becoming most of what we did," one former contractor told Motherboard.

And most of the voices they heard were of children, the contractor added.

Read more: Microsoft contractors reportedly listen in on Skype call recordings, often from their own homes

This follows on from another report earlier this month, in which Motherboard discovered that Microsoft contractors had been listening to Skype calls made through the app's translation service.

The news site pointed out that while Skype's website says that the company may analyze audio of phone calls that a user wants to translate in order to improve the chat platform's services, it does not say that some of this analysis will be done by humans.

Microsoft has since updated its privacy documents to more explicitly say that humans may listen to recordings on its Cortana and Skype Translator products.

A spokesperson for Microsoft did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on Thursday. However, a spokesperson told Motherboard that company no longer listens to Xbox audio.

"We stopped reviewing any voice content taken through Xbox for product improvement purposes a number of months ago, as we no longer felt it was necessary, and we have no plans to re-start those reviews," the spokesperson said.

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have all admitted to employing human contractors to listen to and analyse users' recordings without their consent. All say they have either ended the practice, or give users the ability to opt out.

Amazon has said it would let users choose whether or not their audio recordings would be eligible for review. Apple and Google have both temporarily halted their review programs amid the increased scrutiny. Facebook says it has paused the practice.

iPhone users can relax. It seems they won't have to give up their beloved devices in favour of 5G, with all the signs pointing to Apple joining their competitors in embracing the new technology.

Following Apple settling its differences with modem supplier Qualcomm, as well as its recent purchase of Intel's 5G smartphone-modem division, industry experts are confident that Apple's first 5G phones will appear in the second half of 2020. Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts three new iPhones to appear then, all of which he says will support 5G.

Apple will be making its 5G debut nearly a year after Samsung and Huawei, but for the tech giant to be lagging behind rivals when it comes to embracing new tech is nothing new, according to Apple expert James Cordwell.

He explains: "When you look at the previous two generations, the original iPhone didn't have 3G when most existing handsets did, and there was a similar situation with 4G.

"There are a couple of reasons for that. I think that when it adopts a new technology standard, Apple needs to be confident that the supply chain can manufacture 100 to 150 million parts, which is how many they'll sell on an annual basis, so that requires a certain amount of maturity in the supply chain.

"It's an issue that Samsung and others don't have. They have a far more fragmented portfolio, so they might adopt 5G in their hero devices, but they'll sell fewer units relative to the iPhone.

"Apple will also be waiting until 5G is sufficiently rolled out in terms of the connectivity. They're going to be selling a 5G phone to a bunch of consumers who wouldn't necessarily be able to use it unless 5G is rolled out in their country as well, so they want that connectivity to be there as well."

Customers look at their iPhones inside the Apple store in New York. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Add to these general market considerations Apple's complicated history with Qualcomm and it's easy to see why the firm is late to the party. "Ever since they reconciled their differences with Qualcomm, the route to a 5G iPhone in 2020 became a lot simpler," explains Cordwell.

Once Apple does arrive, Cordwell expects it to be fully embraced by business owners. Currently, iPhone penetration sits at 35-40% of the UK population as a whole, Cordwell says, and it might be higher among business owners. "In fact, I would maybe guess business owners might skew towards a slightly higher figure," Cordwell says.

Read more: Virtual shopping goes viral: Retailers will use 5G-powered augmented-reality to let you try before you buy

So that's a lot of potential customers for this new generation of phones. With 5G's speed, reliability, and almost zero latency promising to transform everything from online gaming to autonomous vehicles, what can people expect from Apple in particular?

Cordwell points out that the new technology will inspire ideas we may not yet be able to imagine. "If we look at something like Instagram," he says, "4G made it simple to upload photos or video to a network, and equally to consume them, which brought a completely new way for businesses to reach out to customers.

"If history is a guide, once a tool is out there in the market, creative people come up with ways to utilise that technology, and that brings consumer and business benefits.

"Apple's model has always been to facilitate that via their app store as well, so I would be fully expecting to see new use cases emerging with 5G and there will be opportunities for entrepreneurs and other business owners as a big part of that."

Huawei appears to be betting on continued use of Google's Android operating system, despite the issue of its US blacklisting being unresolved.

Speaking at an event in New York on Wednesday, Senior Vice President Vincent Yang said the company has no plans to launch a smartphone with its bespoke operating system Harmony, which it unveiled earlier this month.

Huawei has been touting Harmony since it was placed on an "entity list" by the Department of Commerce, meaning US companies would have to seek government permission to do business with the Chinese firm. This threatened to cut it off from Google and by extension Android, which all Huawei phones run.

"We want to maintain one standard, one ecosystem," Yang said, per CNET. He added that Harmony would remain the company's plan B. The CNET reporter added on Twitter:

Harmony isn't being kept entirely in reserve. CNET reports Huawei is gearing up to unveil a Harmony-powered smart TV, and Yang said he expects to bring out a smartwatch that runs on Harmony. Huawei has previously said that Harmony will be ready to be rolled out internationally in early 2020.

Read more: Google reportedly once gave about 100 engineers from Huawei their own lab at the Googleplex HQ, hinting at deeper ties than we knew

Following the blacklisting in May, Huawei was granted a 90-day license to give its customers time to transition. This license was extended by another 90 days earlier this week.

It's not only Huawei who may want to preserve the link with Google. The Financial Times reported in June that Google was furiously lobbying the Trump administration to let it do business with Huawei.

The struggle over Huawei comes in the middle of the US-China trade war, and President Donald Trump has given conflicting statements on the firm's fate. At the G8 in June Trump said US firms would be allowed to sell to Huawei, but more recently he seemed to have soured on the company. "At this moment it looks much more like we're not going to do business," he told reporters this month.

Zeel, an on-demand massage startup, is facing allegations of failing to protect its contractor workforce from abusive customers, Gizmodo reported on Wednesday.

The report suggests that Zeel repeatedly ignored its massage therapists' complaints about sexual harassment and misconduct from customers, with one such worker claiming that she was retaliated against after reporting inappropriate behavior from a client.

One Zeel therapist told Gizmodo that a client had offered her a $100 tip after requesting an abdomen and upper thigh massage. Another claimed that a client had offered her a drink and asked for a groin massage.

Zeel cofounder and CEO Samer Hamadeh said the Gizmodo article contained "numerous inaccuracies and distortions" in an emailed statement to Business Insider, but did not give specific examples. You can read Hamadeh's full statement at the bottom of this story.

This makes it the latest on-demand app to come under scrutiny for the treatment of its contractors —like Uber or Lyft, Zeel's base of massage therapists are independent contractors, not full-time employees.

Read More: On-demand food delivery app Postmates is set to unveil its IPO filing in September

Zeel was founded by a husband-and-wife team in 2010 and was most recently valued at over $76 million in January 2018, according to Pitchbook data. The New York-based startup is backed by Slow Ventures, Emil Capital Partners, and Hemisphere Ventures, among others. Hamadeh is currently an entrepreneur in residence at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Power dynamics

Gizmodo spoke with Ilene Antelman, a Zeel massage therapist based in Manhattan, who said that one client would routinely comment on her appearance, and on one occasion, masturbated in front of her. Antelman says that after she reported the customer, she was given fewer customers on the app, which accounted for roughly half her weekly income. She said that Zeel told her that the client had received a warning, but wasn't removed from the app.

The app's terms of service bar customers from making sexual or inappropriate requests, according to Gizmodo, and encourages therapists to leave any sessions that make them feel uncomfortable. However, the therapists that spoke with Gizmodo said the power dynamic between themselves and their clients prohibited them from outright leaving any sessions that took an inappropriate turn.

One of those therapists was reportedly sent to a hotel room of a male client that was out on parole for sexual assault. In his statement, Hamadeh says that "with respect to the allegation that we knowingly sent a therapist to a registered sex offender, nothing could be further from the truth," and that while Zeel asks customers to verify their identity with a photo of a driver's license, it doesn't conduct background checks or other queries into their history.

Hamadeh said that Zeel had recently hired a director of trust and safety, but that the incidents referred to in the Gizmodo report occurred before that team existed. That team now includes 10 employees and contractors, he said.

"Together, they are focused on ensuring we have best-in-class security practices and software tools to address safety matters," Hamadeh said of the trust and safety team, which he said includes former law enforcement officials.

Read Hamadeh's full statement:

The article contains numerous inaccuracies and distortions, and does not reflect the reality at Zeel today. But it does focus on a matter our leadership team takes very seriously, the safety of the therapists in our network. Since we launched our business in 2012, we have had protocols in place to provide security for our therapists and our clients and we continually work to do more. Last year, we hired a Director of Trust & Safety to build an expert Trust & Safety team. Today it numbers 10 employees and consultants, including former law enforcement. Together, they are focused on ensuring we have best-in-class security practices and software tools to address safety matters. Unfortunately, the incidents described in this article happened before our Trust & Safety team was in place. Their work to continuously strengthen our protocols and execution is ongoing, and it reflects our absolute commitment to safety and security across our business.

With respect to the allegation that we knowingly sent a therapist to a registered sex offender, nothing could be further from the truth. We ID and mobile phone verify consumers; we do not conduct a background check, do a Google search, or run a sex offender search, which could require customer consent and is by no means standard protocol in the massage or any other industry.

The paperwork WeWork filed last week ahead of its planned public offering had lots of numbers in it.

But two sets of related figures stood out: $4 billion and $47.2 billion on the one hand, and 15 months and 15 years on the other.

The first pair of figures represents lease obligations: $4 billion is how much the coworking company is due to receive from its clients in coming years, mostly by the end of 2020; and $47 billion represents the lease obligations that WeWork must pay to its own landlords, with the vast majority of that amount not coming due until after 2024.

The second set of figures represents lease durations. Fifteen months is the average lease commitment of WeWork's customers. Fifteen years is the average length of the leases WeWork is signing with building owners.

With those four numbers, you basically have WeWork's business model — it signs long-term leases on properties that it turns around and subleases for relatively short durations. But those numbers also clearly illustrate the big risk facing WeWork. Even as the company has attracted larger corporate customers and persuaded them to sign longer contracts, its own obligations have outpaced its clients' commitments by more than a factor of 10.

"They've got big long-term liabilities, and if the people who are their customers don't have long-term commitments to them, the risk is high," said Robert Siegel, a lecturer in management at Stanford Graduate School of Business. "Forty-seven billion dollars," he continued, "is a lot of money."

WeWork touted the $4 billion and 15-month numbers

As might be expected, WeWork was much more eager to highlight some of those numbers than others.

In the filing for its initial public offering, the company bandied about the $4 billion number, which it described as its "committed revenue backlog." It touted the fact that the backlog had grown by about eight times, from $500 million, in just 18 months.

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann. Michael Kovac/Getty Images for WeWork

Overall, the company mentioned the $4 billion figure at least eight times, starting on page four of the document, right in the part where it's pitching its stock offering to investors. WeWork also mentioned the number further down in a section where the company explained how it expected to fare in a downturn — a big concern of potential shareholders.

"We believe that the growth in committed revenue backlog provides greater visibility and predictability of our future revenue to help mitigate the impact of short to medium-term downturns in the economy," the company said in the filing.

It gave a similarly prominent place to the 15-month figure. That figure too has grown recently, it noted on page four. At the beginning of December 2017, the average contract its customers were signing was just eight months. It also argued that these lengthening contracts would help it in a recession.

"Going forward, we believe that we are well positioned to navigate through further economic downturns," the company said.

It wasn't so eager to highlight the $47 billion number

But the company didn't seem nearly as eager to highlight the other two numbers. It mentioned the $47.2 billion figure only three times and the 15-year figure just four times. It didn't bring either of them up until page 26, buried within a section of the document devoted to the risks to its business, a section often ignored because it's typically filled with boilerplate, cover-your-derriere-type items.

However much WeWork wanted to tout or bury the particular numbers, the four numbers have to be taken together to understand the company's real business model. For all of its attempt to portray itself as a tech company — it mentions the word "technology" some 93 times in its filing — those numbers show its business is really more akin to that of a car- or furniture-rental company — or that of its coworking pioneer IWG, said Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University.

"This is a company that buys assets and [arbitrages] them" — takes advantage of price discrepancies — "through selling them short term," Galloway said, continuing, "Hertz does the same thing."

Read more: NYU professor calls WeWork 'WeWTF,' says any Wall Street analyst who believes it's worth over $10 billion is 'lying, stupid, or both'

Taken together, the two sets of figures are also key to understanding the real risk WeWork faces. In an economic downturn, it may not have enough revenue coming in to match all the money it's committed to spending. The contracts WeWork's customers have with it will most likely give them much more flexibility to renegotiate their leases than WeWork's contracts with its own landlords will give it.

Jeff Langbaum, a real-estate industry analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, said WeWork's business model would work "as long as the economy holds up."

"If there's a pullback," he continued, and its customers start dropping their spaces or forcing the company to lower their rent, "WeWork is still on the hook for whatever leases it has signed for the long term."

WeWork has tried to insulate itself from its lease commitments

WeWork has protected itself from some of this risk. Most of its leases are held by so-called special-purpose entities. That structure means those particular obligations are held by subsidiaries that are legally separate from their corporate parent. If the company got into trouble filling particular properties, it could put those subsidiaries into bankruptcy and protect the larger corporation.

WeWork has occupied buildings around the world, including this space in Shanghai. Courtesy of WeWork Of the $47.2 billion in outstanding obligations, WeWork's corporate parent itself has guaranteed only $4.5 billion. It has another $1.6 billion in letters of credit, security deposits, and surety bonds it's also committed toward paying those obligations. But that leaves some $41.1 billion that's essentially unguaranteed and that WeWork could walk away from in a downturn.

But it may not be as easy as all that. Its landlords would almost certainly try to enforce their agreements with WeWork if it tried to skip out on them. It also would face reputational harm — and a huge risk to the future of its business — if it started sending its subsidiaries into bankruptcy and having them default on their loans instead of keeping up with the rent they owe.

"If one of the SPEs were to default, no landlord's ever going to rent to a WeWork SPE after that," said Walter Johnston, who focuses on the real-estate market as a vice president of credit ratings at the research firm Morningstar.

Even shorter term, the company could see its revenue and cash flow constrict markedly if it started shuttering some of its subsidiaries. That decline in cash flow could still imperil the corporate parent, even if it's able to protect itself from the outstanding leases.

"At the end of the day, it's cash flow that WeWork had been receiving that it's no longer receiving," Langbaum said. In a downturn, he continued, "we don't know, exactly, how their business will hold up."

But WeWork's customers could have an easier time breaking their agreements

And while the $47.2 billion number may not be all it seems, given the special-purpose entities and WeWork's limited corporate guarantees, neither is the $4 billion in lease commitments that WeWork said it had. Indeed, that number may be more at risk in a downturn than the larger figure.

In its filing, WeWork noted that the vast majority of its leases with landlords didn't include any kind of early-termination clauses. By contrast, the contracts its clients sign with it are much more flexible. As it noted in the document, many of its customers can cancel their deals with only a month's notice. That's part of the intrinsic appeal of WeWork — there's no need for members to commit to a long-term lease.

And even customers who have signed up with WeWork for longer terms would most likely have a relatively easy time breaking their agreements, said Tom Smith, a cofounder of Truss, an online commercial real-estate marketplace. In addition to its short-notice provisions, the company often asks for much smaller security deposits and has much lower early-termination fees — when it requires them — than other landlords, he said.

What's more, traditional landlords often require individual business owners to personally guarantee that they will pay their leases, Smith said. Those guarantees provide an incentive for the owners to avoid defaulting on those obligations, even if their businesses start struggling, because they, and not just their corporations, are on the hook.

But Smith said he'd never seen WeWork, which lists space on his site, ask for a personal guarantee as part of its member contracts.

"It's almost a feature of WeWork's membership agreement that it does not," he said.

There's no way to tell from the company's filing how much of its $4 billion revenue backlog number would be at risk in a downturn in which its clients start terminating their agreements early or simply default on them. It would be good to know — but WeWork doesn't disclose — what portion of a member's outstanding lease obligation it typically recovers when the member cancels or defaults, Smith said.

But thanks to the ease with which WeWork members can get out from under their commitments, Smith thinks WeWork could see only a small portion of that backlogged revenue in the case of a downturn.

"This 4 billion has to be massively discounted," he said. "This 4 billion," he continued, "is not like another real-estate company's 4 billion in revenue backlog, I assure you."

If there's a refrain that would most define my life growing up, it'd be, usually hissed in public by my mother, "Stop slouching." Try as I might, slouching is a habit I haven't been able to kick, and now that I work a 9-to-5 desk job, it's even more difficult.

My mom always threatened to strap a wood plank to my back (thankfully, she never followed through), but I'd love to tell her now there are more advanced, less splinter-filled ways of correcting bad posture and training a good one.

The Upright Go ($79.95) is a small posture corrector that attaches to your back and sends vibration reminders whenever you slouch. Connected to the app, it provides a training program, real-time feedback, and statistics to gradually improve your posture — and your back health and sense of confidence along with it.

Could a device the size of my car keys really correct a lifetime of slump? I tried the Upright Go Posture Trainer to find out.

The Upright Go fits in the palm of your hand and sticks to the top of your back. It's so small, discreet, and unobtrusive that I sometimes forgot I was wearing it.

The slim, white device measures about 1" x 2," with a power button, back adhesive, and USB charging port. A stark contrast from traditional posture correctors that strap around your body, it's small enough that it's barely noticeable under your clothes, and especially if you have long hair that covers your back.

The whole package includes a carrying case, a pack of adhesives, and alcohol cleaning wipes.

Connie Chen/Business Insider

Setting up and using the Upright Go is easy

First, you need to download the app (available for iOS and Android), which will walk you through set-up instructions. Once the device and app are connected via Bluetooth, you can stick the Upright Go to your upper back. The adhesive is strong and the device never fell off my back during regular walking and activity.

Every time you put on the Upright Go, you need to calibrate your personal upright posture. This process teaches the device what your "correct" posture is so it knows when to vibrate. You should calibrate it in whatever position you spend most of your day in (sitting vs. standing).

The Upright Go features two modes: Training and Tracking. In Training Mode, it vibrates every time it detects you slouching and motivates you to reach a daily time goal of straight posture. In Tracking Mode, it doesn't vibrate, but it will still track the status of your posture.

Below is what Training Mode looks like on the app. When I slouched past a certain point — the red circle — the Upright Go vibrated lightly and intermittently until I sat up to a point before the red circle again. The vibration isn't loud enough for anyone else to hear, but you'll certainly feel it. While quiet and subtle, it was definitely persistent and annoying, forcing me to sit up to make it stop.

Upright Go

You can also adjust the vibration pattern and intensity in the app settings. I had it on Short-Strong, but you can also do a Knock Knock or Ramp Up pattern at a Gentle intensity, or a number of other combinations.

Eventually, daily goals will increase and your training plan will evolve as your posture improves.

Read more: 25 indispensable desk accessories we use to stay focused and comfortable at work

Don't worry: You don't have to use Training Mode all day and subject yourself to the agony of constant vibrations

In Training Mode, the goal is to have good posture for a small portion of the day. You can always switch to Tracking Mode if it's not convenient or logical (e.g. you're about to go work out or you need to bend down a lot), or switch back to Training Mode if you feel like you want more training.

Once you go into Tracking Mode, you'll be able to see how much you're really slouching, without the influence of the device. If you're anything like me, the results on Day 1 will be a wake-up call, the kind you don't really want to look in the eyes, but will serve as the proper impetus to making real change.

Upright Go

You also won't have to wear the device every day. The company recommends training two to four times a week to maintain improved posture. Repetition and consistency are important to forming long-lasting habits. Over time, the Upright Go training sessions are designed to move you towards straight posture as the default, not the painful inconvenience it might currently be for you.

The Upright Go may not be for you — here are some potential drawbacks of using the posture corrector

The adhesive is surprisingly strong and each can be used up to 10 times, but if you have sensitive or oily skin, the device may not stick well to your back. The frustration of fiddling with a device that keeps falling off could counteract its utility.

And while the device is small and slim, if you're wearing a close-fitting shirt, it'll bulge and show. It may attract some attention from curious eyes, but overall, I personally wasn't that self-conscious about it.

As with all tech accessories, the Upright Go does need to be recharged after about 10 hours of use, which could make it more inconvenient than an "analog" posture corrector. If you don't want to deal with another device to charge, you might be better off with a posture brace.

Since the Upright Go costs $80, two to four times more than traditional posture correctors, be prepared to commit. It's best for people who have tried cheaper, traditional alternatives and find them too restrictive, obvious, or uncomfortable.

The bottom line

The Upright Go Posture Trainer uses gentle, consistent nudges and a personalized training program to improve your posture, day by day, week by week. Over time, you'll experience the physical and non-physical benefits of better posture, including stronger back health and improved confidence.

Far from the most affordable posture-correcting option, it is the most technologically advanced and is barely noticeable as it sits on your upper back throughout the day — unless of course, you're slouching.

Buy the Upright Go Posture Corrector for $79.95 at Amazon here

YouTube may have taken away the private messaging feature in 2018, but you can still enable messaging, of sorts, by setting up business inquiry emails on your channel (or taking advantage of those on someone else's channel.)

Just keep in mind that these are only visible on the desktop version of YouTube.

How to message someone on YouTube using business inquiry emails

Before you get started, remember: You'll only be able to do this if the creator of the channel has enabled this feature.

1. Go to youtube.com and sign into your account, if necessary.

2. Go to the account you want to message and toggle over to their "About" tab.

3. Click "View Email Address" — if they don't have business inquiry emails set up, you won't see that option and won't be able to send them a message — you may also have to fill out a reCAPTCHA form and click "Submit" to move onto the next step.

You'll find a channel's business inquiry email address under their "About" tab. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

4. Copy the email address, then type up and send your email through your personal or business email account.

How to set up business inquiry emails on your YouTube channel

If you're a creator and want to give people another way to reach you, it may be a good idea to set up business inquiry emails. Here's how:

1. Go to your YouTube account.

2. Click your profile photo in the top-right corner and then select "Your Channel."

3. Select "Customize Channel."

Select "Customize Channel" when you reach your page. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

4. Toggle over to your "About" tab.

5. Next to "For Business Inquiries," click "+ Email."

6. Enter your email into the text box and click "Done."

Add the email that you use for business to your channel. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

If you want to change your email address in the future, you can always go back into your account and update your information through this process.

When the film "The Matrix" came out 20 years ago (yes, it premiered in 1999), many moviegoers pegged the movie's premise as entertaining but fully implausible.

The movie's protagonist, Neo, discovers that his reality isn't real. Instead, Neo's world is a vast simulation orchestrated by hyper-evolved AI that harvests humans for their energy.

Throughout the movie — and its two sequels, "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" — Neo battles these robot overlords for the freedom of humankind.

Now, Warner Bros. has confirmed that another sequel is in the works, set to begin production in 2020.

This fourth Matrix movie will once again star Neo, Variety reported, and take place in the same universe.

Neo's bullet-dodging, gravity-defying antics may welcome a highly anticipated renaissance at the box office, but the concepts put forward in the original "The Matrix" have remained perennial in the scientific community.

The idea that we're living in a simulation is totally plausible, according to some philosophers, and maybe even likely.

Here's why some scientists think we're living in a simulation.

The odds of us living in reality are a billion to one, some say

One scientist argues that our reality is akin to a giant multiplayer video game

Rizwan Virk, a computer scientist and the author of the new book "The Simulation Hypothesis," told Vox that he also thinks "there's a very good chance we are, in fact, living in a simulation."

Virk imagines this as "the video game of life," which he calls "the Great Simulation."

"You can think of it like a high-resolution or high-fidelity video game in which we are all characters," he told Vox.

Virk, who is also a video game designer, said the simulated video game-like universe that we might be living in — which is indistinguishable from reality for us — is far more sophisticated than the giant multiplayer online games that humans currently create, like World of Warcraft and Fortnite.

World of Warcraft, produced by Blizzard Entertainment, is a multiplayer online role-playing game in which players control a character avatar to explore and complete quests. Blizzard

He acknowledged, of course, that nobody can be 100% confident that we're living in a simulation, but said "there is plenty of evidence that points in that direction."

Some researchers are trying to test Bostrum's theory

Bostrum remains convinced that we are most likely in a simulation.

"At the meta level, I haven't really seen any convincing objections or attempts at refutation," he told Vulture. "So the absence of that also, I guess, strengthens my confidence that the reasoning is sound."

In today's world, contracts are often expected to be signed digitally.

Luckily, the iPhone has a way to make this so easy that it might actually become your preferred method of signing any documents sent over email.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone Xs (From $999.99 at Best Buy)

How to sign a document on your iPhone

Using the markup tool, you can affix your signature to any document emailed to your Mail app in a valid format.

1. If the document was not sent to an email in your iPhone's Mail app, forward it to your address there. For more information, read our article, "How to add any email account to your iPhone."

2. Open the email and the attachment you need to sign. You may have to tap the document to download it first.

3. If there are lines set up for editing in the document, tap on those and your iPhone should allow you to type information in (printed name, date, or address).

4. To actually sign the document, tap the markup symbol (the pen-in-a-circle in the upper right corner).

5. At the bottom you should see an assortment of pens, then a plus ("+") sign. Tap on the plus sign.

In the markup tool, tap the plus sign and then signature. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

6. Tap on Signature.

7. This will take you to a new screen with a signature line where you can draw your signature with your finger. When complete, hit done. This will also save your signature for the future.

Sign your name and press Done. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

8. After hitting Done, you'll be sent back to your document where you can position your signature.

9. Once your signature is in place, hit the markup symbol at the top to lock it in.

Position your signature on the document and lock it in with the markup symbol in the upper right corner. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

10. Finally, hit "Done" in the upper left corner.

Note that signing a document on your iPhone works best when it's a .pdf file. The markup tool may not work on some files, such as ones in .docx format.

The Dell XPS 13 Laptop is easily one of our top picks for laptops, thanks to its excellent design and powerful specs. It's super lightweight too, making it a great choice for people who need a laptop to take on the go. The only downside is the high price tag.

Luckily, Dell is running a sale on several models of the XPS 13, so if you're in the market for a new laptop, now may well be the time to buy. You can save 12% off of the XPS 13 Laptop line, which is a decent discount.

There are multiple XPS 13 models on sale, so whether you simply want the base model or you'd prefer a laptop that has all the best specs, you can find the right one for you.

One of the best things about the XPS 13 Laptop is its design — it's a beautiful machine. The screen is almost edge-to-edge, with super-slim bezels around the top and sides. The main body of the laptop is built with a sleek and strong woven glass fiber on the exterior and a carbon fiber interior, making for a premium look and feel.

There are four XPS 13 Laptop models on sale. The entry-level model offers an 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, while the top-of-the-line option comes with an 8th-gen Intel Core i7 chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. There are even options that come with a 4K screen resolution.

You can get the discounted Dell XPS 13 Laptop for yourself using the links below.

Get the Dell XPS 13 Laptop with Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, $1,055.99 (originally $1,199.99) [You save $144]

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The "lungs of the planet" are burning.

As thousands of fiery infernos rage across the Amazon rainforest, tropical vegetation, trees, and the fauna they house are being razed. Since August 15, more than 9,500 new forest fires have started across Brazil, primarily in the Amazon basin.

This year so far, scientists have recorded more than 74,000 fires in Brazil. That's nearly double 2018's total of about 40,000 fires. The surge marks an 83% increase in wildfires over the same period of 2018, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research reported. The largest state in Brazil, Amazonas, declared a state of emergency on Monday.

Already, 2019 has the highest number of fires observed in a single year since researchers began keeping track in 2013 — and there are still four months to go.

'The sky randomly turned dark'

A satellite image from the NOAA shows parts of the western Amazon rainforest on fire on August 12. NOAA

As the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a crucial role in keeping our planet's carbon-dioxide levels in check. Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the air in their process of photosynthesis. This is why the Amazon, which covers 2.1 million square miles, is often referred to as the "lungs of the planet": The forest produces 20% of the oxygen in our planet's atmosphere.

Typically, the Amazonian dry season runs from July to October, peaking in late September. Wetter weather during the rest of the year minimizes the risk of fires at other times. But during the dry season, blazes can spark from natural sources, like lightning strikes. Farmers and loggers also purposefully set fire to the rainforest to clear swaths of the Amazon for industrial or agricultural use.

The fires raging in the Amazon now have widespread effects on the rest of Brazil. The smoke plumes from the blazes spread from the state of Amazonas to the nearby states of Pará and Mato Grosso, and even blotted out the sun in São Paulo — a city more than 2,000 miles away.

On Monday, people in São Paulo reported on social media that the sky had gone dark between 3 and 4 p.m. local time.

In total, the blazes have created a layer of smoke estimated to be 1.2 million square miles wide. This image from the European Union's Copernicus Satellite shows the smoke slicing north to south through Brazil like a knife.

'Setting the Amazon aflame'

This week of fires comes on the heels of another worrisome milestone for the world's largest rainforest. The month of July set a new record for the most deforestation ever in the Amazon in a single month, The Guardian reported. The Amazon shrunk by 519 square miles (1,345 square kilometers). That's more than twice the area of Tokyo.

Data from Brazilian satellites indicated that about three football fields' worth of Amazonian trees fell every minute last month. The total deforested area in July was up 39% from the same month last year.

The deforestation is directly linked to fires in the Amazon, since farmers sometimes set the forest ablaze to make room for livestock pastures and crop fields. These purposeful burns can then get out of control.

A tract of Amazon jungle that was burned by loggers and farmers in Amazonas state, Brazil, on August 20. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly

Brazil controls a lion's share of the Amazon. However, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has indicated that protecting the rainforest is not one of his top priorities. Bolsonaro supports development projects like a highway and hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.

His administration has also cut down on the seizing of illegally harvested timber. In 2018 (under the previous administration), 883,000 cubic feet of illegal timber was seized. As of May 15, Bolsonaro's government agencies had seized only 1,410 cubic feet, Pacific Standard reported.

What's more, between January and May, Bolsonaro's government lowered the number of fines it levied for illegal deforestation and mining (down 34% from the same period in 2018) and decreased its monitoring of illegal activity in the rainforest.

On Tuesday, when Reuters reporters asked Bolsonaro about the record rate of uncontrolled fires in Brazil, he pointed to the fact that it's a time of year when farmers purposefully use fire to clear land — a seasonal cycle called "queimada."

"I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame," Bolsonaro said. "But it is the season of the queimada."

Warmer, drier conditions make it easier for flames to spread

Warmer conditions because of climate change can allow blazes that crop up during the dry season to grow bigger than they otherwise might have. Global warming also increases the likelihood and frequency of wildfires around the world.

Wildfires rage near Batagay, in Russia's Sakha Republic, on June 11. Pierre Markuse/Flickr

Overall, this year is on pace to be the third hottest on record globally, according to Climate Central. Last year was the fourth warmest, behind 2016 (the warmest), 2015, and 2017.

Read more: The northernmost reaches of the Earth are on fire. Here's what this record-breaking hot summer looks like from space.

Hot and dry conditions in the Northern Hemisphere are a consequence of this unprecedented warming. That's because warming leads winter snow cover to melt earlier, and hotter air sucks away the moisture from trees and soil. Decreased rainfall also makes for parched forests that are prone to burning.

Combined, that has created ideal conditions for wildfires in Brazil and elsewhere around the world.

As of today, parts of British Columbia, Canada, and Alaska are also burning, while more than 13.5 million acres of Siberia are ablaze too.

When Jupiter was young, about 4.5 billion years ago, a protoplanet with 10 times the mass of Earth crashed head-on into its surface.

The impact shook Jupiter to its core — literally.

That's the finding of a new study from astronomers at Rice University and China's Sun Yat-sen University, which was published last week in the journal Nature.

An ancient collision, the researchers suggest, would explain why Jupiter's core is less dense and more diffuse than scientists expected.

NASA's Jupiter-orbiting spacecraft, Juno, has been collecting information about the internal structure and composition of our solar system's largest planet since it arrived there in July 2016. Two years ago, it sent back some odd gravitational readings.

An artist’s concept of the Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. NASA

Scientists expected that heavy elements would be concentrated at Jupiter's center, leaving an outer "envelope" of light-weight hydrogen and helium around the densest part of the core. But instead, Juno's measurements showed that heavy elements are diffuse throughout Jupiter's center, in an area up to half of the planet's radius.

"This is puzzling," Andrea Isella, a Rice astronomer and study co-author, said in a press release. "It suggests that something happened that stirred up the core, and that's where the giant impact comes into play."

Shang-Fei Liu, who worked as a postdoctoral researcher on Isella's team, was the first to suggest that an early collision could be to blame for scrambling Jupiter's core.

"It sounded very unlikely to me," Isella said. "Like a one-in-a-trillion probability. But Shang-Fei convinced me, by sheer calculation, that this was not so improbable."

Liu is now a faculty member at Sun Yat-sen University and the lead author of the new study.

Our solar system's violent history

Our solar system's early history was full of giant collisions.

The moon formed after a huge body collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago, and its craters are the scars of a billion-year bombardment of asteroids. Scientists think the significant tilts in the rotational axes of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune could also indicate that the planets sustained massive collisions long ago.

Uranus is tilted on its axis by 98 degrees. Scientists think that may be the result of an early collision.NASA/ESA/A. Simon (GSFC)/M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (UC Berkeley); Business Insider

To look into Jupiter's past, Liu's team estimated the probabilities of different collision scenarios at various angles and ran thousands of computer simulations. The team found that young Jupiter's huge mass and gravitational pull strongly influenced "embryos" of planets nearby — bodies made of slowly coalescing dust and debris.

So head-on collisions were more likely than glancing blows because of the effect of Jupiter's gravity. In every scenario the team analyzed, there was at least a 40% chance that Jupiter absorbed another planet in its first few million years, the scientists concluded.

"The only scenario that resulted in a core-density profile similar to what Juno measures today is a head-on impact with a planetary embryo about 10 times more massive than Earth," Liu said.

The core of that crashing planet would have then merged with Jupiter's core.

"Because it's dense, and it comes in with a lot of energy, the impactor would be like a bullet that goes through the atmosphere and hits the core head-on," Isella said. "Before impact, you have a very dense core, surrounded by atmosphere. The head-on impact spreads things out, diluting the core."

A rendering shows the effect of a major impact on the core of a young Jupiter, as calculated by scientists at Rice and Sun Yat-sen universities.Illustration by Shang-Fei Liu/Sun Yat-sen University

The crash's effects on Jupiter linger today

Jupiter's diluted core is likely still recovering from that ancient crash.

"It could still take many, many billions of years for the heavy material to settle back down into a dense core under the circumstances suggested by the paper," Isella said.

This artist concept illustrates how a massive collision of objects perhaps as large as the planet Pluto could have created the dust ring around the nearby star Vega within the last million years.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Information about these planetary collisions might also help scientists studying star systems beyond our own.

Isella is a co-investigator on NASA's CLEVER Planets team, which investigates the origins of elements essential to life on young rocky planets. That project, he said, has observed spurts of infrared light in faraway star systems.

"As some people have been looking for planets around distant stars, they sometimes see infrared emissions that disappear after a few years," Isella said.

One explanation, he said, could be that those observations are showing violent, head-on collisions like the one Jupiter experienced. If two rocky planets collide and shatter, that could produce a cloud of dust that reflects the nearby star's light. To astronomers' telescopes, that would appear as a bright yet fleeting flash, since the reflected light would disappear as the dust particles in the cloud float apart.

Thankfully, however, our own solar system has settled down in the 4.5 billion years since Jupiter's big collision.