Ads aren't coming to Netflix anytime soon, but the streaming service could make a lot more money if it considered adding a free tier, analysts at Nomura's Instinet research firm estimate. And most of it would be pure profit.

Netflix could bring in $1.3 billion a year in advertising revenue by 2021 from adding a free tier of programming that features advertisements in the US, Instinet estimated in a Friday note. About 70% of that revenue, or $700 million, would most likely be profit.

That's based on the $1.5 billion that its US competitor Hulu said it made from advertising in 2018.

"Hulu has proven that there is demand for an ad-supported model," the note said. "We think that, over time, Netflix would be able to command premium ad pricing, due to its broader subscription base, but that it would track competitors in the near term."

The model assumes Netflix could launch a free tier with ads, similar to Spotify, in the US in 2020 and grow the plan to represent roughly a quarter of its paid subscriber base by 2021.

The note estimates that 180 million to 190 million people in the US might be interested in a free tier of Netflix. It also assumes Netflix would be able to make close to as much money from advertising off its lowest-paying subscribers — folks on the basic plan, which costs $8.99 a month — as it does from subscriber fees.

Spotify's free, ad-supported tier has also encouraged more people to sign up for its paid service. The ad-supported service has driven more than 60% of Spotify's total gross paid subscriber additions since February 2014, when Spotify started tracking conversions from its free to its paid service, the company reported.

Netflix has repeatedly said it does not plan to introduce ads to the service anytime soon. But some advertising and media execs have argued that Netflix is destined to join the ad business one day.

The streaming company has warmed to working with brands in other ways. It is partnering with big advertisers like Coca-Cola and Burger King to tap into more ad dollars and marketing channels for tentpole originals like "Stranger Things."

Read more: Inside Netflix's marketing strategy for 'Stranger Things,' the show that supercharged its work with brands like Lyft and Coca-Cola

The analyst note comes as reports suggest Netflix is becoming more budget-conscious. Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer at Netflix, advised content-development execs this past month to be more cost effective in their spending, The Information reported.

The streaming giant is also moving toward funding its own operations. So far, Netflix has taken on debt and burned cash by the hundreds of millions to support its eight-figure annual content budget. It told investors it would start reducing its free-cash-flow deficit by 2020.

Netflix brought in $4.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2019. It had a free-cash-flow deficit of about $460 million, up 60% from a year earlier. Streaming content obligations, or Netflix's estimates of what it owes for content based on its existing contracts, were $18.9 billion.

Advertising, as well as other possible revenue streams like product placement or licensing intellectual property, could help improve free cash flow and lessen the company's debt load, which was about $10.3 billion last quarter.

Instinet assumes that Netflix would run fewer ads on its free tier than Hulu or traditional TV do now, with about five minutes of ads an hour.

Android creator Andy Rubin was allegedly involved in running a "sex ring" with at least one woman, and is accused of cheating his ex-wife out of millions of dollars in their prenuptial agreement, according to a civil complaint unsealed on Tuesday in connection with another case.

The documents were first shared by Buzzfeed News' Ryan Mac. A lawyer for Rubin says that the complaint is full of "false claims."

"This is a family law dispute involving a wife who regrets her decision to execute a prenuptial agreement. It is full of false claims and we look forward to telling our side of the story," a lawyer for Rubin told Business Insider.

Read more: Larry Page 'bypassed' Alphabet's board to personally give Andy Rubin a $150 million stock package while he was under investigation for sexual misconduct, according to lawsuit

In the unsealed complaint, one woman, who is referred to as "M," was allegedly working with Rubin in what the filing describes as a "sex ring." "M" would "agree to perform various sexual acts with multiple men," have it filmed for "the enjoyment of Rubin and other men," and then, would have sex with Rubin "off-camera," according to the documents.

The details regarding Rubin's alleged extramarital affairs shed new light on last year's New York Times report which claimed the Android creator had been involved in "ownership relationships" with multiple women during his marriage. According to the complaint, Rubin would "pay for their expenses in exchange for offering them to other men."

Central to the complaint is the accusation that Rubin cheated Rie Rubin, his now-former wife, out of a lot of money by having her sign a prenuptial agreement days before their wedding, while she was pregnant with their child, without adequately disclosing that his lawyer had represented him in a previous divorce. That conflict of interest, as well as the rest of the story, form a basis for invalidating the agreement, Rie Rubin argues in the complaint.

With the complaint, Rie Rubin is seeking to invalidate that prenuptial agreement, with which she says that Rubin was able to exclude some of his personal assets from being covered by the agreement — including what appears to be his portion of the proceeds from the sale of Rubin's previous company Danger to Microsoft in 2008.

Specifics of that deal were redacted in the documents. However, the documents say that Rubin's net worth went from about $10.3 million at the time of their marriage, up to an estimated $350 million today.

Last fall, when news broke that Google paid Rubin a $90 million exit package despite multiple cases of harassment reportedly having been brought against him, a major controversy was stirred internally at the tech giant. Some 20,000 employees worldwide staged a walkout in protest of Rubin's payout and the company's overall handling of harassment cases, especially amongst executives.

At the time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that over the previous two years, 48 employees had been fired for sexual misconduct, 13 of whom held senior positions at the company.

Read the full complaint here:

Equinix runs huge facilities where cloud giants set up thousands of servers in huge datacenters that support their massive networks. These so-called "hyperscale" data centers help them provide faster, more reliable services to customers within

Equinix, a Redwood City, California-based tech company, already runs more than 200 such facilities worldwide, but the need is still growing. That's why Equinix said it is forming a $1 billion venture with Singapore's sovereign fund to build even more massive facilities to serve the ever-growing computing power requirements of cloud giants.

Indeed, Equinix already counts Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud as customers — though the company doesn't say if they're using these specific hyperscale data centers.

"They are growing faster than they can build their own capacity, so they turn to outside suppliers like us to provide that large-scale capacity in various locations," Eric Schwartz, Equinix's chief strategy and development officer, told Business Insider.

Equinix operates like a landlord that also offers technical services to major cloud companies. The company provides the real estate where cloud giants set up their servers, as well as the technology that makes it easier for these data centers to connect with their main datacenters and the outside world. Cloud giants typically deploy these hyperscale datacenters to enhance their main networks, Schwartz said.

"Our facilities are designed to be the junction points," he said. The cloud giants "build their networks from their facilities to facilities like ours" setting up "small deployments that operate like a gateway."

The joint venture with the Singapore sovereign fund, known as GIC, plans initially to build six facilities in Europe, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London. Equinix will own 20% of the venture, while Singapore venture, known as GIC, will control 80%. The venture is expected to close in the third quarter, Schwartz said.

Analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research called the Equinix venture "a significant investment."

"These are larger facilities with more than 5,000 servers and 10,000 square feet" with "higher densities, less power consumption, massive compute power," he told Business Insider. "Enterprises and brands who want to access hyperscale compute have limited options as they must go to public cloud options which limit their agility and security."

Through the venture, Equinix will be able to "tap into a huge market that gives customers choice without the capex build out requirements." The market for hyperscale datacenter facilities is projected to be a $61.2 billion market by 2025, according to Constellation Research.

Equinix is building the facilities at a time of heightened focus on data privacy, including the requirement in some countries and regions, including Russia, China and the EU, for tech companies to store data in the countries they serve, not in foreign locations.

However, Schwartz says that the major reason why customers turn to Equinix isn't for purposes of meeting those requirements, but rather for reasons of performance: The main reason their customers would want to set up a hyperscale data center in a specific location, he says, is to improve the quality and speed of their networks.

"Our customers want to be geographically distributed," he said. "This is about performance and hosting the datacenter near users. People's tolerance for delay on their applications is going down."

Got a tip about Equinix 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.

A letter from Amazon to a US senator last week reveals that Amazon stores voice recordings and transcripts from interactions with the Alexa voice assistant indefinitely unless customers manually delete them. Even then, some Alexa-related information can be retained by Amazon.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware sent Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos a letter in May with questions about how long Alexa stores voice recordings. Brian Husemen, vice president of public policy at Amazon, sent a response letter to Coons on Friday.

Huseman wrote in the letter that Amazon can "retain customers' voice recordings and transcripts until the customer chooses to delete them." However, deleting your Alexa recordings doesn't necessarily guarantee that the information is no longer in Amazon's hands.

"We may still retain other records of customers' Alexa interactions, including records of actions Alexa took in response to the customer's request," Huseman wrote.

The data that can be kept includes a record of requests of using Alexa to access outside services, like calling an Uber. It also stores some data around recurring requests to Alexa, like anniversary reminders.

Huseman explained that in Amazon's view, this residual information storage is ultimately to the customer's benefit, as it improves Alexa's machine learning systems.

"To work well, machine learning systems need to be trained using real world data. Speech is nuanced, dynamic, and has tremendous variation based on region, dialect, context, environment, and the individual speaker," Huseman wrote. "Training Alexa with voice recordings and transcripts from a diverse range of customers help sensure Alexa works well for everyone."

Sen. Coons says that this means that even if a user deleting their Alexa voice recordings, it doesn't mean that information is then totally unavailable to Amazon.

"Amazon's response leaves open the possibility that transcripts of user voice interactions with Alexa are not deleted from all of Amazon's servers, even after a user has deleted a recording of his or her voice," Senator Coons said in a statement to CNET.

Users can learn more about managing voice recordings for Alexa devices by visiting the " Alexa Privacy Hub" online.

To review voice recordings and delete them individually or all at once:

To delete all of your voice recordings at once:

Democrats on the US House Financial Services Committee have asked Facebook to put its cryptocurrency plans on hold in a new setback for the nascent project.

On Tuesday, Reps. Maxine Waters, Carolyn Maloney, Lacy Clay, Al Green, and Stephen Lynch wrote to the $556 billion social network's top executives to ask it to impose a moratorium on Libra until regulators and Congress have had time to explore concerns, including the risk of hacking, data security, and global financial security.

"We write to request that Facebook and its partners immediately agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on Libra — its proposed cryptocurrency and Calibra — its proposed digital wallet," the politicians wrote. "It appears that these products may lend themselves to an entirely new global financial system that is based out of Switzerland and intends to rival US monetary currency and the dollar.

"This raises serious privacy, trading, national security, and monetary policy concerns for not only Facebook's over 2 billion users, but also for investors, consumers, and the global economy."

Libra is Facebook's brainchild, and the company has led the early development of the product, but the plan is to surrender control to an independent organization led by a consortium of more than 100 member companies. A few dozen partners have tentatively signed on with that consortium thus far, including Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Spotify, and Coinbase.

The vision for Libra is a digital currency without borders that will let users send money and pay for things cheaply and easily, with Facebook integrating it into its messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger, and building a digital wallet for consumers called Calibra.

But Facebook has faced immediate skepticism over the project, in part because of its track record of scandals. The company has spent the past two years lurching from crisis to crisis — from Cambridge Analytica's misappropriation of tens of millions of users' data to the social network's role in spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar.

Waters first called for a moratorium of Libra in June, less than a day after it was announced, which the company rejected. A Facebook spokesperson rejected this idea at the time, saying: "We look forward to responding to lawmakers' questions as this process moves forward."

A spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment after Tuesday's request.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Read more:

Over the last few years, the e-mail app Superhuman has proven very popular, especially among Silicon Valley investors and other power players — among Superhuman super-fans, the app's tools for managing your inbox are enough to offset the steep $30/month subscription fee that it's charging while in an invite-only beta phase.

Now, though, Superhuman is coming under fire for one particular feature: By default, it seems, messages sent via Superhuman contain a "tracking pixel" that let users see when, where, and how often the recipient opened an email sent through the service — allegedly, without telling that recipient.

The conversation was started with a blog post on Sunday by Mike Davidson, the founder of Newswire and former lead designer of Twitter, entitled "Superhuman is Spying on You," taking the company to task for not giving those who get such messages the option not to send that information back to the sender.

"Superhuman never offers a way to opt out. Just as troublingly, Superhuman teaches its user to surveil by default," writes Davidson (emphasis his). "I imagine many users sign up for this, see the feature, and say to themselves "Cool! Read receipts! I guess that's one of the things my $30 a month buys me."

In the wake of Davidson's blog post, Superhuman updated its terms of service on Monday to include more detailed information on the read-reciept feature. However, Superhuman is technically still in that invite-only beta phase, meaning that only those invited users seem able to access those terms.

Davidson's post set off heated debate between founders, investors, and other prominent figures in the tech industry over what data tracking is acceptable in a world where Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal have made issues of privacy and control over your data seem more pressing than ever.

Others say that this is a "nontroversy" - that Superhuman's technology is worth any privacy tradeoff, and that lots of products (especially email marketing products) use similar tracking tools.

Read More: 57 startups that will boom in 2019, according to VCs

The app has a cult-like following among founders and investors alike, with a mission to come up with a better way to handle e-mail — interface that "needs to be reinvented," Santi Subotovsky of Emergence Capital told Business Insider in February.

Last week, Superhuman announced it raised $33 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz that valued the 5-year-old company at $260 million, according to a New York Times report. Based on Pitchbook data, the invite-only startup has raised at least $46 million since it was founded in 2014.

Representatives from Superhuman and Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read Mike Davidson's full post here.

In June, Facebook unveiled Libra, an ambitious new cryptocurrency that wants to make "moving money around the world ... as easy and cheap as sending a text message."

So far, most people don't seem to be convinced.

The financial-services firm Jefferies conducted a survey of American social-media users after Libra's announcement and found that people are overwhelmingly skeptical of the effort, saying they're unlikely to use it and citing lack of trust in Facebook as a major reason for that.

Eighty percent of respondents said they were "unlikely" or "very unlikely" to make use of Libra when it launches, with 45% saying "I don't trust Facebook" was their biggest concern with it.

The data highlights the uphill struggle that Facebook will face to persuade people to get on board with its efforts, illustrating how Facebook's years of scandals and ugly missteps are now coming back to bite it as it attempts to move on with ambitious new ventures.

Libra won't launch until 2020, so the $556 billion company still has more than six months to get Libra's message out and convince users of its utility — but it's starting from a position of notable weakness. A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Libra is Facebook's brainchild, and the company has led the early development of the product, but the plan is to surrender control to an independent organization led by a consortium of more than 100 member companies. A few dozen partners have tentatively signed on with that consortium thus far, including Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Spotify, and Coinbase.

The vision for Libra is a digital currency without borders that will let users send money and pay for things cheaply and easily, with Facebook integrating it into its messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger, and building a digital wallet for consumers called Calibra.

Jefferies surveyed more than 600 US social-media users and found intense skepticism — but it may be better received in emerging-market countries, where consumer financial infrastructure is less developed and the Facebook brand is less tainted.

Facebook has spent the past two years lurching from scandal to scandal — from Cambridge Analytica's misappropriation of tens of millions of users' data to the social network's role in spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar.

"Although our survey analyzed only US social media users, we emphasize that in order for Libra to scale successfully, adoption will need to be broad-based. Effectively, without substantial network effects, we do not expect Libra to replace existing forms of cashless payments — at least not in the near term," the analysts Brent Hill and James Heaney wrote in a research note.

"In addition to low trust in FB, almost 40% of respondents said they already had a mobile payment wallet and saw no reason to use Libra. This result raises the question of what problem Libra actually solves. We believe there may be a better use case in emerging markets, where adoption of mobile payments is lower and currencies are more volatile," they added.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Read more:

We also broke some news around the platforms' evolving relationships with news publishers.

Meanwhile, Apple News is going back to the drawing board with Apple News Plus, its 3-month-old subscription bundle.

Tanya Dua sat down with the CMO of Chipotle, who talked about why consulting companies aren't taking over the world and why it will stop apologizing for its past mistakes.

Tanya also talked to Anheuser-Busch's CMO, who is cutting down the number of agencies it uses.

And a fun thing: Ashley Rodriguez looked at the original pitch of the creators of "Stranger Things" that explains how they ultimately hooked Netflix on their eerie coming-of-age story.

Here are other stories from media, tech, and advertising you should check out:

Netflix could drastically cut its cash burn with a Spotify-like model that includes an ad-supported free tier

The inside story of how Robinhood, a $6 billion investing app for millennials, blew a huge launch so badly that Congress got involved

A new Discovery TV show drops an 'Undercover Billionaire' off in Erie, Pennsylvania, with $100 to try and create a million-dollar business in 90 days

Netflix's 'Stranger Things' partnership with Baskin-Robbins started with a cold reach-out on LinkedIn that one exec thought was a joke

Google created a marketing tool aimed at being a 'one-stop shop' for small businesses but faces tough competition in Facebook and Amazon

Asa Mathat | D: All Things Digital

Tesla shares surged 8% in late Tuesday trading after the electric automaker reported quarterly delivery figures that topped Wall Street's expectations. The company's strong showing was widely expected, and followed last quarter's disappointing quarterly results that have fanned analyst fears of demand concerns.

Tesla said it produced a record 87,048 vehicles during the second quarter and delivered around 95,200 vehicles, also a record. Deliveries topped the 87,749 vehicles analysts polled by Bloomberg expected.

"We believe we are well positioned to continue growing total production and deliveries in Q3," the company said in a statement.

Tesla said it delivered 77,550 Model 3 vehicles in the second quarter, topping analysts' expectations for 70,959 deliveries, per Bloomberg data. The automaker noted it was entering the third quarter with an increase in its order backlog, seeking to quell investors' concerns over demand.

Markets Insider is looking for a panel of millennial investors. If you're active in the markets, CLICK HERE to sign up.

The results come as Tesla's stock has rallied in recent weeks, recovering some of its 2019 losses. Still, shares were down 32% since the start of the year through the market close on Tuesday.

That plunge came as analysts expressed concerns about underlying demand for Tesla's vehicles, which the company says is strong.

Business Insider's Graham Rapier reported on Tuesday that Tesla's vice president of interior and exterior engineering, Steve MacManus, had left the automaker. His departure is the latest in a long line of company exits in recent months. 

Now read more Tesla coverage from Markets Insider and Business Insider:

Tesla analysts up and down Wall Street are painting an ugly picture as the focus turns to all-important delivery numbers

Tesla loses engineering VP amid end-of-quarter delivery rush

One of Tesla's most optimistic backers explains why it's doubling down as other investors rush for the exits

The investment giant that was once Tesla's biggest Wall Street backer cut its stake in half last year. Now it's dumped most of what was left.

A vocal Tesla bull says he can no longer 'look investors in the eye' and recommend the stock

Workers at Tesla's Buffalo solar tile factory say the company sabotaged their efforts to find new jobs after trying to unionize

Markets Insider

America is celebrating its independence this week, but there's nothing revolutionary about the way 4th of July fireworks are made.

Fireworks have been built from a mix of explosive powder, chemicals, and glue for hundreds of years; the earliest fireworks shows date back more than 1,000 years, well before the US made its debut as a country 243 years ago.

Not all fireworks are built the same — you can't get a burst to look red by using the same ingredients as the ones inside a blue or white firework. That's because the color of a firework explosion depends on which kinds of elements are inside, from common metals to rarer minerals and even some salts.

Pyrotechnicians call these bursts of colored light "stars," and they're made of a mixture of fuel, oxidizer (to help the fuel burn), color-producing elements (like aluminum or copper), and a binder (glue), all packed inside a shell. That shell gets fired high into the air before a time-delayed fuse spits fire onto the stars and they take off.

California-based pyrotechnician and electrical engineer Mike Tockstein, who prepared the Los Angeles Coliseum for its 4th of July show last year, told Business Insider that it takes days of pounding, digging, wiring, and "well over 10,000 pounds of equipment" to set up for that kind of event.

So before you peer up into the sky this Independence Day, take a look at some of the common elements that are making your celebration possible.

It seems the narrative playing out for Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 4" is: " It's a big money maker — but..."

Last week the latest movie in the treasured franchise opened number one at the domestic box office with a $120 million performance ($238 million globally). It's one of the biggest opening weekends for an animated movie ever and is the fourth-biggest opening of 2019 (all four are Disney releases). But, industry projections had the movie taking in $140 million-plus, domestically.

This weekend "Toy Story 4" repeated as domestic box office champ, bringing in an estimated $57.9 million (its global take is now over $496 million). But, that's below the second-weekend performances of previous big Pixar sequels like "Incredibles 2" ($80.3 million), "Finding Dory" ($72.9 million), and "Toy Story 3" ($59.3 million).

Read more: "Avengers: Endgame" is getting rereleased to theaters, but experts say beating "Avatar" for the box-office record isn't certain

In no way is Disney going to regret dusting off the "Toy Story" franchise — despite not living up to lofty industry expectations — but it is another indication that the 2019 theatrical slate isn't grabbing audiences as much as the record-breaking 2018 line-up.

"Toy Story 4" also faced strong counter-programming competition from Warner Bros.

"Annabelle Comes Home," the triquel in the horror franchise which is part of "The Conjuring" universe, came in second place at the domestic box office with $31.2 million, since its opening on Wednesday ($20.3 million over the weekend). It's another win for the franchise that explores the adventures of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Budgeted between $27 million - $32 million, the movie has already made a profit in its first weekend, along with its strong domestic take it has brought in over $20 million internationally to have a global cume of over $50 million.

Music listening has come a long way over the past few decades. Gone are the days when you had to buy CDs, vinyl records, or cassette tapes. You don't even have to buy digital downloads anymore. These days, you can simply sign up to a music streaming service and have access to all the music you'll ever need on a device that sits in your pocket.

Of course, there are quite a few music streaming services out there, and they're all a little different. Because of that, it can be hard to find the service that's perfect for your needs.

When deciding which streaming service to get, it's worth considering a few things. For starters, you'll want to make sure that there's an app for your chosen streaming service on every device you use for music listening.

You'll also want to consider things like streaming audio quality and support for platforms like digital assistants. Voice assistants are getting better at working with third-party services, but they're still not great at it — especially when it comes to Siri.

Still figuring out which streaming service is for you? We've done the research so that you don't have to. Here are the best music streaming services worth considering.

Keep scrolling to check out our top picks.

I never planned to be an entrepreneur.

I was a nerdy kid from rural Alabama, but not an outstanding one. I wasn't the smartest, or most ambitious, or really the best of anything in my class of 100 students. But even back then, I was fascinated with — and passionate about — stories, about using technology to tell them, and about the communities those stories affect.

In college, I realized that I was queer right around the time I got obsessed with working for the student newspaper. Just after I came out, we debated gay marriage in a political science seminar. As I very consciously quelled my emotions to recall policies and court cases, I thought, "This will never happen in my lifetime." A little later, I wrote the first story on a trans person for the campus paper. I was astonished and outraged at how hard it was for him to simply use the bathroom on campus.

Throughout my career — from restaurant gigs, to internships, to management, to eventually starting my own company — I have grappled with being a queer woman at work. A steady drip of fear, doubt, and responsibility niggles away at everyone who's ever been "the other." What should I do about my manager using a slur? How can I be most fair with this politician who deeply opposes my relationship? How can I help everyone who works here perform their very best? How can I get the power to make decisions and set priorities?

If you had asked me back at 18 to predict what the world would look like for LGBTQ people 20 years later, I would have landed far short of where we actually are. But people kept coming out. They kept fighting in court, protesting, lobbying, talking to their neighbors, challenging every little thing to try to change the one big thing: equality. And the tides are turning faster than I imagined. We still have a long way to go, but the progress when we work consciously and constantly to improve is obvious.

It's still difficult for LGBTQ employees to navigate the workplace

All that social and cultural success hasn't necessarily been as apparent in our work lives. LGBTQ people still face discrimination, are underrepresented in many companies and industries, and often lack employment protections. We can change this. As entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders, we have a mandate to disrupt broken systems and build a better way forward for our businesses. Diversity and inclusion efforts are often framed as a part of building company culture, but prioritizing diversity is also an essential business strategy.

You've probably read that diverse teams are more innovative, make better products, and make more money. But the benefits of consciously working on diversity stretches beyond internal initiatives. Inclusion is more important than ever in industries like media and tech, which aim to rapidly grow very large audiences of very different people, all while facing radical disruption and a crisis of mistrust with their users.

WhereBy.Us, the startup I co-founded, is not perfect at this by any measure. But embedding diversity and inclusion into our work helps us to punch above our weight in the highly competitive market for attention. Our teams collect and analyze dozens of feedback reports and metrics each day to understand who we may be missing in our work, to learn more about the needs of our customers, and to find new ways for us to grow.

We ask a lot of direct questions to our users: What are you curious about? What should we know about your work, your neighborhood, your community, your passions? What can we do better? These questions regularly turn into stories or sales leads, but they're also sending a strong, steady signal of inclusion. We are listening to you. We want to learn from you. We work for you and with you.

Active outreach is key to cultivating a diverse audience and staff

Our teams are constantly working to strengthen relationships in the cities we serve, particularly among communities that are unfamiliar to us. Outreach builds networks that help us grow, find better stories, understand different user needs, and identify new sales and partnership opportunities. Ultimately, investing in stronger, deeper relationships helps us compete against far bigger teams with far bigger budgets.

When diversity and inclusion are deeply rooted in our work as a core value and a strength — rather than viewed as a lofty cultural aspiration — we create a continuing cycle for culture efforts. Extensive community outreach helps us get more highly qualified, diverse candidates in the applicant pool for every job we post. In turn, more diverse teams guide more diverse coverage, welcoming new audiences and helping our work serve more people more effectively.

It's hard not to be proud of how far LGBTQ communities have come during the time my career has unfolded. Yet we still have a lot more work to do. This requires extending equality at every step to every other "other." As entrepreneurs, we have even more opportunity to do that work through solving problems, disrupting broken systems, and building better businesses.

Rebekah Monson is cofounder and COO ofWhereBy.Us, a platform for local media in growing cities, with a focus on delightful email newsletters and experiences for communities of local explorers, makers, and leaders. WhereBy.Us owns and operates The New Tropicin Miami, The Evergreyin Seattle, Bridgelinerin Portland, Pulptown in Orlando and The Inclinein Pittsburgh.

There are some technologists who are fascinated with UFOs and what they could mean for technology here on Earth, according to Vice. And with US Navy pilots reporting mysterious spherical objects flying around at high speeds, these tech execs may get their chance.

Vice interviewed three tech executives willing to admit their fascination with UFOs for the piece. The article says that admitting an interest in hypothetical alien spacecraft is "still a pretty taboo subject" in the tech industry, and that many investors are unwilling to support related ventures because there is "no guarantee of payoff."

Deep Prasad, CEO of Canadian quantum computing startup ReactiveQ, told Vice that his goal is ultimately to find a UFO and reverse engineer it, for the betterment of mankind.

"In front of our eyes are technologies underlying these UFOs that are far beyond our understanding" Prasad said, but "if we pay close attention and reverse these technologies to bring to the masses, we will see a world with interstellar travel at our fingertips."

Rizwan Virk, executive director of Play Labs @ MIT, told Vice that UFOs could have technology beyond what modern science thinks is possible.

"This phenomenon seems to be about advanced technology that doesn't always fit into our current model of 'what is technology' and what isn't," Virk said to Vice.

Vice also references " American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology" by Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, chair of the University of North Carolina Wilmington's philosophy and religion department. That book argues that much of the fascination with UFOs is tied up with religious elements, but that there are those who approach the matter scientifically.

Most industrial designers aren't household names. It's not often that we know the name of the person responsible for overseeing the design of products that we use and love.

But with some of Apple's most iconic products, we can easily assign a name and a face to the person working behind the scenes to bring them fruition: Jony Ive.

Because we only really know Ive as Apple's chief designer, much of his work outside of Apple isn't as well known. It turns out that when Ive wasn't designing iPhones, iPods, and Mac computers, he's been cooking up some pretty unusual things, many of which you'd never expect.

Could you picture Ive designing a toilet, for example? Well, he did.

Check out some of the non-Apple products that Jony Ive has designed:

For years, the only part of Los Angeles I saw was the trip from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to whatever hotel I was staying in.

The plan was always the same: To cover E3 2019, the big annual video game trade show, held downtown.

Across the next week, I'd mostly experience a small section of blocks in downtown Los Angeles that were close to the Staples Center, where the Lakers play and the Los Angeles Convention Center resides. That last bit is important because that's where E3 is held.

A view of E3 2019 at the Los Angeles Convention Center taken from across the street. Ben Gilbert/Business Insider

As I've gotten older, I've gotten smarter about my annual trip west. I stay in an AirBnb instead of an overpriced hotel, for instance, and I schedule travel time between appointments at the show.

But there's one thing I've always made sure to do, as long as I've been going to E3 annually: Eat well. These are the four places I look forward to eating at all year:

For decades the video game industry has relied on new hardware to promote growth in cycles. The release of new Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo consoles generate an unmatched excitement that has long defined how developers create and sell their games.

Microsoft and Sony have been slowly teasing the details of their next-generation consoles, with Microsoft confirming a holiday 2020 release date for the new Xbox.

But this time around, competing companies wont be waiting to see what the traditional gaming giants have in store. Google and Apple are both planning to launch their own video game subscription services this fall with two very different business models.

Apple Arcade is expected to launch this fall across all Apple devices. Apple

Apple Arcade will offer more than 100 games for a fixed price, and they'll work across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. Apple reportedly spent more than $500 million to get Apple Arcade ready for a fall launch. Several independent studios are slated to create exclusive games for Apple Arcade, but it's not clear how much the service will cost.

Read more: Tech giants like Google and Microsoft are battling to become the Netflix of gaming, but the CEO behind 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'NBA 2K' says it won't happen anytime soon

Google's Stadia is an ambitious new gaming platform that relies on a streaming cloud service. By streaming games directly to players from high-powered cloud computers, Stadia will remove the requirement for expensive consoles. Stadia will be exclusive to subscribers to its paid, premium offering when it launches in November, but the platform will eventually be free to use. Either way, gamers will need to buy games specifically for Stadia to play.

While Google and Apple have made major investments in their gaming initiatives, their approaches are a large departure from what gamers are used to. In contrast, Microsoft has slowly established its own subscription service and cloud gaming platform without compromising the core of its Xbox business.

Here's why Microsoft is ahead of the competition as the video game industry prepares for a new era of technology:

Tesla should report second-quarter vehicle deliveries next week, and a significant amount of chatter has broken out over what the number could be.

In the first quarter, Tesla delivered 63,000 cars, a drop of over 30% from the final quarter of 2018. The company wants to get back on track in Q2 and has been targeting something like 90,000.

It might not get there. The ultimate total could be between 80-90,000. At that level, Tesla would need a huge second-half finish to deliver over 400,000 vehicles in 2019 (it moved about 250,000 in 2018).

Tesla watchers are preoccupied with the Q2 numbers because Tesla stock has rebounded about 20% over the past month and it is poised for a breakout if deliveries come in at the top of the range or, perhaps, beat that 90,000 figure.

Read more: The big question about Tesla demand makes no sense. The company has created demand where there was none before.

That's a stock story, of course. Whether Tesla's business needs a 90,000-vehicle quarter or could manage just fine on 80,000 is a more useful question, and that's getting lost in the noise. A quick auto-industry lesson: most car makers, being very good at building cars, worry more about producing too many, not too few. If they overdo it, they encourage inefficient excess capacity and end up filling dealer lots with vehicles that they have to discount.

Another quick lesson: Tesla would be better-served to sell 80,000 cars if the mix of sales is high-priced; 90,000 in sales, if a chunk is cheaper vehicles, could hurt the bottom line.

Why ignore Tesla deliveries?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. AP

In any case, my argument that you should ignore Tesla's Q2 deliveries leads into a more critical question: What is Tesla's current, logical level of production and sales? (By the way, no matter where Tesla lands in Q2, numbers-wise, the total should be a big increase over Q2 2018 — Tesla is the only automaker seeing such a massive demand surge in a US market that's been running at peak levels for going on five years).

In 2018, BMW sold about 311,000 vehicles in the US. They did this with a lineup of around 18 cars and trucks (I'm excluding anything special). Tesla sold something like 200,000 vehicles in the US — but with a lineup of just three models. That comparison actually isn't one; Tesla is serving pent-up electric vehicle demand, more so than additional organic premium-demand, demand.

But the takeaway is notable: Tesla is approaching BMW-level US sales with six times fewer vehicles available.

Before you conclude that I'm about to insist that BMW is in trouble, don't. BMW isn't in trouble. But BMW serves as a useful guide to what kind of car maker Tesla should be. And in my view, that's a premium company, not a mass-market manufacturer.

Don't push for more deliveries

Tesla's factory. Tesla

And in that context, Tesla shouldn't be pushing, pushing, pushing to sell more vehicles each quarter. It should align its US manufacturing capacity — perhaps 400,000 to 500,000 vehicles annually — with demand for cars that it can make a serious profit on.

If Tesla sells another 100,000 vehicles per year that it barely posts a margin on, then what's the point? I'd prefer to see 300,000 every year, with a 10%-ish margin (maybe higher).

The stock market doesn't want this right now. The stock market wants more deliveries. But I think the market could live with lower deliveries, so long as those deliveries are consistent, quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year, and so long as Tesla swings to serial quarterly profits — just like every other carmaker doing business these days.

So there you have it — all eyes are on Tesla deliveries for the second quarter, but all eyes should be on something else.