When you picture a C-suite executive at work, making decisions and thrashing out strategy, where do you picture them? In all likelihood, it's in an office.

Yet for Douglas Merrill, Google's former chief information officer and the CEO of finance software startup ZestFinance, his most productive meetings take place in less orthodox spaces — and he thinks it's the thing that marks him out from other tech leaders.

"I often find that many of my best one-on-one meetings take place in the gym," he tells Business Insider.

"I work on a treadmill desk; I work out pretty much every day. I exercise relatively constantly. That's not because I'm trying to be younger than I am, but because I find being in the gym clarifies my mind a little bit."

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO during Merrill's tenure. Richard Brian/Reuters

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google during Merrill's tenure, is known to favor meetings in which people comment as selectively as possible so colleagues can be sure what they're saying is important. But Merrill's gym-based meetings, by their very nature, tend to be more interpersonal.

Read more: Elon Musk emailed Tesla employees tips on how to be more productive — these are his 7 suggestions

"My chief of staff and I do cardio kickboxing and sparring together, so we just meet while we're doing that," he explains. "My chief operating officer and I also do cardio together, so we often meet. It's sort of organically worked out that we're talking about work, and that's cool.

"I usually try not to force someone to show up at the gym [for a meeting]. It's usually a little more organic than that. Obviously, we're sensitive about what we talk about, but it's just grown into a useful place where nobody's getting distracted by anything."

In addition to his gym-based meetings, Merrill adheres to what he calls a "really rote" reading schedule to keep his mind sharp when not in the office.

"I'll read a math book, followed by a history book, followed by some young adult vampire book," he says of his routine, which he has stuck to for around a decade.

"Usually it'll take me about a week to read the math book, and a week to read the history book; and a day to read the fantasy novel, and I just rotate between them, because I find that each one sort of structures my mind a little bit.

"Getting math is really important around here, I find history compelling, and the young adult book just represents the fact that, every now and then, my brain just wants to switch off for a bit."

Merrill adds that his reading habits aren't as unusual as you might think.

"I used to think I was unusual in doing that, but I've talked to a bunch of CEOs at major banks, and some variant of that [reading routine] is pretty common, which I thought was interesting."

NASA rolled out a new, multi-part plan on Friday that'd dramatically open the doors of International Space Station (ISS) to commercial companies, facilities, and even private astronauts.

NASA already permits some commercial activity on the ISS, but the agency said it's looking to boost its offerings to companies so that "innovation and ingenuity can accelerate a thriving commercial economy in low-Earth orbit." It's even seeing this new push as a way to fully commercialize and even replace the space station, making budgetary room for renewed lunar exploration with people.

One big change in NASA's five-part vision is to enable "private astronauts to conduct approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station."

NASA now says it will allow private astronauts — two per year — to stay up to 30 days each on the space station. The conditions: They have to get there via a commercial US spacecraft, such as SpaceX's or Boeing's upcoming vehicles, and pay $35,000 per day to cover for NASA's life support, communications, and other expenses (like $50 per gigabyte of data).

Richard Garriott, an English-American entrepreneur who paid $30 million for a two-week stay on the ISS in 2008, called the move a "seismic shift" in US space policy.

Garriott is one of seven private astronauts who have visited the ISS, and only because Russia was willing to take them. A decade ago, he said, NASA aggressively resisted their presence on the government-run facility. But the agency couldn't prevent private citizens' stays on the ISS due to international agreements and conventions.

"The deck was stacked very much against commercial activity on the space station," Garriott told Business Insider. "Almost all of us who flew privately literally had NASA either try to talk us out of it or try to ban us at one stage or another."

Garriott believes the commercialization of space will help accelerate research required to send astronauts into deep space on extended missions, while also improving the amenities on the ISS.

"The food is not phenomenal and the personal hygiene facilities are substantially lacking," he said — two areas he believes commercial innovation could improve.

An illustration of SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle, a spaceship designed to fly NASA astronauts, docking with the International Space Station.SpaceX

NASA's new approach might help the agency solve several longstanding problems with its roughly $100 billion investment in the sky.

One issue is that NASA has been asked by the Trump administration to return humans to the moon in the 2020s and establish a permanent base there — but the government has yet to grant the agency enough money to achieve that herculean task. Meanwhile, NASA continues to pay about $3-$4 billion a year to maintain and operate its space station.

"Each year the station remains in orbit, NASA allocates roughly half of its total human space flight budget to ISS operations — an expenditure that limits the agency's ability to fund development of systems needed to visit the moon and other destinations beyond low-Earth orbit," Paul K. Martin, NASA's Inspector General, said in May 2018.

NASA considered pursuing a full commercialization of the space station in the mid 2020s — in other words, simply handing the ISS over to companies — but the agency didn't sense enough demand to make that happen. By opening up the ISS to some more commercial activity but covering most operating expenses, the agency may instead be able to justify its ongoing expenditures for the ISS and work toward getting the added budget it needs to reach the moon.

But another key part of NASA's new plan is to open up a port on the ISS for a commercial module, laboratory, or other facility. The agency plans to release a call for proposals for that initiative next week. The ultimate goal, it seems, is to slowly transition the ISS over to the commercial sector and even foster the development of entirely new private space stations.

These new goals mean NASA would not de-orbit the space station in 2025, as has been discussed, and instead keep it operational for longer, possibly through 2030.

If you're a space-industry employee or insider with information to share, send Dave Mosher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or consider using more secure options listed here.

The Toyota Land Cruiser is one of the few SUVs that can genuinely perform double-duty as a semi-luxury suburb-mobile and a serious offroading chariot. You have to look at Land Rovers and Range Rovers, as well as some Jeeps and Mercedes, to achieve a similar package — and even then, the Land Cruiser is arguably the best combination of capability and comfort.

I mean, the Land Cruiser can go from dropping kids off at school to surviving a war zone. It's a very special vehicle.

Obviously, I could complain about the age of the platform. But Toyota is a conservative company and isn't going to mess with products that don't need to be messed with. The Land Cruiser's heyday for US sales was the 1990s, when there weren't that many large SUVs in the landscape. Nowadays, Toyota sells about a thousand a year, and they aren't cheap. So the company makes what I'm guessing is a nice profit margin with essentially zero new investment.

The Land Cruiser doesn't suffer, either. It literally gets the job done, no matter what. Even the infotainment system is acceptable (in the equivalent Lexus, the LX 570, it isn't). The main challenge with the vehicle is its physical size. It's a driveway filler, and if you don't have a huge garage, the fit could be tight. But if you're in the market for a full-size SUV, you've already come to grips with this.

In terms of a comparison, I tend to think of the Land Cruiser as being both more robust and more high-end than the Chevy Suburban, and about on par with the GMC Yukon Denali. The Land Cruiser is considerably more expensive than the Suburban, and as far as distinctions go, you're paying for the Toyota's reputation. On a day-to-day basis, the Chevy is competitive.

I wasn't able to test the Land Cruiser on anything other than paved roads. But to be honest, this SUV doesn't need testing. It's the best big offroader you can find that isn't specifically outfitted for the backcountry.

For normal-life operations, this Toyota shouldn't disappoint. Perhaps the key consideration is cost of ownership. It's fun to have a powerful V8 under the hood, but the pain at the gas pump could get to you after a while. I don't think anyone necessarily needs the Land Cruiser, as they might have a few decades ago, before crossovers were an option.

But if you want a large SUV that can tow plenty, haul anything you could think of, and that's nicely accessorized with some premium touches, the Land Cruiser is a fine choice. And if the apocalypse hits, you'll be covered.

Prominent tech reporter Peter Bright, age 38, was charged on Friday in connection with soliciting sex from minors online, according to a Daily Dot report.

Bright, who worked for tech blog Ars Technica and is well-known in tech circles for his coverage of Microsoft, was charged in connection with attempting to molest two young children after a sting operation with federal officials, according to a federal complaint filed Friday, the Daily Dot reported.

Bright was reportedly charged after meeting with an undercover agent who he believed to be the mother of two children he allegedly intended to molest. The complaint also said that Bright had claimed to have molested an 11-year-old girl.

Bright is currently being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan without bail, according to the Department of Justice's federal inmate locator.

The Daily Dot report states that Bright is no longer employed by Ars Technica.

Ars Technica, which is owned by the parent company of magazine publisher Conde Nast, did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Technology reporters and bloggers were shaken by the report.

Younger audiences have lost some enthusiasm for the "Star Wars" franchise, but it's still a major hit with a key demographic that could make it an essential part of Disney's streaming efforts.

A report from the London-based analytics firm Ampere Analysis released Thursday rated Marvel as Disney's most valuable property in attracting subscribers to its coming streaming service, Disney Plus. Marvel was ranked as the most important property among the 18-to-24 age group, which the report also found was the group most likely to subscribe to the service, aside from households with children.

Read more: 5 confirmed 'Star Wars' projects are coming after 'The Rise of Skywalker' — here are all the details

People ages 25 to 34 are most attracted to Disney's animated movies, the report said, and they are "significantly more likely" to have children in their household.

But those ages 35 and older are more likely to value "Star Wars," according to Ampere, making it "key to attracting older audiences to the service" who "may be less influenced by Disney's animated titles, and by the Marvel franchise."

While Disney has promised a "slowdown" on "Star Wars" movies after "Solo: A Star Wars Story" disappointed at the box office last year, there is still plenty of "Star Wars" content on the way.

Disney is developing multiple "Star Wars" projects for both Disney Plus and theaters (and those would eventually move to Disney Plus). "The Mandalorian," the first live-action "Star Wars" TV series, is scheduled to be available to stream when Disney Plus launches on November 12, and another live-action series, a "Rogue One" spin-off, is in development.

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" is scheduled to hit theaters in December, and a new trilogy from the "Game of Thrones" showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss is expected in 2022.

Reuters

Uber shares slid by as much as 1.4% late Friday after the company confirmed two executives were leaving the company.

Barney Harford, Uber's chief operating officer, and Rebecca Messina, the chief marketing officer, are both stepping down, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in an email Friday.

Two longtime Uber executives are being promoted to fill the roles. Andrew Macdonald will lead operations, and Jill Hazelbaker, who currently runs policy and communications, will also lead the marketing department, according to a company filing. Khosrowshahi said the shakeup allows him to have a more direct hand in daily operations.

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In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Uber also said Jason Droege, the head of Uber Eats, would begin reporting directly to Khosrowshahi. Macdonald will report to the CEO as well. Both will serve as co-managers of its Core Platform business segment.

The two departures come about one month after Uber's brutal initial public offering that saw the largest first-day dollar loss in a US-listed IPO on record. Shares have fallen by nearly 2% since pricing at $45. The stock closed out the Friday session at $44.16.

You can read the email Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent to emails detailing the moves here.

Graham Rapier contributed to this report.

Markets Insider

Some employees at Google are angered by decisions made by YouTube this week, but say they're afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation from the company and their colleagues, according to a report by the Verge on Friday.

"It's not safe for us," one employee told the Verge. "We need to look out for our jobs, our personal safety, and our families."

The concerns surfaced after YouTube decided to demonetize conservative commentator Steven Crowder this week for his repeated derogatory remarks about Vox journalist, Carlos Maza.

Initially, YouTube said Crowder's language — which referred to Maza as a "lispy queer" and a "gay Latino" — did not constitute a violation of its policies, and that the videos would remain up. However, a day later, YouTube said that it was "suspending" Crowder's ability to make money from his channel.

One employee who spoke to the Verge said they feared speaking out against the company's handling of this and other LGBTQ matters over concerns of being doxxed by their colleagues — a practice of putting personally identifiable information about someone online with the intent of stirring up harassment against that person.

In early 2018, Wired reported that some Google employees were doxxing colleagues who spoke out in favor of diversity, especially those who were queer or transgender.

The Verge report also indicates that those employees are concerned about recent allegations that Google retaliated against two of the main organizers of November's Google Walkout. While Google denies those allegations, one of those organizers, Claire Stapleton, publicly announced on Friday that she has left the company over fears that she would face reprisal in the workplace.

Read more: One of the main organizers of the Google Walkout has left the company over fears of 'public flogging, shunning, and stress' if she stayed

Google did not comment on employee concerns raised specifically in the Verge's report, but reiterated its policy on retaliation to Business Insider on Friday.

"We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation," a spokesperson said.

Read the Verge's full report here.

Do you work at Google? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (209) 730-3387 using a non-work phone, email atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram at nickbastone, or Twitter DM at@nickbastone.

Ask Tesla fans and critics about the success of the electric-car maker's Model 3 sedan, and you will get very different answers.

The company's supporters will point to the vehicle's impressive sales, glowing reviews, and enthusiastic owner feedback. Detractors will highlight the manufacturing problems that delayed its rollout, build-quality and service issues, and the fact that Tesla has failed to meet initial production targets for the vehicle.

That split is embodied in the divide between Consumer Reports' editorial staff and its readers, who have offered a range of feedback about the Model 3 since its 2017 release. The publication pulled its recommendation of the vehicle in February due to reports of reliability problems, but the Model 3 still topped the publication's owner-satisfaction list. (The latter only included owner feedback, while the former also included input from Consumer Reports' editorial staff.)

When evaluating the impact the Model 3 has had on Tesla, it can be difficult to separate signal from noise. Eight analysts who study Tesla and the automotive industry told Business Insider that the Model 3 has been a success for the company so far, but they raised questions about long-term demand and competition.

Model 3 sales have been impressive

The analysts highlighted cumulative sales, rather than reviews or customer feedback, as the linchpin of the Model 3's success. While enthusiasm from automotive critics and owners can elevate the public's perception of a vehicle, what ultimately matters to Tesla's balance sheet is translating positive sentiment into revenue.

"I think that with Tesla it's always very difficult to give a straight answer about whether something has been a true success," said the Gartner automotive analyst Michael Ramsey. "But I do think [the Model 3] has been a success, because if you step back and look at cars at that price point and the volume that they're selling at, it's pretty amazing."

The Model 3 was the best-selling luxury vehicle in 2018, beating the runner-up, the Lexus RX, by around 24%. And as sales accelerated during the second half of the year, Tesla posted the first consecutive quarterly profits in its 16-year history.

But the number of Model 3s Tesla has sold so far may not be indicative of long-term demand for the vehicle. Some 2018 customers reserved the Model 3 in 2016 or 2017 but were not given the option to take delivery of the vehicle until last year. (Tesla has not disclosed the number of remaining reservation-holders since May 2018, when it said it had over 450,000 at the end of March.)

"The Model 3 continues to be very much an evolving story for Tesla," said Ed Kim, the vice president of industry analysis at AutoPacific. "The sales numbers for the first year looked very, very strong, but those strong numbers do not necessarily reflect natural market demand for the car because the first units weren't being built to satisfy current demand. They were being built to fulfill orders that were placed years ago."

Model 3 deliveries have slowed in 2019, according to the electric-vehicle website InsideEVs, which estimates Tesla's US deliveries on a monthly basis. (Tesla only reports deliveries on a quarterly basis.) Around 46,425 Model 3s have been delivered to US customers so far in 2019, compared to around 101,700 during the final five months of 2018, the website said.

A Tesla representative said it would be more accurate to compare US Model 3 deliveries from the first five months of 2019 with the first five months of 2018, when Tesla delivered around 18,305 Model 3s in the US, according to InsideEVs.

Read more: Tesla's largest institutional investor is standing by the firm through various scandals. Its managing partner explained to us how the firm decides it's time to ditch a company.

A Jaguar I-Pace. Hollis Johnson

The Model 3 will face new competition

Tesla began delivering the Model 3 to international customers this year, opening a new source of pent-up demand. The company cited seasonal effects and logistical issues as the primary causes of its disappointing first-quarter delivery numbers, saying a large number of vehicles were on their way to European and Chinese customers when the quarter ended.

"There's demand to be absorbed in Europe and Asia that hasn't been met yet," said the Morningstar automotive analyst David Whiston.

But Tesla will face heightened competition as it expands its international presence. Rival vehicles, like the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Jaguar I-Pace, haven't made much of a dent so far, but the number of luxury and mass-market electric vehicles is set to increase in the coming years. Volkswagen plans to invest over $33 billion in electric vehicles by 2023 and introduce nearly 70 electric models by 2028. Ford plans to invest $11 billion in electric vehicles and have 40 hybrid and fully-electric models available by 2022.

Traditional automakers will have some advantages over Tesla, like the ability to offer US customers the full, $7,500 federal tax credit for electric-vehicle sales. The credit begins to phase out once an automaker sells its 200,000th electric vehicle in the US, a milestone Tesla hit last year. Starting July 1, Tesla customers will only receive an $1,875 federal tax credit, and at the beginning of next year, the credit will expire entirely.

Established rivals also have more stable sales and service operations than Tesla, said Rebecca Lindland, the founder of the website Rebeccadrives.com and a former analyst for Kelley Blue Book. Tesla customers have complained about long waits for repairs at Tesla's company-owned service centers, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in January that improving service quality was his top priority for the first quarter.

"There's a lot less drama involved with buying an Audi e-tron or a Mercedes EQ than a Tesla," Lindland said.

But Tesla's vehicles have longer ranges than their competitors, and the company's brand has an aura that traditional luxury automakers can't match, Lindland said.

"No other brand has that mystique," she said.

Robust long-term demand for the Model 3 is critical for Tesla

One year from now, the Model 3 is still likely to be the best-selling electric vehicle, even if the rate of sales declines, said Maryann Keller, the the principal at the automotive consulting firm Maryann Keller & Associates. If sales do decline, the size of the drop-off will be important for Tesla, because the Model 3 was designed to generate sales volumes high enough to compensate for the fact that it nets the company a lower gross margin than its luxury Model S sedan and Model X SUV. Beating other automakers might not be enough to produce consistent profits.

Tesla has said it intends to deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 Model 3s this year (it delivered 145,846 in 2018), and Musk has said worldwide demand for the Model 3 could fall between 500,000 and 800,000 each year, depending on economic conditions. The accuracy of Musk's prediction could determine whether the Model 3 delivers Tesla to consistent profitability or raises new doubts about the company's long-term prospects.

Have you worked for Tesla? Do you have a story to share? Contact this reporter atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Apple Pay is a "digital wallet" for Apple devices like the iPhone and Apple Watch. It's a feature that lets you use your device to make mobile payments without taking out your wallet, purse, credit cards, or cash.

There are a number of competing mobile payment systems — notably, Google Pay and Samsung Pay for Android devices — but Apple Pay has become very common, accepted at about three quarters of the top US retailers. Soon, you'll even be able to use Apple Pay to take the New York City subway.

Want to use Apple Pay on your phone and keep your wallet in your pocket? Here's how to set it up and use it.

How to set up Apple Pay

If you plan to use Apple Pay with more than one device, you need to set it up separately on each one. To configure your Apple Watch, read our article, " How to use Apple Pay on an Apple Watch with your debit or credit card."

Here's how to set up Apple Pay on an iPhone.

1. On your iPhone, open the Wallet app.

2. Tap the plus sign in the upper right corner of the screen.

Add a credit card to your Apple Pay wallet by tapping the plus sign. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

3. Tap "Continue" on the introduction page and then get ready to add your credit or debit card to the iPhone.

4. Add a credit card by holding the phone over the card, letting the iPhone automatically read the number off the front of the card.

Your iPhone can read the details from your credit card automatically. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

5. Complete the process, tapping "Next," entering the expiration date, and the security code.

Finish entering your credit card details like the expiration date and security code (found on the back of the card). Dave Johnson/Business Insider

6. You should see the Terms and Conditions page. Review the information and tap "Agree."

7. Your iPhone will attempt to confirm the card with the credit card company and add it to the wallet. For some cards, this happens automatically, though for other credit cards, you might need to enter a verification code or otherwise communicate with your credit card company.

When you finish this process, you should see the card appear in your wallet. Repeat that process for any other credit cards that you want to add.

How to change the default credit card on Apple Pay

If you add multiple cards to your Apple Wallet, you can specify which one you want to use by default when making a purchase.

1. Start the Settings app and tap "Wallet & Apple Pay."

2. Tap "Default Card" and choose the card you want to use.

You can use the Settings app to specify which credit card is used by default. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

How to make a payment with Apple Pay using your iPhone

The best part of using Apple Pay on your phone is the convenience. It more or less works automatically — you don't have to go out of your way to make purchases with it. Here's what you do:

1. When you are ready to pay, hold the iPhone directly over the point of sale terminal. You might need to look for the Apple Pay or wireless symbol so you know where to position the phone. If in doubt, you can ask the cashier where to position it.

2. The wallet app should launch automatically.

3. If you want to use the default credit card, use Touch ID or Face ID to approve the transaction. If you want to switch to another card, tap the card you want to use before you approve the transaction.

How to check your Apple Pay transaction history

At any time, you can see a list of transactions you've made with any card in your Apple Pay wallet.

1. Open the Wallet app.

2. Tap on any card you want to inspect. You should see a list of all the transactions made with that card appear under it.

The wallet keeps a history of all your transactions. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

3. If you don't see any transactions, the transaction history might be turned off. To turn it on, tap the black circle with three dots at the top right of the credit card screen. Make sure that "Show History" is turned on.

I know Amazon's delivery drone is supposed to be exciting and new and the future and everything — but I just don't get it.

Oh, I basically understand how the drone works, and from what I can tell, it's an impressive piece of technology.

But I don't get the fundamental business case for Amazon's drone service or how the company will overcome its inherent logistical challenges. I don't understand who or what areas the service is supposed to serve, where Amazon will be able to use it, or why it's any better or more efficient than the company's current means of transporting packages.

I'd love to get Amazon to explain it to me — and to the public at large. But beyond the scant details company officials offered at a conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, they aren't saying much about the new drone service.

Amazon has been talking about drones for years. But according to the company, it's now ready to do more than just talk about them. At the e-commerce giant's Re:Mars conference, Jeff Wilke, the head of Amazon's consumer business unveiled what looks to be the company's near-final design for a delivery drone, saying gadgets like it would be delivering packages to customers "within months."

Read this: Amazon unveils a new Prime Air drone it says 'within months' will start delivering packages

That's great, but the drones have technical and other limitations that would seem to seriously curtail where and how Amazon will be able to use them.

The drones will give Amazon range anxiety

Let's start with their range. Wilke said the drones be able to fly up to 15 miles. But an Amazon representative afterward acknowledged that distance is the drones' round-trip range. That means that at most, they'll be able to fly 7-1/2 miles from an Amazon distribution center.

Amazon's drone won't be able to fly very far or carry very much. Amazon That's a pretty short distance given the spread-out nature of most American cities. With that kind of range, the drones could barely make it across San Francisco and back before they'd need to recharge, even though the City by the Bay is extraordinarily compact as American metropolises go. And you can forget asking one to make it down to Palo Alto, much less making it back.

And lots of things could constrict the drones' range even further. It's quite likely, for example, that they won't be able to fly as far when carrying heavier packages or if they're running on older or only partially charged batteries. Stiff winds or other inclement weather could also reduce their range.

So too could topography. It's one thing to fly seven-and-one half miles in a more or less straight line over a level field, as Amazon showed in its demonstration video. It's another thing to have to fly up and down over hills or over and around tall buildings.

Those range limitations mean that for Amazon to be able to offer drone service to anything like an entire metropolitan area, it's probably going to need lots and lots of drone bases — almost certainly many more of them than the 75 or so distribution centers it has in North America today. It likely would need several just to cover the New York or San Francisco metro areas.

The drones are lightweights as far as how much they can carry

Range isn't the only challenge the drone service would seem to face. Others have to do with the carrying limits of the devices.

The drones will carry packages of up to five pounds, Wilke said. While that may not seem like a lot, he told the audience at the conference that 75% to 90% of the packages Amazon delivers today are five pounds are less.

But that still leaves out a significant portion of deliveries, which include many of Amazon's bigger ticket items. Among other things, the drones won't be able to deliver an Xbox One, most bags of cat food, or an Instant Pot. So, sure, the drone delivery program may come in handy if you run out of toothpaste, but it's likely not going to be of much help if you're placing a big holiday order or trying to use Amazon to replace your weekly shopping trip to the grocery store or Target.

It also looks like the drones will be limited to delivering just one package — or possibly a few, as long as they don't hit the weight limit — at a time. At least at first glance, that seems terribly inefficient. Even the small cars that many of Amazon's couriers use today can hold a lot more than that. They also don't face anywhere near the same weight limitations. While they can get stuck in traffic, they can also make multiple package deliveries in the same neighborhood on the same route without having to return to base to recharge.

To duplicate the carrying capacity and number of deliveries that just one car-based courier could handle, Amazon's almost certainly going to need multiple drones, perhaps even dozens of them. To service anything close to an entire metropolitan area, it's likely going to need a small air force. Keeping all those drones charged and maintained so that they're flying safely — not to mention securely strapping packages to them one-by-one — is going to be an amazing logistical challenge that will likely make even the company's current distribution system seem like child's play. I can't even fathom how it's going to work.

Landing could be a problem in many places

But the drone service faces yet another challenge. The drones will need an area to land. In Amazon's demonstrations, the drone aims for sheet-like landing pads that would-be customers have laid out in their backyards or fields. The drones' artificial intelligence systems are smart enough to avoid most obstacles, objects, and living things, including backyard clotheslines and dogs, Wilke said.

Even so, they likely will be prove useless for millions of Amazon customers. Around 71% of American homes are single-unit structures. Even assuming that every one of those has a yard Amazon's drones can land in — a generous assumption — that still leaves nearly 30% of homes that are likely to be much more problematic for them. These are ones that are in multi-unit structures — apartment buildings, condominiums, and the like.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been talking about drones for years. Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters Such buildings are often concentrated in dense urban areas. Those are the kinds of areas for which Amazon's drones seem best suited. It would be able to reach a large number of people from a limited number of bases. And it would be able to avoid the car traffic that often plagues those places.

But Amazon's requirement that the drones need an area to land will likely rule out many of those structures. That's because many multi-unit buildings either don't have yards or don't have ones that are exclusive to particular units.

What's more, many of the units in these building don't have doors that open to the outside, so it's not like the drones could land on their doorstep. Maybe Amazon can work out arrangements with building managers to have their mail room collect drone packages delivered to their roofs or courtyards, but that would likely take a big and time-consuming effort on Amazon's part to sign them up.

The company would also seem to face a similar challenge delivering packages to many businesses. While some companies own or occupy entire buildings and likely could designate a space on or near them that an Amazon drone could land, many don't.

Take our office. I work in a WeWork space on a floor that we share with probably a dozen other companies in the middle of an office building in downtown San Francisco. Even assuming a drone could navigate to our building, how's it going to get the package to me? Is it supposed to fly into an elevator and come up to my floor? Is it going to drop the package off on the roof? What if I don't have access to the roof? Is it going to drop it off outside main entrance? Wouldn't that be inviting someone to steal it?

Amazon representatives haven't yet estimated the proportion of the company's current deliveries that could be serviced by drones, given all of their limitations beyond just the weight restriction.

What happens when a drone falls from the sky?

Plenty of other things would seem to be challenges too. What happens when a drone drops a package? Even a five-pound box can do a lot of damage if it's dropped from a high enough height. And what happens when a drone itself falls from the air?

Amazon may well have designed the drones with safety in mind, but if it's going to be flying as many as would seem necessary to make this service work, something inevitably is going to go wrong. A package isn't going to be strapped in just right. A drone is just going to fail, whether because its battery dies or its software gets corrupted, or it runs into something. What if that kills someone? Will Amazon's liability insurance cover that? Presumably so, but who knows? And how will customers and the public react?

And how will neighbors of Amazon's drone bases react to having dozens or even hundreds of the aircraft buzzing above their homes all day long? I live near a UPS distribution center and have seen the stream of trucks that flow out of it in the mornings onto the main traffic arteries near my neighborhood. That's impressive enough. But the number of drones coming out of a base would almost certainly need to be many times that, since each of those UPS trucks can carry dozens of packages — unlike the drones. I would hate to live near that kind of hive of activity; I'm guessing many other people would too.

Look, I recognize that Amazon has some practical reasons for exploring drone delivery. The company's shipping costs have been rising. FedEx just announced that it won't renew its contract with Amazon to express deliver the latter's packages, which could hamper the ecommerce giant's big push to offer free one-day shipping to customers of its Prime service. And the company has faced repeated criticism over the working conditions faced by its couriers and warehouse workers.

A drone service promises to reduce its reliance on the big shipping companies and its own human delivery people.

Amazon has a lot of questions to answer

I also recognize that there are likely some legitimate and practical uses for drones. Some hospitals have been testing using drones to deliver medical samples and specimens between different facilities. Drones have also been used to deliver supplies in developing countries and other areas without good road networks. There's probably a lot of promise in such applications, where the amount of time it takes to make a delivery is truly crucial or where using a car or truck just isn't possible or practical.

But that's not generally the case with what Amazon delivers, at least not in the US or most countries where it operates. There are generally good roads here. And does it really matter if your toothpaste takes a little more time to arrive?

I'm sure Amazon has thought about a lot of this. I'm sure they have answers — possibly even good ones — for these and other questions. But instead of talking about those answer publicly, company officials seem content to just show off their flashy new drones and stoke the hype for their new service.

Until they do start answering those questions, though, I'll remain skeptical of Amazon's new drone serve. Like I said, I just don't get it.

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

Despite the uncertainties roiling global markets because of the trade war, Wall Street thinks Salesforce is a safe choice in the software market and that it's poised to grow even more.

Salesforce expanded its top-line 24% year-over-year, generating revenue of $3.74 billion during its most recent quarter, the company reported this week. The results beat analyst expectations and sent Salesforce shares up 5%, or $7.63, on Wednesday.

Analysts credited some of the upside to positive results from the MuleSoft acquisition and its growth in government and European businesses.

While Salesforce acknowledged that there was some anxiety around the trade situation, investors seem to believe the company is less vulnerable than others to the tariffs and other risks of the escalating tech Cold War between the US and China.

" Salesforce is more insulated than the overall technology sector when it comes to President Trump's trade policy with China, which has been a major point of emphasis for uncertainty and volatility in the overall market," Brian Pirri, the principal at New England Investment and Retirement Group, wrote in a note to investors.

The UBS analyst Jennifer Lowe wrote in a note that Salesforce "isn't seeing any impact on results today."

As Salesforce seeks to maintain its healthy revenue growth rates, a bigger threat than the trade war may be the rising competition. From Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP to a crop of fast-growing startups, Salesforce's business is under siege on many fronts.

Read more: The $6.5 billion acquisition that everyone hated a year ago was the only thing everyone loved about Salesforce's latest quarter

Rebecca Wettemann, the vice president of research at Nucleus Research, said Salesforce may face some competition from Microsoft, but it has also done well in making its artificial-intelligence technology accessible to new users.

"Salesforce's ability to rapidly productize and make things accessible for customers to use is a key part of their success," Wettemann told Business Insider. Marty Wolf, the founder and president of Martinwolf, echoed the sentiment, describing Salesforce as "an ocean liner surrounded by speed boats."

And with so many businesses shifting their operations to the cloud, the market is huge, analysts say.

Pirri estimates that it's possible that Salesforce's revenue can double in the next four years, as there are opportunities through acquisitions, expansions, and acquisitions with tech giants like Amazon and Google.

From Donald Trump to Elizabeth Warren, it's not difficult to find people who think Google has become too powerful.

But when it comes to what to do about Google's power, there's no easy answer.

The internet giant controls more than 37% of the online ad market, more than 92% of the search market, it owns the world's largest video streaming site, and it makes the software used on 8 out of 10 of the world's phones. That ubiquity has prompted calls to curb Google's power.

According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, the US Justice Department is preparing an antitrust investigation into Google.

It's still unclear what part of Google's business the DOJ probe will target, let alone what kind of sanctions might be on the table. Given Google's massive and diverse businesses — including the fact that Google is itself part of the larger, Alphabet holding company — there's a wide range of outcomes that could result from the regulatory action, including increased oversight, new restrictions on its business expansion and even the B-word (breakup!).

Business Insider spoke to several antitrust experts and Wall Street analysts to get a sense of some of the ways this could play out and the risks facing Google. Here's what they say could happen to Google if it is found to have violated antitrust rules.

No more fines

Since it was founded two decades ago, Google's biggest trouble from government regulators has come in the form of financial penalties. In the US, Google has amassed a collection of modest fines for violating privacy rules. In Europe, the penalties have been stiffer. The European Commission has fined Google roughly $10 billion over the years for various anticompetitive practices.

Whether or not those penalties are effective with a company that has over $100 billion in cash on its balance sheet and which generated $137 billion in annual revenue last year is up for debate. But according to many experts Business Insider spoke to, it's not a debate that will happen with the latest US antitrust push.

"I don't think a fine is going to be on the table," Baltimore University law professor Robert Lande told Business Insider.

That's because, as Lande explained, the DOJ cannot levy a fine against Google unless the company had violated a pre-existing agreement. And today, no such agreement, or consent decree, exists between Google and the DOJ.

"If there's a settlement, anything is possible. But a fine would be for a violation of an agreement. Unless they violated some sort of agreement with the government, then you can't do a fine," Lande said.

New York University Law Professor Harry First agreed that hefty fines were an improbable outcome for an antitrust probe.

"It would be an order to stop doing whatever they're doing. Maybe require them to do certain things they haven't been doing that might bring competition to whatever areas the government looks at," First said. "But no money."

'Looking to the EU cases against Google is where I'd begin'

Another reason Google doesn't need to worry about big fines in the US is because of the way US regulators assess the damage caused by anticompetitive behavior compared to the way it's done in Europe.

"The EU focuses more on harm to competitors, while the US focuses on harm to consumers," said Rutgers University Law Professor Michael Carrier. In a world of free consumer web services — from Gmail to Android — it's difficult to make the case that consumers are being harmed.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager holds a news conference at the EU Commission's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

That said, the action across the Atlantic provides a good blueprint for the parts of Google's business that the DOJ might home in on. In particular, Google's advertising business, its search business, and the Android software have all proven to be successful targets of investigation by EU authorities.

Read more: Elizabeth Warren pulled a ninja move to turn tech angst into a crackdown with real teeth, and tech is going to suffer even if she's not president

"Looking to the EU cases against Google is where I'd begin," said Carrier. "On search, did Google favor its own shopping services over rivals? On ads, what effect did exclusivity clauses have? And on Android, what about bundling Google software with Android?"

Although these areas of past infractions may be a starting point for the DOJ, a source on Capitol Hill who recently spoke to Business Insider said the DOJ investigation will likely be open to looking at "everything" about Google.

Breaking up is not easy to do

The big question is whether a potential DOJ enforcement action against Google would have any more teeth than the Federal Trade Commission's 2013 antitrust investigation of Google's search and smartphone business practices.

Google walked away from that encounter without incurring any financial penalties and having committed itself only to vague promises to change some business practices, an outcome derided by many critics as a slap on the wrist.

Perhaps, given the current political climate and rhetoric around breaking up "big tech," things will be different this time. For one of the first times since the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, the concentration of corporate power is a hot-button topic in the upcoming presidential election.

Outspoken politicians — like Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren — have called for a break up of the tech industry's major players, including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. For Google, Warren said that to "unwind" the search giant, she would start by having the company divest major acquisitions like its map service Waze, smart home hardware company Nest, and advertising platform DoubleClick.

Elizabeth Warren "Break Up Big Tech" billboardTroy Wolverton/Business Insider

That may be easier said than done though. Multiple antitrust experts who spoke to Business Insider this week said the likelihood of a breakup is low.

"It is very difficult to unwind previous acquisitions," said Rutgers University's Carrier. "The companies have been merged and it's hard to 'unscramble the eggs.'"

For instance, Nest — which was acquired by Google in 2014 — has now been fully absorbed into the company's hardware division. In May, at this year's I/O developer's conference, the company announced the branding for its smart home products will now be "Google Nest," as in, the "Google Nest Learning Thermostat" and the "Google Nest Secure Alarm."

Internal silos between the former Nest team and Google's own hardware division have also gone away, Nest's VP of Product Rishi Chandra told Business Insider in a recent interview.

"It's one team now. One roadmap across the entire organization," Chandra said.

Because of the difficulties a true "break up," experts said that a more plausible outcome for the DOJ probe was the agency blocking future deals for Google. And for the tech giant, that could pose potential risks.

"[The DOJ] absolutely can block any acquisitions," Michael Pachter, a Managing Director at Wedbush Securities, told Business Insider this week. "[I] doubt there are many companies Google 'needs' to buy... [but] blocking future acquisitions is always a risk for any large company."

As for where Google could be hurt the most if the DOJ goes for a "blocking," rather "break up" strategy, Managing Director at Wedbush Securities Dan Ives told us it would likely be the company's cloud computing business, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which today stands at a distant third in the market behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

"The main issue here is if this limits Google's focus on acquisitions around GCP," Ives said. "With [Thomas] Kurian coming to Google, this was the drumroll to much more significant M&A in cloud."

Kurian was brought on as Google's cloud boss in January, replacing Diane Greene. Coming off 22 years at Oracle, Kurian was expected to help the company's cloud business compete with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in the enterprise space. Part of moving up-market faster, analysts expected, would come through M&A.

Now, Ives said that even if the probe doesn't happen, the potential of the investigation may make Google shy away from a more aggressive acquisition strategy.

"It feels like the wings are being clipped by the shadows of the DOJ antitrust investigation," Ives said. "I would be surprised if they aggressively went after M&A's now that there's a bright spotlight on them."

Amazon on Wednesday previewed a new type of skill for its Alexa voice assistant, dubbed Alexa Conversations.

Conversations is a tool for app developers that makes it easier for them to create skills (or apps) for the device with far less code. Not only does it limit the amount of programming that they must do, but it also helps the device converse with users more naturally, even if the programmer didn't code in all the possible responses.

But its real value is that it lets Alexa proactively string together skills in a single conversation and ask you about them.

The first Alexa Conversation the Amazon team created is called "book an evening out." Amazon vice president and head scientist of Alexa Rohit Prasad previewed this functionality on stage Wednesday at the company's inaugural re:MARS robotics and AI show in Las Vegas.

The demo involved a person asking Alexa to buy movie tickets via Atom, a popular app for the same. After that transaction, Alexa asked if the person would be going to dinner near the theater, brought up nearby restaurant recommendations and booked a reservation via OpenTable. And then Alexa asked if the person wanted to order an Uber for the date night and took care of that as well

Prasad didn't say when this skill would be widely available on devices, but the company made a preview of the development technology available to programmers as of Wednesday.

In an interview with Business Insider, Amazon Smart Home VP Daniel Rausch said that conversations is just the latest way that the company is trying to make Alexa more proactive.

Amazon Vice president Daniel Rausch IFA press / IMG Also on tap is an Alexa that can learn from your use of the device and make predictions on what you need based on what's going on, or what room you are in.

Rausch highlights features like Alexa Guard, a new feature that listens for sounds like glass breaking or a fire alarm. If Alexa hears these things it can wake you up, tell you about the noise, and ask you if you want it take action in response.

Amazon has also launched a feature called "hunches," which is when Alexa notices that something is out of sorts. For instance, if it sees you haven't locked your doors before going to bed, Rausch said.

Rausch tells us there are now 60,000 Alexa-enabled smart home devices in the market.

Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services, the engineer generally credited for spearheading Alexa, told reporters on Wednesday during a press conference that he's also testing a smarter version of Alexa in his home. This version understands what you want based on what room you are in.

"As you can imagine, I have a very Alexa-fied home," Limp said, explaining that he has an Alexa in almost every room of his house and also a bunch of third-party Alexa products.

"If I walk into a room of my house, I don't have to say, 'Turn lights on in kitchen or living room,'" he explained. After a one-time setup, the Alexa in the room "understands context" and knows to turn the lights on in that room " I can say watch 'X,Y,Z on Netflix' and it knows what room I'm in" and what TV to turn on, he said.

The tech behind this smarter Alexa is "early innings but a lot work of a bunch of teams is going on," Limp said.

"Snowflake" isn't always a nice thing to call somebody, but it connotes something much more flattering in tech where it refers to the red-hot startup that's attracted the spotlight with a string of high-profile partnerships and customers.

Snowflake has created a stir in the startup world with a cloud data warehousing technology that's drawing the attention of cloud startups, data-focused enterprises and the cloud giants themselves: At its annual customer summit this week, Snowflake announced a new partnership with Google Cloud, joining its existing tie-ups with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

"Snowflake is going to completely transform data warehousing because of the scale and the economics," CEO Frank Slootman said in San Francisco on stage at the summit — his first public appearance since taking over for former chief exec Bob Muglia in May.

The company's momentum highlights a fast-growing cloud database market that's projected to be worth $100 billion by 2025, according to Constellation Research. Snowflake is poised to be a dominant player in that arena with a technology that addresses a major enterprise tech problem, storing, managing and find ways to make use of huge amounts of data in the cloud.

Indeed, Snowflake has raised more than $900 million from the likes of Sequoia Capital and ICONiQ capital, most recently at a valuation of $3.9 billion. That growth has also attracted a nascent, but growing, ecosystem of startups who are eager to stake their bets on building with Snowflake's platform.

We talked to some of the startups in Snowflake's orbit, and to industry experts, about what's driving all the interest in this hot startup.

"It is new, it has a trendy name, it is in a trendy segment," analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group told Business Insider. "It is a cloud based data warehouse solution, enterprise grade, and well-priced. What's not to love?"

Trendy name, trendy segment

"Like a lot of small companies it is having some growing pains and leadership issues always adversely impact growth," Enderle said. "But they have a decent number of branded companies using them and they haven't made any terminal mistakes, that I know of."

He was referring to the sudden exit last month of former CEO Bob Muglia who was replced by Slootman. On Tuesday, Slootman flatly denied speculation that he was hired mainly to take the company public.

Read more: Here's why $3.9 billion data warehousing startup Snowflake is so hot, as told by its partners and experts

In his keynote, Slootman said Snowflake has about 2,000 customers globally and adding about 300 to 400 a quarter. The company also has been "on a 3x ramp" on its financials, he said.

"I'm going to try to keep that going for as long as we can," he said, after also admitting that one of the first things he asked when he took the job was: "Why did you call [the company] Snowflake?"

The reason, it turns out: Snowflake's founders — Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Zukowski — were at a skiing trip at Lake Tahoe when they came up with the name for the company, according to company spokesperson Danica Stanczak. They were "discussing their ideas and brainstorming names for the company and it hit them, 'Snowflake' because snow comes from the cloud, just like Snowflake the product," she told Business Insider.

The product quickly became a hit: Its technology provides the software layer necessary to store and analyze tremendous amounts of business data.

"They are key to cloud database growth and have one of the easiest products to use," analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research told Business Insider.

Opportunities for other startups

Snowflake's technology has also evolved in a way that opened up opportunities for other enterprise cloud startups looking to address other needs related to storing and managing data in the cloud.

One of them is Sigma Computing, based in San Francisco, which develops tools to make it easier for different teams in a business — programmers, sales, marketing — to process and draw useful business insights from data stored in the cloud. CEO Rob Woollen was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Sutter Hill Ventures where he got to know Mike Speiser, a founding investor in Snowflake. Woolen said he quickly saw Snowflake as a perfect partner for the cloud-based business intelligence startup.

Sigma's technology enables "programmers and anyone in the business, in sales, marketing and finance" to "work directly on the same environment with the same data," he told Business Insider. "Anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet can open Sigma and, instead of wall of code, they can do any analysis on top of Snowflake."

Another Snowflake-focused startup, Fivetran, offers technology to help businesses move their data into cloud storage faster and more efficiently. Founder and CEO George Fraser said he was at the 2015 Amazon Web Services Reinvent gathering when he got to chat with Dageville, one of Snowflake's founders. They ended up talking about forming a partnership.

"At the time, Snowflake wasn't yet the unicorn it is today and had just over a hundred employees. At the time, other tools in the space were also hesitant, and unwilling to build Snowflake as a destination. But Fivetran saw early on that Snowflake was doing something right," says Fraser.

A Gartner report said Snowflake's customers were upbeat about key aspects of the technology, including its capabilities, pricing and the ease by which they're able to use the platform. But Snowflake is growing fast expanding its customer base to more than 1,000 organizations since it became available in 2015.

This "period of hypergrowth," Gartner said, "may be challenging for the organization to continue to provide the same level of customer engagement that its customers have come to expect."

Building a network

However, Eric Anderson, a principal at Scale Venture Partners, said Snowflake's ability to form a network of cloud partners has been one of its key strengths. Scale Venture Partners has invested in Matillion, a startup with a partnership with Snowflake.

"If you want advanced machine learning or you need to move data into snowflake they are going to pull in partners to the deal," he told Business Insider. "In this way, customers of Snowflake come for the best product and also get the convenience of a suite-like partner network."

Slootman said Snowflake is also prepared to move quickly to meet a client's needs. In fact, that was the reason for supporting Google Cloud. That had always been part of Snowflake's strategic plan, he said, but they decided to move faster on the request of a major client, the pharmaceutical and health care giant, McKesson.

But "when you have a large institution like that, you're not going to just drag your feet," he told Business Insider. "You're going to go quickly."

Got a tip about Snowflake or another tech company or startup? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter@benpimentel, or send him a secure message through Signal at 510.731.8429. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Apple Watch will soon become an even more capable computer.

But it's still struggling to do the most basic thing expected of a watch — display the time.

Apple on Monday announced a slew of new features for its smartwatch at its annual developer conference. The new version of its operating system — watchOS 6 — will bring Apple's voice memo and calculator apps to the device. Users will now be able to download apps directly to their watches through its new built-in app store.

Women will be able to track their menstrual cycles with it, using a new app. And the device will even warn users when ambient noise levels get loud enough to damage their hearing.

Read this: Apple's new watch update is the missing piece of the puzzle the Apple Watch needed, and Fitbit should be worried

But one thing the new software won't do is display the time at all times. Instead, as they have since the first Apple Watch debuted four years ago, users will still have to twist or raise their wrists just to check the hour.

That may not seem like a big deal, but it can be. It can force users to stop whatever they're doing with their hands — typing on a keyboard, say, or carrying luggage — just to check the time.

It's also just a plain design failure. The most essential function of a watch is to display the time, to allow the wearer to see the hour at just a simple glance. The vast majority of traditional wristwatch and many of Apple Watch's rivals offer this simple, but basic function. Why can't Apple's smartwatch?

An Apple representative confirmed that watchOS 6 won't include an always-on time feature, but declined to explain the company's rationale for leaving it out. So I don't exactly know what the thinking is in Cupertino.

But company officials would probably argue that it would diminish the device's battery life. And they could probably make a strong case that the device is selling pretty well without that ability.

That may be true, but I think many users would opt for an always-on screen if they had a choice, battery life be damned. And I'm no expert, but I would think that there are ways to minimize the impact on the device's charge.

The Apple Watch comes with an OLED screen. That type of screen doesn't have a backlight; instead, it can be set to illuminate only the particular pixels it needs for each image it displays. It likely wouldn't need a lot of power to display just a digital readout of the time or a simple pair of watch hands on a black background. Apple could also limit battery drain by not displaying the time with full brightness or use the watch's built-in ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness on the fly.

The company seem to recognize that customers use the Apple Watch as a timepiece. With watchOS 6, users will be able to set the device to buzz them every hour on the hour. And the updated software, like its predecessors will come with a new collection of watch faces. Many of these are customizable; users can have them display the date or their appointment or, now, the noise level around them.

What they can't do is have these watch faces show the time all the time. Until they can, Apple Watch will be a smart gadget, but a really dumb watch.

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

Amazon's drone delivery service is getting closer to taking flight.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently issued Amazon Prime Air a special certificate to test its latest drones, Yahoo Finance first reported, and the Amazon executive Jeff Wilke said the service would be ready "within months" to deliver packages to customers.

Amazon has been working for years to develop an unmanned delivery service for its customers. Wilke, Amazon's worldwide consumer CEO, said he expects the Amazon Prime Air delivery service to grow quickly thanks to Amazon's existing delivery infrastructure. Speaking at the company's Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas, Wilke described the new drone as efficient, stable, and safe.

Read more: Amazon unveils a new Prime Air drone it says will deliver packages 'within months'

The FAA has approved previous Amazon drones for test flights in previous years, but each new prototype needs a new certificate. According to Wilke, Amazon's newest drone will be able to fly up to 15 miles and is capable of delivering packages under 5 pounds in less than 30 minutes. For now, Amazon's certificate will cover only testing.

Amazon's newest Prime Air delivery drone. Amazon/Jordan Stead

"The FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Certificate to Amazon Prime Air allowing the company to operate its MK27 unmanned aircraft for research and development and crew training in authorized flight areas," an FAA spokesperson said in an official statement. "Amazon Prime Air plans to use the aircraft to establish a package delivery operation in the United States. This certificate is valid for one year and is eligible for renewal."

Several other companies are also testing delivery drones, including UPS and Alphabet's Wing. In April, Wing's drone earned FAA clearance to drop off packages at customers' homes in Virginia. UPS partnered with the US Department of Transportation for a drone-testing program and has been using drones to make daily medical deliveries to WakeMed in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As the tech-industry giants come under scrutiny from governments worldwide, a top Amazon exec shrugged off the potential fallout of antitrust investigations.

During a Q&A press conference on Wednesday during Amazon's Re:Mars robotics, artificial-intelligence and space-tech conference in Las Vegas, Jeff Wilke, a top Amazon executive, was ready to be asked about the topic. Wilke is CEO of Amazon's worldwide consumer operations, which includes retail, warehouses, Amazon Prime, Amazon Go, and technology such as delivery drones (aka Amazon Air).

"We believe the most substantial entities in tech deserve scrutiny, and it's our job to build a company that passes scrutiny," he said.

When a reporter asked him if he thought Amazon should be broken up, he simply answered, "no."

Amazon shows how it all works

The questions and comments came in the context of Amazon's first-ever Re:Mars conference, at which the company is giving the public a rare peek at the robots and artificial-intelligence technologies the company employs to run its business.

For instance, presentations during a roughly two hour morning keynote featured various Amazon executives explaining how Amazon uses robots and AI to help it sell and deliver more than 14 million products every day.

Jenny Freshwater, the director of forecasting and capacity planning for Amazon, discussed the algorithms her team uses to help Amazon predict which products customers will order so the company can stock enough supplies to meet its speedy Prime delivery promises, which can range from hours to two days.

Brad Porter, the vice president of robotics at Amazon, also discussed how Amazon has more than 200,000 robots worldwide in its warehouse, next to its 300,000 warehouse employees, to sort billions of packages a year. These robots take items from the shelves and send them off to the trucks and planes that deliver them to all over the world.

Wilke said the company has mostly been "heads down" building products and services for customers, and the conference came about because "we have a lot to share." The conference is "a chance to learn from science and to contribute and advance the conversation," he said during the press conference.

Before this open-to-the public version of Re:Mars, this was an annual invitational and mostly off-the-record event thrown by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in Palm Springs, California, every year. The private event still took place this year and will continue to exist. But in contrast, Bezos is not wandering the floor here at the more open Re:Mars. He will speak on stage on Thursday.

Demystifying AI

Wilke said at the press conference that Amazon wants to talk more about all the AI technology that Amazon uses in its everyday operations. The idea is to help demystify it a bit.

But the conference comes against a backdrop of controversy over some of Amazon's AI technology and its private-label business.

For instance, Amazon has come under scrutiny for selling its facial-recognition tech, Amazon Rekognition, to law-enforcement agencies after allegations that it did a less-than-perfect job in recognizing the faces of people of color (although Amazon said those findings were based on tests that didn't have the tech configured correctly.)

Wilke said Amazon is being responsible in its use of artificial intelligence and "auditing" the models it uses to train its AI tech for "bias." He also said the company has earmarked $10 million with the National Science Foundation to fund grants for researchers studying the fairness of the machine-learning system. And he said Amazon is working with the tech giants Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and the OpenAI in a consortium called Partnership on AI to come up with industry-standard guidelines for AI tech.

As for the fear that Amazon house brands could be the subject of investigation, Wilke had a response to that as well. He said that private-label products have always been part of retail and that Amazon's competitors do up to 20% of their sales via their own house brands.

Amazon's private-label business is 1% of its total sales, he said, describing it "as a tiny fraction of our business."

And he said Amazon does not give its corporate employees access to any seller data in order to choose which products to create on its own. It uses "data that is available to anyone. It's the bestseller list," he said.

Amazon looks at which items are selling best when deciding which items it should manufacturer on its own, he said.

"We don't allow anyone inside Amazon to have access to any individual seller's data to build a private label," he said.

Google employees are taking to social media to protest their company's lack of action against a YouTuber who has used his channel to hurl homophobic slurs at a journalist.

Using the hashtag #NoPrideInYT, Google employees have been criticizing the company — which owns YouTube — for failing to curb harassment and abusive language, and adhering to policies that fail to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community.

"It's hard to put my shoes on everyday and go to work when I don't think the company I work for supports my identity," a Google engineer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Business Insider.

The internal outrage comes days after a Vox journalist named Carlos Maza shared in a viral Twitter thread that he was facing a slew of harassment at the hands of a YouTuber with almost 4 million subscribers, Steven Crowder. Crowder, a notable right-wing personality, has posted several videos over the years referring to Maza as a "lispy queer" and a "gay Mexican," among other racist and homophobic language.

YouTube said Crowder's language didn't violate any policies, although it acknowledged what was said was "clearly hurtful." The video-sharing platform updated its response Wednesday to say it had suspended Crowder's ability to make money from ads on his videos, but said that the action would be reversed as long as Crowder removed links to official t-shirts he sells through his channel that say, "socialism is for f---."

Read more: YouTube says it has 'suspended' the ability of a star with millions of fans to make money from his videos, following a huge backlash

But YouTube's efforts to respond to the debacle — which the company acknowledged had "harmed the broader community" — did little to curb the deluge of backlash. Some on social media pledged to boycott YouTube and the rest of Google's family of tools and services. At least one LGBTQ+ advocacy organization — the Pride Foundation of Maryland— has removed its content from YouTube in protest, while other nonprofits are being encouraged to follow suit.

A coordinated group of activist Google workers, called "Googlers Against Hate," posted to Twitter accusing YouTube of harming the LGBTQ+ community with its decisions even as the company continued to promote its rainbow-adorned marketing campaign for Pride Month.

Offline, the effects of Google's decisions are palpable internally at the company, the Google engineer told Business Insider. He said that instead of June being a month to celebrate pride, LGBTQ+ employees and allies are disheartened, and morale is low.

"This isn't the first case of YouTube basically masquerading hate speech as 'healthy debate,'" the engineer said. "It just continues this narrative that Google executives are completely disconnected from Google employees' wants, needs, and identities."

The past few years for Google have been marked by a flurry of internal employee pushback to decisions by its executives. Google has seen its employees protest the company's handling of sexual misconduct, the building of a censored search engine for China, and, most recently, the appointment of a member of Google's artificial intelligence ethics board who has a history of transphobic comments.