Elon Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, rocketed the first 60 of nearly 12,000 internet-providing satellites into orbit, and you can watch the launch.

Musk recently shared an image of the spacecraft crammed inside the nosecone of a Falcon 9 rocket. The 230-foot-tall vehicle is supposed to lift off Thursday between 10:30 p.m. and midnight ET from Space Launch Complex-40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Tonight's launch marks the company's third in two weeks. SpaceX originally tried to launch the mission on May 15, but high-altitude winds looked too threatening. The company said it'd try the next day, but canceled the launch shortly before lift-off to update the software of its five dozen satellites.

Weather conditions were favorable for launch on Thursday, according to the US Air Force, which reported there was only a 10% chance or less of high winds, thick clouds, or other atmospheric issues causing a delay.

A fleet of 60 Starlink internet-providing satellites stuffed into the nosecone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.Elon Musk/SpaceX via TwitterSpaceX is footing the bill for Starlink missions, and Musk said this one will be experimental in nature. Weighing in at nearly 19 tons, the satellite-packed payload represents the heaviest payload the company has ever attempted to launch.

"Much will likely go wrong on 1st mission," he tweeted on May 11.

To save what may amount to tens of millions of dollars, SpaceX is relying on a twice-launched 16-story rocket booster that previously helped deliver commercial satellites into orbit in September and January. Musk said the Starlink launch will also reuse fairings — clamshell-like halves that make up a rocket's nosecone — that flew on an April 11 rocket launch.

SpaceX broadcast live video of the launch starting about 15 minutes before liftoff. You can watch the rocket launch using the YouTube player embedded below.

During a call with reporters on May 15, Musk noted that the broadcast will show the satellites — each weighing about 500 pounds (227 kilograms) — deploy between two to three hours after launch.

He added that the deployment shown on the webcast will look very unusual.

"It's going to be a very slow deployment, where we rotate the [upper] stage, and each of the satellites on the stack have a different inertia," he said, which will eject them into space without any springs. "It will almost seem like spreading a deck of cards on a table. This will look kind of weird compared to other satellite deployments. There may even be some contact, but the satellites are designed to handle it."

Once a satellite is on its own, it will perform some checks, warm up ion engines, and gradually scoot into a final position and higher orbit, from 273 miles (440 kilometers) to 342 miles (550 kilometers) high.

"I do believe we will be successful, but it is far from a sure thing," he said.

SpaceX plans to complete its Starlink in 2027, which is the full-deployment deadline issued by the Federal Communications Commission.

In its final form, Starlink will consist of nearly 12,000 satellites — six times the number of all operational spacecraft now in orbit— in several orbital "shells." Each satellite would link to four others via laser beams, creating a robust mesh network around Earth.

The goal is to use Starlink to relay internet traffic at close to the speed that light travels through a vacuum (which is about 50% faster than light can travel through glass in fiber-optic cables).

The first 60 satellites are not a final design, as they lack the laser interlinks. But they're close enough to help SpaceX test several key technologies required to make Starlink work.

An illustration of Starlink, a constellation of internet-providing satellites designed by SpaceX. This image shows roughly 4,400 satellites deployed in three different orbital "shells."Mark Handley/University College London

As the network of Starlink satellites gets built up in space, most places on Earth could gain access to high-speed, low-latency, and affordable internet connections that rival the speed of those found in well-wired cities. Even partial deployment of Starlink would benefit the financial sector and bring pervasive broadband internet to rural and remote areas.

Musk said a dozen launches of 60 satellites could bring "minor" service to the US, about 24 could bring "moderate" and near-global service, and 30 would cement a robust global network. However, he said about 1,000 satellites, or roughly 17 launches, would be needed to make Starlink a profitable enterprise.

Based on Musk's estimates, SpaceX plans to launch 60 Starlink satellites 15 times a year, which means the robust global network may be realized in a little more than a year.

Read more: Elon Musk has a 2027 deadline to surround Earth with high-speed Starlink internet satellites — but the service would work far sooner than that

Completing the 12,000-satellite project may cost $10 billion or more, according to Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX. But Musk estimates that Starlink's revenue could grab 3-5% of a $1 trillion telecommunications market, which translates to $30-50 billion a year — many times more annual revenue than the company makes launching payloads for companies or the US government.

"This is the most exciting new network we've seen in a long time," Mark Handley, a computer-networking researcher at University College London who has studied Starlink, previously told Business Insider. He added that the project could affect the lives of "potentially everybody."

This story has been updated with new information.

A 65-year-old company isn't exactly a startup. But The Predictive Index has started to look a lot like one to its CEO, Mike Zani.

Zani and his business partner, Daniel Muzquiz, bought the venerable personality testing company five years ago with the idea of reinvigorating it. Having been customers of The Predictive Index for 10 years, they were fans of its product and believers in its value.

But then the company started growing rapidly, with revenue jumping by nearly 40% annually. And Zani and Muzquiz started to think the company had the potential to grow even faster.

"When we bought the Boston-based company in 2014, we knew it was a great company. We knew it was a great product. But I don't think we fully saw the size of the potential," Zani told Business Insider in an interview earlier this month. They eventually realized, he continued, that "the idea was bigger than we originally saw."

Since its founding, The Predictive Index has offered tests that allow companies and organizations to assess the personalities of their executives and employees. The tests, distributed through a network of partners, are designed to be used to help companies hire the people whose personalities best fit their culture or needs and to help them organize teams with people who mesh together.

It took a lot of work to revamp The Predictive Index

When Zani and Muzquiz took over The Predictive Index, they found a company in need of a lot of work. They set to work rebuilding its partner network, boosting it from 47 to 160. They worked on getting new studies done that would verify the scientific validity of the company's tests. And they rebuilt its technology infrastructure.

"It was a huge lift on many fronts to reenvision and reinvent and re-found the company," Zani said.

Today, The Predictive Index offers a subscription software service that allows customers to administer its tests and collect and analyze the data from them. Its partners help sell its service, offer workshops to help clients use the tools, and consult with companies about how to interpret and act on the results.

As they revitalized The Predictive Index, Zani and Muzquiz realized that the company was really in what Zani calls the talent optimization business. In that market, they had few competitors and lots of opportunity, he said.

Nearly every CEO has a business strategy for his or her company. Most also have a financial plan to support and further than strategy. But few have worked out a high-level hiring plan that can guide who they hire and promote, Zani said. That's where The Predictive Index comes in.

Its service allows companies to design a plan for building out their talent base and then use that plan to help them figure out who to hire and promote and how to group those employees together.

"Our platform really enables a talent strategy to happen," he said.

Zani sees a huge opportunity ahead

The Predictive Index already has 7,100 clients, who represent a wide range of different industries, sizes, and types of organizations, including churches, professional sports teams, startups, and mining companies. But Zani thinks the total potential market for its services is much, much larger.

"There are hundreds of thousands of entities — companies — that would benefit from this," he said.

When Zani and Muzquiz took over The Predictive Index, they funded its expansion and revitalization with its operating cash flow. But they decided that in order to take advantage of the opportunity they saw, they were going to need a boost. So they went out looking for outside investors.

In January, they raised $50 million from venture capital firm General Catalyst in a Series A funding round. They're using the funds to further develop the service and the partner network. They also brought in General Catalyst to sit on The Predictive Index's board to offer advice on how to grow the company, Zani said.

Read this: Here's the pitch deck a Silicon Valley startup used to raise $15 million to promote its edge-computing service

Their focus is on "how do we turn this into a multi-billion dollar revenue company," Zani said, "because the total addressable market could easily support that."

Here's the pitch deck The Predictive Index used to raise its $50 million funding round:

The tech Cold War between US and China is running hotter than ever since the Chinese tech giant Huawei was blacklisted from doing business in the US.

President Donald Trump's reason for blacklisting Huawei revolves around national security fears that the company's technology could be used for Chinese government-sponsored spying. The move, which also prevents Huawei from buying parts and components from American companies, could prove to have a hugely detrimental effect on Huawei's production of its popular smartphones and laptops.

Meanwhile, US tech companies have been largely banned from doing business in China for years. Communist-ruled China has long maintained strict regulations on which websites and social media platforms are accessible in the country — and which are blocked behind China's so-called "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

That ban prevents companies like Facebook, Google, and Dropbox from reaching the country's over 800 million internet users. Still, it doesn't mean that China doesn't factor into the equation for those companies: Facebook, for example, saw an estimated $5 billion in ad revenue from Chinese-based companies in 2018, making the country the company's second largest ad market, according to AdAge.

That "firewall" isn't impenetrable, either, as some Chinese citizens have found ways to circumvent blocks on websites by using virtual private networks (VPNs).

Here are the all the major US tech companies that are blocked from use in China, according to censorship tracker Great Fire:

Those who don't want to the fly on the Boeing 737 Max won't have to. According to Southwest Airlines Chief Marketing Officer Ryan Green, passengers who find themselves booked on a 737 Max flight will be allowed to switch flights free of charge.

"If they're uneasy about flying on a Max aircraft, we'll be flexible with them," Green told CNBC. "We'll be understanding of that and allow them to fly on a different flight without paying any difference in fare."

The Dallas, Texas-based low-cost carrier does not charge passengers a fee to change their tickets, but it does charge customers the difference in airfare. But in the case of concerns around the Max, an exception will be made.

Read more: American Airlines CEO reveals when he would feel safe flying on the Boeing 737 Max again.

All 371 Boeing 737 Max airliners in service around the world have been grounded since March 13 following the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 and Lion Air Flight JT610. Southwest Airlines is the largest operator of the Boeing 737 Max, with a fleet of 34 aircraft. All 34 planes, which are in desert storage in Victorville, California, have been pulled from the flight schedule until at least August 5. However, in a recent statement, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the company does not have a confirmed timeline for the 737 Max's return to service.

Southwest's concerns about passengers who may not want to fly on the 737 Max are reasonable. A poll conducted by Business Insider a week after the Ethiopian Airlines crash showed that 53% of American adults surveyed would not want to fly on a Boeing 737 Max, even after the Federal Aviation Administration clears the aircraft for service.

As direct-to-consumer companies that launched on Facebook look for their next customers, at some point they'll look to television, with its ability to introduce products to a new, mass audience.

But for many of these performance-driven companies, TV is still out of reach in price and ability to prove it drives sales.

Read more: TV giants like NBCUniversal and CBS are gunning for direct-to-consumer ad dollars, but challenges still hold back marketers

Comcast Ventures, the investment arm of cable giant Comcast, is trying to crack the code. The 20-year-old fund has 55 consumer-aimed startups in its portfolio, including direct-to-consumer companies Away luggage, fashion jeweler Baublebar, and discount store Hollar. Four years ago it launched Accelerate, a program to help its DTC portfolio companies advertise on linear TV. Eight companies have gone through the program, including Away, Baublebar, and Zola.

"Many startups come up through digital advertising," Arjun Kapur, growth partner at Comcast Ventures and head of Accelerate, told Business Insider. "Over time, their cost of acquisition on Facebook, Google, goes up. We recognized, TV is expensive. So we take over all the TV advertising for a startup. We probably fast-forward their life on TV by two years. We're creating the next generation of TV advertisers."

Comcast Ventures provides agency-like services

Comcast Ventures does many of the things an ad agency would: Advising the companies on (but not making) creative and handling their TV planning, buying, optimizing, and measurement. The goal is to prove TV works so the startup can hire its own agency and experts.

The program also helps Comcast's other units by steering business their way.

NBCUniversal does around $10 billion in annual TV revenue and is looking to DTC companies to fuel its growth. The startups that have gone through Comcast Ventures' Accelerate spend $3 million to $5 million on TV per year, said Andrew Kwok, who has been managing the program since 2017, and a portion of that goes to NBCU and Comcast cable properties. (Kapur said Comcast Ventures takes advantage of its corporate brethren NBCUniversal and Comcast Cable but it doesn't limit its ad buys to those properties. "Our goal is to get the best ROI; for some, NBC, Comcast, doesn't work. We're agnostic to what their media plan ends up being.")

To be sure, DTC's impact on TV is still a drop in the $70 billion annual TV advertising bucket — for all of 2018, DTC companies spent $2 billion in TV advertising. But DTC companies are starting to nibble away at traditional marketers that have been the bedrock of television's business.

Comcast Ventures is smart to give these companies media skills at a time when few DTC companies are doing TV and fewer are doing it well, said Mike Duda, managing partner at agency and venture capital fund Bullish, which has invested in DTC darlings like Casper, Harry's, and Birchbox.

"If all you do is bring money, it's a commodity," he said.

Comcast Ventures is trying to expand its services beyond TV advertising

The Accelerate program has largely flown under the radar. Now Comcast Ventures is ramping it up with new hires and plans to extend it to other kinds of advertising and services, like events, or payment processing. It hired Kapur in March to oversee the program and Sue Kwon in October to help Comcast Ventures' and its portfolio companies with their PR and marketing.

"We started in TV and are expanding beyond that," Kapur said. "Just bringing an investment dollar to a company is no longer valuable. There are so many businesses that need the support, expertise we have, that we should be leveraging. That's what the next generation of founders wants."

Comcast Ventures is also looking at ways it can push other levers at Comcast to benefit its portfolio companies. To that end, it hired Madura Wijewardena in January as head of business development to connect portfolio companies with other units in Comcast.

TV is still daunting for many DTC companies

TV still has its doubters for many DTC companies, because of the sticker shock and skepticism it can drive sales. Companies have to be big enough to take part in the program, which is invite-only.

Bullish's Duda said many DTC founders are brilliant but they're too narrowly focused on performance marketing, and at some point, its effectiveness will decline. Meanwhile, television can work extremely well and be another arrow in their quiver, he said.

One such startup in Accelerate was Hippo Home Insurance, which started in 2015 to simplify home insurance. The Accelerate program helped it run TV ads on cable and measure it using TVSquared, a TV measurement and optimization firm, said Andrea Collins, head of brand marketing at Hippo.

Collins now says Hippo is sold on TV's value for driving brand and sales goals. But Hippo initially was wary of TV's high perceived cost and the need to prove it worked, something TV traditionally hasn't been used for.

Kapur acknowledged these limitations. "The lead time and cost, should it not work — TV is a little bit of a fear factor," he said. "There's a lot of companies for whom TV can seem daunting and out of reach. We reduce the chances of failure significantly. But the entry is still challenging."

Comcast Ventures is trying to get an edge

The Accelerate program serves a bigger purpose at Comcast Ventures.

CB Insights ranked Comcast Ventures as the 13th most active corporate startup investor behind firms like Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and Salesforce Ventures — down from 4th place in 2017.

With corporate venture capital pouring into startups, competition among firms is stiff. But Comcast Ventures thinks that providing these kinds of services can give it a leg up. If the startup wins, so does Comcast Ventures.

Comcast Ventures also is looking to invest earlier in a company's lifespan to improve its chances of success.

"There's so much money out there, but we're trying to differentiate ourselves by bringing an advantage," Kapur said. "We all know startups are more likely to fail than not. We want to increase the success rate of the portfolio and be above the industry average."

The most amazing thing about a smartphone is how easily it connects to the internet. From anywhere on the planet with a cell signal, you can connect to the world via email, apps, YouTube, and more, and you can enjoy millions of different websites, videos, music, and every other kind of media out there.

When you have an iPhone, another amazing aspect is its ability to allow other devices to connect to the internet as well. The Personal Hotspot feature allows you to connect other internet-ready devices to the web via your phone's cellular connection.

How to turn on Personal Hotspot on an iPhone

1. Launch the Settings app.

2. Scroll down to and tap on "Personal Hotspot."

Tap the "Personal Hotspot" tab in your Settings. Steven John/Business Insider

3. Tap the switch at the top to toggle your hotspot on.

If the switch at the top of the Personal Hotspot page is white, your hotspot is off; if it's green, your hotspot is on. Steven John/Business Insider

Your phone is now broadcasting a a Wi-Fi signal that other devices can connect to. An auto-generated password will be displayed beside "Wi-Fi Password." You can tap that password to change it if you'd like.

How to access and use your iPhone's Personal Hotspot with another device

Now, on the device that you want to give internet access to, navigate to your respective Wi-Fi menu. On another iPhone or iPad, this will be in the Settings menu. On a Mac computer, it will be in the right side of the menu bar at the top of your screen. On Windows, it will be in the right side of your taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

You should see the name of your iPhone beside two interlocking rings, or a regular Wi-Fi symbol. Click there, and enter the password from your phone when prompted. In a few moments, your device will connect, and you'll be online.

You'll have to enter your hotspot's password the first time you connect another device to it. Steven John/Business Insider

To connect to the web via your iPhone using Bluetooth, pair the device in question with your phone.

You can also plug your phone directly into a computer (or another device with a USB port) to provide internet through a wired connection. Select the name of your iPhone from the list of networks offering internet access.

And a quick pro tip: if you want to bump anyone off your hotspot without turning off the hotspot altogether, change the password. It will kick anyone using the connection off and you'll just have to enter the new password.

Years ago, multiple Snap employees improperly accessed user information through internal tools, giving them the ability to spy on individuals using the video and messaging service, according to a Motherboard report on Thursday.

The data look-up system — known internally as "SnapLion" — was originally built by the company to help fulfill requests from law enforcement officers (or LEOs) who needed user information for things like court orders or subpoenas, according to the report. "LEO," the acronym for law enforcement officer and name of the cartoon character "Leo the Lion," eventually helped the data tool get its name, "SnapLion."

But according to sources and correspondence obtained by Motherboard, multiple Snap employees abused their access to user data at the time. In some instances, that access would have included the ability to look up location information, saved Snaps, and personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses.

In its report, however, Motherboard said it was unable to conclude exactly how the data was misused. The report also didn't specify a precise timeframe for when this abuse could have occurred, other than that to say it was "several years ago."

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

Read more: Facebook banned 2.2 billion fake accounts in the first 3 months of this year. That's almost equal to the number of real people who use it.

One former employee in the Motherboard report said that early tracking of who at the company was accessing user data through SnapLion was unsatisfactory. Better monitoring was established over time, the former employee told Motherboard.

Read the full Motherboard report here.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Michelle Yan: This is Ford's 2-legged delivery robot. It's called Digit. Ford is working with Agility Robotics to create autonomous deliveries. Once a self-driving car arrives at its destination, Digit will unfold itself from the back of the car. Then, it'll grab the correct package from the vehicle and walk straight to your door to drop off the package. Digit was designed to look like a human and walk like one, too.

Jonathan Hurst: Our goal with Digit is to have a robot as a mobility platform that can be in human spaces, go where people go, and work with people. And there are so many applications where that's going to be a useful and important task. One of the big ones is package delivery. A robot vehicle that can drive on all our roads is going to be able to do that. But how do you get it from the vehicle to the doorstep? And that's where our robot comes in. That's what Digit can do.

Michelle Yan: It can carry packages that weigh up to 40 pounds, go up and down stairs, walk naturally through uneven terrain, and can even keep its balance if it bumps into something. How is it able to do all that? LiDAR sensors and a few stereo cameras, which is what many self-driving cars also use. The self-driving vehicle can wirelessly deliver information to Digit. This exchange of information can help Digit use the best pathway to the front door and overcome unexpected obstacles.

Jim McBride: We'd envision the AV to arrive at the site with all the information you'd need to know about starting a mission. We'd have the prior maps and the AV would be able to aid the robot when it got out of the vehicle, in knowing where it was and where it needs to go. And additionally, the AV is full of sensors and computers that can help the robot, which is a little bit thriftier around those components. Should it run into any difficulties in package delivery, we can either solve the problem on the car or we can relay that information to the cloud for further assistance.

Michelle Yan: This also helps keep Digit super lightweight and allow for a long run time. Ford claims Digit can operate most of the day. No word yet on when Ford expects to send Digit out on its own or where it will first launch. So, would you answer the door if this rang your doorbell?

Early investors in money transfer company TransferWise should pop the champagne today: they will have been rewarded for taking an early bet on the London fintech company, which is now one of the hottest in Europe.

TransferWise announced on Wednesday that it has raised $292 million through a share sale, at a $3.5 billion valuation. In plain English, this means some of its existing shareholders sold part or all of their stakes to other investors.

Those who sold shares include its early investors. Cofounders Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann have also reportedly sold a small part of their stakes. TransferWise did not immediately respond when we asked who else may have sold shares, such as early employees.

TransferWise cofounders Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann. TransferWise

The secondary trade is interesting in the context of a wobbly tech IPO market, and a European ecosystem that still lags behind Silicon Valley.

Secondary trades, where existing shareholders sell off their shares, are not generally publicised and multiple sources told Business Insider such deals are still rarer in Europe than in the US.

The upshot is that shareholders, usually those who have been since the beginning, now get some return on their original funding. Early staff and founders likewise can cash in their stakes. Other than a secondary trade, their only option would be to wait for TransferWise to go public or sell, neither of which might happen for years.

Read more: A tech exec explains how it feels to spend 1.5 years preparing for a $226 million IPO, only to sell to PayPal for $2.2 billion

That such share sale deals may be becoming more common in Europe is a positive indicator, investors said.

Ben Wilkinson, chief financial officer of TransferWise shareholder Draper Esprit, told Business Insider: "The secondary sale is a sign of the European technology market maturing; finding new ways to provide liquidity to earlier investors is an important part of making technology investment attractive to investors."

For an early-stage investor that needs to show returns to its backers, a full or partial exit via a secondary trade can be a relief. For a late-stage investor, buying someone else's shares can be a way into a hot company that's growing quickly.

"Traditionally, the model of venture capital firms have locked investors in for a minimum of 10 years, meaning companies in Europe have often been forced to an exit earlier than desirable, while investors have been forced to hold shares later than they would want to," added Wilkinson.

Indeed, Draper announced this morning that it had sold part of its TransferWise stake, which it obtained at a discount in 2017 by buying up funds from early-stage investor Seedcamp. Draper has already seen a return on that Seedcamp deal, in part thanks to the TransferWise trade.

The TransferWise app. Transferwise

Apart from giving investors some welcome cash, the trade gives TransferWise flexibility.

Investors view the company as ripe for a float, and it now has the freedom to choose when it goes public. Some companies can feel pressure to list or sell if their backers want liquidity. Hinrikus told the Financial Times that he believes TransferWise will go public at some point, but the deal means there's no rush.

Adam Birnbaum, director of GP Bullhound, which is not invested in TransferWise, said: "It's an alternative to waiting for an IPO. If you look at IPO activity in some cases, like Uber, there hasn't been that massive tick up in most cases. They're trading below. So somebody who is early stage, they get to see a scenario where they liquify [their stake], book their return, and not wait for the whole IPO process."

Not all secondary trades are good news. If a founder or founders sell their shares, it can demotivate employees who see their leaders get a windfall, or indicate the founders are about to jump ship and do something else.

That the two founders have sold part of their stakes, as reported by The Financial Times, may be mixed news. But founders of big, valuable businesses are only wealthy on paper and may need an injection of cash to stay motivated and to fund themselves.

What TransferWise has otherwise said publicly seems to indicate good news — its existing backers, including Baillie Gifford and Andreessen Horowitz, have chosen to increase their stakes.

"If existing investors are reupping, that's usually a bullish sign," said Birnbaum. "It's a signal to others that they have confidence." Specifically, Baillie Gifford and Andreessen, both sophisticated investors, will have bought into TransferWise at a lower valuation. The latest trade shows they're willing to stick with the company at a higher valuation.

"It's saying, 'We have confidence in the business,'" said Birnbaum.

Stocks in processing-chip companies retreated after the Trump administration blacklisted Huawei last week, reflecting fears that they'll be hard-hit in the brewing "tech cold war" between the US and China.

But one analyst said that, if anything, the China situation is merely kicking those chipmakers while they're already down.

"You have a double whammy," Dan Morgan, a vice president at Synovus Trust Co., a wealth management company based in Georgia, told Business Insider. "This blacklist is a black cloud in the chip sector. But I'm not sure this blacklist is as devastating as the reaction is. To me, the biggest story is continued pressure on the sector."

Huawei makes a host of telecommunications equipment and consumer-electronics products, including mobile phones. The tech giant buys components from leading chipmakers, including Intel and Qualcomm, who have cut off sales to Huawei in the wake of the ban, according to Bloomberg. Trade tensions could also hurt other US chipmakers that sell to companies based in China.

Major semiconductor stocks slipped after the blacklist was announced. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, the most well-known barometer of chip-investing sentiment, was off about 5% on Tuesday from its Friday close.

"US Chipmakers and other companies are under pressure in part because they will lose revenue when they cut off Huawei as a customer," Morgan said in a note. "Huawei depends on many U.S. companies for components woven into the 5G equipment it makes."

But the Huawei ban's effect will probably not be significant, he added. Only 2.6% of Qualcomm sales come from Huawei, while Intel gets only 1% of its revenue from the Chinese tech giant, according to Synovus' research.

Besides, the global supply chain used by the US tech industry has also become so complex that "pinpointing the financial strain on chipmakers of a U.S.-China trade war" is difficult, he said.

"Most of the effects will be indirect, based on our checks, and any direct tariff impact on chipmakers will likely be small," Morgan said.

What's more significant, he said, is the broader market uncertainty faced by chipmakers. This was underscored by the earnings results reported by major chip companies, including Intel and Nvidia, both which cited a weaker-than-expected data-center market. Intel and Nvidia make chips that power data centers and cloud-computing platforms.

An expected build-out in those markets stalled, which hit chip sales, and the chip giants have said it's unclear how long the pause will last.

"That's more devastating and it's an unknown," Morgan said. While the blacklist is a concern, he added, "The chip sector has bigger problems."

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

Mitch Grasso has made a career out of visualizing ideas and helping others do the same.

Grasso started his career as a software designer. He then became a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, using presentations to raise millions of dollars in venture capital. Two of the startups he founded, including his latest, Beautiful.AI, have focused on offering software that allows people to create and present slide shows, including the so-called pitch deck slideshows that startups put together to win over potential investors.

So you might imagine that Grasso has some well-considered ideas on what makes for a perfect pitch deck. Perhaps surprisingly, when it comes to investor presentations, Grasso thinks substance is much more important than style.

"Every pitch, every presentation is primarily about telling a story and not about designing beautiful slides, necessarily," Grasso told Business Insider in an interview earlier this month. "That's something you don't want to be worrying about."

From a design standpoint, Grasso's chief advice to founders is to keep their presentations simple and legible. The decks should look polished, but not overproduced, he said.

"Presentations aren't really an opportunity for personal expression," he said. Instead, he continued, they're "about communicating ideas."

"You don't want it to be incredibly creative, because then it's distracting," he said. "You don't want it to be incredibly terrible, because then it's distracting as well."

Here's what to include in a pitch deck

At least for entrepreneurs whose companies are still in their early stages, there are certain elements Grasso thinks they should need to include in their decks. Among the sections he thinks they need to include are ones that show:

"What is your background, what is your story, what is your insight, and what's your experience that makes you better suited for this?" he said.

"It's got to be big. It's got to have a big opportunity," Grasso said.

"All this stuff about traction and go-to-market and business plans, that becomes important as you move further along, but in the earlier stage, it's more about that vision," Grasso said. He continued: "It's about convincing rather than showing the data.

Here's what to leave out

There are other things that Grasso would discourage founders from including in their pitch decks, at least when their companies are still in their early stages. Among them:

Ironically, Grasso didn't prepare a formal pitch deck when he raised money for Beautiful.AI. Instead, he used the company's software to design one on the fly as a way of demonstrating the capabilities of its software.

Read this:This serial founder thinks pitch decks are passé. Here's what his startup used instead to raise $45 million in new funding.

Even if he didn't need one this time around, Grasso thinks pitch decks remain important for founders, especially new ones who don't have a reputation to lean on or established relationships with investors. But they're not all-important; entrepreneurs should realize that they and their story trump their slide shows, he said.

"At the end of the day, the pitch is about you, and if you can't convince somebody of your idea without a pitch deck, then you probably don't know your idea well enough," he said.

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

There's so much data that needs to be moved to and process in the cloud, a platform like Amazon Web Services is turning to artificial intelligence to help its customers sort through huge chunks of information.

On Tuesday, Informatica, a 26-year-old company which makes software for managing business data, said it will be working with the cloud giant to do just that.

Informatica said it will be working with AWS and Cognizant, an IT services company, to give AWS clients a smarter way to move their data to the cloud. Informatica's technology will be a free AI-based tool to help AWS clients come up with a cost-efficient plan to migrate their data over. AWS clients would also be able to buy a report on the data migration, with consulting services from Cognizant.

The enhanced partnership is evidently another move by Informatica to boost its presence in cloud computing. The corporate tech trend gives businesses access to functionally unlimited computing power, billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, increasing flexibility while potentially reducing costs.

It is a market dominated by AWS and Microsoft Azure. Indeed, Informatica, which is based in Redwood City, California, unveiled a similar partnership with Microsoft last year.

Strengthening its ties to AWS made sense given the company's dominant position, Informatica CEO Anil Chakravarthy said.

"AWS is the leader in the cloud," he told Business Insider. "Many of our giant customers look at AWS as the go-to vendor."

For Amazon Web Services, the partnership makes it that much easier for customers to take their data and apply it towards AI and machine learning, technologies that are only increasing in importance. Informatica's expertise in data management gives their mutual customers a boost in those cutting-edge fields.

"Analytics from the beginning of our business has always been important," Kelman told Business Insider. "We've seen this accelerate for customers with the rise of machine learning...It has accelerated. Nowadays it's hard to find any enterprise that isn't trying to leverage machine learning and AI."

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

An undisclosed number of Google enterprise users have had their passwords stored in plaintext on the tech giant's internal systems for over a decade, according to a corporate blog post on Tuesday.

"We recently notified a subset of our enterprise G Suite customers that some passwords were stored in our encrypted internal systems unhashed," Suzanne Frey, Google Cloud VP of Engineering wrote.

Google said the issue stemmed from giving account administrators — for instance, a company's head of IT — the ability to manually set passwords for employees — say, on an someone's first day. But back in 2005, an error was made, Google said, and the admin portal ended up storing unhashed copies of passwords on the tech giant's encrypted servers. In other words, for the past 14 years, some G Suite users have had their corporate passwords stored in such a way that would have been readable by authorized personnel, like account administrators or certain Google employees.

Google first found the issue this April and said it has since been fixed. In its blog post Tuesday, Google did not estimate how many user accounts were impacted, nor did the company answer Business Insider's question regarding that number.

This February, Google announced that its G Suite platform — which includes apps like Gmail, Docs, and Hangouts — has over 5 million paying businesses.

"To be clear, these passwords remained in our secure encrypted infrastructure," Frey wrote. "This issue has been fixed and we have seen no evidence of improper access to or misuse of the affected passwords."

Google said G Suite administrators have been notified and that it will update passwords that have not already been changed. It also said that none of its free consumer accounts were included in the mishap.

With Tuesday's news, Google joins other tech giants — most notably Facebook— that have struggled to keep user passwords and other data safe and secured. In March, Facebook admitted to storing hundreds of millions of user passwords in plaintext for years, available to be seen by any of its 20,000 employees.

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.

Amazon is trying to make the lives of its warehouse workers a bit less rote.

It's piloting a program in five fulfillment centers around the country where its employees have the option to gamify their workload.

At employee workstations, games with names such as "MissionRacer," "PicksInSpace," "Dragon Duel," and "CastleCrafter" appear on a small screen with retro-looking graphics and keep track of employees' work. The Washington Post was first to report on the existence of the program, which an Amazon representative confirmed with Business Insider.

Progress is then compared with others', either on the individual or group level. Winners get bragging rights and "swag bucks," which employees can redeem for Amazon-branded apparel and gear.

Using the gamified program is completely optional, and while there are incentives like virtual badges, they are not directly tied to pay or advancement.

The pilot began at one warehouse in 2017 before it was expanded to five.

Read more: Amazon's shift to one-day Prime shipping could prove a big challenge to 2 breeds of retailers

The gamification plays a dual role of making unskilled or monotonous labor more easily borne and providing a way for Amazon to more naturally encourage employees to be more productive. How productive Amazon's warehouses can be is something that's carefully watched by investors, customers, and everyone in between as Amazon transitions its two-day Prime shipping guarantee to one day.

Amazon warehouse workers are also already tracked for their productivity. Some employees told Business Insider earlier this year that the job is "brutal." Amazon says it's proud of its "great working conditions, wages and benefits, and career opportunities."

HQ Trivia, the live game show app that offers players real cash prizes, is introducing a new way to give players a better chance of taking home money earlier in the game.

Starting Tuesday, players will be able to win cash prizes for answering specific questions correctly. If players manage to score a cash bonus, they can choose to drop out and keep their winnings, or continue playing for a chance at a bigger prize.

Previously, only players who answered every question correctly got a share of the prize money.

HQ has also found a replacement for the recently departed Scott Rogowsky: On Tuesday, HQ will welcome Matt Richards as its full-time host. Richards, an actor and comedian, was previously a part-time host for the show.

The first round of HQ Trivia Season 4 starts Tuesday night at 9 p.m., and as always, players can join in using the app on their Android or iOS smartphone. HQ will survey players to decide on a theme for the game's questions, which will let them focus on topics they prefer.

Read more: Mistrust, secret memos, and boardroom drama — inside the chaos at HQ Trivia after its young cofounder's sudden death

HQ said that Richards will occasionally share hosting duties with Sharon Carpenter, a British journalist, host, and producer. Comedian Anna Roisman will host HQ Words, a separate game with similarities to "Wheel of Fortune." And actress Lauren Gambino will host HQ Sports during the new season.

HQ recently bid farewell to longtime host Scott Rogowsky, who left to host the baseball program "ChangeUp" on the streaming service DAZN.

Way back in 2014, when Apple released iOS 8, the iPhone and iPad got a feature called Continuity which lets the two devices work almost as one — you can copy and paste wirelessly between the two, as well as continue text message and other activities seamlessly when switching between phone and tablet.

Perhaps the coolest and most convenient Continuity feature, though, is the ability to send and receive phone calls on the iPad. The only requirements: Your phone and tablet need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network and signed in with the same Apple ID.

How to turn on the ability to make calls on your iPad

You'll need to throw a few switches in Settings on both the iPhone and iPad to make this work.

1. On your iPhone, open the Settings app.

2. Tap "Phone."

3. Tap "Calls on Other Devices."

4. Turn this feature on by swiping the button to the right, and then enable the feature for your iPad by swiping the button below in the "Allow Calls On" section. If you have multiple iOS devices, you can enable calling on as many of them as you like.

Allow the iPhone to send calls to your iPad by turning on "Calls on Other Devices." Dave Johnson/Business Insider

5. On your iPad, open the Settings app.

6. Tap "FaceTime."

7. On the right, tap "Calls from iPhone" and turn that feature on by swiping the button to the right.

Turn on "Calls from iPhone" in the FaceTime section of the Settings app. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

How to send and receive calls on your iPad

Now you're all set up — when a call comes in on your iPhone, it will also ring on the iPad. You can accept the call on either device.

You can also place calls from the iPad even though there's no dialer app. To make a call:

1. Open the Contacts app.

2. Find the contact whom you want to call.

3. Tap the "Call" button at the top of the screen or tap a phone number in the contact's details.

Make a call from your iPad by tapping a phone number or the Call button in the Contacts app. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

If you're calling someone who has an iPhone, you can also place a FaceTime call from the iPad, taking advantage of the tablet's larger screen for the video.

How to make a call from the iPad without an iPhone

You don't have to use your iPhone to make calls with your iPad. There are several popular voice and video messaging apps you can use on your iPad.

Skype

Skype allows you to place both audio and video calls to other Skype users for free. In addition, you can call someone's landline or mobile phone for a fee. Calling within the US costs 2.3 cents per minute, and you can buy "Skype credits" in increments as low as $5, or sign up for a recurring Skype subscription. To get started, install the Skype app for the iPad.

Google Voice

You can also make calls using the Google Voice app. Google Voice is a phone service offered by Google that gives you an alternate phone number you can use instead of your usual iPhone number — great if you want to set up a free business line, for example. Google Voice has several useful features, including the ability to ring all your phones when a call comes in and to forward all of your other phone numbers to Google Voice, turning it into a single way for others to reach you. You can read more about Google Voice and how to use it in our article, " How to set up and use Google Voice on your computer or mobile device."

Facebook Messenger

Also, don't forget that you can make calls using the Facebook Messenger app. In any chat, you will find a phone and video icon to the right of the person you are chatting with. Tap either icon to start a call — voice or video — via Wi-Fi.

Elsewhere, privacy continues to be a big story for advertisers as Google and Facebook crack down on third-party ad targeting on their platforms.

Google's making moves against advertisers' use of third-party cookies. Meanwhile, Facebook is preparing advertisers for a "clear history" tool that will limit use of its most powerful ad targeting tool. Our takeaways:

Here are other stories we've been reporting. (Read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime; use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.) What did we miss? Send me tips or feedback at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tanya Dua talked to Pepsi's marketing chief about how the soda brand is surviving the war on sugary drinks.

Americans are ditching fizzy, sugary sodas more than ever before. Pepsi's marketing head is adopting a challenger mindset to survive.

Here's what he said:

Here's what to expect in 5G from the 'Big 4' carriers as Verizon, AT&T, and others battle for dominance 5G has been more hype than reality so far, but it's set to gather steam in the year ahead. Abby Jackson rounded up the changes to expect from the wireless carriers:

An Accenture Interactive exec says it's 'time to put the checkbook away' after its string of acquisitions including Droga5 Accenture Interactive has snapped up a series of marketing-oriented companies to become a stronger competitor to ad agencies. Now it's going to focus on using those companies to help businesses with advertising and more. The company sees itself playing a bigger role as marketing gravitates toward data, automation, and artificial intelligence, Tanya reported.

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

A new report shows HBO's big weakness as it battles Netflix and Disney in the streaming wars

Inside Amazon's battle to kill an unprecedented shareholder revolt over facial recognition

Google's advertising boss says that it won't sacrifice privacy to boost its slowing ads business

A Warner Bros. exec explains the data behind licensing shows like 'Friends' to Netflix

These new TikTok influencers have millions of fans and are hustling for a fraction of the price of YouTubers

Turner "Tfue" Tenney, one of the top professional gamers in the world, is suing his team, FaZe Clan, over claims of unfair business practices and breach of contract.

In a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Tenney alleges that FaZe Clan retained 80% of the revenue generated from his sponsored videos and advertisement deals, as well as 50% of the revenue generated by his in-person appearances.

"Faze Clan's goal is essentially to 'own' Tenney and other content creators/streamers and professional gamers," the lawsuit alleges. "FaZe Clan, which is not a licensed talent agency, exploits young artists like Tenney through oppressive and predatory long-term contracts whereby FaZe Clan essentially 'owns' the artist and the artist's career."

Tenney, 21, has won more than $500,000 playing in competitive "Fortnite" tournaments, and boasts more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube. He's the third-most popular gamer on Twitch with six million followers, trailing only Tyler "Ninja" Blevins and Michael "shroud" Grzesiek. Like other professional gamers, Tenney relies on sponsorship deals, paid advertisements, and viewer subscriptions and donations to generate income when he's not competing.

FaZe Clan manages a number of popular YouTube personalities and esports teams across multiple games.

Tenny signed a six-month contract with FaZe Clan in April 2018, which was later extended to a 36-month agreement. Tenney's YouTube channel had approximately 150,000 subscribers in May 2018, but that number has grown more than 10 million in the last year, with the help of promotion from FaZe Clan.

However, the lawsuit requests that Tenney be released from his contract, and for financial restitution from FaZe Clan.

Business Insider has reached out to both Turner "Tfue" Tenney and FaZe Clan for further comment.

Here's why the two sides are at odds, and why other YouTubers are starting to take notice.