Slack has released its SEC paperwork to become a public company giving us our first glimpse at its financials and top investors.

As is typical these days, Slack is using a two-tier structure where it will sell Class A shares to the public, with each of those shares offering one vote per share; and it will have Class B shares that come with 10 votes per share.

But Slack's power structure has a twist. Normally the super-voting shares are held by founders as a way to keep tight fisted control after their company goes public. In Slack's case, all of its major shareholders will get the Class B shares that provide 10-votes-per share stock, its current paperwork shows. This includes the company's founders, as well as the major investors, board members at the companies executives (12 executives in all, the paperwork says).

All of those Class B stockholders will do well if the IPO goes well.

We don't know exactly how much money these shareholders stand to make because Slack has not yet priced its Class A shares. We also don't know if the Class B shares will be valued higher/differently. But, we do know that some employees have been allowed to sell their stock on the private, secondary market ahead of the IPO at $28 a share, valuing the company at $17 billion, CNBC reports.

So, just for fun, we used the $28/share price to calculate the value of the stakes owned by its major shareholders. (We'll update these numbers after Slack officially announces the price of its shares.)

With all those caveats, here are the people and investors getting rich from Slack's huge IPO:

Shares of Tesla fell more than 5% in trading on Friday to close at $235.14, their lowest level since January 2017.

The stock ended the brutal week down more than 12% after an investor day that focused on autonomy and failed to excite Wall Street analysts was followed by an earnings report that missed expectations on both the top and bottom lines.

Markets InsiderOne analyst, Daniel Ives of Wedbush, said he could no longer in good faith recommend the stock to clients.

"To this point, in our 20 years of covering tech stocks on the Street we view this quarter as one of top debacles we have ever seen while Musk & Co. in an episode out of the Twilight Zone act as if demand and profitability will magically return to the Tesla story," Ives and his fellow analyst Strecker Backe said in a note on Thursday.

"As such, we no longer can look investors in the eye and recommend buying this stock at current levels until Tesla starts to take its medicine and focus on reality around demand issues which is the core focus of investors," they added.

Wall Street analysts polled by Bloomberg have an average price target of $296 for Tesla — about 26% higher than Friday's close. Twelve of those analysts recommend buying the stock, with nine rating it neutrally and 15 rating it a sell.

"We remain encouraged by Tesla's vision and future growth prospects (brand value, global Model 3 and Y TAM, Semi, etc.), but there is increased uncertainty around near-term demand vs previous bullish forecasts and growth cannot stall for a growth company," Evercore ISI analysts led by Arndt Ellinghorst wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

The firm knocked Tesla down to an "underperform" rating from "in-line."

CEO Elon Musk, meanwhile, is still involved in a lengthy tussle with federal stock regulators. On Thursday, Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a judge for another one-week extension for their ongoing talks about Musk's twitter use.

Rebecca Ungarino contributed to this report.

Stewart Butterfield is on a roll.

Before building his $7 billion startup Slack — which many consider the fastest-growing business app ever, and which officially filed the paperwork to go public Friday— Stewart Butterfield ran another hot startup called Flickr, which sold to Yahoo for over $20 million.

This time, Butterfield's exit promises to be much splashier. The workplace messaging app, born out of a now-defunct gaming startup Tiny Speck, will find itself in the spotlight when it has what's widely expected to be an exciting debut on the public markets.

As 2019 shapes up to be a banner year for tech IPOs, Butterfield's journey to success stands out. Along the way, Butterfield grappled with trying to fundraise for a startup in a post-tech bubble landscape. And even should he successfully navigate Slack to a successful public debut, he still has to deal with the looming threat of Microsoft.

Read More: Slack, the $7 billion office-messaging app that millennials and startups love, just filed to go public in a really weird way

This is an update to a post by Maya Kosoff first published in 2015.

A storm is brewing, and it could destroy the box-office record this weekend.

Disney said on Friday that it is "cautiously projecting" Avengers: Endgame" to gross $300 million this weekend, which would break the opening-weekend box-office record set by "Avengers: Infinity War" last year.

The movie made a record $60 million in Thursday preview screenings, topping the $57 million that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" made.

Early estimates from box-office experts lined up with Disney's. Both Boxoffice.com and Box Office Mojo estimated "Endgame" to make at least $300 million in final projections on Thursday.

The movie broke the movie-ticket service Fandango's records for most presale tickets sold in both the first day and the first week. In its first week, it was selling five times as many tickets as "Avengers: Infinity War" did over the same period.

Read more: Demand is so high for 'Avengers: Endgame' that many AMC theaters will be open 24 hours a day all weekend

AMC Theatres on Monday announced that 17 of its theaters in the US would be open for 72 hours straight, Thursday through Sunday, this weekend in anticipation of high demand for "Endgame." Twenty-nine AMC theaters will be open 24 hours from Thursday through Friday, and 18 will be open Thursday through Saturday. AMC said the movie broke its presale record as well.

"The week before its release is the calm before the cinematic storm, that will only build momentum to a crescendo," Exhibitor Relations senior box-office analyst Jeff Bock said.

"Shazam!" hit theaters on April 5, and "Hellboy" followed a week later on April 12. This past week saw no major release aside from the new horror movie "The Curse of La Llorona," giving "Endgame" little competition.

If "Endgame" breaks the opening-weekend record, its next goal will be the $2.05 billion that "Infinity War" ultimately grossed worldwide. But it will have to beat "Avatar's" $2.8 billion global gross to be the biggest movie ever.

Ford

It took more than two years, but Ford is once again more valuable than Tesla. 

Ford shares surged more than 10%, up $1.04, on Friday after the company posted first-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates. The gains ran Ford's market cap to more than $41 billion, putting it ahead of Tesla's $40 billion valuation. Both automakers trail General Motors, which had a market value of $56 billion. 

It's been a long road back to the No. 2 spot for Ford, which had remained the third-largest US automaker by market cap since it was surpassed by Tesla in April 2017.

For much of the past two years Tesla and GM flip-flopped between the top two spots. But in January, GM reclaimed the No. 1 spot and has not relinquished it as Tesla has struggled with demand issues and just posted a big first-quarter loss.

In terms of 2018 sales, General Motors was No. 1 (2.95 million), followed by Ford (2.5 million) and Fiat Chrysler (2.24 million). By comparison, Tesla sold more than 200,000 vehicles in a year for the first time in 2018.

Markets Insider

 

 

We're in the early stages of what the World Economic Forum has dubbed "the Fourth Industrial Revolution," where advances in technology such as artificial intelligence will replace or change millions of jobs. It can be easy to take a pessimistic view.

But as Diane Gherson, IBM's head of HR, has shown at the tech stalwart, this shift is also providing an opportunity to reinvent work in a way that can be more efficient and beneficial to workers than before.

For her work in taking IBM to a "skills-based" company and in the process providing a model for other companies to do the same, we've chosen her as one of the 100 People Transforming Business.

Redefining roles

Gherson took over as HR chief in 2013, but in her 17 years at the company, she's seen plenty of change. In 2014-15, IBM was facing "massive disruption," Gherson said, from a shift to the cloud (where software is distributed online instead of through hardware), new AI and blockchain tech, and accompanying new business models. This meant that many of its more than 350,000 employees worldwide would need to adapt or be replaced.

"There's a limit to how much you can just sort of change out your workforce, right?" Gherson said. "Particularly in a lot of countries where that's quite painful."

To make it through these market changes, IBM had to assess what skills its workforce had and what skills it now needed. That's not an easy feat when you're a giant multinational business. Gherson said that the company turned to the technology that was partially responsible for this disruption: AI.

Instead of having managers work with each of their employees to map out their skills and then work with other managers to see what skills were still needed, IBM automated the process. Internal software could analyze employees' work experience and writings to infer what they excelled at. It prompted a cultural shift within the company.

Read more: IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said companies have to change the way they hire, or the skills gap will become a crisis

"It was starting to become a thing where we were saying, 'Expertise really matters. And what you're known for is going to enable you to have valuable roles in the future,'" Gherson told us.

It was a "huge leap," Gherson said. Before that, she said, HR was all about headcount: There were roles and they had to be filled by qualified people, as determined by résumés. Now her job became about skills: There were tasks requiring certain skills, and they had to be given to qualified people, as determined by skill assessments.

Early in this transition, IBM was planning on exiting a business, leaving it with a team of people who were about to be left without a job. Rather than lay them all off, Gherson said, HR ran its skills-assessment software and compared the analyses with job openings throughout the company, allowing for a minimum of an 80% match to consider a person qualified. About 80% of that defunct team was moved to a new job within IBM.

"It was the first time we realized, 'Wow, we don't have to let all these people go and go out and hire people for these openings even though they don't have the background that you would normally look for in the external market. They have the skills to be successful in these jobs,'" Gherson said.

IBM made that automated skills-assessment tool available to external recruits and developed Blue Match for its employees, which lets them know if they're qualified for another job within the company, regardless of the security of their current role. HR also introduced a complementary career-coach phone app that analyzes IBM's job and skills data to answer questions like, "If I moved to this part of the company, what's the chance I would get promoted within two years?"

Constant learning

IBM was becoming more fully a skills-based company, but that did not mean that skill sets could remain static. The reason why the transformation was necessary in the first place, of course, was because the wider market was moving faster than ever, leaving the state of jobs in constant flux.

In response, Gherson oversaw the development of the IBM Skills Gateway, which is a learning resource that allows users to select a skill, enroll in courses for it, and end up with a badge. These badges have accompanying explanations for what specifically the student learned, and they can be used outside of IBM. Last year, IBM surpassed 1 million badges awarded.

The acquisition of skills is "now deeply embedded in our management system, so pay is based on the skills that you've acquired," Gherson said. "We sit down with our people and say, 'Let's talk about what skills you're going to be developing in the next quarter.' So it's part of an ongoing conversation."

IBM's leadership have been evangelists for transitioning to a skills-based economy, and Gherson believes more companies will have to take similar approaches if they want to succeed in the near future.

As she told us, "100% of jobs are going to change with artificial intelligence. We know that, right? But that doesn't have to be terrifying."

This month, Mercedes-Benz introduced the GLB compact SUV concept at the 2019 Shanghai auto show. The GLB is a thinly veiled concept version of the eponymous production SUV that will reach showrooms in 2020.

At 182 inches long, the GLB is roughly the same size as a Honda CR-V and slightly smaller than its big brother, the Mercedes GLC crossover SUV.

Read more: Volkswagen's US CEO explains why he thinks America is ready for a small pickup truck again.

In spite of its somewhat diminutive size, Mercedes will offer the GLB seating for seven passengers spread over three rows. One of the driving factors for this decision was demand from the Chinese market.

Mercedes-Benz According to Britta Seeger, the member of the board of management at parent company Daimler AG responsible for Mercedes-Benz car sales, Chinese demand for three-row seating is a product of its societal structure.

"It is essential in China where that we offer the GLB as a seven-seater," Seeger told reporters at the 2019 New York Auto Show. "You know why the Chinese are demanding the seven seaters in the different aspects? That's really interesting because they have different life situation because they are living together with the one-child policy."

Here's the GLB's third row. Mercedes-Benz Seeger added, "If you calculate, they bring all people into one car; this is why they are just asking for the seven-seaters — you have four grandparents, two parents, and one child."

It's unclear if the GLB will keep its three-row layout when it comes stateside. It's not completely unheard for compact crossovers to boast three rows. The Mitsubishi Outlander and the Volkswagen Tiguan both offer seating for seven. However, the third rows on these crossovers are only fit for short trips or for children.

Mercedes-Benz As for the GLB, the compact crossover concept delivers a brawny square-jawed look that's both athletic and stylish. It's powered by a 224 horsepower, 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine sending power to all four wheels through an eight-speed dual clutch transmission. The interior is decked out in nappa and nubuk leather as well as chestnut and walnut wood trim.

Apple has discussed acquiring a portion of Intel's smartphone modem chip division, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The talks stopped recently around the time Apple struck a deal with rival chipmaker Qualcomm, per the report. The two companies recently announced that they've entered a six-year license agreement and a multi-year chipset supply agreement, in addition to dropping all litigation against one another — ending a long-running dispute.

The news also comes after Intel CEO Bob Swan said last week that it had exited the 5G modem business, with the announcement coming in the immediate aftermath of the agreement between Apple and Qualcomm.

"In light of the announcement of Apple and Qualcomm, we assessed the prospects for us to make money while delivering this technology for smartphones and concluded at the time that we just didn't see a path," Swan previously said to the Journal, separately from this report.

Intel is now pursuing other alternatives for its modem business, according to the Journal, which could include a potential sale to Apple or another company. A deal could result in a few billion dollars for Intel, the Journal reports citing people familiar with the matter. The chipmaker has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to oversee the process.

If Apple were to acquire Intel's smartphone modem chip business, it would likely represent one of the iPhone maker's biggest acquisitions yet, likely at a similar scale to its $3 billion purchase of headphone company Beats Electronics in 2014.

Apple is expected to release an iPhone with a 5G modem in 2020, according to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The analyst, who frequently makes predictions about new Apple products, says Qualcomm and Samsung could provide the modems, according to CNBC.

Shortly before Apple and Qualcomm's joint announcement, CNBC reported that Chinese smartphone giant Huawei also recently said it would be "open" to selling 5G chips to Apple.

However, were Apple to buy Intel's 5G modem business, it could take the process in-house, in a maneuver that could appeal to the company — Apple generally prefers owning as many parts of the process as possible, where it can.

Apple declined to provide a comment when contacted by Business Insider.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is doubling down on her mission to break up big tech.

On Tuesday, Warren, who is running for president in the 2020 election, called out Amazon in a town hall speech, accusing the retail giant of using data that it collects from sellers and buyers to create its own private label products. The term private label refers to products sold under various brands belonging directly to Amazon. This practice would "knock out" the competition, Warren said.

"Giant tech companies have too much power," Warren tweeted. "My plan to #BreakUpBigTech prevents corporations like Amazon from knocking out the rest of the competition. You can be an umpire, or you can be a player—but you can't be both."

Read more: Warren's plan to fight big tech directly threatens one of Amazon's most successful businesses

Amazon made a rare public response to her comments on Twitter later that day, saying that it does not use individual sellers' data to launch its own private label products. A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Warren responded again, writing on Twitter: "When Amazon can tilt the online marketplace in its own favor, small businesses see an immediate impact in their profits. That can be absolutely crushing, it's not fair, and I'm fighting to end that."

Amazon has come under scrutiny in the past for its role as both a direct seller and a platform for other merchants to sell to those same customers. Bloomberg reported in 2016 that Amazon had been using sellers' data to create its own versions of best-selling items. It is under an initial probe by European regulators for its role as both direct seller and merchant platform as of December 2018, and may face a full investigation.

Warren has been hot on big tech for some time. In March, she announced her plan to break up some of the largest US tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon. In this proposal, she called out Amazon's Marketplace for third-party sellers and said it would "be split apart" from its private label "Basics" offering.

Amazon has argued that external sellers perform better than its own brands. Amazon Marketplace has been outpacing Amazon's direct sales for years, and this area of the business now accounts for more than half of Amazon's total sales on its website.

"Third-party sellers are kicking our first party butt," CEO Jeff Bezos wrote in the company's annual letter to shareholders in April.

Amazon's own private-label offering still accounts for a small part of its total business; roughly 1% of the company's total retail sales, according to a company spokesperson. However, it is making moves to grow this and has significantly increased the number of private-label brands available in recent years.

According to estimates from investment company SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Amazon's private-label business could generate $25 billion by 2022.

"Private label is one of the highly under-appreciated trends within Amazon, in our view, which over time should give the company a strong 'unfair' competitive advantage," the company wrote in a note in June.

The tension between the US and Huawei has reached fever pitch over claims the Chinese tech company acts as a backdoor for the Chinese government to spy.

The US gave a defence briefing at Mobile World Congress in Feburary, in which it called the Chinese phone giant "duplicitous and deceitful."

Read more: Here's a close-up look at Huawei's $2,600 folding phone, the Mate X

Meanwhile, Huawei chairman Guo Ping lashed out at the US while presenting at MWC, saying it has "no evidence, nothing," that the firm spied on behalf of the Chinese government. It used the tech show to parade its 5G network ambitions, including debuting its foldable 5G phone, the Mate X.

The US has been furiously lobbying its allies to freeze out Huawei's 5G network equipment, citing national security concerns. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned allied countries in mid-February that it would be "more difficult" for the US to partner with countries that didn't distance themselves from Huawei.

Its lobbying efforts have been met with mixed success. Here is a run-down of how allies have reacted.

Prime Minister Theresa May will allow Chinese tech giant Huawei to supply equipment for the UK's upcoming 5G mobile network but will block it from providing "core" infrastructure, The Daily Telegraph first reported.

May reportedly gave the order after a meeting with ministers on the UK's National Security Council, although sources told The Guardian that some of the ministers present had pushed for a comprehensive ban on Huawei equipment.

A government spokesman said it would formally announce the decision on Huawei in due course.

May's reported decision flies in the face of American pressure on allies to bar Huawei equipment completely from their next-generation 5G networks on the grounds the company may enable the Chinese government to spy.

The US has exerted considerable political pressure on its allies to reject Huawei's 5G network equipment, arguing that the Chinese tech company could act as a backdoor through which the Chinese can spy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a warning to allied countries in February, saying it be "more difficult" for the US to partner with nations which allowed Huawei kit to be integrated into their networks.

Read more: The Trump administration is warning allies to stay away from a powerful Chinese company — but not everyone's listening

May's decision comes just two months before President Trump's planned state visit to the UK in July, and risks creating political tensions.

Huawei has stolidly opposed the notion that it's a proxy for the Chinese government, with CEO Ren Zhengfei saying in March that he would sooner shut down the company than let it be used for espionage.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. The Asahi Shimbun/The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

The UK previously said it would be able to "mitigate" any security risks posed by Huawei's kit, although in February head of GCHQ Jeremy Fleming warned that the UK must be wary of the risks posed by Chinese firms.

Speaking to BBC Panorama earlier this month, technical director of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre Dr Ian Levy said that his review of Huawei led him to conclude that its security risks were more to do with shoddy engineering than state interference.

Digital Minister Margot James applauded May's decision on Twitter, saying she was right to act on the advice that the UK can minimise the risk.

A government spokesman said: "National Security Council discussions are confidential. Decisions from those meetings are made and announced at the appropriate time through the established processes. The security and resilience of the UK's telecoms networks is of paramount importance.

"As part of our plans to provide world class digital connectivity, including 5G, we have conducted an evidence based review of the supply chain to ensure a diverse and secure supply base, now and into the future. This is a thorough review into a complex area and will report with its conclusions in due course."

Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current Nintendo Switch is a shockingly underpowered device, and it kind of has to be — it's essentially a tablet by design, which automatically constrains what it's capable of doing. Putting in more powerful hardware would require a more powerful battery, thus increasing the overall size of the device.

But in the two-plus years since the Switch launch, more powerful chips have arrived and battery technology has improved. It's entirely possible to improve the console's horsepower without having to make any major sacrifices.

To be clear, we're talking about a PlayStation 4 Pro/Xbox One X-esque half-step up — horsepower that makes existing games look better rather than an entirely new platform.

In releasing a more powerful version of an existing console, console makers can bolster horsepower without having to release an entirely new platform.

In the case of the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, both consoles offer sharper visuals and snappier load times, even though they're only intended to play standard PlayStation 4 and Xbox One games. Something similar with the Switch could be huge.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been in contact with leaders of major tech companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, as part of her push to slow the spread of violent content online.

Ardern announced on Wednesday local time that she and French President Emmanuel Macron will host a summit in Paris on May 15 to encourage industry and world leaders to commit to a pledge called the "Christchurch Call," which seeks to curb extremist content on social media.

The prime minister said she has received positive responses from leaders she has spoken to so far.

"No tech company — just like no government — wishes to see violent extremism and terrorism online," she told reporters on Wednesday. "So we have a starting point which is one of unity."

New Zealand has been eager to clamp down on malicious social media activity since 50 people were killed and dozens more injured in mass shootings in Christchurch on March 15. The gunman, a 28-year-old Australian man, livestreamed the attacks at two separate mosques on Facebook, and copies of the gruesome video quickly spread on that platform and others.

"The March 15 terrorist attacks saw social media used in an unprecedented way as a tool to promote an act of terrorism and hate," Ardern said of the shootings. "We are asking for a show of leadership to ensure social media cannot be used again the way it was."

Ardern said she spoke directly to the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who shared his condolences after the shooting. She did not elaborate on the details of their discussion.

Read more: New Zealand's privacy commissioner lashes out at Facebook, calling those behind the company 'morally bankrupt pathological liars'

I don't think anyone would argue the terrorist had a right to livestream the murder of 50 people," she said.

Facebook faced harsh blowback over the livestream video which was briefly hosted on its site. The company said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attacks within 24 hours. Still, Business Insider was able to find numerous copies still circulating across social media in the days after the shooting.

Under New Zealand law, dissemination or possession of material depicting extreme violence or terrorism is prohibited, according to The New York Times. New Zealand's human-rights laws also forbid the incitement of what it calls "racial disharmony" through written or broadcast media.

New Zealand's censorship office last month made the possession and sharing of the 17-minute livestream illegal. According to Television New Zealand, those who distribute the video could face a maximum of 14 years in prison. Six people appeared in a New Zealand court last week on charges of illegally distributing video from the Christchurch shooting.

Tesla is touting a handful of improvements to the Model S sedan and Model X SUV.

Both vehicles received drivetrain upgrades that Tesla said would improve the battery performance on the long-range version of both cars to 370 miles for the Model S, and 325 miles for the Model X.

Previously, the Model S and Model X had maximum battery ranges of 335 miles and 295 miles, respectively.

The long-range Model S and Model X benefit from the extended ranges while using the same 100 kWh battery pack, according to a Tesla blog post published Tuesday. Both cars are now priced higher as a result: $78,750 (a $5,500 hike) for the S and $83,950 (a $6,000 increase) for the X.

The electric-car maker bundled a series of other announcements in its press release, including that it is bringing back the lower-cost Standard Range Model S and Model X, a month after they were quietly removed from the Tesla website.

Read more: Investors are looking for 3 things from Tesla's earnings

Additionally, the company introduced upgraded air suspension systems for both vehicles and said it is now offering a free Ludicrous Mode upgrade (normally a $20,000 option) for existing Model S and Model X owners who buy a brand-new Model S or Model X Performance vehicle, the priciest version of the cars in the lineup.

Following up on a promise made in early March, the newest S and X models can also take advantage of faster charging rates using Tesla's new V3 Supercharger and the existing V2 units.

All of this news comes a day after CEO Elon Musk hosted an event — dubbed "Autonomy Day" — for investors on Monday. During the presentation, Musk touted Tesla's progress on its autonomous-driving technology.

The new-and-improved Model S and Model X also dropped just hours before Tesla is set to deliver its first-quarter earnings report. Wall Street analysts expect the automaker to swing to a loss after two straight profitable quarters, the Business Insider transportation correspondent Matt DeBord wrote earlier on Tuesday.

Musk said previously that Tesla would likely have a muted first quarter. The market has taken note of that projection, pricing in the expected loss accordingly.

You've got to give Evan Spiegel credit for one thing.

Sure, his company, Snap, beat Wall Street's expectations with its first-quarter results. And yes, his company no longer seems to be in free-fall.

But, perhaps more importantly, he's managed to condition his shareholders to expect such bad things from Snap that when the company delivers even slightly-better-than-abysmal-news, his investors jump for joy.

That's what happened on Tuesday afternoon. In the immediate wake of the company's first-quarter report, Snap's stock soared 12%. Shareholders eventually settled down, and the stock was up a more modest — but still positive — 4% after the conference call.

Read this: Snap beat Wall Street's expectations for Q1 2019 but its user growth is still stalled

At first glance, there were a few things to cheer — or at least to not frown about. Snap's revenue grew 39% from the same period a year earlier, while the company cut its cash burn by 71%. After three straight quarters in which the user base for its Snapchat app either declined or stagnated from the prior period, sequentially, the app's number of users actually grew. And the company has finally opened up out the long-in-the-works Android version of its app to all users.

But the fact that such announcements sparked a buying frenzy — if only a short-lived one — is a good indication of just how beleaguered Snap's shareholders have become. Because viewed from some distance, this was not an impressive report.

Snap is still losing lots of money

Snap lost almost as much money in the quarter ($310 million) as it recorded in revenue ($320 million). Its daily active user count (190 million) is still a million users below what it was a year ago and only grew by 2% from the fourth quarter of last year. And even after the big reduction in cash burn, the company's free cash flow was still in the red to the tune of $78 million.

Dwell on those numbers for just a minute. This is a company that's been public for two years and in existence for more than seven. It has tens of millions of users. Its only immediate costs for providing the service are what it pays Google and Amazon each month to host its software. Other than its sideline business of selling video-camera glasses, it has no real physical inventory to maintain, no warehouses to operate, no supply chain to manage. Because its service is hosted by the big cloud operators, it doesn't even really have a data center to maintain.

And yet, at this late date, Spiegel and his team still hasn't figured out how to get Snap to generate cash — much less a profit.

Maybe they'll figure it out eventually. But after years of bleeding cash, disappointing investors, and frustrating users, there's good reason to doubt that. And the company gave investors more reason Tuesday to worry that they won't ever figure things out.

The company has been able to boost revenue essentially by convincing advertisers to allocate more of their budgets to its service. Worldwide, Snap saw about $1.68 in revenue for each of its users in the first quarter, which was up 39% from the same period a year ago.

But you have to wonder how long advertisers will continue to up their budgets — particularly to that extent — on a service that reaches fewer users today than it did a year ago.

Spiegel appears to be underinvesting in Snap's future

Snap's spending in the quarter is another cause for concern — and not for the reason you might think.

Part of the way that Snap was able to cut its cash burn was by reducing or restraining the rise in some of its costs. Its spending on property and equipment plunged by 67%, and its sales and marketing budget fell 4%. Meanwhile, its research-and-development expenditures rose only 8%.

Normally, it's a good thing for companies that are losing lots of money to find ways to cut costs. But the cuts Snap made could come back to haunt it.

A company whose user base is stagnating might want to increase its marketing to lure in new users through marketing, rather than to cut it back. A company that faces stiff competition from a much-better funded rival — i.e., in the form of Facebook-owned Instagram— might want to be ramping up its research-and-development efforts to stay competitive.

Snap also reduced its cash burn by giving employees more of their pay in stock rather than cash. About 58% of its $216 million in Q1 R&D expenses was stock compensation. A year ago, the stock portion of its R&D was 49%.

That's a tried-and-true method in the tech industry for conserving cash. But it immediately dilutes current shareholders' stake in the company and reduces the company's earnings per share from what they would otherwise be. And many companies end up spending real cash later on to soak up all those shares they handed out to employees.

Of course, Snap investors would be lucky to have that problem, because it assumes that the app maker would be generating enough cash at some point to actually buy back its stock. And right now, it's still a long way from doing that.

Every week we bring you an overview of the most important executive changes from the past week. Last week, JPMorgan named a new CFO and moved finance chief Marianne Lake to a new role. Read more about this and other notable executive changes.

JPMorgan Chase appoints Jennifer Piepszak Chief Financial Officer

JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced that Jennifer Piepszak will be replacing Marianne Lake as Chief Financial Officer of the company. Lake will become Chief Executive Officer of Consumer Lending, which includes Card Services, Home Lending and Auto Finance. The move could be a sign that Lake is a frontrunner to replace CEO Jamie Dimon when he retires. Lake has been CFO of JPMorgan since 2013 and this will be her first time running a business unit of the bank.

Google Cloud hires former SAP executive to grow enterprise business

Robert Enslin is joining Google Cloud as President of Global Customer Operations. Enslin spent the last 27 years at SAP in leadership roles across sales and operations, most recently as the President, Cloud Business Group and Executive Board Member. He will report to Thomas Kurian who recently took over as CEO of Google Cloud from Diane Greene.

Flexport hires Chief Data Officer from Salesforce

Flexport announced the appointment of Mehmet H. GÓ§ker as Chief Data Officer and Kevin Paige as Chief Information Security Officer. Prior to Flexport, GÓ§ker was most recently Vice President of Data and Analytics at SurveyMonkey and VP of Business Data Science at Salesforce. The C-suite expansion strengthens Flexport's commitment to unlocking vital supply chain data that can help clients monitor, optimize and grow their operations. GÓ§ker will be responsible for strengthening and scaling Flexport's data and analytics functions.

Corie Barry will become Best Buy's first female CEO

Best Buy has announced that Corie Barry, currently Chief Financial and Strategic Transformation Officer, will become the company's next Chief Executive Officer effective in June. Hubert Joly, the company's current CEO, will transition to the newly created role of Executive Chairman of the Board. Barry will become the 30th female CEO in the Fortune 500. Barry joined Best Buy in 1999 and has held a variety of financial and operational roles within the organization, both in the field and at the corporate campus. She became CFO in 2016 and, prior to that, served as the company's Chief Strategic Growth Officer.

Scott Friedman steps down as Chief Compliance Officer at Robinhood

Stock trading app Robinhood announced several changes to its management team. Most notably, Scott Friedman is stepping down as Chief Compliance Officer and taking a new advisory role as VP of Compliance Affairs. John Castelly will succeed Friedman as Chief Compliance Officer who is transitioning out of day-to-day operational management. Castelly joins Robinhood from Personal Capital, where he served as Chief Compliance Officer. He has also worked in senior legal roles at TD Ameritrade, and the SEC.

Christian Wylonis is the co-founder and CEO of The Org, where you can meet the people behind the world's most innovative companies, explore organizational charts, stay updated on team changes, and join your own company.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his company is planning to develop a new creation — only this time, it won't be rolling on four wheels.

It's a leafblower:

Musk followed up that tweet with a pun:

The statements come on the heels of Musk's other viral non-automotive related creations, such as The Boring Company's "Not-a-Flamethrower" flamethrower.

The 20,000 flamethrowers Musk sold were essentially roofing torches encased in an air rifle shell. They were valued at $500. They sold out in five days.

Musk later called the contraption "a terrible idea."

"You shouldn't buy one," Musk said in the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast in September. "I said don't buy this flamethrower. Don't buy it. Don't buy it, that's what I said. But still, people bought it. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I could not stop them. I said don't buy it, it's a bad idea."

"It's dangerous, it's wrong. Don't buy it," he added. "Still, people bought it. I just couldn't stop them."

Like the flamethrower, electric leaf blowers already exist. And judging by videos, they still emit quite a bit of sound.

Electric leafblowers on Amazon. Amazon

Business Insider has reached out to Tesla for comment on Musk's proposed electric leaf blowers.

With revenues of $320 million beating consensus estimates of $307.4 million, Snap surpassed analyst expectations in the first quarter of 2019 — briefly sending its stock soaring.

Read more: Snap beat Wall Street's expectations for Q1 2019 but its user growth is still stalled

Evan Spiegel, Snap's CEO and cofounder, also touted the company's reach with young people during the earnings call, saying that Snap has now reached 75% of all 13- to 34-year-olds in the US.

Snap's user growth remained stalled in the first quarter, highlighting one of the top problems that Spiegel needs to fix as he tries win back investors' trust.

But when it comes to Snap's relationship with advertisers, its first-quarter report card is the latest of numerous encouraging signs, according to the ad-sales-intelligence platform MediaRadar.

MediaRadar analyzed buying patterns, size of ad buys, and product categories on Snap during the quarter.

Among its key findings:

"The company has a healthy mix of both new and returning clients, and the loyalty of major advertisers like Comcast, Adidas, and Disney," MediaRadar CEO Todd Krizelman said.

One of Snap's biggest hurdles has been that advertisers have long considered it to be a part of their experimental bucket, rather than a must-buy. But that seems to be changing, according to data crunched by MediaRadar.

Fifty-eight percent of advertisers who spent on Snapchat in the first quarter of 2019 are renewing their spend, which indicates that Snapchat is increasingly becoming a part of the recurring spend consideration set. This is a marked improvement from 2018, when only 17% of the advertisers spent on the platform for more than two quarters.

The growth in recurring advertisers can be attributed to the company's shift to programmatic starting to stabilize, as well as investments Snap has made to improve its ads manager, with advanced features such as target-cost bidding and new bulk-uploading capabilities. The fact that Snap now allows advertisers to optimize against important brand goals such as efficient reach and targeting is also drawing in more brand buyers.

"Snap is reducing the friction, making it easier to place ads and also introducing new functionality to target audiences," Krizelman said. "Our numbers show these efforts are paying off."

Snap also seems to be broadening its advertiser base, with MediaRadar estimating that 42% of its first-quarter advertisers are entirely new to the platform. This could be the result of more flexibility, as the platform has started to allow for one-day buys (the previous minimum was three). By reducing the hurdles to buy, Snap is giving advertisers more choice — and hence attracting more brands.

"These shorter buys allow advertisers to advertise at very specific moments if they want to, and the early results are that advertisers are interested," Krizelman said. "In Q1, we saw over 200 brands run a one-day campaign, including brands like Reebok, Monster.com and Dunkin."

Expect that number to swell more, with Jeremi Gorman, Snap's chief business officer, installing a whole new "Scaled Services" sales team focused on bringing more advertisers to the platform.

Online lending platform Social Finance is in talks to raise $500 million in funding from the Qatar Investment Authority and others, according to Bloomberg.

The new round would value SoFi around $4.3 billion, the same valuation of its 2017 financing round led by Silver Lake, according to Bloomberg.

Investors have sought protective clauses in the terms of the deal which would safeguard them them in case the company raises money or gets acquired below that price down the road, according to the report.

SoFi declined to comment.

Read more: The 10 people transforming how the world interacts with technology

Though the round is large by venture capital standards, it's just half the size of SoftBank's $1 billion investment in SoFi back in 2015, which valued the company at $2.6 billion. The company also raised money from G Squared in December 2018, according to PitchBook.

SoFi, which offers personal loans, student loans as well as other tools like checking and stock trading, is run by Anthony Noto, the former chief operating officer of Twitter and former managing director at Goldman Sachs.

Noto took on the role in 2018 after SoFi's founding CEO Mike Cagney stepped down amid a sexual harassment scandal at the company, kicked off by a New York Times investigation which characterized the company as "a frat house."