Augusto Marietti thinks his company is in the right position to benefit from one of the biggest trends in software development.

At the heart of most contemporary software development are application programming interfaces, which are the bits of code that programmers use to build features into their apps or services. Though created by specific developers or platform makers, they're frequently shared with other app and service makers. For example, developers use Facebook's APIs to allow users to log in to their apps with Facebook credentials.

Marietti's startup, Kong, offers a service that allows companies to control the use of their APIs. Its service acts as a kind of gatekeeper; it can restrict access to particular developers, limit the number of times particular APIs are accessed, and keep track of how often particular ones are being used.

In recent years, there's been an explosion in APIs, "which creates the need for an API broker like Kong to exist," he said.

Kong has actually been around for about a decade, albeit not in its present form. In 2009, Marietta launched Mashape, which was intended to be a marketplace for APIs. But he and his team soon found that they needed a way to manage all the requests for those APIs. They called the technology they built — a kind of firewall or proxy for APIs — Kong.

Two years ago, Marietti and his team shifted their focus to building on the API proxy technology. They sold off the marketplace and renamed their startup Kong.

"It was a 10-year journey," he said. "But in reality, Kong is a two-year's baby."

The basic Kong proxy service is available free as open-source software. But the startup sells on a subscription basis a more advanced version that offers additional features, including a graphical interface, enhanced security, and the ability to analyze incoming requests.

Customers basically redirect incoming API requests to Kong. The company's paid service can monitor incoming requests and alert customers to potentially harmful ones. It can also process incoming requests to filter out sensitive information, such as credit-card numbers, or to format them so customers' computers can process them more easily.

Investors have been enthusiastic about Kong's revised business model. The San Francisco company raised $18 million in a series B funding round around the time it switched gears two years ago. And last month, it announced it had raised another $43 million in a series C round that was led by Index Ventures.

Read more: This CEO was so broke he had to crash on Travis Kalanick's couch — now he's raised $18 million from Andreessen Horowitz

Marietti plans to invest about 80% of the new funds in two areas — research and development and sales and marketing — with the rest going to operations. The company's 10- to 20-year vision is to build what he calls a service-control platform, which would allow customers to manage all of their services from creation to testing to implementation.

That envisioned offering is "much bigger than a load balancer, API management, or integration market," he said.

Here's the pitch deck Marietti and his team used to raise their $43 million in new funding:

Sony officials tell the Wall Street Journal that the gaming giant updated its policy for approving new PlayStation games worldwide, in response to the cultural shifts brought about by the #MeToo movement and the increased visibility of video game livestreaming.

Per the report, Sony wants to avoid promoting games that disparage and objectify women, or that contain sexual content. The company is particularly concerned about being associated with Japanese titles that feature sexualized images of underage girls.

"Sony is concerned the company could become a target of legal and social action," a spokesperson for Sony in the United States told the Journal. Business Insider has reached out to Sony for further comment on the new policies, and will update if we hear back.

Sony's home market of Japan has a reputation for having a higher tolerance for erotic games — games that might be considered risqué, or outright offensive, in the United States.

In the past, Sony restricted many of those games for sale to Japanese PlayStation users, but livestreaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch can give any game the possibility to go viral around the world. Meanwhile, in the United States, response to the #MeToo movement has encouraged a more thoughful approach critique of how women are represented in video games and other popular media.

And so, Sony is changing its rules to distance itself from games that might be found problematic. However, these new rules are reportedly being implemented in a way that some developers and gamers find confusing or inconsistent.

Here's what you need to know:

Dara Khosrowshahi could get a huge payday — totaling more than $100 million according to a source — if Uber's IPO valuation hits $120 billion and stays at that level for 90 consecutive days.

The Uber CEO will also get the payout for selling the company for $120 billion, according to a disclosure the company's its S-1 documents.

Read: Here's who's getting rich on Uber's massive IPO

Although we know that Khosrowshahi is seeking the $120 billion valuation, Uber publicly confirmed the figure in the S-1's footnotes about Khosrowshahi's compensation and financial incentives, as first spotted by Axios's Dan Primack.

The CEO will be granted 1.75 million in stock options that he can buy for $33.65 a share that vest over four years, should the company's market capitalization reach $120 billion for 90 consecutive days, the company said. Plus the CEO will be instantly awarded 185,735 shares that are otherwise earmarked to be doled out over time as part of his performance-dependent shares.

This is in addition to other batches of options and performance-based grants. Because Uber hasn't yet released key details about its IPO, we don't know how much money Khosrowshahi stands to gain from buying 1.75 million shares at that $33.64 strike price, but all told, it's a package worth at least $100 million, a source tells us.

This is backed up by our own back-of-the-envelope math based on when Softbank bought its 16% stake in Uber at about $33 a share. That share price valued the company at $48 billion. So if Uber can more than double that valuation, and the stock price doubles, those 1.75 shares would be worth over $117 million.

Khosrowshahi currently holds 200,000 shares and was paid a $1 million salary last year, plus a $2 million cash bonus. Uber also covers a number of his expenses such as help with his tax bill ($98,357 in 2018 for that).

Then again he gave up over $180 million of stock options when he left Expedia to take the Uber job, Primack notes.

The question is: how does Khosrowshahi convince investors that Uber is worth $120 billion today? Especially when looking at the financials: $11.3 billion in revenue in 2018, a $3 billion loss on operations (although it logged $987 million in net income, mostly from $5 billion worth of divestitures, it said, such as selling its Southeast Asia business to Grab). On top of that, Uber has $6.9 billion in long-term debt.

Answer: It needs to show Wall Street a big, huge growth story.

This growth story rests on a couple of pillars: 1) the rideshare business, in which Uber is already the dominant player. Uber is telling investors that this is a "$5.7 trillion market opportunity" in its prospectus.

2) Its meal delivery business, Uber Eats, which Uber says is a $795 billion opportunity.

3) The Uber Freight business, in which Uber's software matches carriers with shippers — a $700 billion market opportunity, Uber says.

And, last but far from least, investment in "advanced technologies, including autonomous vehicle technologies," it says.

Uber describes a world where its fleet of robot taxis work arm-in-arm with human Uber drivers. It has not put a market value on self-driving cars. But one person tells us that Uber's self-driving car unit could be valued internally by investors at $10 billion minimum.

For comparison, GM's Cruise (backed by Honda) was valued at about $15 billion in 2018, according to Pitchbook while one Wall Street analysts pegged Google spinoff Waymo at roughly $75 billion in 2018.

Netflix's cash-burn problem is going to get even worse before it gets better, the company warned on Tuesday.

The streaming video service provider now expects its operations and investments to burn up $3.5 billion in cash this year, company officials said in a letter to shareholders. That's about $500 million more than its operations and investments consumed last year — and about $500 million more than the company projected in January.

Netflix made a change to its corporate structure that will increase its taxes this year, the company said in the letter, which it released as part of its first-quarter earnings report. The company also plans to invest more than previously expected in real estate and other infrastructure, it said.

Read this: Netflix slides after beating Q1 subscriber growth estimates but giving weak guidance for the months ahead

But Netflix promised the company's free-cash flow, which represents the net amount of money a company generates from or consumes in its operations less the amount it invests in property, equipment, and other long-term assets, would start to turn around next year.

"We're still expecting free cash flow to improve in 2020 and each year thereafter, driven by our growing member base, revenues, and operating margins," the letter said.

Despite recording regular profits, Netflix has posted negative free cash flow every year since 2011. The difference between its reported bottom line and its cash outflow is largely due to an accounting issue that's a result of its huge and ongoing investments in original shows and movies. The company typically makes those investments — and spends real cash — on such content years before it has to recognize their cost on its income statement.

In order to finance its cash deficits, the company has repeatedly gone to the bond market to sell debt. The company's long-term debt now stands at $10.3 billion, up from $6.5 billion at the end of the first quarter last year.

Many startups are born out of an idea for a new product or an insight into a potential business opportunity.

But not Airtable.

Before its founders figured out the service it would offer or how it would make money, they talked through the principles that would guide the company they were creating, CEO Howie Liu told Business Insider in a recent interview. He and his cofounders believed that a company's culture and values were more important to its longterm success than its initial product or business model. Indeed, they felt like those values could help guide the development of its business model and products.

"We were very ... intentional on day one in terms of talking through what is going to be the guiding principle set for our company many years down the road," Liu said.

Airtable offers something that, at first glance, looks a lot like a simple spreadsheet. So you might think that Liu and his cofounders were focusing on upending the the market for Excel or Google Sheets.

But in reality, they had much broader ambitions, Liu said. And those aims were ones they talked about right from the beginning, even before they launched their service. They wanted to focus on disrupting the traditional method of writing software and make it more accessible to everyday people, he said.

"In the same way that Apple democratized personal computing, we wanted to democratize the act of software creation," Liu said in a follow-up email.

The bet on values seems to be paying off

The bet Liu and and cofounders made to focus on values seems to be paying off. Airtable is one of the hottest enterprise software startups around. It raised $160 million in venture funding last year— most recently at a $1.1 billion valuation, and has some 80,000 customers, including half of the Fortune 1,000. It's generating enough revenue and cash flow now that Liu says it can continue to run its business without any more outside financing.

Read this:The CEO of hot startup Airtable says that the company's financials are strong enough to go public, even though he doesn't want to

The decision of Liu and his partners to initially focus on values came out of years of conversations with his cofounders and from their collective experiences in the tech industry. The three met in college at Duke, where they bonded while brainstorming startup ideas.

After college, Liu founded a startup that was eventually acquired by Salesforce. Andrew Ofstad, his cofounder and Airtable's chief product officer, worked for giant consulting firm Accenture, helping clients develop products before joining Google product team. Liu's other cofounder, Emmett Nicholas, Airtable's chief technology officer, worked as an engineer at Stack Overflow, the mega-popular Q&A site for developers.

Through their various experiences in the tech industry, three continued to talk about startup ideas, both about products and the kinds of companies they wanted to build. While they officially launched Airtable's product in 2015, the discussions that led to the company started more than two years before that, Liu said.

"In Airtable's case, [the launch of the product] was very organic," he said. The idea for the company, he continued, "developed slowly over the course of years."

Airtable is increasingly resembling its founders' vision

As Airtable's service has evolved, its founders' vision has become more apparent. Its service has evolved into a kind of advanced database program that allows users to input not just text and numbers, but digital objects ranging from photos to documents.

And customers can now use its service to create bespoke applications. Hollywood studios are using it to help manage the post-production process with their films, major festivals are using it to track lost-and-found items, and people are using it to help plan their weddings.

Focusing on values and principles before products and business models may seem a bit odd, almost like putting the cart before the horse, Liu acknowledged. But he and his team wanted to avoid the mistakes other entrepreneurs had made, he said.

Founders who start with a product often end up with something that becomes an accidental business, something that's more of a feature than the foundation of a real company. By starting out with guiding principles, Liu and his founders felt they could focus instead on building a sustainable and influential business.

"In some sense, it's a little bit contrived to talk about [values and principles] before you actually have anything — like, you haven't even gotten to basic product-market fit, you have zero employees, you have, like, nothing," Liu said in the interview. "But at the same time ... it's almost especially important to talk about it then, because otherwise once you get moving and into the thick of things, if you don't have that clear set of values ... it becomes really hard to retrofit that."

In Airtable's case, the company's initial values have helped steer Liu and his team ever since, helping them to focus on their longterm vision.

"We knew from day one that we had to value excellence over expedience, craft over convenience," he said. "We weren't just replicating existing products," he continued, "but creating something new and truly original. That required us to value open-ended, imaginative thinking."

Got a tip about a startup or other 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.

Since John Krafcik became the CEO of Google's self-driving car project, now called Waymo, in 2015, the company has achieved two significant milestones.

The first came in 2016, when the company gave the first ride in a fully self-driving vehicle on public roads in Austin, Texas. The second followed in 2018, when Waymo launched Waymo One— the first commercial, autonomous ride-hailing service in the United States — in parts of Arizona.

Waymo One has positioned the company as the leader in the autonomous-driving industry, according to the research and consulting firm Navigant Research, which in a 2019 report ranked Waymo first among companies developing self-driving technology in strategy and execution. And according to a report Waymo submitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicle, its safety drivers had to manually take over their test cars, because of safety concerns, about once every 11,000 miles in 2018 — the best rate of any company testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in California.

Read more: The 10 people transforming how the world gets around

Increasing the scale of its business is still a priority for Waymo, but so is expanding its scope into trucks, personal vehicles, and hardware sales. The company has a self-driving truck unit, known internally as Husky, and said in March that it would begin selling lidar sensors to companies that don't compete with Waymo One.

"Anything that has wheels and moves along the surface of the earth is something that we, in the future, could imagine being driven by Waymo," Krafcik said.

As Waymo's ambitions grow, it still has to reckon with the obsessive attention to detail autonomous vehicles require. Self-driving cars must be able to handle small details in complex environments, like parking lots, which are challenging because they feature cars and pedestrians moving in unpredictable patterns and don't have road markings, Krafcik said.

Beyond mastering technical details, Waymo also has to anticipate the preferences of its customers. The company had thought passengers who were traveling to a grocery store, for example, would want to be picked up where they were dropped off — at the front door. But the front door is a major source of foot-traffic at grocery stores, and passengers told Waymo that they felt self-conscious loading bags into a car in such a busy area.

"We rarely had thought about very specific things like: What happens when one of our riders wants to go to the Albertsons grocery store and get dropped off, and then later be picked up with six bags of groceries?" Krafcik said. "It wasn't obvious."

Krafcik said Waymo has improved the performance of its vehicles in parking lots, citing the example as a reason why the company is ahead of its competitors.

"I haven't heard other self-driving car companies talk about this," Krafcik said.

But Waymo is not seeking to capitalize on its first-mover advantage at all costs. Safety is a priority, Krafcik said, a point the company emphasizes to new employees.

"We have to be safe. We have to be extremely careful and methodical in our approach in how we go to market, but we also have to be urgent, because the world is waiting."

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Welcome to the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. If you got this newsletter forwarded, sign up for your own here. If you have tips or feedback, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This week we published our first list of 100 people transforming business, including 10 each from the worlds of advertising and media.

The $221 billion US ad industry is being upended by the rise of digital ad giants, fragmented consumer attention, and marketers' pressure for results, while media industry is undergoing a grand convergence with tech giants, telecoms, startups and legacy companies competing to set the cultural agenda.

These visionaries range from P&G's Marc Pritchard, who's pushing to clean up digital advertising; to showrunner Shonda Rhimes, who's changing the balance of power in the TV industry. You can check out the full list here.

The deadline for nominations for the most innovative chief marketing officers is April 29. We want to hear from you. Submit your nominations here.

Elsewhere, Lauren Johnson dug into Publicis' $4.4 billion deal for data company Epsilon. Here are the takeaways:

If you're looking to improve the security of your home with some smart home tech, you're in luck. Ring has been building great smart security products for a while now, and for a limited time, its doorbell video cameras and home security kits are on sale at Best Buy and Amazon.

Almost the entire range of Ring products is on sale, so if you've been thinking about setting up a security system for your home, now is a great time to do so. The products on sale include smart doorbells, smart security cameras for inside and outside, and even a home security kit, which comes with an alarm as well as sensors for your doors, windows, and other areas.

Since Ring is best known for its smart doorbells, we'll start with those deals. The Ring Video Doorbell 2 has a 1,080p camera and can connect to your phone. You'll get a video feed and two-way audio so you can communicate whenever someone comes to the door. The Video Doorbell 2 is $30 off at both Best Buy and Amazon.

The Video Doorbell Pro, which is a little sleeker than the Doorbell 2, is also on sale. At Best Buy and Amazon, it's on sale for $199.99, which is $50 off the original price. Alternatively, you could get a bundle at Best Buy that includes the Video Doorbell Pro and Chime Pro, which chimes when someone comes to the door, for $229.99 — a savings of $70.

Smart doorbells aren't the only Ring products on sale, though. Ring is also discounting its security cameras. For example, there's the Ring Stuck Up indoor and outdoor security camera, which has a 1,080p video resolution. The camera is currently on sale for $149.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, which is $30 off the original price.

Last but not least is the Ring Alarm Home Security Kit, which connects to door and window sensors and allows you to control your security setup from the Ring app. It includes things like a keypad, motion sensor, door sensors, and more — so you'll always know when there's activity at your home. The Home Security Kit is on sale for $169.99 from Best Buy and Amazon, which is a $30 discount.

Buy the Ring Video Doorbell 2 for $169.99 from Best Buy or for $169 from Amazon [you save $30]

Buy the Ring Video Doorbell Pro for $199.99 from Best Buy or for $199 from Amazon [you save $50]

Buy the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Chime Bundle for $229.99 from Best Buy [you save $70]

Buy the Ring Stick Up Cam Battery for $149.99 from Best Buy or from Amazon [you save $30]

Buy the Ring Alarm Home Security Kit for $169.99 from Best Buy or for $169 from Amazon [you save $30]

Netflix's biggest movies are its most mediocre, and Netflix can't stop bragging about them.

The streaming giant said in its 2019 Q1 earnings report on Tuesday that two of its most recent original movies, "Triple Frontier" and "The Highway Men," were two of the service's huge hits this quarter.

Netflix said that the Ben Affleck-starring heist movie, "Triple Frontier," which debuted March 13, was watched by 52 million member households in its first four weeks of release. It's projecting "The Highwaymen," which dropped March 29 and stars Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson as lawmen after Bonnie and Clyde, to be watched by 40 million households in the first month (Netflix defines a view as an account that has watched at least 70% of a movie).

READ MORE: Netflix says 'The Umbrella Academy' was watched by 45 million households in the first month, and it's been renewed for season 2

Both movies received lackluster reviews from critics. "Triple Frontier" has a 72% Rotten Tomatoes critic score, and "The Highwaymen" is sitting at 55%.

Those numbers are in line with Netflix's massive hit "Bird Box." The thriller starring Sandra Bullock debuted in December, and was watched by 45 million accounts in just the first week, despite a subpar 63% Rotten Tomatoes critic score. Netflix even mentioned "Bird Box" in the Tuesday report.

"Our original films effort built on the momentum from our Q4 blockbuster 'Bird Box,'" the report said.

Netflix didn't mention the performance of well-reviewed movies like Steven Soderbergh's "High Flying Bird," which landed on the streamer in January and has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score. The movie likely didn't gain a wide audience.

The trend of Netflix bragging about its mediocre original movies started in 2017 when its fantasy-action movie, "Bright," starring Will Smith, drew in 11 million viewers in three days, according to Nielsen, which began measuring Netflix's audience that year. The movie has a 25% Rotten Tomatoes critic score.

While Netflix never released official numbers for the movie, it did order a sequel, and CEO Reed Hastings called critics "disconnected from the mass appeal" after the movie was released. Netflix's content chief Ted Sarandos said, "If people are watching this movie and loving it, that's the measurement of success."

Your Apple ID is the connective tissue that binds together everything in your Apple universe — it keeps your iPhone and iPad in sync, helps you manage your iCloud content, iTunes account, find a lost device, and more.

Your Apple ID can be any email address — including your @icloud.com, @me.com, @mac.com, or any third-party email address. Most people tend to pick whatever email address they most commonly use.

But what if you want to change your Apple ID? Not a problem. But "changing your Apple ID" can mean two different things, so read on to pick the one you want to do.

How to change the email address you use with your Apple ID

You can change the email address associated with your Apple ID. This keeps your Apple ID account the same, but changes the email address you use to sign into it with.

1. In a web browser, go to your Apple ID page and log in.

2. To the right of Account, click "Edit."

You can change your Apple ID email address from the Apple ID web page. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

3. Under Apple ID, click "Change Apple ID…"

4. Enter the email address that you want to use and click "Continue."

Something important to keep in mind: If your Apple ID is already an Apple email address such as @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, you can only change it to another Apple email address, but if your email is a third-party address, you can change it to anything. That means if you choose to change it to an Apple address, you can never switch it back to a Gmail address, for example.

How to change the Apple ID on your iPad entirely

Perhaps you don't want to change the email address associated with your Apple ID — you want to sign out of whatever account is there and log in with a different one.

Note that if you do this, all of your apps and data associated with the previous Apple ID will be erased from the iPad, and you will start fresh with a new, blank iPad. This is to ensure the privacy and security of the old Apple ID.

1. Sign out of the Apple ID on your iPad. Open the Settings app and then tap the name at the top of the screen. Scroll down to the bottom and tap "Sign Out." You'll need to enter the Apple ID password to confirm.

To sign into a different Apple ID on your device, you need to sign out of the account you're currently using. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

2. On the dialog box that asks if you want to keep a copy of your data on this iPad, choose which items you want to keep on the iPad (if any) and tap "Sign Out" — but it will remove all the personal data on the iPad.

Changing your Apple ID will wipe out all of the apps and data associated with your previous ID on the device. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

3. The Apple ID at the top of the Settings screen now says "Sign in to use your iPad." Tap that, and enter a different Apple ID or follow the instructions to create a new one.

The specs of the All-Digital Xbox One S are identical to the current Xbox One S, except for the removed disc drive. That means the new Xbox One doesn't offer any improved technology for current Xbox One owners to consider an upgrade.

It does offer a lower starting point than the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, for those looking to invest in a home video game console. However, it'll be important to have a quality internet connection to make proper use of the All-Digital Xbox One S.

The All-Digital Xbox One doesn't need to be online constantly, but you'll need a stable connection to access most Xbox content. If the All-Digital Xbox One isn't your first Xbox One console, you'll need to go online every once in a while to verify your ownership of digital games and movies, which is not required for games on disc.

Netflix posted its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, and beat Wall Street estimates and company guidance for revenue, earnings per share, and global paid net subscriber additions during the period. But it also turned in weaker-than-expected guidance for subscriber growth in the second quarter.

Netflix added 9.6 million paid subscribers globally — its biggest paid quarterly haul ever — bringing it to nearly 149 million members worldwide. In the second quarter, it expects to add 5 million paid subscribers, about 1 million less than Wall Street estimated.

Shares of Netflix dipped around 6% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after the report was released, but quickly recovered. The stock was down around 1% after bouncing around Tuesday evening.

Netflix is being cautious in its guidance for subscriber growth, in part because of price hikes that are rolling out in the US, Brazil, Mexico, and parts of Europe, the company said in its letter to shareholders. That includes Netflix's biggest US price hike ever, which is still hitting existing US customers, and raises the price of Netflix's most popular plan from $11 to $13 per month. Netflix said it could see a small share of subscribers drop the service in the short-term, while people consent to the new prices changes.

Investors were looking for solid global subscriber growth during the periods, and for Netflix to put them at ease ahead of competition from upcoming services like Disney+ and Apple TV+, both of which were announced in the past month. Netflix lost more than $8 billion in market value since last Thursday, when Disney+ was revealed, before rebounding in trading on Tuesday.

Netflix acknowledged new competition from Apple and Disney in its letter to investors, but said it doesn't expect that to hinder growth.

Ahead of earnings, Deutsche Bank analyst Bryan Kraft argued that concerns over competition were overblown, because the family-friendly Disney+ service is not a replacement for Netflix's broad platform and its direct rival, Hulu, isn't established globally like Netflix is.

Netflix touted some of its original series that hit the service during the first-quarter, like "Umbrella Academy," which it said 45 million member households, or about one-third of Netflix's subscriber base, watched in its first four weeks on the service. It also called out the heist film "Triple Frontier," which was watched by more than 52 milion member households in its first month, and "The Highwaymen," which drew more than 40 million members during its first four weeks.

As Netflix invests more in original programming, it is also looking for new ways to help members find popular content on the service. It will begin testing, in the second quarter, a list in the UK that will highlight the 10 most popular titles across various categories, the company said.

If you've ever seen Amazon's robots whizzing across its warehouse floors, you'll know it's a sort of hypnotic dance, which ends up with someone's order being delivered that much quicker. The other thing about this spectacle is it all takes place behind a cage that separates man and machine.

The metal barrier is, of course, there for safety reasons — and like the Amazon fulfillment centers, it is the norm in factories with production lines building everything from cars and cell phones to refrigerators. Veo Robotics, which specializes in making industrial robots smarter, reckons about 3 million machines worldwide are kept well away from human contact to avoid catastrophe.

And that's where Veo's technology comes in. The company has raised a total of $28 million since it was founded in 2016 to develop proprietary technology that effectively gives robots eyes, allowing them to operate safely alongside human machine operators.

The product, a prototype of which launches in May, works using three-dimensional flash lidar cameras and AI, helping robots map the space around them and react when a human comes close. It's not dissimilar to the tech used in driverless cars, and it allows robots to share a work station with an employee, combining human touch with the super-human speed and strength of a machine — all while removing the element of danger.

You can watch the tech in action here:

Patrick Sobalvarro, the founding CEO of Massachusetts-based Veo, thinks the tech could be a game-changer.

"The key thing from our point of view — in terms of ergonomics, in terms of products — is that humans and machines need to work together fluidly and fluently," he told Business Insider. "Fundamentally, our technology allows industrial robots to track people. And from an environmental point of view, our tech provides a system which you as a manufacturer can set up in less than a day."

Yet for all the benefits Veo's technology may bring, it might also stir up some deep-seated fears. For example, the case for driverless cars is far from being won, particularly after a woman was killed by an Uber autonomous vehicle last year. Are Veo's robots really safe enough to be uncaged? Sobalvarro is adamant they are.

"You can't move fast and break things if those things are people."

"Safety is our primary ethical responsibility," he said, turning to a familiar Silicon Valley trope to illustrate his point.

"Mark Zuckerberg's motto is: 'Move fast and break things.' My cofounder Clara Vu, our head of engineering, came up with a riposte: 'You can't move fast and break things if those things are people.'

Read more: 3 things we learned from Facebook's AI chief about the future of artificial intelligence

"Our safety system is fail-safe — the default is to emergency stop the robot if there are any internal faults in the system, so we will always fail to a safe state.

"We use dual-channel redundancy throughout our system, in the sensors themselves, as well as [in] our processor, which contains two independent computers, as well as a third safety processor to monitor them. We also use dual channel communications with the robot controller safety interfaces.

"This focus on safety extends to algorithms, too. Our system constantly analyzes occluded areas, places we can't see, and we won't let the robot move near them if we determine they could possibly contain a person."

The Veo tech in action. Veo

So if the safety box is ticked, what's the business case?

"Today, 3 million robots are all behind cages, and that's very burdensome," Sobalvarro said. "Sometimes, you need to get permission just to get permission to open the cages, and that limits efficiency.

"From a financial perspective it costs $50,000 dollars per minute to stop a car production line — and yet there are 700 process steps to building a car. With current technology, workers sometimes have to stop after two hours and switch out because they're exhausted from heavy lifting. Our tech works best for helping build things like cars — complex objects with lots of components."

And commenting on the fear that robots will replace humans in the workplace, he added: "Our tech is designed to enhance the quality of work that human factory workers are able to do. The robots that use it will free up work for people; they won't take it away."

Veo's $28 million in backing suggests that the firm's investors, including Google Ventures and Lux Capital Management, share this vision of the commercial potential. Indeed, Lux partner Bilal Zuberi told Bloomberg that Veo could one day be worth tens of billions of dollars.

A prototype of its product will be rolled out to select customers in May. Veo would not disclose any further details, but it's confident the pick-up will increase dramatically as the technology proves itself.

Veo's says robot tech is like working with trained animals

REUTERS/Daniel Miunoz

Sobalvarro said Veo's technology is a long way off making machines sentient beings, but he does liken its capability to a human working with a trained animal. A bit like a farmer using a horse to plough a field or a dog to round up cattle.

"If we believed we were making conscious machines, that would open up a whole new set of ethical problems. But we're nowhere near doing that. People conjecture about ways that machines could be conscious, but no one has ever demonstrated it or given good reason to think that they are," he said.

"When we say our technology enables robots to perceive, it's in the same way a Venus flytrap perceives. The robots that use our tech are like simple animals. We want them to treat humans in the same way draft animals treat farmers."

Convincing customers of this capability, and of the technology's safety, will be Veo's big task when it goes to market in May.

Downloads from Apple's App Store declined for the first time in four years, and perhaps the first time ever, according to data collected by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. "For the first time since at least 1Q15 (as far back as we have the data), the number of quarterly downloads declined, falling 5% Y/Y," she told clients in a recent research note seen by Business Insider.

App Store downloads went negative in Q1 2019. Morgan Stanley

The decline comes as sales of iPhone handsets are expected to decline by up to 20% in Apple's fiscal Q1, according to Nomura analyst Jeffrey Kvaal and his team.

The pattern is potentially worrying for Apple, whose management has been hoping that declining device sales will be offset by an increase in sales from services, which includes the App Store.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors in November 2018 that he would stop providing unit sales data. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt to draw attention from the scale of the decline in iPhone sales. Newer iPhone models have come with ever-higher price tags in a market that has reached almost 100% saturation.

Instead, the company wants investors to look at the total revenues each division of the company generates. The theory is that even with new iPhone sales in decline, the total number of iPhones in use (the "installed base") will continue to rise. As long as Apple can sell those customers more video, music, iTunes downloads, and apps, Apple can continue to grow revenues.

A decline in app downloads doesn't help that theory, however.

With downloads in decline, revenue growth is "decelerating"

Huberty remained upbeat in her note, because total services and app revenue are still growing at Apple. She rates AAPL "overweight". "Net revenue per download, a gauge of consumer spend per download, increased 21% Y/Y, an acceleration from 14% Y/Y growth in the December quarter," she told clients. "While the decline in downloads is something investors should monitor, it's not necessarily indicative of consumer app usage trends, since App Store net revenue is correlated more so with spend per download (driven by in-app purchases) rather than the absolute level of downloads. And the acceleration in spend per download growth this quarter shows us that app engagement remains healthy."

App Store revenue growth is slowing down. Morgan Stanley

But the rate of App Store revenue growth has gone into decline, Huberty's note said. "According to data from Sensor Tower, estimated March quarter App Store net revenue was $3.7B, up 15% Y/Y, a 1 point deceleration from revised December quarter growth of 16% Y/Y." Huberty did not respond to a message requesting further comment.

What's happening inside the "installed base" of 900 million iPhones?

The decline comes amid a debate between analysts over the power of Apple's installed base. On his last quarterly earnings call, CFO Luca Maestri disclosed that there were now 900 million iPhones in active use, the most ever.

Previously, analysts such as Cowen's Timothy Arcuri (now at UBS) believed that the installed base would create a "super cycle" of buyers for new iPhones. As the phones in use get older, more of those users would want to upgrade as newer models were released, they argued.

But the super cycle of buyers never arrived.

More recently, analysts such as Citi's Jim Suva and Asiya Merchant, and Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi Jr., have argued that the installed base actually hurts new sales. Consumers hold onto their iPhones for as long as three or four years, and don't feel the need to upgrade whenever a new model is launched. That hurts new device sales.

It may also hurt services sales, according to some. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Wamsi Mohan and his team argued in November 2018 that the installed base doesn't buy upgrades for a good reason. Less well-off people are price-conscious and can't afford to continuously pay more for newer phones. That means they will spend less on apps, too, they said.

Former Deutsche Bank analyst Sherri Scribner argued in 2017 that the installed base had become so massive it was likely reaching a ceiling. This month, UBS's Arcuri made a similar argument. At 900 million devices, the growth of the base is approaching zero percent, too, he told clients in a note seen by Business Insider.

The growth of the installed base of active iPhones is slowing down to near 0%. UBS

HSBC downgrades Apple to "reduce"

They are not the only analysts who are cautious about Apple's services strategy. The company recently launched an Apple TV+ service and a credit card — both items that could fall under the "services" category. In response, HSBC analyst Erwan Rambourg downgraded the stock to "reduce" on April 10.

"One fundamental question on services in our minds is 'will they incentivize more consumers to become part of the Apple eco- system'. And our short answer is 'no,'" he told clients, because "there are many alternatives to those with other providers whether it is in gaming (very crowded space), banking (emergence of online) or video on demand (Netflix and others)."

"All in, we remain far more cautious on services than some of the numbers in the street might suggest."

Spoilers for "Episode 3" ahead!

In "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" ("Episode 3"), a very moody Anakin Skywalker — before turning into everyone's favorite cyborg, Darth Vader — sets out to destroy the Jedi Order.

It's part of a bigger Jedi purge, known as "Order 66." Few Jedi survived the purge, but apparently the main character in "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" is one of those few.

This is Cal Kestis, played by actor Cameron Monaghan.

It's not clear how Kestis escaped the purge or how he's related to the more well-known "Star Wars" characters. What is clear is that he'll start out on a planet named "Bracca," which is entirely new for the "Fallen Order."

At a glance, the new iPad Mini 5 looks almost exactly like its predecessor.

Under the hood, though, it sports a few improvements: It now supports the Apple Pencil, so you can use your tablet like a notepad to write and draw. It also boasts a new A12 Bionic chip, which delivers snappier performance than the Mini 4's older A8 chipset.

The iPad Mini 5 is available with either Wi-Fi and cellular LTE connectivity or with Wi-Fi only. Whereas the Mini 4 is only available now with 128GB of storage, you've got a choice of either 64 or 256GB of internal storage with the Mini 5. This gives you a few more options at different price points.

Because it has improved hardware and was just released, the new Mini is naturally going to be more expensive the older Mini 4. Prices start at around $400 for the basic 64GB model.

This is the one you should buy.

iPad Mini 5 7.9-inch (Wi-Fi only)

MoviePass cofounder Stacy Spikes admits he was not a happy camper a few months after Helios and Matheson Analytics bought MoviePass in summer 2017. And it's likely a big reason why he was then let go in the new year.

Since 2005, Spikes had been building the scrappy startup into a revenue stream the US box office had never had before: movie-ticket subscription. The app was evolving with the times and slowly growing in popularity among moviegoers, with the price point ranging from $12 a month to up to $75 (which included access to 3D and IMAX showings).

But the moment when the company suddenly came into the popular lexicon, and grabbed the attention of the industry, was in 2017 when Helios and Matheson Analytics became interested in buying MoviePass.

"Ultimately the proposal came in at $25 million for 51% of the company," Spikes told Business Insider. "And in the proposal it said they wanted us to temporarily drop the subscription price to $10 to help climb up to 100,000 subscriptions."

Spikes said nothing in that proposal worried him, and in the summer of 2017, Helios and Matheson became the owners of MoviePass. In August of that year, the $10-a-month to see a movie a day deal was launched and MoviePass hit 100,000 subscribers in 48 hours.

MoviePass cofounder Stacy Spikes. Getty "So I'm like, 'OK, turn it off, we reached our goal,'" Spikes said.

But the attention MoviePass suddenly received was too intoxicating for most at the company, especially the new owners. And despite Spikes' warnings, things went forward.

"Where things started to divide is: Myself and a handful of others were methodical about testing price points," Spikes said. "The lowest we ever got down to was $12.99 and as high as $75, where we added Imax and 3D. We knew what was sustainable. But the overriding voice was, 'No, this is awesome, look how fast we're growing.' And it was this moment of 'but $10.' It doesn't fly."

By December, Spikes said the company was growing at a quarter million subscribers a month. And despite his warnings that the company could not survive at that price point, no one would listen.

With a clear divide between Spikes and the new leaders of the company — Mitch Lowe, who came on as CEO in 2016 (Spikes took the role of COO), and Helios and Matheson CEO Ted Farnsworth — Spikes said he received an email on January 9, 2018 that his services we no longer needed at the company.

Read more: Disney revealed the details of its Netflix rival, Disney Plus, including its price and release date

"After that, I've never spoken to Mitch or Ted," Spikes said. "And I've been watching it all unfold, like everyone else."

Spikes said he and the leadership "just disagreed on the approach." But he's not bitter about leaving the company he launched because, in his eyes, the idea of movie-ticket subscription working in the industry became a reality with AMC, Cinemark, Sinemia, Studio Movie Grill, soon Alamo Drafthouse, and others all getting into the movie-ticket subscription game.

"The good side was cinema had not been taken seriously since Netflix really got its footing," Spikes said. "So what I liked about that was this had risen to the zeitgeist of conversation. 75% of our members were under the age of 26. Cinema was an event people cared about again. So while there is a sadness around the brand, I was happy to see that this is front and center."

Activist Facebook investors are again going to try to oust Mark Zuckerberg as chairman and abolish what they see as the firm's unfair share structure.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday, Facebook gave notice of its annual shareholder meeting on May 30 and confirmed the investor proposals that will be voted on during the event.

Among eight stockholder proposals, there are two that will be familiar to Zuckerberg and the rest of the board: Investors are making another attempt to force governance changes on the social network.

One is titled 'Stockholder Proposal Regarding an Independent Chair' and makes the case for Zuckerberg to be dethroned as chairman of the board, with an independent executive hired in his place.

Oust Mark Zuckerberg as chairman

Business Insider broke the news of the proposal in July last year after revealing the plans of activist shareholder Trillium Asset Management, which had grown tired of the "mishandling" of scandals including the Cambridge Analytica data breach.

Read more: These investors control $3 billion of Facebook stock — and they want to take Zuckerberg down

Responding to the proposal in the SEC filing, Facebook called on investors to vote it down.

"We believe our board of directors is functioning effectively under its current structure, and that the current structure provides appropriate oversight protections," Facebook said.

"We do not believe that requiring the Chair to be independent will provide appreciably better direction and performance, and instead could cause inefficiency in board and management function and relations."

Getty

The chance of it becoming a reality is extremely slim, despite it being backed by investors that control around $3 billion of Facebook stock. A similar proposal in 2017 was popular among independent investors but was crushed because of Zuckerberg's voting power.

This is because of Facebook's dual-class share structure. Class B shares have 10 times the voting power of class A shares, and it just so happens that Zuckerberg owns more than 75% of class B stock. It means he has more than half of the voting power at Facebook.

Rip up the share structure

Zuckerberg's weighty power is why activist shareholders want to abolish the share structure. At the annual investor meeting, they will have the chance to vote on a proposal, which calls for the introduction of "fair and appropriate mechanisms through which disproportionate rights of Class B shareholders could be eliminated."

It said: "Fake news, election interference, and threats to our democracy -- shareholders need more than deny, deflect, and delay. We urge shareholders to vote FOR a recapitalization plan for all outstanding stock to have one vote per share."

It is not clear which investor has drawn up the proposal, but Facebook again calls for it to be dismissed by shareholders, as they have during the last five annual meetings. "We believe that our capital structure is in the best interests of our stockholders and that our current corporate governance structure is sound and effective," it said.

Facebook will almost certainly get its way. But the two investor proposals mark continued dissatisfaction among shareholders about the way Facebook is run following a year from hell for the company. It also shows that investors continue to believe that Zuckerberg has too much power.

Chipotle is partnering with one of the biggest esports organizations in the world for a new tournament series starting in May. Gamers will have a chance to win a year's worth of free Chipotle, and the fast-casual restaurant will give away free burritos and Chipotle swag at events across the country.

The Chipotle Challenger Series is designed to give amateur fans at professional gaming events a chance to join the competition and prove their own skills in the world's most popular games. The series will coincide with DreamHack Dallas from May 31 to June 2 and DreamHack Atlanta from November 15 to November 17. All DreamHack attendees will be able to register at the event for a chance to win a free year of Chipotle, the Challenger Series trophy, and exclusive apparel.

It's not known which games will be featured as part of the event; the DreamHack events at large are known for hosting fighting game tournaments and competition around titles including "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive."

"Our partnership with DreamHack allows Chipotle to become even more engrained in the esports community," Chris Brandt, Chipotle's Chief Marketing Officer said in a statement. "This sponsorship provides the perfect platform to directly engage new and longtime loyal Chipotle fans on-site and online, and we are excited to recognize and reward possible up-and-coming talent in the space."

Chipotle will also sponsor VIP guest areas at DreamHack and other upcoming esports events. The VIP areas will offer a lounge area for players and esports talent as well as free food. The partnership begins with a Chipotle-sponsored player lounge at ESEA's Rank S Combine at the MGM Grand Las Vegas from April 12 to April 14th. Chipotle will also provide a special VIP guest area at ESL's Intel Extreme Masters event in Chicago later this year.

When the news broke in 2017 that Walmart was acquiring Bonobos — then a buzzy, digitally native menswear startup — for $310 million, some customers were skeptical.

Walmart was early on in the process of acquiring digital brands. Customers were working off of an old model of what Walmart stood for, which has evolved as the large chain has begun courting more urban and affluent customers.

Nearly two years later, it's hard to say much has changed from the customer's point of view — or from the company's.

"We are still, at our hearts, scrappy, entrepreneurial, and true to ourselves," Bonobos' new CEO, Micky Onvural, told Business Insider. Formerly serving as Bonobos' CMO, she took the reins from founder Andy Dunn in late 2018 as he was tasked with leading Walmart's broader digital-brand strategy.

What has changed is the parent company.

"From a strategic perspective, really, they want to learn how to build brands," Onvural said. "They are recognizing the power of brand and by having more and more brands in their portfolio, it's a reason for a customer to come and shop with them whether that's in store or online."

Read more:How Walmart turned its $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com into its greatest weapon against Amazon n

Bonobos is a key pillar of that as one of the first digitally native retail brands Walmart acquired. Bonobos' expertise as an 11-year-old brand that sells mostly online is useful for Walmart to draw from for its wider ambitions, such as for building new brands like the bed-and-bedding label Allswell.

"That is sort of the role of the portfolio that Andy manages ... building like Allswell, or buying these direct-to-consumer brands that offer unique selection for the Walmart ecosystem," Onvural said.

Under the umbrella of companies that Dunn shepherds is not only Bonobos and Allswell, but also Eloquii, a plus-size women's fashion brand, and ModCloth, a vintage-inspired women's clothing brand geared toward a younger consumer. Walmart also owns Bare Necessities, a lingerie brand; Moosejaw, an outdoors retailer; and Art.com, the largest seller of art prints on the internet.

Apart from interfacing between brands, Walmart is relatively hands-off while providing support where needed, Onvural said.

"Really how it works is they support us behind the scenes: credit card fees, shipping fees, distribution, those kinds of things," Onvural said. "From building the brand and the customer-experience perspective, we run it as a standalone business because of the importance of preserving that brand, because they recognize the importance of brand."

As one of the first under Walmart's portfolio, Bonobos has seen the gradual change of its parent's strategy for acquisitions.

"I definitely think that as they've acquired more, it's felt smoother," Onvural said. "This has been a really great integration process, in the sense that it has respected what makes this brand and this business special culturally, and from a brand and from a customer perspective, but leveraged support where it makes sense."

"I feel incredibly lucky," Onvural said.