Led by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, ride-sharing startup Uber filed for an initial public offering on Thursday, which could turn out to be one of the biggest IPOs in years.

Khosrowshahi, who took over Uber in 2017 from founder Travis Kalanick, wrote in a letter to the filing that Uber's success will come from "stellar execution and the strength of the platform we have worked so hard to build."

Read more: The amazing life of Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi — from refugee to tech superstar and a huge IPO

For Khosrowshahi, one of today's most powerful tech CEOs, success runs in his blood, Fortune reports. The chief executive's brothers, cousins, and uncles have impressive resumes that include founding their own multimillion-dollar startups, running Fortune 500 companies, and earning diplomas from Harvard, Brown and Stanford.

Here are some of the impressive careers of Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's family members:

Dara Khosrowshahi took over at Uber's helm in 2017.

Before Uber, he acted as CEO of travel site Expedia.

After earning his degree from Brown University, Khosrowshahi began his career at boutique investing firm Allen & Company. From there, the young Khosrowshahi took an executive role at what was then known as USA Networks, where he was considered a protégé of media industry icon Barry Diller.

The company spun off Expedia Inc in 2005, and Khosrowshahi served as CEO for 12 years. During that time, he turned the site into the largest online US travel agency and saw revenues balloon from $2.1 billion in 2005 to $8.7 billion in 2016.

Kaveh Khosrowshahi, Dara's brother, is currently managing director at investment firm Allen & Company.

Like Dara, Kaveh went to the prestigious Hackley School, the Ivy League prep school that charges around $44,000 in tuition. He then got a bachelor's degree in history from Williams College, according to his LinkedIn, and has been at Allen & Company since 1989.

Mehrad Khosrowshahi, Dara's other brother, is managing partner of the boutique consulting firm Confida Inc.

Mehrad runs the company's Strategy and Performance Reporting division.

Before joining Confida, Mehrad spent five years at Symmetrix, a management consulting firm serving Fortune 500 companies, the Confida website states. He received an MBA from Columbia Business school with high distinction and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University.

Hassan Khosrowshahi, Dara's uncle, founded the Canadian electronics chain Future Shop.

Best Buy acquired Future Shop in 2001 for $580 million CAD.

Hassan immigrated to Canada in 1981 and founded Inwest Investments, now part of holding company Persis. Hassan now serves as chairman of Persis Holdings, and is a member of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor, according to Persis Holdings' website.

Hadi Partovi, Dara's cousin, is the CEO of education non-profit Code.org.

Hadi graduated from Harvard in 1994, and went on to have an illustrious career, working as a general manager at Microsoft and sitting on the board of directors at trucking company Convoy Inc., his LinkedIn states.

Hadi was also an angel investor in Facebook, DropBox, Uber, and more.

Ali Partovi, Hadi's twin brother, helped his brother start Code.org.

Ali now serves as CEO of Neo, an engineering mentorship company. Like his brother, Ali backed numerous successful startups like Facebook, Zappos, and DropBox, his LinkedIn states.

Amir Khosrowshahi, Dara's cousin, co-founded IT company Nervana.

Amir reportedly sold Nervana to Intel for $400 million, Recode reported in 2016.

He graduated from Harvard and then completed a Ph.D. at the University of California-Berkeley. Amir also served as a vice president at Goldman Sachs for six years, his LinkedIn states. Amir now serves as VP of Intel.

Farzad "Fuzzy" Khosrowshahi, another one of Dara's cousins, created Google Sheets.

Upon graduating from Columbia, Farzad opened a Subway shop with his wife in 1993 in Mamaroneck, New York. He then worked at Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan before arriving at Google, according to a Wall Street Journal profile of him written in 2012.

Darian Shirazi, Dara's cousin, was one of Facebook's first 10 hires, he says on his LinkedIn.

He went on to create Radius, a marketing software company.

Darian served as CEO of Radius until 2018. Darian says he reported directly to Mark Zuckerberg while at Facebook, and then left the company to pursue his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, his LinkedIn states. He dropped out within a year at college.

Avid Larizadeh Duggan, Dara's cousin, was a general partner for Google's venture capital arm and now serves as an executive at digital-music startup, Kobalt.

Avid served as the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader for over 3 years, she states on her LinkedIn. She got her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and MBA from Harvard Business School.

An earlier version of this story had an incorrect number, $227 million, in the headline. It has since been updated.

One year after settling the blockbuster Uber vs. Waymo lawsuit, Uber may be on the hook for another $128 million to Google stemming from two separate but related legal issues, according to a disclosure in Uber's S-1 filing to go public.

On March 26, Uber's VP of Engineering Anthony Levandowski was found liable for $127 million, according to the Uber S-1. Levandowksi and Ron, his cofounder at trucking startup Otto, are also jointly liable for a second $1 million award to Google, according the filing. Otto was purchased by Uber in 2016.

The awards stem from two separate arbitration demands: Google v. Levandowski & Ron, and Google v. Levandowski. Uber may be liable to pay out the awards because the company previously agreed to cover the pair's legal fees.

The $128 million in awards follow allegations made by Google in October 2016 that Levandowski and Ron broke their employment agreements with Google, and committed fraud related to proprietary self-driving car LIDAR technologies.

Read more: Uber spent $3.3 billion on acquisitions in 2018 and 2019 — 10-times more than Lyft

The total cost of those awards could go up significantly if the panel decides to award Google more money to compensate for the costs associated with its lawsuits, including attorney's fees, according to the S-1.

Uber already settled with Waymo

Uber already paid Google's self-driving car unit an award in a separate but related lawsuit, Uber vs. Waymo. The companies settled after Uber agreed to pay Waymo $245 million in equity.

That settlement saw Waymo awarded 0.34% of Uber equity pegged to a $72 billion valuation for the ride-hailing company, a person familiar with the settlement told Business Insider at the time. Uber is reportedly expected to IPO with a valuation close to $100 million, which means that today that equity is worth even more.

Because Uber had previously agreed to cover Levandowski and Ron's legal fees, the company said in its filing that it may be obligated to cover their awards owed to Google as well.

However, the company also said it may contest its obligations here.

Uber declined to comment. Google was not immediately available for comment.

More from Uber's IPO filing:

Uber has filed to go public in what could be the biggest IPO in years

'I won't be perfect, but I will listen to you.' Uber CEO outlines the company's 'enormous' opportunity while acknowledging its turbulent past in letter to investors

Uber filed its IPO proposal documents on Thursday, and they reveal exactly how the #DeleteUber campaign in January 2017 negatively affected its business and reputation.

In its paperwork, Uber said that "hundreds of thousands" of customers deleted the ride-hailing app and deactivated their accounts "within days" of the campaign's launch across social media. The viral movement caused Uber's reputation to be "adversely affected" and "fueled distrust" in the company, the company said in the risk factors portion of its S-1 filing.

The #DeleteUber movement took social media by storm in January 2017, after President Donald Trump announced his travel ban. The ban was met with protests, including a strike from taxi drivers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Uber continued to operate its service at the airport, and even switched off its surge pricing halfway through the strike to get more riders.

The move was met with backlash from furious customers, who accused Uber of profiting off the taxi strike and putting its support behind Trump's immigration ban. The #DeleteUber hashtag emerged on Twitter, and it wasn't long before it went viral.

"As a result of the #DeleteUber campaign, hundreds of thousands of consumers stopped using the Uber platform within days of the campaign," Uber wrote in its public filings.

To make matters worse, former Uber employee Susan Fowler alleged in a blog post that same month that she was sexually harassed and experienced gender bias during her time at the company.

Beyond the #DeleteUber campaign and blog post, 2017 was a disastrous year for the company. The series of scandals ultimately led to Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick resigning from his position as CEO, and current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi eventually taking over.

Read more: Uber warns that its reputation may always be a risk for its continued success

Uber said in its documents filed Thursday that one of its risk factors is its ability to maintain its "brand and reputation."

"We have previously received significant media coverage and negative publicity, particularly in 2017, regarding our brand and reputation, and failure to rehabilitate our brand and reputation will cause our business to suffer," Uber said in the filing.

Although the #DeleteUber campaign adversely impacted Uber, the ride-hailing service's main rival benefited from the controversy. Lyft filed its public S-1 paperwork in March, where it said that the company saw a boost in business in January 2017, during the peak of the #DeleteUber campaign.

SpaceX's behemoth Falcon Heavy rocket will attempt to go commercial on Thursday with the launch of Arabsat-6A, and you can watch the historic launch live online.

Falcon Heavy stands about 230 feet tall and is the world's most powerful operational rocket. The vehicle lifted off the first time on February 6, 2018, propelling one of company founder Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster electric cars beyond the orbit of Mars.

"Life cannot just be about solving one sad problem after another," Musk said after the experimental launch. "There need to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity. That is why we did it. We did for you."

The launch was also a $500 million advertisement: SpaceX proved that its powerful new three-booster launch vehicle worked, attracting a suite of customers that included the Department of Defense and the Arab Satellite Communications Organization, or Arabsat — a Saudi Arabian satellite operator.

Arabsat-6A is a roughly 13,200-pound satellite built by Lockheed Martin. It's designed to "deliver television, radio, Internet, and mobile communications to customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe," according to a SpaceX press kit.

The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday night, but high-altitude shear winds, which can blow at more than 100 mph, proved too much of a risk to the rocket. (Musk has previously said shear winds can hit a rocket "like a sledgehammer" while it's traveling at supersonic speeds.)

Weather conditions for Thursday evening are apparently looking up, though.

"All systems and weather are currently go ahead of tonight's Falcon Heavy launch of Arabsat-6A from Pad 39A; launch window opens at 6:35 p.m. EDT," the company tweeted on Thursday.

SpaceX plans to broadcast live footage of its launch attempt with expert commentary starting at around 6:15 p.m. EDT.

The rocket has a chance to launch any time between 6:35 p.m. and 8:31 p.m. EDT.

SpaceX hopes to land Falcon Heavy's two side boosters, or lower stages, back on land at Cape Canaveral, Florida, just a few miles from the launchpad. The central or core booster will attempt to self-land in the Atlantic Ocean upon a barge-like drone ship called "Of Course I Still Love You."

If SpaceX can capture all three 16-story boosters, it could recoup tens of millions of dollars in hardware and reuse them for future launches.

Once the rocket lifts off, it's just the start of the mission. The Falcon Heavy's upper stage is supposed to deliver Arabsat-6A into geostationary orbit, which is about 22,300 miles above the surface of Earth. It will take about 34 minutes for the satellite to reach this point, and for SpaceX to deploy it from the upper stage.

Below is SpaceX's complete list of what to expect and when from the launch.

Minutes relative to liftoff time are on the left, and the related launch event description is on the right:

Events before Falcon Heavy lifts off:

Events after liftoff:

Uber believes the food delivery program it launched more than three years ago addresses a $795 billion market, the company revealed in the S-1 documents it filed on Thursday as part of its initial public offering.

Revenue from Uber Eats has also grown significantly, according to the filing. Uber Eats revenue was $1.5 billion in 2018, representing an increase of 149% from the $0.6 billion in revenue the food delivery service generated in 2017.

The company also said it views the serviceable addressable market for Uber Eats as being $795 billion, which refers to the amount that consumers spent on home delivery, takeaway, and drive-through worldwide from restaurants, cafés, bars in 2017. The company believes it's only penetrated 1% of this $795 billion market so far given that Uber Eats Gross Bookings reached $7.9 billion in 2018.

Based on Gross Bookings, the company says it believes Uber Eats is the largest meal delivery platform in the world outside of China. Of the 91 million monthly active platform consumers on Uber's platform, more than 15 million received a meal using Uber Eats in the December quarter. The company defines Gross Bookings, not to be confused with revenue, as the total dollar value ridesharing and new mobility rides, Uber Eats meal deliveries, and amounts paid by shippers for Uber Freight payments.

Uber believes it has an advantage in its scale, which it says enables it to offer faster delivery times than its competitors. The average delivery time for an Uber Eats order was approximately 30 minutes for the December quarter, the company said. Uber Eats operates on a network comprised of more than 220,000 restaurants in over 500 cities.

It's not just the home delivery market that Uber is after. It says it believes that it can address a portion of the $2 trillion eat-in market as more consumers opt to have meals from dine-in eateries delivered, and also says there's room for Uber Eats to address a portion of spending on groceries too.

Ana Mahony, head of U.S. cities for Uber Eats, discussed the potential the service has to expand when describing how it's recently grown in popularity within suburban areas.

"The demand that we've received from the suburbs over the last year and a half has been truly phenomenal," she said in an interview with Business Insider. "It shows the power and potential to expand our business everywhere."

Uber is convinced that self-driving cars are the future of its business. But even so, it warns investors, they could be a total bust for the company.

On Thursday, Uber finally filed its S-1 paperwork to go public in the coming weeks, offering an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the ride-hailing company. It also provides fresh insight into how the Silicon Valley mega-startup views the promise — and perils — of autonomous vehicles.

"We believe that autonomous vehicle technologies will enable a product that competes with the cost of personal vehicle ownership and usage, and represents the future of transportation," Uber's paperwork says, adding that it believes believes the tech "will be an important part of our platform over the long term."

In 2018, the company spent $457 million on its autonomous vehicle-focused Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) and other tech initiatives — including Uber Elevate, its futuristic urban aircraft program. Long term, Uber hopes the self-driving car tech will allow it to end its dependence on human drivers in favor of a fleet of cheaper autonomous vehicles that don't need to be paid wages.

But despite investing hundreds of millions of dollars in self-driving car technology, Uber still warns that it might screw up — and says it expects its competitors to be able to commercial ise the tech "at scale" before it can.

"We have invested, and we expect to continue to invest, substantial amounts in autonomous vehicle technologies. As discussed elsewhere in this prospectus, we believe that autonomous vehicle technologies may have the ability to meaningfully impact the industries in which we compete," the company wrote.

"While we believe that autonomous vehicles present substantial opportunities, the development of such technology is expensive and time-consuming and may not be successful. Several other companies ... are also developing autonomous vehicle technologies, either alone or through collaborations with car manufacturers, and we expect that they will use such technology to further compete with us in the personal mobility, meal delivery, or logistics industries. We expect certain competitors to commercialize autonomous vehicle technologies at scale before we do."

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Uber calls out Google cousin company Waymo, Cruise Automation, Tesla, Apple, Zoox, Aptiv, May Mobility, Pronto.ai, Aurora, and Nuro as the companies all racing to conquer the self-driving mobility market — citing Waymo as a particular threat due to the development of its commercialized fleet.

If these rivals do manage to scale up self-driving tech before Uber does, then numerous areas of its business could be at risk.

"In the event that our competitors bring autonomous vehicles to market before we do, or their technology is or is perceived to be superior to ours, they may be able to leverage such technology to compete more effectively with us, which would adversely impact our financial performance and our prospects," it wrote.

"For example, use of autonomous vehicles could substantially reduce the cost of providing ridesharing, meal delivery, or logistics services, which could allow competitors to offer such services at a substantially lower price as compared to the price available to consumers on our platform. If a significant number of consumers choose to use our competitors' offerings over ours, our financial performance and prospects would be adversely impacted."

Similarly, even sourcing parts and securing suppliers could prove problematic in the experimental field, it warns — especially in the event of external events like currency market fluctuations, new tariffs or trade wars, or theft.

And all this high-tech development is capital intensive: There's no guarantee that Uber will be "to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when required, [in which case] our ability to continue to support our business growth and to respond to business challenges and competition may be significantly limited."

Uber doesn't anticipate eliminating all traditional human drivers overnight once the tech reaches maturity. Instead, the company predicts a "hybrid" period, "in which autonomous vehicles will be deployed gradually against specific use cases while Drivers continue to serve most consumer demand ... Such situations may include trips along a standard, well-mapped route in a predictable environment in good weather."

This prompts another, related risk: The pursuit of autonomous technology might spark discontent among Uber's existing base of human drivers, with unpredictable consequences. The efforts may "add to Driver dissatisfaction over time, as it may reduce the need for Drivers," the S-1 warns.

"Driver dissatisfaction has in the past resulted in protests by Drivers, most recently in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Such protests have resulted, and any future protests may result, in interruptions to our business. Continued Driver dissatisfaction may also result in a decline in our number of platform users, which would reduce our network liquidity, and which in turn may cause a further decline in platform usage."

The disclosures echo earlier remarks by former CEO Travis Kalanick, who described the technology as an "existential" risk to the company.

"It starts with understanding that the world is going to go self-driving and autonomous," he told Business Insider in 2016. "So if that's happening, what would happen if we weren't a part of that future? If we weren't part of the autonomy thing? Then the future passes us by basically, in a very expeditious and efficient way."

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A startup owned by Google's parent company Alphabet has just secured approval for one of the first ever drone delivery services.

Wing, which graduated to become its own company under the Alphabet brand last year, will launch its first commercial delivery service in Canberra, Australia.

The company confirmed the move in a blog on Tuesday after it secured approval from Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) following a successful trial. A CASA spokesman confirmed to Business Insider that it had approved the delivery service and said it is "very likely" to be a world first.

Other firms have claimed to have launched the world's first commercial drone delivery service. This includes Flytrex, which launched a service in Iceland in 2017 in partnership with AHA, the country's biggest online retailer.

Wing has been piloting the Canberra project for around 18 months, completing 3,000 deliveries. On its official launch, the service will be available to a confined number of homes in the Canberra area, before gradually expanding. CASA said 100 homes will be eligible initially.

Wing allows users to place orders through an app. Delivery is then made by drone within minutes, according to the company. Popular delivery items include fresh food, coffee, ice cream, and medicine. Below is a video of a coffee firm, named Kickstart Expresso, which took advantage of the trial.

"The feedback we have received during the trials has been valuable, helping us to refine our operations to better meet the needs and expectations of the communities in which we operate," Wing said in its blog. "We will continue to engage with the local community and stakeholders as we expand our service."

Read more: Jeff Bezos was wrong when he predicted Amazon will be making drone deliveries by 2018

The trial completed without a safety incident, but it was not without drawbacks. Australia's ABC News reported that some Canberra locals were driven to tears by the noise of the drones. "With the windows closed, even with double glazing, you can hear the drones," one local said.

The CASA spokesman told Business Insider that the Wing service will be subject to a number of conditions to guarantee safety. The conditions include:

"Wing has already conducted thousands of drone deliveries in Canberra with an approval from CASA. Safety data from these trials was carefully assessed by CASA before approval was given for the operations in North Canberra," the CASA spokesman added.

Wing's launch in Australia means it has beaten Amazon to the punch. Jeff Bezos said its commercial drone delivery service would be available to public in 2018, but despite testing it is not yet ready.

Wing is also targeting Europe. The company has been piloting its devices in Helsinki, Finland, since December last year. It chose Finland as a testing ground because the Finnish people are "renowned for being early-adopters of new technologies."

Celebrity jeweler Ben Baller said Tesla canceled his meeting with CEO Elon Musk after Baller posted on social media after being locked in his Model X SUV.

Baller described the experience, which he documented on Instagram, and Tesla's response in an April 4 Instagram post. He said he was locked in his Model X for 47 minutes after the vehicle went into low-power mode before exiting through the trunk.

Read more: Tesla fired dozens of salespeople after its disappointing Q1 delivery report

According to Baller, Musk's assistant requested that he contact her about future issues instead of posting on social media and said his meeting with Musk was canceled. The meeting came after Baller made a $37,000 ring with Tesla's name and logo as a gift to Musk. (Baller said he will hold an auction for the ring and donate the earnings to charity.)

Baller said he understood why their meeting was canceled, but added that the Model X incident raised significant safety concerns.

"I will never allow my kids to ever get into a Tesla again especially London since I can't risk that even 1% chance of being stuck while he's having an [asthma] attack and we wait for Tesla roadside assistance to not show up," he wrote.

Baller said Tesla allowed him to cancel his Model X lease early without paying a fee.

"I'm not saying I'm against Elon or Tesla. I'm only saying it's not the car for me or my family," Baller said of the Model X.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Even as Snapchat's user base continues to shrink, it's still cited among teens as their favorite platform, according to a new survey of Gen Zers.

Of the 8,000 teens surveyed by investment firm Piper Jaffray, 41% named Snapchat as their favorite social platform.

But Snapchat's lead as the favorite social platform is down 5% from Piper Jaffray's previous survey done in Fall 2018. Even though Snapchat is still No. 1 as the favorite, more of the teens surveyed use Instagram (84%) more regularly than Snapchat (81%).

Instagram is only a few percentage points behind Snapchat as teens' favorite social platform, and Snapchat's lead continues to shrink with each Piper Jaffray biannual survey.

The growth of Instagram among teens mirrors Instagram's dominance over Snapchat overall. While Snapchat's number of daily active users has shrunk down to 186 million, Instagram's user base is continuing to grow, and has surpassed 500 million.

Instagram has also become the place where teens prefer to engage with brands. Instagram recently bet big in this area by adding in-app shopping, a sect that some analysts have said could generate $10 billion in revenue by 2021.

Read more: Instagram's big bet on shopping could be worth $10 billion in 2021

The survey also asked teens about their favorite influencers on various platforms. On Instagram, these included Kylie Jenner and James Charles, who have 131 million and 15.2 million followers, respectively, and are influential in the beauty world. Piper Jaffray found that 80% of female teens are using online influencers as a starting point to discover new beauty trends, so it's easy to see how Instagram has become such a major part of teens' time spent online.

The survey spelled bad news for Instagram's parent company, Facebook, however. The site's popularity among teens is continuing to dwindle, with only 36% of teens reporting that they use Facebook at least once per month, compared with 52% who said they use it monthly back in fall 2016.

Twitter and Pinterest were also in the ranks, but way behind Instagram and Snapchat. The report shows that 44% of teens said they use Twitter at least once per month, while only a quarter of those surveyed say they use Pinterest.

I love robot vacuums. It's the easiest way to clean my messy house without requiring me to do much more than press a button. There are nice machines at a variety of price points that can go from hardwood to shaggy carpets without issues, empty their own dustbin, mop your floor, and more, but one that stands out for me is the top-of-the-line D7 Connected Robot Vacuum from California-based Neato Robotics. I've been using it in my own home for a while, and in my experience, it is worth the $793 price tag — here's why.

Design

Unlike conventional robo vacs, Neato's are all D-shaped, including the D7. This helps with cleaning corners better than others in my opinion, and just looks really unique and interesting.

The D7 measures 12.5 inches by 13 inches by 4 inches. The four-inch height is higher than most robo vacs, which means it might have a harder time getting under low-clearance furniture, but wasn't an issue in my experience.

Read more: The best robot vacuums you can buy

Specs

Set-up process

The instructions are easy to understand so set up only took about half an hour, most of which was spent trying to find the wireless connection after setting up the dock and downloading the Neato app. I just had to go through the connection process a few times before it actually connected. I finished by upgrading the firmware and then charged the vac for an hour and half before taking it for a spin.

What makes this robotic vacuum stand out

It cleaned over my carpet and hardwood floors without any major problems. Amazon

If I'm going to use a robo vac, I don't want to monitor it as it goes around my house. That's why I love that this one uses "laser smart technology" to map your home. You can set "no-go lines" after it maps each room so the D7 automatically knows not to cross over a heavily-wired area. You can also save up to three maps so you can conceivably use this vacuum to clean three floors, should you be so lucky to have that much space.

The vacuum also comes with three ultra-performance filters designed to pick up 99% of allergens and dust mites. And, you can choose between eco and turbo cleaning modes; with turbo mode, the D7 uses maximum suction to pick up debris as small as 10 microns. Cleaning the Neato D7 is relatively easy, which I appreciate since I use the vac daily. After each cycle, you remove the dustbin from the top of the vac and tap out as much gunk from the filter as you can, or use the attached cleaning tool to cut out hairs and fibers off the brush. The filter has a screen over it so you can't really use the cleaning tool to brush out the debris.

To test how well the D7 actually cleans up, I put a few tablespoons each of all-purpose flour, coffee grounds, and kitty litter on my carpet and hardwood floor and let the D7 do a cleaning cycle. On both the carpet and hardwood, the vacuum removed all of the coffee grounds and kitty litter without a trace left over.

The flour was a bit trickier, which seems to be the norm for robotic vacuums. On the carpet, it removed about 90% of the flour; on the hardwood, it was closer to 75%. I also sprinkled flour in corners of different rooms and though the vac didn't get everything, it came within a quarter of an inch of the corners, which is better than any of the other robotic vacuums I've tested.

The D7 also does a great job with pet hair, which I didn't have to purposely set out because we have two cats who get the job done just fine. When I run the vacuum on its regular schedule, I didn't notice any cat hair left on the floor.

As far as noise levels go, this is also the quietest robotic vacuum I've ever tested. My sound meter measured it at 66 decibels from a foot away, which is just slightly louder than a normal conversation from three feet away.

The "Connected" part of D7's name comes from its smart capabilities. You can control the vacuum using the Neato app, Google Home and Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Watch, and Samsung SmartThings. I tested it out using my Alexa and couldn't help but marvel at the world we now live in — I can now talk to my Wi-Fi router and tell my robotic vacuum to start cleaning. Or you can just schedule the vac to clean at a specific time each day in the app, which I do.

Read more: This new robot vacuum is one of the best investments you can make to save time this year

Cons to consider

The floors of my house were strewn with toys so the vacuum had some trouble getting to certain areas. Amazon

The D7 would get stuck about half of the time I ran a cleaning cycle, which is really annoying when you just want it to clean and go back to its dock when it's done. But I probably shouldn't lay all of the blame on the Neato. Between having a five-year-old and just not putting much emphasis on tidiness, I gave the vacuum plenty of obstacles to conquer and it definitely had the most trouble with small toys that were left out.

Overall, the app is useful. It tells you when your Neato is stuck and when to empty the dustbin, and you can easily buy replacement parts and access maintenance tutorials. At the same time though, I wasn't incredibly impressed. Many times when I wanted the D7 to dock or start cleaning, I would have to wait a few minutes for it to connect. I also couldn't get the zone cleaning to operate correctly because the device may have had trouble accurately mapping our constantly changing decor or the obstacle course made up of toys strewn everywhere.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's also really expensive.

The bottom line

Overall, I'm happy with how the Neato Robotics D7 Connected Robot Vacuum performed. When it comes down to it, the ability to clean a floor is the most important (and basic) feature a vacuum should have and the D7 delivers the goods without making a loud production of it. I could take or leave the mapping and Alexa functionality, but they are kind of fun tools to have at my disposal. If you are looking for a robotic vacuum with all of the bells and whistles and you have the ability to spend top dollar, you should definitely give the D7 Connected a try.

Pros: Works with Alexa, gets deep into corners, runs quietly, two-hour battery life, does an excellent job of sucking up debris

Cons: Had trouble finishing cleaning cycles in my cluttered home, difficulties setting up zone cleaning, very expensive

Buy the Neato Robotics D7 Connected Laser Guided Robot Vacuum on Amazon for $793.95

Last week, the internet-connected fitness startup Tonal announced a $45 million series C led by the consumer venture-capital firm L Catterton, bringing its total amount raised to $90 million since 2015.

Adam Bain, Twitter's former chief operating officer, joined the Tonal board in 2017 because he believes it is a "category-defining company," he told Business Insider. Bain suggested that the boom in at-home internet-connected fitness training, such as Tonal and Peloton, is primarily driven by the consumer's need for convenience above all else.

"People value convenience and are willing to invest in their health at a level that I don't think the market realized. You will see people making large investments in product like Tonal as long as the product inspires, and motivates you to stay consistent with fitness goals," Bain said via email.

Tonal's weight-training system relies on electromagnetics to create "digital weight" that is personalized to the user's fitness ability. Combined with Tonal's on-demand video-training subscription ($49 per month), customers can essentially train with a dedicated personal trainer at home instead of virtually attending a class, as is the case with Peloton. The Tonal hardware costs about $3,000, priced above the $2,000 for the flagship Peloton bike.

On the subject of Peloton, Bain points to the popular exercise bike as proof that customers are willing to pay for a convenient fitness solution that delivers on its promise of making it easier to have a healthier lifestyle — which has made it a hit with investors, who valued Peloton at $4 billion last year. However, Bain said that Tonal is fundamentally different from Peloton because of the complexity that comes with strength training.

Read more: A leading investor in Peloton and Equinox reveals how his firm predicts the big trends in home fitness — and what he thinks will be next

"At a high level, people are realizing that only doing cardio is not how you see body transformation or results. Strength training is really important, especially as you age. Strength training actually makes you better at cardio and you are seeing that there is a new cultural awareness around the importance of strength training that Tonal is positioned to own," Bain said via email.

Bain said that Tonal will continue to invest in new formats that make it easy for users to connect and train outside their homes. He said the company is also considering launching pop-ups and events to bring even more customers online and that personalization will always be key to the success of connected fitness technology.

"All the investors are incredibly excited about the technology, the ability for the product to continually improve from a software and personalization standpoint, and the ongoing cadence of content development puts Tonal on a path to becoming a true platform," Bain said via email.

The new funding, Bain said, will also be used to shore up recruiting efforts in addition to expanding personalization features for customers, such as data visualizations and real-time workout feedback.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said there is a five-year plan "fleshed out" for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for after the upcoming films "Avengers: Endgame" and "Spider-Man: Far From Home," and plans will be revealed after those movies are released.

"We have built and fleshed out our five-year plan of where we're heading, the first few years of which we'll be announcing, as I said, relatively soon, after these next two movies," Feige told IGN.

Read more: The Marvel Cinematic Universe will enter an uncertain era after 'Avengers: Endgame,' but experts see a path for it to dominate another decade of pop culture

There are at least six MCU movies in development for after this year, including a third "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie and a "Black Panther" sequel (read full details on the movies in the works here). But because "Avengers: Endgame" is shrouded in secrecy, Marvel Studios will make official announcements after "Far From Home" is released in July.

Feige also indicated that it will be some time before audiences see MCU movies based on the formerly Fox-owned Marvel characters, such as the X-Men, which Disney now owns the film rights to after the Disney-Fox merger.

"As you've heard me say before, until it was all done, we literally couldn't do anything," Feige told IGN. "So essentially, it's sort of Day One."

Shawn Robbins, Boxoffice.com's chief analyst, told Business Insider that he doesn't think Disney will rush to introduce the characters.

"They could wait five, maybe even 10 years," he said. "I think there's a strong argument to be made that the longer the wait, the more anticipation there will be for it. It gives these other Fox versions time to settle."

If you're like me, you spend your last waking minutes reading on your iPhone in bed until you're tired enough to fall asleep.

But sometimes, your iPhone's screen can be too bright for you and your partner — even if it's on the lowest brightness setting.

Thankfully, hidden away in your iPhone's settings is a way to make the screen super-dim.

It's easy to set up and works really well — I use it all the time.

Netflix is the teen-streaming champion, but Hulu has been gaining ground in key ways.

In a report from Piper Jaffray released on Monday, Hulu gained the most ground among teenagers in how much video they consume on a daily basis. Hulu rose from 5.2% in fall 2018 to 6.9% in spring 2019 in daily video consumption with teens, according to the report.

Read more: 5 big questions Wall Street wants Disney to answer about its Netflix competitor on investor day, and what analysts expect

That was the largest jump of any major service.

Netflix still leads by a wide margin, though. The streaming giant takes up 36.8% of teens' daily video consumption. It's a small drop from 37.6% in fall 2018, but the platform is still ahead of the runner-up, YouTube, which is at 31.9% (it fell slightly from 33.1%).

Hulu has also gained on Netflix in US subscribers. It exceeded expectations in 2018 and added 8 million users last year for 48% year-over-year growth. Hulu now has 25 million US subscribers, while Netflix has 60 million.

Cable TV continues to plummet among teens, dropping from 16.4% of daily video consumption in fall 2018 to 14.2% now. It has fallen steadily since 2015, when it was at almost 30%.

Amazon remains stagnant, barely gaining ground since 2016 when it made up 3% of teens' daily video consumption. It now makes up 3.4%. Amazon hopes to change that with a focus on big-budget TV. Amazon paid $250 million for the rights to "Lord of the Rings" in 2017 to develop a TV series and will spend up to $6 billion this year on original content, according to CNBC.

One of the scariest — and most troubling — iPhone problems is when your phone will not charge. But don't panic. There are some fairly mundane reasons why this might happen, and they're generally easy to solve.

On the other hand, keep in mind that to do something even as simple as charge your phone, there are a lot of parts that need to work together — so to figure out what is to blame and to get things working properly, you should methodically test everything to eliminate potential problems one at a time.

If your iPhone charges with one cable, but not another, you know it's the cable. If your cable charges other phones but not your own, you know it's your phone. When your phone starts to charge again, whatever the last thing you changed was the problem — so you know what fixed your phone.

Turn it off and back on again

Anytime you are troubleshooting a problem, it helps to restart the system and see if that fixes the issue. If your phone still has enough battery life, restart the phone and then try to charge it again. If your phone battery is very, very low — under 5% — or already complete dead, don't bother with this step.

Verify that your phone is not charging

Start by making sure your phone is not charging. Connect your phone however you usually do to charge it — wirelessly, plugged into an AC adapter, plugged into a computer's USB port — and check the phone's display. If the battery is already dead, leave it to charge for about two hours and then check on it.

You should see a lightning bolt in or beside the battery icon at the top right of the iPhone's lock screen. If there is no lightning bolt in sight, it's not charging.

The lightning bolt in the battery icon tells you that your phone is charging. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

Don't charge it wirelessly

If you have an iPhone X or later that supports wireless charging — or you have a wireless charging case for an older model iPhone — let's simplify our troubleshooting by eliminating that as a possibility right away.

Remove the phone from its wireless charging case, if you're using one, and plug the phone into a power source with a Lightning cable. Again, check to see if it's charging. If it is, congratulations — you solved the problem. There's some sort of problem with the phone's wireless charging solution.

You might need to take your phone to an Apple store for service (or replace your wireless charging case) but in the meantime, you can keep the phone charged the old-fashioned way, with wires.

Check your iPhone's Lightning port

If your phone isn't charging the way it usually does, your next stop should be to inspect the Lightning port. This is a lot more common than you might think. After all, we spend a lot of time jamming the phone — port-end first — into pockets, bags, and other places filled with dust, debris, and lint.

Your phone's Lightning port is a veritable magnet for dirt, dust, lint, and other grime that can interfere with charging. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

Look carefully, and if you see anything, carefully remove it — gently — with a toothpick or any other non-metallic, pointed object that will fit in the port. If you have a can of compressed air, briefly blast the port with that as well.

Try to charge the phone again. If it still doesn't work, move on to the next troubleshooting step.

Inspect your cable

If you've had an iPhone long enough, you've probably seen a broken or frayed cable — the rubberized outer sheath breaks from repeated bending, and the wires become exposed. If your cable looks like that and it isn't properly charging your device, throw it away and get a new cable.

But Lightning cables get a lot of abuse, and problems aren't always apparent to the naked eye. Sometimes wires can break while they're still inside the sheath. And inexpensive third-party Lightning cables have been known to spontaneously stop working, often because the power regulator chip inside the cable has failed.

There's no good way to see any of this visually, so the best way to test your Lightning cable is to simply try a different one — ideally, a fully-authorized cable from Apple that's brand new.

Your Lightning cable should look like this — no fraying, sharp bends, or kinks that can damage the underlying wires. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

Check where your phone is plugged in

On the long list of potential problems, you should also check your power source. If you're charging your iPhone from a computer's USB port, make sure the computer is fully awake (not in sleep or hibernation mode). Also try a different USB port, in case the USB port you were using has failed. Don't try charging from a USB port built into a keyboard or USB hub — connect it directly to a USB port on the computer itself.

If it still doesn't work, plug it directly into a wall outlet with an AC adapter like the one that came with your iPhone. If you have been using an AC adapter this entire time, then try a different one — borrow one from a friend who has an iPhone or use the one that comes with an iPad.

Take your iPhone in for service

If none of these troubleshooting steps gets your phone back up and running, it's pretty likely that there's something wrong with the iPhone itself. You should contact Apple or go to an Apple store for service.

Tesla dismissed "several dozen" sales employees on April 4, Bloomberg's Dana Hull first reported. The cuts affected employees in Chicago; Brooklyn, New York; and Tampa, Florida.

A Tesla representative confirmed the firings to Business Insider and said the affected stores remain open.

Read more: The biggest question for Tesla is whether the company can make steady profits on its cars

The electric-car maker said in February that it would close many of its stores and convert the remaining stores into galleries and information centers as it shifts to an online-only sales model. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the move would lead to layoffs during a conference call that followed the announcement.

Tesla partially reversed the store closures in March, saying it would "keep significantly more stores open than previously announced." Musk later said in a March email to employees that the best-performing stores would remain open, while those that did not generate sufficient revenue would be closed, adding that Tesla would use a similar strategy to evaluate salespeople.

The April 4 cuts came the day after Tesla announced first-quarter delivery numbers that represented a 31% decrease from the prior quarter and fell below analyst estimates, but were a 110% increase from the first quarter of 2018.

Since late 2018, Tesla has made significant changes to the incentive plans for its salespeople. The company has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs over the past year.

Read Bloomberg's full story here.

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

Long-time SAP executive Robert Enslin is leaving the company to pursue another opportunity after a successful two-year stint running the $141 billion database giant's cloud business. He'll be replaced as cloud chief by Jennifer Morgan, a rising star at SAP.

This follows word last month that another top exec, Bernd Leukert, who was running the Digital Business Services, had resigned in February, effective immediately. Leukert was so high in the company that he was a member of SAP's executive board, its top layer of management.

All of this comes as SAP is in the midst of a bigger corporate reorganization, laying off about 4,000 employees, just after it closed the $8 billion purchase of Qualtrics — the biggest acquisition it's ever made.

Like other old-school software vendors, SAP is in the middle of an ultra-important transition into the brave new world of cloud computing and subscription software.

It still sells a lot of software the old-fashioned way, licensed to its customers to run on their own data centers, it made some 58,000 such software sales last year, it reported. But cloud computing is eating the world, and the market for legacy software is declining, even at SAP, the mighty software giant of the world.

All the big growth is in the software industry these days is in cloud, the hot technology where companies rent the tech they need over the internet and pay only for what they use.

In the last two years, SAP's cloud has done well, reaping the rewards of several big, expensive acquisitions the company made in previous years. SAP saw its cloud customer bookings grow 25% to over 1,800 in 2018, and saw its cloud revenue grow from 2017 to 2018 by 32%, taking it to about $5 billion.

Enslin helped CEO Bill McDermott with the Qualtrics acquisition, SAP's biggest bet on cloud to date, which went down just days before Qualtrics was scheduled to go public.

McDermott paid a premium for Qualtrics, with critics saying he spent too much on a deal valuing the company at 20x its revenue. We understand that some members of the SAP's executive board argued against the acquisition and the price paid, as is to be expected from a German-based company that grew to worldwide success in the conservative world of financial software. But McDermott has the ear and the backing of SAP founder Hasso Plattner, who still wields incredible political power at the comapny, and who backed McDermott's decision to buy.

McDermott, who rose to his CEO position through the sales organization, is ready, even eager, to explain to everyone what he sees in Qualtrics, and why he thinks the price will look cheap one day in hindsight. He even signs in his emails "XO, Bill"— which represents the Qualtrics acquisition, not a message of hugs and kisses, he recently told Business Insider.

Read: Why SAP CEO Bill McDermott signs his emails 'XO, Bill' since buying Utah startup Qualtrics for $8 billion

McDermott believes he's building a brand new market where operational data —such the data on which products are selling well and which are not — is married to feedback data, or so-called "experience" data, such as customer and employee satisfaction. This, he believes, will empower the boardroom to understand not just what's happening with the business, but why it is happening.

With all of that in mind, it does come as a surprise that the key executive running this part of the company has apparently been poached, right after SAP's most enormous acquisition.

Revolving door

But the position of SAP's cloud boss is a revolving door at SAP, notoriously so, and never moreso than after a big acquisition.

In 2013, Lars Dalgaard, who came to SAP after it acquired his company SuccessFactors, left after about a year. So too did Bob Calderoni, who came to SAP when it acquired his company Ariba. It let go of Shawn Price, who lasted only five months in the role, in 2014 — and it was thanks to Enslin, sources said. Enslin was running global sales at the time and was given permission to hand-pick a cloud team as part of a promotion to the executive board, sources told us at the time.

SAP's new head of cloud Jen Morgan SAP In 2017, Enslin was officially made the top guy in cloud.

SAP's press release gives Enslin a glowing send-off, with congratulatory quotes from Plattner and McDermott, indicating no bad blood in the parting.

Meanwhile, Morgan has seen her own star rising, particularly under McDermott's leadership. She joined SAP about 15 years ago to run its government unit and rose to run the Americas and APAC units, responsible for a portion of the balance sheet that encompasses 43,000 employees and nearly 230,000 customers.

She's known as the executive champion of SAP's unique Autism at Work program, and she's well-regarded for her role in securing an award for the company on gender pay equality.

The not-Oracle approach

What's at stake now is a model of cloud computing that McDermott has adopted, that no other major software vendor is trying.

SAP isn't investing billions to build out its own cloud computing offerings to take on the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft head on. Although SAP does own and run several of its own data centers, where it serves up its own cloud software, it has chosen the path of partnership with the large cloud vendors — allowing their mutual customers to run SAP's flagship database software in whatever cloud they choose, rather than forcing them to use SAP's own cloud.

Oracle CTO and cofounder Larry Ellison Kimberly White/Getty Images This includes AWS, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba. That's even though several of those vendors including AWS and Microsoft compete with SAP in key areas like in-memory databases (namely, SAP's key database product HANA).

This was reportedly a similar strategy to the one that Oracle's former head of cloud, Thomas Kurian, was advocating internally, sources told us. But Larry Ellison, Oracle's founder, chairman and CTO, the man who still holds all the clout, reportedly shot him down, choosing instead to focus on building Oracle's own cloud and compete directly with Amazon.

While Oracle offers an older version of its flagship database software to Amazon Web Services customers, the only way to get a the latest release of the tool is to use Oracle's own cloud, or else license it for your own data center the old-fashioned way.

Ellison recognizes that it's a dangerous gamble to encourage Oracle's customers out of his control, using someone else's cloud because those customers can then easily start trying competitor's software. Kurian, for his part, has since left Oracle to run Google Cloud.

The big picture

Business Insider recently asked McDermott why he didn't also fear bringing SAP customers to AWS, Microsoft and other cloud competitors.

"We believe in customer choice," he said. "If the customer chooses to have a hyperscale [cloud] relationship with Alibaba, Amazon, Microsoft or Google than that's the customer's choice. Our job is to build the reference architecture for the SAP software ... make it excellent for multiple clouds."

On top of that, he feels that he gets as much working with the big cloud companies as he risks.

"It's good business," he says noting that SAP software like HANA can reach new cloud customers "that I couldn't on my own at SAP."

The truth is a little more complicated. At this point in the cloud wars, it would practically impossible for SAP to catch up and be a real contender. Amazon and Microsoft already have thousands of features in their cloud to offer customers, with Google a distant but plausible third.

So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

We'll see how Morgan fairs under the pressure to make good on the expensive promise of Qualtrics while keeping those aggressive cloud companies from stealing SAP customers. But she is stepping in at a point where McDermott knows his strategy and is being given all the support internally he needs to make it happen.