The spate of bad news continues for Facebook.

After Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, a cyber attack impacted nearly 50 million Facebook user accounts, the company said on Friday.

But marketers aren't freaking out, and instead they're being empathetic, says Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president of global marketing solutions.

Speaking at Advertising Week New York, Everson said that she and her team spent Friday and the weekend contacting the company's advertisers, helping them understand the ramifications of the cyber attack. And while they had questions, most were understanding.

"There's empathy around the fact that we're all dealing with this incredible threat, and that at any given moment there can be a cyber attack on anyone," she said. "And certainly, we're not the only company to have had a situation like this."

On Tuesday, Facebook discovered that an unknown attacker, or attackers, had taken advantage of a security flaw to take over users' accounts. The flaw was related to the "View As" feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like through the eyes of another user, Facebook explained.

Everson called the attack "extremely intricate," likening it to an "odorless, weightless intruder" that walks into a house. She said that the attack was so sophisticated that it was very complicated for Facebook's security team to be able to detect it.

Facebook's business team put together a guide over the weekend listing certain steps clients could take to secure their accounts.

And Facebook's team encouraged advertisers to take a stock of admins on their accounts, as large brands tend to have several people that are admins across not just the company, but also at their agencies. Those brands looking to take extra precautions could log out and log back in, said Everson. Lastly, Facebook assured brands that their credit card information could not have been taken by the hackers.

"We do not store the full digits of the credit card number anywhere, and so that was of comfort as well," she said. "Mostly, they're just looking forward to us providing them updates."

This reaction is very different from when the Cambridge Analytica crisis hit, said Everson. And that's because that was something that could have been prevented.

"With Cambridge Analytica, the reaction was slightly different in that that was something that we felt we definitely should have prevented," she said. "We should have gone back and really checked that audit. The firm said that they deleted the data and they didn't and we didn't go back and check on that."

It also helps that Facebook has taken full responsibility for the previous goof-ups and has been proactive in communicating with advertisers, she said. And that's because it recognizes that the foundation of its business is trust from both consumers and marketers.

"At the end of the day we have a responsibility to people and to the marketers that utilize our platform — trust is one of those things that is earned every day by individual actions," she said. "There is no amount of time, energy, or effort that won't be expended in protecting people."

In fact, there is a massive cultural shift taking place within Facebook as far as the role it plays and its responsibility in regard to election integrity, the fight against fake news and data security is concerned, said Everson. She said it was a bigger shift than when the company embraced mobile.

"This is the most important cultural shift — recognizing our responsibility, taking very specific actions and doing everything we can. We have zero tolerance for all of this behavior, but there won't be zero occurrence," she said. "This is the most important thing that we're doing. Nothing else matters if we don't get this right."

Microsoft's first-ever desktop PC is getting a big upgrade.

Introducing the powerful Surface Studio 2, a mega-premium, all-in-one Windows 10 PC that will be available on November 15th for the mega-premium starting price of $3,499.

Like the original Surface Studio, which launched in late 2016, this new model comes with a 28-inch touchscreen that can swivel down into "studio mode," letting you sketch and mark up documents right on your desk. If you've ever used a Surface Studio, you know that it's smooth and weirdly addictive to raise the screen up and back down again.

The Surface Studio 2 is much the same, but better and brighter — literally. Microsoft claims the new screen has "38 percent higher luminance and 22 percent more contrast" than that in the original Surface Studio.

Under the hood, Microsoft says that the Surface Studio 2 is 50% faster than the original at file processing, thanks to new solid-state hard drives, plus more up-to-date Intel processors.

Also, depending on which model Surface Studio 2 you buy, you'll get NVIDIA GeForce GTXl 1060 or 1070 graphics hardware. It's not a dedicated gaming machine by any means, but the Surface Studio 2 can make a reasonable go at playing just about any recent-release PC game at high graphics settings.

Originally pitched as a super-powerful machine for creative professionals, the original Surface Studio was said to be something of a surprise hit — it sported a hefty $3,000 pricetag, but reportedly blew away Microsoft's internal projections. At a higher starting price tag of $3,500, it'll be interesting to see if Surface Studio 2 can repeat the trick.

Also of note: The original Surface Studio could have been helped along by a perceived weakness with Apple's iMac, the Cupertino titan's own all-in-one PC, which in 2016 hadn't seen a significant update in some while. This time, though, the Surface Studio will face stiffer competition — last year, Apple released a more powerful iMac Pro, and the rumor mill suggests the original iMac will get an update this year, too.

Thomson Reuters

Nio, which has been touted as the Tesla of China, slid below its initial-public-offering price nearly three weeks after going public, touching a intra-day low of $5.88 per share on Tuesday.

Shares priced at $6.26 apiece on September 12, the low end of its range, causing the electric-car maker to fall short of raising the $1.8 billion it had sought. But on the next day, after touching its record low of $5.35, the stock soared 75%, sending its market capitalization above $12 billion — despite Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu assigning an "underperform" rating and saying he thinks a capital raise is coming in the next 12 to 18 months.

The stock would top out a day later at $13.80. Since then, shares have fallen in 10 of the last 12 sessions, shedding about 36% over that time. 

"Nio's not a stock we have any interest in," said Mark Tepper, president and CEO of Strategic Wealth Partners, managing over $1 billion in assets, told Business Insider. "An unproven management team along zero experience in manufacturing cars makes this an easy stock to steer clear of."

The four-year old Tencent-backed electric-car startup delivered its first volume-manufactured vehicle — the ES8 — to users on June 28, and started to generate revenue this year, according to its IPO filing. Nio said it made $6.95 million revenue in the first half of 2018, and that it had 6,201 unfilled ES8 reservations by the end of August, for which non-refundable deposits had been made but customers could still cancel their orders.

Now read:

Business Insider

 

If you're wondering what Marissa Mayer has been up to since she left her job as Yahoo's CEO last year, you may be surprised to learn that the answer involves a funeral home, a women's club and some contentious neighbors.

The former Yahoo CEO appeared in front of Palo Alto's city council on Monday night to present her plan for something called the Corner House on Addison.

According to Mayer's proposal, the "Corner House" is a center for women and families that would "provide a vibrant, welcoming space for traditional and non-traditional professionals to collaborate, work, learn, find support, build community, and spend time with their families, friends, and neighbors."

The problem is the location.

The future home of the women's center is an old mortuary that Mayer has owned since 2013. Mayer bought the 1.16-acre land, once the site of Palo Alto's oldest funeral home Roller & Hapgood & Tinney, for $11.2 million in October 2013, according to the Palo Alto Weekly

Since buying the property, Mayer has used it to throw lavish Halloween parties for Silicon Valley bigwigs.

Now Mayer is looking to breathe new life into her funeral-home-turned-haunted-house. The proposal for the space says the facility is specifically geared toward women and their families with an emphasis on "the welfare and success of our (female/mother) workforce."

But not everyone is thrilled about Mayer's plan to re-incarnate the morgue.

Members of the Palo Alto community where the Mayer's land is located — which is also just a few blocks from where Mayer herself lives — did not react to the proposal with open arms. Area residents told CBS' San Francisco affiliate KPIX they were concerned the center would bring noise and traffic that would be disruptive to the neighborhood.

While the project description paints the picture of a community center and shared workspace, the center is largely members-only for those who can shell out money for classes, workshops and speakers. The facility also plans to hold "outdoor events with amplified sound" lasting until 10 p.m. and indoor events that go to midnight — which sound suspiciously like vague hints at concerts and parties.

Mayer is familiar with pushback from her neighbors, some of whom have objected publicly to her "blow-out" Halloween parties hosted at the funeral home. Mayer did not respond to a request for comment.

For now, the project appears to be in a sort of bureaucratic limbo.

Mayer's presentation to the council was simply a prescreening, and largely focused on discussing local zoning regulations that designate how the land can be used. Her proposal could spend months cycling through the local government system before a decision is made to approve it or not.

Mayer has separately been working on a new tech company named Lumi Labs, she told the New York Times in April. It was her first interview since she left Yahoo in June 2017.

Microsoft's trend-setting tablet/laptop hybrid just got an upgrade: Meet the all-new Surface Pro 6, announced on stage at a Microsoft event on Tuesday in New York City. It's available for preorder today, and will be available to buy on October 16th.

The design hasn't changed much from the Surface Pro that's currently on store shelves, released in early 2017. It's still a Windows 10-powered tablet with a 12.3-inch display. It's priced starting at $899, with an optional-but-not-really $129 keyboard accessory available for purchase that can turn it into a lightweight, touchscreen laptop.

The changes are all under the hood, Microsoft says. The headlining upgrade in the Surface Pro 6 is a new quad core processor that Microsoft claims makes it 1.5 times faster than the previous model. That extra power doesn't seem to come at the expense of battery, as Microsoft says that it still gets 13.5 hours of life, at least when it's doing nothing but playing videos in the browser.

In terms of aesthetics, the Surface Pro 6 does bring one new thing to the table. For the first time in a long time, Microsoft is making the Surface Pro 6 available in a sleek, black finish. If that doesn't do anything for you, it's also available in platinum.

Otherwise, the Surface Pro 6 is much the same as previous iterations. It has one USB port, a micro-SD card slot, a headphone jack, and a port for Microsoft's proprietary Surface Connect charging cables. A notable absence is a jack for USB-C, the rising standard that Apple has embraced full-throatedly with its newest MacBooks, and which Microsoft itself included with the super-small Surface Go laptop it released earlier this year.

Generally speaking, it's not necessarily a bad thing that the Surface Pro 6 isn't radically different.

After all, why mess with success? In my own experiences with the Surface Pro, I've found it to be the right balance between portability and productivity — because it runs a full version of Windows 10, it has a wider range of software than an iPad, including "real" versions of Microsoft Office; because it's a touchscreen tablet, it's lighter and more flexible than an iPad.

Still, if this doesn't do it for you, Microsoft also announced on Tuesday the $999 Surface Laptop 2 — a regular (but very good-looking) touchscreen laptop — as well as the $3,499 super-high-end Surface Studio 2, an all-in-one PC that competes with the iMac.

LONDON — A successful British "venture-builder" business is expanding to New York, hoping to show off Britain's expertise in financial technology in America.

Blenheim Chalcot, which was founded 20 years ago in London, is opening its first US office in New York. The office will act as a "beachhead" for Blenheim Chalcot-backed businesses looking to expand to the states.

Blenheim Chalcot sets up startups and then provides support services to them such as legal, recruiting, IT, and other admin-type tasks, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on building their businesses. Blenheim Chalcot currently supports around 20 companies across fintech, education services, and media. It has assets of over $600 million under management and reinvests money from successes into its other businesses.

"One of the real strengths of the Blenheim Chalcot model is that we have a team of some 200 people that work across London, India, and now the US to create an ecosystem that helps our businesses to win," Dan Cobley, the managing partner of fintech at Blenheim Chalcot, told Business Insider.

A recent success is ClearScore, a free credit checking service that Experian is in the process of buying for $383 million, although UK competition regulators are probing the deal.

"We decided we wanted to go into the US and formerly put that capability on the ground so that as our businesses in London and Nottingham want to go to the US, they've got a beachhead, a landing pad, that gives them a lot of support," Cobley said. "We think that's really powerful."

Cobley was previously the managing director of Google in the UK, and cut his teeth at Capital One before that. He joined Blenheim Chalcot in 2014.

The US is already well served for tech startups, but Cobley believes Blenheim Chalcot's businesses still have something to offer.

"While there are some areas in which the US is well served, there are some areas in which the UK is leading," he said.

"In fintech, London does have incredible strength. London's the only place where you've got the tech, the regulator, and the banks all in the same geography all supporting each other and you've got a big unified UK market, which helps them get to a reasonable scale, versus the US situation where you've got Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington as three important geographies all quite well separated. And you've got different regulation in the different states which makes it harder for fintechs to get to national strength as quickly."

Blenheim Chalcot's new office will help launch two of its fintech businesses in the US initially: SalaryFinance, which lets staff borrow against future paychecks; and small business lender Liberis.

SalaryFinance is already working with Legal & General in the US, and Cobley said part of the rationale for expanding to New York was client demand.

"We've got a number of clients who are international and they're asking if we can serve them in the US. That gives us an obvious bridge," he said.

Blenheim Chaclot is helping to bring over seven of its 20 UK businesses to the US initially. Others include training platform Avado Learning and publishing business Contentive.

Not too long ago, if your friend had a smart speaker like Amazon's Alexa or Google's Assistant in their living room, it seemed like a rare novelty. Within a matter of months, however, smart speakers have started becoming household staples — and they're still only at a fraction of their growth potential.

Business Insider Intelligence

One of the biggest drivers of adoption has been increased functionality. Smart speakers aren't just changing the music and turning on the lights; they're helping consumers find new products and make purchases — and they're quickly becoming a preferred method of shopping.

In fact, nearly a quarter of consumers globally already prefer using a voice assistant over going to a company website or mobile app to shop. This share will jump to 40% by 2021, according to Capgemini.

Consumers are on board with the prompt, convenient nature of shopping with smart speakers — and brands who join them stand to reap massive rewards. The Voice in Retail Report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, highlights the value voice brings to the shopping funnel and how retailers can implement it throughout the customer journey.

Here are three ways brands can capture consumers with voice technology:

Want to Learn More?

Shoppers are interested in using voice assistants for every stage of the customer journey, from initial product search and discovery to post-purchase customer service and delivery status. And retailers that take advantage of consumers' desire to leverage voice will be in a stronger position to heighten customer engagement, increase conversion times, drive sales, and boost operational efficiency.

The Voice in Retail Report from Business Insider Intelligence examines the trends driving the adoption of voice commerce, details the role of voice throughout the customer shopping journey, outlines how brands can benefit from implementing voice in their strategies, and explores what's ahead for the technology in retail.

When it comes to how artificial-intelligence technology might affect society, there are a host of things to worry about, including the massive loss of jobs and killer robots.

But the best way to avoid such negative outcomes may be to ignore them, more or less.

That's the advice of Phil Libin, CEO of All Turtles, a startup that focuses on turning AI-related ideas into commercial products and companies. In a recent conversation with Business Insider, Libin likened the situation to some advice he received when he was learning to ride a motorcycle.

His instructor taught him that if an accident happened in front of him while he was riding on the highway, such as a semi truck flipping over, the worst thing to do would be to stare at the truck. Instead, his instructor said, he should focus on the point he needed to get to to avoid colliding with the truck.

"If you look at what you're trying to avoid, then you're going to run into it," said Libin, who previously founded Evernote. "You've got to look at where you want to be."

The tech industry would do well to follow that admonition when it comes to developing artificial intelligence, he said.

Years in the making, AI is starting to progress rapidly. It's being used by consumers in the form of intelligent assistants such as Amazon's Alexa to answer trivia questions and make purchases. And it's being used by corporations to help them make business decisions.

Many observers think the technology could transform society in profound ways, and not necessarily for the better.

Indeed, there are some potentially dangerous and dystopian outcomes and uses of AI. It's already starting to be used in China as part of a mass surveillance scheme. It could be used to track people basically from their birth on, collecting intimate insights into their every thought and desire. It could be used to perpetuate or worsen discrimination against particular people or groups. And it could be used to power terrifying new weapons.

Technologists and policy makers ought not ignore such potential uses of the technology, Libin said. They should be aware of them. But the best way to avoid them would be to concentrate on developing ways to use AI in socially beneficial ways, he said.

"There really is a flipped-over truck, and there's all sorts of bad things that can happen. And we definitely need to work towards not hitting it," Libin said. "But the best way to do that is to [say] … this is where we want to go. Here's a vision of certain products that are like obviously good, and virtuous, and the world needs them, and they solve real problems, and let's make those products."

Indeed, that's what he sees as a big part of All Turtles' mission. One of the first projects the company helped incubate is a chatbot called Spot that is designed to make it easier for employees to document and report incidents of sexual harassment and discrimination. Another is Disco, a plug-in for collaboration software Slack that helps employers give timely positive feedback to workers.

The projects All Turtles works on "is all stuff that we should be able to, right from beginning, right by design, feel good about," he said.

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Business Insider Intelligence

Voice assistants, including Amazon's Alexa, Google's Assistant, Apple's Siri, and Microsoft's Cortana, are pegged to trigger widespread transformation across the retail industry in the years to come.

Voice assistants offer an additional level of convenience and speed over other shopping channels, and these advantages are driving consumers to embrace the technology for their shopping needs. Today, 6% of US adults have engaged in some sort of voice shopping, according to Business Insider Intelligence estimates. By 2023, voice commerce adoption is expected to reach 49% of US adults.

As consumer interest for voice technology in retail mounts, brands that embrace voice throughout the entire customer journey stand to pull ahead of competition. Shoppers are interested in using voice assistants for everything from the original product search and discovery, to the purchasing phase, to the post-purchase stage, which includes customer service and checking delivery status. Retailers that take advantage of consumers' desire to leverage voice will be in a stronger position to heighten customer engagement, increase conversion times, drive sales, and boost operational efficiency.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines the trends driving the adoption of voice commerce, details the role of voice throughout the customer shopping journey, outlines how brands can benefit from implementing voice in their strategies, and explores what's ahead for the tech in retail.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

We are very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong, but, to be certain, we must execute really well tomorrow (Sunday). If we go all out tomorrow, we will achieve an epic victory beyond all expectations. Go Tesla!!! Thanks for all your hard work,

Elon

This comes just after Musk came to a $20 million settlement with the SEC, which filed a lawsuit against him on Thursday that alleged he tweeted false and misleading statements about Tesla.

The SEC accused Musk of knowingly spreading false information about Tesla to manipulate its stock price. In August Musk tweeted that he was taking Tesla private for $420 a share with "funding secured." He did not have funding secured, and Tesla announced there would be no deal a few weeks later.

As part of the settlement, Musk will have to step downs as Chairman of Tesla's board for at least three years, and there will be more oversight of his communication with investors, including how he uses Twitter.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the email.

Apple's all-glass iPhone designs are beautiful, but they can be very expensive to repair if you don't have AppleCare+.

Any new iPhone you buy, whether it's the new iPhone XS Max or the 2-year-old iPhone 7, comes with AppleCare, which includes complimentary phone support from Apple for the first 90 days, and a one-year limited warranty — but specifically against defects.

Notably, normal AppleCare doesn't cover accidental damage. This is only covered by Apple's premium insurance plan, AppleCare+, which anyone should purchase if they're buying the new iPhone XS or XS Max.

Breaking down the benefits of AppleCare+

AppleCare+ costs $300 to cover a new iPhone XS or XS Max, or $15 per month for 24 months. It's not cheap!

But, if you're already spending at least $1,000 on an iPhone XS, it's absolutely worth the purchase.

AppleCare+ basically extends AppleCare's warranty from one to two years, including the complimentary phone support from Apple. But it also adds coverage for accidental damage, either from drops or water. AppleCare+ will cover up to two "incidents," but if you have two incidents where part of your phone breaks, AppleCare+ pretty much pays for itself. AppleCare+ for the new iPhone XS models also covers theft and loss, something AppleCare+ didn't previously cover.

Check out this chart from Apple:

Apple

To break it down:

If you have AppleCare+, and you break your screen, you'll only be paying $29 to repair it.

If you don't have AppleCare+, and you break your screen, you'll be paying $279 if you have an iPhone XS, and $329 if you have the iPhone XS Max.

But that's just repairs for the screen! Check out this second chart from Apple, which shows the costs of "other repairs," including if you break the glass back of the phone:

Apple

To break it down:

If you have AppleCare+, and you break the back of your phone, you'll only be paying $99 to repair it.

If you don't have AppleCare+, and you break the back of your phone, you'll be paying $549 if you have an iPhone XS, and $599 if you have the iPhone XS Max.

So, let's say you buy an iPhone XS Max, and choose not to buy AppleCare+. If you have two incidents, where you break the front and back of your phone, you're paying $928 just to repair your phone! If you bought AppleCare+, the most you would have paid, in total, would be $527, which includes the $300 price of AppleCare+.

In other words, it pays to have insurance — even if you're extremely careful, you can't foresee certain circumstances, and you'll be glad you paid more money up front so you could save more money later on.

Getting insurance against your insurance

AppleCare+ is costly, but it's much more costly to deal with repairs, whether you have Apple's insurance plan or not.

AppleCare+ should be considered your last line of defense, so get some extra protection to ensure you don't have to pay for repairs at all. In other words, buy a phone case. Cases provide some protection for your screen, but more importantly, they protect the most fragile and most expensive parts of the iPhone XS and XS Max: their large glass backs.

My colleague Avery Hartmans rounded up the best iPhone X cases you can buy last year, and most of those should fit the new iPhone XS, but I would personally recommend you get a case from Apple (they make some very nice silicone and leather cases) or Society6, which has hundreds of thousands of different fun designs to choose from.

Did you spend over $1000 on a new iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max this weekend?

You might want to be careful, because despite Apple saying they use the "most durable glass ever in a smartphone," the new iPhones tend to break when dropped, according to new drop tests by SquareTrade, a device insurer.

The new iPhones, like last year's models, have a glass design — there's glass on the front, and a glass shell on the back to enable wireless charging. The glass is made by Corning, which Apple has invested in.

Turns out, in the four tests SquareTrade performed, including a test where the new phones took a spin in a tumbler, Apple's phones broke nearly every time they were subjected to stress.

Both the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max broke when dropped on their backs from 6 feet, and both phones failed when they were bent by a machine.

But when dropped face down, the iPhone XS Max proved to be more durable than its smaller sibling. While the screen shattered, the iPhone XS Max touchscreen was still usable. The smaller phone's screen did not work.

That's why SquareTrade gave the iPhone XS Max a better durability score of 70, or "medium risk," compared to the iPhone XS's score of 86, which the insurer considers "high risk."

Both improve on the now-discontinued iPhone X, which scored a 90 in last year's SquareTrade test and was called the "most breakable iPhone ever."

SquareTrade, owned by Allstate, uses these tests as a way to sell insurance plans for the new iPhone. If you don't have insurance or AppleCare, repairing the iPhone XS screen is $279, and any other damage — like a cracked back — costs $549.

A new screen for the iPhone XS Max is $329 and nearly $600 for other repairs.

Apple

But if you are more likely to drop your phone in your beer or other bodies of water than on concrete, you can rest easy. SquareTrade and repair advocate iFixit have both submerged the new phones in beer for hours — and they've survived.

The Airbus A320 is one of the most popular airliners in the world.

It's also Europe's answer to Boeing's stalwart 737, still the best selling airliner of all time. However, the A320 is quickly catching up.

Through the end of August, Boeing has sold a whopping 14,956 737s. The A320 and its derivatives are close behind with 14,281 orders. However, it should be noted that Boeing began selling the 737 nearly two decades before the A320's launch in 1984.

Since then, the European jetliner has actually outpaced the venerable Boeing in sales. From 1984 to the present, the A320 has outsold the 737 by 438 planes.

The A320's sales prowess is not the aircraft's only claim to fame. At the time of its debut, the narrow-body Airbus was also one of the most complex and innovative airliners ever attempted.

In an interview with Business Insider, Teal Group aviation industry analyst Richard Aboulafia called the A320 and its many technological innovations "Airbus's greatest contribution to commercial aviation."

The A320 helped push forward the adoption of fly-by-wire technology, side-stick controls, and cockpit commonality in commercial airliners.

Since its first flight in 1987, the A320 family has become a short and medium-haul workhorse for airlines around the world. With the introduction of the next generation A320neo and A321neo, the aircraft can now add trans-Atlantic long-haul to its long repertoire of capabilities.

The list prices for the A320 family of jets range from $77.4 million for the A318ceo to $129.5 million for the A321neo. The A320 lists for $101 million while the A320neo has a $110.6 million entry price.

Here's a look back at how the Airbus A320 came to become to the Boeing 737's greatest foe.

What do you do when one of the most mercurial CEOs ever to live calls your work "dog s--t"?

That's the conundrum Apple software engineer Ken Kocienda faced when he was helping develop the iPhone 4 during his 16 years at the trillion-dollar tech giant.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journa l, Kocienda recalled working on a new font to bring the best out of the iPhone 4's new retina display. He prepared eight different routes all based around the old iPhone Helvetica font, but there were problems with each, which made them look "smudgy rather than sharp."

Here's how Kocienda remembers Jobs reacting to options:

"Steve looked at each phone screen, pulled his round-rim glasses up so they rested on his forehead, stared again closely, then put his glasses back down and returned each phone to the table in front of him. Then he expressed himself. I was left wishing I had a plastic bag in my pocket to clean up my work."

Ken Kocienda. Ken Kocienda

Kocienda eventually found a solution using Helvetica Neue, which Jobs approved. But the former engineer said he learnt two valuable lessons from the experience:

Reflecting on Jobs' management style, Kocienda added: "Steve could be unpredictable and moody, and luckily, I was never on the receiving end of one of his full-on harangues.

"But let's be honest: Most of us swear. The key to making harsh words count is to have a trusting environment where everyone knows that comments are about your work and not about you."

One of Facebook's most senior executives spent Thursday watching Brett Kavanaugh's dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Joel Kaplan, vice president for US public policy at Facebook, sat prominently among the onlookers throughout Kavanaugh's testimony, as the judge sought to dispel accusations he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford.

New York Times reporter Mike Isaac was among those who spotted Kaplan, who was said to be there in a personal capacity and not on Facebook duty. He declined to comment when approached by Business Insider reporter Joe Perticone following the hearing.

The exact reason he was in the gallery is not clear, but the pair do have history. Kaplan served as deputy chief of staff for policy under President George W. Bush between 2006 and 2009.

He was in the front row when Kavanaugh was sworn in as judge to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in June 2016. Kaplan is sat second from the right in the Getty image embedded below.