"I think I am demonstrably not a risk taker," says David Rusenko, the CEO of the website-software company Weebly. "Anyone who has worked with me would back me up on that."

Rusenko, who sold his company to Square earlier this year for $365 million, says there's one enduring mythology about entrepreneurs that he'd like to set straight: Entrepreneurs, it's largely held, are risk-takers.

But according to Rusenko, this is a mischaracterization that's not only inaccurate, but damaging.

"Taking risks is important," Rusenko said, "but people's conception of entrepreneurship as this inappropriate, cavalier risk-taking is draining."

Rusenko cautions that entrepreneurs should take as few risks as possible. He speaks from experience — he's spent more than 10 years working on his San Francisco-based company, and along the way there's been plenty of ups and downs. For Rusenko, being a successful entrepreneur is less about hair-trigger decision-making and more about diligence, persistence, and patience.

"I take as few risks as possible," Rusenko said. "It's more about having conviction in what you're doing. It's about seeing a need in the marketing and going out and building it. People along the way will tell you that it won't work, that it won't be successful, that the market doesn't need this. If you have the evidence, you have to continue to believe in your company."

Entrepreneurs aren't so much risk-takers as they are eternal optimists, Rusenko said.

"Entrepreneurs don't see risks where other people see risks," he said. "They're optimists."

Of course, there's some risk-taking involved, but less than you might think. Appropriate risks are calculated risks, Rusenko says.

"The risks are principled," Rusenko said. "But it's more about the optimism to believe that what you're doing is going to work."

Amazon is strangely absent from the phone market. The company launched the Fire Phone back in 2014, which was generally considered a failure . Amazon gave up after it didn't sell well, and took a $170 million loss on unsold units.

It was a curious miss for Amazon, which usually dominates or massively disrupts every industry it turns its hand to: retail, cloud computing, and film and TV content, to name just a few.

But according to an investor note sent by Macquarie to clients on Friday, it's time for Amazon to give phones another shot for one important reason: Alexa.

Macquarie highlighted a brief statement given by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during earnings: "We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are."

The bank concluded: "We suspect, though this is admittedly speculation, that [Amazon] will have to re-enter the phone market either directly or indirectly in order to drive Alexa adoption ... It is hard to see how they don't do this given the view that Alexa could be a new pillar."

Amazon arguably got into mobile too late the first time round, trying to make a dent in a market already sewn up by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. But in spite of that absence from mobile, Amazon has also found itself in a strong position in voice. Apple's Siri and the Google Assistant lead thanks to their ubiquitous presence on phones. But Alexa is third, solely because Amazon's smart Echo speakers are so popular.

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

If it's going to maintain its position, or even overtake its rivals, it'll have to be on the device that everyone carries on them all the time.

As Macquarie concluded: "We don't see how Alexa can evolve to its fullest potential without being available prominently on the main device that so many people carry everywhere, the smartphone."

Macquarie suggested that Amazon could either make its own phones, or partner up with manufacturers.

As it stands, Alexa isn't the primary voice assistant on any phone. Siri is native to the iPhone, while Android phones either feature the Google Assistant or smart assistants created by device makers, such as Samsung's Bixby. Like any other assistant, Alexa gets better the more users interact with it. When it's limited to smart speakers, it's blind to what users are up to day to day.

Being successful in the digital age doesn't just require knowing the latest buzzwords; it means identifying the transformational trends - and where they're heading - before they ever heat up.

BI Intelligence Take the Internet of Things (IoT), for example, which now receives not only daily tech news coverage with each new device launch, but also hefty investments from global organizations ushering in worldwide adoption. By 2023, consumers, companies, and governments will install more than 40 billion IoT devices globally. And it's not just the ones you hear about all the time, like smart speakers and connected cars.

To successfully navigate this changing landscape, individuals and organizations must understand the full extent and functionality of the "Things" included in this network, the key drivers of each market segment, and how it all relates to the work they do every day.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has forecasted the start of the IoT's global proliferation in The IoT Forecast Book 2018 — and the next five years will be transformational for consumers, enterprises, and governments.

Want to Learn More?

People, companies, and organizations all over the world are racing to adopt the latest IoT solutions and prevent growing pains amidst a technological transformation. The IoT Forecast Book 2018 from Business Insider Intelligence is a detailed three-part slide deck outlining the most important trends impacting consumer, enterprise, and government IoT — and the key drivers propelling each segment forward.

Representing thousands of hours of exhaustive research, our multipart forecast books are considered must-reads by thousands of highly successful business professionals. These informative slide decks are packed with charts and statistics outlining the most influential trends on the leading edge of your industry. Keep them for reference or drop the most valuable data into your own presentations to share with your teams.

Whether you're newly interested in a topic or you already consider yourself a subject matter expert, The IoT Forecast Book 2018 can provide you with the actionable insights you need to make better decisions.

San Francisco's real estate market is rife with peculiar home listings. Some homes had their interiors ravaged by fires and still sold for $2 million. Some sell for $1.6 million over the asking price.

Now, these San Francisco apartments are attracting attention — and ridicule — because they have structural support beams running straight through their kitchens.

The apartments are located at 1488 Harrison St, in the city's lower SoMa neighborhood. By looking through listings on Redfin, we found at least four units in the building where structural support beams run diagonally through the space.

That obviously didn't affect sales, though, since the units are all sold and occupied. Their owners shelled out about $1 million for each, records show. In the apartment sold most recently, in June, the unexpected beam runs from the bottom of an overhead kitchen cabinet to the middle of the kitchen floor.

On Twitter, FOO VR chief executive Will Smith claims that he is a previous occupant of one of these units, and that the beam in the kitchen is indeed a constant source of pain and frustration.

The kitchen in a unit two floors down is also interrupted by a beam. Developers were a little more creative with how they incorporated it into the floor plan.

A unit on the second floor is in the same boat, and two more in the complex also sport an out-of-place slanted beam — only they're positioned a bit more conveniently, parallel to a wall.

Twitter users had some fun speculating on the beam's puprose: Some hoped it had a whimsical purpose, like a cat tunnel that the owners' pets could shimmy through for fun. The real reason, however, is less outlandish.

Strange structural circumstances like these aren't uncommon in San Francisco, when converting old industrial buildings into lofts. Developers need to comply with building codes that require adjustments to be made when converting old factories into living quarters. This Reddit thread provides good context.

Those adjustments can include extra beams for structural support. Furthermore, they were most likely installed before these specific floor plans were designed, making the kitchen situation an unfortunate side effect.

Nevertheless, San Franciscans can't always afford to be too picky with where they sign a lease. The city's housing market is so competitive that a random beam running through your kitchen might not seem so bad.

One of the paradoxes of being so close to the Tour and following the peloton, say, in the convoy, is you don't see much of the actual racing, save for rare glances. It's all happening way up the road. You do see plenty of the riders before and after the stages, but little of them during. You're left to the screens in the car and the hopefully benevolent gods of connectivity.

Cruising in the convoy has its own rewards. You get to see the riders, many of whom are the best in the sport, dropping back to take care of any number of things, including refueling and getting their bikes fixed. It's a perspective you don't see the same way on TV. If there's a lull in the racing, the riders might hang at your window for a quick word or to crack a joke.

And then there is that rather thrilling moment when you do get up close to the bunch as it rolls along at 40 mph. And, if you're lucky, some of the riders will break away, or a crosswind will cause a split in the field. Then the heat is on, and you can watch it all unfold, even if you're straining a bit to see.

Above, the closest I got to seeing the Tour de France peloton from the team car.

Some reservation-holders for Jaguar's electric I-Pace SUV have been told their delivery dates will be delayed by three to four months, Electrek first reported.

The publication said Jaguar dealerships are telling customers that manufacturing difficulties are responsible for the delay.

A Jaguar representative told Business Insider some deliveries were being delayed because of "exceptional global demand," but did not comment on the average length of the delays. The representative said the company planned to begin deliveries late in the summer.

"Delivery timelines for certain customers have been affected by prioritization of market specific orders to best meet the exceptional demand of these vehicles," the representative said.

According to Electrek, all of the delayed orders it had seen were for the standard version of the vehicle, rather than the premium version.

Jaguar did not comment on whether customers for the premium version of the I-Pace were being prioritized over customers for the standard version.

The I-Pace is Jaguar's first fully-electric vehicle and will compete against Tesla 's Model X SUV. The I-Pace has a 240-mile range, 394 horsepower, 512 pound-feet of torque, and the ability to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds. The Model X has a range between 237-289 miles and a 0-60 time between 2.9-4.9 seconds, depending on the trim. The I-Pace starts at $70,495, while the Model X starts at $86,300.

The I-Pace has received positive reviews so far. Business Insider has not given the vehicle a full review yet, but in his brief time with the I-Pace, transportation reporter Benjamin Zhang said it was fast and agile, though "smaller" and "less powerful" than the Model X.

"I can see the I-PACE as a complement to the Model X. In fact, I can see the Jag as a viable option for electric SUV shoppers who aren't bowled over by the Tesla's six-figure price tag, crazy doors, and supercar-shaming acceleration," he wrote .

In March, Waymo announced a partnership with Jaguar to include the I-Pace in its fleet of self-driving vehicles for its upcoming autonomous ride-hailing service.

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 .

Business Insider Intelligence

The healthcare industry is undergoing a profound transformation. Costs are skyrocketing, consumer demand for more accessible care is growing rapidly, and healthcare companies are unable to keep up.

Health organizations are increasingly turning to tech companies to facilitate this transformation in care delivery and lower health expenditures. The potential for tech-led digital health initiatives to help healthcare providers and insurers deliver safer, more efficient, and cost-effective care is significant. For healthcare organizations of all types, the collection, analyses, and application of patient data can minimize avoidable service use, improve health outcomes, and promote patient independence, which can assuage swelling costs.

For their part, the "Big Four" tech companies — Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft — see an opportunity to tap into the lucrative health market. These same players are accelerating their efforts to reshape healthcare by developing and collaborating on new tools for consumers, medical professionals, and insurers.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence explores the key strengths and offerings the Big Four will bring to the healthcare industry, as well as their approaches into the market. We'll then explore how these services and solutions are creating opportunities for health systems and insurers. Finally, the report will outline the barriers that are inhibiting the adoption and usage of the Big Four tech companies' offerings and how these barriers can be circumvented.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

Carrie Fisher is officially returning to the "Star Wars" universe.

The actress behind Leia Organa passed away in 2016, but Lucasfilm confirmed on Friday that she will appear in next year's "Star Wars: Episode IX" through unseen footage filmed for 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

The film's director, J.J. Abrams, said that recasting the character or using CGI was never an option.

"We desperately loved Carrie Fisher," said director J.J. Abrams. "Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie's legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII."

Organa survived in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," leaving her fate up in the air for the film's sequel after Fisher's passing.

Lucasfilm also said that Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill is returning for "Episode IX." Skywalker died at the end of "The Last Jedi."

"Star Wars: Episode IX" comes to theaters December 20, 2019.

Hylton Socher, the chief technology and information officer of Fortress Investment Group, the $41 billion hedge fund, is leaving the fund to start his own venture, Business Insider has learned.

Socher, whose career at Fortress spans a decade, fell down the rabbit hole of big data and other new-wave technologies sweeping Wall Street, he said in an interview.

LinkedIn Socher's firm, which he expects to be up-and-running by the first quarter of 2019, will focus on algorithmic trading leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning. He's calling it VaraQuest, which stands for valuable relationship awareness.

"I will be looking to take huge amounts of data, and connecting them, and then squeeze alpha out of that," Socher said. "The example everyone knows: watching the traffic in the Walmart parking lot to see where the stock will go ... you want to look at those non-obvious connections."

He's now in the early stages of getting the firm off the ground, he said, without giving specifics about the size or structure of the fund.

Socher, who joined Fortress in March 2008, previously served as chief information officer of trading firm Susquehanna International Group.

Socher's fund would join a string of other high profile hedge fund launches this year, including those from billionaire Steve Cohen , ex-Millennium head Mike Gelband and former Viking Global chief investment officer Dan Sundheim .

See also:

Facebook employees have been venting their worry and frustration after the company's stock fell off a cliff — and some are pointing the finger at their coworkers.

After Facebook announced financial results for the second quarter of 2018 that failed to meet Wall Street's expectations, its share price dropped by around 20%. Many employees of the California social network, who are partially paid in stock, took to anonymous social network Blind to vent .

One theme that came up is that some felt the quality of Facebook's hires had slipped, contributing to the problem the company faced.

One Facebook employee criticised their employer for hiring at an "ungodly" pace, and suggested that some of the new hires were "bleh."

Blind requires users to sign up with their company email address to verify they work there, but beyond that, they remain anonymous. Users can create and reply to threads in various public forums and exclusive employee-only forums for particular companies.

Facebook declined to comment on the Blind posts.

'We are hiring at an ungodly pace'

The anonymous Facebook employee wrote: "Problem: We are hiring at an ungodly pace. With operating margin under 40% it only makes sense to slow down hiring, plus the quality of a lot of the new hires is bleh."

"Quantity doesn't equal quality and the talent pool is tapped out. Earnings are tanking because we are hiring people we don't even need. This is the problem and I don't know why others aren't really talking about it. It's frustrating.

They added: "Solution: 1.) Slow down hiring completely. 2.) Stop hiring people we do not need."

Facebook's headcount increased 47% year-on-year, according to its earnings report, to 30,275 as of June 30, 2018, and has previously said it is hiring rapidly in safety and security. The 30,000 number refers only to full-time Facebook employees, a spokesperson said, and the new safety hires include both contractors and Facebook employees.

Several other Facebookers chimed in in agreement. "^ THIS!" one replied. "Overhiring is definitely [an] issue," another added.

A third cited Facebook's recent closure of three small apps due to low usage as a step in the right direction. "Some of the dead wood is in the process of being removed: tbh, Hello, and Moves. Maybe that will help a tiny bit," they wrote.

And another questioned Mark Zuckerberg's recent sale of stock, insinuating something suspicious was going on. "Didn't Zuck dump a bunch of the stop a few days before the announcement? Convenient timing! lol." (In reality, Zuckerberg — like many other executives — has established automatic stock-sale programs in place, to avoid any appearance of insider trading.)

Just because employees are angry, doesn't mean they're right

Facebook's stock dropped after the company warned that its future revenue growth and profits would fall well short of what investors were expecting, and the company saw more than $100 billion in market value knocked off overnight — the largest single-company wipe-out in US history.

Facebook has said it is focusing on the long-term success of the company, and cited increased investment in security, a switch to less-monetized new formats, and currency headwinds as among the reasons for the disappointing results.

It's also worth noting that even with the 20% plunge in Facebook's share price, the stock is still trading at the level it was a few months ago. Even so, some Facebook employees are clearly rushing to blame those who they believe to be responsible.

But another Blind user, identified as working for environmentally-focused finance firm Renew Finance, urged caution against taking employees' diagnoses of their company's ills as gospel.

"Hilarious to come on blind and watch overpaid tech geniuses get confused on how stocks work, how FB makes money, and more generally how all of finance works," they wrote. "Also for future reference employees of a company very rarely have a clue why stocks move."

You might have thought from the tone of the coverage following Facebook's earnings report Wednesday that the company was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The results were repeatedly dubbed "disastrous" by reporters and analysts alike. The company was called " friendless " in headlines. And following the report , investors dumped the stock like it was like it was so much rancid meat, leading to a $120 billion decline in Facebook's market valuation, the biggest one-day drop ever.

But here's the thing: For all the furor, Facebook is doing just fine.

Yes, the company's second-quarter results were somewhat disappointing. Yes, it warned that in coming periods its sales will grow slower and its expenses faster than Wall Street was expecting. Yes, the company's user growth is flatlining in the United States and falling a bit in Europe.

But Facebook is still growing rapidly. It's enormously profitable. It's still adding users in many places around the world.

And more importantly, the two big reasons its outlook for coming quarters was so disappointing are that it's spending money to address some of its recent high-profile problems and is investing in its future.

This is a correction, not a sign of disaster

Instead of seeing Thursday's sell-off as some sign of impending doom for Facebook, it could be viewed as a simple correction, one that happens all the time for stocks that get ahead of themselves.

In fact, that's just how Henry Blodget, our CEO, saw it:

Facebook's shares had been on a tear since March, when they plunged during the Cambridge Analytica scandal . After it became apparent that that fiasco wasn't going to ruin the social network, investors piled back into the stock.

From March 27 — when they hit their lowest point in the last year — through Wednesday, Facebook's shares rose a robust 43%. At the close of trading, Facebook was valued at 36 times its trailing-twelve months earnings, through its first-quarter results. That's a pretty pricey premium for a company the size of Facebook.

It wouldn't be surprising then that investors might want to take some profits off the table, especially when the company warned that its results won't be as good going forward. But it's not like they're abandoning the stock completely. Even with their 20% decline on Thursday, Facebook's shares were still up 6% over the last year and nearly 16% from their March nadir.

That's not a stellar return, but it's not terrible. You can bet investors in Helios and Matheson, the parent company of the money torching movie ticket subscription services MoviePass, would kill for that kind of return. Helios and Matheson's shares were down more than 60% on Friday alone . And that drop came on top of a worse-than-50% decline earlier in the week.

Many companies would love to be in Facebook's position

Likewise, for all the uproar about Facebook's results and its reduced outlook, many companies and their shareholders would be ecstatic to have Facebook's problems.

After all, revenue at the social-networking giant grew 42% in the second quarter, and the company expects it to grow at a rate north of 30% going forward. While it expects its operating margin to fall in coming quarters, the forecast decline is from a phenomenal 44% in the just-completed period to a still extremely health rate above 30% in the future. And while its user growth is slowing, its core service still grew its monthly active user count by nearly 2% from the first quarter and 11% from the year-earlier period.

If a company that just posted a $5.1 billion quarterly profit, has $42 billion in cash and investments on hand, has a total user count equivalent to a third of the world's population, and is still growing like a weed is in trouble, we've all got problems.

And while investors freaked out about the reduced expectations, there's reason to think they'll appreciate the causes of them later on. Facebook's image has been battered by a series of scandals, from the Russian-linked groups hijacking its services to spread propaganda during the 2016 election to the hateful message that spurred violence in Myanmar against its Rohingya minority to the illegitimate acquisition of the data of millions of users by Cambridge Analytica. It's facing growing calls by policymakers to rein in its service with new regulations.

Facebook is investing for the future

Since last fall, the company has been working to revamp its services to try to address these problems, prevent future scandals, and potentially head off regulations. It's invested it artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to try to identify hate speech and other abusive posts. It's created a new advertising system that allows all users to see what ads are being run on its site. And it's in the process of hiring thousands of people to better screen content posted on its services.

We can argue whether it's doing enough, but from here, the investments look like smart ones to make, particularly if they allow the company to avoid new laws which could potentially crimp its profits even more.

But, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg made clear on a conference call with analysts , Facebook is also investing in the future. It's developing new products. It's also shifting away from the News Feed toward Stories, a new format that's proven popular with particularly with younger users that combines pictures and text into transitory packages. Again, that looks like a good move. Facebook is trying to stay relevant and ensure future success, even if it means a short-term hit to profits.

So don't get caught up in the hype. Facebook isn't going out of business. It's not even doing poorly. In fact, it's doing rather well. And, I know, a headline that reads "Facebook is still in good shape" isn't as exciting as "Facebook is doomed." But it has the benefit of being the truth.

Trouble continues to brew for Salesforce over the company's contract with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which came under scrutiny last month as Americans grappled with a Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

The latest act of protest comes from the San Francisco coffee company Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters , which turned down a $40,000 contract with Salesforce in protest of its work with the agency, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"This is the first time we've turned down a contract for ethical reasons, or to make a statement," Wrecking Ball owner Nick Cho told Business Insider in an email. "With the actions this administration is taking at the border, this was the first time that we were faced with a decision quite like this."

Cho and his co-owner Trish Rothgeb told the Chronicle that they were initially eager to serve coffee to the 170,000-plus attendees expected at Salesforce's annual user event Dreamforce, which will take place the last week of September.

But Cho, who immigrated to the US as a toddler, and Rothgeb, whose father is an immigrant, said they decided not to work with Salesforce following news that the non-profit Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service (RAICES) rejected a $250,000 donation from the company in protest of its work with the government agency.

Salesforce, which sells customer relationship management software to companies and government entities, has declined to cancel its CBP contract. The company announced its contract publicly in March, though it garnered public awareness until June, when 650 Salesforce employees sent a letter to CEO Marc Benioff criticizing the company's work with CBP.