Tired businessman sleeping while working with laptop and writing book at work in modern office, people dozing on workplace. Sutterstock / Freedomz

Employee burnout and stress is a big problem in the average American workplace, but it's especially true among some of the country's biggest tech companies, many of which have famously rigorous workplace cultures that often encourage long hours, favor young people, and sometimes require unreasonably high levels of productivity.

Blind, a message board app created for employees to talk about work anonymously, surveyed more than 11,000 employees at 30 of the biggest tech companies to find out just how many of them feel burnt out by their work.

Users were asked the simple question, "Are you currently suffering from job burnout?" and could only answer with either "Yes" or "No," according to a Blind spokesperson.

Blind's findings show that overall, more than half (57.16%, to be exact) of tech employees surveyed said they were feeling burnt out by their jobs.

Each participant's employment status is self-reported, and while the results do not include the opinions of every employee at each of the companies listed, they give us an inside look at the workplace cultures experienced by those who did respond to the survey.

Here's how each of the biggest tech companies stack up, based on their respective levels of employee burnout:

When iOS 12 comes to iPhones everywhere later this year, Apple's very popular $159 AirPods will get Live Listen, a nifty feature that makes it easier to hear conversations in noisy places.

The addition of Live Listen to the AirPods was first reported by TechCrunch earlier on Tuesday. Live Listen has been around since 2014, but only on select Apple-certified hearing aids.

Essentially, Live Listen turns your iPhone into a microphone: If you're in a crowded bar, point your iPhone's microphones at the person across the table from you, or even slide it over, and you'll hear what they have to say in your hearing aid — or, soon, your Apple AirPods.

The AirPods, which have been hailed as one of Apple's greatest inventions in recent memory, will expand the reach of Live Listen, and let far more people take advantage of a potentially very handy feature. That said, people with hearing loss should still get an actual medical device, and not rely on a pair of consumer earbuds like the AirPods.

The really exciting part is when you look at what this could mean for the future of the AirPods, and for Apple itself.

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When Apple first launched the AirPods back in 2016, Slate's Will Oremus referred to them as "Apple's first ear computer."

Apple's Live Listen feature, as it exists today. Apple Indeed, the sky seemed to be the limit. Because AirPods give users one-touch access to the Siri virtual assistant, and because they linked up with the iPhone's tremendous galaxy of apps, pundits were hopeful that the AirPods could enable all kinds of superpowers beyond what any other headphones could do. Almost two years later, though, those superpowers have yet to manifest, and the AirPods are still best suited for music and maybe phone calls.

Still, we've gotten a glimpse of what the future could look like, thanks to some of Apple's competitors. Doppler Labs, a startup, released the Here One, a pair of earbuds that could increase the bass at a concert to quiet the sounds of a crying baby. Google, for its part, recently launched the Pixel Buds, which feature real-time language translation.

Those products may have been too far ahead of the curve: Doppler Labs went out of business in 2017, after its cool technologies couldn't overcome the inherent challenges of the hardware market. And the Google Pixel Buds received lukewarm reviews, and they haven't become nearly as ubiquitous among gadgetheads as the Apple AirPods.

So it's no wonder that Apple, which famously prefers being right to being first, has been slow to push nontraditional uses of the AirPods. With the addition of Live Listen, though, it means that Apple is still right on track to bring so-called audible computing to the masses, even if it's happening slower than some would like.

Once it gets going, though, things are going to get wild. It's not hard to imagine how Apple's App Store would get apps specifically for the AirPods — language translation is an obvious one, but what about putting Apple's Shazam acquisition to work by automatically cataloging every song you hear in a day? Or prank apps that make it sound like your boss has inhaled helium during your big weekly meeting?

So yes, Live Listen is one little feature, but it's one that points to a bold new future for Apple, where your headphones actually help you do things you couldn't before. You may just have to wait a little while for it to fully come to pass.

A new policy at Uber enacted by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has some employees at the $62 billion ride-hailing startup bewildered by what they're hearing in meetings.

In a May 15 memo obtained by Business Insider, Khosrowshahi described a new company policy designed to eliminate "bureaucracy creep" at the growing company.

"While our scale and scope are unrivaled, they come at a potential cost: increased bureaucracy, slower decision making, less accountability, and too many people in too many meetings where it's unclear who the decision makers are," Khosrowshahi wrote in the memo.

For that reason, Khosrowshahi tells employees how they should assert control in meetings.

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"You may hear me say in meetings '[insert name] has the D here.' This is about being clear on who is the decision maker; I'd encourage you to do the same," Khosrowshahi wrote.

'The D' doesn't only mean what he thinks it does

The idea behind this new policy to is to be clear about whose opinions matter most in meetings where there are a lot of different teams and leaders participating in a conversation. To Khosrowshahi, "D" most likely stands for "decision-making authority."

But to younger employees and those familiar with slang, the phrase sounds like "getting the D," which means having sex.

A comprehensive history of this phrase can be found on Know Your Meme. The site traces it back to the 2004 single "So Sexy" by Twista and a viral meme known as "Give Her the Dick," which started with an awkwardly phrased comment on PornHub.

To be fair, wielding one's "D" in meetings is not a Khosrowshahi invention. A 2006 article in the Harvard Business Review titled "Who Has the D?: How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance" explains the merits of the managerial strategy.

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That article was written by Paul Rogers and Marcia Blenko, partners at Bain & Company, a consulting firm that Uber recently hired to work with it on its organizational management, the memo says.

But language and slang are ever evolving, and in the 12 years since the article appeared, the phrase has taken on a new meaning. The lewd usage gained steam online in 2012, according to Know Your Meme.

Khosrowshahi, 49, was unfamiliar with just how sexual this phrase sounds to an entire generation of employees, according to Uber.

"As you may have read, Uber is now run by your dad— so, no, that interpretation was lost on him, but he appreciates Business Insider pointing it out," a spokesman for Uber said.

It's an example of a generational disconnect, but Uber has a history of frat-like memos

"The D" may be little more than an example of a disconnect between different generations in the workplace, but the optics aren't ideal, given Uber's history of inappropriate behavior from the top.

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Khosrowshahi joined Uber in August as part of the board's efforts to clean up a frat-like culture that was said to have emanated from its founding CEO, Travis Kalanick.

Last summer, amid an epic battle between Kalanick and his opponents on the board, Recode obtained an internal email from 2013 in which Kalanick warned employees not to barf or throw any kegs off buildings during a company party in Miami.

"Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic 'YES! I will have sex with you' AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML," Kalanick's email said.

Khosrowshahi, who joined Uber from a successful tenure as CEO at Expedia, has spent the past 10 months righting the course at the dysfunctional unicorn. He spent the first few months traveling the world to meet with regulators, business partners, and employees in an effort to restore the company's image.

Khosrowshahi's mission has also been cutting costs at the company to get its finances in order for an initial public offering next year. So far it's working, since, at the end of the day, it's Khosrowshahi who has "the D."

Cryptocurrencies are viewed by many of their evangelists as one of the most groundbreaking financial innovations of the modern age. But the way crypto trades looks like something out of an old-school Wall Street flick.

For the most part, trading firms are making multimillion-dollar crypto trades over the phone, not electronically. DRW's crypto arm, Cumberland, uses Skype calls to conduct its bitcoin dealmaking, Reuters reported.

But Jump Trading, the Chicago-based firm, has built a platform that will allow it to take the other side of large crypto trades electronically with its counterparties, according to people familiar with the matter. The so-called graphical user interface allows those counterparties to interact with Jump on a desktop. It does not allow users to connect to external trading exchanges.

Jump is known for its ultra-high-speed trading strategies, but it has also been developing what it calls a "lower frequency trading strategy." It's also known for its discretion, with little information on the firm available on its website.

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The new platform shows that Jump is taking the new market for cryptocurrencies seriously, according to a person familiar with the firm's thinking. Also, the firm believes that voice and chatroom environments don't leave a clear audit trail, the person said.

Jump Capital, the venture-capital firm affiliated with Jump Trading, has made crypto a focus for 2018, as previously reported by Business Insider.

"GUIs are not unique," Michael Dunworth, the CEO of Wyre, a blockchain tech company, told Business Insider. "But it is impressive that Jump built it."

The move shows the cryptocurrency market is maturing in a similar way to the now multitrillion-dollar foreign-exchange market, which in its earliest days saw trades conducted mostly over the phone, says John Spallanzani, a former FX trader at Sumitomo Mitsui who is now a portfolio manager at Miller Value Partners.

"We used to call 20 banks at once for spot FX prices," Spallanzani said of forex trading in the 1990s.

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"It's without a doubt maturing just by the fact that there's so many OTC desks out in the mix," Dunworth added.

The crypto exchange Kraken set up an OTC desk in New York, Business Insider first reported. There's also Genesis Global Trading and itBit, the OTC run by Paxos.

At the same time, crypto-focused investment funds are opening up at a record pace, according to new research by Crypto Fund Research. Sixty-one new funds have launched in 2018, according to the firm's research, bringing the total number above 366 globally. Such funds together manage only a paltry $5 billion, however, a fraction of the $3.2 trillion managed by the hedge fund industry.

Apple is expected to come out with new iPhones this September, but a notorious leaker says he has spoiled some of the surprise by publishing digital drawings of the rumored low-priced iPhone.

A well-known leaker, known as OnLeaks, along with MySmartPrice, have published computer-generated renders of what he says is one of the new models: a lower-cost iPhone X-style device with a screen that covers the entire device except for a notch at the top

Former KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has written about this device. He predicted it could cost as little as $550, which could entice buyers who found the $999 iPhone X to be too expensive.

OnLeaks/YouTubeIt's a critical device for Apple — Kuo predicted it could account for as many of 75% of the iPhones sold after September, given its low price. Apple could save money by using an LCD screen instead of the nicer OLED screen on the iPhone X.

In the renders shared by OnLeaks, the device has a notch — presumably for facial recognition — along with a 6.1-inch display, a glass back, and a single camera lens, as opposed to the two-lens camera on the iPhone X.

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Apple is also expected to release a phone with the iPhone X design but faster components, as well as a super-sized iPhone X.

OnLeaks is a well-known leaker who often publishes CAD schematics from Asian factories. His track record is excellent, but considering that these renders are describing an unreleased Apple product, it's probably smart to take them with a grain of salt.

"As I often say, the leaking game isn't an exact science. There is no flawless leaker and even the best fail sometimes," OnLeaks told Business Insider in 2016.

More information about the leak is available at MySmartPrice.

SAN JOSE, California — Apple built its reputation on two pieces of software: the iPhone's iOS operating system and the MacOS operating system used by Apple's laptops and desktops.

But on Monday during a presentation at its developers conference, Apple had to address persisting questions about whether it planned to combine the two.

"Are you merging iOS and MacOS?" a slide asked. "No," came the emphatic answer in the next slide.

Apple's top software boss, Craig Federighi, then spent the next portion of the keynote talking about how Apple planned to combine iOS and MacOS.

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The way Apple has decided to link its two big platforms is by bringing some of the best parts of the bigger, more vibrant platform — the iPhone — to its older, stodgier sibling, the Mac.

"There are millions of iOS apps out there," Federighi said. "We think some of them would look great on the Mac."

Details are light, but starting next year it will apparently be possible for iOS developers to port their apps to Macs without rewriting them. Basically, Apple is looking to make it easy to change the user interface from touch, like the iPhone, to a keyboard-and-trackpad approach.

Kif Leswing Apple even revealed four new desktop apps that were ported from iPhones and iPads: Apple News, Apple Home, Voice Memos, and Stocks.

Unfortunately for Apple, this is not going to stem the worry of many Mac devotees that the company has put its oldest product line on the back burner.

It's basic math: During the quarter that ended in March, the most recent quarter for which statistics are available, Apple sold over 12 times as many iPhones as it did Mac computers. Apple sold over 52 million iPhones, compared with 4.2 million Mac laptops and desktops.

Especially considering the total number of Mac users is a fraction of the number of iPhone and iPad users, companies aren't likely to spend a lot of time dialing in their iPhone apps for a smaller audience.

From Apple's perspective, the move can help revive a moribund Mac App Store by injecting some of the life from the bustling iPhone App Store, with 20 million registered developers and billions of dollars flowing through it each year. That's also why Apple gave its Mac App Store a facelift on Monday, with additional curation and a new design.

But it's also hard to imagine the kind of iPhone apps that would work well on a laptop. Many apps, like WhatsApp or Pocket, already have web-based versions. Some apps, like Lyft or Uber, may represent a poor experience without the GPS built into smartphones. One developer who maintains four commercial iPhone apps such as TapeACall told me on Tuesday he couldn't imagine any of his apps being ported to Mac, because they do such limited and specific tasks.

In fact, the announcement may have some unexpected effects going forward. "Why would any Mac developer start a new app before next year?" a Mac developer remarked while leaving Monday's presentation.

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Basically, rather than revitalizing the Mac software world, Apple's announcement on Monday permanently confirms that it's a second-class citizen with iPhone and iPad apps. It sends a huge signal to the software-development world that the best software is being developed for iPhones and that Macs are an afterthought.

At the beginning of Apple's presentation on Monday, CEO Tim Cook said the company had paid $100 billion to developers since the start of the iPhone App Store in 2008. That's where the money is, and that's where Apple will push its army of software makers.

"This implies that developers will earn about $32B this year, a number that we believe is big enough to continue to entice world-class developers to continue to code on iOS and macOS," the Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note on Monday.

Notice which platform he mentioned first.

Chart: Crunchbase