According to a report by TechNavio published last year, the global business accounting software market is estimated to grow at CAGR of 6% to reach $4.1 billion by the year 2021. Blackline (Nasdaq:...
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May 9, 2018
Iâve been friends with Alex Iskold for over a dozen years (I was an angel investor in GetGlue, which USV funded.)
Alex has been the Managing Director of Techstars NY for a number of years and I think heâs now run seven programs and built an impressive portfolio of around 80 companies.
Iâm a huge Alex fan and love his writing. Recently, he put together a bunch of great blog posts on his site under a heading Startup Hacks. He has divided them into the following topics: Fundraising, Managing Investors, VC and Business Intros, Metrics and KPIs, Product and Marketing, Productivity, Founding Team, and Accelerator.
Iâve read them all. Some of my favorites include:
Alex â thanks for taking the time to write all of these! And, if you are a regular reader of this blog, I encourage you to go read all of Alexâs posts.
Also published on Medium.
Targetprocess launched in 2004 in Minsk, Belarus with a mission of making it simpler to manage agile-driven programming projects. It announced it has taken its first funding in its 14-year history, a $5 million Series A led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Zubr Capital, a private equity firm in Minsk.
Why take money after all these years? It’s a long journey from 2004 to now, but Andrey Mihailenko, co-founder of Targetprocess, says the time is simply right to take on more money to expand its market vision. “The goal of taking on this funding is to get bigger. We see the opportunity right now because more companies understand the value of agile to provide faster response to change agents and quicker delivery,” he said.
He said the founders often debated over the years when to take on external investment, but decided to wait until they felt it was the right time to expand. “We delayed because venture capital is not just about money, but giving up some control and having someone else influence some of the decisions. We wanted our vision fulfilled and now seems like a perfect time because agile is [moving beyond] IT into other parts of the organization,” Mihailenko explained.
[gallery ids="1636561,1636562,1636563"]Like many startups, this one was born out of necessity when one of Mihailenko’s co-founders became fascinated with the agile programming methodology. When he couldn’t find tools to adequately manage the process, he decided to build them, and from that early work Targetprocess was born.
Today, he says his company focuses on agile teams of all sizes as the agile concept has become popularized over time and mainstreamed as an accepted practice. “Our focus is on providing a platform to enable agile teams to visualize the workflow, how they work and making sure their priorities align and that they work in an agile way,” Mihailenko said.
Their persistence appears to have paid off. From the five co-founders, they have grown to 115 employees with over 1000 clients worldwide, according to Mihailenko.The development team remains in Minsk, but they have small offices in Buffalo, NY, London and Berlin.
They plan to use the money to push into new markets by hiring new sales and marketing professionals, who can help them expand and grow. They also intend to enhance the R&D team in Minsk and expect to reach 160 employees in the next 12-18 months.
The uncertainty facing digital businesses as a result of Brexit was front and center during a committee session in the UK parliament today, with experts including the UK’s information commissioner responding to MPs’ questions about how and even whether data will continue to flow between the UK and the European Union once the country has departed the bloc — in just under a year’s time, per the current schedule.
The risks for UK startups vs tech giants were also flagged, with concerns voiced that larger businesses are better placed to weather Brexit-based uncertainty thanks to greater resources at their disposal to plug data transfer gaps resulting from the political upheaval.
Information commissioner Elizabeth Denham emphasized the overriding importance of the UK data protection bill being passed. Though that’s really just the baby step where the Brexit negotiations are concerned.
Parliamentarians have another vote on the bill this afternoon, during its third reading, and the legislative timetable is tight, given that the pan-EU General Data Protection Act (GDPR) takes direct effect on May 25 — and many provisions in the UK bill are intended to bring domestic law into line with that regulation, and complete implementation ahead of the EU deadline.
Despite the UK referendum vote to pull the country out of the EU, the government has committed to complying with GDPR — which ministers hope will lay a strong foundation for it to secure a future agreement with the EU that allows data to continue flowing, as is critical for business. Although what exactly that future data regime might be remains to be seen — and various scenarios were discussed during today’s hearing — hence there’s further operational uncertainty for businesses in the years ahead.
“Getting the data policy right is of critical importance both on the commercial side but also on the security and law enforcement side,” said Denham. “We need data to continue to flow and if we’re not part of the unified framework in the EU then we have to make sure that we’re focused and we’re robust about putting in place measures to ensure that data continues to flow appropriately, that it’s safeguarded and also that there is business certainty in advance of our exit from the EU.
“Data underpins everything that we do and it’s critically important.”
Another witness to the committee, James Mullock, a partner at law firm Bird & Bird, warned that the Brexit-shaped threat to UK-EU data flows could result in a situation akin to what happened after the long-standing Safe Harbor arrangement between the EU and the US was struck down in 2015 — leaving thousands of companies scrambling to put in place alternative data transfer mechanisms.
“If we have anything like that it would be extremely disruptive,” warned Mullock. “And it will, I think, be extremely off-putting in terms of businesses looking at where they will headquarter themselves in Europe. And therefore the long term prospects of attracting businesses from many of the sectors that this country supports so well.”
“Essentially what you’re doing is you’re putting the burden on business to find a legal agreement or a legal mechanism to agree data protection standards on an overseas recipient so all UK businesses that receive data from Europe will be having to sign these agreements or put in place these mechanisms to receive data from the European Union which is obviously one of our very major senders of data to this country,” he added of the alternative legal mechanisms fall-back scenario.
Another witness, Giles Derrington, head of Brexit policy for UK technology advocacy organization, TechUK, explained how the collapse of Safe Harbor had saddled businesses with major amounts of bureaucracy — and went on to suggest that a similar scenario befalling the UK as a result of Brexit could put domestic startups at a big disadvantage vs tech giants.
“We had a member company who had to put in place two million Standard Contractual Clauses over the space of a month or so [after Safe Harbor was struck down],” he told the committee. “The amount of cost, time, effort that took was very, very significant. That’s for a very large company.
“The other side of this is the alternatives are highly exclusionary — or could be highly exclusionary to smaller businesses. If you look at India for example, who have been trying to get an adequacy agreement with the EU for about ten years, what you’ve actually found now is a gap between those large multinationals, who can put in place binding corporate rules, standard contractual clauses, have the kind of capital to be able to do that — and it gives them an access to the European market which frankly most smaller businesses don’t have from India.
“We obviously wouldn’t want to see that in a UK tech sector which is an awful lot of startups, scale-ups, and is a key part of the ecosystem which makes the UK a tech hub within Europe.”
Denham made a similar point. “Binding corporate rules… might work for multinational companies [as an alternative data transfer mechanism] that have the ability to invest in that process,” she noted. “Codes of conduct and certification are other transfer mechanisms that could be used but there are very few codes of practice and certification mechanisms in place at this time. So, although that could be a future transfer mechanism… we don’t have codes and certifications that have been approved by authorities at this time.”
“I think it would be easier for multinational companies and large companies, rather than small businesses and certainly microbusinesses, that make up the lion’s share of business in the UK, especially in tech,” she added of the fall-back scenarios.
Giving another example of the scale of the potential bureaucracy nightmare, Stephen Hurley, head of Brexit planning and policy for UK ISP British Telecom, told the committee it has more than 18,000 suppliers. “If we were to put in place Standard Contractual Clauses it would be a subset of those suppliers but we’d have to identify where the flows of data would be coming from — in particular from the EU to the UK — and put in place those contractual clauses,” he said.
“The other problem with the contractual clauses is they’re a set form, they’re a precedent form that the Commission issues. And again that isn’t necessarily designed to deal with the modern ways of doing business — the way flows of data occurs in practice. So it’s quite a cumbersome process. And… [there’s] uncertainty as well, given they are currently under challenge before the European courts, a lot of companies now are already doing a sort of ‘belt and braces’ where even if you rely on Privacy Shield you’ll also put in place an alternative transfer mechanism to allow you to have a fall back in case one gets temporarily removed.”
A better post-Brexit scenario than every UK business having to do the bureaucratic and legal leg-work themselves would be the UK government securing a new data flow arrangement with the EU. Not least because, as Hurley mentioned, Standard Contractual Clauses are subject to a legal challenge, with legal question marks now extended to Privacy Shield too.
But what shape any such future UK-EU data transfer arrangement could take remains tbc.
The panel of witnesses agreed that personal data flows would be very unlikely to be housed within any future trade treaty between the UK and the EU. Rather data would need to live within a separate treaty or bespoke agreement, if indeed such a deal can be achieved.
Another possibility is for the UK to receive an adequacy decision from the EC — such as the Commission has granted to other third countries (like the US). But there was consensus on the panel that some form of bespoke data arrangement would be a superior outcome — for legal reasons but also for reciprocity and more.
Mullock’s view is a treaty would be preferable as it would be at lesser risk of a legal challenge. “I’m saying a treaty is preferable to a decision but we should take what we can get,” he said. “But a treaty is the ultimate standard to aim for.”
Denham agreed, underlining how an adequacy decision would be much more limiting. “I would say that a bespoke agreement or a treaty is preferable because that implies mutual recognition of each of our data protection frameworks,” she said. “It contains obligations on both sides, it would contain dispute mechanisms. If we look at an adequacy decision by the Commission that is a one-way decision judging the standard of UK law and the framework of UK law to be adequate according to the Commission and according to the Council. So an agreement would be preferable but it would have to be a standalone treaty or a standalone agreement that’s about data — and not integrate it into a trade agreement because of the fundamental rights element of data protection.”
Such a bespoke arrangement could also offer a route for the UK to negotiate and retain some role for her office within EU data protection regulation after Brexit.
Because as it stands, with the UK set to exit the EU next year — and even if an adequacy decision was secured — the ICO will lose its seat at the table at a time when EU privacy laws are setting the new global standard, thanks to GDPR.
“Unless a role for the ICO was negotiated through a bespoke agreement or a treaty there’s no way in law at present that we could participate in the one-stop shop [element of GDPR, which allows for EU DPAs to co-ordinate regulatory actions] — which would bring huge advantages to both sides and also to British businesses,” said Denham.
“At this time when the GDPR is in its infancy, participating in shaping and interpreting the law I think is really important. And the group of regulators that sit around the table at the EU are the most influential blocs of regulators — and if we’re outside of that group and we’re an observer we’re not going to have the kind of effect that we need to have with big tech companies. Because that’s all going to be decided by that group of regulators.”
“The European Data Protection Board will set the weather when it comes to standards for artificial intelligence, for technologies, for regulating big tech. So we will be a less influential regulator, we will continue to regulate the law and protect UK citizens as we do now, but we won’t be at the leading edge of interpreting the GDPR — and we won’t be bringing British values to that table if we’re not at the table,” she added.
Hurley also made the point that if the ICO is not inside the GDPR one-stop shop mechanism then UK companies will have to choose another data protection agency within the EU to act as their lead regulator — describing this as “again another burden which we want to avoid”.
The panel was asked about opportunities for domestic divergence on elements of GDPR once the UK is outside the EU. But no one saw much advantage to be eked out outside a regulatory regime that is now responsible for the de facto global standard for data protection.
“GDPR is by no means perfect and there are a number of issues that we have with it. Having said that because GDPR has global reach it is now effectively being seen as we have to comply with this at an international level by a number of our largest members, who are rolling it out worldwide — not just Europe-wide — so the opportunities for divergence are quite limited,” said Derrington. “Particularly actually in areas like AI. AI requires massive amounts of data sets. So you can’t do that just from a UK only data-set of 60 million people if you took everyone. You need more data than that.
“If you were to use European data, which most of them would, then that will require you to comply with GDPR. So actually even if you could do things which would make it easier for some of the AI processes to happen by doing so you’d be closing off your access to the data-sets — and so most of the companies I’ve spoken to… see GDPR as that’s what we’re going to have to comply with. We’d much rather it be one rule… and to be able to maintain access to [EU] data-sets rather than just applying dual standards when they’re going to have to meet GDPR anyway.”
He also noted that about two-thirds of TechUK members are small and medium sized businesses, adding: “A small business working in AI still needs massive amounts of data.
“From a tech sector perspective, considering whether data protection sits in the public consciousness now, actually don’t see there being much opportunity to change GDPR. I don’t think that’s necessarily where the centre of gravity amongst the public is — if you look at the data protection bill, as it went through both houses, most of the amendments to the bill were to go further, to strengthen data protection. So actually we don’t necessarily see this is idea that we will significantly walk back GDPR. And bear in mind that any company which are doing any work with the EU would have to comply with GDPR anyway.”
The possibility for legal challenges to any future UK-EU data arrangement were also discussed during the hearing, with Denham saying that scrutiny of the UK’s surveillance regime once it is outside the EU is inevitable — though she suggested the government will be able to win over critics if it can fully articulate its oversight regime.
“Whether the UK proceeds with an adequacy assessment or whether we go down the road of looking at a bespoke agreement or a treaty we know, as we’ve seen with the Privacy Shield, that there will be scrutiny of our intelligence services and the collection, use and retention of data. So we can expect that,” she said, before arguing the UK has a “good story” to tell on that front — having recently reworked its domestic surveillance framework and included accepting the need to make amendments to the law following legal challenges.
“Accountability, transparency and oversight of our intelligence service needs to be explained and discussed to our [EU] colleagues but there is no doubt that it will come under scrutiny — and my office was part of the most recent assessment of the Privacy Shield. And looking at the US regime. So we’re well aware of the kind of questions that are going to be asked — including our arrangement with the Five Eyes, so we have to be ready for that,” she added.
Since forever, companies have made products for people to buy, but the evolution and reach of the internet has given rise to entirely new brands, some of which are growing at unprecedented speeds thanks to platforms like Instagram and other social media channels — not to mention strong storytelling.
Two of the people leading the e-commerce charge are Glossier’s Emily Weiss and Forerunner Ventures founding partner and managing director Kirsten Green . We’re thrilled to announce that both of them will sit down on stage at TC Disrupt SF to discuss Glossier’s continued rise and the evolution of e-commerce.
Glossier isn’t even four years old yet, and the brand has already become a household name. The company was launched in 2014 off the back of Weiss’ staggeringly successful beauty blog Into The Gloss.
The premise of the brand is simple. Glossier products are designed for women who love makeup but don’t love looking garish. Part of selling that effortlessly beautiful aesthetic centers on marketing a narrow product line, one that’s focused on skin care products; a handful of lipsticks, cream cheek colors, and eyebrow mascaras; and well as a single fragrance called “You” that comes in both liquid and solid form.
Beyond the success of the products, Weiss has become a role-model, even a superstar, to many of Glossier’s young customers. Weiss built a foundation of trust with her audience on Into The Gloss, and that has carried over to the Glossier brand.
The originally direct-to-consumer company has also started an offline business with a pop-up shop in NYC, a now converted Dunkin Donuts that generates more sales revenue per square foot than the average Apple Store, according to Weiss.
Glossier has attracted a number of large investments from VCs like Index Venture Partners, Thrive Capital and Forerunner Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to more than $86 million. And sitting on the board is none other than Kirsten Green.
Eight years ago, Kirsten Green launched Forerunner Ventures. Since then, she’s risen to be one of the most prominent and successful investors in Silicon Valley and beyond, with a particular knack for e-commerce investments.
Green has raised more than $300 million and invested in more than 50 companies. Portfolio companies include Glossier, Outdoor Voices, Ritual, Inturn and Indigo Fair, as well as exited companies like Jet.com, Dollar Shave Club, and Bonobos.
She’s a founding member of All Raise, a female mentorship collective, and has been named one of Time’s 100 Most influential people, in Forbes’ 2017 and 2018 Midas List and World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. And lest we forget, she was also named VC of the year at the 2017 Crunchies Awards.
Green’s ability to identify stellar founders and foster e-commerce brands is unparalleled across the ecosystem, and we’re thrilled to learn from her on the Disrupt SF stage.
HQ, the live trivia game that is now seeing up to 2 million players per game, is introducing some new social features, including answer sharing with friends.
The company has been testing this feature across a small group of users already, but on Friday the feature will roll out to all HQ users.
Here’s how it works: Users can connect their address book to HQ and add their friends. Once they have added friends, they can see which of their friends are playing the game alongside them. Users can put their own avatar on the answer to a question to share their choice, which is viewable by friends.
The idea is that answer sharing mimics what many people do while playing HQ IRL, yelling out answers to their coworkers in the office or sharing with their friends and family in a bar or at home.
“We understand the power of the crowd and playing together,” said HQ product manager James Ruben. “That doesn’t necessarily exist everywhere. Our goal is to spread that power to people who maybe aren’t playing in the office together.”
This comes on the heels of HQ’s introduction of “Friends on HQ” from April, which let users see friends playing in the same quiz and see their progress through the game. Answer sharing simply takes that a step further.
Interestingly, answer sharing won’t be available on each HQ Trivia quiz. Instead, the feature will debut on Friday of this week, and continue to be available on Friday games.
“We understand that it’s a change to the game play,” said Ruben. “Friday is an interesting time to experiment and try out answer sharing because Fridays tend to be a bit more social than other days.”
Alongside answer sharing, HQ is also adding yet another social layer to the game with Nearby Friends. The feature will allow HQ players to see other people (not in their address book) who are in the same quiz as them and physically nearby, perhaps in the same office building or in the same bar or restaurant.
Finally, HQ is making it easier to upload the address book and connect with friends on the app.
[gallery ids="1636504,1636505,1636506,1636507,1636508"]HQ is an interesting business in that it’s taking an almost old-school approach to advertising/sponsorship. As opposed to social networks like Facebook, which collect as much data as possible about users to sell advertisements against that data, HQ is focused more on getting as many engaged eyeballs in the same place as possible, a bit like television advertising.
HQ doesn’t have that much information on users beyond their phone number, device type, username, and other basic information commonly gleaned by app developers. With the introduction of Friends on HQ, the company gets a bit more insight into users. But that’s not necessarily the reason for the update.
Instead, HQ wants to make these games as engaging as possible, and what’s more engaging than competing with or cheering along your friends and family.
The company is also taking a measured approach to advertising and sponsorship, working with partners that make sense for the HQ community and making those sponsorships as native as possible.
For example, HQ recently ran a $250,000 game with Warner Brothers as a sponsor, plugging the film Ready Player One within the graphics and even in some of the questions. The company also had Duane “The Rock” Johnson host a $300,000 game as part of the actor’s promotion of his upcoming movie Rampage.
Answer sharing will be available to everyone on Friday, but easier address book upload and Nearby Friends are soon to come for Android users.
Trussle, the U.K. online mortgage broker that competes most directly with Atomico-backed Habito, has closed £13.6 million in Series B funding.
Notably, the round is led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments — a division of Goldman Sachs — and Propel Venture Partners, a fund backed by European banking giant BBVA.
In addition, a number of other investors also participated including Finch Capital, which led Trussle’s Series A fund raise, and Seedcamp, which has backed the fintech startup from the get-go.
Launched in 2016, Trussle moves the entire mortgage process online, bringing with it much-needed transparency. One aspect to this — powered by the data it is amassing, coupled with machine learning — is making it infinitely easier to ‘switch’ mortgage when a better deal or lower interest rate becomes available. The same technology-driven approach is being used for those looking to find and apply for a new or first time mortgage.
In a brief call this morning, Trussle co-founder and CEO Ishaan Malhi told me that the new capital will be deployed to further scale up the company, noting that the Trussle team has grown from 14 to 70 people since its Series A in February 2017. A significant portion of these are in product development as the fintech startup moves from what Malhi describes as a transactional proposition, where customers use Trussle at the point of taking out a mortgage, to a “lifetime proposition” that supports customers when they first start thinking about owning their own home and then throughout their financed home ownership.
As an example of this, he pointed me towards Trussle’s mortgage monitoring service, which launched last year. It constantly monitors the market and alerts you when money can be saved by switching to another deal.
However, the longer term vision — and presumably part of what attracted investors — is to return more value based on the data Trussle captures. This could include telling you when it may be advantageous to overpay and giving you an easy to understand dashboard that clearly shows where you are at in the repayment process.
More broadly, Trussle wants to play a major role in making home ownership a reality, especially for younger people for whom is it increasingly out of reach (think: Generation Rent). To do this, he doesn’t rule out partnerships with other fintech startups aligned to that same mission.
Adds Malhi in a statement: “The backing from two prolific and globally renowned fintech investors recognises the brilliant progress we’ve made, but also the scale of our ambition. The funding will enable us to invest significantly in building our brand and our product, but fundamentally will accelerate us towards our vision of digitising the end-to-end journey to make home ownership more affordable and accessible to all”.
Paroon Chadha: There is a nuanced point that I’m trying to make here. I love Chris like a brother. He has worked with me for 10 years. I don’t think there will be another person who’ll ever be...
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Beck Diefenbach/Reuters
Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, is about to kick off.Business Insider will provide minute-by-minute updates and coverage of the big Google event starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET.Google I/O, the search giant's annual developer conference, kicks off today. Google I/O is typically where executives and managers reveal the company's plans, as well as some new products. This year looks to be no different.
The main event will be held Tuesday in Mountain View, a stone's throw from Google's headquarters. Google is expected to make a lot of announcements pertaining to advancing the company's artificial intelligence tools.
Check back often, or click here to refresh the page, as Business Insider will provide real-time updates of the all-important keynote speech, beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.
Tame, a self-proclaimed “design-driven” tech startup from Copenhagen in Denmark, is on a mission to “solve the chaos of event planning”. The company’s founders, who claim to have previously organised more than thirty large conferences and events, think they have spotted a gap in the market for an all-in-one event planning tool designed specifically to be used by teams.
Like a Swiss Army Knife for event production, the SaaS spans an array of organisational features, such as event program building, an easy way to store the contact details and current status of speakers, and a place to manage suppliers, sponsors and exhibitors. In addition, Tame supports team collaboration in the form of shared file storage, notes, tasks, and messaging.
“Tame is built as a collaborative event planning tool, enabling your entire organisation to plan and streamline all your events from start to finish,” says Tame co-founder Jasenko Hadzic. “With Tame you can stay on top of every event with a complete 360 real-time overview and collaborate with your team and external partners.
Furthermore, Tame includes its own ticketing features that allows event managers to quickly publish programs, speakers, and sponsors “on a beautifully constructed ticketing page, that can be customised to fit every organisation”. The software plays nicely with the wider event ecosystem, too, with an API that enables Tame to integrate with other event technologies currently on the market, thus letting the startup focus solely on “solving the planning of the event,” says Hadzic.
“Tame’s solution replaces tasks currently done in spreadsheets and is the first of its kind customisable enough to consolidate all of your internal event planning in one place and empower your entire team with real-time collaboration,” he adds.
Last month saw the company launch more publicly, opening up the SaaS to self sign-up so that event teams can hit the road running. “As events are stressful, we’ve focused a lot of on building a simple UI that would allow event teams all over the world to get going easily and onboard themselves. Event teams have to get going smoothly and they can’t afford to make mistakes. We know that, so we’ve allowed them to get going very fast,” says Hadzic.
Tame is operating a freemium model: it costs nothing to use for free events but there’s a fixed fee of €1 per paid ticket, which the event organiser can either absorb or transfer to the attendee. “We are all in on transparency, so therefore we don’t offer a percentage fee of the ticket price like many other ticketing solutions out there. In the future, we will offer a premium version of our platform for a fixed monthly subscription fee and this will be our primary business model”.
Meanwhile, the company is also disclosing a seed round of $550,000 from a number of well-known Nordic angel investors with a proven track record in SaaS and product design. They include Tommy Andersen (co-founder and Managing Partner of ByFounders), Hampus Jakobsson (Venture Partner at BlueYard Capital and co-founder of TAT, which sold to Blackberry for $150m), Jacob Wandt (founder of e-conomic, which sold to HG Capital in 2013 for $100m+), Anders Pollas (co-founder and ex-CPO of Podio, the project management tool sold to Citrix for €50 million), and Gregers Kronborg (ex-General Partner of Northzone).
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the company's F8 developer conference last week. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It's pretty clear Mark Zuckerberg could use some fresh perspectives in running Facebook.
From fake news to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social-networking giant has been embroiled in a seemingly endless string of controversies over the last two years. Zuckerberg's lieutenants obviously didn't help the company avoid such problems or quickly get past them. And it seems dubious that they are forward-thinking enough to help Facebook avoid similar problems in the future
Unfortunately, Zuckerberg indicated Tuesday we can expect more of the same. The company announced it's undergoing a major reorganization at the top. But the changes are little more than cosmetic. A handful of executives are changing their job titles, but no one's leaving and no one new is coming on board.
In other words, no one's being held accountable for the company's many missteps. And the same folks who advised Zuckerberg in the past will still be advising him going forward.
It's a big missed opportunity for Zuckerberg and Facebook.
All leaders need lieutenants who can cover their blind spots and who are strong enough to stand up to them and tell them when they're wrong. But that's particularly the case at Facebook.
Thanks to Facebook's stock structure, Zuckerberg controls the company. He can elect new directors, approve acquisitions, and change company policy by himself, without the votes of a single other shareholder. He dominates Facebook in a way few other CEOs could.
But Zuckerberg is also someone with limited life experiences. He's still relatively young and has spent his entire adult life running Facebook. He's consistently shown a tin ear for the concerns raised about his company, its services, or its power.
For years, none of that mattered. Facebook's sales, profit, reach, and stock price grew unabated. Despite warnings from privacy advocates, growing numbers of users signed on to the service and shared increasing amounts of information with it.
But the last two years have proved rocky for Facebook. First came reports that Russian-linked groups had hijacked Facebook to spread propaganda to influence the presidential election. The problem turned out to be much bigger than the initial reports suggested, with propaganda having been spread to influence numerous elections other than just the US one.
The company has dealt with a string of controversies since. It's been accused of helping foment violence against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar by being used to spread vicious hate speech. Its dominance along with Google of the digital advertising business has drawn scrutiny and calls for an antitrust investigation. It's come under fire from former employees for being a socially malevolent force, allegedly encouraging addiction among users.
Sen. Lindsey Graham was among the Republican legislators who were critical of Facebook during Zuckerberg's congressional appearances last month. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images And it's had to contend with news about two huge leaks of user data, one to Cambridge Analytica involving up to 87 million users and one to an assortment of hackers affecting most users of the site.
In nearly all the cases, Zuckerberg and his company were caught flat footed by the controversies. Instead of anticipating problems and avoiding them, Facebook was reduced to reacting to them, over and over.
But the problems weren't just bad public-relations. They seem to have started to affect the company. The amount of time people spend on Facebook nosedived in the fall after a series of changes the company made to its core social network â changes the company made in reaction to the series of controversies. Facebook's user growth in North America has flatlined and slowed markedly in Europe.
And regulatory changes could have even more dramatic effects. There are concerns a new privacy law in Europe will crimp Facebook's business there. During Zuckerberg's appearance before Congress last month, even some Republicans were critical of the company and hinting at the need for regulations to rein it in. Such changes could limit Facebook's future growth and, theoretically at least, potentially end in a breakup of the company.
Yes, Zuckerberg and Facebook have been making changes. They've revamped the News Feed. They're working on ways to identify and block hate speech. They're hiring thousands of moderators.
But the company still frequently seems tone-deaf and reactive. The latest example? Last week when it announced a new online dating service, a move that was widely mocked because it came amid broad and growing concerns about the amount of data Facebook already has on its users and its ability to keep control of that data.
Chris Cox, Facebook's chief product officer, is among several long-serving managers who will be further empowered by Facebook's reorganization. Stephen Lam/Reuters In other words, now would be a good time for Zuckerberg to get ahead of the company's various problems. He's shown he can develop Facebook as a business and a product, but he's yet to show that the understands, can cope with, or proactively address the way his service affects and interacts with society.
He could stand to have people who have thought deeply on those issues and who see Facebook from a more critical vantage point advising him and guiding him.
That could have happened with this reorganization. But it didn't. Instead, Zuckerberg's just shuffling people around. David Marcus, for example, is moving from being head of Messenger to leading a new blockchain project. Adam Mosseri, who ran News Feed, is heading to Instagram to be a new vice president of product there.
Meanwhile, instead of bringing in fresh faces, the reorganization is going to empower longtime Facebook hands. Will Cathcart, who will lead product development at Facebook's core service, has been at the company since 2008. Chris Daniels, who will head up WhatsApp in place of the recently departed Jan Koum â who left in an apparent dispute with Zuckerberg over the future of the messaging service â has been at the company since 2011. The three men who will head the new divisions created by the reorganization â Chris Cox, Mike Schroepfer, and Javier Olivan â were already top lieutenants under Zuckerberg and have all served at the company for nearly a decade or more.
Zuckerberg did bring on a new board member on Tuesday. But it's unlikely he'll have much influence on the CEO.
So don't expect things Facebook and Zuckerberg to suddenly be able to put the controversies behind it and move on. Despite all the changes, the company looks more or less the same.
Apple has urged the Federal Communication Commission to set aside large swaths of new "superhigh" spectrum for public use instead of licensing it â the latest sign that the iPhone giant is interested in playing an important role in future wireless networks, including so-called 5G wireless.
In a filing earlier this month, Apple told regulators that leaving radio signals unlicensed in the 95 GHz â 3000 GHz range will give rise to innovative "applications that are unfeasible today."
"Apple supports the Commission's proposal for experimental licensing in the bands above 95 GHz and believes that adopting this flexible model will help to spur innovation in the band," the company said in a May 2 letter, signed by Mark Neumann, a senior engineer at Apple.
"As the band is still largely greenfield, this is a rare opportunity to allow for freedom of exploration that does not exist in other bands and advantage should be taken," Apple continued.
Apple told the FCC it favored a light regulatory touch that would leave a greater share of the spectrum unlicensed, and open for anyone to use.
The comments were in response to the FCC's request seeking comments on how to regulate the high-bandwidth wireless spectrum, often referred to as "superhigh" spectrum. Apple believes that the current approach to regulation is too far in favor of established, licensed technologies, instead of emerging uses that a company like Apple might be interested in.
FCC Currently, the frequencies that Apple is commenting on are unused â or "greenfield," as Apple puts it.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't many different scientists and industry researchers who are starting to come up with ideas for those frequencies.
"As Apple says in its filing no one really knows what's going to happen with that very high spectrum. But since something will someday it's time to create a mechanism to use it. Maybe not Apple's preferred unlicensed mechanism," wireless consultant Steve Crowley told Business Insider in an email. "Regulation takes time, the standardization process takes time, product development takes time. It doesn't hurt to take the first step."
The FCC took that first step earlier this year, by filing a notice inviting comment on its proposed rules, which is what Apple responded to. "Now, I realize that some are skeptical that this spectrum can be used productively," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement earlier this year. "But the skeptics have been proven wrong before."
The more spectrum that remains unlicensed, the more likely it is that Apple can experiment in those radio frequencies and build them into its technology. The spectrum used by cellular networks is licensed, for example, but Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum, which enabled Apple to use it in innovative ways, such as for wireless speakers and network syncing.
The FCC also makes money by auctioning licenses to specific bands of spectrum. And if FCC makes a new slice of spectrum unlicensed, that means Apple can access it for free.
The question remains what it could be used for, but one possibility is those frequencies could be used for infrastructure to enable "5G," or the next generation of cellular networks. "I'd expect first uses of bands 95 GHz and above to be used for 5G small cell backhaul â interconnecting the millimeter wave cells connecting handsets, and fixed users, below 95 GHz," Crowley said.
Currently, bands under study include the so-called W-band (92-114 GHz) and D-band (130-175 GHz), Crowley added.
Apple devices currently use Intel and Qualcomm modems to connect to cellular networks. Apple The filing is only the latest sign that Apple is currently experimenting with millimeter wave technologies, which are expected to be a big part of 5G networks.
Last month, Apple pulled a job listing off of its site for a "mmWave IC design engineer," which suggested it planned to build chips to work on 5G networks. Currently, Apple buys its modems from Qualcomm and Intel.
Apple has been testing millimeter wave technology in Cupertino, California since last May on the 28 GHz and 39 GHz, bands that are lower than the ultra-high spectrum Apple commented on.
Earlier this year, Apple applied to make both of its Cupertino, California headquarters into "innovation zones" which would enable it to run tests more easily without regulatory headaches and applications. Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.
"Apple devices access spectrum in numerous licensed and unlicensed frequency bands. For example, iPhones use spectrum ranging from 13 megahertz (contactless payments via Apple Pay) to 5 gigahertz (802.11ac Wi-Fi with MIMO) and support more than 18 different LTE bands," according to the Apple application, which was also signed by Neumann, the senior Apple engineer.
Experts have said that millimeter wave is only one technology that will make up the 5G standard, which is still being finalized. The big advantage to millimeter wave is that it can achieve very high data rates, with much more bandwidth than current cellular networks.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that Apple wants to own all of its core technologiesâ and that likely includes the modem chips that connect Apple devices to networks like those operated by Verizon and AT&T. But even if that's not part of Apple's plans, the company clearly wants to understand these extremely high frequencies well.
Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian just gave us yet another reason to love his romance with tennis champion Serena Williams.
In an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Monday, Ohanian was coaxed by the talk show host into telling the story of how he met his wife, with whom he now has an 8-month-old daughter.
"How does a self-described, unequivocal nerd end up with one of the greatest athletes in recorded history?" Colbert jokingly asked Ohanian. "How does that come about? That's not a natural match."
"I would beg to differ on one hand because she's actually a total nerd," Ohanian said.
He then revealed that the two met completely by chance. Ohanian was at a conference in Rome during the same time that Williams was playing a tournament there. While Ohanian was drinking coffee at the hotel he was staying at, an Australian man â who turned out to be Williams' assistant â tried to get him to leave by telling him there was a rat by his table.
"I told him thank you, but I'm from Brooklyn; I see rats all the time. It's really not a big deal," Ohanian said.
His indifference got the attention of Williams, who turned around and asked him if he really wasn't freaked out by rats. They started talking, and she asked what he did for a living. When he told her he helped create Reddit, she responded that she had never heard of the site.
Before parting, they traded contact information, and Williams invited Ohanian to see her play at the French Open in Paris shortly after. Although she offered the invitation only half-heartedly, he accepted it without reservation, flying to Paris just to watch her. He told her he wanted to spend some time together, but he played coy, telling her he was really busy.
The pair eventually spent a day together and visited the Paris zoo. While there they happened upon a leopard's enclosure at its feeding time. The two watched as the ravenous big cat feasted on a dead bunny that had been flung at it for its meal.
"It was a show," Ohanian said. "I mean this leopard just went in, and blood is going everywhere."
Williams was visibly disturbed by the scene, so Ohanian held and comforted her. He sensed the connection right then and there.
"In that moment, thanks to that poor, poor rabbit, I found love," Ohanian said. "Despite everything else."
Watch the full clip below.
Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergChip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Facebook is going through a massive executive shakeup, reorganizing and assigning new leaders to practically all of its major product teams. Under the new structure, Facebook will be divided into three teams: family of apps, central product services, and new platforms and infrastructure, according to a report by Recode and confirmed to Business Insider by the company.
Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will remain the central leader of the company that everyone else orbits around.
Here are the execs leading the new teams at Facebook:
The Army released a report in late 2016 that centered on the Russian threat in Ukraine and detailed how the capabilities of Russian snipers have grown, thanks in large part deadly new Russian sniper rifle, the ORSIS T-5000.
And it also just so happens that the National Rifle Association once helped promote the T-5000, according to Mother Jones.
In 2015, the NRA sent a delegation to Moscow, where they toured the facilities at ORSIS (the Russian company that makes the sniper rifle), test-fired the T-5000 and were even included in an ORSIS promotional video, Mother Jones reported.
The delegation included NRA board member Peter Brownell, NRA donor Joe Gregory, former NRA President David Keene, and former Milwaukee County Sheriff and Trump supporter David Clarke, Mother Jones and The Daily Beast reported.
The delegation also met with Dmitry Rogozin, who had been sanctioned by the Obama administration over the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, during the trip, which was also partially paid for by a Russian gun-rights organization called the Right to Bear Arms, Mother Jones reported.
Rozogin was Russia's deputy prime minister who oversaw the defense sector at the time, but was not retained by Russian Prime Minister-designate Dmitry Medvedev in Putin's new administration, Reuters reported on Monday.
The US Army report from 2016 described the T-5000 as "one of the most capable bolt action sniper rifles in the world."
A former Soviet Spetsnaz special forces operator, Marco Vorobiev, said the gun "can compete with any custom-built bolt action precision rifle out there," according to Popular Mechanics.
"It is well designed and built in small batches," he said. "More of a custom rifle than mass produced."
The T-5000 fires a .388 Lapua Magnum round, which is an 8.6 or 8.58x70mm round, that can hit targets up to 2,000 yards away, Popular Mechanics reported.
A .388 Lupua Magnum round is more than two times more powerful than a 7.62x54R round, The National Interest reported in December, adding that there's no known body armor in the field that can stop the round.
The T-5000 has reportedly been used by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine, Iraqi special forces operators, and has been spotted being used by Chinese troops and Vietnamese law enforcement officers, Popular Mechanics and thefirearmblog.com reported.
A Russian-backed separatist in Ukraine with the T-5000. Russian media via thefirearmblog.com
The Russian military is also beginning to field the T-5000, and it has even been tested with Russia's "Ratnik" program, which is a futuristic combat system that includes modernized body armor, a helmet with night vision and thermal imaging, and more, The National Interest and Popular Mechanics reported.
The rifle, however, has had problems opening the bolt, The National Interest reported.
Still, the T-5000's range has helped Russian forces in Ukraine "fix Ukrainian tactical formations by employing sniper teams en masse," the 2016 Army report said.
The sniper teams "layer their assets in roughly three ranks with spacing determined by range of weapons systems and the terrain" with the "final rank [consisting] of highly trained snipers" with the best equipment, the report said.
They then "channelize movement of tactical formations and then direct artillery fire on prioritized targets."
"Several sniper teams will work together to corral an enemy formation into a target area making delivery of indirect fire easy and devastating," the report said. "Russian snipers also channelize units into ambushes and obstacles such minefields or armored checkpoints."
The "capabilities of a sniper in a Russian contingent is far more advanced than the precision shooters U.S. formations have encountered over the last 15 years," the report said.
Associated Press
Russia is gearing up for its annual Victory Day Parade on Wednesday in Moscow's Red Square, which celebrates the capitulation of Nazi Germany in World War II.
About 12,500 Russian troops, 73 aircraft, and 120 vehicles will partake in the parade, according to Russian state-owned media.
This year's parade will include for the first time Russia's stealth fighter, the Su-57, as well as its new hypersonic Kh-47M2 "Kinzhal" missile, which Moscow unveiled in early March.
It will also include the YARS ballistic missile, the Armata system, the Uran-9 unmanned combat system, the S-400 missile defense sytem, and more.
Here's some of the major weaponry slated to partake in the parade:
When Facebook acquired WhatsApp four years ago, the number of messages being sent via the messaging platform was about a third of what it is today.
Judging by this chart from Statista, it isn't slowing down. As of May 2018, about 1.5 billion users are sending 65 billion messages via the WhatsApp mobile app and web client per day, up from one billion a couple of years after the company launched in 2009.
That's tremendous growth for WhatsApp, and it makes Facebook look very smart for having spent $19 billion on it in 2014. Given Facebook's massive social network â more than double WhatsApp's 465 million monthly active users at the time, and a messaging app of its own â people weren't sure what an app like WhatsApp could bring to the table.
WhatsApp still doesn't bring in ad dollars, but the acquisition did give Facebook the most popular messaging service in the world, meaning users are leaving one-product competitors like Snap and Skype and instead choosing one of the many services operated by Facebook.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
Startups in Brazil, Latin America’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystem, are no longer solely focused on Brazil as their only frontier to conquer. Based on conversations with founders and in tracking the news, dozens of startups born in Brazil have realized they can compete on a global scale and expand their companies quickly by exporting their business models to other regional markets around the world, including Canada, Colombia, Europe, Japan, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S.
Traditionally, many Brazilian startups have been content to focus on growing their revenues and market share on the “Ilha de Santa Cruz” (Island of the True Cross, as Brazil was named by a Portuguese sea-captain in 1500). There is plenty to feast on here with a growing middle class, the citizens’ voracious appetite for social and digital media consumption and a population of nearly 211,000,000. More so than other major entrepreneurial centers, Brazil’s founders are known for bootstrapping early-stage companies and avoiding global expansion, as the capital can be costly and lead to a dilution in shares in their startups.
Yet, as the country that is home to the world’s eighth largest economy slowly pulls out of a long recession with its first annual uptick in GDP last year, increasingly the “Brazilians are coming” to compete in more international markets — and more rapidly than ever before. Entrepreneurial expansion outside the country is on the rise as the startup ecosystem becomes more mature, and against a backdrop of unprecedented levels of global investment coming into Brazil from China, Japan, Europe, Silicon Valley and beyond. Indeed, international investment in LatAm startups has “more than doubled since 2013.”
Another trend that’s providing more Brazilian companies with the capital needed to fuel their global expansion is the “flurry of equity deals” during the first part of 2018, “ahead of the presidential elections in October that are expected to prompt volatility in the markets,” according to Bloomberg Markets. For example, NYSE’s biggest IPO since Snap earlier this year raised nearly $2.3 billion for Brazilian fintech PagSeguro (NYSE:PAGS), a payment processing company similar in business model to Jack Dorsey’s Square. It was the largest IPO of a Brazilian company since 2011.
There has been a growing stream of Brazilian startups that have begun to shift focus to the U.S. during the last two years. Mosyle, founded in 2012 by Alcyr Araujo, is now based in the U.S. and used in more than 4,000 schools to help ensure that kids’ mobile device experiences are fun, safe and educational with more parental and teacher involvement.
Pipefy, which announced $16 million in Series A funding last month and was originally based in Curitiba, Brazil, has recently relocated its global HQ to San Francisco. More than 8,000 companies in 146 countries around the world use its operations-excellence platform today.
Similarly, PSafe, a mobile security, privacy and performance platform company, moved its global headquarters to San Francisco last August and now has more than half of its revenues from the U.S.
A fast-growth Brazilian startup called Gympass, which offers a corporate benefit plan to keep employees fit and healthy, has quietly grown into a global business in less than six years. Born in the country that places second in overall number of gyms, Gympass lets a company’s employees make unlimited visits to a growing network of multiple gyms and pay less than half the normal monthly fee. Last month, the company announced its launch in 12 key markets in the U.S., adding 3,000 new workout facilities to its global network of 30,000. Its corporate partners include Accenture, Deloitte, Metlife, PayPal and P&G.
Belo Horizonte-based Hotmart, a comprehensive platform to sell digital products like e-books, online courses and software that was founded in 2011, has expanded into Europe, including opening new offices in Madrid, Paris and the Netherlands. It’s also expanded into Colombia.
São Paulo-based Movile, a leader in mobile marketplaces with a big dream of making life better for a billion people through mobile apps, has seen tremendous growth since its founding in 1998. It now employs more than 1,500 people and impacts the lives of more than 100 million people around the globe. Its food-delivery market, iFood, is now booming on all continents, and Naspers and the fund Innova Capital invested a new $82 million round last December, with a singular focus on growing iFood’s market share.
Since its foundation, Movile has raised more than $250 million to accomplish more than 20 mergers, acquisitions and investments in startups beyond iFood, including Maplink, PlayKids, Pointer, Rapiddo, SuperPlayer and Sympla, among others.
With the advent and growth of SaaS platforms, a fast-emerging global on-demand economy and some entirely original business models, many Brazilian startups are poised for success as they scale from being regional plays to any number of international markets. Typically, when more than a quarter of a startup’s business is coming in from international markets — as was the case with Pipefy and its cloud-based platform — the timing is ripe to land and expand outside a company’s home country.
In choosing international markets, a smart strategy for tech startup founders is to analyze those regions that possess high broadband and mobile-device adoption, readily available payment infrastructures, political stability, level socioeconomic playing fields, fair tax requirements and an easy-to-navigate regulatory environment. One useful rule of thumb to help obtain a basic understanding is to compare the overall internet population by country versus GDP per capita. This exercise will generate a model to prioritize countries with larger numbers of prospects with high levels of disposable income.
Another critical element for optimizing success is a solid understanding of regional differences and key variances across international markets — from cultural nuances to regulatory impacts to diverse approaches to conducting business. Identifying and tapping local network resources early on can make a world of difference.
The maturing startup ecosystem in Brazil has benefited hugely from access to Cubo, the largest entrepreneurial hub in Latin America, and its constant intermingling and exchange of ideas between startup founders, investors, academics and government officials.
In Silicon Valley, BayBrazil has been hugely impactful in connecting and building a tight-knit community of Brazilian and U.S. professionals, founders and scholars living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. On a global scale, organizations like Endeavor have sparked high-impact entrepreneurship and success around the planet.
The spirit of entrepreneurism in Brazil is as infectious as its natural resources are vast. A recent rise in startups born and bred in Brazil that are being exported to international markets around the globe to further scale and propagate is a trend to be celebrated.
Saúde! (Cheers)
Facebook VP of Messenger David Marcus. WSJD
On Tuesday, Facebook Messenger head David Marcus announced that he's leaving his current role to explore the use of blockchain technology within the company.
"I'm setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch," Marcus wrote in a post published to his Facebook page.
Marcus' announcement comes months after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was investigating how cryptocurrencies could be used at Facebook. Blockchain is the underpinning technology behind bitcoin and all of the very many other cryptocurrencies.
Marcus joined Facebook four years ago from PayPal, where he had been serving as President. Marcus himself is a big fan of cryptocurrency, and actually sits on the board of $1.6 billion cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
The news also comes as part of a broader shakeup at Facebook, as the company reforms itself into three new segments. Messenger will now fall into the new "Facebook family of apps" business, alongside Instagram, WhatsApp, and the core Facebook itself. Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox will lead that business, taking over for Marcus.
Blockchain is the term for a decentralized digital ledger, and was originally created as the underpinning technology for bitcoin in 2009. It's the technology that enables all cryptocurrencies to function as they do â it doesn't require a central authority, like a bank, to establish that the data in the blockchain is accurate.
Marcus didn't reveal the type of applications for blockchain that he'll be working on At Facebook. However, given the current applications of blockchain technology, there are plenty of directions that Marcus and his team could go. At Facebook, the technology could be used in payments, gaming, the creation of digital art, and the swapping of collectible items â all applications for the blockchain that are currently being explored by the tech industry.
The big question in the media world today is whether MoviePass parent company Helios and Matheson can stanch the bleeding of its cash flows before it becomes insolvent.
In a new filing today with the SEC, Helios informed investors that it had $15.5 million in available cash, with another $27.9 million in accounts receivable from members of MoviePass on longer-term subscriptions. Under accounting rules, those dollars can’t be used to fund current expenses. The company said that it has lost $21.7 million a month between September and April this year.
Investors dumped the stock following the filing, and the stock was down 31 percent at the close of the equity markets today.
While linear math would seem to indicate that the company is on track for insolvency in a matter of days, the filing and its CEO are maintaining an optimistic line. The company said that following a series of product changes, including more verification that a subscriber actually watched a film themselves, it should reduce its cash loss on the service by 35 percent during the first week of May.
In an interview with TechCrunch, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe struck a positive view on the future of the business. He argued that unlike in the past, where a new app or service would raise venture capital and then invest it in the business, you can just handle capital concerns as you need them. “Today what you do is you raise enough money month by month to fund essentially that negative cash flow,” he said. “We are 100% confident that we have the committed funding to do it.”
In order for the company to avoid insolvency, the company will need to continue to sell its common stock to investors on a regular basis to fund that negative cash flow. The company said that sales of its common stock will need to begin this month in order to fund operations. If the company is unable to do so, “we may be required to reduce the scope of our planned growth or otherwise alter our business model, objectives and operations, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results,” it wrote in the filing.
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