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Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has dual citizenship in New Zealand. Shutterstock and Neilson Barnard/Getty
Silicon Valley is on the brink of an exodus.
Members of the tech elite from Peter Thiel to Tim Ferriss are leaving San Francisco and the peninsula to the south â still the global hub of tech finance and innovation â to escape the self-described groupthink and arrogance of the Valley.
A recent article in The New York Times declared, "Silicon Valley is over." The author followed a dozen venture capitalists on a three-day bus trip through the Midwest, in pursuit of hot startups in underrated areas of the country. They marveled at the cheap home prices in cities like Detroit, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin, compared with the extreme cost of living in the Bay Area.
San Francisco lost more residents than any other US city in the last quarter of 2017, according to a report from real-estate site Redfin. Data suggests the great migration is far from over.
Last month, 49% of Bay Area residents said they would consider leaving California because of the cost of living, according to a survey of 500 residents by public-relations firm Edelman.
These are some of the high-profile defectors who have left Silicon Valley in recent years â and where they're headed.
Thought Catalog
Thought Catalog has let go of "a handful" of editorial staffers focused on producing social content following Facebook's latest News Feed algorithm change.Thought Catalog publisher Chris Lavergne confirmed the layoffs to Business Insider.But he added that Thought Catalog had been weaning itself off of Facebook for a while, and had instead started focusing on e-commerce, real estate, and multimedia content production.Millennial-focused publisher Thought Catalog is the latest media company to suffer collateral damage from Facebook's latest News Feed algorithm change.
The company has let go of "a handful" of editorial staffers, according to people familiar with the matter. Thought Catalog publisher Chris Lavergne confirmed the layoffs to Business Insider, saying fewer than 10 staffers who focused on producing social content were let go.
"Unfortunately, we had to tell Facebook-oriented staff that their content wasn't economically sustainable," said Lavergne. "And that we had to focus on growth areas of the business."
The layoffs come at a time when the online publishing industry faces increasing headwinds, with companies trying to figure out sustainable business models in a digital ad market ecosystem dominated by Facebook and Google.
Specifically, it comes on the heels of Facebook announcing that it would prioritize "meaningful interactions" on the News Feed, effectively deprioritizing publisher content. The move sent shockwaves through the industry, and even led to some casualties, such as the shuttering of publisher Little Things.
But Lavergne was quick to point out that Thought Catalog had been weaning itself off of Facebook for a while.
"We've been saying that our focus hasn't been Facebook â or even the trend of social publishing for a long time," said Lavergne. "Facebook content peaked in late 2015 and in 2018, it really isn't our core focus; just one of many tools."
Instead, Thought Catalog has shifted its focus to retail, real estate, and multimedia content production. Last year, for example, it launched a social network called Collective World and acquired a photo agency called God & Man. It continues to double down on e-commerce as well, through Shop Catalog.
And while it may have pumped the brakes on Facebook content, it continues to publish and distribute through other mediums. Thought Catalog publishes and sells books as well as the advice columns it has become known for, pushing them out through a variety of distribution channels including other social platforms as well as its ownCollective World network and print magazine.
"We aren't going leave Facebook. We still think Facebook is a good tool, and really love Instagram," he said. "However, at the current moment, Facebook isn't growing like are other lines of business are."
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Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro use a custom keyboard design.Lots of users say dust or other small particles can get stuck under the spacebar and make it unresponsive.A newly published patent shows that Apple is working to fix the problem.Apple has an idea to fix the MacBook keyboard that seems to break as soon as it's exposed to dust or crumbs.
Engineers at the company have considered including special crushing components inside each key that would pulverize crumbs before they became a problem.
That's one of the new concepts in an Apple patent application published on Friday describing a keyboard that uses a mechanism to keep "direct contaminants" away from the keys.
The invention, dryly named "Ingress Prevention for Keyboards," would be more impervious to what actually breaks keyboards, like spilled drinks, dust, dirt, and food crumbs.
The patent application is actually a series of ideas to make more indestructible keyboards. One concept is a "heating element" that would "liquefy" the sugar left over under your keyboard when you spilled your soda, for example. Another concept the engineers were playing with includes a new kind of key that includes "brushes, wipers, or flaps" to block crumbs from ending up underneath the keys.
And if the crumbs do make it inside the keyboard, Apple wants to crush them.
"If contaminants such as chip crumbs reach internal areas of key assemblies, the contaminants may be broken down by the crushing components during motion of the key assemblies," Apple wrote in the application. "This may prevent the contaminants from blocking key motion."
Apple files thousands of patents per year, and an application is no guarantee that the idea will ever become an actual product.
But Apple should consider fast-tracking this idea, because it could address one of the biggest consumer complaints facing the company right now: an inconsistent and unreliable MacBook keyboard that users say easily breaks when faced with crumbs or other particles.
The patent was first filed for in 2016 and lists 11 different people as inventors.
The "butterfly" key mechanism.AppleRecent laptops from Apple, including the MacBook Pro and MacBook, use a custom key design that allows the laptop to be thinner without sacrificing a big, accurate keyboard. Apple's "butterfly" keyboard made its first appearance on the MacBook in 2015.
But Apple's quest for thinness also came with a downside: dust or other small particles can get stuck under the spacebar or other keys and make it unresponsive.
The problem is widespread. Since Business Insider covered the issue in October, we've received scores of reader emails with the same problem. Fixing it can cost hundreds of dollars at an Apple store.
A sampling from readers in the past months:
"The spacebar is almost nonfunctional. I have to press it repeatedly to get it to register a space." "I'm one of the Apple customer that has this problem two months after buying an expensive MacBook Pro 13' 2017." "I called the place where I bought the MacBook and they said it can be sent to Apple but it might cost a couple hundred dollars to fix. I have only had this since August this year."There's even a parody song about the problem:
Lots of computers have problems, including with their keyboards. But other brands have keyboards with removable keys â which means anyone with basic computer fixing skills can pop a traditional key off a keyboard in an attempt to solve the issue.
Not so with Apple's butterfly keyboard. It feels like if you remove a key, you'll break the keyboard forever.
So Apple's recommendation for fixing the problem at home is a little bit, say, unusual: It recommends you take your laptop and turn it nearly vertical, and then make three passes with a can of compressed air. Like so:
Apple
Or like this:
Apple
While this solution works for some, it didn't fix the problem on my personal MacBook Pro when I tried it. Plus, I felt really silly holding my computer like that.
But for now, that's the state of Apple's laptop keyboards â you can bring it into the shop, and if it's not under warranty, pay hundreds of dollars to get it fixed, or you can take a can of compressed air and blast your keyboard and hope it improves the issue.
Apple hasn't said if it will redesign its keyboards, partly because Apple never comments on future products. But a lot of Apple fans are hoping for a new keyboard that's more durable, and the ideas in Thursday's patent are some potential paths to get there.
Apple executives certainly hear the clamor.
"Absolutely, all of your feelings and feedback around the MacBook you use, we couldn't want to listen to more," Apple's head designer Jony Ive said in December. "And we hear â boy, do we hear."
Netflix
While some investors may be wary about Netflix's estimated billions-of-dollars in spending on new and original content, one Wall Street analyst believes Netflix can back it up with its brand.Viewers often have positive feelings about Netflix movies and TV shows even before they've seen them, which should help the streaming giant keep a healthy pace in subscriber growth, Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger says.Watch Netflix's stock move in real time here.When video watchers hear Netflix is behind a movie or TV show, they most often conclude that it has to be good, or at least worth the minimal investment of time to check it out.
That positive association with Netflix's brand could be hard for competitors to beat, and could help justify its estimated $12 billion investment in original content.
"The positive brand association Netflix has created among its members provides a positive halo for its content, giving Netflix a huge advantage because members are pre-disposed to think they will 'like' Netflix content, which usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," wrote Todd Juenger, a Bernstein analyst.
With some of its recent successes, such as "Bright," featuring Will Smith, the German production "Dark," and the Oscar award-winning documentary, "Icarus," Netflix has proven that it produces original content that will keep driving new and loyal subscribers back to its platform.
This is also helping the video streaming company draw some key Hollywood talent such as Ryan Murphy, the man behind "American Horror Story" and "Glee," and Shonda Rhimes, the producer behind such hits as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal." The fact that Netflix is able to pull such high-profile names also keeps them away from competitors, Juenger notes.
"While the price tag is high, the value of a 'hit show' for Netflix is also high, and it's nice to have your $12 billion in capable hands," Juenger said.
Netflix plans to spend billions of dollars on roughly 700 new original TV shows in 2018 as part of its strategy to build "a global moat" that would widen its competitive advantage, according to another Wall Street analyst.
In fact, investor confidence was so high for Netflix that a Stifel analyst downgraded the stock, claiming the "share price may have sprinted ahead of fundamentals in the short-term."
Netflix was up 3.78% on Friday at $328.84 per share. It was up 63.62% for the year.
Nintendo
Google Maps and Nintendo announced a temporary, opt-in feature that allows users to "navigate the world as Mario.""Mario Mode" changes Google Maps' blue navigation arrow to a "Mario Kart" character, in honor of Nintendo's iconic video game series.It's in honor of March 10th, or "Mario Day."Mar. 10. Mario. Get it?"Mario Mode" will be available for a week, according to Nintendo.Nintendo collaborated with Google Maps to bring the world "Mario Mode," an optional feature that allows users to "navigate the world as Mario."
In simple terms, "Mario Mode" changes Google Maps' blue navigation arrow to a go-kart from the "Mario Kart" games.
Starting today, Google Maps users can unlock the feature by clicking the question mark box at the bottom right corner of the Directions screen. From there, just click "Let's-a go!" and it's Mario time.
It's Mario Time. Google
The gimmick was announced as a celebration for March 10, named "Mario Day," because "MAR10" looks a little like the word "Mario" when written down. Google Maps confirmed via its official Twitter account that the feature will be available for a full week, so users can activate (or deactivate) "Mario Mode" at any time between now and March 16.
The Japanese game company is currently working on "Mario Kart Tour," the first time the series will appear on smartphones.
As a historical sidenote, Google and Nintendo have worked together before for these kinds of fun stunts. In fact, in 2014, Google and the Pokémon Company (which Nintendo jointly owns) teamed up for an April Fools joke that put Pokémon all over the map. That partnership ultimately resulted in the birth of "Pokémon Go."
Check out how to activate it, and what it looks like, below:
"The End of the F***ing World." Netflix TV viewers and TV critics aren't often on the same page. But where the interests of the two overlap, you're sure to find some quality shows.
Recent Netflix original series "The End of the F***ing World" is one such program.
Acclaimed by both critics and fans, the British dark comedy recently won an enthusiastic endorsement from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who called it the "most engaging addictive original" in a long time.
To figure out which other Netflix original series were beloved by both groups, we turned to the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to see which Netflix original shows scored at least an 85% "Fresh" rating with critics and audiences.
Excluding docu-series, talk shows, and kids shows, we ranked these series by averaging their critic and audience scores on the site, and we used critic scores to break any ties.
Here are 19 Netflix original shows that both critics and audiences love:
Mita Stock Images/Shutterstock
Daylight Saving Time starts on Sunday, March 11 at 2:00 a.m.That means the next week or so will be rough: It'll be hard to wake up, and there'll be an increase in heart attacks and car crashes.To make the switch a little easier, you can take advantage of what scientists have learned about circadian rhythms.The key? Light.Daylight Saving Time in the US takes effect in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 11.
After that, there will be at least a few miserable mornings where the work alarm feels even more invasive than normal.
But it's more serious than that â Daylight Saving Time is literally killing us. On Monday, there will likely be a 24% spike in heart attacks and a short-term increase in car crashes, strokes, and potentially even suicides.
In a way, the negative trends associated with the clock-change are a large-scale illustration of how bad for us it can be to lose even an hour of sleep. (As the parent of a small child, this is especially distressing to me.)
There's nothing you can do to fully compensate for the sudden change that's being forced on us, but you can take advantage of what scientists have learned about body clocks to adapt as quickly as possible.
We all have a natural internal clock of sorts, our circadian rhythm. It's what makes us feel tired when it's time to sleep and wakes us up in the morning, provided we're on a fairly regular schedule.
As a species, humans' clocks have evolved to mostly match the 24-hour natural light/dark schedule. (Our internal clock is actually a little longer than 24 hours, but gets naturally re-synchronized by environmental cues.) Exposure to light or darkness generally causes our bodies to produce hormones, particularly melatonin, that tell us when we should be alert or asleep â though artificial lighting can wreak some havoc on that system. Most of us are drowsiest around 5 a.m.
Suddenly changing the clocks throws off our internal body clock. You won't naturally suddenly feel tired an hour earlier at night. In the morning when the alarm rings, it's still going to feel like you should be asleep.
But we can manipulate our internal clocks to some degree: the most effective strategy is to get exposed to light at the right time.
Shutterstock/solarsven
According to one study, the most effective way to reset your natural sleep schedule is to go camping. Even in the winter, there's enough natural light to shift your internal rhythm.
But it's a little late for a last-minute weekend camping trip (and it's still very cold in much of the US). A less planning-intensive method is to take in some bright sunlight early in the morning for the next few days. It will also help to avoid light in the evening, making sure you are in a dark environment by bedtime.
"Full spectrum lighting is probably optimal in terms of the management of all these clockwork hormones that direct the complex physiology we have," Richard Rosen, director of retina services at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, previously told Business Insider. Even wearing sunglasses when you are trying to get your body ready for bed might help.
Morning exercise may be beneficial too, according to some research, though the data on how effective it is at shifting circadian rhythms is not conclusive. (Late-evening exercise has been shown to push our natural bedtime cues a bit later, however.)
Those who really feel the pain of the spring-forward clock change could also follow the lead of Florida residents, who are pushing to move clocks forward this Sunday and then never switch them back.
"Black Panther." Disney
"Black Panther" earned an estimated $22.7 million its first day of release in China.It's on pace to outgross what "The Last Jedi" earned there, as comScore box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian predicted to Business Insider earlier this week."Black Panther" should hit $1 billion at the global box office by the end of this weekend."Black Panther" is proving that in China the Marvel Universe is more powerful than The Force.
The box-office sensation hit theaters in the second-largest movie market in the world on Friday and is on pace to outgross the latest "Star Wars" movie, "The Last Jedi."
Early estimates have "Black Panther" taking in $22.7 million on its first day, according to Deadline. That's almost as much as "The Last Jedi" earned in its entire opening weekend in China ($28.7 million).
This is no surprise for comScore box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, who told Business Insider earlier this week that "Black Panther" would preform better than "Last Jedi."
"The 'Star Wars' brand doesn't have the built in audience that Marvel has developed over the years," he explained.
Though "Star Wars" has been branded into the minds of North Americans (and other regions of the world) for generations, China has been behind on its access to the saga.
It's only been showing "Star Wars" movies since the late 1990s, when the prequels were the first-ever "Star Wars" films shown in theaters (outside of piracy). The original trilogy wasn't released in China until "A New Hope" opened in 2015.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, on the other hand, has been getting plenty of attention in China.
Outside of "The Force Awakens," all the recent MCU titles performed stronger in China than the recent "Star Wars" releases â $109.1 million for "Doctor Strange," $100 million for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," and $116.2 million for "Spider-Man: Homecoming." In fact, none of the "Star Wars" movies have broken the $100 million mark in China since "The Force Awakens" ($124.1 million).
"The Last Jedi" earned $42.5 million in China.
"Black Panther" looks to be on its way to be in that company. And it's tracking to hit the $1 billion global box office milestone by the end of this weekend.
Muhammad Ali in "When We Were Kings." Polygram Some of the greatest moments in cinematic history are scenes of non-fiction.
From a profile of boxing legend Muhammad Ali to a portrait of a renowned sushi chef, the best documentaries capture real-life phenomena in a memorable and artful fashion.
To find out which documentary films have received the most critical acclaim over time, we turned to the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes for its ranking of the top documentaries in history.
The site ranked the films by a weighted critic score that accounts for variation in the number of reviews each film received.
Here are the 50 best documentaries of all time, according to critics:
Marvel Studios "Black Panther" has swiftly become a phenomenon, and it's proof that the superhero genre isn't slowing down.
With movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe already scheduled for the next few years, and the DC Extended Universe still pushing forward despite a rocky start ("Aquaman" hits theaters later this year), the genre is here to stay. That's not even mentioning the non-DC or Marvel films still to come (a "Hellboy" reboot is scheduled for next year).
The genre has produced some very bad movies, and some truly great ones. For every "Catwoman" there is a "Wonder Woman." As we prepare for another "Avengers" movie (now on April 27), Business Insider reflected on the decades of superhero movies to determine the best.
This is a personal ranking, so we didn't determine it from critic or audience scores. But we did consider the critical acclaim, cultural relevance, and commercial success when ranking the movies, especially the top ones. Of course, personal preference also plays a part.
Superhero movies can come in many shapes and sizes, and that's reflected in this list. Some may not be what people would consider typical superhero movies, but they don't always need to be based on a comic book or feature colorful costumes to be part of the genre.
The top 50 superhero movies of all time are below:
There’s nothing we spend more money on for a worse experience than housing. Keyo wants to fix all of it. The audacious startup envisions a world where a building’s other tenants get $20 to show you an available apartment on your schedule. Where you auto-pay your rent online. Where you get local business perks and can communicate maintenance requests through an app. And where… Read More
Tiago Maximo’s grandparents were shepherds. They word solid, handmade boots into the fields, trudging through dry grass and mud, over rutted country roads and through barnyards. He brought that tradition – handmade boots for people who appreciate quality – to his business, Urban Shepherd – where sources boots from Portugal to sell to customers in Barcelona and all over… Read More
Social planning apps have yet to take the world by storm. A handful of these apps tried and failed years ago, and even Swarm decided to ditch that methodology and focus on location logging. But a new Y Combinator-backed company seems to be picking up traction. And shockingly enough, the winning ingredient seems to be location! Location! Location! The startup is called Playbook, and its main… Read More
While some don’t care for the hit novel Ready Player One, it’s hard to deny that the book captured the hearts and minds of millions as it climbed the NYT Bestseller’s list in 2011. At the end of this month, a film adaptation of the book, directed by Stephen Spielberg, will be released in theaters. And given the book’s heavy focus on VR, it makes sense that HTC wants to… Read More
A PhD candidate in Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, Brian A. Smith, created a new system for blind gamers who want to get a little racing in. The system, called racing auditory display or RAD, is truly amazing. It lets the visually impaired play racing games without “seeing” the screen. Instead, the audio output tells the player when they’re getting closer to an edge… Read More
Trina Chiasson says a lot of cricket farmers will talk about how figuring out when they are laying their eggs is an art — and she hopes to turn it into a science. She and her co-founder James Ricci started Ovipost, a new startup looking to optimize the right conditions for a cricket grower to get the most yield from a generation of eggs without having to lose a bunch of crickets in… Read More
Most of you, I suspect, haven’t read a short story in a long time. Well, there’s a Y Combinator-backed startup called Curious Fictions looking to change that — and to turn those stories into a regular source of income for their writers. The company was founded by Tanya Breshears, a designer who previously worked for Airbnb. (I’ve known Breshears for more than a… Read More
As ecommerce grows here in the United States, there are still some significant hurdles for the Latin American market. Credit card penetration is lower than the U.S. and there isn’t the same infrastructure for shipping, meaning that returns are far more tedious. That’s where Ropeo comes in. Ropeo was founded by Alejandro Casas, Santiago Gomez, and Luis Huertas, who saw that the… Read More
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