Google's bundle of productivity tools for businesses and schools, G Suite, now has 6 million paying customers, according to a report from CNBC, which Google confirmed to Business Insider. That represents an increase from the 5 million customers G Suite had in February 2019.

A customer, in this usage, generally means a company or other organization that's using the premium version of G Suite, rather than the free version of tools like Gmail and Google Docs available for consumers. 

Additionally, Google's Hangouts Meet videoconferencing tool, which is part of G Suite alongside enterprise versions of Gmail and Google Docs, has 25 times more daily usage now than it did in January, though it didn't go into specific figures. Hangouts Meet complements Hangouts, the standard chat app that's also available to consumers.

These new numbers come as much of the world is working from home and schools turn to online learning, to try and mitigate the spread of coronavirus. 

Due to the increased need for video conferencing tools amid the coronavirus crisis, Google is made the premium paid features in its Hangouts Meet video-conferencing features free until September 30, extended from the previous end date of July 1.

It's competitors like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have made similar offers to help those in need of communication tools. The increase in remote work has also ramped up usage for those competitors. Zoom said it had 200 million daily active users at the end of March, counting free and paid users. Meanwhile, Microsoft Teams disclosed that it had 44 million daily active users in mid-March. 

On the whole, G Suite faces intense competition from Microsoft's Office 365 suite of cloud based productivity tools, which dominates the market. Google hired former Microsoft executive Javier Soltero to run G Suite last October, as it sought to ramp up its enterprise business. 

As Zoom faces numerous questions about the privacy and security of its product, Google is pitching Hangouts Meet as a secure alternative. When New York City schools decided to stop using Zoom for online learning, Google made Hangouts Meet and Google Classroom available for 1.3 million students, according to CNBC. 

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Much of San Francisco's public transit system is being shut down as the city gears up for an expected surge in cases of the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19. 

Of the 68 bus routes that are part of the city's Muni system, only 17 will be kept open. The decision to shutter 51 public transportation lines is necessary as more than 40% of bus operators will stop coming into work to instead stay at home to help in curbing the spread of the virus, according to a post on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency website. Many of the operators have underlying conditions and are considered high-risk of contracting the virus.

The 17 bus routes will focus on continuing to serve essential workers, such as healthcare workers and grocery workers, who cannot stay at home during the shelter-in-place order as others can. 

"As a lifelong advocate of transit and director of the SFMTA, I never thought I'd say this, but please, if you have any other option getting around, please do not ride Muni," the agency's transportation director Jeffrey Tumlin said in a Monday news conference. The changes will go into full effect on Wednesday.

Public transit has remained open during the shelter-in-place order for those providing essential services. But since the coronavirus and its impact reached San Francisco in late February and early March, ridership on Muni as well as other transit systems, such as BART, have plummeted as workers have migrated to working remotely in their homes. 

Muni has reported an estimated weekly loss of $1 million since residents have been directed to stay in their homes to inhibit the spread of the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19. On March 26, Muni announced it was shuttering its train and light rail lines and replacing them with buses. 

BART, the Bay Area's largest transit operator, has seen ridership drop and is losing an estimated $57 million a month in sales taxes, fares, advertising revenue, and parking fees.

The SFMTA has taken other precautions amid the outbreak, like replacing the city's beloved cable cars with buses to provide operators with a closed cab. The open-air vehicles didn't have any such partition protecting operators from riders. Operators can also use their discretion and skip bus stops if they deem their vehicles too full of passengers to allow social distancing.

Public transit ridership across the country has dropped, as The New York Times reports. Some transit stations in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia have shuttered due to staff shortages, according to WTOP. Transit service in Boston has also been limited in response to the spread of the virus.

From fighting armies of bots to quashing rumours about posting his beard hair to rapper Azealia Banks, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey leads an unusual life of luxury.

Dorsey has had a turbulent career in Silicon Valley. After cofounding Twitter in 2006, he was booted as the company's CEO two years later, but returned in 2015 having set up his second company, Square.

Since then, he has led the company through the techlash that has engulfed social media companies, at one point testifying before Congress alongside Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

His latest threat comes from Elliott Management, an activist investor seeking Dorsey's removal from Twitter, per Bloomberg reporting. The firm holds substantial stock in Twitter and four board seats.

Dorsey has elsewhere provoked his fair share of controversy and criticism, extolling fasting and ice baths as part of his daily routine. His existence is not entirely spartan, however. Like some other billionaires, he owns a stunning house, dates models, and drives fast cars.

Although he recently announced he would be using his wealth for more philanthropic efforts. The CEO posted his intentions on Twitter to put $1 billion of his own equity in Square into a new charity fund that would help fight the global coronavirus pandemic. The financial backing, Dorsey estimated, amounts to roughly 28% of his total wealth.

Scroll on to read more about the fabulous life of Jack Dorsey.

Rebecca Borison and Madeline Stone contributed reporting to an earlier version of this story.

Google is giving everybody free access to its advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing features for free until September 30, to help businesses and schools that have been impacted by the coronavirus disease, COVID-19. 

At the beginning of March, Google said it would make its premium Hangouts Meet features free until July 1. On Tuesday, that was extended to September 30. G Suite also now has over 6 million paying businesses as of March, up from 5 million in February 2019, the company told CNBC on Tuesday.

In a blog post, the company said "as more employees, educators, and students work remotely in response to the spread of COVID-19, we want to do our part to help them stay connected and productive." 

Hangouts is part of Google's G Suite set of productivity tools, alongside Google Docs and Sheets. It also has an education focused version of its product and an enterprise version for large businesses called Hangouts Meet, in an paid enterprise version of G Suite. It's that premium version that will be made free until the end of September.

Those features include being able to have up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive. 

This comes well after Zoom, a competitor to Google's Hangouts Meet tool, lifted time limits on its free product for users in China and made the product free for schools. 

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, many schools and offices have been closed. Tools like Google Hangouts, Zoom, and Cisco's WebEx are being used to allow classes to continue remotely for students of all ages and grade levels. Zoom, for its part, has seen a tremendous spike in usage, even as it faces scrutiny over its security and privacy practices, going from 10 million daily active users in December to 200 million by the end of March.

"We're committed to supporting our users and customers during this challenging time, and are continuing to scale our infrastructure to support greater Hangouts Meet demand, ensuring streamlined, reliable access to the service throughout this period," Google said in a blog post in March.

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Uber's restrictive coronavirus sick pay policy is putting many drivers in a bind: tell the company that they're at higher risk of catching or spreading the virus and lose their main source of income — or continue driving and potentially put others at risk.

In early March, Uber announced a financial assistance program, effectively a sick pay policy, that promised up to 14 days of compensation to drivers diagnosed with COVID-19 or told by a public health agency to self-quarantine.

After the initial policy was criticized for making it nearly impossible for drivers to meet the requirements given the limited availability of tests, Uber started using additional language on its website and in communications with drivers to clarify that those who had a doctor's note telling them to self-isolate due to their "risk of spreading COVID-19" or who had their accounts restricted after Uber received information from a public health agency that they had "been exposed to someone diagnosed with COVID-19" were also eligible.

Last week, Business Insider reported that several drivers' claims were denied even though they met those eligibility criteria. While Uber ultimately paid the drivers after learning about their situations from our reporting, more than 60 additional drivers have since contacted Business Insider to say their claims have also been denied.

At-risk individuals need not apply

A few of the drivers who reached out do appear to meet one of Uber's criteria, including Daniel H., a driver in Los Angeles who tested positive for COVID-19 but couldn't get paid because his test result documentation came from the test provider instead of a doctor or public health agency.

An Uber spokeswoman told Business Insider that the company is re-visiting cases where it deemed drivers ineligible and will reverse those it incorrectly denied.

But the vast majority of drivers don't appear to qualify. Uber's policy only covers those who are told by a doctor to self-isolate because they're at a higher risk of "spreading" the disease, but not a higher risk of "catching" it. That nuanced distinction has been a source of confusion and frustration among many drivers who spoke to us, as they believed they should qualify given the increased health risks.

While it's not possible to publish all of their stories here, a common theme was outrage at the technicalities on which Uber had refused to pay them as well as its decision to deactivate their accounts almost immediately (apparently as a precaution to protect passengers) even as it took days or weeks to ultimately deny them compensation.

(Many requested anonymity out of fear that Uber would retaliate by terminating their accounts.)

Some drivers had a doctor's note instructing them to stop driving because they're older or have underlying health issues — such as diabetes, chronic lung diseases, and heart conditions — that may make them more susceptible to severe COVID-19 infections, while some live with or care for such individuals and said they worry about exposing them.

Other drivers had given rides to passengers who were showing coronavirus-like symptoms — or were experiencing symptoms themselves. 

A driver in Boston told Business Insider that his girlfriend, who also drives for Uber, had picked up a doctor who had just returned from Italy and was coughing, sneezing, and complaining of a headache. While she got tested for coronavirus and Uber eventually paid her, the Boston driver has Type 1 diabetes, asthma, and three heart conditions.

Despite his doctor's note ordering him to quarantine, Uber never responded to his claim. "We each gave a combined 213 rides in the six days after that ride all on Uber's platform," he said.

A driver in Dallas told Business Insider that a passenger he picked up from the airport in mid-March "was coughing the whole 26 minutes to downtown Dallas." But his doctor's note citing his exposure to the passenger, who ultimately tested positive for COVID-19, didn't make him eligible for the policy either.

"This [policy] isn't something Uber should publicly say and not honor it to the ones who need it most," said the Dallas driver, who has been in self-quarantine since March 30 and is struggling to make mortgage payments.

An Uber spokesperson told Business Insider that the company acknowledges it made mistakes in rolling out its policy and that it has taken steps to improve the customer support experience, though she confirmed the eligibility criteria have not changed.

"We have paid more than $3 million in financial support to drivers and delivery people in the US. As this pandemic continues to evolve, our policy will continue to evolve, too, so we can help support as many of those who are driving and delivering food as possible," the spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider.

Dangerous incentives

Public health authorities have advised Americans over 65, those with certain health conditions, and those experiencing coronavirus symptoms to stay home to protect themselves and others in their communities. Meanwhile, Uber explicitly states on its website that such individuals — even they're ordered by a doctor to self-quarantine — are not covered under its policy.

A majority of the drivers who contacted Business Insider said Uber is their main or only source of income, so having their accounts suspended has put them in a desperate financial situation.

Larry Carroll, a Los Angeles-based driver who has completed more than 6,000 rides over the past two years, submitted a doctor's note ordering him to self-quarantine, but after initially saying it would disburse his payment within 2-5 days, Uber backpedaled and denied his claim.

"I have officially run out of money," said Caroll, who is homeless and has been living out of his car, "and now, despite any risk to myself or anyone else, am forced to have to get up and try and find a job or risk even worse financial ruin."

Drivers who haven't yet submitted claims say Uber's narrowly defined policy and the risk of deactivation is discouraging them from getting off the road, despite public health guidelines urging them to do so.

"I wish I could stay home safe because I know if I get coronavirus I have a small chance of making it," a driver in Hartford, Connecticut, who has Addison's disease, told Business Insider. "I'm afraid they will deactivate me," she said, "so I work and pray I don't get the coronavirus. If I don't work I lose my car and my house."

Another driver in Illinois told Business Insider that they're putting themselves and others at risk by continuing to drive for Uber, but that the economic pressure is too great to stop.

"It is staggering the amount of sick people I drive around these days. I am in conditions that violate public health authorities' recommendation for social distance," they said, adding: "This is my only source of income. In order to make a living I must put myself and my community in danger by disregarding the guidelines given by every public health authority."

Read Uber's full statement below:

"In a time of great hardship and uncertainty, we are doing our best to provide some relief and certainty to drivers, which is why we took action early on to help support those who were providing essential services to their communities. 

On March 6, we announced a financial assistance package for drivers and delivery people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 or had been ordered to self-quarantine or self-isolate by a doctor or public health authority because they were at risk of spreading the disease.

"To date, we have paid more than $3 million in financial support to drivers and delivery people in the US. As this pandemic continues to evolve, our policy will continue to evolve, too, so we can help support as many of those who are driving and delivering food as possible."

A group of tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have committed $10 million to COVID-19 research, aiming to sidestep the lengthy grant approval process that academics typically face.

The fund promises "Fast Grants" of $10,000 to $500,000 that will go to researchers that focus on coronavirus prevention and treatment. Starting April 12, every grant application will be approved or denied in less than 48 hours, after which researchers will receive payment "as quickly as your university can receive it."

Backers include Y-Combinator cofounder Paul Graham, billionaire entrepreneur brothers John and Patrick Collison, and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, among other entrepreneurs and VCs. The grants will be administered by George Mason University's Emergent Ventures.

Typically, the grant approval process for academics can take months or years — but the Fast Grants fund prioritizes speed.

"Science funding mechanisms are too slow in normal times and may be much too slow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast Grants are an effort to correct this," the fund's website says. "We'll prefer projects that are cheap (so that our fund dollars go further) and that will yield results quickly (during COVID-19, days matter)."

The fund was inspired by the National Defense Research Committee, an organization created during World War II that aimed to fund emergency scientific research as quickly as possible. From 1940 to 1941, it allocated $6.5 million, or over $120 million when adjusted for inflation.

Researchers can apply at the Fast Grants website.

There are three major new features in the DualSense that the PlayStation 4 gamepad doesn't have: haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and a built-in microphone array.

The first is an extension of already existing rumble — haptic feedback makes controller rumble feel more realistic, "such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud," the blog post says. What this could mean for, say, a driving game is that you'll feel the car driving through said mud more directly.

The second, adaptive triggers, is another evolution of an existing gamepad feature. The left and right triggers on current-generation gamepads act, more or less, like buttons. They may look like triggers, but they're not pressure sensitive — after a certain amount of pressure is exerted, they activate (like a button), rather than gradually reacting depending on how hard you pull.

But with the DualSense's adaptive triggers, you could use a trigger the same way a gas pedal in a car works. The more you push down a pedal, the harder your car works to accelerate — adaptive triggers provide the same function.

And in the case of the built-in mic array, Sony says it can be used in lieu of a gaming headset. It "will enable players to easily chat with friends without a headset," the blog post says.

$1.5 billion ZipRecruiter just laid off hundreds only days after the CEO said the economy was headed for a steep increase in hiring after the end of the coronavirus

The CEO of Voi, scooter rival to $2.5 billion Bird, goes public on why it furloughed and laid off staff to cope with COVID-19

Electric scooter startup Bird has laid off 30% of the company in a scramble to preserve a 'cash runway' to last until the end of 2021

TripActions, the $4 billion Andreessen Horowitz-backed corporate travel startup, just laid off 296 employees as the travel industry grinds to a halt

Andreessen Horowitz-backed Wonderschool just laid off 75% of staff on a Zoom call, telling employees the coronavirus could dry up any more funding for 2 years

O'Reilly Media, known for its influential open source conferences and books about coding, has laid off 75 people and shuttered its events business

Pay-by-the-minute fitness app Popin has shut down, according to an email sent out to its users

Buzzy luggage startup Away has furloughed half of its staff and laid off 60 employees as the coronavirus continues to crush the travel industry

ThirdLove, the buzzy lingerie upstart that challenged Victoria's Secret's dominance, just laid off nearly 30% of its workforce as the coronavirus crushes DTC companies

Iris Nova, the buzzy direct-to-consumer startup backed by Coca-Cola, has laid off half its staff as the coronavirus pandemic hits its retail business

Startups like ClassPass and The Wing have cut significant portions of their workforce

A leaked memo reveals that the Kevin Durant-backed sports media startup Overtime just laid off 20% of its staff, and won't give affected employees healthcare or severance unless they sign a confidentiality agreement

Flex-space unicorn Knotel just laid off 30% of workers and furloughed another 20% as the coronavirus cripples a once buzzy industry

SoftBank-backed real estate brokerage Compass just slashed 15% of staff and is pausing marketing as coronavirus slams the housing market

Days after laying off 20% of its workforce, Brookfield-backed Convene furloughs more than half of remaining employees due to coronavirus closures

Airbnb-backed Zeus Living just laid off 30% percent of staff as the coronavirus upends travel and hospitality startups

Eddie, a 66-year-old Honolulu Uber driver, regularly works 10 hours a day on the app.

A month ago, he could net $200 per day from Uber. But by late March, his income had plunged to just $25 per day spread across 10 hours. The money has become so negligible that Eddie finally decided to stop driving altogether.

"I currently earn $2.50 per hour, on top of the exposure to riders who possibly carry the virus," he told Business Insider. "I cannot for my own sanity justify to myself why I would jeopardize the health and well being of other riders and of course my own family's."

Lockdowns amid the coronavirus outbreak have been financially devastating for rideshare drivers across the country. More than 1,000 rideshare and delivery workers responded to a Business Insider survey this week — drivers quoted in this article, whose employment Business Insider has verified, described drops in income that mirror Eddie's.

Both Uber and Lyft, which have near-identical business models and pricing, have rolled out measures to support drivers through the coronavirus outbreak — both companies say they provide free disinfectant supplies to drivers, and Uber has vowed to cover two weeks of paid sick leave for drivers. But drivers told Business Insider that the free cleaning supplies are often hard to find, and that Uber's sick pay is unreliable.

A Lyft spokesperson told Business Insider that cleaning supplies are delivered in bulk shipments, and drivers will be notified when they arrive.

An Uber spokesperson told Business Insider that the company is "committed to working with drivers and delivery people around the world to help support them," but declined to answer specific questions about cleaning supplies or sick payments. Uber SVP Andrew Macdonald tweeted Thursday that shipments of disinfectants are "now starting to make their way to drivers."

In the immediate term, drivers are poised to get some relief from the newly-passed CARES Act, which extends unemployment benefits to gig workers for the first time ever. Some drivers also told Business Insider they're pivoting to delivery work, which they say has remained profitable amid social distancing measures. 

Here's exactly how much of a financial toll coronavirus is taking on rideshare work, according to drivers.

Instagram is continuing to roll out a crucial feature to desktop computers and web browsers that has up until now been limited to the platform's mobile app: Direct Messages.

A "small percentage" of users have had access to DMs on their desktop since January, when Instagram first told The Verge it was testing the feature. However, it seems that Instagram has ramped up the rollout of the test, with dozens of users taking to Twitter this week to share the discovery of having DMs on their desktops.

An Instagram spokesperson told Business Insider that the feature is not yet available to the "entire global community," but said the company is "working on it."

Accessing Instagram DMs via desktop will be a welcomed addition for influencers, brands, and others who heavily rely on direct messaging on a regular basis. Users will be able to start one-on-one and group chats, read and send to messages, share photos, and double-tap to react to responses. However, you're still unable to video chat via Instagram, which you're able to do through DMs on the mobile app.

Facebook, Instagram's parent company, has made a series of changes in the last year to prioritize private messaging across its family of platforms. A standalone app launched in late 2019, called Threads, for Instagram users to exchange messages and photos with those on their Close Friends list. Facebook debuted a desktop app for Messenger just last week. All of this comes after the New York Times reported in early 2019 that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had directed employees to integrate private messaging services across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Zuckerberg later said that the integration wouldn't come until 2020 at the earliest.

Here's how to check if you're one of the users given the ability to send and receive Instagram DMs on their desktop:

Microsoft is freezing hiring for some roles, citing uncertainty related to the coronavirus crisis, the company confirmed on Tuesday, except in unspecified "strategic areas."

"We continue to seek industry-leading talent in a range of disciplines as we continue to invest in certain strategic areas," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "However, in light of the uncertainties presented by COVID-19, we are temporarily pausing recruitment for other roles."

Microsoft declined to provide more information about for which positions it's still hiring, and which roles are seeing a pause in hiring.

According to employees who spoke with Business Insider, Microsoft is still hiring for roles within its massive cloud computing business, and the company was holding virtual hiring events for software engineers as recently as last week. Some groups, one employee said, are "prioritizing consumer-facing and critical roles." 

Microsoft-owned LinkedIn also enacted a companywide pause on new hires, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider.

The coronavirus will likely cause hiring freezes and layoffs across many industries, according to experts.

Microsoft has more than 150,000 employees. Microsoft has handled the coronavirus crisis internally by mandating that most of its US employees to work from home "until further notice," streaming company-wide town halls from executives' homes, expanding benefits like paid leave for parents, and even delivering food and medications to employee homes.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is seeing a huge surge of new customers because of the crisis. The company, for example, clocked a 775 percent spike in usage of its Teams chat app in an area of Italy that implemented a lockdown. 

With all those new users have come issues with capacity. In response, Microsoft said it will place a "few temporary restrictions" for Azure customers, such as limits on free offers and "certain resources" for new subscriptions. 

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Universe, an Instagram for building mobile websites, nabs funding from YC

GV’s M.G. Siegler on portfolio management, crisis fundraising and his latest investment

Mobile website builder Universe raises $10M from GV as it ventures into commerce

Galileo Financial raises $77 million for its fintech services that were 19 years in the making

Online lender SoFi has quietly raised $500 million in funding, led by Qatar

Embedded finance, or why fintech mega VC rounds have become so common