Quantcast
Channel: Business Insider
Viewing all 76301 articles
Browse latest View live

What women eyeing a run for the White House can expect from voters and the media in 2020

$
0
0

female presidential candidates and the media 2020 4x3

  • Elizabeth Warren's 2020 campaign was only a few hours old when a story questioning whether the Massachusetts senator was "likable" enough to be president went viral. Many immediately pointed out the sexism in the piece, noting that male candidates are often not given the same scrutiny.
  • Warren is the only woman so far to launch a 2020 campaign, but she could soon be joined by Senators Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Kirsten Gillibrand. 
  • INSIDER spoke with political experts about what female presidential candidates can expect from voters and the media in 2020. 

Elizabeth Warren had just announced her bid for the presidency when a POLITICO story about her went viral — for the wrong reasons. 

The story posed the following question: "How does Warren avoid a Clinton redux — written off as too unlikable before her campaign gets off the ground?" On Twitter, readers immediately hit back, saying the criticism — being "unlikable"— is one often ascribed to women, rarely men. The story sparked a debate online: Will women running for president in 2020 face the same kind of gendered scrutiny that Hillary Clinton often had to deal with in 2016? 

Some experts say yes.

"It would be nice to think that there's been some kind of mass learning from the mistakes of the last two election cycles," said media critic Soraya Chemaly, author of "Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger.""I'm a little more cynical than that."

Society, Chemaly said, is still "so profoundly shaped by sex segregation culturally that the news thinks that women compete against women and men compete against men."

"You see that constantly in the way they talk about a woman candidate and compare her, for example, not to the entire field of candidates, but to other women," she said. "We see that over and over and over again. And that's a pretty subtle but still not benign kind of sexism that sort of separate spheres of politics."

Warren is the first woman to announce a bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination bid. Many expect fellow Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and Kamala Harris to join her in the race. If they do, the 2020 Democratic primary field might have the most women ever in a presidential race. And though the majority of the likely candidates are men, that still might mean that many of the women running for the White House will receive different scrutiny than their male counterparts. 

elizabeth warren

'The rhetoric around women's places hasn't changed much.' 

Brandeis University professor Amber Spry, who specializes in political attitudes and behavior in United States politics, said that media coverage of the 2016 election focused a lot on Clinton's fitness for the role "in ways that were very, very obviously gendered."

"In a lot of ways, 2016 revealed that even though we've made a lot of progress as a country in the way that we think about women and their place in work and their place in politics," she said, "we still saw the media kind of gravitating towards these very familiar tropes about whether she was dressed appropriately ... or her mannerisms and the way she was speaking." 

Mary-Kate Lizotte, a political science professor at Stony Brook University, said she doesn't "expect a lot of differences" between the way voters and the media treated women running for the White House in 2016 and the way they're angling to talk about women candidates now. 

"It's going to take much longer for a woman who's running for president to be treated and perceived differently than Hillary Clinton was," she said. 

Female candidates, she said, often have to find the balance between "being a woman, but not too feminine, but not too masculine, and being 'likable.'" For Warren, she said, this examination is already happening. 

Lizotte quoted research by political science professors Nichole Bauer and Kathleen Dolan that found that voters are more likely to respond favorably to a female candidate if she appears "knowledgeable on masculine issues such as the economy and foreign affairs, instead of simply focusing on issues voters associate with women — such as welfare and abortion." 

Female candidates, Dolan's research found, are perceived as less competent on dealing with military and economic issues. 

In her own research, Lizotte has studied the adverse effects of discussing female political candidates' attractiveness — from the 2008 commentary on Sarah Palin's beauty pageant background to discussion of the way Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina dressed in 2016. Lizotte's study found that the more a female candidate is described as attractive, the more she will be perceived as more feminine and, thus, "not possessing the traits necessary to fulfill the role of an elected official." 

Lizotte's research found that male candidates described as attractive will be viewed as more masculine, "which may enhance perceptions of their suitability for office." It may also, however, lead to negative assumptions about their vanity and intellect. 

"Female candidates, when they're described as being very physically attractive, they're seen by voters to be less intelligent and less qualified," she said.

'Some democratic voters might be a little hesitant to nominate another female candidate' 

Hillary Clinton.

For some voters, the scars of the 2016 election remain, and Clinton's underperformance might deter them from supporting a new female candidate. Though this is a possibility, Lizotte said she doesn't think it is enough justification to scratch women out of the race. 

"I'm not sure if that's going to be enough of an influence to prevent that, even if they are a little bit hesitant," she said. "If ultimately someone is performing well and seems electable, I think they'll probably overcome that hesitancy." 

Voters may have sent a record 103 women to Congress during the 2018 midterm elections, but if the Democratic presidential nominee is a woman, she will likely face the same level of criticism Donald Trump gave Clinton in 2016. Chemaly pointed out that, had Clinton tried to leverage anger against her critics the way male candidates do, she would've been reviled. 

"There's still a stunning lack of self-awareness in media about the ways that the language and the headlines and the photo choices in the framing shape public opinion, subtly biasing people against seeing women as leaders," she said. 

Trump's adversaries, particularly the women running against him, will similarly have to measure the ways they react to his attacks, which range from poorly-crafted nicknames, to late-night Twitter rants, to threats disguised as rally chants. 

Any candidate who faces Trump in the general election, Lizotte said, must be prepared to face him and these attacks with authentic emotion. Female candidates, she added, might face the same dilemma women in business often encounter: proving that they can be many things at once — competent and tough, but also as nice and empathetic as possible.

As long as women are able to show that they have "a multitude of emotions and they're not always angry or always saddened by something, if they kind of show a full range of authentic emotion," voters will likely perceive them positively, she said. 

Another challenge for female candidates in 2020 will likely be a deeper inspection of their qualifications than their male counterparts. Chemaly pointed out that, while female candidates tend to be extremely qualified for office — Barack Obama once said nobody was more qualified to be president than Hillary Clinton — there is still an overabundance of "mediocre" men who are not qualified for office, and not enough underqualified women. 

The women who are likely to run for the presidency, she said, are "exceptionally smart, driven, ambitious, competent people."

"Women are held to different standards," Chemaly said. "In truth, what we want to see is mediocre women that are unexceptional. We want it to be that case that not every woman has to be excessively overqualified. While that would be great, in fact what we have is a situation where there are far too many unqualified men, not under-qualified, but downright unqualified." 

'This is not just just a political moment, a blip on the scale'

Kamala Harris

As the country waits for Harris, a Democrat from California and the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, to announce a 2020 bid, Spry wants the media to consider an important point. Harris has already emerged as a potential candidate, with or without a formal announcement, which says a lot not just about her leadership potential, but about the kind of leader people want in this political moment. 

"We've had this history as a country of exclusion and restrictions for people who look like Kamala Harris," she said. "People are excited to engage with the idea that, this, this thing that we hold as the American dream, which is that anybody can achieve and do incredible things — Kamala Harris embodies that possibility." 

For Spry, the success of many women in the midterm elections proves that what we're in living now is "not just a political moment, a blip on the scale." 

"This is the voices of Americans saying we believe in equality, we believe in change, we believe that people can make a difference," she said. "It's exciting to see that possibility come to fruition for an increasingly diverse crop of political candidates." 

When picking a 2020 frontrunner, the Democratic Party has to figure out not just how to develop ideological unity and what that will look like in a candidate, but it also has to decide what identities they want reflected in a presidential nominee, Spry added. 

"Race, gender, class — these kinds of identities are always present in politics," she said. "But there are times when social identity rises to the surface in particularly important ways, and right now those those things that are at the top of voters' minds." 

These issues, she said, include gender equality and women's rights — politically and otherwise — and will likely be championed by all Democratic female candidates. Male candidates should hope to do so too. 

Spry said she expects to see more broad conversations about women's rights and sexism in the upcoming election cycle as the #MeToo movement has left behind "a shared vocabulary for people to engage with these kind of issues." 

And while Democratic voters might be energized by identity politics, Lizotte warned against emphasizing identity in the general election, saying female candidates might fare better if they chose a slogan more populous than Clinton's "I'm With Her." 

Chemaly said she remains hopeful that the women who won in the midterms — and even those who lost such as failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams — are the first in a new generation of female candidates who have publicly called out institutional injustice in the US political sphere. 

"It's important to call out sexism and racism when it's happening," Chemaly said. "For a time, the traditional wisdom was just 'don't say anything and soldier on,' and it turns out that that's not great.'"

SEE ALSO: 7 Democratic women to watch in 2020

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'


What 19 famous US lawmakers looked like when they first started out in politics

$
0
0

Young Barack Obama

  • America's most prominent politicians all got there start somewhere, from the military to local politics.
  • We rounded up pictures of some of American lawmakers from their college years or early on in their careers.
  • Vice President Mike Pence played acoustic guitar in college, and Sen. Mitt Romney married Ann Lois Davies while he was still a student at Brigham Young University.

America's most prominent lawmakers might seem like they've been around forever. But they all got their start in politics somewhere — whether it be their state capitol buildings, their college dorms, or the Air National Guard. 

Though some of today's most popular politicians have just recently started their national careers (and may even be too young to run for the White House), others have been fixtures in Washington for years and years. 

Take a look back at what some of America's most prominent lawmakers, politicians and government figures looked like at the early stages of their careers, plus pictures of how they look now.

SEE ALSO: How Nancy Pelosi went from San Francisco housewife to the most powerful woman in US politics

California Senator Kamala Harris as a young college graduate in 1986.



Harris is now considering a 2020 run for the White House.



Mike Pence loved to play guitar during his college years.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann has reportedly made millions of dollars by leasing office space to his own company

$
0
0

Adam Neumann

  • WeWork CEO Adam Neumann reportedly made millions of dollars by renting office space in buildings that he partially owns to his company, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday
  • In a filing for prospective investors last year, WeWork reportedly disclosed that it paid $12 million in rent between 2016 and 2017 to buildings "partially owned by officers" of WeWork.
  • Investors told The Journal that they're concerned that the situation creates a conflict of interest — if those buildings were to raise their rents, Neumann could stand to benefit.
  • WeWork told Business Insider that Neumann has a stake in only four properties from which it leases space, out of the 400-plus coworking spaces the company operates globally, and the company said its board and investors are both fully aware of the situation. 

WeWork, the coworking company said to be valued at $47 billion, has been renting space in buildings partially owned by its CEO Adam Neumann, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday — an arrangement that's netted the executive millions of dollars. 

Multiple WeWork investors told The Journal that the arrangement was concerning to them, as the situation creates a potential conflict of interest for Neumann. For example, if those buildings were to raise WeWork's rent, Neumann could personally profit. WeWork's business model involves leasing large amounts of office space, and then subleasing smaller chunks of that space out to individuals, startups, and smaller groups.  

In a document for prospective investors last year, the company disclosed that it paid $12 million in rent between 2016 and 2017 to buildings "partially owned by officers" of WeWork, and said it will pay more than $110 million over the lifetime of those leases, according to the report.

Neumann has a 50% stake in an 11-story New York City building where WeWork operates a coworking space, according to the report. The Journal also reported that Neumann is the "main investor" in a group that buys multiple properties in San Jose, California, some of which are leasing space to WeWork. 

A spokesperson for WeWork told Business Insider that Neumann has a stake in only four properties from which the company operates, out of its network of 400 coworking spaces globally. Furthermore, the company said everything has been disclosed to investors and approved by the board, adding that it hasn't heard complaints.

"WeWork has a review process in place for related party transactions. Those transactions are reviewed and approved by the board, and they are disclosed to investors," the spokesperson said.

Of note, however, is that, in a 2014 fundraising deal, Neumann was awarded enough equity in the company to exert voting control over its board of directors. While WeWork's board mainly consists of independent directors, Neumann's vote is enough to make or break any proposal.

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here

Earlier this month, the coworking company announced it would be rebranding from WeWork to The We Company, which it said would better reflect company's ambitions of moving beyond providing office space and pushing further into markets such as education or residential living.

Read more: WeWork is changing its name to 'The We Company' as SoftBank invests $2 billion

The day before the rebranding was announced, WeWork lost out on a $16 billion investment from the Japanese tech company Softbank, which decided to downsize its investment to $2 billion. 

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal at +1 (209) 730-3387, email at nbastone@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM at @nickbastone.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I cut Google out of my life for 2 weeks, but the alternatives prove why Google is so much better

Huawei's CEO called Trump a 'great president' in an extraordinary plea to end America's war with his company

$
0
0

Ren Zhengfei.JPG

  • Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has called Donald Trump a "great president" as he bids to end America's war with his company.
  • In rare public comments, he praised Trump's tax cuts and said he wants to foster an environment of "collaboration and shared success" with the US.
  • Ren's daughter, the Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada last month and faces extradition to America.

Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei has made a rare foray into public life in an effort to calm the growing international hostilities towards his tech company.

In his first comments to journalists since 2015, per the South China Morning Post, Ren appealed to Donald Trump in particular, flattering the US president as his daughter Meng Wanzhou remains in Canada facing extradition to America. The Huawei CFO was arrested in Vancouver last month.

"Trump is a great president," said Ren, according to a number of publications that attended a two-hour roundtable with the Huawei CEO at the firm's newest offices in the industrial city of Dongguan.

According to the Morning Post, he added: "He dares to massively cut tax, which will benefit the business. But you have to treat well the companies and countries so that they will be willing to invest in the US and the government will be able to collect enough tax."

Read more: Here’s why it’s so hard to buy Huawei devices in the US

This could be a reference to the fact that Huawei is effectively blacklisted in the US. The company's phones are difficult and expensive to buy, the US government has banned public contractors from using its technology, and security services have consistently warned that Huawei poses a threat amid fears it is a channel for Chinese spies.

meng wanzhou

Ren said Huawei has had "no serious security incident" and there is "no law in China [that] requires any company to install mandatory backdoors,"according to the Financial Times. Nevertheless, it is thought Ren has close ties to China's government after he served as an engineer for the military.

Ren wants to foster a spirit of collaboration with the US, he told journalists.

"The message to the US I want to communicate is: Collaboration and shared success. In our world of high tech, it’s increasingly impossible for any single company or country to sustain or to support the world’s needs."

Ren also sought to downplay Huawei's role as a potential pawn in the ongoing trade dispute between China and the US. "Huawei is only a sesame seed in the trade conflict between China and the US," he added.

SEE ALSO: What you need to know about Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese tech founder's daughter whose arrest could set fire to US-China relations

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: China made an artificial star that's 6 times as hot as the sun, and it could be the future of energy

Here are the major world leaders and royals going to Davos next week — and those staying at home

$
0
0

Putin

  • The world's elite converge on Davos, Switzerland, next week for the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting.
  • The Davos 2019 theme is "Globalization 4.0," promoting more inclusive societies and better protections for vulnerable communities.
  • It is perhaps an irony then that divisive domestic issues will prevent a number of major world leaders from attending this year.

The biggest names in politics in business descend upon the snowy Swiss town of Davos next week for the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting.

A huge snow dump might be wreaking havoc locally, but the event will aim to project a message of calm togetherness under the theme of "Globalization 4.0."

Put simply, the annual meeting will reflect on building more inclusive societies and introducing better protections for vulnerable communities.

But that message could already be at risk of being overshadowed. US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron have cancelled their trips to Switzerland as they deal with divisive domestic issues.

Trump is dealing with a government shutdown over his Mexico border wall plan, while Macron is addressing the so-called Yellow Vest protests.

But while Trump and Macron are staying at home, there are plenty of other world leaders and royals attending Davos. Scroll on to see who will be in Switzerland next week.

SEE ALSO: Here are all the world leaders who went to Davos in 2018

German Chancellor Angela Merkel.



Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.



Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan.

Wang will lead the Chinese delegation to the World Economic Forum event, according to the South China Morning Post, meaning Xi Jinping will not be attending.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

AI 101: How learning computers are becoming smarter

$
0
0

artificial intelligence social network eter9

Many companies use the term artificial intelligence, or AI, as a way to generate excitement for their products and to present themselves as on the cutting edge of tech development.

But what exactly is artificial intelligence? What does it involve? And how will it help the development of future generations?

Find out the answers to these questions and more in AI 101, a brand new FREE report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, that describes how AI works and looks at its present and potential future applications.

To get your copy of the FREE slide deck, simply click here.

Join the conversation about this story »

Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup PagerDuty has confidentially filed for an IPO but because of the shutdown no one can review its prospectus

$
0
0

JenniferTejada PagerDuty

  • PagerDuty, an IT incident response startup, has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO.
  • PagerDuty was last valued at $1.3 billion in funding round backed by Silicon Valley VCs like Andreessen Horowitz and Accel.
  • Despite filing the paperwork, PagerDuty isn't likely to get comments from the SEC anytime soon since the Securities and Exchange Commission is closed with the rest of the federal government.

The hot developer-focused startup PagerDuty has confidentially filed for an IPO, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

PagerDuty was last valued at $1.3 billion in its $90 million Series D, which closed in September. It's backed by big Silicon Valley venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Morgan Stanley will lead the IPO, according to Bloomberg.

PagerDuty helps companies quickly respond to IT incidents and alerts the best people to respond to any given incident, giving information about what happened and providing analysis. It's a vital tool in a DevOps workflow, where incidents have to be resolved quickly so the pace can continue.

DevOps got a vital boost in 2018 after Microsoft acquired the venture-backed GitHub for $7.5 billion in June. PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada leveraged investor excitement into a unicorn funding round at the end of last year, representing an impressive step up from its $650 million valuation a year earlier, in 2017. 

While filing with the SEC puts PagerDuty in a good place for an early 2019 IPO, the company faces a major roadblock heading into its IPO. So long as the SEC and federal governement remain closed, IPO-ready companies aren't getting feedback on the paperwork they file, leaving most IPOs on hold. 

PagerDuty did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Read more: 2019 was supposed to be a banner year for IPOs, but now it's turning into a 's---show'

SEE ALSO: 2019 was supposed to be a banner year for IPOs, but now it's turning into a 's---show'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I went on Beyoncé's 22-day diet — and I lost 15 pounds

This former Cisco exec explains why she was so excited to join $155 million Scalyr as its new CEO (CSCO)

$
0
0

AW01327

  • Log-management startup Scalyr announced Thursday that Christine Heckart, formerly a senior vice president at Cisco, will become its new CEO.
  • Scalyr was founded by Steve Newman, who previously founded Writely, the startup that Google acquired and turned into the original Google Docs.
  • Startups like Scalyr that are specifically targeted at developers and help with debugging code are growing quickly, so Newman wanted to find a new CEO with experience in scaling and growth.
  • Heckart was drawn to Scalyr because of its culture and because she believes the company is creating technology that can make an impact.

It took only two meetings for Cisco's former senior vice president, Christine Heckart, to realize that the log-management startup Scalyr was where she wanted to work as CEO.

Scalyr announced Heckart as its new CEO on Thursday, replacing founder Steve Newman.

Newman, who will become chairman, is best known as the founder of Writely, an online word processor that Google acquired in 2006 and used to build the first iteration of Google Docs.

After the acquisition, Newman left Google and set out to create a tool for engineers to help them troubleshoot code, which would eventually become Scalyr. Customers including TiVo, OkCupid, and even us here at Business Insider use Scalyr to help debug and optimize applications — a market that's heating up in the software economy.

"What I go towards is the chance to change the way work gets done, to change the world in some meaningful way," Heckart told Business Insider. "If Scalyr can help engineers around the world, if it can help them do their job quickly, we can provide a value to the world that impacts and touches every person in every way."

Scalyr was most recently valued at $155 million at the time of its $5.5 million funding round in 2018, according to PitchBook. Investors in Scalyr include GV (formerly Google Ventures), Bloomberg Beta, and Shasta Ventures.

A 2nd chance at being a CEO

Last year, Newman started looking for a new CEO, someone with the business acumen to accelerate the company's growth while he redoubled his focus on the technology. Heckart came recommended by a mutual friend of hers and Newman's who knew that she wanted to leave Cisco and try her hand as a CEO for a second time.

"I had run a company before," Heckart said. She was CEO of a company called TeleChoice before her Cisco days. "When I had small kids, it was hard to do that, so I went back to executive positions for a while, but I wanted to go back to being a CEO of a small company."

Heckart had been approached by five or so companies about coming on as CEO, she said, but it took only two meetings for her to know that Scalyr was by far the best fit.

"After I spent time on campus, I was getting a good sense of the culture," she said. "I went home and told my husband, 'This is the one I want. Even if this doesn't work out, that comparison told me that those other companies aren't the right ones for me.'"

When Scalyr approached Heckart, the No. 1 thing that stood out to her was the culture and diversity of the company. She saw that Scalyr was more inclusive and valued cognitive diversity, meaning different styles of problem solving. To her, that was a sign that Scalyr was the right place to be.

"That wasn't an accident. From the very beginning, Steve and the leadership team built it for cognitive diversity," Heckart said. "It makes a huge difference, not only in the employee experience. It also makes a huge difference in the success of the company."

What comes next

Heckart said that although she's run a company before, this will be her first time being CEO of a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, which comes with its own unique set of pressures, especially since Scalyr offers a niche product for developers. Still, nowadays, there's a lot of money to be made in catering to developers.

"Kind of like how eyes are the window into the soul, logs are the window into performance and applications," Heckart said. "While it sounds esoteric or incredibly tactical, the right log-management tool not only makes the engineer more successful at their job; it helps them get home and see their kids on time. It helps them solve the problem."

Heckart said she isn't planning any dramatic changes to Scalyr's strategy. The company already has plenty of momentum, so she has the good problem of making sure that it continues. From Cisco and the other tech companies she's worked at, she hopes to bring her experience in growth and scale.

"There's so much momentum here already," she said. "My job is to build on it, to help us really connect with those users, to make sure all the users know about this tool and we bring them together in a community. We have the chance to build a really powerful community and ecosystem."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear


Apple's $24 million chip executive is reportedly on Intel's short list for new CEO, but it's not clear if he'd be willing to make that jump (INTC)

$
0
0

apple johny srouji

  • It's been six months and Intel still hasn't found a new CEO.
  • Intel has reportedly put Apple senior VP of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, on its wish list.
  • If Intel could convince Srouji to become its new CEO, it would be a big win for the company.
  • But that's a big if.

If there's one sure-fire way for Intel to turn the fiasco of its six-month vacant CEO slot into a big win for the company, it's this: lure Apple senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, into becoming the new CEO.

Axios's Ina Fried reports that Srouji is on Intel's short list for chief executive. This follows Bloomberg reporting Monday that several talked-about candidates are no longer in the running, including former Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha and two former Intel executives, Anand Chandrasekher (who a former Qualcomm president) and Renee James. As we previously reported, James is now CEO of her own chip company, Ampere. She worked like mad to get her company off the ground and says she's incredibly happy working for herself at the moment. Bloomberg reported that some of the candidates turned Intel down.

Srouji would be a stroke of genius — and a stroke of luck — for Intel, if they could lure him away from Apple. That's a big if.

Read: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella describes 2 new kinds of software that will change everything for businesses

He leads Apple's in-house chip development, which has caused Apple to withdraw ever more of its business away from Intel. The latest industry scuttlebutt is that Apple is on track to ditch Intel chips for its Mac PCs by 2020. In all fairness, though, similar rumors have circulated annually for years about Apple ditching Intel completely.

So nabbing Srouji could potentially help Intel shore up its relationship with one of its biggest customers. And even if Apple still left Intel, Srouji may be just the genius Intel needs to help it get through its endless manufacturing issues.

Under former CEO Brian Krzanich, Intel suffered through one missed mass-production deadline after another, having difficulty retooling its production lines to crank out its latest, greatest, smallest chips. Apple, on the other hand, under Srouji seems to crank out its own new homegrown chips for its iPhones like clockwork. 

And Srouji also cut his teeth at Intel, working at its Israel facility from 1990 to 2005, Fried points out.

But, if Srouji is Intel's dream hire, he may also be out of Intel's league, even for the CEO job.

Apple recently gave Srouji a big raise to keep him sticking around. Srouji joined Apple in 2008, and when he was promoted to senior vice president of hardware technologies in 2015, Apple gave him $10 million of restricted stock that vested over four years. Right before the four years was up and all $10 million was free to land in his pocket, Apple doubled-up on him. Srouji made $24,162,392 in total compensation in 2017, including new stock packages on a vesting schedule. And he became, for the first time, a named officer at Apple, meaning that he's so important and so highly paid that Apple had to disclose his compensation in SEC filings.

As we previously reported, that handsome pay package made him the second highest-paid executive at the company after retail chief, Angela Ahrendts. She made a tad more at $24,216,072. CEO Tim Cook, in comparison, earned the least of Apple's executive exec team in 2017, at just under $13 million.

So Intel would need to convince Srouji the challenge and prestige of being its next CEO would be worth giving up the challenge and prestige of developing Apple's chips and hardware. And they'd have to pay him handsomely to make the risk worth taking, too.

Krzanich resigned from Intel in June after the company learned that he had an affair with an employee. He is now the CEO of CDK Global, a car dealer software maker in the Chicago area. Intel's acting CEO is CFO Bob Swan, who says he does not want the CEO role permanently.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The safest way to walk on ice is to impersonate a penguin — here's why

Here's why Apple's China situation is at 'code red,' and why it needs to take dramatic action to plug up a key weakness in the business (AAPL)

$
0
0

Tim Cook China

  • Apple needs to cut the price of its iPhone XR in China by as much as 20%, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a research note Monday.
  • The phone costs about $960 in the country, an example of Apple's "pricing hubris," he said.
  • The danger for the company is that iPhone customers there will buy cheaper phones from rivals instead of paying Apple's price, Ives said.
  • Apple needs to maintain its customer base to drive sales of its services, he said.

When it comes to China, Apple might be facing a "code red" situation and may need to respond to it equally dramatically with something it rarely does — cutting prices on recently launched products.

For Apple to successfully transform itself into a services company, as CEO Tim Cook has been talking about, it needs to maintain its base of customers, Dan Ives, an analyst who covers the company for Wedbush, said in a new research note. But it risks losing a significant chunk of its customer base in China because it priced its new iPhone XR too high, he said.

To right its ship, Apple is going to need to "significantly" cut the price of the XR in coming months — perhaps by as much as 20%, Ives said.

"Apple needs to make sure that over the next few quarters they do not lose any current iPhone customers, and thus speaks to the more significant price reductions on the way in China, in our opinion," Ives said. "This is a smart and necessary strategy."

Apple representatives did not respond to an email seeking comment about Ives' report.

Read more: Hey Tim Cook, there's a simple solution to your iPhone sales problem

Some thought the XR would be a big hit

Apple introduced the XR last fall as a lower-cost alternative to its flagship XS models. It has many of the same features, but it has a less costly screen and a lower price. While the XS models start at $1,000, the XR starts at $750. When it launched, some observers expected the XR to be a breakout hit.

iPhone XRInstead, many consumers appear to be rejecting the XR as too costly. Apple has reportedly cut back on production of the XR repeatedly since it launched. Earlier this month, the company warned that its holiday-quarter sales would fall short of its forecasts and blamed weak iPhone sales, particularly in China.

Ives pointed a finger at the XR for that shortfall. There the device has a base price of RMB 6,499, which is about $960.

"As we have discussed with investors, it has been Apple's pricing hubris on iPhone XR that was the major factor in the company's December earnings debacle," said Ives, who remains a bull on Apple's stock, with an "outperform" rating and a $200 price target.

Many analysts, including Ives, believe that the future for Apple is in selling services to owners of its devices. The company's services segment has been one of its fastest-growing businesses in recent years and such offerings as Apple Music, iCloud storage, and the money Google pays Apple to be the default search engine for the iPhone. For its services segment to continue to grow, Apple will need to at least maintain its user base, Ives said.

Apple needs to sell iPhones to drive demand for its services

That's a chronic challenge. Smartphone owners tend to replace their devices every two to three years, and some use it as an opportunity to switch the kind of device they own from an iPhone to an Android device, or vice versa. Apple's customers have tended to be very loyal, but its pricing mistake for the XR could test those ties, particularly in China, Ives said.

Some 350 million iPhones are due to be replaced within the next year to 18 months, he said. Of those, about 60 to 70 million are owned by Chinese consumers, he said. The danger for Apple is that those customers, because of its high prices, don't wait longer to buy their next device, but they buy a cheaper device from a competitor instead. That's why it's crucial for the company to cut its prices, he said.

"If the installed base declines in China, Apple will face an uphill battle in the region for years," Ives said.

He suggested that Apple could boost sales of the XR by cutting the price to about RMB 5,200, or about $768. Reports out of China in recent days indicate that some retailers are already slashing their prices on the XR and other iPhone models.

The price cuts could worry already nervous investors, Ives acknowledged. Some may fret that Apple will take a further revenue hit from such reductions or that it would lose its image as a luxury brand. But such considerations aren't as important as maintaining its user base, he said. 

Cutting prices "is a smart and necessary strategy for Apple as this is an installed base story going forward," he said. The growth of its services business, he added, "will be driven off that premise for the next decade, with China a key ingredient in Apple's future recipe for success."

SEE ALSO: Apple's iPhone revenue is set to fall this year for just the second time ever

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I cut Google out of my life for 2 weeks, but the alternatives prove why Google is so much better

8 cloud computing startups to bet your career on in 2019

$
0
0

Snowflake

If you're looking to take your career to the next level, it might be time to bet on cloud computing. Startups in the cloud market are garnering massive funding and massive interest. 

That's not surprising. Cloud computing is expected to become a $300 billion market by 2021, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The cloud computing market consolidates around Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.  Over the last three years, job postings with key words on cloud have skyrocketed, and employer interest for "cloud engineers"has risen 31%, according to Indeed

A growing number of startups are creating tech that helps companies better use the cloud.

We looked at a variety of factors when selecting this list including the experience of leaders and founders, the reputations of investors and the amount of funding raised along with valuations, based on data from online finance database Pitchbook, keeper of such records.

Here are 8 cloud computing startups to bet your career on in 2019:

Zapier: Getting all your web apps to work together

Valuation: Unknown
Total raised to date: $1.3 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: Sunnyvale, CA

What it does: Zapier connects Web apps together to automate tasks such as automatically copying Gmail attachments into Dropbox and alerting you in Slack.

Why it's hot: This seven-year-old company has raised a total of $2.56 million. This year it revealed it has achieved a $35 million annualized revenue run rate. Oh, and by the way, at Zapier, you can work in pajamas from the comfort of your bedroom, if you really wanted to. This all-remote company even started a delocation package of $10,000 to move away from the pricey San Francisco Bay Area.



Fastly: Making websites and apps faster

Valuation: $925 million
Total raised to date: $220.04 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: San Francisco

What it does: Fastly calls itself an "edge cloud platform." It helps large websites work faster by moving data and apps closer to their users.

Why it's hot: Fastly has come on strong in this well-established market (also known as a Content Delivery Network) and already powers sites such as Airbnb, GitHub, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, and The New York Times.

It reportedly broke the $100 million revenue mark in 2017 and this year raised funding that included backing by the investment arm of telecom giant Deutsche Telekom.



Cohesity: a storage startup with a veteran founder

Valuation: $1.1 billion
Total raised to date: $411 million
Year founded: 2013
HQ: San Jose, CA

What it does: Cohesity helps make storage back-ups less expensive, easier to manage, and easier to sift through for big data projects.

Why it's hot: Cohesity is the second act for its founder Mohit Aron, who had previously co-founded Nutanix. And its been growing like mad, so much so that in 2018, Cohesity landed a massive $250 million round of investment from Softbank's Vision Fund. It was only the second enterprise company to be backed by the massive fund.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Sheryl Sandberg gave an unconvincing speech about privacy just when she needed to sound sincere

$
0
0

sheryl sandberg

  • Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave a speech in Munich on Sunday stating that Facebook needed to do better in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
  • Sandberg outlined the steps Facebook was taking to earn back users' trust.
  • But audience members criticized her message as over-rehearsed and too polished to be convincing.
  • Sandberg will need to work harder to convince European regulators that Facebook has changed if the company is to avoid punitive regulations and fines.

One of the first rhetorical tricks a public speaker will pick up is repetition.

Theoretically, repetition is a way of ensuring your message really lands. It's a way of persuading your audience into your way of thinking.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg tried to leverage the power of repetition at a speech in Germany on Sunday but, at a crucial time for her company in Europe, it seems to have backfired.

Sandberg appeared at the DLD conference in Munich on Sunday, a kind of warm-up conference for the digital elite before the World Economic Forum in Davos. She also gave an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

In a continuation of the Facebook apology tour, Sandberg touched on Facebook's many missteps in 2018, and on other familiar themes in a speech titled: "What kind of internet do we want?"

"At Facebook, these last few years have been difficult," she told the Munich audience. "We need to stop abuse more quickly and we need to do better to protect people's data. We have acknowledged our mistakes."

Sandberg praised Europe's aggressive stance on privacy and announced that Facebook would be funding an AI ethics institute at a German university.

"We know we need to do better," she said, adding that the company was trying to win back users' trust.

If this sounds familiar, it's because she said "we need to do better"in April, June, and in September's Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeated the phrase through 2018 too.

Jack Dorsey Sheryl Sandberg Twitter Facebook Senate

Sandberg went on: "I, and everyone at Facebook, accept the deep responsibility we have to protect the people who use our services. We know we need to get better at anticipating all of the risks that come with connecting so many people."

But those listening to the speech didn't buy the message.

"After a written interview with @FAZnet and this memorized talk, they missed a huge chance to regain trust. It's time for real conversation & dialogue,"wrote digital strategist Daniel Fiene.

Another user wrote: "Amazing to see how they have upgraded Sophia the robot to look and talk like Sheryl Sandberg."

Yet another wrote: "Sheryl Sandberg did a sugarcoated [speech], thanking Germany and praising Data Protection. Why can I not believe and trust these promises? Maybe because I cannot forget the active selling & manipulation of Data, she did not mention."

Read more: Sheryl Sandberg is on the hot seat at Facebook — but ousting her alone wouldn't solve its problems

And users criticized the Facebook exec for not taking questions. "I don‘t agree w/ [Sheryl Sandberg]. #Trustbuilding is not presenting a perfectly read out but distanced speech. Trustbuilding would have been to be authentic and to agree on a Q&A session."

Sandberg should be alarmed by this indication of the temperature in Europe. Germany has been the most aggressive country in regulating Facebook, and is reportedly about to clamp down on the kinds of information the firm can collect. It is one of the most privacy-conscious nations in Europe, and played a key role in the introduction of GDPR, Europe's strict new privacy regulation.

Should Sandberg fail on this trip to convince German regulators and world leaders attending Davos that Facebook can clean up its act, the firm may face stricter rules and fines at home and abroad.

SEE ALSO: The hits keep coming for Facebook — here's why things keep getting worse

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos is worth over $100 billion — here's how the world's richest man makes and spends his money

Vogue apologizes after misidentifying journalist Noor Tagouri as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari — but some people say it's not enough

$
0
0

Noor Tagouri

  • Activist and journalist Noor Tagouri appeared in Vogue magazine this month.
  • But the caption with her photo misidentified her as Noor Bukhari, a Pakastani actress. 
  • Tagouri posted a video of her reaction online, noting that she was heartbroken about the mistake. 
  • Vogue apologized but many are calling for them to do more.

Journalist and activist Noor Tagouri was excited to see herself photographed and featured within the pages of Vogue for this month's issue. But after picking up a copy of the magazine a few days ago, she quickly noticed there was a mistake: She had been misidentified as someone else.

Wearing Givenchy in the magazine spread, Vogue misidentified Tangouri as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari. In a series of tweets, she documented her reaction to first seeing the print magazine. In a video taken by her husband expected to be capturing her excitement, Tagouri's followers — as well as many others, as the tweet has since gone viral — instantly saw the joy leave her face.

"I'm SO heartbroken and devastated," she wrote. "Like my heart actually hurts. I've been waiting to make this announcement for MONTHS. One of my DREAMS of being featured in American @VogueMagazine came true!!"

She added, "We finally found the issue in JFK airport. I hadn't seen the photo or the text. Adam wanted to film my reaction to seeing this for the first time. But, as you can see in the video, I was misidentified as a Pakistani actress named Noor Bukhari. @voguemagazine."

"To me, it was a really big deal because I had never seen a woman in a hijab in Vogue and I've been reading Vogue since I was a kid,"she said in an interview with Fashionista.com. "I can give you 10 times off the top of my head, including today, where people have misrepresented and misidentified my work or my career. I've had a job in journalism since I was 15 years old. That has been the only [field] I've ever worked in and it's so hard to get that recognition because people are so baffled by the fact that someone that looks like me does work. And it's because it never fits their narrative and that's what's most frustrating."

Vogue issued an apology to Tagouri via Twitter, stating to "try to be more thoughtful and careful in our work going forward."

"In the February issue of Vogue the writer and activist Noor Tagouri was misidentified in a caption as ‘actor, director, and model Noor Bukhari.' We are sincerely sorry for the mistake," the publication posted on Twitter. "We were thrilled at the chance to photograph Tagouri and shine a light on the important work she does, and to have misidentified her is a painful misstep. We also understand that there is a larger issue of misidentification in media—especially among nonwhite subjects. We will try to be more thoughtful and careful in our work going forward, and we apologize for any embarrassment this has caused Tagouri and Bukhari."

But for many on social media, the apology wasn't enough.

Noor Tagouri

One user wrote, "An apology is not enough. You should give her another opportunity to feature in an upcoming issue in the VERY NEAR future. A tweet is simply not good enough and it stains Vogue's reputation badly." Another added, "You should reprint the issue — or the article — in its entirety in the next print issue."

 

This is not Tagouri's first appearance in Vogue. Also this month, Tagouri appeared in Vogue Arabia where she was interviewed by model Ashley Graham and spoke about her documentary and podcast "Sold in America," which focuses on the sex trafficking industry in the US, and her experience as an activist and journalist. The women also talked about representation and the importance of fact-checking, doing proper research, and giving a voice to marginalized communities in media.

INSIDER reached out to Tagouri for comment.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 7 science-backed ways to a happier and healthier 2019 that you can do the first week of the new year

Richard Nixon was sworn in as president 50 years ago today

$
0
0

Richard Nixon inauguration Lyndon Johnson Earl Warren

  • Richard Nixon was sworn in as president on January 20, 1969.
  • His election came at time of great social and political upheaval in the US, which was mired in the Vietnam War.
  • Nixon later became the first — and so far the only — president to resign from office.

Richard M. Nixon was sworn in as the 37th president on January 20, 1969, after a watershed election that marked a realignment in US politics.

Nixon defeated Democratic nominee and incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey on November 5, 1968, garnering 43.4% of the vote and 301 electoral votes to Humphrey's 42.7% and 191 electoral votes.

Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a proponent of segregation, got 13.5% of the vote and 46 electoral votes.

Richard Nixon White House

The campaign, which took place at the height of the Vietnam War, was marked by turmoil. President Lyndon Johnson announced in spring 1968 that he would not seek the nomination for the presidency that year — a decision prompted by growing backlash to the war.

In June that year, Robert F. Kennedy, a frontrunner for the nomination, was assassinated in Los Angeles.

Nixon, running on a law-and-order platform, defeated several other candidates, including then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, to secure the Republican nomination. He won reelection in 1972, handily defeating Democratic nominee and South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, who won just one state and the District of Columbia.

But Nixon's second term was cut short by his involvement in the Watergate scandal, which prompted lawmakers to begin impeachment proceedings against him and led to his resignation on August 9, 1974. He was the first, and thus far only, president to resign from office.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Roger Stone explains what Trump has in common with Richard Nixon

Here's the town with the most valuable homes in every state

$
0
0

Highest home values map

  • Using data from the US Census Bureau, we found the town in every state with the highest median home value.
  • Many of the towns are affluent suburbs of big cities.

The American Community Survey is an annual survey run by the Census Bureau to allow the government, corporate and academic researchers, and anyone who is curious about demographics to better understand the US population. Among many other subjects, the ACS includes questions about how much people's homes are worth.

Using the ACS estimates from 2013 to 2017 for places with at least a 1,000-person population, excluding college campuses and military bases, Business Insider made a map showing the town in each state with the highest median home value among owner-occupied households.

Read more: The economy of every state and DC, ranked from worst to best

The Census Bureau top-codes median home values, which means that for places where that median is above $2 million, it does not give a precise estimate in order to protect the privacy of survey respondents. In New York and California, there were multiple places with populations over 1,000 that fell into the over $2 million bracket. To break the tie, we chose the town in the over-$2 million bracket with the highest share of homes worth over $1 million.

This table shows the town with the highest median home value in each state, along with that median:

median housing value towns table

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An exercise scientist reveals exactly how long you need to work out to get in great shape


The three types of Amazon buyers — and how other e-tailers can lure them away (AMZN)

$
0
0

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That’s the strategy e-tailers will have to adopt if they want to compete with Amazon. To fight back against the e-commerce giant’s expanding dominance, other online retailers must understand exactly why and how customers are buying on Amazon — and which aspects of the Amazon shopping experience they can incorporate into their own strategic frameworks to win back customers.

Why Amazon First

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has obtained exclusive survey data to give e-tailers the tools to figure out how to do just that with its latest Enterprise Edge Report: The Amazon Commerce Competitive Edge Report.

Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

Business Insider Intelligence fielded the Amazon study to members of its proprietary panel in March 2018, reaching over 1,000 US consumers – primarily hand-picked digital professionals and early-adopters – to gather their insights on Amazon’s role in the online shopping experience.

In full, the study:

  • Uses exclusive survey data to analyze the factors behind Amazon’s success with consumers.
  • Segments three types of Amazon customers that e-tailers should be targeting.
  • Shares strategies on how e-tailers can attract shoppers at key moments.

First, why is Amazon so popular?

Amazon is ubiquitous. In fact, a whopping 94% of those surveyed said they’d made a purchase on the site in the last twelve months. And of those who did, the vast majority believed Amazon’s customer experience was simply better than its leading competitors’ — specifically eBay, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.

The biggest contributor to Amazon’s superior experience? Free shipping, of course. According to Amazon’s 2017 annual report, the company actually spent $21.7 billion last year covering customers’ shipping costs, a number that’s been compounding over the past few years.

Not only is free shipping included for all Prime members as part of their subscriptions but, of all e-tailers listed in the survey, Amazon also offers the lowest minimum order value for non-subscription members to qualify for the perk (just $25). The pervasiveness of free (and fast) shipping is steadily heightening customer expectations for the online shopping experience — and forcing competitors to offer similar programs and benefits.

Who exactly is shopping on Amazon?

The survey results showed that across generations for a large minority of respondents, Amazon is a standard part of their typical shopping process. Nearly a third (32%) of respondents said they begin their online shopping process on Amazon. Of those who do start their journeys elsewhere, 100% ended up purchasing something from Amazon at some point over the last 12 months.

Based on the trends in responses, Business Insider Intelligence segmented out three different types of Amazon shoppers, each with unique implications for how competitors could evolve their strategies:

  • Amazon loyalists: This group of consumers is most committed to shopping on Amazon. E-tailers must understand what has made Amazon their default experience — and how they could be pried away.
  • Comparison shoppers: This consumer segment looks at other sites before ultimately completing a purchase with Amazon, which could allow e-tailers to find success at the bottom of the purchase funnel. E-tailers should focus on what they can do more of to steal sales away at the end of the purchasing process.
  • Open-search shoppers: These consumers start their online product search away from Amazon, often with specific reasons including what they’re looking for and why they’re not looking on Amazon. Other e-tailers have the opportunity to attract these shoppers from the beginning of the purchase funnel — keeping them from ever venturing to Amazon.

Want to learn more?

Business Insider Intelligence has compiled the complete survey findings into the four-part Amazon Commerce Competitive Edge Report, which dives deeper into each of these consumer segments to give e-tailers an intricate understanding of Amazon’s role in their purchasing processes.

The report presents actionable strategies for retail strategists and executives to zero in on three individual consumer segments at critical shopping moments, and empower them to win sales in an Amazon-dominated world.

Join the conversation about this story »

The 37 most valuable soccer players in Europe, who are all worth more than $100 million

$
0
0

Lionel Messi, most valuable soccer player

  • A prominent research group, the CIES Football Observatory, has updated its list of the most valuable soccer players in Europe's best leagues.
  • There are now 37 athletes who are valued at $100 million or more.
  • Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are sliding down the list because of age, which means younger talent have leapfrogged them near the top.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi may be the most famous soccer players on the planet, but their transfer value is waning with age and they have been leapfrogged by the sport's brightest talents.

Identifying a player's transfer value is never easy, but a prominent research group in Switzerland — the CIES Football Observatory— has done just that by updating its list of 100 big-five league players with the highest valuations according to its own algorithm.

Only considering players from England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, Italy's Serie A, Germany's Bundesliga, and France's Ligue 1, in order to calculate a player's value in the current transfer market, the Observatory has been monitoring soccer transactions since 2010, speaking to market actors (club executives operating in elite soccer), and studying factors like playing activity, the club the athlete plays for, the athlete's age, playing position, and economic level of the releasing club.

The findings are interesting, not least because there are now 37 players worth $100 million or more, but also because there are a number of new faces — and teenagers — who are capable of improving further and enhancing their worth in the transfer market.

Here are the 37 most valuable soccer players competing in Europe right now, ranked in ascending order:

SEE ALSO: Lionel Messi says his 6-year-old son criticizes him and demands an explanation whenever FC Barcelona loses

DON'T MISS: 3 ugly incidents show racism is running rampant in English soccer, and we're all to blame

UP NEXT: An 18-year-old soccer player's transfer value has risen over 800% in 3 months because he's playing like the 'new Neymar'

37: Atlético Madrid midfielder Saúl Ñíguez is worth €90.2 million ($103.9 million).



36: Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford is worth €90.4 million ($104.2 million).



35: Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi is worth €91.8 million ($105.8 million).



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

'Glass' had a strong box office opening during the MLK holiday weekend, but it could have been bigger

$
0
0

glass

  • Universal and M. Night Shyamalan's "Glass" earned $40.6 million since Sunday and looks to make around $47 million by Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday.
  • It was a strong opening, but the movie had the potential to earn more.
  • Pre-release industry projections had the movie's four-day opening between $60 million and $70 million.
  • The latest Shyamalan movie suffered from a low Rotten Tomatoes score.
  • However, Shyamalan is laughing all the way to the bank. "Glass" is his third-straight movie to make a profit.

Universal had everything set up to have a big Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend with its latest M. Night Shyamalan release, "Glass," which marks the close of the director's "Unbreakable" trilogy. And though the movie did make more than its $20 million budget, self-financed by Shyamalan, everyone involved was hoping for a lot more.

"Glass" brought in $40.6 million as of Sunday and is projected to earn around $47 million by Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. That would make the movie, the latest collaboration between Shyamalan and Blumhouse Productions ("Get Out"), the third-biggest opening ever for the MLK Day four-day weekend.

But industry projections had the movie's four-day opening eyeing between $60 million and $70 million, causing the other studios to stay away from the holiday weekend. In 2016, "Split," Shyamalan's surprise sequel to his 2000 comic book-focused cult hit "Unbreakable," became an unexpected box-office darling.

However, the performance by "Glass" is the latest example that you can never predict how audiences (and critics) will react to an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Split UniversalYou can't blame Universal for its excitement. "Split" won over critics (76% Rotten Tomatoes score) and earned more than $278 million worldwide at the box office on just a $9 million budget. Its reception made it the most successful movie for Shyamalan critically and at the box office since 2002's "Signs," which made over $400 million worldwide.

The "Split" success led to the rare occurrence where two studios were willing to work together on a movie. It was agreed that Universal would release "Glass" domestically and Disney would handle the movie's international release.

Though the movie was incredibly hyped and is the first major release of 2019, people became less excited when critical reaction spread online and social media. With a current score of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and word beginning to spread of the movie's disappointing ending, the movie suddenly was not going to hit its projections. 

But in no way is this a failure for Universal. The hype allowed the studio to have the MLK weekend for itself. By Monday the movie will pass 2008's "Cloverfield" ($46.1 million) to become the third-biggest opening over the holiday weekend, with 2014's "Ride Along" ($48.6 million) and 2015's "American Sniper" ($107.2 million) still in second and first, respectively.

Having already earned more than its budget, "Glass" will mark the third straight Shyamalan movie to make a profit. All of them while working with Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions — "The Visit" ($5 million budget), "Split" ($9 million), and "Glass" ($20 million). And all three were self-financed by the writer-director.

SEE ALSO: We watched Netflix's and Hulu's docs about the doomed Fyre Festival, and one gives you a better look inside the fiasco

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch the extreme workout regimen of a professional ballerina

Trump leaves 'military option' on the table for Venezuela, which he calls as threatening as North Korea

THE DIGITAL EVOLUTION OF WEALTH MANAGEMENT: How emerging technologies can improve the user experience, while cutting costs and boosting revenue

$
0
0

concerns for wealth managersThis is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

An increasing number of wealth managers are using new technologies to make their operations more efficient and to increase customer satisfaction.

The technologies they are implementing include robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots, machine learning, application programming interfaces (APIs), and explainable AI.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence analyzes how emerging technologies like RPA and AI are transforming the wealth management industry, on both the front and back end, by increasing efficiency and opening up the space to new demographics. We explain how both incumbents and startups are applying these technologies to different business areas, and how successful they've been at implementation. Additionally, we take a look at the challenges wealth managers are facing as they look to revamp their businesses for the digital age.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

  • Startup wealth managers and digitally savvy technology suppliers are bringing emerging technologies to the fore to make wealth management more time- and cost-efficient. These include RPA, machine learning, and AI. Big players in the space are also beginning to wake up to those opportunities.
  • The technologies can improve consumer-facing elements of wealth management, like onboarding and customer service, to increase customer satisfaction.
  • Machine learning and APIs can help wealth managers improve functions like portfolio management and compliance, and help them better stay on top of regulations, and increase customer satisfaction by offering improved and additional services.
  • However, there are some challenges wealth managers are facing when implementing these tools, ranging from a lack of customer trust in emerging technologies to difficulty finding appropriate talent.

 In full, the report:

  • Outlines how the wealth management industry is implementing emerging technologies.
  • Details which technologies they are using, and what their specific benefits are. 
  • Discusses the potential challenges wealth managers are facing when implementing new technologies.
  • Highlights what wealth managers need to do to stay relevant in the field.

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

This report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports
Access to all future reports and daily newsletters
Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
And more!
Learn More

Purchase & download the full report from our research store

Join the conversation about this story »

Viewing all 76301 articles
Browse latest View live


<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>