• HBO is offering 'Watchmen' for free this weekend On Demand and through its streaming service.
• Based on the famous graphic novel of the same name, the show tackles timely topics of policing, race, and racism in America and is worth watching during a pivotal moment in the national conversation.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you love TV get ready to binge-watch, because HBO's nine-part 'Watchmen' series is free to stream and available On Demand starting Friday, June 19 through Sunday, June 21.

The show's free release comes at a pivotal moment in the US as protests and activism continue nationwide after the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a white officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.

'Watchmen,' which received critical acclaim, is based on the famous graphic novel and deals with timely topics such as police, race, and racism through nuanced storytelling. The beginning of the show is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma and depicts the 1921 massacre where a mob of white Americans killed black residents and destroyed Black-owned businesses in the Greenwood District.

"Set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws, Watchmen embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own," the show is described on HBO's website.

The free streaming is "an extension of the network's content offering highlighting Black experiences, voices and storytellers," HBO said in a statement.

You can access the free episode over at HBO, which also details TV listings, or watch a trailer for the series below.

SEE ALSO: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife are donating $120 million to Black institutions and colleges

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• Alexis Ohanian, who cofounded Reddit in 2005, has been called the "Mayor of the Internet."
• He and cofounder Steve Huffman built the company over 16 months, then sold it to Condé Nast in 2006 for somewhere between $10 and $20 million. Today, the company is worth $3 billion. 
• Since then, Ohanian has become a venture capitalist, has helped launch two more companies, and has fought against a bill that would have stifled internet innovation. 
• In 2015, he met tennis superstar Serena Williams. The couple had a daughter together, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in 2017, and got married two months later. 
• More recently, in the wake of the protests following George Floyd's death, Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board and called on the company to name a Black board member in his place, which it has since done, appointing Michael Seibel. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Alexis Ohanian's path to becoming the "Mayor of the Internet" wasn't a conventional one. 

The Baltimore, Maryland-raised Ohanian initially thought he wanted to become a lawyer before an epiphany at a Waffle House made him realize he'd rather be an entrepreneur. He and his college best friend, Steve Huffman, went on to create Reddit, the online community site known as "the front page of the internet." Today, the company is worth $3 billion.

Since selling Reddit in 2006, Ohanian has gone on to invest in startups through his venture capital firm, fight against federal bills that would have stifled internet innovation, and marry tennis superstar Serena Williams. 

Here's how Ohanian got his start and helped build one of the cornerstones of the internet. 

SEE ALSO: Tennis superstar Serena Williams and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian have had a whirlwind few years. Here's how the power couple met, and everything that's happened since.

Alexis Ohanian was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. He gave the student address at his high school graduation. "I was not the valedictorian, they just let anyone audition for the speech," Ohanian wrote on YouTube.

Youtube Embed:
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Source: YouTube, Alexis Ohanian

After high school, Ohanian attended the University of Virginia. There, he met Steve Huffman, who would be his Reddit cofounder. "I was terrified that no one played video games in college. But when I arrived at my dorm at the University of Virginia, Steve [Huffman, Reddit co-founder] was playing Gran Turismo 2, and I was like, 'Hey, what's up?' We lived together all four years of college, then almost five years after," Ohanian told Inc in 2012.

Source: Inc

Ohanian decided to become an entrepreneur junior year of college when he was about to take an LSAT practice test and decided to walk out instead. "I walked out and went to Waffle House. That's where I had what I call The Waffle House Epiphany: I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to make a dent in the universe," he told Inc.

Source: Inc

The summer after their junior year, Ohanian and Huffman came up with the idea for a mobile food ordering company called MyMobileMenu and spent the following year working on it. They decided to pitch it to Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham, who initially rejected them. The next day, Graham called them back and said he would accept them into the startup accelerator, but not their business idea. "You guys need to build the front page of the Internet," Graham told them.

Source: Inc

Reddit was founded and built in three weeks in 2005, a bare-bones site featuring just links and some text. The founders soon decided to add the option for comments. "We knew our business was in our user base, that that was the most important part," Ohanian told Inc.

Source: Inc

In 2005, Ohanian had two tragic moments affect loved ones, only a month after building Reddit, Ohanian's then-girlfriend fell from a balcony and went into a coma (she recovered months later). Ohanian's mother then discovered she had terminal brain cancer. She died in 2008.

Source: Inc,Baltimore Sun

By 2006, Reddit had taken off. Ohanian and Huffman decided to sell it to magazine publisher Condé Nast shortly after launch for an undisclosed amount — Ohanian will only say it was between $10 and $20 million.

Source: Business Insider

Three years after the sale, Ohanian left Reddit, taking a fellowship in Armenia, where his father's family is from. He has also since helped launch Breadpig, a "geek" marketplace that donates some of its profits, and travel website Hipmunk.

Source: Inc

In 2010, Ohanian became an outspoken opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. He helped organize anti-SOPA protests and said at the time that Congress was going to "obliterate an entire tech industry" if it passed the bill. While he was called to testify before Congress, the bill was killed before he did so.

Source: Inc, Business Insider, Mashable

By 2015, things had taken a turn, both for Reddit and Ohanian and Huffman's friendship. Reddit had become independent in 2011, and it was being overtaken by racist trolls and had been through multiple CEOs. Ohanian and Huffman had drifted apart, but decided to work on their friendship and return to Reddit to help lead a turnaround.

That period of time wasn't without controversy, however. Yishan Wong, one of Reddit's former CEOs, has said that Ohanian was behind the decision to fire a popular employee in 2015. The firing caused an uproar that resulted in then-CEO Ellen Pao stepping down. 

"When the hate-train started up against Pao, Alexis should have been out front and center saying very clearly 'Ellen Pao did not make this decision, I did,'" Wong wrote on Reddit at the time. "Instead, he just sat back and let her take the heat."

Source: NPR

In 2016, Ohanian cofounded venture capital firm Initialized Capital with Garry Tan. The early stage fund has $500 million in assets under management and has invested in more than 200 companies. The firm says women make up half of its investing team.

Ohanian dated microbiologist Sabriya Stukes for five years. The couple met in college and broke up sometime around 2015.

Source: The New York Times, Vanity Fair

That same year, Ohanian met tennis superstar Serena Williams at a hotel in Rome when Ohanian sat down at the table next to Williams' outside by the pool, according to a 2017 Vanity Fair profile.

Source: Vanity Fair

Ohanian and Williams' first official date took place before the French Open in June 2015. According to Vanity Fair, Williams invited Ohanian to Paris to see her play and they ended up walking around Paris for six hours before the tournament began. Ohanian ended up becoming a fixture at Williams' matches, often showing up in the stands to watch her play.

Source: Vanity Fair

By April 2016, Ohanian knew he wanted to marry Williams. "I felt like a door had been opened to a person who made me want to be my best self," Ohanian told Vanity Fair.

Source: Vanity Fair

Ohanian proposed on December 10, 2016 at the same hotel where he and Williams met in Rome. Williams announced the engagement on Reddit: She had Ohanian draw her a customized version of Reddit's alien logo, "Snoo," and called herself the "future Mrs. Kn0thing" (Kn0thing is Ohanian's Reddit username).

Source: Facebook, Reddit

In early January 2017, Williams and Ohanian found out they were expecting a baby together, right before Williams was scheduled to play in the Australian Open. (She went on to win the Australian Open while she was eight weeks pregnant.)

Source: Vanity Fair

Ohanian and Williams welcomed a baby girl, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., on September 1, 2017. The couple got married two months later at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.

Source: Us Weekly, Page Six, Vogue

The family now lives in a $6.7 million home in Beverly Hills, California. The couple reportedly has a combined net worth of more than $189 million.

Source: Business Insider,Business Insider

Since the birth of his daughter, Ohanian has become an advocate for paternity leave. In a 2019 New York Times op-ed, he explained why it was so important that he took paid leave following Olympia's birth. "I took my full 16 weeks and I'm still ambitious and care about my career. Talk to your bosses and tell them I sent you," Ohanian wrote.

Source: The New York Times

Ohanian also started a new podcast called "Business Dad," where he interviews other celebrity dads, like "Patriot Act" host Hasan Minhaj and retired NBA star Chris Bosh.

Source: Alexis Ohanian/Instagram

In early June, Ohanian quit the board of Reddit in the wake of the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody. Ohanian called his resignation "long overdue" and said his decision was spurred "as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: 'What did you do?'" He called on Reddit to name a Black board member, which the company has since done in appointing Michael Seibel.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider

Ohanian also recently shared a story about the months preceding the founding of Reddit when police found him passed out in his car while drunk and high. "Because I was white. I walked away + started Reddit, not jail time," Ohanian tweeted. "I'm grateful for that police officer's tolerance with me + disgusted that it's so obviously not (never) been afforded to everyone just because of their race."

Source: Business Insider

• A company called PRAAS is launching a new 'printing as a service' platform this week on Microsoft's Azure cloud system.
• PRAAS gives corporate IT teams a view of what is being printed – even on employees' home printers. 
• Data theft or loss is a major issue with remote work, experts say, and PRAAS says it can address that.
• PRAAS is different because its service works with any printer, the company says.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As remote employees increasingly leak confidential company information during the coronavirus crisis, a New Zealand startup is launching a new product to ebb the flow. 

The company, PRAAS, is launching what it says is the first "Print as a Service" product that works on all printers – even home printers used by remote workers – to help enterprise cybersecurity teams monitor a key weakness in data loss and theft: employees printing sensitive information.  

"When COVID hit, we realized the world's knowledge workers weren't heading back to the office anytime soon," says Brendan Francis, the CEO of PRAAS. "Print is not secure, and there was no visibility into data loss."

The cloud-based product manages all enterprise printer use, meaning that when employees print a document from their work computers – whether in the office or at home – the PRAAS system provides the company IT teams with an audit trail, helping them to track sensitive documents. The PRAAS can manage any brand or model of printer, and the system gives IT teams other printer-related services, too, such as management of contracts, service, and supplies. 

A recent report from the cybersecurity firm Tessian showed that half of employees cited "not being watched by IT" as a reason for not following safe data practices. Meanwhile, 84% of IT leaders also said that data loss prevention is more challenging when employees are working from home.

A white paper from PRAAS says print-as-a-service may be a promising market because only a quarter of the 80 million remote printers used by employees are currently managed or overseen by employers.   

After rapidly transitioning to remote working, companies may lack security, visibility, and control of sensitive customer information, introducing data compliance dilemmas with legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to International Data Corporation in an independent market-research report. GDPR is the European data-protection legislation that carries major fines for companies' mishandling of customer data. 

"Some employees might be unknowingly managing customer data in a non-compliant way, while some might be aware of the risk, but decide to print anyway," the IDC report found.

With many employees desiring to continue remote work after the quarantine lifts, and companies seeing cost-savings as a result, addressing remote oversight of sensitive data is a longterm issue, the IDC report says. 

PRAAS will launch its service on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform this week,

"The advanced analytics featured in the solution will help organizations print in a more sustainable way, and the security and compliance features are important in the post-GDPR era," Microsoft New Zealand Chief Technical Officer Russell Craig said in a statement, "E specially with so many organizations now having staff working and printing remotely." 

SEE ALSO: C3.ai CEO Tom Siebel says that his hot AI startup did $160 million in revenue last year, but won't go public until the economy is fully recovered

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You’ve likely heard the phrase Internet of Things, or IoT, at some point if you have been following any tech news in the last several years.

But at the same time, you might be scratching your head figuring out what it is or what it means past a flashy buzzword.

Simply put, the IoT refers to the connection of devices (other than typical fare such as computers and smartphones) to the Internet. Cars, refrigerators, juicers, wine racks, heart monitors, ovens, watches, and more are all candidates for connection.

A new report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, called IoT 101: The Essential Guide to the Internet of Things, outlines the basics of the IoT and what this next wave of technology means to the everyday individual.

The report dives into key IoT terms, predictions and trends for the IoT in the next five years, the industries that the IoT will affect the most, and the biggest challenges facing the IoT.

To get your copy of this exclusive report absolutely FREE, simply click here.

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• Snapchat removed its Juneteenth filter on Friday after critics said it was tone-deaf, per CNBC.
• The filter asked users to smile, after which chains appeared and then broke. 
• Juneteenth commemorates the effective end of slavery in the U.S.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Snapchat's Juneteenth filter has been removed after receiving criticism, per CNBC.

The filter displayed a Pan-African flag and read "Juneteenth, Freedom Day."

Like many other Snapchat filters, the Juneteenth filter promoted users to smile, after which chains appeared and then broke in the background of the filter. 

The filter began to receive attention and criticism after Mark Luckie, a digital strategist and former journalist, tweeted about it. 

Business Insider previously reported that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel announced that the company would keep its diversity report private on June 11.

Juneteenth celebrates the day that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas, the most confederate state in the U.S., freeing enslaved African Americans, on June 19, 1865. June 19 recognizes the effective end of slavery in the U.S.

SEE ALSO: Snap CEO says in internal meeting he doesn't release diversity numbers because it would reinforce the perception that Silicon Valley isn't diverse

DON'T MISS: How Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the US, finally became recognized as a holiday by major companies like Nike and Lyft — and landed in the center of a Trump controversy

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• Apple will re-close some stores in states such as Arizona, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida, the company said on Friday.
• Such states have seen upward trends in COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
• Apple said back in May when it began reopening stores that it would re-close stores if necessary depending on how the situation develops. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple will re-close 11 stores in the United States after coronavirus cases have spiked in some states across the country, the company announced Friday.

The decision comes after Apple began re-opening stores in the US last month. Bloomberg first reported the news.

The store closures will occur in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Arizona. Specifically, Apple is closing two stores in Florida, two stores in North Carolina, one store in South Carolina, and six stores in Arizona.

These states are all seeing upward trends in new cases of COVID-19, particularly in June, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, and North Carolina are also among the 10 states that have seen record-high seven-day averages of new daily coronavirus cases, according to CNN. The increase in COVID-19 cases comes as stay-at-home orders have relaxed across the country and businesses have begun reopening under restrictions.

"Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas," Apple said in a statement to Business Insider. "We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible."

Apple said roughly one month ago in May, when it began reopening US stores, that its decisions could change depending on the situation.

"We look at every available piece of data — including local cases, near and long-term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials," Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, said in a letter last month. "These are not decisions we rush into — and a store opening in no way means that we won't take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant."

Apple temporarily closed all of its retail stores outside of China in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. It reopened its first store outside of China in mid-April when its location in South Korea resumed operations. The company began opening some stores in the US last month under limited occupancy with a focus on customer service at the Genius Bar. Apple said it would also be requiring face coverings and conducting temperature checks at the door in stores that are open.

SEE ALSO: Smart AI-powered cameras that can tell how close you are to other people may be the answer to maintaining social distancing as the US reopens

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• Facebook has removed a post by President Trump that featured a doctored video of two toddlers.
• A Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Friday a copyright complaint about the video prompted the removal of Trump's post.
• Twitter on Thursday had marked the same post by Trump with a "manipulated media" tag because the video had been altered to look like a CNN report.
• The copyright complaint appears to have been filed for Jukin Media, a company well-known for quickly snapping up the rights to viral videos.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook on Friday removed a post by Donald Trump that featured a doctored version of a 2019 viral video that shows two toddlers.

"We received a copyright complaint from the rights holder of this video under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and have removed the post," A spokesman told Business Insider.

The original video, which went viral last year, shows a Black child and white child running toward each other and embracing. But the altered version posted by Trump to Twitter and Facebook on Thursday is overlaid with a fake CNN graphic and edited to suggest news footage of the white child chasing the terrified Black child.

On Thursday, Twitter slapped the video with a "manipulated media" label.

While Trump's post remains live, anyone clicking on the label will learn the video has been altered, with Twitter adding the following: "In September 2019, CNN reported on a viral video about a friendship between two toddlers. On Thursday, the president shared a version of the video which many journalists confirmed was edited and doctored with a fake CNN chyron."

According to CNN, the copyright complaint has come from Jukin Media, a company that frequently snaps up rights to viral videos. The firm filed a copyright complaint with Facebook on behalf of one of the toddler's parents.

Jukin Media said late Friday it had filed a similar complaint with Twitter.  

"In no way do we support or condone the manipulated video or the message it conveys," the company said. "We hope and expect Twitter will take action to remove the video."

Social media companies have taken more robust action against Trump's posts over the last month: Facebook removed a Trump campaign ad on Thursday that featured an inverted triangle, a symbol often used by the Nazis to demarcate political enemies.

The platform said the ad violated its policies on hate speech.

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• Robinhood, a commission-free trading app, said Friday it is making changes after a 20-year-old customer died by suicide thinking he incurred losses of over $730,000.
• Co-founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt said they're expanding options-trading educational content and hiring a specialist to further assist users.
• Robinhood is also working to improve messaging to customers about multi-leg options spreads, a complex style of options trading, and changing parts of its user interface.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After a young customer died by suicide and left a note expressing confusion over the platform's product, the founders of the trading app Robinhood said Friday they're introducing changes and hiring an education specialist to help users navigate sophisticated trading strategies. 

Alexander Kearns, a 20-year-old college student at the University of Nebraska, killed himself on June 12, his family said. Kearns saw a negative cash balance of $730,165 in his account, Forbes first reported, a figure that was likely the result of a glitch inside the app.

The next day, Robinhood was alerted to Kearns' death, and offered to speak with his family, cofounders and co-chief executives Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt said. 

The commission-free trading app is now making changes to various aspects of its product, including improving in-app messages and emails sent to customers about multi-leg options spreads, a sophisticated style of trading involving two or more options. 

It's also adding new details to the app's history page to better help users "understand the mechanics of early options assignments," and is working to change parts of its user interface. 

"We are considering additional criteria and education for customers seeking level 3 options authorization to help ensure customers understand more sophisticated options trading," Tenev and Bhatt said in a statement. 

They said the changes will "take a bit of time to roll out," but a spokesperson declined to comment on any timeline.

Robinhood also said it's making a donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Valued at over $8 billion after its most recent funding round, Robinhood has become one of the most well-funded and widely used financial-technology startups in recent years.

It accelerated a new generation of traders' appetites for commission-free trades using their phones, and ultimately pushed legacy brokerages like Charles Schwab to drop trading fees for retail investors.

Robinhood, which claims some 13 million users, has raised more than $1 billion in outside funding, according to Crunchbase. 

The startup has also come under scrutiny for the way it gives the masses, including inexperienced investors who may not have the risk tolerance or know-how, a way to trade complex products.

"I liken it to giving the keys of a sports car to a 12-year-old," Tara Falcone, founder of the financial education company ReisUP, told NBC News last year.

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• The North Face has become the first major brand to boycott Facebook on the heels of mounting pressure from civil-rights organizations over content moderation and hate speech.
• The company said Friday it would stop buying Facebook ads in the US, in solidarity with civil-rights groups like the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Sleeping Giants, effective June 19.
• In a follow-up statement, North Face also said they would be halting paid advertisements on Instagram — which is owned by Facebook.
• Facebook has been under fire over its content-moderation policies, particularly its handling of President Donald Trump's posts in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The North Face has become the first major brand to boycott Facebook on the heels of mounting pressure from civil-rights organizations over the platform's content-moderation policies and handling of hate speech in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.

In a tweet saying "We're in. We're Out" the clothing company announced Friday it would stop buying Facebook ads in the US in solidarity with organizations including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Sleeping Giants.

In a follow-up statement to Business Insider, the company said it would also halt paid advertisements on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

"We know that for too long harmful, racist rhetoric and misinformation has made the world unequal and unsafe, and we stand with the NAACP and the other organizations who are working to #StopHateforProfit," Steve Lesnard, The North Face's global VP of marketing, said in a statement.

A company spokesman said it was halting all US paid advertising with Facebook, effective June 19, until stricter policies are in place to stop racist, violent, and hateful content and misinformation from circulating on the platform. The North Face is not pulling ads from Facebook-owned Instagram, CNN reported.

Only a handful of smaller companies, including the meditation app Talkspace and the payment company Fons, had said that they won't advertise on Facebook before The North Face. 

Carolyn Everson, Facebook's VP of global business group, said that the company was in conversation with marketers and civil-rights organizations about how they could work with them to "be a force for good."

"We deeply respect any brand's decision and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information," Everson said in a statement.

The platform has been under fire over its content-moderation policies, particularly its handling of President Donald Trump's posts in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing. While it has faced criticism on its handling of user data and the spread of misinformation before, such calls have rarely translated to wider collective action against Facebook or dented its advertising business.

But advertisers say it's different this time. IPG Mediabrands' Elijah Harris said in a Business Insider interview last week that the reaction against Facebook was an issue of "brand safety, not political activism."

Another ad-agency source told Business Insider their agency anticipated a number of other brands to also walk out on Facebook, as the social-media giant's executives try to put out the fires in memos sent to various agencies this week.

Facebook, which generates 98% of its revenue through ads, took in $17.4 billion from advertising in its most recent quarter, despite marketers across the board pausing advertising in the face of the pandemic.

Update Friday, June 19, 2020: This story was updated to add that North Face will also be halting paid advertising on Instagram.

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NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

Devoted Health wants to change the way the U.S. takes care of its senior citizens, and it has big plans in its first five years to do just that.

The startup, which has been gathering lots of buzz in the last year, was founded to sell private health insurance plans to U.S. seniors, a market that is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers age.

Using one pitch deck, Devoted Health managed to secure $300 million from investors in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz late last year, with a valuation of $1.8 billion – all before it signed up a single customer.

But the deck also outlined the company's aggressive plans for its first five years. Devoted Health planned to sign up 5,000 members for 2019 and grow that to 103,722 by 2023. It expects to make about $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 while generating a small net loss.

Here's what else Devoted Health laid out in the pitch deck:

• How the company, in part, plans to make money by owning its own medical group in addition to the insurance operation
• Its plan to take on the healthcare giants in Medicare Advantage
• Why it thinks it can generate better margins than other Medicare Advantage health insurers
• How the company can eclipse 100,000 members
• And more about the company's aggressive five-year plan

BI Prime is publishing dozens of stories like this each and every day. Want to get started by reading the full pitch deck?

>> Download it now FREE

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• On Friday, Twitter hid a doctored video Donald Trump posted on the social media platform. The video was doctored CNN footage that suggested racism is a fabricated problem meant to cause public outrage.
• The move came after Twitter previously labeled the tweet as "manipulated media."
• In response to Trump's tweet of the doctored video, CNN told Insider they want him to "be better."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Twitter blocked viewers from seeing a video President Donald Trump shared on the social media platform Thursday night. 

The social media network first labeled the post as "manipulated media" on Thursday. It then moved to completely hide it from Twitter users on Friday, saying it was "removed in response to a report from the copyright holder."

The video appears to be a clip from CNN but is actually an edited version of a viral video from last year that shows two little boys, one Black one white, hugging and playing, Insider previously reported.

The video mocks CNN as "fake news" and also says "America is not the problem," to suggest racism is a fabricated problem created to simply cause public outcries.

Twitter's policy says users "may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm," and it will flag such posts to help other users "understand their authenticity and to provide additional context."

After the video was flagged as "manipulated media," a CNN spokesperson told Insider the media outlet doesn't condone Trump's tweet.

"CNN did cover this story — exactly as it happened. Just as we reported your positions on race (and poll numbers)," CNN wrote in an email to Insider. "We'll continue working with facts rather than tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children. We invite you to do the same. Be better."

Jukin Media, a media company that had a partnership with the person who owns the video that was doctored, told Insider it didn't give Trump permission to use the video.

"Neither the video owner nor Jukin Media gave the President permission to post the video, and after our review, we believe that his unauthorized usage of the content is a clear example of copyright infringement without valid fair use or other defense," a Jukin spokesperson wrote in an email to Insider. "We have submitted a DMCA takedown notice on behalf of the video's creator, and in accordance with Twitter's policy. Separately, in no way do we support or condone the manipulated video or the message it conveys. We hope and expect Twitter will take swift action to remove the video.

This isn't the first time Twitter has flagged one of Trump's posts.

In late May, Twitter used the "glorifying violence" tag to flag one of Trump's tweets that read "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," in which he referred to the violence in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.

SEE ALSO: Twitter marked a Trump tweet mocking CNN as 'manipulated media'

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NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Jeff Jordan at jjordan@businessinsider.com, or check to see if your company already has access.

Although competition in the US wireless carrier market remains fierce, the price war among the Big Four US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — began to cool over the past year.

In an attempt to avoid further competition on price, carriers began shifting their focus to adding value to their mobile plans with new offerings to differentiate from the competition. This helped average revenue per user (ARPU) start to stabilize across all carriers in Q1 2018, after declining over the last two years.

The Big Four have now begun reshuffling their unlimited plans to lure subscribers by providing more options. This strategy has been unrolling in two flavors: introducing new, expensive unlimited plan tiers loaded with an array of features and choices, while also catering to price-sensitive customers with more affordable plans that strip away extra perks like free digital content and international coverage. As a result, a new battleground is emerging, with differentiation now coming down to the value loaded in their mobile plans.

Looking forward, the US carrier market will see competitive pressure pick up due to a number of trends: 

• The US smartphone market is creeping toward saturation. Penetration in the US hit 85% in 2018, up from 82% in 2017 and 77% in 2016.
• eSIM technology is making it easier for consumers to switch carriers. eSIM technology is a nonphysical SIM card slot that pairs with the physical SIM card to enable dual-SIM functionality — allowing customers to switch carriers without changing to a different SIM card or device.
• And cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are edging in on US carriers' share of wireless adds. Cable MVNOs, such as Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile, are expected to snag roughly 50% of total wireless customer net adds, or about 2.2 million subscribers, by 2020.

All of this means fostering loyalty and winning over new subscribers is more important than ever for the Big Four, making it crucial for these mobile carriers to understand consumer sentiment around their services.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence uses consumer survey data from our proprietary panel, collected during 2017 and 2018, to evaluate which features are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider, as well as to determine which features would convince them to switch to the competition. It contains insights that can help telecoms guide strategic investment and marketing decisions to win and retain customers in this increasingly competitive space.

The companies mentioned in the report are: AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Charter, Comcast, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Sprint, T-Mobile, Tidal, and Verizon.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• T-Mobile came out on top again, outpacing the rest of the Big Four US carriers on value, loyalty, and satisfaction. T-Mobile customers want to see coverage improvements, though. 
• Verizon customers don't see much more value in its offerings than a year ago.
• AT&T was the only carrier to show declines in all capacities. 
• Sprint is still a good deal, but it doesn't offer much else.
• When it comes to features, subscribers still value the basics most. However, demand for international coverage is growing.
• 5G is the next major battleground for the Big Four, and the winner of the 5G race has the potential to leap ahead in customer volumes. 

 In full, the report:

• Determines the features that are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider.  
• Identifies which features are nice to have or essential in consumers' willingness to switch carriers. 
• Examines consumers' feelings on emerging technologies and trends in the mobile industry, such as 5G, new network-connected devices, and the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.

SEE ALSO: 5G in the IoT: How the next generation of wireless technology will transform the IoT

Join the conversation about this story »

• Cisco has reeled from the effects of the economic downturn, although it has also benefitted from stronger demand for networking and videoconferencing technology due to the sudden rise of the remote workforce.
• The Silicon Valley giant is also adapting to new enterprise trends, led by the cloud and software-defined networking.
• Cisco has recently reorganized its top leadership, building a team backing CEO Chuck Robbins that is also "changing the narrative around Cisco," IDC President Crawford Del Prete told Business Insider.
• Here are 7 top Cisco executives helping Robbins navigate the current crisis and the broader industry changes.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Like most tech companies, Cisco is navigating the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis and the economic downturn.

But the crisis has also turned the spotlight on Cisco's strengths as a tech powerhouse. Cisco has benefitted from the sharp pivot to remote work, which led to stronger demand for its networking products and its Webex telecommunications platform.

"Overall, Cisco should be a relative 'winner' in the pivot to work from home and the emergence of a new normal," IDC President Crawford Del Prete told Business Insider. 

Cisco is adjusting to a new normal even as the tech giant, under CEO Chuck Robbins, adapts to broader enterprise tech trends, led by the rapid growth of the cloud.

The cloud lets businesses set up networks on web-based platforms, allowing them to scale back or even abandon private data centers. Cisco is also embracing the shift toward software-defined networking, in which businesses rely less heavily on hardware by using software to operate their networks and data centers.

Cisco has been reorganizing to take on these challenges, naming executives to help Robbins in "remaking the company into more of a software-defined cloud company over time," Del Prete said. The company also stands out in Silicon Valley for the diversity of its executive leadership team.  Nearly half of of Cisco's top leadership are women, and nearly 40% are minorities. 

"I see this team as changing the narrative around Cisco," he said. "Cisco connected the world 20 years ago, now this team will not only keep the world connected, but build a strategy to make it better managed, secure, and agile. It's a cool transformation."

Here are the 7 top executives, each of whom reports to Robbins, who are playing key roles in this transformation:

Irving Tan is Cisco's chief operating officer

Title: Chief Operating Officer

Irving Tan is in charge of Cisco's operating strategy, which has become a more challenging job during the coronavirus crisis and the economic downturn.

A big part of Tan's role has been to lead the the tech behemoth in the sharp pivot to remote work, making sure its 75,000 employees globally have what they need to make the transition.

"How do we make our networks, our connectivity more robust, more resilient. How do we scale up much more effectively," Tan recently told Business Insider. "There's a lot of learning and it's still somewhat early days."

A veteran tech executive, Tan has been with Cisco for more than a decade, taking on leadership roles in the company's operations in the Asia Pacific and Japan.

Jonathan Davidson is in charge of Cisco's mass-scale infrastructure group

Title: Senior Vice President for mass-scale infrastructure

Jonathan Davidson leads the team that develops that key components for building a robust network, including chips, optics, hardware and software. 

He also plays an important role in expanding Cisco's reach in the telecommunications market where it competes with the likes of Ericcson, Huawei and Samsung especially in the battle for dominance in 5G, the next-generation networking technology that's expected to lead to faster wireless Internet connections,

"I think the service provider side of the business that Jonathan leads offers tremendous growth upside for the company," Will Townsend, a senior analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, told Business Insider. 

"They're going out to your service provider with 5G, and helping operators become more agile with disaggregated hardware," Townsend said.

He described Davidson as "a very pragmatic leader and he brings great experience to the job." 

Anuj Kapur is Cisco's chief strategy officer

Title: Chief Strategy Officer

Anuj Kapur is Cisco's point man in defining and fine-tuning the tech giant's overall strategy, a role that has kept him busy given the dramatic changes over the past few months.

The pandemic lockdown and the sudden pivot to remote work have accelerated the growth of the cloud. This has been good news for Cisco for the shift also led to stronger demand for robust networks and videoconferencing tools like its WebEx.

There has been "a shift in the demand curve in ways that has been without precedent," he told Business Insider in a recent interview.

Kapur is "very focused on looking at practical application of technology, not just looking, a few years out but looking several years out," Will Townsend, a senior analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, told Business Insider. "And that's very difficult to do. I think you know he's been responsible for a lot of the company's successes."

Fran Katsoudas is Cisco's chief people officer

Title: Chief People Officer

Fran Katsoudas joined Cisco as a tech support employee in 1996, making her one of the longest-serving executive leaders at the tech giant. She has also taken on different roles at different parts of the business over the past 24 years, which has given her important insights into her current position as head of Cisco's human resources organization.

It's a critical role in a time of crisis when Cisco's 75,000 employees have had to work remotely.  She recently led an initiative that gave Cisco's employees a day off to recharge.

Katsoudas once played a key role in making sure that the employees of companies Cisco has acquired were properly integrated into the Cisco organization. In fact, she helped determine if a potential acquisition target would be a culture fit for the company.

"It's really important to us," she told Business Insider recently. "We have walked away from companies, where we have really been enamored by the technology, but had this realization that it wasn't going to be the right culture fit."

Gerri Elliott is Cisco's chief sales and marketing officer

Title: Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

Gerri Elliott was named Cisco's chief sales and marketing officer in 2018, after a long career with other tech giants, including Juniper Networks, Microsoft and IBM.

She's well known for her deep experience in international markets, particularly in Asia.  She led the unveiling of new branding campaign that turns the spotlight on Cisco's role as a leading enterprise tech provider while "weaving compassion and humanitarianism into the campaign," Will Townsend, a senior analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said.

"She brings a level of marketing acumen that the company hasn't had in the past," he added.

Todd Nightingale is senior vice president for enterprise networking and cloud

Title: Senior Vice President for enterprise networking and cloud

Todd Nightingale leads the team focused on Cisco's core networking products. He joined Cisco in 2012 after the company acquired Meraki, the cloud-based networking company.

Nightingale led Meraki as general manager until March when he took on a bigger role. Will Townsend of Moor Insights & Strategy praised his "very practical approach to technology."

For Nightingale, "it's not about offering 10 or 12 features. It's about figuring out what are the one or two most important features that customers need and do them right," he told Business Insider.

Nightingale himself stressed the importance of simplicity and ease of use in building products. "The religion of Cisco is there is no technology religion," he told Business Insider in a 2018 interview. "I guess my religion is 'it could be simpler.' It could always be simpler for our customers." 

Maria Martinez is Cisco's chief customer experience officer

Title: Chief Customer Experience Officer

Maria Martinez joined Cisco only in 2018, after eight years as a top sales and customer relations executive at Salesforce, the cloud software powerhouse.

Martinez leads Cisco's services and customer relations organization. It's a critical role at a time when the tech giant now offers more options for customers to access its products, including paying a subscription for services, instead of buying entire systems.

Cisco has also embraced software-defined networking, which allows businesses to rely less heavily on networking hardware, using software systems used to run data centers.

Martinez's vast experience with Salesforce, the pioneer of the software-as-a-service trend, is one of her key strengths in her role, Will Townsend of Moor Insights & Strategy said. "She cut her teeth at Salesforce, a very impressive pedigree," he told Business Insider.

• Home improvement site HomeAdvisor found the 10 most popular US states for tiny home living.
• The site zeroed in on the states with the most Instagram posts that were tagged with the #tinyliving hashtag.
• Some of the best US states for tiny living include California, Florida, and Texas.
• The tiny home movement has gained traction in the US in recent years, offering a lifestyle that's potentially less expensive, more mobile, and more sustainable.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The tiny home movement has captured the hearts of Americans in recent years.

Tiny homes are defined as abodes that are under 400 square feet. The movement has picked up steam, with many opting for the tiny lifestyle to save money or to be able to travel freely. Sustainable energy use and waste systems are also key drivers, though the tiny home life isn't always as glamorous as it looks.

A 2020 report from home improvement site HomeAdvisor zeroed in on the most popular states for the tiny home life — or at least the states with the most active tiny home Instagrammers. HomeAdvisor scraped Instagram for posts tagged with the #tinyliving hashtag and tagged somewhere in each state, such as in a city or a restaurant. It also considered the amount of activity the posts got through comments and likes. The site didn't factor in posts that didn't have a location tag.

Here are the top 10 most popular US states for tiny living, according to HomeAdvisor.

SEE ALSO: An Austin startup can 3D-print tiny homes in 24 hours for a fraction of the cost of traditional homebuilding — here's how Icon could revolutionize affordable housing

10. Utah

HomeAdvisor found 1,613 photos tagged in Utah or roughly 3% of all photos scraped by the home improvement website in the US.

Tiny homeowners are tasked with making sure that zoning ordinances in their desired location allow them to legally live in the small abodes.

According to a 2018 Daily Herald report, Utah was a bit slow to adjust city codes to accommodate smaller homes. But progress has been made in recent years, and now the state is riding the tiny home train full throttle.

9. New York

The report found 1,787 photos with the hashtag #tinyliving in the state of New York.

State officials recently adopted Appendix Q: Tiny Houses, a measure legitimizing safe building standards for 400-square-foot houses on foundations, according to B&B Tiny Houses. The appendix became law earlier this year.

8. North Carolina

According to a 2019 memo from the North Carolina Department of Insurance, "tiny homes are acceptable as permanent single-family dwellings in North Carolina provided they meet the following minimum requirements."

Tiny home builders in the state, like Wishbone Tiny Homes in Asheville, offer various models and customization options.

7. Arizona

About 4% of the total posts scraped in the US were tagged in Arizona.

According to Construction Dive, Pima County — which includes the city of Tucson — eased regulations for houses that measured less than 400 square feet in 2016. However, those new regulations didn't include mobile tiny homes.

Since then, the state has embraced tiny home villages.

6. Washington

HomeAdvisor found 2,674 photos with both the Washington State location tag and the #tinyliving hashtag.

About 16% of those photos were taken in Seattle. The city has been seized by a housing and affordability crisis, and downsizing to tiny homes has been an economic necessity for many.

5. Oregon

According to the HomeAdvisor report, tiny living is popular in cities known for the arts. Oregon may be No. 5 on the list, but Portland comes out as the most popular US city for tiny living, with almost 700 photos.

Austin, Texas, and Sarasota, Florida, are right behind it, with 600 and 546 photos, respectively.

Residents in big cities like Portland may be driven to the tiny home movement due to the high costs of living associated with urban environments.

4. Texas

Nearly 7% of the Instagram posts scraped by HomeAdvisor with the hashtag were in the Lone Star State. About 16% of the state's posts were located in Austin, Texas.

A slew of tiny home communities has cropped up in recent years as Austin, like many US metro areas, has grappled with a housing crisis.

3. Colorado

Almost 8% of all posts scraped in the US were in Colorado, and 12% of those were located in Denver.

There's even an annual Colorado Tiny House Festival held in Brighton that showcases tiny homes of all shapes and designs.

As Denver Westword notes, the tiny home movement has gained traction in Colorado specifically perhaps due to the variety of outdoor activities. When tiny homeowners are saving money by downsizing, they're more so able to spend it on skiing and the like if they wish.

2. Florida

HomeAdvisor found 4,466 Instagram posts in Florida.

About 9% of those posts were in Orlando, where tiny house communities like Orlando Lakefront allow tiny homeowners to more easily park their house legally as Insider's Frank Olito reported.

Sarasota, Florida, is also the third most popular US city for tiny living according to the report. About 12% of the state's posts, or 546, were tagged in the city.

1. California

The Golden State is the most popular US state for the tiny living movement according to the report, with nearly 15.5% of the total posts scraped. There were high concentrations of tiny living posts tagged in Los Angeles and San Diego, specifically.

City officials throughout the state have turned to tiny home villages as solutions for a homelessness crisis, a crushing housing shortage, and sky-high rent in big cities.

Startups have leaned into the movement as well — United Dwelling will turn your garage or unused backyard space into an affordable tiny home that can be rented out, with the income going to the homeowners.

• As the coronavirus continues to affect daily life, work, school, people are still turning to Zoom video calls.
• Zoom happy hours, parties, and games became a common part of people's social lives.
• But now more and more people have begun experiencing Zoom burnout, or feeling overwhelmed by the deluge of video calls.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Many are turning to video online calls thanks to COVID-19, the coronavirus disease.

With schools, businesses, and restaurants closed, people are increasingly moving to video calling platform Zoom for work and socializing. The company says its stock already increased more than 100% since the outbreak spread in the US. 

Some people are adapting by turning to Zoom games and parties as a way to interact with friends and stay in touch, but others are starting to feel burned out with what's been called Zoom fatigue. A few people shared how they're using Zoom, and what they're doing to combat burnout, with Business Insider. Here's what they had to say.

Fee Pelz-Sharpe, a 20-year-old college student, began to feel burnt out from Zoom calls almost immediately, though some classes were optional and they could watch recordings later. They use Zoom mostly for classes, which became remote this spring, and also for talking to friends. 

"I think part of it is that I'm not constantly aware of my own appearance in in-person classes, while on Zoom I'm constantly adjusting and readjusting," they told Business Insider. They said that throughout Zoom calls, they worry about lighting and angles, even monitoring their facial expression to ensure that they appear interested enough. 

Some of the technical issues common to Zoom and other video calling software also contributed to Pelz-Sharpe's burnout. They mentioned that it's both frustrating and exhausting to try to maintain a conversation while some participants' internet is slow, so audio can become out of sync or videos can freeze. People also tend to forget to mute themselves, which can be distracting with background noise. They found that these minor issues make every conversation last longer than it would in person. 

In their circle of friends, the feeling of Zoom fatigue is common.

"I feel like at the beginning of this situation people were a lot more interested in Zoom happy hours and birthday parties." Now, more of their interactions have turned into phone calls and one-on-one conversations.

Carley Campbell, a 19-year-old student, also uses Zoom for classes and work. She says she really started to feel the signs of Zoom fatigue setting in around mid-April, and they've kept growing ever since. "I felt like I needed to take a nap in between meetings and sometimes I debated skipping entirely."

She told Business Insider that her burnout stems from the expectation of going from meeting to meeting while remaining serious and professional, and feeling like she had to "scramble to the next link," leaving no time for basic necessities like eating, sleeping, and caring for her pets.

She thinks her problem is fairly universal: "I have yet to find someone who enjoys these Zoom meetings."

Zoom fatigue seems especially persistent among students. Bernadette Bruu, a 20-year-old college student, said "I felt zoom fatigue before I even started using it, honestly."

Her school is on a trimester system, so she was still on spring break when she saw everyone sharing memes and complaints about "Zoom University," as remote school is jokingly called. In a way, these shared grievances have even contributed to the burnout.

"That's the strange thing about this — everyone is going through the same thing, and that has become part of the fatigue — relatable humor, often from the professor or meeting host, takes up half of the dialogue in Zoom meetings. Fake-laughing through the pain got so old so fast, but it's the only method that professors have embraced so far to counteract how dismal the whole thing is."

Founder and investor Nemoy Rau, age 36, told Business Insider that he's always felt a level of Zoom fatigue, though it's increased recently. His company doesn't use Zoom because of security concerns, but he uses it to talk to friends and family, advise other startups and funds, and for religious groups. 

Like others said, Rau finds audio-only calls preferable to video, and he usually suggests everyone turn off their webcams.

"I always joke and say, we all know what everyone looks like, save bandwidth," he said.

Since the pandemic ended most in-person meetings, having a webcam turned on during calls has become more of an expectation, Rau says, and people feel compelled to use video in every call. Bruu noted a similar feeling about video calls, given both the ability to watch yourself on screen and the knowledge that others are watching you.

"You basically sign on to being observed for an hour or more, even if only absentmindedly, by people with 'gallery view' on. Someone could even pin your video to their largest screen for an entire meeting if they wanted to." 

According to Laura Hamill, who has a Ph.D in organizational psychology, Zoom is "just one piece of the puzzle" in the world right now contributing to an increased cognitive load. She pointed out that living through a pandemic, racial injustice, and protests, plus all the distractions that come with Zoom, can lead to fatigue, and eventually burnout. 

Each person dealing with Zoom burnout mentioned trying to spend some time offline and focus on analog hobbies, though none had yet found a way to cure their fatigue.

Dr. Hamill suggests increases resources while decreasing demands, if possible. For example, she said that having a wellbeing mindset, showing compassion to yourself, and taking the time for non-work social connections can help.

Organizations can increase resources by encouraging and supporting flexibility and understanding, and not making assumptions about what is going on in people's lives right now.

SEE ALSO: 15 games to play on Zoom, from a murder mystery to cooking challenges

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• Business for moving companies in the San Francisco Bay Area is booming.
• Services are in high demand as tech workers leave the region now that they can work remotely because of COVID-19.
• The shift illustrates how the pandemic will reshape Silicon Valley for years to come.
• Entire companies are ditching their offices and moving their furniture into storage as they pivot to remote-first business models.

As the pandemic rages on, increasing numbers of tech workers are ditching Silicon Valley.

It has major consequences for the region's future — and is great news for the businesses hauling their belongings.

In interviews with Business Insider, people working in the moving industry in the San Francisco Bay Area said that business is booming, with remarkable numbers of people turning their backs on the region and moving away over the last few weeks and months, despite the added logistical difficulties created by the pandemic.

Their comments add to the growing pile of evidence that COVID-19 and the associated wave of remote work will radically reshape Silicon Valley, the heart of America's tech industry, for years to come — including impacting the region's sky-high residential and commercial real estate prices.

"Business has been ridiculously busy," said Kevin Twibill, the founder of San Francisco-based Corrib Moving and Storage. "We're turning away work because we don't have more employees."

Moves associated with sales of family homes are down, he said. but there has been a major uptick in moves from apartments and shared properties. "Most of them move home, from where they were ... instead of paying $2,000 for their 20-square-foot apartment downtown, they're moving back home."

Jim Morris of Oakland-based Sweet Lemon Moving Services agreed. "There's a lot more people moving out ... it's significant enough that it's easy to notice."Many are moving out to more scenic, less urban areas, he added: "We see a lot more movement out to the Central Valley and the foothills and Lake Tahoe region," as well as Santa Cruz and Napa.

The tech industry has long had a troubled relationship with the Bay Area. The region is beset by issues — and the industry contributes to many of them — including a high cost of living, a major housing crisis, and terrible traffic. Now that its offices, shops, bars, and other amenities are off limits because of the pandemic, some tech workers say they have no reason to stay and are considering leaving the region, and some real-estate professionals in rival regions have said they've seen an uptick in interest.

The pandemic has forced companies around the world to move abruptly to an entirely remote workforce, and some high-profile San Francisco-headquartered tech companies — notably Twitter and the bitcoin startup Coinbase— have since announced they will allow most employees to work remotely after lockdowns end. Facebook expects half of its workforce to be remote in 10 years.

In a recent poll of thousands of Bay Area tech workers, two-thirds said they'd consider leaving if they could permanently work remotely, with a third saying they'd think about going even if they had to take a pay cut in order to do so.

Unprecedented numbers of people are also sticking their stuff in storage as they consider their futures. "As a company we [always] kind of book up to full capacity, but one thing I can say is I've moved a lot more storage jobs where people are putting their stuff into storage," said Alex Parocha, the San Francisco manager for Massachussetts-headquartered moving company Gentle Giants Moving Company. 

Twibill has seen similar: his firm has "storage coming in every single day," when it's "normally once or twice a week."

The majority of traffic is going in one direction: out of the Bay Area. Parocha says he's "seen more jobs going out of the Bay versus coming into the Bay" in recent times, with the ratio skewed more heavily to people leaving than normal. San Mateo-based The One Move, meanwhile, said that while their overall business hasn't increased, destinations are changing, said one co-owner. "We're seeing about the same activity level as last June ... but seeing more of people move out of the Bay Area or out of state."

(There are of course still some folks moving to the Bay Area: "Yeah we've had some, wouldn't say it's a lot," said Parocha.)

Entire businesses are also turning their backs on the region. Twibill said he was getting far more calls than normal from startups asking them to pack up their offices. And that many of them are getting their furniture put into storage rather than relocated to a new office space, an unusual move for a business that indicates they may be foregoing having a physical presence entirely for the indefinite future: "They're just giving up their offices."

Many companies who want their offices packed up aren't even bothering to return to supervise the move, Morris said. "[They're] not meeting us there, just giving us diagrams and so forth."

Got a tip? Contact Business Insider reporter Rob Price via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (robaeprice@protonmail.com), standard email (rprice@businessinsider.com), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg's product boss left Facebook a year ago over 'artistic differences.' Now that Chris Cox is back, the key question is whose vision won?

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet

• The research firm Guidehouse Insights ranked 10 companies that are developing computing hardware that could be used to run autonomous-vehicle software.
• Companies were evaluated on a variety of criteria related to their strategy and execution, including production strategy and product performance, reliability, and quality.
• Nvidia placed first on the list, followed by Intel-Mobileye and Qualcomm.
• Do you work in the autonomous-vehicle industry? Do you have an opinion on your company's technology or workplace culture? Email this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.
• You can also reach out on Signal at 646-768-4712 or email this reporter's encrypted address at mmatousek@protonmail.com.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: Read the pitch deck that Uber founder Garrett Camp created for the ride-hailing giant back in 2008 – before the company became the $120 billion giant it is today

10. AImotive

Overall score: 35.6

Strategy: 38

Execution: 33

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"AImotive got its start in 2015 developing machine vision algorithms for AD [automated driving] systems...AImotive has since added the development of its own AD simulation platform and the aiWare SoC [system on a chip] design. aiWare is designed to provide a low power consumption solution for processing neural network algorithms for AD systems.

"AImotive has designed its core to be offered either as a standalone accelerator chip or to be integrated into other SoCs. As AImotive is a small company with no silicon fabrication capabilities, the licensing model is likely to be the more successful path as lons as the aiWare accelerator matches the claims made for it. Those claims are quite lofty with up to 4 TOPS [trillion operations per second] performance at just 1 W power consumption. By combining more cores, it is possible to scale up to 16 TOPS. Like many lower power accelerators, this scale up is handled in part by downscaling neural networks to a lower resolution."

9. Apple

Overall score: 57.2

Strategy: 45.7

Execution: 66.8

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"Few details are known about the AD efforts of Apple...However, extrapolating from the work the company has done in chip design in its current businesses, particularly mobile devices, provides important hints about what Apple might do. Since launching its first internally designed SoC, the A4 in the iPad and iPhone in 2013, Apple has built a reputation as one of the best chip design firms in the world...The A-series SoCs are renowned among their competitive set for providing an excellent combination of low power consumption and high performance...The most recent generations of the A-series, the A11 Bionic and A12 Bionic, include a dedicated neural engine core optimized for ML [machine learning] applications on device. Apple claims this neural engine is capable of 5 TOPS in a smartphone.

"A version of this neural engine scaled up for an AD application could potentially match or exceed the performance of competing chips from Nvidia and Intel. If Apple can retain its power efficiency, it could help to address one of the issues with AVs, a significantly reduced range for EVs."

8. Renesas Electronics Corporation

Overall score: 60.3

Strategy: 57.3

Execution: 63.3

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"In recent years, Renesas has been promoting its R-Car family of SoCs as an alternative to the power-hungry chips from Nvidia and Intel...Renesas and various researchers have demonstrated AD systems using a cluster of R-Car SoCs, however, early generation ADVs [automated-driving vehicles] are unlikely to utilize these types of chips for primary processing. The chips do potentially have a place in ADAS [advanced driver-assistance system] applications as well as for the secondary compute requirements for ADVs...Toyota is using Renesas R-Car chipsets in its upcoming partially automated system, Highway Teammate, that is expected to debut in 2020. However, in mid-2019, Toyota also announced a chip joint venture with Denso expected to launch in 2020. It is unknown at this time if the joint venture will utilize technology or expertise from Renesas."

7. NXP Semiconductors

Overall score: 70

Strategy: 66.3

Execution: 73.6

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"NXP is one of the largest suppliers of semiconductors to the automotive industry in the world. Many of the dozens of electronic control units in modern vehicles are powered by NXP microcontrollers...Following a failed acquisition of NXP by Qualcomm in 2018, NXP partnered with Kalray to use Kalray's Massively Parallel Processor Array AI chips in combination with its own S32V SoC for an AD development compute platform. As the industry gets into second and third generation ADVs with more optimized sensor suites and software stacks, an opportunity for NXP to get a share of the market for these systems is expected, particularly if the Kalray partnership yields more powerful AI processing...In the near term, NXP's strong customer relationships in the automotive sector are expected to provide an opening for it to supply lower power secondary compute platforms for AD systems."

6. Tesla

Overall score: 70.6

Strategy: 78.3

Execution: 62

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"In 2017, Tesla announced it was developing its own Autopilot compute platform. This internally developed system, dubbed the Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer, was unveiled at an investor event in April 2019. Using two custom ASICs [application-specific integrated circuits] and substantially upgraded sensor input bandwidth with up to 2.5 billion pixels/sec from the eight cameras, the FSD computer is a substantial improvement from the previous Nvidia platform. According to Tesla, the FSD computer is capable of 144 TOPS compared with 30 TOPS for the Nvidia Xavier.

"A performance level of this magnitude provides an improvement in image frame processing of 21 times when compared with the older Nvidia-powered Autopilot compute platform, with a claimed power consumption increase of just 25%. (The older compute platform used two Nvidia Parker SoCs and one Pascal GPU.)"

5. Waymo

Overall score: 71.9

Strategy: 75

Execution: 68.8

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"Waymo LLC has been the overall leader in developing AD technology for nearly a decade since debuting as the Google Self-Driving Car project. Throughout the years, Waymo has transitioned from using mostly off-the-shelf sensing and compute hardware to internally designed and manufactured components...Waymo has publicly acknowledged the use of Intel CPUs in its compute platform as well as unidentified GPUs. Waymo is also believed to be utilizing internally designed tensor processing units (TPUs) as part of its platform. TPUs are ASICs specifically designed to handle neural network computing workloads more efficiently and are widely used in various Google ML applications in its data centers...With high speed image processing and localization on high definition maps being an important component of AD, the use of TPUs in the Waymo compute platform potentially gives the company a significant boost in performance."

4. Xilinx

Overall score: 78.3

Strategy: 74.5

Execution: 82

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"Xilinx is the leading provider of FPGA [field-programmable gate array]-style chips and has long manufactured automotive-grade silicon. FPGAs are generally more costly than traditional CPUs but they offer a special combination of performance and flexibility. As AD remains relatively immature and the software is evolving rapidly, the silicon has not yet been optimized for these applications. As AD companies determine the best combination of silicon for the long term and AV volumes remain low, FPGAs like those produced by Xilinx can provide necessary performance without investing in custom ASICs that may prove to be short lived."

3. Qualcomm Technologies

Overall score: 82.9

Strategy: 80.8

Execution: 85

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

Qualcomm's chipsets are widely used in automotive applications, mostly for communications and vehicle infotainment systems...At CES 2020, Qualcomm announced a new generation of processors more specifically targeted at the ADAS and AD market. The new Snapdragon Drive Pilot platform is based on two chips, the ADAS Application Processor and the Autonomous Driving Accelerator. The application processor is based on Qualcomm's 8155 SoC, which combines ARM cores, GPU, and neural engine cores. The accelerator consists of additional neural engine cores. Configurations with a single ADAS SoC are targeted at the growing market for ADAS in mainstream vehicles. A configuration with dual SoCs is claimed to provide sufficient performance for level 2 or level 3 partially or conditionally automated systems.

"Adding the accelerator to a pair SoCs can potentially deliver up to 400 TOPS of performance at about 60 W-75 W of power consumption. This consumption level is considered enough for level ADVs, only requiring air cooling. Qualcomm claims about 33%-50% better performance per watt than NVIDIA's Orin SoC. Accelerator chips began sampling in late 2019 with the SoCs sampling in mid-2020. The goal is to have production programs by 2023."

2. Intel-Mobileye

Overall score: 87.2

Strategy: 86.4

Execution: 88

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"Having missed the transition to mobile device computing, Intel has tried to gain a foothold in AD by acquiring Mobileye in 2017 for $15 billion. Mobileye has been the leading developer of machine vision for ADAS and is a major power in that market segment. In 2018, Mobileye introduced its EyeQ4 chip and is currently producing sample quantities of the EyeQ5 for internal testing and customers (expected to go into volume production by 2021). The combination of two EyeQ5 chips with an Intel Atom CPU is expected to deliver 48 TOPS at the same 30 W as the NVIDIA Xavier. However, moving up to Level 4 AD is expected to require at least a XEON-class CPU similar to those used in data center servers and the combination of multiple XEON and EyeQ5 chips may not have an advantage over Pegasus.

"Most AD companies are using software with a combination of traditional deterministic algorithms that run well on the X86 CPU architecture with ML algorithms that work well on FPGAs and GPUs. In this way, Intel is likely to have a significant market share in combination with these other chips."

1. Nvidia

Overall score: 92.3

Strategy: 92.3

Execution: 92.3

Highlights from Guidehouse's analysis:

"Nvidia is the leading developer of high performance GPUs and has used this technology for a wide range of applications ranging from supercomputers to data centers to AD...The Pegasus platform is designed for Level 4 and Level 5 highly automated systems, including robotaxis. Using two Xavier and two Turing GPUs, the Pegasus processes 320 TOPS at an estimated 400 W. A number of AD development companies are using Pegasus for testing, and its architecture might be the basis for upcoming car computer systems from Volvo and Daimler...At the 2019 GTC China developer conference, Nvidia announced the launch of its Orin processor. This next-generation chip offers nearly 7 times the performance of Xavier...Orin processors are expected to be in production by late 2021...One of the claimed advantages of using Nvidia platforms is they all use the same basic architecture and software written for any particular variant can be scaled up or down as needed for a given application. Not all AD companies are sold on relying exclusively on Nvidia silicon, but many are using Nvidia GPUs in conjunction with Intel CPUs and in some cases FPGAs from Intel or Xilinx."

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• Denny Fish co-manages Janus Henderson's VIT Global Technology and Innovation Portfolio, which has been one of the top tech funds over the last five years.
• A big part of Fish and his co-manager's strategy is devote about half of fund assets to up-and-coming tech stocks, what he calls the fund's optionality portfolio.
• These companies come with bigger risks, but they offer potentially huge rewards and have helped the fund outperform its peers, Fish told Business Insider.
• Fish gave a list of 10 stocks that stood out among his fund's optionality collection.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Denny Fish gets a kick out of taking fliers on up-and-coming tech companies.

What's more, he makes a living at it — and has gotten pretty darn good at it.

Along with Garth Yettick, Fish manages Janus Henderson's VIT Global Technology and Innovation Portfolio, a tech-focused mutual fund that outperformed dozens of its peers to rank 8th in average annualized performance over the last five years, according to Morningstar Direct.

A key part of Yettick and Fish's strategy is to invest about half of the fund's assets in what they call their "optionality" part of the portfolio. These are typically newer and smaller tech companies that have big growth potential, but also greater downside risks than the big, mature tech companies that represent most of the rest of the fund's investments.

In that portion of the portfolio, Fish and Yettick are "investing against what we think can be really big ideas," Fish told Business Insider in an interview this week. 

Fish and Yettick typically make relatively small bets on each of these names — devoting somewhere between 0.1% to 1% of the fund's $570 million or so in assets in each name. But those small stakes allow them to make many different bets — up to 60 at a time.

With investments of that size, the fund won't be sabotaged if any one of those companies craters, Fish said. Conversely, it could benefit greatly if their stocks take off. That philosophy has seen the fund through the market's ups and downs over the last five years, including through the massive selloff in March that was sparked by the coronavirus crisis.

"Our goal is to outperform on the down side and protect capital and then outperform on the upside," Fish said. "That's a tall mission."

But, he added, "We're really pleased at how over the past five years the portfolio has acted."

Among the dozens of stocks in the optionality part of the Global Technology and Innovation Portfolio, these 10 names stood out for Fish:

CoStar Group

Ticker: CSGP
What it does: Collects and sells commercial real estate data
Shares owned by the Global Technology and Innovation Portfolio (as of 3/31/20): 8,562
Value of the fund's stake (as of 6/18/20): $6 million
Portion of portfolio's total assets (as of 4/30/20): 1.08%

MercadoLibre

Ticker: MELI
What it does: Operates online stores in more than a dozen Latin American countries, as well as Spain
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 7,740
Value (as of 6/18/20): $7.2 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.7%
Fish's take: "Think about it as the Amazon.com of Latin America."

Avalara

Ticker: AVLR
What it does: Offers tax-compliance software for retail stores and ecommerce vendors
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 51,566
Value (as of 6/18/20): $6.4 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.9%
Fish's take: It "is a really fascinating software-as-a-service company ... [that's] benefitting from the proliferation of ecommerce ... [It's] disrupting what's traditionally been an on-premise business."

Okta

Ticker: OKTA
What it does: Offers authentication and password management services
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 24,717
Value (as of 6/18/20): $4.9 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.45%
Fish's take: It's "been a really good success story in software-as-a-service, identity management."

Atlassian

Ticker: TEAM
What it does: Offers project management and collaboration software
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 29,272
Value (as of 6/18/20): $5.2 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.94%
Fish's take: "They have a really unique distribution model. They're disrupting the collaboration space ... They've served a really unique market, in terms software developers, globally. Really unique management team. Really unique go-to-market model. And they just continue to increase their market size and their market opportunity and just create something that's much bigger than anybody could have imagined five years ago."

Twilio

Ticker: TWLO
What it does: Offers a cloud-based communications service that enterprise companies can build into their own apps and websites, allowing them to send text messages and make audio and video calls with customers
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 10,770
Value (as of 6/18/20): $2.3 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.24%
Fish's take: What Twilio is doing "sounds simple [but is] harder in practice, because you have to create an elegant platform that any developer could actually ... develop to and easily embed in a number of applications ... [Twilio] has a really unique opportunity ahead of it for many years."

Adyen

Ticker: ADYEN (Amsterdam)
What it does: Offers payments services for online and brick-and-mortar retailers
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 1,851
Value (as of 6/18/20): $2.6 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.36%
Fish's take: "Them and Stripe are actually dominating that market right now."

Wix

Ticker: Wix
What it does: Offers a website development service
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 19,032
Value (as of 6/18/20): $4.4 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.55%
Fish's take: "We've been big believers in Wix for years. They've been real beneficiaries of people being unemployed.
Younger people that are unemployed, what do they do? They start thinking about how they create a digital footprint.
And as a result, you end up with really, really robust demand for Wix through this downturn. And those are behaviors you don't change."

Match Group

Ticker: MTCH
What it does: Offers online dating sites and apps.
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 36,486
Value (as of 6/18/20): $3.6 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.55%
Fish's take: "People thought their business would get worse during Covid. It actually got better ... They were really creative and innovated and pivoted to using video and doing some unique things that made Tinder and their applications even more valuable to their user base."

RingCentral

Ticker: RNG
What it does: Offers phone and messaging services for corporations and corporate call centers.
Shares owned (as of 3/31/20): 8,129
Value (as of 6/18/20): $2.3 million
Portion of portfolio (as of 4/30/20): 0.36%
Fish's take: "We like it a lot. They just have a really big road ahead of them ... Effectively, they've created a software-as-a-service platform for communications over IP-based networks replacing [traditional phone systems] globally. Huge opportunity. Really good company."

Got a tip about the tech industry or tech investing? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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• Here's why tech IPOs are starting to see a surprising, and sudden, snapback
• With the Nasdaq back in record territory, here are the top 10 best-performing tech-focused funds to consider investing in

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• Apple's WWDC is coming up on June 22, where the company is expected to announce new features for big products like the iPhone and Apple Watch as well as new products.
• Apple's next big iPhone update, likely called iOS 14, is expected to bring a new home screen layout, the ability to set third-party apps as defaults, and other new features.
• Apple may also announce its initiative to develop its own chips for the Mac at WWDC, signaling a big move away from Intel.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple is holding its annual developer conference on Monday, where it's expected to unveil its latest iPhone software, new features for the Apple Watch, and plans to make its own processors for its Mac computers for the first time.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is one of the company's biggest events of the year, attracting app developers from all over the world. The company is holding the event virtually for the first time in its 31-year history because of the coronavirus pandemic, so the keynote and workshops will be taking place remotely. 

The conference is also coming at a critical time for Apple as its App Store policies have been under scrutiny by regulators and developers. Just as the European Union had launched two antitrust investigations into Apple over its App Store and Apple Pay, a prominent developer behind the new email app Hey raised concerns over the company's long-standing policy of taking a 30% cut from subscriptions sold through the App Store. 

Other than iPhone and Apple Watch updates, Apple may unveil a couple of new products like a refreshed iMac with a new design.

Here's a look at everything we're expecting to see from WWDC 2020. 

SEE ALSO: Apple's iPhone 12 is expected to bring major changes like a new design, 5G, and 3D cameras — here's everything we know about it so far

New iPhone and iPad features

Among the biggest news of the day will be Apple's introduction of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the forthcoming software updates for the iPhone and iPad.

Rumors suggest iOS 14 will bring new iPhone features like a new home screen layout, the ability to unsend iMessage texts, the ability to set third-party apps like Google Maps and Spotify as defaults, and much more, according to reports from 9to5Mac, MacRumors, and Bloomberg. Apple is also focusing on making iOS 14 more stable and less buggy, reports Bloomberg, following iOS 13's somewhat messy release. 

Here's a closer look at what we're expecting to see from iOS 14. 

The next Apple Watch update

Apple will also probably unveil its next major software update for the Apple Watch, as it typically does during WWDC. The new update, likely called watchOS 7, is expected to bring new watch faces, the ability to share custom watch faces with other Apple Watch owners, and parental controls, according to 9to5Mac. 

Apple could also introduce sleep tracking to the Apple Watch, as Bloomberg previously reported that the company had been working on such technology. It's unclear if this feature would be available through a software update or if it would require new Apple Watch hardware. 

Read more about what we're expecting to see from watchOS 7 here.

New software for the rest of Apple's products, too

Apple typically reveals new features across all of its major products at WWDC, meaning we'll hear more about updates coming to Mac computers and the Apple TV as well. Little has been reported about what's in store for these software updates, but Apple typically launches its new Mac software in the fall.

Apple's big move away from Intel for Mac computers

Among the biggest announcements of this year's conference is expected to be Apple's shift away from Intel's processors for upcoming Mac models. The tech giant is expected to start selling Mac computers that run on its own self-developed chips instead of Intel's as soon as next year, and we may hear about it at WWDC, according to Bloomberg.

Mac computers are the only Apple products that don't run on the company's own processors, but it looks as if that will soon change. Apple is said to be making the announcement at WWDC to give developers time to make any necessary changes to their Mac apps. 

A new services bundle for Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple News Plus

Apple is reportedly considering bundling services such as Apple News Plus, Apple TV Plus, and Apple Music as part of an effort to gain more subscribers, according to Bloomberg. The report didn't provide a precise launch date, but said the bundle could debut as early as 2020. 

WWDC usually focuses more on software and services rather than hardware, so it seems plausible that Apple could make some announcements related to its entertainment subscriptions during the event. 

Some new Apple gadgets, like a new iMac and HomePod

Although software is usually the focus of WWDC, there's a slew of products rumored to be in Apple's pipeline, some of which may debut at the conference.

For example, Apple reportedly has a new iMac in the works with an all-new design, according to leaker Sonny Dickson. Since Apple launched the Mac Pro at last year's WWDC, it's possible it could introduce a new iMac during this year's event.

Apple may also be planning to release a cheaper, smaller version of the HomePod that would be compatible with non-Apple music services, according to Bloomberg. Like the Mac Pro, the original HomePod also debuted at WWDC, so there's a chance Apple could use WWDC as an opportunity to introduce its successor.

A faster Apple TV as well as an iPhone accessory similar to Tile that helps you find lost items are also expected to be in Apple's 2020 product roadmap. While it's true that Apple typically uses WWDC to introduce new software features, it may launch some of these ancillary products at WWDC to keep the focus on the iPhone during its typical fall launch. 

Read more about all the new Apple products we're expecting to see this year here. 

• Salesforce is still in the early stages of safely reopening its offices around the world. While there's a long way to go, global head of real estate Elizabeth Pinkham said that it's going well so far. 
• For each of its 160 offices, Salesforce is weighing government guidance, COVID-19 case levels, local health system capacity, and input from local company leaders to decide which office to reopen next.
• 12 offices are in the first phase of reopening, including Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, and Auckland, New Zealand, with steps in place to ensure social distancing. One of Salesforce's larger offices, in Tokyo, Japan, will open next week.
• Pinkham said bigger offices will bring new challenges like managing elevator queues and staggering arrival time for thousands of people.
• Salesforce is also closely watching employee sentiment and while many do want to return in a limited capacity, there is still anxiety about exposure to the virus. 
• Click here to read more BI Prime stories.

Like most business leaders, Salesforce executives have spent the last few months thinking about how to safely reopen the company's offices around the world.

While it's reopening plan is still in its early stages, with a long way to go, Salesforce's global head of real estate, Elizabeth Pinkham said that, so far, its working: The company has started allowing employees to return to 12 of its 160 difference offices, while constantly adapting its strategies.  

"Ever since we started this we really knew that perfection would not be the goal and that iteration would be the constant reality," Pinkham told Business Insider.

Reopening will occur in phases and employees who prefer to work from home can do so through at least the end of the year. Salesforce's game plan includes weighing factors like government guidance and COVID-19 case levels, redesigning offices to ensure social distancing, and communicating with employees in order to determine which offices to open next. 

Salesforce is continuing to learn as some offices reopen

Right now Salesforce has a limited numbers of employees at its offices in Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, and Auckland, New Zealand, among other locations. Each have steps in place to ensure employee safety like mandatory mask-wearing, temperature screening stations, scheduling so that elevators don't get too crowded, and desks that are spaced further apart than normal. 

While the first phase of reopening those 12 locations have been going smoothly, the biggest test will come when Salesforce reopens its larger, multi-floor office towers in big cities.

"I think some of the bigger operational learnings will come as we get into buildings with high floors," Pinkham said, where there will be challenges like staggering the arrival of thousands of people at a time.

One of those larger locations, Tokyo, Japan will likely open next week. US locations like its SF headquarters are not nearly as close to reopening as locations in Asia and Europe. For each location, there are numerous steps Salesforce has been taking to decide whether its ready to reopen.  

A task force of Salesforce executives, including Pinkham meets everyday to evaluate factors like local government guidance, case levels, the number of available ICU beds in the area, and on-the-ground testimony for each location, which Pinkham often collects herself. For example, earlier this week she spoke to colleagues in London and learned that no one there is wearing masks, which she's factoring into the decision about when to open the office.

Right now Salesforce is only looking about six weeks into the future for its reopening plans, because things change so rapidly, Pinkham said. 

As larger offices like Tokyo look at reopening, it will require a lot more planning and coordination. With social distancing protocols, office capacity is 40 to 50% of what it used to be, creating "huge new data management and business challenges to solve for," Pinkham said. 

For example, that means setting staggered arrival times so that elevator lines don't get too crowded and figuring out which groups of people want to return to the office together to be able to work on shared projects, which gets more tricky with more people and larger offices. Salesforce is using its own Work.com tools to manage this, which allow companies to schedule elevator shifts, send out employee health surveys, and use contract tracing if someone gets infected. 

As larger locations open, Pinkham, along with the rest of the executive team, will be watching how well these steps work. 

Managing employee's sentiment around returning to work

Salesforce is also gauging employee sentiment as it weighs office reopenings. Pinkham said many employees want to come back for a few days at a time and in a way that limits exposure. Many also want to come back to work on specific projects with team members, but not permanently just yet.

That culture of coming into the office everyday, joining meetings, and chatting with others in the hallway is at least temporarily gone, Pinkham said

"For the foreseeable short term, we will probably be dealing with a new world where people come back for a few days a week, and they may come work more intentionally to work specifically with other colleagues," she said.

Employees also still have a lot of anxiety about returning to offices, especially around things like taking public transportation. Even if a location meets all the criteria to reopen, if employees don't feel ready to return, Salesforce may opt to not open that office just yet. That means having transparent conversations with employees and managers about the benefits of reopening and if it's really necessary at that moment.

"It's more of an art than a science," Pinkham said. There's a lot of this that is out of her or Salesforce's control, she says, so she just focuses on "what we can control and that's what the environment is within the workspace. So that's where we've been putting our energy."

Do you work at Salesforce? What do you think about offices reopening? Contact this reporter via email at pzaveri@businessinsider.com or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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