• Amazon, Google, Twitter, and other major tech companies are criticizing Trump's move to halt certain immigration visas.
• The companies said it will make American firms less competitive and less diverse.
• In an order Monday, Trump extended a freeze on H-1B and other work visas, with officials arguing it would prevent immigrants from taking American jobs during an economic crisis.
• The tech industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program and other work visas to recruit employees from outside the US, particularly for technical facing jobs.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Major tech companies including Amazon, Uber, Google parent Alphabet, and Twitter decried President Donald Trump's freeze on a range of immigration work visas Monday, calling it "unbelievably bad policy" that will undermine America's economic recovery and its competitiveness.

Trump issued a proclamation Monday suspending the issuance of a variety of visas that allow foreigners to work in the US for a limited amount of time. The administration said the suspension, which affects H-1B, H-2B, H-4, J-1, and L-1 visas, was necessary to protect American workers at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has pushed unemployment to its highest level in decades.

The order extends restrictions made in April that put a 60-day freeze on work visas. 

Tech companies rely on H1-B visas in particular to import "high-skilled" engineering talent from around the world, helping them maintain Silicon Valley's competitive edge in an increasingly global market. Last year, Google and Amazon were each granted roughly 9,000 H1-B visa applications. 

"Preventing high skilled professionals from entering the country and contributing to America's economic recovery puts American's global competitiveness at risk. The value of high-skilled visa programs is clear," an Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider.

There are 85,000 "high-skilled" H-1B visa spots open in the US each year.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai — an immigrant himself — tweeted his opposition to the order on Monday, saying: "Immigration has contributed immensely to America's economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today."

Aaron Levie, the founder and CEO of Box, spoke even more forcefully, tweeting that Trump's order was "unbelievably bad policy on every level. It will only mean more jobs move outside the US, and in no way makes America better or more competitive."

The order, which takes effect on June 24 and will last until the year of the year, does not apply to foreign workers with visas who are already in the country, or those outside the country who have already been issued visas, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On a call with reporters Monday, Trump administration officials said the order would reserve 525,000 jobs for American citizens and cited the high unemployment rate amid the coronavirus pandemic as one of the reasons for extending the freeze.

"This proclamation undermines America's greatest economic asset"

Several lawyers that Business Insider spoke with said they think this may lead to more restrictive immigration policy longterm and that the administration is using the current pandemic to carry out its efforts to limit immigration more permanently.

"My personal opinion is that we're not going to be going back to any type of easing of things, even as things settle down," Reaz Jafri, an immigration lawyer at Withers Worldwide, told Business Insider.

They also said this order and the previous order in April has led to confusion for many companies and individuals on work visas.

"Even for those of us who were in the weeds on these immigration issues, we have some concerns based off of language of what's going to be coming next," said Sharon Barney, an immigration lawyer at Leech Tishman.

One by one on Monday, a parade of tech companies and tech executives released statements on Twitter or through other channels, touting the contributions of immigrants to the US economy and claiming that Trump's order will make American companies less competitive by hindering their ability to hire.

"This proclamation undermines America's greatest economic asset: its diversity. People from all over the world come here to join our labor force, pay taxes, and contribute to our global competitiveness on the world stage," Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, Twitter's vice president of public policy and philanthropy for the Americas told Business Insider in a statement.

Facebook echoed that and said that in reality, restricting immigration would make it harder for the US economy to recover from the pandemic. "President Trump's latest proclamation uses the Covid-19 pandemic as justification for limiting immigration. In reality, the move to keep highly-skilled talent out of the US will make our country's recovery even more difficult," a Facebook spokesperson told NBC News.

Other tech companies that spoke out against the order included Salesforce and Uber, the ride-sharing giant which called the order "disappointing for people from all over the world."

Netflix declined to comment for this story, while Apple and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence

The smartphone isn’t going anywhere.

No other device can replicate what it does for the everyday consumer, so expect to see more smartphones in the public’s hands over the next few decades.

But that doesn’t mean the device will stay the same.

The next steps in the smartphone's evolution are here, and Business Insider Intelligence has collected them into The Top 3 Biggest Smartphone Trends.

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

Join the conversation about this story »

• A security guard working as a contractor for Uber tackled a Black teen girl who was riding one of the company's Jump bikes, an employee told Vice.
• Uber hired private security guards, sometimes equipped with bulletproof vests, pepper spray, and handcuffs, to help it recover stolen electric bikes, Vice reported Tuesday.
• On "five to 10" occasions, those guards used physical force to restrain people while attempting to retrieve the bikes, the employee told Vice.
• An Uber spokesperson denied the incident, telling Business Insider "the characterization that security teams were 'tackling' people is wholly inaccurate."
• Uber recently offloaded Jump, its electric bike and scooter business, to Lime as part of a $170 million funding deal, CNBC reported, just days after announcing sweeping layoffs.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A security guard hired as a contractor by Uber "tackled" a Black teen girl in Providence, Rhode Island, who was riding one of the company's Jump bikes, an employee told Vice.

Following its 2018 acquisition of electric bike and scooter startup Jump, Uber hired private security guards to help it recover stolen bikes amid a surge of thefts, partly enabled by an insecure bike lock design and other security flaws, according to Vice.

Employees told Vice that those guards, whom they called "hired goons," used physical force on "five to 10" occasions to restrain people while attempting to recover the bikes. The employee also said the guard who tackled the Black girl in Providence was wearing a bulletproof vest and was equipped with pepper spray and handcuffs.

An Uber spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Business Insider that it did not have a record of such an incident and that "the characterization that security teams were 'tackling' people is wholly inaccurate."

"We explicitly told teams in the field not to engage in aggressive behavior and not to forcibly remove anyone from an e-bike during the collection process," the spokesperson said.

Uber pulled its electric bikes from Providence and several other cities around August 2019, citing "acts of vandalism" in a statement at the time. In May of this year, the Providence Journal reported that the relationship between Uber and city officials had become tense, with officials asking in emails for better communication from Uber and issues of vandalism and theft becoming increasingly problematic.

"We hired security firms because our e-bike technology was being vandalized and misused in Providence, and we did not want to send our technicians into the field without proper security given the illegal activity taking place," the Uber spokesperson told Business Insider.

Uber offloaded its electric bike and scooter business to Lime last month as part of a $170 million funding round, CNBC reported. The deal came just days after Uber laid off 3,700 employees, nearly 14% of its global workforce, as the coronavirus ravages ride-hailing revenue.

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NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to travel during the coronavirus outbreak

• You can unblock any email address on Yahoo Mail from the settings menu.
• An email address that you've blocked on Yahoo won't be able to send you any email.
• You can only unblock email addresses on Yahoo using the desktop website — the mobile app doesn't give you the option.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

Back in the 1990s, every email you received was a novelty. Nowadays, they're often a hassle, with countless websites flooding your inbox with spam. 

If you've blocked an email address before so that you didn't have to deal with its spammy messages anymore, you're definitely not alone.

But maybe you need to receive emails from an email address you've blocked after all. If that's the case, you're in luck. 

Yahoo Mail allows you to "unblock" senders you've previously blocked. This can be done through any internet browser on a Mac or PC — unfortunately, you can't unblock an email address using a mobile device.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)

How to unblock an email address on Yahoo Mail

1. Log into Yahoo Mail and click on the gear icon on the right side of the screen, then click "More Settings." 

2. Click on "Security and Privacy" in the left-hand column.

3. You should be able to view a list of all email addresses you've blocked. To unblock an email address, click on the trash can icon located next to the email address you want to unblock.

If done successfully, the email address you've unblocked will disappear from your list of blocked addresses.

Related coverage from Tech Reference: 

• How to delete all of your email on Yahoo Mail or easily archive your inbox

• How to add contacts to your Yahoo Mail account manually in 2 ways

• How to forward email from a Yahoo Mail account to Gmail or other email services

• How to add Yahoo Mail to your iPhone in 2 ways and coordinate all of your email in one place

• How to sign out of your Yahoo Mail account on desktop or mobile, and keep your account secure

SEE ALSO: The best MacBooks you can buy

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NOW WATCH: Tax Day is now July 15 — this is what it's like to do your own taxes for the very first time

• Amazon has signed a deal for its largest-ever warehouse in New York City.
• The e-commerce giant has rapidly assembled the largest portfolio of storage and distribution locations ever by a private company in the city.
• The warehouses serve as the backbone for Amazon's booming e-commerce business.
• For more stories, sign up for our Wall Street Insider newsletter.

Amazon just signed its largest lease ever in New York City — a deal to occupy a 1 million-square-foot warehouse that will be purpose-built for the e-commerce giant.

The deal is the latest in a dramatic expansion of the $1.3 trillion company's logistics operations in and around the city. Amazon has rapidly created the largest network of storage and distribution facilities ever assembled by a private company in the city.

"We are excited to increase our investment in the New York City area with a new delivery station that will provide fast and efficient deliveries and create hundreds of job opportunities for the talented local workforce," an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement, confirming the huge lease.

The new space will be located at 55-15 Grand Ave., a former papermaking factory in Queens, New York, that will be razed and replaced with a multistory warehouse spanning about 1 million square feet that will feature rooftop parking for delivery vehicles.

Amazon's growing warehouse footprint serves as the backbone for the billions of dollars of food and goods it sells and delivers within increasingly quick shipping windows to shoppers in the metropolitan area, which is its largest e-commerce market.

Read more: Amazon just signed a lease on a huge NYC warehouse used by one-time rival Jet.com. It shows just how hot the market for industrial real estate has gotten.

Separately, Amazon is negotiating to lease a 620,000-square-foot office and warehouse space in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that is under construction, a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told Business Insider. That lease, which has not been previously reported, has not yet been signed the person said. The Amazon spokeswoman did not immediately offer comment on that pending deal, but the company generally does not disclose new locations until it has signed on to take them.

Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that the tech and e-commerce firm just took a 200,000-square-foot warehouse in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York that had previously been lease by its onetime rival Jet.com.

In recent months, Amazon also committed to two warehouses just outside New York City in New Jersey, a roughly 315,000-square-foot warehouse at 1800 Lower Road in Linden and an 185,000-square-foot space in Avenel at 1 Paddock St.

At the start of the year, Amazon leased 450,000 square feet in Staten Island, New York, next door to a newly built 855,000-square-foot distribution center it leased in 2017.

The latest deal at 55-15 Grand Ave. will likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and will be built by a partnership between the New York City real-estate firm RXR Realty and the Los Angeles industrial landlord LBA Realty. The pair purchased the site two years ago for $72 million.

Read more: Warehouse properties are suddenly red-hot, with Amazon snapping up space while ailing companies sell. Here's a look at key deals and market forecasts that lay out a huge opportunity for industrial real-estate.

The new site is in Maspeth, an industrial area of Queens that is desirable to logistics and e-commerce tenants because it is near the geographic center point of the city, providing quick access to Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx for last-mile deliveries.

"You just saw it with the pandemic where you have a dense population that needs to be serviced and delivered to, and Amazon is filling that need," said Joseph Taylor, the president and CEO of the New Jersey industrial builder Matrix Development Group, which built Amazon's two warehouse spaces on Staten Island. "You're seeing it all over the country, but I would imagine that by the sheer volume of the business Amazon does in the city, it's a focus point."

Amazon's e-commerce business has boomed as Americans have increasingly turned to online shopping during the recent lockdowns that were instituted across the country to combat the spread of the pandemic. The industrial-real-estate market, meanwhile, has also surged, even as other property types, such as hotels, retail spaces, and office, face an uncertain future.

Have a tip? Contact Daniel Geiger at dgeiger@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 352-2884, or Twitter DM at @dangeiger79. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

SEE ALSO: Warehouse properties are suddenly red-hot, with Amazon snapping up space while ailing companies sell. Here's a look at key deals and market forecasts that lay out a huge opportunity for industrial real-estate.

DON'T MISS: Amazon just signed a lease on a huge NYC warehouse used by one-time rival Jet.com. It shows just how hot the market for industrial real estate has gotten.

UP NEXT: A surge in grocery deliveries is creating a huge opportunity for industrial real-estate developers. Here's how the coronavirus is transforming retail and warehousing.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence

• While the US is taking gradual measures to lift shelter-in-place policies, some celebrities and influencers seem ready to return to normal. 
• This month, Clubhouse, an influencer group based in California, traveled to Tulum, Mexico, to launch a new "roaming travel house" called Clubhouse Explore, and documented themselves hanging out on the beach and attending a dance club.
• "Have y'all forgot about the pandemic?" one commenter wrote underneath a Clubhouse Instagram post.
• But despite some disapproving comments on social media, Chris Young, the president of the holding company that owns the Clubhouse brand, said he doesn't consider the trip a mistake.
• "The purpose of the trip was sort of two-fold," Young told Business Insider. "One was obviously to launch sort of our Explore page and our travel genre, but number two was also, it was a trip to just promote team bonding."
• California's Public Health Office currently has this advice regarding travel on the state website: "You can travel for urgent matters or if such travel is essential to your permitted work. Even though businesses around the state are opening up, avoid travelling long distances for vacations or pleasure as much as possible."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

While some states in the US are still in the early stages of lifting shelter-in-place policies and restrictions on travel, many celebrities and influencers seem ready to return to normal. 

Clubhouse, an influencer group with a physical house in Beverly Hills, traveled to Tulum, Mexico, to launch a new "roaming travel house," Clubhouse Explore, this month. The group of Los-Angeles based influencers and TikTok stars posted photos and videos of their trip across social media, uploading a three-part series to their YouTube channel Clubhouse BH (77,000 subscribers). The content house originally launched after cofounder Daisy Keech left another popular creator group, The Hype House, earlier this year.

"This place literally looks like a dream," Clubhouse cofounder Abby Rao says as the group arrives in the hotel, with no masks on, in a part one of the Tulum vlog.

In the group's YouTube posts about its trip, members are seen visiting the beach, playing volleyball in a pool, and attending a local dance club where they float between different groups of people.

"We're mobbing to a rager to end the night right now, a little quarantine rager with the team, we'll get some shots there," house member Isaak Presley says in part two of the Tulum vlog.

In the group's third and final video, which was uploaded on June 19, members recap the vacation, saying: "Everybody's been kind of locked up for four months, so it was really nice to get back out and do stuff."

Some social-media users voiced their disapproval about traveling during a pandemic in the comments sections on Clubhouse's YouTube and Instagram posts.

"Have y'all forgot about the pandemic?" one commenter wrote underneath a Clubhouse Instagram post.

But many of the comments were positive, and Chris Young, the president of the holding company that owns the Clubhouse brand, doesn't consider the trip a mistake.

"The purpose of the trip was sort of two-fold," Young told Business Insider. "One was obviously to launch sort of our Explore page and our travel genre, but number two was also, it was a trip to just promote team bonding."

Young said around 26 people went on the Tulum trip. Fifteen Clubhouse members flew to Mexico in a private jet, while nine traveled on a commercial airline, he said. The trip lasted four days for most of the people who went, though some are still in Mexico, he said.

Clubhouse Explore's launch is happening at a moment when the number of US coronavirus cases continues to increase in the south and west — driven in part by a spike in young people contracting the virus.

Social-distancing measures like wearing masks and staying six feet apart are still recommended in most states in the US including California, which hit a new peak in its total number of COVID-19 related hospitalizations earlier this week. Health officials in California are now requiring that residents wear masks in public.

All members of the Clubhouse group who traveled to Mexico tested negative for COVID-19 before their departure, Young said. He said the group filmed themselves getting tested, but didn't end up including any footage of the tests in their YouTube uploads.

He added that they "wore masks part of the time, not all the time," though no footage of them in masks was included in the three YouTube vlogs.

While Young said the group was taking off-camera precautions, those fans who tuned into their presentation of the vacation across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok would not necessarily have understood that. 

And as public figures with high visibility on social media, influencers who are continuing to gather in groups without social distancing or masks — especially in California, where many reside — may be sending a mixed message about the degree to which they are taking the public health crisis seriously.

"So are influencers like immune to coronavirus?" a YouTube commenter wrote on one of the vlogs.

'The first trip after quarantine'

The Clubhouse trip to Tulum is also significant because it represents the first major new launch in the influencer travel sector since the pandemic shut down a big chunk of the travel economy in many countries.

In general, travel influencers have experienced a devastating hit to their businesses because of the pandemic. In mid-March, the lucrative market began a steep decline and brands canceled influencer-marketing deals and paid trips were placed on hold. To make up for lost income these influencers have been leaning into other content verticals like food and lifestyle to reach wider audiences.

Two Clubhouse members who recapped the trip in a video on YouTube described it as "the first trip after quarantine."

"Three of our influencers, their niche is travel, and so they wanted to sort of show their audience, 'Hey, if you take the precautions, it's okay to be traveling right now and you should support tourism and the economies around that,'" Young said.

California's Public Health Office has a different stance and currently has this advice regarding travel on the state website: "You can travel for urgent matters or if such travel is essential to your permitted work. Even though businesses around the state are opening up, avoid travelling long distances for vacations or pleasure as much as possible."

The trip wasn't sponsored, though the group did receive offers from hotels to "gift" a free stay in exchange for social-media promotion, which Young said they declined.

Young said that one company, the fitness-beverage brand Celsius, decided not to renew a contract with Clubhouse member Mariana Morais after the trip. The company confirmed it wasn't renewing a contract with the influencer, but said there were "other reasons that factored into our decision."

"We had all of our brand ambassadors posting at-home workouts to ensure their safety as well as help encourage our consumers to stay active and healthy at home during this time," the company added.

About half of the Clubhouse travelers have been tested for COVID-19 since returning, and most have been self-isolating with the exception of house member Isaak Presley who recently threw a birthday party, Young said.

The group considered Los Angeles county's decision to reopen gyms, hair salons, and in-person dining at restaurants when deciding whether to schedule a trip this month and launch its new travel-oriented brand, Young said. Clubhouse spoke to individuals at the Mexico Tourism Board to identify the safest locations to visit in the country during a pandemic, he added.

"We felt that at this point in time it was starting to get a little more safe and we could do testing regularly," Young said.

As for any upcoming travel plans, the group doesn't plan to stop traveling and has a trip planned to Iceland near the end of next month, Young said.

The group also plans to launch an influencer content house in Bali soon.

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

Advancements in artificial intelligence, coupled with the rise of messaging apps, are fueling the development of chatbots — software programs that use messaging as the interface through which to carry out any number of tasks, from scheduling a meeting, to reporting the weather, to helping users buy a pair of shoes.

Businesses are foreseeing immense potential and are investing heavily in this burgeoning chatbot economy. In the near future, chatbots may do everything from distributing media content to offering personalized concierge services.

In The Chatbots 101 Report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, breaks down how chatbots work and looks at the future of the market.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Mastercard announced plans to acquire financial data startup Finicity for $825 million on Tuesday.
• The deal will help Mastercard grow it's open-banking platform, which launched in Europe last year.
• Finicity's data-sharing platform enables banks, fintechs, and lenders to access financial data for credit decision-making and real-time payment authentications.
• Earlier this year, Visa announced plans to acquire data startup Plaid for $5.3 billion, which focuses on enabling startups like Betterment and Venmo to tap into consumers' bank accounts.
• Sign up here for our Wall Street Insider newsletter.

Mastercard is set to acquire a startup specializing in financial data as US banks and fintechs alike look toward growing open banking, which gives customers more control over how their bank, credit card and savings data are shared.

The payment processor entered into an agreement Tuesday to acquire Finicity for $825 million. It marks the second major deal between an incumbent in the space and a fintech. In January, rival Visa announced its plans to acquire buzzy data startup Plaid for $5.3 billion.

Both deals show the entire industry's ongoing efforts towards open banking. 

The basic idea of open banking is sharing customers' financial data electronically and securely, but only under conditions that users approve. The rise of personal finance apps over the past decade has put a spotlight on the space, as fintechs and lenders want to link into consumers' bank accounts to get financial information. 

Finicity partners with banks, fintechs, and lenders to create a standard for consumer-consented financial data access. Its existing partners include Bank of America, Brex, Experian, and Rocket Mortgage — all of which plug into Finicity's platform to access their users' data.

"Finicity is a company that's always been very stakeholder centric," Michael Miebach, president and CEO-elect at Mastercard, told Business Insider.

Read more:$5.3 billion fintech Plaid is in the middle of a high-stakes fight over customer data. Its CEO told us why the startup wants to give users control.

"They cater to the banks on one side, trying to help the banks make better credit decisions," Miebach said, "but they're also helping the fintechs on the other side by driving better customer stickiness to provide insights into accounts of access."

The acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of the year, has the potential to earn Finicity investors an additional $160 million if "performance targets are met," according to a statement. 

Finicity's data-sharing platform specializes in credit and payments

Based in Salt Lake City, Finicity was founded in 1999 and has raised nearly $80 million to-date from investors, the majority of which has come in recent years as the focus on open banking has surged. 

Finicity's tech will be integrated into Mastercard's existing open-banking platform, which it launched in Europe last year, where neobanks such as Revolut, Monzo and N26 have seen significant adoption.

Miebach acknowledged that part of the motivation for the deal was to extend into North America. 

But he added that Finicity's focus on credit-related data and real-time payments also made it an attractive partner for the card network.

"Finicity very specifically brings credit-related use cases and real-time payment account verifications use cases as well," said Miebach. "As a company that's been in real-time account payments for years, this is a really welcome addition that fits nicely into what we do."

In the US, the private sector is driving data sharing standards

Open banking, while not a new concept, is still coming into form in the US.

In Europe, standards for open banking are more mature thanks to established legislation from regulators. In the US, consumers were guaranteed a right to electronically access their financial data as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. But standards for how that data is shared have largely come out of the private sector. 

"[Finicity] has been a leading voice in the industry saying that open banking should follow a particular standard," Miebach said.

Establishing permission-based APIs in financial data sharing is the starting point, Miebach said.  But setting industry-wide standards is key going forward.

"We really don't want to be in a world where two or three years from now, we're still doing screen scraping," Miebach said, referring to the practice of taking a snapshot of a clients' data when they log in with their bank's username and password.

Financial data came into the spotlight in early 2020 after JPMorgan Chase announced fintechs would need to access customer accounts via Chase-issued tokens as opposed to using their passwords, which allows the bank greater control over customers' information, as first reported by the Financial Times.

A few weeks later, in the call announcing Visa's planned acquisition of Plaid, Al Kelly, the payment giant's chairman and CEO, acknowledged some financial firms "would prefer Plaid operate differently in some cases."

In February, Zach Perret, the CEO and cofounder of Plaid, told Business Insider a focus of the startup was working with big banks to put controls in place around customers' data.

See also:Visa's CEO hinted at the need to address 'concerns' Wall Street has about buzzy fintech Plaid, which the payment giant is set to acquire for $5.3 billion

Both Plaid and Finicity are members of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), an industry-wide group that sets API-driven standards for financial data sharing. Its members include players like American Express, Citi, FICO, and Wells Fargo. 

"The journey that they are on, and they're going to be on with us going forward, is going to get us to an even better world in terms of protecting consumer data," Miebach said. "Not a world where you have to trade off a better consumer experience where you have to be looser on data."

Read more:

• Visa set to buy Plaid, the fintech that powers apps like Betterment and Venmo, for $5.3 billion
• $5.3 billion fintech Plaid is in the middle of a high-stakes fight over customer data. Its CEO told us why the startup wants to give users control.
• Visa's CEO hinted at the need to address 'concerns' Wall Street has about buzzy fintech Plaid, which the payment giant is set to acquire for $5.3 billion

SEE ALSO: $5.3 billion fintech Plaid is in the middle of a high-stakes fight over customer data. Its CEO told us why the startup wants to give users control.

SEE ALSO: Visa's CEO hinted at the need to address 'concerns' Wall Street has about buzzy fintech Plaid, which the payment giant is set to acquire for $5.3 billion

SEE ALSO: Visa set to buy Plaid, the fintech that powers apps like Betterment and Venmo, for $5.3 billion

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• NASA recently appointed Kathy Lueders, an engineer who led the program that led SpaceX to launch astronauts on a commercial spaceship, to run its Human Spaceflight Office.
• Lueders is the first woman to hold the position. She's responsible for all NASA projects that involve flying astronauts to and from space.
• Her work with the space station and key role in NASA's partnerships with SpaceX and Boeing prepared Lueders to face the challenges of a new era in human spaceflight.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

NASA has a new head of human spaceflight: Kathy Lueders, the woman who oversaw the program that just produced the world's first commercial astronaut launch.

Now Lueders will lead the agency's work to revive human spaceflight in the US and spearhead NASA's Artemis program — the successor to Apollo that aims to land people on the moon and, eventually, build a base there. NASA announced her promotion on June 12.

"We polled a number of people within the agency and asked who would be a good person to fit this role, and Kathy Lueders' name came up over and over again," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a call with reporters last week. "She has an amazing amount of respect within the agency."

Since 2014, Lueders has led NASA's Commercial Crew Program: a roughly $8 billion competition that spurred SpaceX and Boeing to develop privately owned and operated spaceships. The initiative was designed to replace the human spaceflight capabilities the US lost when the space shuttle program ended in 2011.

The program bore its first fruit on May 30, when SpaceX launched human passengers aboard its Crew Dragon spaceship. The mission, called Demo-2, safely delivered NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station. 

"I'm a big fan of Kathy Lueders!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted a week before that launch.

Lueders replaced Doug Loverro, who resigned in May after just six months on the job over what he described as a "mistake" in risk-taking. Although he did not elaborate further, the Wall Street Journal reported that Loverro is under investigation for possibly unfairly aiding Boeing in a competition for lunar lander contracts.

Lueders is the first woman to lead human spaceflight at NASA — a fact she said she was initially unaware of.

"When Jim asked me if I would take this role, I didn't really think about being first," she told reporters. "I was more overwhelmed with the potential tasks in front of me. And it was actually when I was talking to my husband that he made the point to me."

Lueders said she now faces a number of practical challenges, including figuring out how to meet aggressive deadlines during a pandemic that has led NASA to shutter its facilities to most employees and contractors. That will be key for accomplishing the monumental task of sending the first woman and the next man to the moon.

"This has got to be one of the most difficult jobs in America, but it's also going to be one of the most rewarding," Bridenstine told Lueders during the press briefing.

'It's like working in a candy shop'

Lueders did not start out with spaceflight ambitions. She earned her undergraduate degree in business at the University of New Mexico.

"I wanted to work on Wall Street, but then in my senior year I wanted to switch to my roommate's major, engineering," Lueders told Vogue in 2017.

She got married, had kids, and went back to school to do just that, earning two degrees in industrial engineering. That helped her land her first NASA job in 1992, as a propulsion engineer at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.

"I was the second woman at the propulsion lab — I think the first one lasted about a week," she told Vogue.

There she worked on the Space Shuttle program, coordinating the orbital maneuvering and control systems that delivered astronauts to the space station. She led cargo resupply missions and NASA's oversight of European, Japanese, and Russian spacecraft visiting the station.

After the space shuttles stopped flying, the US became increasingly reliant on expensive Russian launch systems to ferry people and cargo to and from the space station. That's why NASA developed its own alternative through the Commercial Crew Program.

In 2013, Lueders became the program's acting manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The next year, she was appointed to spearhead the effort.

"Engineers love design and development and doing cool things and hard work," Lueders told Vogue. "And guess what? We've got it in spades. It's like working in a candy shop."

A return to the moon

The crewed SpaceX launch not only marked the dawn of a new era of commercial spaceflight; it also brought NASA a step closer to realizing its ambitions to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

Now Lueders will steer the Commercial Crew Program — and the astronaut-ready spaceships it produced from Boeing and Space — towards returning NASA astronauts to the moon by the end of 2024. Bu that's just the first step. The Artemis program's eventual goal is to establish a permanent lunar base, where astronauts can live and conduct science much as they do on the space station. From there, NASA and Musk hope that astronauts can springboard to Mars.

Aside from the monumental tasks that now lie ahead of Lueders, her promotion in itself represents a step for NASA.

"What's been amazing to me over the last few days is seeing all the tweets, Snapchats, Instagrams — all the notes from all the girls out there," Lueders said. "That really helps me realize the power of my being first. That means to them, they're able to see themselves in me. I'm very honored by that, and I'm expecting really big things for them, from them. You'd better get going."

SEE ALSO: SpaceX is following up its first astronaut mission by launching 3 batches of internet satellites within 18 days

DON'T MISS: SpaceX is on the cusp of winning a high-stakes game of capture the flag that Barack Obama started almost 9 years ago

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NOW WATCH: Why NASA waited nearly a decade to send astronauts into space from the US

• You can delete saved passwords in Google Chrome through your Google account's "Security" menu.
• You'll have to delete the passwords saved in Chrome one-by-one — you can't delete all of them at once.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google Chrome has a very handy feature that allows it to remember your username and password for any website you choose. 

This can not only save you time logging in, but can also save you the hassle of having to remember dozens and dozens of individual passwords.

However, there are situations where you may not want Google to remember a given password. Perhaps you made a new account for that website, and Google automatically logging you into your old account is no longer helpful. 

Or maybe you just don't feel comfortable saving any passwords online — although password managers are generally a safe way to store your passwords.

Regardless of the reason, deleting saved passwords on Chrome is as simple as clicking a few buttons. Here's how to do it using any browser on your Mac or PC.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)

How to delete saved passwords in Google Chrome

1. Go to myaccount.google.com and log into your Google account.

2. Click the option labeled "Security" in the sidebar on the left.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the main screen. In the "Signing in to other sites" section, click "Password Manager."

4. Find the site that you want to delete the saved password for, and click on it. You may need to enter your Google account password to confirm that it's you.

5. Underneath of the username and password combo you want Google to forget, click "Delete." 

6. Click "Delete" again on the pop-up warning to finish deleting the password.

Return to the password management screen and repeat the previous steps for any other passwords you want to delete.

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to find passwords stored on your Android phone, and export or delete them

• How to get your toolbar back in Google Chrome if you've hidden it, in 3 different ways

• How to backup your Google Chrome bookmarks in 2 ways, so you never lose track of your favorite sites

• How to change your default search engine in Google Chrome, and switch between Google, Bing, and more

• How to change your recovery email in Gmail using your computer

SEE ALSO: The best all-in-one PCs you can buy

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• To change your YouTube password, you'll need to change your Google account's password, as they're the same password.
• You can change your Google password through your Google account's "Security" menu.
• Changing this password will change the password on your YouTube account, Google Drive account, Gmail account, and more.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

Some years ago, if you wanted to change your YouTube password, it was as simple as going to your YouTube settings.

Today, however, your YouTube account is also a Google account — meaning YouTube uses the same password as Gmail, Google Docs, and every other Google product.

As such, if you want to change your YouTube password now, what you really have to do is change the password of the Google account connected to your YouTube account. You don't actually have to go to the YouTube website at all to do this.

Here's how to change your Google account password, so that you can log into YouTube with a new password. You can do this through any internet browser on your Mac or PC.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)

How to change your YouTube password through Google

1. Go to myaccount.google.com and log into your Google account.

2. Click the option labeled "Security" in the sidebar on the left.

3. On the main part of the page, scroll down. Under the header "Signing in to Google," click "Password."

4. Enter your current password.

5. Enter the new password that you want, and then enter it again to confirm that you typed it correctly. 

Your password must be at least eight characters long, and ideally you want it to have a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols so that it's difficult to guess.

When you're finished, click "Change Password."

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• You can't see who liked your comment on YouTube, but you can see how many likes your post has — here's how

• How to set parental controls on YouTube in 2 different ways

• YouTube TV doesn't offer 4K streaming, but you can find some 4K content on YouTube — here's what you need to know

• Yes, the Amazon Fire Stick has YouTube — here's how to download it and watch videos

• How to post a video on Steam using your YouTube account, and share gameplay on your profile

SEE ALSO: The best MacBooks you can buy

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

• Ben & Jerry's is halting paid advertising on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram over the company's hate speech policies, the company announced in a tweet Tuesday.
• "Facebook, Inc. must take the clear and unequivocal actions to stop its platform from being used to spread and amplify racism and hate," the company said.
• The Vermont-based ice cream maker joins a growing list of advertisers boycotting the platform at the urging of civil rights groups who say Facebook has been unwilling and unable to fix the problem.
• Facebook has faced fierce criticism for its approach to moderating hate speech, particularly in the wake of its refusal to act on controversial tweets by Trump.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's announced in a tweet Thursday that it will stop advertising on Facebook over concerns about the social media's role in spreading hate speech.

"We will pause all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram in the US in support of the #StopHateForProfit campaign," the company said. "Facebook, Inc. must take the clear and unequivocal actions to stop its platform from being used to spread and amplify racism and hate."

The announcement comes in response to a call last week from top civil rights groups, including the NAACP and Anti-Defamation League, for advertisers to abandon the platform.

The groups said that Facebook amplifies white supremacists, allows posts that incite violence and contain misinformation, and has remained unwilling to take significant steps to address the issues.

Ben & Jerry's, which has been campaigning against racial inequality for years, joins a growing list of companies that have joined the boycott, including The North Face, Patagonia, and REI.

Facebook has faced growing backlash over its role in spreading misinformation and harmful content, particularly in the wake of its refusal to act on controversial posts by Trump surrounding election misinformation and racial justice protests.

SEE ALSO: Edit in Viking An Uber security contractor reportedly tackled a Black teen girl riding a Jump bike after the company hired the guards to recover stolen bikes

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

• Ex-employees of Microsoft's game streaming platform Mixer say the company failed to act when they complained about a manager's misconduct, including allegations that she referred to partners as "slaves" and herself as the "slavemaster." 
• Microsoft on Monday announced plans to shut down Mixer– the company's competitor to Amazon's wildly popular Twitch platform — but the company has been accused of failing to address employee complaints before.
• "We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and thoroughly investigate all employee concerns. We do not discuss the details of such investigations," a Mixer spokesperson told Business Insider.
• Microsoft last year said it would hire more people to investigate misconduct claims after an email chain was made public in which dozens of women employees shared allegations of harassment and discrimination.
• On Tuesday, Microsoft committed to doubling the number of Black leaders within the overall company.
• Are you a current or former Mixer employee? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@businessinsider.com).
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Former employees of Microsoft's game streaming platform Mixer say the company failed to take action in response to complaints made to human resources and management, including about racist comments made by a manager, and "toxic working conditions."

Microsoft on Monday announced plans to shut down Mixer, the company's competitor to Amazon's wildly popular Twitch. Existing streamers on the platform will have the opportunity to move over to Facebook Gaming, the social network's own streaming service. 

The afternoon before the announcement, Milan Lee, a former Mixer employee who is Black, published a blog post called "Mixer: The Black Experience," in which he described his experiences within the company.  Lee said Microsoft failed to take action after investigating complaints he made to human resources and management, particularly about a manager who made racist comments.

Two additional former employees told Business Insider that Microsoft failed to take action on HR complaints made about the same manager, though they didn't file the complaints directly. The former employees asked not to be named to protect current and prospective employment, but their identities are known to us.

Phil Spencer, Microsoft's executive vice president of gaming, met privately with Lee on Monday to discuss the blog post. On Twitter, Spencer indicated that Lee's blog post had nothing to do with the decision to shutter Mixer, and that his conversation with Lee was constructive.

Otherwise, Microsoft has declined to comment on the specifics of Lee's allegations. "We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and thoroughly investigate all employee concerns. We do not discuss the details of such investigations," a Mixer spokesperson told Business Insider.

However, on Tuesday, Wes Wilson, another former Mixer employee, shared a letter he said he sent to Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in September 2018 in which he claimed HR and leadership refused to investigate his complaints of a toxic culture at the division, including a complaint related to the same manager about which Lee complained. Microsoft has so far not commented on the contents of this letter. 

"Mixer appears to have imported the very worst of old Microsoft culture," Wilson wrote in the letter, alluding to Microsoft's previous reputation for infighting and a cutthroat corporate culture.

Microsoft has faced allegations before that it failed to address employee complaints to HR. A gender discrimination lawsuit against the company in 2018 claimed women technical employees at Microsoft in the US filed 118 gender complaints between 2010 and 2016, and that Microsoft's HR determined that only one was founded. Microsoft at the time said it thoroughly investigates issues raised by women employees, and fired about 20 employees in 2017 as a result.

The company last year said it would hire more people to investigate misconduct claims after an email chain was made public in which dozens of women employees shared allegations of harassment and discrimination.

Ex-employees say they complained to Microsoft, but the company didn't address the issues.

Lee worked for Microsoft beginning in 2017 and in 2018 transferred to the Seattle area to work for Mixer, where he said in the post that he was one of the only Black employees.

Microsoft doesn't specifically share diversity figures for the Mixer division, but overall the company has comparatively few Black leaders and employees. Microsoft on Tuesday pledged to double the number of Black leaders within the company.

In one instance, Lee said, a manager referred to Mixer streaming partners as "slaves" and herself as a "slavemaster." Lee said the manager could see he was upset by the comment, and decided to hold a one-on-one meeting. At that meeting, Lee said, he told his manager that analogy should never be used and, in response, "she told me I need to work on myself. If I wanted to go far in this industry I need to work on my emotions and feelings to similar comments."

Lee said that he reported those comments and details about his experiences as a Black employee to one of that manager's own bosses — but that his complaints apparently went nowhere. "So when I spoke with HR they were surprised and said this has never been communicated. After that meeting I resigned a few weeks later," Lee wrote.

Before he resigned, however, Lee went directly to Microsoft's legal department, which he said began an investigation into his complaints that lasted even after he left the company. He said that Microsoft ultimately took no action against the manager in question after the investigation was concluded.

Wilson, the author of the letter published later on Tuesday, worked for Microsoft from December 2016 to September 2018. He said Microsoft refused to investigate when he complained about "toxic working conditions," including issues with the same manager referenced in Lee's post.

Wilson's employment was terminated in September 2018, at which time he said he sent a letter to Nadella and Spencer to alerting them to what he saw as major issues with Mixer's culture. Wilson said he never received a response, and in a message sharing the letter on Tuesday said "This should clearly demonstrate that Mixer's issues, including the toxic working conditions related by [Lee] were known and ignored."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at astewart@businessinsider.com, message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242.

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• The Ford F-150 pickup truck has been the best-selling vehicle in the US since 1981.
• In 2019, nearly 900,000 F-Series trucks rolled off dealer lots in America.
• The F-150 underwent a risky redesign for the 13th generation of the vehicle — arguably the riskiest since the truck first arrived in 1947. Ford engineered the pickup with more lightweight aluminum.
• This week, the all-new 2021 Ford F-150 will be revealed.
• Here's a look at why the F-150 is an icon, a legend, and a flat-out great pickup.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

This is a very big week in the US auto industry.

On Thursday, Ford is revealing its all-new, 14th-generation F-150 pickup truck. The F-150 has been the bestselling vehicle in American since 1981. It's far and away the most important four-wheeled machine that Dearborn produces. As goes the F-150, so goes the Ford Motor Company.

The F-150 was rather radically and successfully redesigned in 2014, then updated in 2017. But the competition has kept pace: the Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, and RAM 1500 are all new or relatively new. 

That means that 2020 and 2021 could bring an even more intense pickup truck contest to the USA. It's worth noting that even an the coronavirus pandemic has damaged auto sales, pickups have continued to attracted customers. It's also worth noting that Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler automobiles make major profits on their full-size pickups.

I've checked out every full-size pickup on the market. They're all pretty great. But the F-150 is ... special. Here's why:

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Ford F-150, the reigning king. The champ. The legend. The icon.

Humble beginnings! The Ford F1 was the original F-Series pickup. It rolled out in 1947, right after the end of World War II.

The F-150 has been the bestselling vehicle in the US every year since 1981, back with Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president.

The 13th generation of the F-150 hit the streets for the 2015 model year. It was the most risky redesign of the icon in its long history, as Ford introduced lightweight aluminum to the construction.

Read the review.

The F-150's rivals include the also-top-selling Chevy Silverado, shown here in Z71 trim with a Duramax diesel engine,

Read the review.

The mechanically similar but more upscale GMC Sierra is also a contender.

The RAM 1500 came on strong after it was updated for the 2019 model year.

Read the review.

The Toyota Tundra has gotten long in the tooth, but this perennial number five in the US pickup-truck race remains a great vehicle.

Read the review.

Even through it brings up the rear, the Nissan Titan has a lot going for it.

Read the review.

BUT the F-150 is the king. The F-150's midcycle design refresh for 2016 wasn't anything dramatic. The biggest difference was the beefed-up front grille, lending a more aggressive demeanor to America's favorite truck.

The last time I saddled up in America's truck, it was an F-150 4x4 SuperCrew, very well optioned, with an added Limited package that took the price above $74,000.

The "agate black" paint job and shimmering chrome highlights gave this pickup a near-luxury vibe. As you can see, my tester came with a short bed. We generally don't get the longer box for our review vehicles.

Let's talk about what makes a pickup truck a pickup truck: the bed, or "box."

The tailgate is easy to operate, even with heavily gloved hands.

The short box is more than adequate for most jobs that don't involve ranching, farming, or serious construction. The bedliner protects the metal from rust and corrosion. Many owners use the tailgate as a sort of rolling desk or workbench.

The powered tailgate on my tester had a useful integrated step, as well a handle to assist with climbing into and out of the bed.

It comes in handy! I'm serious! Climbing into the bed of a half-ton pickup used to be tricky.

The F-150 has a step bumper to use when the tailgate is up.

The F-150 uses a body-on-frame construction with a stout, hardtail, leaf-spring suspension.

This Ford F-150 had a 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 engine, one of numerous options. The power is routed to the four-wheel-drive system by a 10-speed automatic transmission.

This high-output variant of the 3.5-liter V6 is something: The turbocharged mill cranks out 450 horsepower with 510 pound-feet of torque. That beats the 5.0-liter V8 engine by a notable margin (395 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque).

Fuel economy is so-so, at 17 mpg city/21 highway/19 combined. But the Raptor-grade motor yields a 0-60 mph time of just over five seconds. Acceleration is sort of staggering for a truck that weighs in at almost 5,700 pounds and can tow 12,000 pounds.

Weirdly, I had trouble running the gas out of my tester, though I didn't take it on an extended road trip.

The running-board ...

... Retracts when not in use.

F-150 badging is prominent on the trucks' side.

The "camelback" two-tone leather interior on my F-150 test truck was el primo. The front seats are heated, cooled, and exceptionally comfortable.

Ford continues to use its coded entry buttons to lock and unlock the doors.

The SuperCrew configuration provides limo-like seating capacity in the back.

The F-150 has a multifunction steering wheel, leather-wrapped, and an analog-digital instrument cluster that can be customized to display a wide range of vehicle info.

There's ample storage. In addition to the the large cupholders ...

... The F-150 has a cavernous compartment between the front seats.

The Limited designation recurs inside.

The F-150's infotainment system runs on what is by contemporary standards a modest 8-inch central touchscreen.

The Sync 3 system is generally superb, with excellent navigation, easy Bluetooth device pairing, USB integration, and a SiriusXM introductory subscription. Bonus points for the wonderful Bang & Olufsen premium audio setup.

There's a useful tray on the dashboard, and my test truck came with a stupendous Bang & Olufsen premium audio system.

Towing capacity for the F-150 is 12,000 lbs.

The F-150 also comes in a completely wild high-performance version, the Raptor.

Read the review.

Ford also produces a police interceptor version of the pickup truck.

The truck is built with pride in Michigan and Kentucky.

Ford is very, very, very proud of the F-150. But that also means that Ford respects the icon and makes sure that, generation after generation, it delivers on its promise.

I've tested all the full-size pickups on the market and there's little question that the F-150 deserves its legendary status. I can't wait to see what Ford has in store for us with the 14th generation.

• Google's corporate structure has once again shifted, streamlining certain groups and assigning new titles and responsibilities to CEO Sundar Pichai's team of executives.
• Pichai's inner circle of direct reports are helping the Google chief steer the company through a challenging period marked by increasing regulatory scrutiny, employee unrest and a pandemic that threatens to cause the first revenue decline in Google history.
• Business Insider has identified the key direct reports along with their new titles and responsibilities.
• Do you work at Google? You can contact this reporter securely using encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or encrypted email (hslangley@protonmail.com).
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google's senior leadership has gone through many incarnations over its 22-year history. But since CEO Sundar Pichai took the reins of the Alphabet parent company late last year — when Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped aside — the senior leadership ranks have gone through some significant changes.

With Pichai now running the entire operation, the 48-year old, India-born tech exec must build a team to help steer the company through a thicket of new challenges. In June, Pichai reshuffled several of Google's top executives in key businesses including search, advertising tech and maps. 

The new "cabinet" has its work cut out for it. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing disruptions throughout the global economy and Google's advertising customers, the company must contend with rising competition, regulatory scrutiny, and employee unrest. And after more than two decades of astounding growth, Google's revenue is at risk of suffering the first ever decline in company history.

Business Insider has identified the 15 senior executives at Google who report directly to Pichai. The list reflects the updated job titles and responsibilities that resulted from the latest management reorg. 

Here is the who's who in Google CEO Sundar Pichai's inner circle:

NOW READ: Lunch boxes, temperature checks, and no more sleep pods: Insiders reveal how Google is planning its return to the office

Thomas Kurian — Google Cloud CEO

Google has set 2023 as the deadline to overtake at least one of its major cloud rivals, and the pressure is on Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian to deliver.

The former Oracle executive was named as Google's new Cloud chief in November 2018. "You will see us competing much more aggressively," he said just several weeks into his tenure. And so far, Kuran appears to be delivering on that promise as he pushes Google's enterprise business to catch Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Kurian succeeded Diane Greene, who was more focused on engineering, and who insiders say had a close professional relationship with engineering SVP Urs Hölzle.

"Kurian is a move back to a sales-oriented culture at the top," said one person who worked with both Greene and Kurian. "That will probably help break through in markets that have been historically skeptical of Google within the enterprise."

Kurian is wielding a great deal of power inside Google right now, and his stronger focus on enterprise sales is already helping Google pick up the pace. Under Kurian, Cloud is targeting more products and services specific to certain industries, and the Cloud chief said deals over $50 million more than doubled in 2019.

Fun fact: Thomas has a twin brother named George, who is the CEO of NetApp.

Ruth Porat — SVP and CFO of Google and Alphabet

In 2015, just months before the company morphed into Alphabet, Ruth Porat left financial firm Morgan Stanley to join Google as its new Chief Financial Officer.

The timing of Porat's arrival was not a coincidence, and since the reorganization she has continued to serve as CFO for both Google and Alphabet, making her one of the most important figures inside the internet empire.

Insiders say Porat has become a more prominent figure within the company over time, particularly since Sundar Pichai became CEO of Alphabet and as the company has moved through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Porat's purview extends to Alphabet's so-called Other Bets — the hodgepodge of subsidiary businesses focused on autonomous driving, biotech and drones, among other things— where she controls the purse strings, headcount and future of the various efforts.

Kent Walker — SVP Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer

As senior VP for Global Affairs and Google's Chief Legal Officer, long-time employee Kent Walker is Google's top lawyer. 

Walker advises Google's leadership team on legal and policy issues that involve everything from company acquisitions to antitrust investigations. Bloomberg once called Walker "the most powerful person in tech you've never heard of." That's not wildly off the mark.

Before joining Google in 2006, the Stanford Law School graduate held top legal roles at eBay and at internet browser pioneer Netscape, as well as doing a five-year stint in the US Department of Justice.

Walker is a key player inside Pichai's squad, and with a bigger antitrust storm brewing for the company in 2020 his job looks set to get a lot more complex.

One bit of good news for Walker: With Brin, Page and former executive chairman Eric Schmidt no longer involved in the company's day-to-day affairs, the risk of a top exec saying something regrettable during company all-hands meetings has gone down considerably. That alone, suggest some insiders, should allow Walker to breath a lot easier.

Rick Osterloh — SVP, Devices and Services

For the past few years, Rick Osterloh has been attempting to wrangle Google's various hardware efforts – phones, laptops, wearables – into one cohesive vision. No easy task.

The former president of Motorola Mobility, who Google hired back in 2016 to lead its hardware division, has perhaps most notably helped grow Google's own brand of Pixel smartphones into a household name.

In 2018, Osterloh also took charge of Nest, once an independent company bought by Google and placed in a silo under Alphabet – before being absorbed back into the Google mothership.

Now the pressure is on for Osterloh to prove that Google deserves to be taken seriously as a hardware giant. Google is said to be working on its own processors for future Pixel phones and Chromebooks, which would feasibly allow Osterloh and his team to do better and more interesting things with the surrounding hardware.

Osterloh's own direct reports include Nest VP Rishi Chandra, and Clay Bavor, who oversees Google's virtual and augmented reality products.

Prabhakar Raghavan — Head of Search and Geo

Insiders have described Prabhakar Raghavan as a major rising star within the company, and his latest promotion just proved it.

In a recent executive reshuffle, Raghavan was named Google's new head of Search and Assistant. Prabhakar previous lead Google's ads and commerce team, and before that was in charge of G Suite in Google Cloud.

But search is Raghavan's bread and butter. Before Google, he founded Yahoo Labs and led the company's search strategy, not to mention that he's published various books and papers on the subject, including a book co-authored with Rajeev Motwani called Randomized Algorithms.

Not only will Raghavan be grappling with Google Search, the reorg puts Raghavan right at the top of the Google money tree, overseeing ads, Geo, commerce and payments — and the voice-based Assistant product too.

With the new promotion, Raghavan has a sparkly new team of direct reports, which include Jerry Dischler, who now leads Google Ads; and new Geo leads Dane Glasgow and Elizabeth Reid. Insiders say Raghavan has already begun meeting with his new leads to learn about their progress, as he transitions into the new role.

Hiroshi Lockheimer — SVP, Platforms and Ecosystems

A founding member of the Android team, Lockheimer currently oversees Google's range of mobile products including Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, and Play.

He joined the company in 2006, after Google acquired Android, where he served as executive director and later VP of engineering. In 2015, Google's fresh CEO Sundar Pichai, who once lead Chrome and Chrome OS development himself, appointed Lockheimer as SVP of Google's mobile software efforts.

Insiders have described Lockheimer as having a "quiet strength" about him, calling him a well-respected leader in the company. Pichai's prior history working on Chrome means this is an area the Google chief is particularly close to.

Lockheimer is also leading the charge on a new OS called Fuschia, an open-source sort-of-blend of Android and Chrome OS, which remains shrouded in much mystery.

Susan Wojcicki — YouTube CEO

Susan Wojcicki not only serves as YouTube's CEO, she's also a card-carrying member of the old-school Google club. In fact, it was Wojcicki's garage where Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin built their first office in 1998.

It was also Wojcicki who proposed Google buy YouTube in 2006, and now almost 15 years later the founders are surely glad they listened.

Wojcicki, who studied history and literature at Harvard University, has transformed YouTube into one of Google's biggest success stories.

And now that the company has started revealing YouTube's revenue, we can see just how successful it is.

The business brought in $4.04 billion in revenue for the last quarter alone, marking a 33% year-over-year growth.

Check out our list of the 33 insiders who hold the most power at YouTube featuring, naturally, the CEO herself.

Lorraine Twohill — SVP of Global Marketing

Lorraine Twohill joined Google in 2003 as the company's first marketing hire outside of the US, and quickly rose through the ranks to lead the company's marketing division.

Twohill, who also created Google's in-house advertising agency Creative Lab, has her own wide range of reports across Google products, from Search to Chrome.

"She's humanized Google with Super Bowl Sunday ads," wrote Business Insider in its list of the most innovative CMOs of 2020.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Twohill has worked with the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to promote official health information across Google's products.

Ben Gomes — SVP, Education

Another early member of the company, Ben Gomes joined Google in 1999 where he was tasked with, among other things, scaling Google's 'PageRank' beyond 25 million pages.

Gomes has been described as Google's search czar. "I think of Ben as our diplomat," Marissa Mayer once said during her Google tenure. However, it wasn't until 2018 that Gomes was appointed head of Google's Search business.

Now, Gomes has transitioned to a new role overseeing Google's education and learning products. In this new position at Google, Gomes will tie together the company's various education-oriented efforts, which includes everything from school Chromebook programs to the Google Scholar service.

"Ben has always had a deep interest in education innovation, and we're excited to see him build on our work here," said CEO Sundar Pichai when announcing Gomes' new role in June.

Gomes will continue to report directly to Pichai in his new role. He will remain a technical advisor on Search, assisting Prabhakar Raghavan as he leads the division, and will work closely with Google.org on corporate philanthropy.

Jen Fitzpatrick — SVP of Core and Corp Eng

Jen Fitzpatrick, who joined Google via its internship program in 1999, was one of the first 30 employees at the company. She was also one of Google's first women engineers.

Fitzpatrick has led teams on Search, Google News, shopping, and AdWords. In 2014, she was appointed VP for Geo, overseeing the entire Google Maps business.

Fitzpatrick has just transitioned into a new role, moving out of Geo to lead the company's core engineering teams, overseeing more than 8,000 employees.

"Jen's deep product knowledge and experience focusing on important areas such as privacy will set her up well to lead these teams," Pichai wrote in a memo announcing the move.

She continues to service inside Pichai's inner team, just in a different capacity. Google engineering VP and company veteran Luiz André Barroso will remain working in Core, and now report to Fitzpatrick.

Jeffrey Dean — Head of Google AI

Jeffrey Dean is a Google Senior Fellow and head of the Google AI division. Another 1999 member of the company, Dean gained a reputation for his exceptional coding talent and joined Google's X lab in 2011 to work on deep neural networks.

That eventually led to the creation of Google Brain, the company's research group which Dean continues to lead.

Dean was appointed the head of Google's entire AI division in 2018 during a leadership reshuffle, which spun AI into its own business.

During college, Dean worked on the World Health Organization's Global Programme on AIDS, and continues to have a deep interest in Google's work in the health sector.

Philipp Schindler — SVP and Chief Business Officer

Google's Chief Business Officer has been extremely busy over the past few months, as the company continues to fend off the effects of COVID-19.

Schindler, who joined Google in 2005, took the job of Chief Business Officer when Google restructured itself under Alphabet in 2015. Not just the face of Google's advertising business, Schindler also weighs in on everything from Google News to the company's moonshots.

Insiders have talked up Schindler's friendly persona, and say his "P Staff" meetings have become famous inside the company. The German-born Schindler is a veteran of the early online days, having worked at AOL and Compuserve during the 1990s.

While Google is seeing the coronavirus pandemic ravage its advertising business, some analysts have been encouraged by the work Schindler has done to push much larger ad deals that could bolster these effects.

Under the new world order, expect Schindler to work more closely with Raghavan as he steers Google's search and advertising business.

Corey duBrowa — VP, Global Communications and Public Affairs

When it comes to Google's communications, the buck stops with Corey duBrowa. After stints shaping the PR strategy for Starbucks and Salesforce, duBrowa joined Google in 2018 to help build the company's brand.

Corey duBrowa has a direct line to Pichai and wrangles a team of more than 200 staffers. Early on in his Google tenure, duBrowa introduced 'objectives and key results' (OKRs) for the company communications team – something Pichai uses with his own direct reports.

"For years, Google was data-rich and analysis poor," DuBrowa told listeners during an interview at a Holmes Report event last year. "We're in the process of building the kind of analytics engine and team to help us be more precise." 

And if you happen to come across Corey duBrowa's byline in Rolling Stone and GQ, that's because he was also a music journalist in a past life.

Ben Smith — Google Fellow

Like Jen Fitzpatrick, Ben Smith joined Google in 1999 from the company's internship program. He was so enamored with the company at the time that he left his graduate program to join Google's Search efforts — and has remained with Google ever since.

Smith is a member of the old guard, and a technical advisor to the office of the CEO. While he's less in the public eye than other members of Pichai's squad, you'll occasionally see his name appear alongside various Google blog posts.

Tom Oliveri — VP, CEO Team

Tom Oliveri joined Google in 2005 where he worked on Google's first payment service, before transitioning to lead marketing for various Google products, eventually overseeing marketing for Chrome and Android in a VP role.

Oliveri is currently a VP of the CEO team, reporting directly to Pichai. Oliveri's reports include, Jeff Markowitz, who joined Google as a leadership advisor in 2019.

• On June 13, legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen told angel investor Sriram Krishnan about his approach to building a firm and evaluating potential investments, for Krishnan's newsletter, The Observer Effect.
• Andreessen said that he doesn't have the gambling gene in that he doesn't feel a dopamine rush when he gambles and wins.
• Although many people outside venture capital have compared the practice to gambling, Andreessen said it's actually those who are detached from the emotional aspects of it that perform the best.
• He likened his industry to poker players who make increasingly large bets on mundane outcomes, like how many blue cars show up in a parking lot, to emotionally distance themselves and gain an edge on the competition.
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Venture capital is regularly compared to gambling because of its incredibly high stakes and the essentially unknown outcomes years down the line. Wall Street financiers and hedge fund managers trade quickly on publicly available knowledge. Venture capitalists go with their gut.

But one of venture capital's most prominent figures disagrees. His trade might be compared to gambling, sure, but there's a lot more to it than outsiders think.

On June 13, Marc Andreessen told angel investor Sriram Krishnan about his approach to building a firm and evaluating potential investments for Krishnan's newsletter, The Observer Effect. In that conversation, Andreessen said that he doesn't feel elated when he wins at the poker table or in the boardroom, a process that has helped him methodically approach all his investment decisions.

"Honestly, this also goes a little bit to my psychology — I actually don't have the gambling gene," Andreessen said. "I get no rush from the bet or the result. I sit down for one of those and nothing happens. My pulse chemistry is just flat. And then the mathematical part of my brain is like, well, the expected return for this exercise is negative, what the f--- am I doing? And so it becomes unfun in the first 10 seconds and then I just walk away."

Naturally, Andreessen's psychology has seeped into the culture at his firm, Andreessen Horowitz. He admitted that the team doesn't necessarily celebrate their "wins" as often as they should, but it's part of a process of objectively measuring the firm's success on the typical 10-year cycle within which most venture firms operate. 

"It's really hard to get good metaphors but it's poker, right? It's really, really, really hard to be a good poker player," Andreessen said. "And if you're kicking yourself every time you have a bad hand, the bad habits just simply happen. You just need to be able to have a system that lets you think through the process."

Andreessen's system, then, could be compared to professional poker players, although more in theory than in practice. He said that many professional poker players gamble by night, but during the day they make increasingly large bets on mundane outcomes to help soften the emotional effect of the dopamine rush most people naturally have when gambling.

"It's literally a side bet of sitting in a diner and betting on whether there are going to be more red cars than blue cars passing by," Andreessen said. "What they're doing is 'steeling' their own psychology to be able to pull the trigger on bets like that with a purely mathematical lens and with no emotion whatsoever. They're trying to steel themselves to be able to be completely clinical."

That's similar to how Andreessen sees investing, he said. It's all a set of probabilistic outcomes, and so his success or failure is nothing more than a mathematical equation that needs to be solved. 

"What they then hope for that night when they sit across the table from someone is to hope they're dealing with somebody who's super emotional. Because the clinical person is going to just slaughter the emotional person," Andreessen said.

SEE ALSO: Two CFOs from Brex and Rippling advise these financial moves for startups reopening after a shutdown. One tip: Make the office desk a perk, and work-from-home the staffers' norm

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

• DoNotPay, a startup that uses artificial intelligence and chatbots to fight small claims like parking tickets, just raised $12 million in Series A funding with an $80 million valuation.
• The round was made up of existing investors, according to founder and CEO Joshua Browder. Coatue led the round with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and Day One Ventures.
• Browder said the 8-person team was struggling to keep up with surging demand as more users wanted to cancel gym memberships, get airline refunds, and ask for rent extensions amid the coronavirus-led downturn. He hopes to increase the team to upwards of 30 people with the new funding.
• The shutdowns have also helped propel the legal system "10 years forward," Browder said. This increases the types and amount of services DoNotPay can take on with its software.
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When gyms across the country started closing up shop to comply with statewide shelter-in-place orders, Americans started ditching their pricey fitness memberships en masse. But instead of waiting on hold with customer service for hours or suffering through a tedious exit survey, many of the former fitness aficionados cancelled with DoNotPay after a mere few clicks in an app.

The startup uses artificial intelligence technology combined with a utilitarian chatbot to fight small claims like gym membership cancellations or parking violations that suck up hours of Americans' time every year. And on Tuesday, the five-year-old startup announced that it raised $12 million in Series A funding with a valuation topping $80 million, bringing its total funding raised to just under $17 million.

"We were so busy with the chaos going on that we couldn't even think about fundraising," DoNotPay founder and CEO Joshua Browder told Business Insider.

But the demand for small legal resolutions was quickly outgrowing Browder's 8-person team. He realized that, in order to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime, pandemic-sized opportunity, he needed to bring on more money, fast.

He met with his existing investors remotely, and ultimately Coatue signed on to lead the round. Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and Day One Ventures also participated in the round, but the process of fundraising still presented challenges for Browder even without having to court entirely new backers.

"In one of the big pitches, the whole connection came down so that was stressful," Browder said. "It was my connection and Zoom just crashed."

Now that the funding is in hand, Browder can breathe a little easier and get his team some relief. He said he hopes to increase its size to upwards of 30 people because the higher level of demand isn't going away any time soon.

"Sometimes we can see into the future," Browder said. "In the past few days, an engineer called in that we were seeing more cancellations for a gym called 24 Hour Fitness. And then we saw, sure enough, that they were going bankrupt a few days later."

In fact, he said DoNotPay's scope will only increase because the legal system was forced to move its practices "10 years forward" in the span of three months as county courthouses and legal offices also shut down during shelter-in-place orders. Some of the more archaic rules of the legal system, such as appearing in person to contest a parking violation, were done away with and moved online. Now, DoNotPay's automated chatbot can get to work because, as Browder explained, you can't have a robot in the courtroom.

"Things that wouldn't be available before are now entirely possible for us," Browder said.

The startup could also be an unlikely beneficiary of a long-term economic downturn, Browder said. Outside of gym memberships and airline refunds, DoNotPay has also added tools for freelancers and renters in need of payment extensions, services that will only increase in need as shutdowns drag on across the country. 

"In crazy times like these, people don't want to pay for anything," Browder said. "But then you have contractors that maybe did the work already and people don't want to pay them, which sometimes there are important reasons for that, but also some people see it as an excuse not to pay."

Eventually, Browder said he hopes to extend DoNotPay's services beyond payments entirely. One tool his team has been working on recently would help erase arrests and minor convictions from people's records. When the team first started working on it, he envisioned it helping people with charges related to marijuana in jurisdictions that had legalized or decriminalized possession. But now he sees an even bigger need given the arrests at ongoing Black Lives Matter protests around the country.

"If you are arrested and not charged, you can get it erased from your record because a DA isn't going to take the time to pursue it, and that is what is happening with protesters right now," Browder said.

SEE ALSO: This early-stage VC says startups should resist 'toxic' terms offered by venture investors, even if they have to give up a splashy high valuation in a funding deal

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NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to travel during the coronavirus outbreak

• In the last few weeks, several former employees at Cards Against Humanity have shared stories detailing a toxic company culture that affected women, people of color, and members of the queer community.
• Former employees told Polygon that the company lacked an HR department, ignored concerns about offensive game cards from people of color, and feared speaking up or speaking out.
• Employees specifically called out cofounder Max Temkin, who has faced sexual assault allegations, for retaliating against employees and trying to exert absolute control over their personal and work lives.
• Cards Against Humanity said in a statement Tuesday that Temkin had stepped down from the company earlier that month.
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One of the cofounders of Cards Against Humanity — which boasts itself as "a game for horrible people" — has resigned from the company after several former workers alleged he fostered a toxic workplace that hurt employees of color and the LGBTQ community.

Cards Against Humanity said in a statement Tuesday that Max Temkin, the cofounder who ran operations in the Chicago office, had stepped down from his position earlier this month. Temkin's departure and CAH's announcement follows weeks of former employees sharing stories on social media, and an extensive exposé Polygon published Tuesday containing even more allegations.

CAH, both as a card game and a company, has prided itself on its subversive, no-punches-held attitude. Beyond the card game, well-known as an explicit version of the game "Apples to Apples," the company has engaged in wild, performative stunts. Black Friday, in particular, has been a day for those pranks. In 2016, people paid more than $100,000 for CAH to dig a hole. For last year's stunt, CAH said it would fire participating employees if they lost a card-writing competition against an AI (the writers ended up winning).

Combined with its success as multimillion-dollar company, CAH employees reportedly feared speaking up or out about problematic behavior over fear of retaliation from leadership, Polygon reports.

More than 20 former employees told Polygon about multiple incidents where concerns and suggestions from people of color were blatantly dismissed. Black employees were often tasked with explaining to their coworkers why certain cards were offensive, according to Polygon. In one case, head writers reportedly wanted to add a card to the game containing a racial slur toward Black people.

Additionally, former employees said CAH lacked a human resources department, a fact that became an "open joke" in the office. The company said in Tuesday's statement had appointed a "dedicated HR contractor" in January 2019.

The CAH statement, posted to the company's website, is lengthy. The company goes through each of Polygon's allegations one-by-one, defending its actions in some situations and acknowledging a history of making "a lot of mistakes."

In the Polygon piece, employees named Temkin, specifically, as a "harbinger" of the toxic culture at CAH. This isn't the first time Temkin has faced accusations of problematic behavior: In 2014, a woman alleged Temkin sexually assaulted her while they were both college students. At the time, Temkin responded that the allegations were "totally, patently false."

CAH said that Temkin stepped down from his role on June 9, although he remains a one-eighth shareholder in the company.

Cards Against Humanity is only one of the companies that have recently faced allegations of purporting sexist and racist company cultures. A slew of stories have emerged from former and current employees at fitness brands like CrossFit and Adidas, tech companies such as Snapchat and Pinterest, media publishers such as Refinery29 and Bon Appétit, and dozens of other businesses.

SEE ALSO: TaskRabbit's CEO, one of tech's few Black female executives, is stepping down

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NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence

• The US closed embassies around the world due to coronavirus earlier this year.
• This has meant non-essential visa services have been suspended — leaving countless would-be immigrant workers unable to move to the US.
• On Monday, Trump suspended the H-1B skilled worker visa program, but these closures meant many foreigners were already effectively blocked from entering the country for months.
• The embassy closures, sweeping travel bans, and visa program suspensions will hit the tech industry hard, which is heavily reliant on skilled foreign workers.
• Got a tip? Get in touch at +1 650-636-6268 or rprice@businessinsider.com. Anonymity offered.

President Trump suspended most new work visas, including the high-skilled H-1B program on Monday, drawing immediate condemnation from CEOs of the tech companies that use it liberally to hire foreign workers.

But for many would-be immigrant workers, the order changed little. US embassy closures around the world and prohibitive travel bans mean it's already been near impossible for people to get visas to visit the US for months.

Back on March 20, the US State Department announced it was suspending all "routine visa services" at its embassies due to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the vast majority of workers hoping to move to the US or change visas unable to move forward. The US also imposed sweeping bans on visitors from regions that have been hard-hit by the coronavirus — including China, much of the European Union, the UK, Brazil, and Ireland.

Together, the embassy closures and travel bans have made it near impossible for foreigners to work in the US — with huge implications for American industry, particularly the technology sector, which is heavily reliant on highly skilled immigrant labor. Major Silicon Valley tech firms like Google, Apple, and Facebook each have thousands of foreign workers on H-1B visas.

One Swedish worker who had been living in San Francisco left the US in March as he attempted to move from an expiring visa to a different one, he told Business Insider. His application for an O-1 ("extraordinary ability") visa was granted — but the embassy shutdown as well as a ban on European Schengen-area visitors to America means he's been stuck back home, unable to receive the visa and return to the US.

"No one at the embassy or State Department gives any indication of when embassies will resume routine visa services," he said. "I had to leave everything behind pretty much — apartment, girlfriend and most belongings. I can do remote work for my employer, so I've been doing that from here." (The worker spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his immigration status.)

These closures mean that even workers who aren't on the visas specifically targeted (H-1B, H-2B, J-1, L) by Trump's proclamation on Monday have been effectively blocked from entering the US, as they cannot attend the appointments necessary for their visas to be granted. (Some urgent and essential workers can still be granted US visas, including "air and sea crew, and medical personnel, particularly those working to treat or mitigate the effects of COVID-19.")

A State Department spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that all routine visa services as US embassies worldwide remain suspended, and did not give a timeframe as to when they might resume. The department is continuing to assess when they might reopen, they added.

SEE ALSO: Trump's shutdown of H-1B visas is a huge hit to the Silicon Valley tech giants that employ tens of thousands of affected workers

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NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

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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