• Biotech company Moderna on Wednesday announced that it has chosen Amazon Web Services as its preferred cloud partner.
• The company is seen as a leader in COVID-19 vaccine research, entering its third phase of clinical trials late July.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

$29 billion biotech company Moderna announced a new partnership with Amazon Web Services on Wednesday that will see the cloud giant become its "preferred" cloud provider. The deal will also see Moderna tap AWS as its standard platform for doing analytics and machine learning.

Moderna is one of the leading companies in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, and last week dosed 30,000 people with the first vaccine candidate to reach phase 3 of testing in the United States. 

The process of developing a new vaccine requires years of disease research and lab testing before it can be administered to humans. Moderna already uses AWS to run everyday accounting and inventory mangement as well as to power its production facility, robotics tools and engineering systems, "which enables the company to achieve greater efficiency and visibility across its operations," according to a press release.

"With AWS, our researchers have the ability to quickly design and execute research experiments and rapidly uncover new insights to get potentially life-saving treatments into production faster," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in that press release. 

Biotech giants like Moderna are increasingly modernizing their IT infrastructures in the hunt for new drugs and treatments, including by use of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the biotechnology sector in general has become a sought-after market for AWS and its leading rival Microsoft Azure both, with the latter recently inking a big cloud and AI deal with drugmaker Novartis.

Results from the vaccine test could be made public as early as October, according to biotech analyst Michael Yee. 

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• An electric scooter startup is rolling out a subscription service that will allow users to pay a monthly or annual fee to use and hold onto the same e-scooter.
• For $39 a month plus a one-time $50 setup fee, you can rent an Unagi's Model One scooter instead of sharing street e-scooters with other users as is typical with scooter startups.
• Unagi cofounder David Hyman told Business Insider that the subscription concept has been in the works for a while, but the "timing is good" during the no-touch climate of the pandemic.
• The concept could be a solution in the ride-sharing world as customers increasingly are skittish to use a micro-mobility vehicle after another person has already used it.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Unagi, a San Francisco Bay Area-based electric scooter startup, will let you pay a monthly fee to hang onto the same scooter, a service that could solve a problem in the ride-sharing industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company now offers two subscription plans as part of its Unagi All-Access service. The first is a pay-as-you-go $39-a-month plan and the second is a $408 annual subscription, which amounts to a $34 monthly fee. There's a one-time $50 setup fee for both plans, and insurance is included for if your scooter is stolen or damaged. However, there's an $85 deductible for a replacement scooter.

Customers who purchase the subscription will receive the company's Model One dual-motor scooter, which is priced at $990 to buy. A single motor vehicle is available for $840, though it's not apart of the subscription model. It has about 15 miles to a charge and takes about 5 hours to charge.

Unagi cofounder David Hyman told Business Insider that there are added perks of owning or renting one through a subscription vs accessing it only on the street, like not having to worry about the batteries running dead.

"Having one in your possession, when it's lightweight and portable, far exceeds a street scooter," Hyman said.

According to the company website, a team member will deliver your scooter to you for free within 24 hours after purchasing a subscription. The monthly payment service will roll out in Los Angeles as well as New York, a market that recently made it legal for electric scooters to operate on public streets. Unagi plans to roll out in more cities eventually.

Hyman said Unagi's subscription concept has been in the works since mid-2019, but "the timing is good" with the hypersensitivity to touch that has become a cultural mainstay during the pandemic. The health crisis has dealt a blow to the ride-sharing world — some people are less inclined to share a ride with a stranger or use a scooter or bike that had previously been used by someone else.

Hyman also said the company's scooter sales have surged in recent months.

"Before COVID, we were selling hundreds of scooters a month, and now we're selling thousands," Hyman said.

Unagi isn't the first e-scooter startup to test a subscription service. As The Verge notes, Bird did so in mid-2019, but Hyman said the issue with Bird's plan was that it used the scooters that were designed to live on the street in its subscription model, which made "no sense at all."

"It was an afterthought and not really a focused effort," Hyman said.

Unagi was founded in 2018 and, according to its Crunchbase profile, "aims to liberate people from the tyranny of transportation frustrations." The startup has raised $3.2 million in funding from investors, including Menlo Ventures.

As for the startup's name, Hyman said it is indeed in reference to the freshwater Japanese eel. The team settled on it while mulling over potential names that are associated with electricity.

SEE ALSO: Why a $685 e-scooter was my best quarantine purchase

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• Cosmetic procedures like a face-lift or tummy tuck have long been popular among Hollywood celebrities, and now face treatments and injections are entering the world of Gen Z influencers. 
• Kristina Kitsos, an aesthetic injector and non-surgical enhancement nurse, has worked with some of TikTok's biggest stars.
• She spoke with Business Insider about the treatments she administers and working with the TikTok collab group Clubhouse.
• "Younger influencers, like the ones in Clubhouse, I do some injections on them for sure, but it's minimal and I usually do about 30 to 40% of what they ask for because I kind of talk them off the ledge and tell them how they don't want to go overboard," she said.
• Subscribe to Business Insider's influencer newsletter: Influencer Dashboard.

Many young social-media influencers who rise to fame on platforms like TikTok or Instagram have already gotten into the world of cosmetic enhancements. 

Cosmetic procedures like a face-lift or tummy tuck have long been popular among Hollywood celebrities, and now treatments like injections or fillers on the lip or around the chin and forehead are trending among some Gen Z influencers.

Many influencers have been open with their fans about getting procedures done, with creators like Jeffree Star (11 million YouTube subscribers) and Corinna Kopf (4 million Instagram followers) documenting themselves getting lip injections.

Some doctors and nurses have even developed their own social-media followings by sharing their work on famous clients. For instance, plastic surgeon Dr. Ashkan Ghavami has around 470,000 Instagram followers, and has recently shared content around procedures he's done on influencers like Clubhouse's Daisy Keech (5 million Instagram followers) and Teala Dunn (3 million Instagram followers).

Kristina Kitsos, an aesthetic injector and non-surgical enhancement nurse in Los Angeles, has around 135,000 Instagram followers and has worked with some of TikTok's top stars. Unlike the procedures of a plastic surgeon, Kitsos' treatments are meant to fade after a few months.

Kitsos is the choice cosmetic nurse for some members of the popular TikTok collab group Clubhouse, and her clients include members Michelle Wozniak (2 million TikTok followers), Jay Laurent (200,000 TikTok followers), and Mariana Morais (900,000 TikTok followers).

Kitsos said "glass skin," or dewy, pore-less skin is a look that many of her influencer clients have asked for recently. The skincare trend originated in Korea and has gone viral on social media. Kitsos said other common treatments are lip fillers and meso-injections that tighten the skin with vitamins, enzymes, hormones, and plant extracts.

She added that lip fillers have become more popular among her male clients recently, especially after Netflix's "Outer Banks" was released because some wanted to look more like the main character John B. Along with lip fillers, some men also often ask for jawline fillers, which will make their jawline look more angular, she said. 

"The whole reason I do what I do is just to give people confidence," Kitsos told Business Insider. "It's not necessarily to make them look like a Barbie or have no flaws."

But others in both the medical and influencer worlds have questioned whether these procedures are beneficial, especially for mental health.

Dr. Gary Linkov, a New York City-based facial plastic surgeon, told Business Insider that the medical risks that come with fillers are rare, but generally, young adults and teenagers should be more concerned with why they want to change their appearance and if it's the right decision for their face. 

"You're always working off what your base anatomy is and what might look good on your specific face," Linkov said. "It's hard with these face filter apps to keep them honest and say, this could be an honest result. Despite this being my profession, I think at some point we need a little self acceptance and I do think there is more work we can do to love ourselves for what we have. It's okay if things aren't so perfect."

YouTuber and licensed therapist Kati Morton said any cosmetic enhancement is born out of the belief that the way we look isn't good enough for one reason or another.

"Getting something done isn't going to make us feel any better about ourselves," Morton told Business Insider. "In my experience, getting one thing done only opens the flood gates for more procedures, because the real issue is in our own confidence and self esteem. We have to notice how we are talking to ourselves about how we look and act, and work to make that conversation more positive. I believe that once we do that we will see that these cosmetic enhancements aren't necessary after all."

Some influencers want to match how they look from augmented reality beauty filters on social media, with glowing clear skin 

Kitsos said that many of her younger patients — like those Gen Z TikTok stars — come to her afraid of being seen without makeup. 

"My goal is to have everyone be able to go out without makeup," she said.

Kitsos gives skincare recommendations and treatments as well as fillers and injections.

"It depends on their age," Kitsos said. "Younger influencers, like the ones in Clubhouse, I do some injections on them for sure, but it's minimal and I usually do about 30 to 40% of what they ask for because I kind of talk them off the ledge and tell them how they don't want to go overboard. I feel like I'm the voice of reason in their heads." 

She also performs microbotox on patients for acne, headaches, and sweating, she said.

"A lot of my older clients ask why I inject younger girls, but if I don't do it they will just go to someone else and I feel it's my role to teach them about the pitfalls that come with injecting," she said. 

Generally, she said influencers want to look like they do on social media, with glowing clear skin masked on from the beauty filters created by Snapchat and Instagram.

In 2019, Instagram removed some face-changing filters from the app over concerns that they contributed to unrealistic beauty standards, and some influencers say their work has negatively impacted their mental health, and that they struggle with body image issues.

Before doing anything, Kitsos said she talks through any changes with her clients to prevent any harsh transformations.

"I think that there are some people who take it to the extreme and that's really odd looking," she said. "Usually I can talk them into doing a little less."

What skincare products she recommends to influencers and other clients

Kitsos is also a skincare influencer in her own right.

She links to her recommended skincare products on Instagram through the Amazon affiliate program where she earns a commission from every sale. 

She recommends spending less on face wash and more more on serums without dyes or perfumes. She also said glycolic acid pads are popular for her patients who don't wash their face as often and have blackheads. 

While her clients frequently appear on her social feeds, Kisos said she has never paid an influencer to promote her services or products, but she does gift some products. Mostly, she lands her clients through word-of-mouth.

"Sometimes the influencers pay a discounted rate but not always," Kitsos said. "It really depends on a number of different factors. They do, however, get some of my products gifted to them for the first time to try it."

Read more on the business of influencers, according to industry insiders:

• How to get in contact with top influencers using Instagram direct messages, according to a CEO who has landed clients like TikTok star Addison Rae with a simple DM: Unlike LinkedIn or Twitter, on Instagram users can direct message anyone – no matter how famous they are.

• The Instagram metrics that brands are using in 2020 to decide whether to hire an influencer and to measure campaign performance: Many brands ask for certain Instagram metrics before and after an influencer campaign to measure its overall success and reach.

• Meet the team helping TikTok star Dixie D'Amelio launch a music career without a major record label: We spoke with the D'Amelio family's managers about developing a song with Dixie and their plans to work with more talent on music going forward.

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• Swedish e-scooter startup Voi has been picked to run an exclusive e-scooter trial in Cambridge and nearby Peterborough. 
• Business Insider also understands that the startup has been successful in its bid for Northamptonshire, another step towards winning over the rapidly changing UK scooter market. 
• The UK recently opened up trials for e-scooters — previously banned from streets — to keep people off public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic. Operators have rushed to take advantage.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Swedish scooter startup Voi has made its first steps into the lucrative UK market after it was exclusively awarded an e-scooter trial for Cambridgeshire. 

Voi was picked from a group of 20 e-scooter operators vying to operate in the cities of Cambridge and nearby Peterborough. The trial will run for a year.

Business Insider understands the Swedish startup, founded in 2018, has also been successful in its bid to operate in Northamptonshire — another step towards winning over the rapidly changing UK scooter market. The company will be keen to win as many markets as possible after losing out in lucrative tenders for Paris and Lyon. 

Founded in 2018, the startup is now live in more than 45 cities in 11 countries, and recently raised a fresh $30 million funding round to expand into the UK. It claims revenues grow fifty-fold during 2019, while it increased headcount from 31 at the end of 2018 to 409 staff by the end of 2019. 

"Having been picked from 20 world class e-scooter operators to serve Cambridge and Peterborugh exclusively shows just how serious Voi is in paving the way for truly safe, accessible and sustainable e-scooter operations in the UK," Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm told Business Insider. "The UK with its 50 city trials, will be the largest e scooter market in Europe and we plan to be the leading operator."

Although rental scooters have become a common sight in many European cities, traffic laws and vehicle restrictions previously stopped scooter companies from launching fully in the UK.

During the coronavirus pandemic the UK government adopted new rules to allow rental scooters to use the road and cycle lanes. It set a speed limit of 15 mph, and said riders would not need to wear a helmet by law.

US operator Lime recently won a trial in Milton Keynes, while other operators like Amsterdam-based Dott have won approval from the UK's Department for Transport. Other companies interested in the UK market include Spin, Tier, Bird, and Neuron. 

European scooter companies have raised significantly less than their Silicon Valley rivals but are confident of coming out on top. US firms such Bird and Lime have benefited from huge tranches of venture capital funding, raising $623 million and $935 million respectively, per Crunchbase data.

SEE ALSO: Uber-backed scooter startup Lime and European competitors Tier and Dott have won Paris' competitive e-scooter tender, a leaked email shows

Join the conversation about this story »

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

• SpaceX returned two NASA astronauts to Earth on Sunday after flying them to the International Space Station.
• The mission, called Demo-2, flew the first crewed US spacecraft since the end of NASA's space shuttle program in 2011.
• SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship is a product of NASA's Commercial Crew program, a partnership between the space agency and private companies.
• Boeing is also building a spaceship as part of the program, but SpaceX's progressed faster.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX and NASA celebrated a major milestone on Sunday: the completion of the world's first crewed commercial spaceflight.

The company's Crew Dragon spaceship carried two NASA astronauts into orbit and docked to the space station two months ago, then returned on Sunday in a fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere.

The mission, called Demo-2, was the last major test before NASA certifies the Crew Dragon to carry more people into space.

"This day heralds a new age of space exploration," Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO, said during a NASA TV broadcast after the splashdown, adding, "I'm not very religious, but I prayed for this one."

Since NASA ended its space-shuttle program in 2011, the agency has relied exclusively on Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from orbit in Soyuz spacecraft. But those seats have gotten increasingly expensive, and the world's space agencies have had no alternative for launching and returning astronauts, even when technical glitches have arisen.

That's what spurred NASA to launch its Commercial Crew program, which was designed to facilitate the development of new American-made spacecraft.

The program put private firms in competition for billions of dollars' worth of government contracts. SpaceX and Boeing came out on top, and SpaceX's spaceship passed its tests and became ready for astronauts first.

Here's how NASA came to rely on the two companies to resurrect American spaceflight.

SEE ALSO: 27 epic images show how SpaceX made history by flying NASA astronauts to and from the space station

DON'T MISS: Telescope video captured SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship attached to space station, 250 miles above Earth

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are now the first people ever to fly in a commercial spacecraft.

Both men are spaceflight veterans and were deeply involved in SpaceX's efforts to design its Crew Dragon spaceship.

"This has been a quite an odyssey the last five, six, seven, eight years," Hurley said during a NASA live broadcast after the recent landing. "To be where we are now — the first crewed flight of Dragon — is just unbelievable."

Crew Dragon launched into space with the two astronauts inside atop a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30.

The mission, called Demo-2, was a demonstrate meant to show that the launch system and spaceship could safely transport people.

The next day, the capsule docked to the International Space Station, where it stayed for two months.

Aboard the space station, Behnken and Hurley conducted science experiments, routine maintenance, and a couple of spacewalks.

On Saturday, Behnken and Hurley climbed back into the capsule, which they'd named Endeavour, and undocked from the space station. The next day, they survived a fiery plunge back to Earth.

"It felt like we were inside of an animal," Behnken said in a briefing on Tuesday.

Parachutes slowed the fall, and Endeavour landed in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:48 p.m. ET on Sunday, off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.

Recovery teams helped the astronauts out of the capsule and gave them a medical check. The men were fine but found it difficult to stand; that's normal for ISS astronauts, since their bodies become accustomed to floating in space.

Prior to the Demo-2 mission, the last US rocket-and-spaceship system to carry astronauts to and from space was Atlantis, NASA's last space shuttle. It launched and landed in July 2011.

After 135 shuttle missions, NASA retired the program so it could direct funds towards long-term missions to the moon and, eventually, Mars.

Since then, NASA has relied on Russia's Soyuz system to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Soyuz has been the only human-rated spacecraft that can ferry people to and from the $150 billion, football-field-size orbiting laboratory. 

Russia has nearly quadrupled its prices for NASA over a decade.

In 2008, a single round-trip flight for a NASA astronaut cost about $22 million; by 2018, that price had soared to about $81 million. As of late last year the price is about $85 million, according to CNN.

Additionally, two recent incidents raised concerns about the reliability and safety of Soyuz rockets.

In August 2018, a Soyuz began leaking air into space while attached to the space station. A small hole was found and investigated by cosmonauts. Russian authorities think the hole came from a manufacturing accident with a drill that was hastily covered up.

Then that October, a Soyuz rocket failed during launch. The space capsule, which was carrying one American and one Russian, automatically jettisoned away, and they walked away uninjured.

Despite these issues, the world's space agencies had no other options for getting their astronauts to and from the space station.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program has been developing alternative launch systems since 2010. The competition asked private companies to build new astronaut-ready spacecraft.

Once the program is complete, the agency will have doled out more than $8 billion in awards and contracts over about a decade.

"We don't want to purchase, own, and operate the hardware the way we used to. We want to be one customer of many customers in a very robust commercial marketplace in low-Earth orbit," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said ahead of the Demo-2 landing.

From dozens of hopefuls, two contenders made it through the competition: SpaceX and Boeing.

Both of their spacecraft are designed to fly up to seven passengers to and from Earth's orbit.

SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002, designed the Crew Dragon, a 14,000-pound spaceship that's made to be reusable.

The vehicle is SpaceX's biggest spaceflight achievement yet, but it's just the beginning of Musk's ambitions.

"This is hopefully the first step on a journey towards civilization on Mars, of life becoming multiplanetary, a base on the moon, and expanding beyond Earth," he told reporters after the Demo-2 launch.

Boeing, a century-old aerospace company, created the CST-100 Starliner, also a reusable capsule. It's made to land back on Earth using airbags, rather than splashing into the ocean.

Before Boeing launches astronauts on the the CST-100 Starliner, it will re-do an uncrewed flight test, since the first attempt unearthed critical issues.

In total, NASA selected nine astronauts to fly the Boeing and SpaceX spaceships on the demonstration missions and first official crewed missions.

The group includes former space-shuttle flyers, ex-military test pilots, rookies, and — critically — four astronauts (including Behnken and Hurley) who'd been testing and providing feedback on the commercial ships for years.

Before humans could fly in the new spacecraft, NASA required a robust series of test flights and demonstrations.

In one such test, the Crew Dragon flew to the space station without a crew in March 2019 — making it the first commercial vehicle to ever do so.

In that mission, called Demo-1, the spaceship launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, then linked up to the International Space Station for five days. The only passengers were a crash-test dummy named Ripley, 400 pounds of cargo, and a fuzzy toy Earth.

Officials declared the test a complete success after the capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

Bridenstine described the successful mission as "the dawn of a new era in American human spaceflight, and really in spaceflight for the entire world."

But later demos hit snags. SpaceX did not pass an April 2019 test that simulated a parachute failure.

The test was meant to examine what would happen if one parachute didn't deploy during a flight. SpaceX tried to simulate the situation, leaving only three parachutes to break the fall. Unfortunately, the other parachutes didn't properly deploy, either.

However, the Crew Dragon parachutes eventually received approval after undergoing 27 rounds of testing. They performed as planned when Behnken and Hurley landed.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations at the time, told Spaceflight Now that similar problems arose during Boeing's parachute tests.

That same month, a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during a test-firing on the ground. NASA and SpaceX both welcomed the surprise failure.

The mysterious explosion occurred as the capsule fired the large engines designed to help it escape a failing rocket.

"Ensuring that our systems meet rigorous safety standards and detecting anomalies like this prior to flight are the main reasons why we test," SpaceX said on the day of the failure.

Kathy Lueders, who managed the Commercial Crew Program and now leads NASA's Human Spaceflight Office, called the explosion "a huge gift for us" in terms of making the ship safer to fly.

Boeing launched its Starliner capsule toward the space station for the first time in December 2019.

Nobody was inside — just a mannequin named Rosie. There was also some food, Christmas presents, and other cargo for astronauts aboard the space station.

But the Starliner suffered a major glitch with a clock about 31 minutes after launch, causing it to veer off-course.

To save the uncrewed ship from total failure, Boeing skipped its docking with the space station — the main objective of the mission — and used the remaining propellant to stabilize the capsule's orbit and get it home.

On its early return to Earth, the capsule relied on impact-absorbing airbags to land safely in the desert.

A NASA safety panel revealed in February that the Starliner had also suffered a second software issue, which ground controllers patched in the middle of the test flight.

Boeing and NASA officials said the error could have caused a collision between two units of the spacecraft: the crew module and the service module.

The error prompted NASA to launch a larger investigation into Boeing's coding and culture.

NASA and Boeing have decided to re-do that uncrewed mission before the company launches its first astronauts.

The re-do is planned for October or November, according to The Washington Post, but officials have declined to offer a timeline for the Starliner's first astronaut flight.

Before they could carry people, both spaceships also had to prove they can jettison astronauts to safety in the unlikely event of a rocket-launch failure.

Such failures have happened to both the Space Shuttle and Soyuz systems, so having an escape plan is essential.

Boeing passed the ground test of the Starliner's abort system in November 2019.

The capsule rocketed nearly a mile into the air, then parachuted back to the ground. The entire flight lasted 1.5 minutes.

SpaceX demonstrated its escape system in January, by turning off one of its Falcon 9 rockets mid-flight while a Crew Dragon was perched on top.

The rocket was traveling at around twice the speed of sound when SpaceX shut it down. At that moment, the Crew Dragon detached, fired its own thrusters, and sped away from the soon-to-explode rocket.

The ship landed in the ocean under four giant parachutes.

"It went as well as one could possibly expect," Musk said of the escape-system demonstration.

Overall, the Commercial Crew program has run years past its deadline.

Boeing and SpaceX were supposed to have their systems certified by 2017, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

"Most of us are just way past ready for this to happen. It has taken a lot longer than anybody thought," Wayne Hale, a retired NASA space-shuttle program manager, told Business Insider in January.

Eventually, a round-trip seat on the Crew Dragon is expected to cost about $55 million. A seat on Starliner will cost about $90 million.

NASA has contracted six round-trip flights on Crew Dragon. Behnken's wife, Megan McArthur, will pilot the second one.

"What we did for Bob, I think we can do an even better job for Megan," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said after the Demo-2 splashdown.

NASA also plans to open the space station to tourists for $35,000 per night.

Last year NASA announced it would allow two private astronauts per year to stay up to 30 days each on the space station.

Holly Secon contributed reporting.

Do you have a story or inside information to share about the spaceflight industry? Send Dave Mosher an email at dmosher+tips@businessinsider.com or a Twitter direct message at @davemosher. More secure communication options are listed here.

• California's labor commissioner announced Wednesday that her office is suing Uber and Lyft, claiming the companies are stealing wages from drivers by "willfully misclassifying" them as contractors instead of employees.
• The suit alleges that Uber and Lyft have failed to pay drivers minimum wage, sick pay, unemployment, and other benefits guaranteed to employees under state law.
• AB-5, California's hotly debated gig economy law, created stricter requirements for companies seeking to designate workers as independent contractors.
• California's agency that oversees ride-hailing companies ruled that drivers are employees under the law, but the companies have refused to reclassify drivers, and the issue is now at the center of multiple lawsuits.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The heated legal battle between California and ride-hail giants Uber and Lyft ratcheted up another notch this week with the state's labor commissioner announcing that she plans to take the companies to court over their classification of drivers.

Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower's office said in a press release Wednesday that it plans to file a lawsuit against the companies, arguing that they are "committing wage theft by willfully misclassifying drivers as independent contractors instead of employees."

In a letter to Uber and Lyft drivers alerting them to the lawsuit, Garcia-Brower's office said that it's seeking to force the companies to reclassify drivers as employees and reimburse them for wages and other benefits that they would be entitled to as employees under state law.

That list includes a wide variety of payments that Uber and Lyft have historically not paid to drivers, such as minimum wages based on time drivers spend using the app (not just driving passengers), overtime, sick pay, and business expenses.

"The vast majority of California drivers want to work independently, and we've already made significant changes to our app to ensure that remains the case under state law," an Uber spokesperson told Business Insider, adding that the company hasn't been served with the lawsuit yet and therefore hasn't been able to review its specific claims.

A Lyft spokesperson told Business Insider: "The state labor agency has botched thousands of claims. They know they don't have the ability to process these claims, so they sent them into a legal abyss, where they know it will take years to resolve them."

California's landmark gig work law, AB-5, which went into effect this year, raised the bar companies must clear in order to consider workers as independent contractors, spurring a major battle between regulators and Uber and Lyft over whether drivers meet that bar.

California's Public Utilities Commission, the agency responsible for overseeing ride-hail companies, dealt a significant blow to the companies earlier this year when it ruled in June that drivers are considered employees under AB-5. In May, a group of attorneys general from the state — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego — also sued Uber and Lyft over the issue.

Uber and Lyft have previously argued that AB-5 doesn't apply to them and have aggressively defended their classification of drivers by claiming that drivers prefer to work as contractors.

Unlike their employee counterparts, contractors aren't guaranteed certain benefits like as healthcare and paid sick leave, and Uber and Lyft aren't bound by certain labor regulations around minimum wage payments or required pay payroll taxes for those workers, which feed into programs like unemployment insurance.

Driver advocacy group Rideshare Drivers United, which has been rounding up driver wage theft accusations, claimed that Uber and Lyft owe more than $1.3 billion in payments to drivers in California.

The debate over what wages and benefits gig economy companies should be on the hook for (versus workers or taxpayers) has intensified in recent months as more states and cities start cracking down on companies like Uber and Lyft. Massachusetts filed a similar lawsuit last month, while New York city imposed the country's first minimum wage for ride-hail drivers and Seattle has sought to do the same.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for August 6. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at ljohnson@businessinsider.com

Today's news: Disney Plus hits a new milestone but trails behind Netflix's revenue, salary data for top agency roles, and marketers weigh in on Microsoft's potential TikTok acquisition.

• Disney Plus hit 60 million subscribers nine months since launching, a milestone that executives originally thought wouldn't happen until 2024.
• However, Disney Plus' subscribers generate significantly less revenue per paying subscriber than rival Netflix. During the June quarter, Disney Plus' average revenue per paying subscriber was $4.62 while Netflix averages $10.80.
• Disney Plus' average revenue per user was also dragged down last quarter by its price point in India.

Read the full story here.

Read the full story here.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• A YouTube creator explains Amazon's efforts to become a major player in the influencer business, from affiliate commissions to livestreaming (Business Insider)
• Houseplant sales are booming and so are 'Plantfluencers,' the social-media creators sharing plant tips, products, and content (Business Insider)
• The face of department stores is radically changing, and could soon look more like a warehouse than a boutique (Business Insider)
• As advertising plummets in Q2, NYT's total digital revenue exceeds print (AdExchanger)
• 'A significant uptick in deal flow': Why Europe is becoming a hotbed of ad tech innovation (Digiday)

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at ljohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.

— Lauren

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• Sling is one of the most affordable cord-cutting services on the market, offering two packages—  Orange and Blue— with 30+ live channels starting at $30 a month or combined for $45 a month.
• Orange offers the Disney Channel and ESPN, while Blue offers a slate of Fox channels, NBC, Bravo, and Discovery. Both Orange and Blue offer CNN, TBS, Food Network, and BBC America.
• You can also add on multi-channel packages, like Sports Extras, Kids Extras, or News Extras, starting at $5 a month. Premium add-ons, like Showtime, Starz, and Epix, are also available for an additional monthly charge. 
• If you're new to Sling TV, you can receive a free three-day trial when you sign up.
• Here's a complete breakdown of the channels offered on each Sling package. 

If you're hoping to get the most bang for your buck once you cut the cord with your cable subscription, Sling is one of the most affordable live streaming services on the market. You can read our full Sling TV review here.

The service has two packages with over 30 channels starting at just $30 a month. Though you may make some compromises in the user interface department — it's not as pretty or as intuitive as some other streaming services out there — the amount of channels offered is just as good as its competitors.

But Sling's website makes it a bit difficult to compare services and ensure you'll be getting the channels you're after, so we've broken down exactly what you'll get with each package and all the add-ons you can include to enhance your channel offerings.

Updated on 8/5/2020 by Steven Cohen: Revised details for Sling's current free trial offer. Added Kartoon Channel! to premium add-ons. Added a link to our Sling TV review. 

The two main packages — Sling Orange and Sling Blue— offer 30+ channels for $30 a month, or $45 combined

Sling's two main offerings are Sling Orange and Sling Blue, each available to stream for $30 a month. For the most part, the channels largely overlap between the two, but there are a few key differences that might cause you to choose one over the other.

Disney and ESPN are included with Sling Orange. You don't get them with Sling Blue, but in their place, you'll get a slate of Fox-owned channels including FX, Fox Sports 1, National Geographic, Bravo, TLC, and Discovery. Blue also comes with NBC and its local affiliates, but only if you live in select markets — more on that later. The channels that overlap on both Orange and Blue include standouts like Food Network, Lifetime, CNN, and the History Channel.

If you're keeping up with the newest season of "American Horror Story" on FX, but you absolutely can't live without "SportsCenter" on ESPN, you might want to combine the two packages for $45 a month, giving you access to all 50+ channels Sling offers over the two services.

Sling Orange doesn't offer any local channels at all, so if you're hoping to catch your local nightly news, Sling Blue is the way to go. Blue offers local channels from NBC and Fox, but only in select cities. If you live in any of the following Designated Market Areas, you'll have access to both your local NBC and Fox affiliates: New York; Philadelphia; Chicago; Washington, DC; Dallas/ Ft. Worth; Los Angeles; and San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose. For a full list of markets supported by each station, check out the Sling website. 

If you live outside any of the supported regions and you're really attached to your locals, you'll have to find another way to access those networks. Sling actually offers a solution for this via a special bundle it provides with an antenna and an AirTV 2. This bundle is available for new subscribers who prepay for three months of Sling service. The antenna allows you to pick up local channels via over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts. The AirTV 2 then allows you to integrate those channels with the Sling app on several supported devices.

There are plenty of add-ons starting at $5 a month if you're looking for specific genres or channels

If you want to further enhance your channel selection, Sling offers a slate of genre-based add-ons starting at $5 a month. Each add-on, like Kids Extras, Sports Extras, and Lifestyle Extras, offers a mini-bundle of channels for an additional charge. Sling offers seven of these mini-bundles, which they'll package together and throw in 50 hours of DVR service for just $20 a month, a $20 savings compared to buying them separately.

Though HBO is no longer offered, there are still several premium add-ons you may want to tack onto your service. For $10 a month, you'll get a slate of nine Showtime channels — perfect if you want to stay up to date with the new season of "The L Word: Generation Q." Sling also offers a Starz package for $9 a month and an EPIX package for $5 a month.

If you're using Sling a la carte, the monthly charges per add-on can increase your rates pretty quickly, but if you're happy with its baseline Orange or Blue offerings, Sling is incredibly cost-efficient.

See below for a full breakdown of all Sling's channel offerings and add-ons, and click here to sign up and start streaming live TV.

• Sling Orange
• Sling Blue
• Both Orange and Blue
• Sports add-ons
• Comedy add-ons
• Kids add-ons
• News add-ons
• Lifestyle add-ons
• Hollywood add-ons
• Heartland add-ons
• Showtime add-ons
• Epix add-ons
• Starz add-ons
• Other premium add-ons

Sling Orange

Sign up for Sling here

The following channels are included:

• Disney Channel
• ESPN
• ESPN2
• ESPN3
• Freeform
• MotorTrend
• A&E 
• TNT
• AMC
• HGTV
• CNN
• TBS
• Comedy Central
• History Channel
• IFC
• Food Network
• BBC America
• Investigation Discovery
• Travel Channel
• Cartoon Network
• EPIX Drive-In
• Lifetime
• Viceland
• AXS TV
• Fuse 
• Newsy
• Bloomberg Television
• Cheddar
• Local Now
• Comet 
• Stadium

Sling Blue

The following channels are included:

• USA
• AMC
• Bravo
• Discovery Channel
• FOX
• NBC
• FX
• TLC
• NBC Sports Network
• MSNBC
• Fox News Channel
• Fox Sports 1
• Nick Jr.
• SYFY
• National Geographic
• BET
• truTV
• E!
• Paramount Network
• A&E 
• TNT
• HGTV
• CNN
• TBS
• Comedy Central
• History Channel
• IFC
• Food Network
• BBC America
• HLN
• Investigation Discovery
• Travel Channel
• Cartoon Network
• Epix Drive-In
• Lifetime
• Viceland
• AXS TV
• Fuse 
• Newsy
• Bloomberg Television
• Cheddar
• Local Now
• Comet
• Stadium

Both Orange and Blue

The following channels are shared between the Orange and Blue plans:

• A&E
• TNT
• AMC
• HGTV
• CNN
• TBS
• Comedy Central
• History Channel
• IFC
• Food Network
• BBC America
• Investigation Discovery
• Travel Channel
• Cartoon Network
• EPIX Drive-In
• Viceland
• AXS TV
• Fuse
• Newsy
• Bloomberg Television
• Cheddar
• Comet
• Stadium

Sports add-ons ($10/month if Blue; $10/month if Orange)

The following channels are included with Sling Orange:

• ACC Network 
• ACC Network Extra
• Longhorn Network 
• ESPNU
• ESPNews
• SEC Network 
• SEC Network+ 
• MLB Network
• MLB Network Strike Zone
• Tennis Channel
• NBA TV
• Pac-12
• NHL Network
• beIN Sports
• Outside Television

The Following channels are included with Sling Blue:

• FS2 
• Golf Channel
• Olympic Channel 
• MLB Network
• MLB Network Strike Zone
• Tennis Channel
• NBA TV
• Pac-12
• NHL Network
• beIN Sports
• Outside Television
• Big Ten Network (coming to Sling ahead of the 2020 college football season)

Comedy add-ons ($5/month if Blue; $5/month if Orange)

Sign up for Sling here

The following channels are included:

• CMT
• GSN
• Logo
• MTV
• MTV2
• Revolt
• TV Land
• Paramount Network (already included in Sling Blue base channels)
• truTV (already included in Sling Blue base channels)

Kids add-ons ($5/month)

The following channels are included:

• Disney Junior (not included if you have Sling Blue) 
• Disney XD (not included if you have Sling Blue) 
• Nick Jr. (already included in Sling Blue base channels)
• NickToons
• TeenNick
• Boomerang
• BabyTV
• duckTV

News add-ons ($5/month)

The following channels are included:

• CNBC (not included with Sling Orange) 
• Fox Business (not included with Sling Orange) 
• NDTV 24x7 (not included with Sling Orange)
• HLN (already included in Sling Blue base plan)
• NewsMax
• Science Channel
• BBC World News
• Weather Nation
• Euronews
• News18
• RT America
• CGTN
• Law & Crime Network

Lifestyle add-ons ($5/month)

The following channels are included:

• Oxygen (not included if you have Sling Orange)
• BET (already included in Sling Blue base channels)
• Cooking Channel
• DIY
• FYI
• Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
• Hallmark Channel
• Hallmark Drama
• Lifetime Movies
• VH1
• WE TV 
• Z Living HD

Hollywood add-ons ($5/month)

Sign up for Sling here

The following channels are included:

• FXX (not included if you have Sling Orange) 
• FXM (not included if you have Sling Orange) 
• Cinemoi
• HDNet Movies
• REELZ
• SundanceTV
• Turner Classic movies

Heartland add-ons ($5/month)

The following channels are included:

• Nat Geo Wild (not included if you have Sling Orange) 
• World Fishing Network
• RIDE TV
• Sportsman Channel
• American Heroes Channel
• Destination America
• Outdoor Channel
• RFD-TV
• PixL
• The Cowboy Channel
• Pursuit
• Great American Country

Showtime add-ons ($10/month)

The following channels are included:

• SHOWTIME
• SHOWTIME 2
• SHOWTIME Beyond
• SHOWTIME Extreme
• SHOWTIME Family Zone
• SHOWTIME Next
• SHOWTIME Showcase
• SHOWTIME West
• SHOWTIME Women

EPIX add-ons ($5/month)

The following channels are included:

• EPIX
• EPIX 2
• EPIX Hits

STARZ add-ons ($9/month)

Sign up for Sling here

The following channels are included:

• STARZ
• STARZ Comedy
• STARZ Edge
• STARZ Encore
• STARZ Kids and Family
• STARZ West

Other premium add-ons (monthly price varies)

The following channels are included:

• NBA League Pass: ($28.99/month)
• NBC Team Pass: ($17.99/month)
• CuriosityStream: ($3/month)
• UP Faith & Family: ($5/month)
• Hopster: ($5/month)
• PANTAYA: ($6/month)
• Stingray Karaoke: ($7/month)
• Dove Channel: ($5/month)
• Outside TV Features: ($5/month)
• Docurama: ($5/month)
• CONtv: ($5/month)
• Here TV: ($8/month)
• Cinefest: ($5/month)
• Cinemoi: ($3/month)
• Comedy Dynamics: ($5/month)
• DOGTV: ($5/month)
• Hallmark Movies Now: ($6/month)
• Grokker: ($7/month)
• The Country Network Plus: ($3/month)
• Magnolia Selects: ($5/month)
• Warrior & Gangers: ($3/month)
• Monsters & Nightmares: ($3/month)
• Kartoon Channel!: ($4/month)
• Stingray Qello: ($8/month)
• Dox: ($3/month)
• Echoboom Sports: ($6/month)
• Hi-YAH!: ($3/month)
• Lion Mountain TV: ($3/month)
• VSiN: ($4/month)

• Amazon will be raising the fees for sellers on its UK marketplace by 2%, starting in September.
• The change follows the passing of a new digital services tax in the UK, which levies a 2% tax on revenues of companies that run search engines, social media services, or online marketplaces in the country.
• The moves shows Amazon is passing along the costs of the new tax on to its small business sellers, and raises questions on the effectiveness of such measures.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon announced on Tuesday that it plans to charge more fees to the sellers on its UK marketplace, in response to the country's new Digital Services Tax.

In a note to sellers, Amazon wrote that it will add a 2% fee to all merchants using its marketplace or storage and fulfillment services in the UK region. The new fee will go into effect on Sept. 1. 

Amazon said the fee increase is driven by the passing of the DST law, which levies a 2% tax on the revenues of companies that run search engines, social media services, or online marketplaces, and generate over £500 million in sales. Until now, Amazon absorbed this cost, it added. Here's what the note said:

"In spring of 2020, the UK government introduced a Digital Services Tax ("DST"). While the legislation was being passed, and as we continued our discussions with the government to encourage them to take an approach that would not impact our selling partners, we absorbed this cost. 

Now that the legislation has passed, we want to inform you that we will be adjusting referral fees, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) fees, monthly FBA storage fees, and Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) fees in the UK to reflect this additional cost. We will not apply the increased charges retroactively, but starting 1 September 2020, the above fee types will increase by 2%."

While Amazon is passing along the costs of the new tax to the thousands of small business owners selling on its UK marketplace, it raises questions about how effective such measures are. Amazon made a similar move in France last year when it raised seller fees by 3% in response to the country's new digital tax.

The UK law is aimed at ensuring big companies pay more taxes, as most of their European headquarters are located in tax havens like Luxembourg, and leveling the playing field between them and the small- and medium-sized businesses in the region.

The UK is Amazon's third-largest market in the world, after the US and Germany. Amazon generated over $17.5 billion in sales from the UK last year. 

In a statement to Business Insider, Amazon's spokesperson said the company advocates for a global agreement on taxation, instead of a government-level law that varies by the country.

"Like many others, we have encouraged the Government to pursue a global agreement on the taxation of the digital economy at OECD level rather than unilateral taxes, so that rules would be consistent across countries and clearer and fairer for businesses. As we've previously indicated, the way that the Government has designed the Digital Services Tax will directly impact the businesses that use our services," it said.

No other choice

Still, sellers in the UK are likely to continue using Amazon's services — even if it becomes more expensive — because of its sheer size, according to Tom Baker, founder of FordeBaker, an agency that helps Amazon sellers. 

He said Amazon may become a slightly less attractive option for online sellers, as their profit margins will shrink, but they can't afford to abandon the marketplace given it's the largest e-commerce site in the country.

They can't raise their prices on Amazon either, he said, because doing so could drop a seller's search ranking on the site — or risk having certain products suspended due to Amazon's policy of keeping low prices.

"The size of the pie is just too big," Baker said.

While it's no surprise that Amazon is passing on the cost of the new tax to its sellers, Baker said it's a "missed opportunity" for the company to show support for the small businesses that account for a large chunk of its sales. Roughly 60% of all products sold on Amazon now come from third-party sellers, and the company has been promoting itself as a staunch supporter of small businesses lately as regulatory scrutiny has grown over its market power. 

"It could have been an opportunity for Amazon to make a stand for SMBs and show their support for the backbone of the UK economy," Baker said.

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

• Rackspace Technology went public on Wednesday, and its stock fell nearly 22% over the course of the day.
• Rackspace, founded in 1998, was actually already a public company until taken private in a $4.3 billion equity deal in 2016. It started as a competitor to Amazon Web Services, until pivoting to helping customers make better use of their AWS infrastructure.
• Now, Rackspace works with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and helps customers with using multiple clouds.
• Rackspace CEO Kevin Jones says this is a major opportunity because cloud demand is growing during the coronavirus pandemic.
• "I'm not worried about the stock price today. We're really focused on the long run," Jones said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Shares in Rackspace Technology fell just shy of 22% on Wednesday, its first day of trading on its second time out as a public company. But Rackspace CEO Kevin Jones says that regardless of what happened on Wall Street, the company has a major opportunity ahead of it as cloud demand only skyrockets during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rackspace began its existence in 1998 as a traditional web hosting company, eventually growing into one of the first direct competitors against Amazon Web Services, the retailer's cloud computing platform. It didn't take long for AWS to come to dominate the market, however, at the expense of Rackspace's business. Rackspace ultimately pivoted away from directly competing with AWS and towards providing services to help customers make the most of it.

Ultimately, amid plenty of competitive pressure, Rackspace was taken private in a $4.3 billion deal led by private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Fast forward to this year, and Rackspace filed for an IPO last month ahead of Wednesday's second debut on the markets.

What's different this time, Jones says, is that Rackspace isn't going to even try to compete with leading clouds AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. Instead, it partners with them, with a little help from friends like VMware. Rackspace's biggest focus is now helping customers take advantages from all three of the major mega-cloud vendors.

"We're just excited to reach this milestone, excited to be in public markets," Jones told Business Insider. "Today is day 1. We're not focused on today's stock price, and focused on the resting value over the long term. We're focused on multi-cloud. We're right in the middle of a tectonic shift. I'm not worried about the stock price today. We're really focused on the long run."

The right time to go public

The company's IPO plans were delayed, thanks to the onset of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Still, Jones says, the current situation hasn't created a negative impact at Rackspace — quite the opposite, he says, as demand is up, and so is the productivity of employees now working from home. These dynamics made this a good time to go public, Jones suggests.

"We had a lot of momentum before the pandemic and we saw sales accelerate during it," Jones said. "It gave us more confidence in the resilience of the business. We decided this would be the right time. Now as we look into the future, we're off to a great start. We see lots of opportunity."

Still, Rackspace may have some work to do to convince investors of that opportunity: As TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm noted when the company first filed for this second IPO, while Rackspace generates significant revenue, its SEC filings also show that it holds a lot of debt and shows uneven growth rates.

Rackspace's plans as a public company

Now that Rackspace has gone public, it plans to focus on continued revenue growth, global expansion, and helping companies work with multiple clouds and artificial intelligence, Jones said. 

What's more, Jones says that Rackspace has benefitted from the growth seen by AWS and Microsoft, both partners to the company. As more customers turn to Amazon or Microsoft for their own clouds, that just means more demand for Rackspace's services. 

"The market was already in the middle of a tectonic shift to multi-cloud," Jones said. "We're still slammed with demands of customers that want to save money because of the pandemic. Cloud helps them do that. A lot of customers have to change their business model. Maybe their business model isn't working as well. Cloud is the best way to do that."

While Rackspace previously competed with AWS, it's going "all in" on selling professional services for AWS and hopes to become the biggest provider filling that need. Late last year, Rackspace acquired the AWS consulting company Onica.

Read more: Rackspace used to try to compete with Amazon's cloud. Now it's going 'all in' on Amazon Web Services with the acquisition of a consulting company.

Rackspace plans to look at other deals with companies that help customers with using multiple clouds. Already, Jones says he's seeing business with Microsoft and Google Cloud services accelerate dramatically, which reinforces the notion that it's on the right path. 

"The Onica acquisition has been spectacular," Jones said. "It has been an absolute grand slam home run. Essentially we're exceeding every financial metric and every objective set out when we acquired the company."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

SEE ALSO: An exec who spent nearly 8 years helping grow Google Cloud into a behemoth explains why he ditched his Silicon Valley job to join tiny, Midwestern 3D modeling startup Physna

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NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• Microsoft is taking advantage of a controversy created by Google last month to push its own new competing open source cloud technology.
• Last month, Google ticked off IBM and many others in the open source community over a popular open source project known as Istio. 
• Developers had been looking forward to the project being turned over to a vendor-independent organization run by the Linux Foundation. 
• Instead, Google created an odd new entity and turned the project over to that org.
• So on Wednesday, Microsoft announced its own new competitor to Istio and said it has already asked the Linux-run org to take control of it.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The controversy Google kicked up last month— where it angered IBM and others in the open source community over its handling of a popular open source project called Istio — was apparently too juicy for Microsoft to resist. 

To briefly recap the controversy: In 2017 when Istio was a young project, Google promised to transfer responsibility for it to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, an independent organization run by the Linux Foundation. But in June, it created an unusual new organization and transferred the project to that entity instead, angering many in the open source community.

On Wednesday, Microsoft waded in by offering its own competitor to Istio called Open Service Mesh. Microsoft also promised to do what Google refused to do: Turn the project over to CNCF. 

"We believe an open source, openly governed, standards-compliant service mesh is important for the community," the company told Business Insider in a statement. 

Free software is lucrative for cloud providers

Open source projects are the communal property of the tech world, software anyone can use for free or modify. As they grow popular dozens of major companies and thousands of programmers may contribute to them. They still need leadership: Someone has to decide which contributions get included in the main project and which do not. And, although the software is free, as they become popular they gain tremendous commercial value. In the cloud world, cloud providers will offer these open-source software projects as services that their customers pay fees to use.

Organizations like the CNCF exist to ensure no one vendor has undue control over important open-source projects — so they can't manipulate them to benefit their commercial interests at the expense of others. Google itself helped establish CNCF a few years ago for another popular cloud open source cloud technology it created called Kubernetes.

Open sourcing its technology puts Google between a rock and a hard place. It is hoping to rise to the top of the cloud wars by creating new cloud tools. However, it's watched as two of its most popular projects — Kubernetes and Tensorflow — become popular, key services on competitors' clouds, particularly on Amazon Web Services.

Then, last month, after Istio had grown in popularity to the point where big names in the industry had contributed to it, including IBM/Red Hat, Cisco and others, Google did something unexpected.

It created an odd new organization, one dedicated just to dealing with open-source project trademarks (controlling the use of a brand name or logo), and not handling the total management of the project. It then transferred Istio (and a couple of its other projects) to that new organization. 

Some people praised the new organization. Others said Google's move reflected badly on the Linux Foundation, which they accused of becoming a political landmine where vendors with the deepest pockets can buy influence.

"New leadership at Google and Google Cloud are having second thoughts about turning over the fruits of their work to foundations that they eventually lose control over," wrote developer Alan Shimel on DevOps.com.

But, as we previously reported, many others were angry at Google, pointing out that the the Linux Foundation — as well as other established open source foundations — are already equipped to handle trademarks and logo use.

Major Istio contributor IBM wrote a public blog post condemning Google's move, as did a famous programmer who now works for Oracle's cloud.

What Istio is and why Microsoft's move matters 

Istio is a "mesh service," which is software tool that helps developers run "microservices." Microservices give developers a way to build cloud apps in tiny modular pieces, rather than in one big block of code. A "mesh service" then connects microservices together so they can function as one app.

Even before Microsoft jumped in, there were other competitors to Istio. But Istio was holding a golden spot thanks to the big names using and working on it — assured to do so, in part, by the assumption it would one day go to the CNCF. Thanks to Google's decision, some of those big names are now jumping ship.

When a top member of CNCF spoke out against Google's decision, he implied that the Linux Foundation would throw its considerable weight behind a competing project. Enter Microsoft, and Open Mesh Service, stage left.

Gabe Monroy, a Microsoft partner program manager — and a CNCF board member — told TechCrunch that Open Mesh Service is gunning to be dethrone Istio by being easier to use, and that Microsoft is also "not interested" in contributing to Istio, deflating Google's project even more. (Microsoft isn't and never has been an official contributor to the Istio project.)

"The truth is that customers are not having a great time with Istio in the wild today," Monroy told TechCrunch. "I think even folks who are deep in that community will acknowledge that and that's really the reason why we're not interested in contributing to that ecosystem at the moment."

• Now read:
• Google has ticked off IBM, Oracle, and many in the open-source community by launching an odd new open-source organization
• If Microsoft buys TikTok, it could be bad news for Google Cloud

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NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly

• Facebook took down a post by President Donald Trump for violating its policies against misinformation, the company confirmed.
• Trump posted a video of his interview with Fox News where he falsely claimed that children are "almost immune" from COVID-19, which CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan captured before it was removed from Facebook.
• "This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.
• Facebook said this is the first time it has completely taken down a post by Trump for pushing coronavirus misinformation, according to The New York Times' reporter Davey Alba.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

For the first time, Facebook has completely removed a post by President Donald Trump for violating its policies against COVID-19 misinformation.

Trump posted a video Wednesday of his interview with Fox News, which CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan captured in a screenshot before it was removed from the platform, where he falsely claimed that children are "almost immune" from the disease.

"They have much stronger immunes system than [adults]," Trump said in the video, which he also tweeted.

"This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.

A growing body of research suggests that children can transmit COVID-19 like anyone else, though researchers believe their infection rates are often underreported because they are frequently asymptomatic and have been largely excluded from clinical trials.

Facebook has previously applied fact-check labels to Trump's misleading posts about mail-in voting and taken down his campaign ads containing Nazi symbols. But this marks the first time the company has removed a post for violating its policies against coronavirus misinformation, according to The New York Times' reporter Davey Alba.

Facebook has faced growing pressure in recent months to take stronger stances against misinformation and hate speech on its platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company's decision not to take down controversial posts by Trump earlier this year suggesting violence against demonstrators in Minnesota protesting the death of George Floyd.

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

• CASHDROP founder Ruben Flores-Martinez said the hopelessness he experienced as a young undocumented immigrant later helped motivate the creation of CASHDROP, a mobile commerce app that lets users quickly set up personal storefronts with their phones.
• On Tuesday the company announced completing a $2.7 million seed round led by Harlem Capital, with participation from investors including Founder Collective and Behance creator Scott Belsky.
• Flores-Martinez is hoping his dead-simple app can find a place among big competitors like Wix and Shopify.
• The inspiration for CASHDROP came from two things: an unanswered need among small business owners for a user-friendly platform, and a weekly flea market that used to set up shop outside Flores-Martinez's childhood home in Guadalajara, Mexico.
• After graduating high school in Wisconsin, without a clear future due to his undocumented status, Flores-Martinez taught himself to code using YouTube tutorials.
• Flores-Martinez said the despair and uncertainty he felt as a young adult have become motivators as he tries to succeed as a Latino in the notoriously non-diverse world of venture capital.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One key factor makes it difficult for undocumented immigrants to have a sense of community, according to CASHDROP CEO Rubin Flores-Martinez.

"It's fear," Flores-Martinez told Business Insider. "One hundred percent. You don't want to trust anybody. You don't trust anybody."

Flores-Martinez said the stress and isolation of his undocumented teenagerhood became powerful motivators for him to achieve as an adult. That eventually lead him to create CASHDROP, a mobile commerce app designed to let small business owners create digital storefronts from their phones in minutes.

On Tuesday, CASHDROP announced the completion of a $2.7 million seed round led by Harlem Capital, which was joined by other investors including Founder Collective, Long Journey Ventures, and M25. Founder Collective and Behance creator Scott Belsky also participated in the round.

CASHDROP is entering a crowded space. Big names like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace already help business owners design websites and facilitate online sales and shipping. But Flores-Martinez, who used to build online storefronts using some of those services, believes there's room in the market for CASHDROP's dead simple design. He said small businesses needed a more user-friendly app.

"The inspiration for it was, I started seeing so many people on Instagram trying to run a business on Venmo." Flores-Martinez said. "Like 'Hey, DM me for sizes,' or 'DM me for availability, and then Cash App me or Venmo me the money.' It was interesting that people try to hack this solution together when there's already incumbents in place."

The other inspiration for CASHDROP was a flea market that Flores-Martinez said would assemble itself outside his childhood home in Guadalajara, Mexico every Saturday. 

"So you have merchants from all over the city that would come and build these little tents with sticks and rags," Flores-Martinez said. "And then they would basically launch a business, and that was all of the infrastructure they needed."

But Flores-Martinez's path from the flea market to founding CASHDROP was long and often difficult. He moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 13 as an undocumented immigrant. 

"Both of my parents were advanced chemical engineers, but there was no opportunity," Flores said. "So they came to America to work low-end jobs."

Flores-Martinez fell in love with computer science in high school and dreamed of pursuing a PhD. That path would have started with college.

"But I couldn't actually go to school because I was undocumented," Flores said. "It was one of those moments where everything just gets pulled from under you and you're kind of left in purgatory. Ultimately, I'm a child— I'm a 17, 18-year-old kid with no prospects anymore over a decision that ultimately wasn't mine."

Flores-Martinez's way out was coding. His girlfriend at the time attended a local public university. Flores-Martinez bought himself a laptop.

"When my girlfriend at the time would go to class, I would borrow her ID and would go to the cafeteria, to the library," Flores said. "And I just started teaching myself how to code on YouTube."

Coding became the springboard for the rest of Flores-Martinez's life. He started picking up gigs building websites, apps, and digital storefronts. In 2014 he gained US citizenship, which he described as a "pivotal moment" in the furthering of his ambitions. The next year he founded Sugr, an app that used AI to give users customized restaurant recommendations. The app shut down in July 2019, but Flores bounced back by coming up with the idea for CASHDROP "on a whim."

Flores-Martinez said the idea that he's a "minority within a minority" is motivating for him.

"I'm an entrepreneur, venture-backed, in a world where less than one percent of all VC capital goes to Black and Latino founders," Flores said. "That, ultimately, is what drives me to where we're going. How do you inspire that 17-year-old version of myself, sitting hopeless in a chair, thinking this is the end of the road? How do we inspire them to keep trying, keep pushing? Become somebody."

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

• VC experts talked about how COVID-19 is changing the venture capital industry on Wednesday in an online panel discussion hosted by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association.
• The economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic has led firms to put less money into small, risky startups, and direct more towards established, stable companies.
• Such strategies run the risk of eventually drying up the pipeline of new ideas that VC firms at every stage of the funding process rely on.
• But it can be hard for firms to focus on smaller startups when so many resources are already wrapped up in larger portfolio companies.
• The loss of traditional meetings has led VCs to find new ways of building trust with founders, like socially distanced gatherings and increased background checks.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Industry experts got frank about the current state of venture investing amidst COVID-19 during a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association.

Cameron Stanfill of PitchBook, Jennifer Friel Goldstein of Silicon Valley Bank, and Matthew Lee of Certent fielded questions and talked about how the economic fallout of the pandemic has reshaped traditional funding patterns. As uncertainty grips Silicon Valley, investors have increasingly put less money into small, risky startups and directed more towards larger companies with longer track records.

Goldstein acknowledged that might be bad for innovation long-term, but said she had faith in the ability of founders to find new sources of cash — possibly from other private investors.

"Innovators still start companies," Goldstein said, "so the sources of capital may start to look a little different."

Still, Goldstein acknowledged that the venture capital industry as a whole could suffer later if interest in earlier stage ventures dries up significantly now.

"I would expect that some of the later stage funds eventually are going to need to deal with their own pipeline and supply concerns," Goldstein said. "If everybody is only investing in late-stage, there are not going to be interesting mid-stage companies for them to invest in."

But the lure of a safe bet is understandable during economically uncertain times, Stanfill said. 

"The late-stage companies in VCs' portfolios are likely where they have a lot of value, still wrapped up in companies like that," Stanfill said. "And so making sure those companies are healthy, are raising extra capital to extend their runway, make sure they're going to come through this crisis stronger than ever — that's one reason you're seeing a lot of deals come that way."

The panel also noted that the social isolation of COVID-19 has forced a change in the way venture capitalists build relationships, at a time when they can rarely rely on their usual face-to-face meetings to make gut calls on founders. 

"VCs needed to start to innovate, to think about, 'how am I going to get over this historic need to meet someone in person to get a good sense of who they are?'" Goldstein said. "And we started to see the introduction of the socially distanced walk, the cocktail hour, a cooking class with these potential entrepreneurs."

That same need for trust has also driven a rise in background checks and reference checks, Goldstein said.

SEE ALSO: Big venture capital firms benefited most from a record fundraising pace in the first half of 2020, but smaller VC firms may face a tough second half, a Silicon Valley Bank report says

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

• Amazon is hosting its big ad conference, called AdCon 2020, on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, according to the event's website.
• This is the second time Amazon is hosting AdCon.
• The move shows Amazon is likely planning to make AdCon an annual event as its ad business has grown in size and influence in recent years.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon's big ad conference that debuted last year is coming back for the second time.

AdCon 2020, which is the name of this year's confab, will be held for two days on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, according to the official website of the event.

On the website, Amazon said this year's conference will be held virtually because of COVID-19. The invite-only event will feature top Amazon ad executives and "thousands of advertisers and partners," according to the website.

"Join thousands of advertisers and partners to hear inspiring keynotes, attend educational breakout sessions, and engage with experts," the website said. "Gain exclusive advertiser insights, trends analysis, product deep dives, and networking opportunities to help you grow your business."

The move shows Amazon is likely planning to make AdCon an annual event as its advertising business has grown big enough to warrant its own conference. Amazon's cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, started re:Invent in 2012 and now attracts over 40,000 attendees every year.

Amazon's representative didn't respond to a request for comment.

Amazon ad business, which makes money by charging sellers and brands to promote their products on its site, recorded $4.2 billion in sales in its most recent quarter, up 41% from the year-ago period. According to eMarketer, Amazon is expected to own 9.5% of the US digital market this year, behind only Google and Facebook, which control a combined 53% of the market. 

Last year's inaugural event was small in scale, with only a few hundred brands and agencies in attendance. It was invite-only as well, but didn't have a website of its own. The event included case studies from brands like the mattress company Tuft & Needle, and a keynote speech by Paul Kotas, SVP of Amazon Advertising.

The website for this year's event comes very little details. The deadline for signing up is Sept. 28, but the agenda has not been uploaded. Still, it encourages people to register as "something new" will be shared, according to the FAQ page.

"Whether you are new to Amazon Advertising or an experienced user, you will learn something new at AdCon," it said.

SEE ALSO: This chart shows Amazon's one-day shipping has significantly rebounded, but many sellers still face long delays getting their own shipments to warehouses

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

• Twitter briefly banned the Trump campaign's account from tweeting Wednesday after it violated the company's policies against COVID-19 misinformation, a spokesperson told Business Insider.
• The campaign tweeted a video of Trump falsely claiming to Fox News that children are "almost immune" from the disease.
• Trump also tweeted a link to the video, which has since been blocked, but the company did not take any action against the president's account.
• Facebook took down a similar post by Trump earlier in the day for violating its own COVID-19 misinformation policies, a first for the company.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump campaign's account from tweeting on Wednesday for posting a video of the president spreading COVID-19 misinformation, a spokesperson told Business Insider.

The campaign tweeted a video, which has since been removed, of Trump falsely claiming to Fox News that children are "almost immune" from the disease.

"The Tweet you referenced is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again," the spokesperson said.

A growing body of research suggests that children can transmit COVID-19 like anyone else, though researchers believe their infection rates are often underreported because they are frequently asymptomatic and have been largely excluded from clinical trials.

"Another day, another display of Silicon Valley's flagrant bias against this President, where the rules are only enforced in one direction," Courtney Parella, the Trump campaign's deputy national press secretary, said in a statement. "Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth."

President Trump also posted his own tweet linking to the campaign's tweet containing the video, which has been viewed more than 30,000 times.

However, Twitter said that it would not take any action against the president's account, only the campaign.

"Our enforcement action is specific to Tweets, not accounts that may have amplified it. The video was posted by @TeamTrump and shared via @realDonaldTrump, which is why we're taking action on that account specifically," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

Facebook took down a similar post from Trump earlier on Wednesday for violating its own policies against "harmful COVID misinformation," the first time the social media giant has completely removed a post by Trump for spreading false information about the virus.

Pressure has mounted on social media companies recently to take stronger steps to address the spread of misinformation on their platforms, particularly around the coronavirus pandemic, hate speech, and elections. Earlier this year, Twitter applied a fact-check label to Trump's tweets falsely claiming mail-in voting causes widespread election fraud.

Meanwhile, Trump has become increasingly enraged at social media platforms, particularly Twitter. In recent months, Trump has suggested that Twitter's trending topics are 'illegal' because they make him look bad and singled out the company in a legally dubious executive order that seeks to crack down on platforms' authority to moderate content on their platforms.

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

• Enterprise tech giants have been hiring aggressively to meet growing demand in corporate IT.
• Propelled by the rise of the cloud and cutting edge technologies, such as AI and big data analytics, major companies are looking to fill roles that typically pay six-figure salaries.
• The tech jobs including engineers, data scientists, developers, project managers, and experts in cybersecurity. Oracle offered a senior product management strategy director a salary of $228,000 $336,000.
• VMware hired a product engineering director with a salary of $290,000 Some are top management posts such the senior VP for human resources IBM hired with a salary of $525,000
• Here's a survey of what Oracle, IBM, Dell, SAP, VMware, Workday, ServiceNow and Cisco pay new hires, based on disclosure data for permanent and temporary workers filed with the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification in 2019.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Enterprise tech is going through big changes with the rise of the cloud, and the attendant interest in cutting edge technologies like AI and data analytics. 

So it's not surprising that the biggest names of corporate IT are paying big bucks for top talent in this market.

Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification's 2019 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what eight major players in enterprise tech — Oracle, IBM, SAP, Cisco, Dell, VMware, ServiceNow and Workday — pay tech talent in key roles including engineers, developers and data scientists.

Companies are required to disclose information, such as salary ranges, when they hire foreign workers under the H1-B visa program, giving insight into what these major companies are willing to shell out for talent.

Here's how much these top enterprise technology companies paid employees hired in 2020:

SEE ALSO: The new chief marketing officer of Oracle talks about leaving Amazon, and says that Larry Ellison's big cloud offensive has 'parallels' to the early days of AWS

SEE ALSO: VCs say that these 29 companies are the top startups in the booming big data industry

SEE ALSO: Experts predict 15 gigantic tech mergers we could see in a recession, from Amazon buying Oracle to IBM buying Dell

Oracle hired a senior product management strategy director with a salary of $228,000 $336,000.

Oracle, one of the most dominant companies players in enterprise software, is making an aggressive bid to become a bigger player in the cloud — a market dominated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Based on federal labor data, the Silicon Valley company has hired aggressively this year for key roles, including dozens of applications developers, software developers and product development strategy managers.  

Here are some of Oracle's recent hires from 452 approved visa applications, and how much they're paid:

Senior director of product management/strategy (California): $228,000 to $336,000 a year

Product development strategy manager (California): $169,000 to $250,000

Applications developer (California): $169,000 to $250,000

Software developer architect (California): $161,000 to $290,000

Software developer (California): $157,000 to $250,000

Technical analyst (Utah): $59,000 to $89,000

Technical analyst (Illinois): $57,000 to $80,000

IBM hired a senior VP for human resources with a salary of $525,000.

When IBM's new CEO Arvind Krishna took over in May, he unveiled a bold strategy for dominating the hybrid cloud market — the industry term for a combination of public clouds like Amazon Web Services with a company's own data centers — which Big Blue projects will eventually be worth $1.2 trillion.

IBM's hiring push has been focused on bringing in more application developers and architects, data specialists and scientists, software developers, various technical roles, including test specialists and a few top executives.

Here are some of IBM's recent hires from 1,876 approved visa applications, and how much they're paid:

Senior vice president for human resources (New York):  $525,000

Software developer (New York): $223,000

Senior software engineer (Massachusetts): $206,000

Data scientist (New York): $148,000

Application Developer (Arkansas): $54,000 to $78,000

Application Developer (Ohio): $55,000 to $96,000

VMware hired a product engineering director with a salary of $290,000.

VMware's virtualization software made it a key player in enterprise tech, especially with the rapid growth of the cloud. The Silicon Valley giant has been beefing up its technical staff employees and has been hiring a lot of product designers and managers and staff engineers. One of the company's top hire is for a product engineering director position.

Here some of VMware's recent hires from 717 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Director of product engineering (California): $290,000

Director of user experience (California): $261,000

Staff engineer (California): $270,000

Manager of R&D (California): $210,000

Data scientist (Massachusetts): $184,000

Technical staff (Georgia): $74,000

Technical support engineer (Colorado): $77,000

SAP hired a senior development manager with a salary of $178,000 to $303,000.

SAP is a major enterprise software vendor, specializing in databases, that's making an aggressive bid to expand its presence in the cloud. The company has focused its hiring on bringing in more support engineers, developers, developer architects, development managers and business process consultants.

Here are some of SAP recent hires based on 393 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Senior development manager (Pennsylvania): $178,000 to $303,000

Business process principal consultant (California): $160,000 to $272,000

Business process principal consultant (Georgia): $130,000 to $220,000

Data scientist (California): $92,000 to $156,000

Development architect (Arizona): $124,000

Developer (Pennsylvania): $69,000 to $116,000

Developer (California): $82,000 to $139,000

Dell hired a senior principal software engineer with a salary of $185,000.

Dell has been trying to pivot away from its historic focus on servers, and to a more software-and-services-centric approach to enterprise tech as a way of carving out a bigger piece of the enterprise tech market. The Texas tech giant emerged as a heftier publicly-traded company two years ago, in the wake of its 2016 megamerger with EMC and its subsidiary VMware. The company's hiring has focused mainly on software engineers and product marketers.

Here are some of Dell's recent hires based on 472 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Vice president for strategic planning (Illinois): $330,000

Senior Principal Software Engineer (California): $185,000

Senior software engineer (Texas): $104,000

Director of IT architecture (Texas): $180,000

Business intelligence analyst (Texas): $55,000

Cisco hired an engineering director with a salary of $170,000 to $324,000.

Cisco has been riding a wave of stronger demand for networking equipment due to the coronavirus crisis and the rise of the remote workforce. Like other traditional enterprise tech players, Cisco has also been adapting to the rise of the cloud. The Silicon Valley company has focused on hiring software and hardware engineers, user experience designers and product managers.

Here are some of Cisco's recent hires based on 695 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Engineering director (California): $170,000 to $324,000

Software development director (California): $194,00 to $277,000

Technical solutions architect (New Jersey): $180,000 to $251,000

Technical solutions architect (Florida): $198,000 to $254,000

Software quality assurance engineer (Arizona): $68,000

ServiceNow hired a machine learning engineer with a salary of $155,000 to $210,000.

ServiceNow has also seen robust growth in the coronavirus crisis and the sudden pivot to remote work with boosted demand for its cloud automation and workflow platform. CEO Bill McDermott recently told Business Insider that the Silicon Valley giant has actually expanded its workforce by 20% since the crisis began. ServiceNow said it has hired 360 tech interns since the pandemic escalated in March. It has also been hiring a lot of engineers, including experts in AI and machine learning.

Here are some of ServiceNow's recent hires based on 225 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Machine learning engineer (California): $155,000 to $210,000

Senior mobile developer (California): $132,000 to $165,000

Senior software engineer (California): $132,000 to $140,000

Data analyst (California): $72,000

Performance support engineer (Florida): $70,000

Workday hired a senior principal software development engineer with a salary of $205,000 to $308,000.

Workday is a major cloud player whose platform enables businesses to manage company finances and human resources. The Pleasanton, California-based company was one of the major tech companies to offer one-time bonuses to employees to offset the impact of the coronavirus crisis. Workday has hired mostly applications and development engineers, with some emphasis on AI and machine learning.

Here are some of Workday's recent hires based on 117 approved visa applications and how much they're paid:

Senior principal software development engineer (California): $205,000 to $308,000

Principal machine learning engineer (California): $179,000 to $269,000

Software development engineer (California): $118,000 to $173,000

Software application engineer (California): $119,000 to $173,000

Automation engineer (California): $119,000 to $161,000

• Some of the world's most well-known private companies have lost value since the pandemic's start, according to their mutual-fund backers, securities filings show. 
• Even before the pandemic hit, a survey of venture capitalists found that a majority believed unicorns were "significantly" overvalued.
• Bankers and valuation experts see a potential quick fix to falling valuations: SPACs, which have taken Wall Street by storm over the last month. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Palantir, Airbnb, WeWork, and Sweetgreen have all had their valuations cut in recent months by the biggest asset managers in the world.

While some of the cuts may have been tied to pandemic-specific developments like a plunge in global travel, some market-watchers say it was time for private valuations to come back down to earth anyway.

BlackRock cut its valuation of its stake in billionaire Peter Thiel's Palantir's by nearly 10% from the end of last September to the end of March, according to securities filings. Airbnb, meanwhile, was devalued by Principal Global Investors by 20% from the end of March to the end of June — after Principal had already cut the startup's worth by 30% in March alone. 

WeWork and Sweetgreen have also been devalued, by Fidelity and Franklin Templeton, respectively as the global coronavirus pandemic has emptied offices and shuttered restaurants.

WeWork's valuation took the largest hit, with Fidelity valuing the coworking giant at 55% less at the end of July than what it did at the end of March. Sweetgreen meanwhile was valued at roughly 8% less by Franklin Templeton at the end of April than what it was last fall.

WeWork, Palantir, Airbnb, and the asset managers declined to comment. Sweetgreen did not respond to a request for comment. 

See more: Investors' usual way of valuing companies is under scrutiny— and it could mean the end of the unprofitable unicorns that dominated in the last decade

Venture capitalists were already second-guessing themselves before the pandemic exploded. A survey of VCs published in January's Journal of Financial Economics found that 90% of investors believed unicorns are overvalued, with a majority saying these private companies are "significantly" overvalued. 

"Uneven performance of unicorns as they go public suggest valuations are full," wrote Morgan Stanley analysts, speaking generally about the market in recent years in a Tuesday note that cited the study.

Despite the pandemic, broadly speaking, valuations, particularly for companies going public, "haven't fallen off a cliff," said Wayne Kawarabayashi, the head of M&A at tech-focused investment bank Union Square Advisors. 

He said the coming months present multiple variables that could shift valuations, including US elections, the US-China tariff war, and a potential second wave of the pandemic.  

But add in a private market that is maturing slowly and early investors growing desperate for liquidity in a possible recession, and the expanding unicorn market of last year begins to the look like the peak. 

"The private market due to COVID and WeWork dislocations has been forced to mature," said Omeed Malik, founder and CEO of Farvahar Partners, which advises several unicorns on what to do next.

"You're not on top of a frothy market like you were 7-8 months ago."

Malik was previously an executive at Bank of America before being fired for what was characterized by the bank as harassment; Malik sued over defamation and discrimination, and received an undisclosed, multi-million-dollar settlement from the bank. 

'Opportune time' to bet against unicorns

Natalie Hwang has been in the venture game for years, making bets on private companies like scooter startup Bird while she ran the investing arm of Simon Property Group. Now she's looking to bet against them.

Hwang's Apeira Capital, for which she hopes to raise $200 million, will take traditional venture bets on companies she finds promising in the distribution space, but she will also bet against startups she believes are overvalued.

"We can counter irrational, exuberant pricing in the market," she said.

"I think there's a potential for a big comedown. It's an opportune time to be launching this strategy."

Hwang, who previously worked at Blackstone, will target companies with valuations at $2 billion or above that she believes will lose 50% of its value over two to four years. Details around how she will execute short positions on private companies are somewhat hazy, though she told Business Insider that she has created a "customized construct" that took years to develop so she could create what she calls "valuation arbitrage."

"The goal is to expand the payoff structure of venture," she said.

SPACs save the day?

While valuations have decreased, bankers are still hesitant to call it a buyer's market — and a new financial engineering craze might offer an olive branch to some flailing unicorns. 

SPACs, which stands for special purpose acquisition company, have exploded in popularity this year, with names like hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman and baseball executive Billy Beane headlining some new offerings. With billions ready to be deployed in a set period of time, SPACs may target unicorns — and potentially start a bidding war amongst themselves.

In Ackman's filing, he said his SPAC would target "mature unicorns" that are squeezed for more funding options and liquidity with a bevvy of late-stage investors looking to cash out. 

See more:What's a SPAC? Inside the unstoppable rise of 'blank-check companies,' the IPO alternative that startups and VCs are piling into.

SPACs offer companies a quicker exit strategy than the traditional IPO. SPACs have raised more than $21 billion, up 145% from this time last year, per Goldman Sachs research. Drawbacks include higher fees than direct listings, the chance for, like an IPO, a first-day price pop, and uncertainty for SPAC investors about the eventual target company.  

"It creates another avenue for liquidity," said Mark Zyla, managing director of Zyla Valuation Advisors. 

"The more avenues there are for liquidity … the more the valuation increases."

SEE ALSO: Some large Airbnb investors have slashed their internal valuations of the company by more than 30% as the pandemic halts travel

SEE ALSO: UBS has started pitching its wealth management customers on 'blank-check' companies as the bank looks to tap into a SPAC frenzy

SEE ALSO: Investors' usual way of valuing companies is under scrutiny— and it could mean the end of the unprofitable unicorns that dominated in the last decade

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NOW WATCH: How 'white savior' films like 'The Help' and 'Green Book' hurt Hollywood

• Uber on Thursday reported a wider loss in the second quarter than Wall Street expected.
• The company's main rides business was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. To help make up the difference, it leaned on food delivery — which for the first time generated more revenue than its ride-hailing business.
• Shares fell as much as 5% in after-hours trading shortly after Uber released its earnings report.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Uber on Thursday reported second-quarter revenue that topped Wall Street's expectations for the three-month period that bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, but its overall losses exceeded expectations.

For the first time, food-delivery revenue topped ride-hailing revenue and all other segments, as the company leaned heavily on its Uber Eats business to make up for the coronavirus-related downturn.

Here are the important numbers:

• Earnings per share: $1.02 loss, versus $0.76 loss expected
• Revenue: $2.24 billion, versus $1.82 billion expected
• Net income: $1.78 billion loss, versus $1.27 billion loss expected

Gross bookings, a measure of total revenue from rides and food orders before paying drivers and couriers, declined 35% from the previous year, to $10.2 billion, during a period marked by a significant downturn in ride requests.

Shares of Uber fell as much as 5% in after-hours trading following the release. They had risen about 4% in regular trading on Thursday.

"We are fortunate to have both a global footprint and such a natural hedge across our two core segments," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a press release. "As some people stay closer to home, more people are ordering from Uber Eats than ever before."

During the quarter, Uber announced a $2.65 billion deal to acquire the competing service Postmates and closed a deal for Cornershop, a grocery-delivery service based in Chile, as it ramped up delivery efforts. Uber has also slashed thousands of jobs this year in a bid to cut overhead costs.

Freight revenue also increased by 27%, to $211 million, as Uber's freight brokerage scaled up. Advanced Technologies Group, which is developing self-driving cars, for the first time reported revenue totaling $25 million.

Uber executives on a conference call with investors on Thursday afternoon are expected to shed more light on how the company is navigating the pandemic and the demand trends it's seeing as outbreaks wane in many countries.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why American sunscreens may not be protecting you as much as European sunscreens

• DoorDash, a food-delivery startup with a $16 billion valuation and pending IPO suddenly faced a tidal wave of traffic in March. 
• The company's app was bogged down and restaurants were requesting faster payment, and engineering VP Ryan Sokol new the company needed to complete its systems overhaul as soon as possible. 
• DoorDash huddled with Cloudflare and, in a furious all-nighter, the companies wrapped up the revamp, which may have saved millions of orders from being lost, Sokol says. 
• The engineering triumph culminated in a memorable moment with the Simon and Garfunkel classic, "The Sound of Silence."  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In March, when restaurants across the country were closing their doors and turning to pickup and delivery orders to survive the coronavirus pandemic, Doordash vice president of engineering Ryan Sokol – a former pizza delivery guy used to hustling – realized he was facing a perfect storm.

Doordash, a food-delivery startup with a $16 billion valuation and initial public offering expected soon, began receiving a tidal wave of needs from restaurants, delivery people (which the company calls "dashers"), and consumers. 

Sokol's team needed to address a massive surge in traffic, a rapidly expanding team with lots of new employees, and an an on-going systems overhaul that Doordash began in August 2019. 

"It was all hands on deck, all the time," Sokol says. "When we got breathing room on engineering projects, we were all uploading new restaurants' menus into our system."

Then it got worse. 

Restaurants needed to get paid faster than DoorDash's weekly cycle.

"The restaurants were saying, 'We're going to have to close down. We can't wait a week,'" Sokol says. "I'm a restaurant guy. I knew exactly what they meant. In restaurants, cashflow is everything."  

Meanwhile, DoorDash's mobile app, suddenly burdened with many new users, had slowed to a crawl.

The systems upgrade needed to address it all and Sokol realized they had to complete it right now.

Without it, "we would have lost hundreds of engineering hours — and I would imagine hundreds of thousands if not millions of orders — due to outages," he says.   

What was at risk was a key priority for Sokol: Reliability. "We talk about it all the time," he says. "It may be my most important value. We have to be there for restaurants, dashers, and consumers. We cannot fail them when it comes to reliability."

DoorDash had been working on the systems overhaul for months with Cloudflare, the San Francisco internet performance and security company that acts like a gatekeeper for other companies' websites and apps.

So the two companies huddled on the situation – and in 100 engineers' homes across the country, people started brewing coffee. Days of furious work culminated in employees from both companies working all night to complete the overhaul and address the engineering issues.

As a result, the app was 40% faster, restaurants could get paid within a day, and the companies had confidence that restaurants and diners were not vulnerable to attackers. 

"That was a big part of it," Sokol says. "The last thing we wanted was to open up a new threat vector where the restaurants or consumers right now could get hacked." 

The accomplishment was also a win for Cloudflare, the company says. "We'd been working with DoorDash for many months before COVID-19," says Cloudflare CTO, John Graham-Cumming, and was delighted to "help DoorDash handle the incredible increase in traffic."

When everything settled down, the entire DoorDash engineering team got on a conference call to go over the project. Sokol knew that a production manager and his team had made a kind of theme song out of Simon and Garfunkel's powerful 1967 hit "The Sound of Silence." So he waited for a pause on the call, put on the song, and turned it up. 

"And I saw 100 exhausted nerds who knew they'd done something really big just start to get down," he says. "Lots of air drumming. It was beautiful." 

DoorDash has its critics. Consumers have sued DoorDash and other companies for imposing what they say are unfairly high fees during the pandemic. Cities have capped food delivery fees in an effort to defend restaurants against such fees. DoorDash responds that it cut commissions in half for more than 150,000 restaurants from March through May.

(The company is in a "quiet period" and unable to discuss any specific financial aspects of its business due to the February filing of IPO paperwork.)  

Whatever criticisms the company faces, though, the hustle of Sokol's team provided economic opportunity for the struggling restaurant industry, he says. And the coast-to-coast all-nighter stands as one moment early in the pandemic that helped a lot of restaurants, delivery drivers, and diners, the two companies say. 

How do you find people willing to work under that kind of pressure? Sokol says that the willingness to take on thorny issues is something he looks for while hiring. "We don't want to hire someone who is just looking for a safe place to land," he says. "We want someone with intellectual curiosity, who really loves challenges, and knows how to build things that can scale."

An appreciation for "Sounds of Silence" isn't mandatory, Sokol says. But it helps. 

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