Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li><keyword id="55885" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="hotmail" source="Orion">Hotmail</keyword> co-founder Sabeer Bhatia has launched a new social video messaging platform.</li><li>It’s called ‘<keyword id="2457121" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="showreel" source="Orion">ShowReel</keyword>’ and it helps people create video resumes that can be sent out to job recruiters.</li><li>ShowReel plans on onboarding companies who can directly choose candidates from this platform.</li></ul>Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith created one of the first free web-based email services ‘Hotmail’ back in 1996. It was acquired by Microsoft just a year later and then rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail and Outlook. Fast forward to 2021, Bhatia is now launching ShowReel, a TikTok-like social video messaging platform for people to help find jobs. <br /><br />So how exactly does the app work? ShowReel lets you create video resumes of yourself but in a conversational way. There are preset questions to which you answer, record videos and stitch them together. These questions have been selected as those that are mostly asked in interviews. ShowReel also has a TikTok-like feed where you can browse through and watch videos of other users. You can share these videos with companies you wish to work with and can also add a QR code to your resume that links directly to your ShowReel video. <br /><br />“You, first of all, create a profile of your own. So let’s say you want to market yourself - one way is you send a paper resume to different job sites or to different companies directly. And it gets lost and you may be called for an interview or not. Or you can be more proactive and put a QR code in every one of your paper resumes or send an actual video. You actually send a video and say this is who I am,” Sabeer Bhatia explained in an interview with Business Insider. <br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="How companies can find candidates on ShowReel" comment="subhead" text="How companies can find candidates on ShowReel"><span data-til="noop">How companies can find candidates on ShowReel</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />ShowReel currently only has questions designed by Bhatia for four categories - professional, personal, startup and leadership. The company is in talks with global companies to get them onboard the platform and prepare their own set of questions for job seekers. Bhatia wouldn’t name these companies but we can expect to see them join the platform by the end of this year. <br /><br />“There will be a job section where you will be able to specifically look for jobs and do actual interviews for that job. There will be job-specific questions that are asked for that job. Companies will either post questions on that section directly themselves or they’ll ask us to post them and you just answer those questions and you’ve done your video interview with that company for that job,” Bhatia said.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="How job seekers can stand out with videos" comment="subhead" text="How job seekers can stand out with videos"><span data-til="noop">How job seekers can stand out with videos</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />ShowReel wants to act as the first step towards finding a job and wants to offer a unique approach in addition to the process of sharing your resume with companies. It’s also designed to help speed up the interviewing process. Bhatia also expects this to help job seekers make their profiles stand out.<br /><br />                <div type="image" title="img (19)" msid="87751094" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;In ShowReel, you create conversational videos by answering questions about your name, education, dream job and more.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />“At the end of the day if the person who’s hiring, if they take a look and they have ten resumes only one of them initially has a QR code with a video, who do you think that person is going to hire,” he said. <br /><br />Video profiles or resumes may actually work really well, and they can even make a person stand out from the crowd. But for a company scanning through the videos first, it may create biases. On this, Bhatia said that the platform blends more with people facing jobs like retail, sales and business development. There are also features being developed for people who may not like to make videos. <br /><br />“We will help them create an avatar where they don’t have to even show their face and they can just do an audio recording for example,” Bhatia said.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Revenue models" comment="subhead" text="Revenue models"><span data-til="noop">Revenue models</span></cmsannotation> <br /><br />In addition to helping companies speed up the process of interviews, ShowReel is also exploring options of shortlisting candidates for companies. “We’ll charge some money to reduce the number and give you only the hundred best of the thousand best using AI.”<br /><br />This is also expected to turn into a revenue model for ShowReel where it charges companies for posting jobs on the platform. But end-users and job seekers will never be charged for using the app, Bhatia assured.<br /><br />ShowReel is currently in beta, and the app is available to download on Android and iOS. The reason behind holding the app launch in India is because “the problem is most acute over here” and “you solve the problem where it is the worst first.” Bhatia also suggests that this app will give Indians an opportunity to market themselves, something that is quite common in the United States. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/freecharge-announces-neo-banking-platform-to-offer-fixed-deposits-digital-credit-card-and-more/articleshow/87750610.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Freecharge announces neo-banking platform, to offer fixed deposits, digital credit card and more</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/facebook-meta-microsoft-epic-games-and-others-companies-building-the-metaverse/articleshow/87663969.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">It’s not just Zuckerberg ⁠— here’s how gaming, shopping and dating could look like in the metaverse</a><br />

Hotmail co-founder wants to help people find jobs through TikTok-like video resume platform ‘ShowReel’

<ul class="summary-list"><li>As of July, <keyword id="155484" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Salesforce">Salesforce</keyword> was a more valuable company than its archrival <keyword id="43340" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Oracle">Oracle</keyword>, with a $179 billion market cap vs Oracle's of $176 billion.</li><li>Salesforce cofounder <keyword id="2660012" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Parker-Harris">Parker Harris</keyword> took a moment to reflect on that achievement during a virtual event hosted by Piper Sandler.</li><li>He said it felt like a "milestone" and recalled the company's early startup days decades ago working in Benioff's apartment when a $400 million value seemed like a lot.</li></ul><p>Salesforce crossed a milestone this month when it became more valuable than its archrival Oracle. On Friday, Salesforce's market cap was $179 billion whereas Oracle's was at $176 billion.</p><p>So, the moment feels like a milestone, Salesforce Parker Harris told Piper Sandler's Brent Bracelin during <a href="http://wsw.com/webcast/pipersandler11/live/">the "It's Friday: State of the Cloud" virtual event.</a></p><p>Harris recalled those early startup days in 1999 when he, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and two other early employees were working out of Benioff's San Francisco apartment and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-benioff-shares-founding-story-2015-9">famously getting turned down by VCs.</a> It was just after Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million, and the two of them thought that a $400 million exit was "pretty cool," Harris remembers.</p><p>But even back then, Benioff, ever the big-vision guy, told Harris that "we're going to be much bigger than that," according to a transcript of the <a href="https://twitter.com/jordannovet/status/1281687022701367298">interview shared by CNBC's Jordan Novet.</a></p><p>This month, it happened. "Our valuation was bigger than that of Oracle and that was a bit of a shock for me. I was like, 'Wow! That's definitely a milestone," Harris said.</p><p>It's not just that investors seem to be more excited about Salesforce's future, at the moment, than Oracle's. It's that the two companies have a long, intertwined — and often cantankerous — history.</p><p>The idea for Salesforce, and the software-as-a-service business model it pioneered, actually <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netsuite-ceo-larry-ellison-invented-cloud-computing-2012-10">came from a meeting with Oracle founder </a>Larry Ellison back when Salesforce founder Marc Benioff was still working at Oracle and Ellison was his mentor.</p><p>Benioff left Oracle with Ellison's blessing and about $2 million of his money. About a year later, Oracle launched a competitor and Benioff <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-benioff-kicked-ellison-off-his-board-2016-1">kicked Ellison off Salesforce's board.</a> The two companies have been heated rivals ever since.</p><p>These days, the shoe is on the other foot. While Oracle still dwarfs Salesforce in overall revenues ($39 billion for <a href="https://investor.oracle.com/investor-news/news-details/2020/Oracle-Announces-Fiscal-2020-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-Full-Year-Financial-Results/default.aspx">Oracle for fiscal 2019</a> vs.$17 billion <a href="https://investor.salesforce.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Salesforce-Announces-Record-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Fiscal-2020-Results/default.aspx">for Salesforce</a> in its fiscal 2019) and profits (99 cents earnings for share for Oracle; 15 cents EPS for Salesforce), when it comes to the most critical market, cloud computing, Oracle is the underdog, coming from behind and playing catch up to giants like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Salesforce.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Now read:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-private-cloud-region-amazon-web-services-outposts-2020-7">Former Oracle cloud skeptics say its newly launched product is 'significant and important' to the market — and shows that it's becoming a more viable Amazon Web Services competitor</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ibm-istio-trademark-open-source-2020-7">Google has ticked off IBM, Oracle, and many in the open-source community by launching an odd new open-source organization</a></li></ul>

Salesforce's cofounder says he was initially shocked when the company became more valuable than Oracle: 'That's definitely a milestone'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The billionaire Tim Draper is part of a lineage often lauded as Silicon Valley's premier VC family.</li><li>His grandfather founded the VC firm Draper, Gaither, and Anderson.</li></ul><p>Celebrities bristling about being called "<a href="https://nymag.com/press/2022/12/extremely-overanalyzing-hollywoods-nepo-baby-boom.html">nepo babies</a>" could learn from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/we-had-breakfast-with-revolutionary-vc-bill-draper-2012-3">William Henry Draper III</a>, one of Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists who has recognized his family's close ties and their influence on the family's successes.</p><p>"Networks are critical to the successful venture capitalist," Draper, who cofounded elite investment projects like Sutter Hill Ventures, wrote in his 2012 semi-autobiographical book, "The Startup Game."</p><p>In other words, the adage: It's all about who you know. Anyone who has hustled and pounded the pavement to break into a competitive field understands there's an elusive alchemy to how connections can form and the doors they open.</p><p>As far as powerful professional networks go, it's hard to top the Draper family tree. </p><p>Draper's venture-capital career began in the 1950s at his father's own trailblazing firm, Draper, Gaither, and Anderson, an early entrant in a new field. He wrote that he joined it, in part, for the "unique opportunity to learn from a master." Striking out with his peers in the next decade, he went on to invest in early IT-infrastructure companies including Kasper Instruments.</p><p>He paid it forward to his son, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capitalist-question-deciding-which-startups-to-invest-in-2019-6">Tim Draper</a>, who made his own early VC investments in the '80s using a family vehicle that was then called Draper Associates, according to "The Startup Game."</p><p>During the dot-com era, the father and son would hold court at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-silicon-valley-cafe-where-paypal-tesla-and-netscape-did-deals-2012-2">Stanford-adjacent social haunts</a> where the elder Draper connected Tim — a Stanford alumnus — with people like Yahoo's cofounder Jerry Yang. (Draper wrote that he even attended the Yahoo pitch meeting "on the chance that I could be of help to Tim," though the deal eventually went to Sequoia.)</p><p>With his own ventures, Tim went on to back the likes of Hotmail, Skype, Coinbase, and, less fortuitously, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-tim-draper-respect-she-didnt-lie-2022-2">Theranos</a>, the blood-testing startup founded by his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-draper-blames-john-carreyrou-theranos-downfall-2018-5">family friend</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-life-story-bio-2018-4"> Elizabeth Holmes</a>.</p><p>"<a href="https://www.meetthedrapers.com/season5video">Meet the Drapers</a>," the game show that Tim cocreated and launched in 2017, positions the family as enduring industry power players. On the show, Draper, Tim, and Tim's sister Polly Draper, along with other family members who drop by as "guest judges," field pitches from founders competing for Tim's $1 million investment check. The show ran internationally on channels including Sony Entertainment Television.</p><p>As evidenced on the series, the family's scions tend to wear their legacy as a badge of honor. Tim's children <a href="https://halogenvc.com/team">Jesse Draper</a>, who leads Halogen VC, and <a href="https://www.boost.vc/team">Adam Draper</a>, who is behind Boost VC, are even identified as "4th generation venture capitalists" in their <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210203005300/en/Jesse-Draper-of-Halogen-Ventures-Closes-21-Million-Fund-to-Invest-in-the-Next-Generation-of-Billion-Dollar-Businesses-Run-by-Women">public bios</a>.</p><p>And the Draper empire extends beyond tech investing. Tim and his children <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1164345/">were also in</a> the actor-producer Polly's Nickelodeon show, "<a href="https://www.insider.com/naked-brothers-band-stars-where-are-they-now-photos">The Naked Brothers Band</a>." Polly's son Alex Wolff is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1842974/">a Hollywood rising star</a> you might know from hits like the 2018 horror film "Hereditary."</p><p>All of this is to say that the Drapers have benefited from their last name and fall into the category of "nepo babies," a term made popular <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/what-is-a-nepotism-baby.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">by a New York Magazine story</a> about nepotism in the insular world of Hollywood. </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-billionaire-family-nepo-baby-eve-reed-secret-daughter-2023-1">Family can play just as big a role</a> in the tech world. Even in a book promoting grind, tenacity, and savvy risk-taking as elements of successful investing, William Draper acknowledged it: "I was lucky to have been born to a great father."</p><p><strong>Meet the Draper family, the ultimate tech nepo babies and Silicon Valley royalty.</strong></p><h2><strong>Tim Draper </strong></h2><div type="image" title="Draper Associates Founder Tim Draper speaks during the Web Summit 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal on November 6, 2018." height="2000" width="3000" msid="97250337" hostid="261"></div><p>Tim, who followed in his father's footsteps as a young adult after getting in some early practice with his family investing firm, cofounded the blockbuster venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1985, when he was in his early 20s. DFJ had more than 900 investments, according to PitchBook, including in companies such as Tesla and Baidu. DFJ's founding partners have all left, and the firm became known as Threshold Ventures in 2019, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2019/01/16/draper-fisher-jurvetson-name-change-threshold-ventures">Axios reported at the time</a>.</p><p>A gregarious presence on his show, "Meet the Drapers," Tim has an easy laugh and sports his signature tie polka-dotted with the bitcoin symbol.</p><p>With a $1.2 billion net worth, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tim-draper/?sh=57a3aeccaf34">according to Forbes' estimate</a>, his reach is far — he<a href="https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Tim-Draper-ventures-into-resort-business-2377196.php"> bought an island</a> in Tanzania, where he's invested in a hotel — and sometimes personal. In addition to creating and hosting a show featuring members of his family, he's credited as an advisor for his daughter Jesse's firm, Halogen Ventures, and as a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1822137/">producer</a> on his sister's Nickelodeon show, in which he played the character Principal Schmoke. </p><h2><strong>Jesse Draper </strong></h2><div type="image" title="jesse draper" height="3840" width="5760" msid="97250338" hostid="261"></div><p>Jesse announced herself on the tech scene in the late 2000s with her web series, "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vc-tim-draper-got-down-with-mc-hammer-last-night-at-this-crazy-pink-party-2011-12">The Valley Girl Show</a>," which featured quirky <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/06/tim-drapers-gir/">interviews with entrepreneurs</a> in Tim's circle. Some notable guests <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2062429/episodes?season=1">included</a> then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who wrote the foreword for her grandfather's book), Elon Musk, and Stephen Jurvetson, who cofounded DFJ with Jesse's father. </p><p>Tim helped arrange some early interviews, according to a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1839299/can-vcs-be-bred-meet-new-generation-silicon-valleys-draper-dynasty">Fast Company feature on the family in 2012.</a></p><p>Jesse's firm, Halogen Ventures, which <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210203005300/en/Jesse-Draper-of-Halogen-Ventures-Closes-21-Million-Fund-to-Invest-in-the-Next-Generation-of-Billion-Dollar-Businesses-Run-by-Women">she launched in 2015</a> in her late 20s, was the culmination of what she described as an indirect path to VC-hood.</p><p>"I'm the weirdest VC story, I think, of all time," she said in a <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-change-in-the-best-way-possible-with-jesse/id1555858207?i=1000554822806">March episode of the "Startup Renegades" podcast</a>.</p><p>Jesse attended film school at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she also took business courses and focused first on her acting career. She was eventually put off by the objectification she observed at auditions, she said on the podcast episode, and switched gears to do "Valley Girl," which went on to become a TV show <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/23/jesse-draper-talks-about-growing-up-on-the-valley-girl-show-silicon-valley-gender-issues-and-moving-to-tv/">carried by a CBS-linked station</a>. </p><p>That put her on a path to investing, she said, because as the show's host, she was hearing more from new founders looking to get noticed. She'd alert investors in her circle to those who showed potential, she said on "Startup Renegades."</p><p>"Sometimes, I'd write them a tiny check, and some of those deals did really well for me," she added.</p><p>That helped lay the foundation for what later became Halogen, she said. Halogen has invested in dozens of brands targeted at women like the Instagram beauty darling Live Tinted and the investment company Ellevest. It lists her father as an advisor.</p><h2>Adam Draper</h2><div type="image" title="Adam Draper" height="2856" width="3807" msid="97250341" hostid="261"></div><p>Adam's LinkedIn bio indicates that as a college undergrad, he cofounded Xpert Financial in 2009.</p><p><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1839299/can-vcs-be-bred-meet-new-generation-silicon-valleys-draper-dynasty">The Fast Company feature</a> said Tim facilitated Adam's inclusion into the company's founding "in a single afternoon" when Tim helped Jesse's old classmate Thomas Foley fine-tune the idea. Xpert Financial, a digital marketplace to connect private companies with investors, is no longer in business, according to PitchBook.     </p><p>In 2012, Adam founded Boost VC, which has made over 400 investments in a variety of tech and crypto companies, according to PitchBook. Like his father, Adam has invested in the crypto exchange Coinbase, according to the Boost VC website.</p><h2>Billy Draper</h2><p>In 2016, Billy Draper was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/billy-draper/?sh=76b50b374180">on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list as a 26-year-old</a> in the venture-capital category. In his Forbes write-up, he was credited with being a "full-time investor since June 2014."</p><p>He worked at firms like Meta and his father's Draper Associates (a separate investing firm that evolved <a href="https://www.draper.vc/">alongside</a> Draper Fisher Jurvetson) after studying film at UCLA like his sister, according to <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=63c042cd3295306677118e23&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fbillydraper3%2F">his LinkedIn bio</a>. </p><p>He's gone on to found his own firm, <a href="https://path-ventures-new-site.webflow.io/about-us">Path VC</a>, which invests in very-early-stage companies, according to the firm's bio. He's invested alongside his father in companies like Robinhood, <a href="https://www.draper.vc/about">according to Draper Associate's website</a>. </p><h2>Eleanor Draper</h2><div type="image" title="Elle Draper" height="685" width="914" msid="97250343" hostid="261"></div><p>Eleanor Draper has the smallest visible online presence out of her siblings. Her <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=63c042cd3295306677118e23&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Felle-draper-5000b174%2F">LinkedIn bio</a> indicates she received training at institutions including Draper University, an "entrepreneurship program" founded by Tim, according to<a href="https://www.draperuniversity.com/hero-training-entrepreneurship-program-in-silicon-valley"> its website</a>. The more than monthlong program costs $12,000 to attend, according to its website.</p><p>She used that training in 2018 to launch a <a href="https://twitter.com/timdraper/status/1073261760478617600?lang=en">scrunchie</a> company called Lemonelle, according to her LinkedIn.</p>

Tech's ultimate nepo babies: Meet the Drapers, the first family of Silicon Valley

There’s a new social media platform and it blends everything that’s trending online right now. It’s got NFTs, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/facebook-meta-microsoft-epic-games-and-others-companies-building-the-metaverse/articleshow/87663969.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">metaverse </a>and digital coins, all in one app. Meet <keyword id="12550695" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="octi" source="Orion">Octi</keyword>, an augmented reality (AR) platform where you make videos with objects and scenes and earn digital ‘Octi’ coins.<br /><br />Octi looks like any other social media platform with its TikTok-like feed and Snapchat’s AR features. In this app, you can earn Octi coins as more people like and engage with your videos. You can play around with objects and create videos in scenes like the Great Hall from Harry Potter. Through these Octi coins users can purchase items from the Octi Shop and also use these coins to actually purchase physical goods like shoes, makeup, clothes and more. New objects and scenes will be added daily to the Octi Shop. <br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Social media and NFTs" comment="subhead" text="Social media and NFTs"><span data-til="noop">Social media and NFTs</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />The app also lets users import their own NFTs to the platform which anyone can use for free. But NFT owners are also rewarded coins as their objects are used and grow in popularity. So the more popular and used your objects are, the more valuable they become. This way users can not only get more exposure for their NFT items but also earn some money.<br /><br />                                    <div type="image" title="Octi_Screenshot" msid="87756037" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Octi lets users import their own NFTs to the platform which anyone can use for free. &amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />Octi wants to be different from other social media platforms where users are only rewarded with likes. It has<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/james-murdoch-backed-metaverse-app-octi-launches-tuesday-2021-11-16/"> financial backing</a> from James Murdoch's Lupa Systems, LiveNation Entertainment, and Jimmy Iovine, co-founder of Interscope Records.<br /><br />"We are building Octi to be the ultimate creative metaverse, with a business model based on community engagement and meaningful rewards instead of vapid 'likes’," Justin Fuisz, founder and CEO of Octi said in a press release.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Exclusive product releases" comment="subhead" text="Exclusive product releases"><span data-til="noop">Exclusive product releases</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />It is also offering a platform where it says the “creator is their own avatar in the metaverse.” The company has also opted for a commerce revenue model instead of the traditional advertising model that popular social media platforms go for. The virtual items available for users are also through partnerships with brands. Through this, Octi aims to help brands create hype for their products and even launch exclusive products digitally. So the platform nicely blends creators, brands with NFTs, the virtual metaverse world and social media.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="An app that perfectly embraces the future of social media" comment="subhead" text="An app that perfectly embraces the future of social media"><span data-til="noop">An app that perfectly embraces the future of social media</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />Octi nicely blends creators, brands with NFTs, the virtual metaverse world and social media. It borrows the best features from the most popular social media apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. But it’s way ahead of the game with the option to use AR objects and scenes from popular franchises and brands, import your own NFTs and make some money while doing all that. <br /><br />Octi is currently available only on iOS with no word on when the Android version will launch. The app however isn’t available in India, and it isn’t confirmed where other than the US the app can be downloaded. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/hotmail-cofounder-launches-social-video-messaging-platform-showreel/articleshow/87750865.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Hotmail co-founder wants to help people find jobs through TikTok-like video resume platform ‘ShowReel’</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/facebook-meta-microsoft-epic-games-and-others-companies-building-the-metaverse/articleshow/87663969.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">It’s not just Zuckerberg ⁠— here’s how gaming, shopping and dating could look like in the metaverse</a><br />

Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat have a new rival called ‘Octi’ — an app that has NFTs, the metaverse and digital coins

<p class="source"><span>Basecamp</span></p><p class="caption">David Heinemeier Hansson, cofounder and CTO of Basecamp</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>In April, the project management software company Basecamp plans to roll out a new paid email service called Hey.</li><li>David Heinemeier Hansson, better known as DHH, has been a frequent critic of venture capital and Big Tech - which is why Basecamp is trying to build a "small tech solution" that does things a little differently than Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Hotmail. </li><li>Hey will charge some kind of fee, but Hansson says that it's so that Basecamp will never, ever have to scrape data or show advertisements to its email customers. </li><li>Hey will also include features to help filter out unwanted emails like spam, marketing emails, and pitches.</li><li>The ultimate goal, Hansson says, is to bring about an "absolute revival" of email, which he praises as not being owned by any single company or entity, and is thus a totally open standard beyond the control of Big Tech.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Project management software company Basecamp is an unusual tech startup, in the sense that it found success with very little by way of venture capital funding. Now, it's setting its sights on a big new challenge: Fixing e-mail, something it sees as broken.</p><p>Basecamp's new email service, called Hey, is expected to roll out in April. Cofounder David Heinemeier Hansson, better known by his initials DHH, says the company decided to build a completely new email service because most of the current ones have a "really bad rep from a lot of people." </p><p>"A lot of things about email are broken," Hansson told Business Insider. "Those broken parts we want to fix."</p><p>Specifically, Hansson says, Hey will be a paid service - important, because unlike popular email services like Google's Gmail, Microsoft's Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail, it won't scrape information from your messages to present you with ads.</p><p>Hansson says that every time a new messaging app like WhatsApp or Slack gets popular, people say that it's the death of email. Hansson says that isn't so; it's just that big tech companies like Google and startups like Superhuman - which came under fire for helping users track email recipients' locations - have made email less appealing.</p><p>"Much of that battle is waged on philosophical grounds whether people have an issue with Google, ad targeting or these other things," Hansson said. "We're going to be appealing to people by making a great damn product."</p><p>It's Hansson's hope that Hey kicks off a much-needed "absolute revival" of email, a method of communication that he praises as being totally open and agnostic: Where WhatsApp users can only communicate with WhatsApp users, or Slack with Slack, literally anybody can build an app that can send email to anybody using any other app. So while Hey, as a paid service, may only find a relatively small niche itself, the entire email market is ripe for the taking.</p><p>"We're launching a service where we're happy if 50,000 or 100,000 people sign up," Hansson said. "It's such a large ocean that there's room for dozens and dozens of new builders. We are clearly pointing out some specific disadvantages around things like Gmail and Google's control of email."</p><h2>Basecamp has clashed with Big Tech before</h2><p>Basecamp took no traditional venture capital financing - Jeff Bezos bought a "<a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-deal-jeff-bezos-got-on-basecamp/">minority, no-control stake</a>" of the company in 2006, in a $6 million deal that Hansson once said was more like buying a membership in a traditional LLC rather than your typical startup equity deal. <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-deal-jeff-bezos-got-on-basecamp/">Hansson said in 2017</a> that Bezos still owns the stake, but that the profitable company had paid him back over 5 times his initial investment over the years.</p><p>Indeed, Hansson has been a frequent critic of Silicon Valley's venture capital model: "Venture capital, like private equity, is money without a soul. Zombie capital that scours the land to eat the brains of entrepreneurs," he <a href="https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1195019964815560705?s=20">tweeted in November.</a></p><p>Basecamp has also clashed with Google. In September, CEO and cofounder Jason Fried said that the company had to take out Google search ads for its own name, because searching for "Basecamp" yielded paid placements from competitors above its own website. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/google-paid-search-ads-shakedown-basecamp-ceo-says.html">Fried described it as a "shakedown" to CNBC</a>.</p><h2>'Small tech solution'</h2><p>So with Hey, Basecamp is actively trying to do things differently than Big Tech. In fact, Hansson goes so far as to call it a "small tech solution." Privacy is preserved, your data doesn't flow into the coffers of Microsoft or Google, and it even blocks the so-called tracking pixels that help companies know when you've opened their marketing emails. </p><p>"We're taking a hard stance and saying opening your email shouldn't be something that results in someone spying on you," Hansson said.</p><p>The price has yet to be announced, but Hansson says that Hey will be priced to be affordable to as many users as possible (and less than the $30 monthly fee charged by buzzy VC-backed email startup Superhuman, which had its own privacy scandal last year), but that there won't be a free version. Hansson says the company wants to make sure Hey works in a "sustainable way."</p><p>"We're not luxury software, but also we're not free software," Hansson said. "You pay with money or you pay with your privacy. We're trying to strike a reasonable balance between those things."</p><h2>Better than before</h2><p>Basecamp has already been using Hey internally for months. Hansson even says it's been his primary email service since the fall. It's not just about the privacy aspect, he says; Hey was meant to make email more useful to a broader audience.</p><p>A big problem with email as it stands today, Hansson says, is that inboxes get so clogged up with marketing emails, newsletters, and straight-up spam that many users get frustrated and stop paying attention. That's why Hansson says that Hey will help users automatically sift and surface their important email, while minimizing the work that goes into setting up rules or filters to make sure incoming messages get sorted properly. </p><p>"We have fresh ideas for how to do that in ways that neither relies on AI or teaches people how to program to get basic order in email and real life," Hansson said.</p><p>The real vision, he says, is to help people regain control of their inbox, and in so doing, make email that much more useful and indispensable.</p><p>"It's well overdue that we get better tools to defend ourselves and our attention and our love affair with email," Hansson said. "Right now you'll email people and they'll get your attention right away. It will simply show up in their inbox. That's not a great model. No wonder people go, 'you know what? Email isn't working for me.'"</p><p>The opportunity is big, Hansson says, but it's about time that email got a real, honest shakeup.</p><p>"Launching a new email service is a pretty daunting thing," Hansson said. "The last independent email services are over a decade old. There basically hadn't been anything since."</p><p><em><strong>Got a tip?</strong> Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:rmchan@businessinsider.com">rmchan@businessinsider.com</a>, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at <a href="https://twitter.com/rosaliechan17">@rosaliechan17</a>. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.</em></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/real-story-behind-ford-v-ferrari-oscars-2020-2">'Ford v Ferrari' won 2 Oscars for film editing and sound editing. Here's the real story behind the movie and how Ford changed racing history.</a></h3>

One of Google's biggest critics is launching a paid new service that it hopes will bring about the 'absolute revival' of email, outside of Google's or Microsoft's control

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Honey</span></p><p class="caption">Honey cofounders Ryan Hudson and George Ruan.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Hello!</p><p>While most of Wall Street was focused on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/charles-schwab-td-ameritrade-deal-reports-prompt-analyst-questions-2019-11">deal talks between Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade</a> this week, another financial services deal caught my eye. </p><p>Honey, which makes a browser extension that surfaces coupons while you shop online, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-honey-acquisition-returns-for-investors-2019-11">sold to PayPal for $4 billion in cash</a>. As Melia Russell reported, the acquisition gives new meaning to the term "sweet deal."</p><p>Honey faced rejection from VCs for two years before raising a seed round of $1.8 million in 2014 from Mucker Capital, Bam Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, SXE Ventures, and an angel investor. </p><p>Richard Jun, a cofounder and managing director of Bam Ventures, told Melia Bam put $150,000 into Honey's seed round. Its investment is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-honey-acquisition-returns-for-investors-2019-11">worth 300 times that after the acquisition</a>, which comes out to $45 million.</p><p>The deal is emblematic of an evolution in the payments space, where <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bain-capital-ventures-matt-harris-explains-payments-need-to-do-more-2019-11">more companies are looking to move beyond just moving money.</a></p><p>An Andreessen Horowitz general partner told Shannen Balogh for example that Uber and Apple are just the start, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andreessen-horowitz-anish-acharya-innovations-payments-and-lending-2019-11">and eventually every company will want to be a fintech</a>. Citi Ventures meanwhile is betting on cars that pay their own bills, and its co-head of investing envisions <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/citi-ventures-vc-capital-innovation-payments-where-to-monetize-next-2019-11">a future where your devices make payments without you</a>.</p><h2>Inside McDonald's CEO change</h2><p>McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook's termination as CEO earlier this month following a relationship with a female coworker sent shock waves through the massive fast-food chain, according to Kate Taylor. </p><p>This week she published three stories on the CEO change focused on the immediate aftermath of Easterbrook's exit, and new CEO Chris Kempczinski's efforts to win over employees and franchisees since. Check them out:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-employees-were-shocked-by-ceos-termination-2019-11">The chaotic aftermath of the McDonald's CEO's termination</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-new-ceo-quest-to-win-over-fast-food-giant-2019-11">The new McDonald's CEO's quest to win over the massive fast-food giant</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-new-ceo-thanks-employees-asks-for-feedback-2019-11">The 1,000 word memo McDonald's new CEO sent to help calm down employees after his sudden, turbulent takeover</a></li></ul><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty</span></p><p class="caption">Marcelo Claure.</p></div><p></p></div></div></h2><h2>What's next for WeWork</h2><p>WeWork this week laid off 2,400 employees, and Meghan Morris got the inside track on the all-staff meeting that followed.</p><p>The embattled company's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-staff-meeting-after-layoffs-path-to-profitability-new-executives-2019-11">path to profitability will focus on six pillars</a>, chairman Marcelo Claure said at the meeting, while <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-executive-organization-org-chart-2019-11">four men were named to executive roles</a>.</p><p>Some WeWork employees <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/some-wework-employees-concerned-about-salary-career-after-wework-2019-11">believe working for the company has hurt their careers</a>, Julie Bort reported. Meanwhile, WeWork's competitors say they're ready to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/as-wework-cuts-staff-competitors-look-to-hire-hundreds-2019-11">hire hundreds next year as they expand.</a></p><section><p>In related news:</p><ul><li>Adam Neumann personally invested tens of millions in startups while he ran WeWork. Troy Wolverton asked founders <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-neumann-startup-investor-role-revealed-best-and-worst-tendencies-2019-11">who took his money to reveal what it was like</a>.</li><li>Megan Hernbroth reported that Zume, the robotic pizza maker that SoftBank valued at $1 billion, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zume-pizza-executive-departures-softbank-funding-cfo-2019-11">has lost several top execs and appears to have moved away from robots, even as it seeks new money</a>.</li></ul></section><h2>Layoffs</h2><p>It's not just WeWork that's seen layoffs as we head towards the end of the year.</p><ul><li>Juul laid off 650 workers after federal investigations rocked the company. Tanya Dua talked to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/laid-off-juul-employees-describe-how-e-cigarette-company-imploded-2019-11">some of those who were affected to find out how it was handled and what they saw leading up to it</a>.</li><li>Graham Rapier got the inside track on Lyft's deal with Gett, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-hires-99-juno-engineers-belarus-part-of-gett-deal-2019-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-hires-99-juno-engineers-belarus-part-of-gett-deal-2019-11&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1574617543285000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGCWLo3Y_mhsQorSC-B4TkxKNkGwA">will see 99 engineers in Belarus move to Lyft and roughly 100 US employees laid off</a>.</li><li>Lauren Johnson was first to report the closure of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adtech-company-ignitionone-shuts-down-sends-letter-to-shareholders-2019-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.businessinsider.com/adtech-company-ignitionone-shuts-down-sends-letter-to-shareholders-2019-11&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1574617543285000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG2qJyUTX5Zf6Z3_Ff-8d56rIagQA">storied ad-tech company IgnitionOne, and published the letter it sent to shareholders.</a> </li><li>Patrick Coffee reported that Spotify laid off <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-lays-off-about-30-people-in-ad-sales-2019-11">about 30 in ad sales after missing internal revenue goals</a>.</li><li>Dell-owned Pivotal is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pivotal-layoffs-vmware-open-letter-dell-2019-11">preparing for as many as 150 layoffs ahead of its $2.7 billion acquisition by VMware</a>, Rosalie Chan reported. Employees are openly protesting management over it.</li><li>Jeremy Berke got the internal memo revealing why hot <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/canndescent-laid-off-16-people-before-closing-series-c-2019-11">California cannabis startup Canndescent quietly laid off 16 workers just days before closing a big funding round</a>.</li></ul><p>What have we missed? Let me know!</p><p>-- Matt</p><h2>An invitation</h2><p>We're hosting an event focused on smart cities in Washington, DC on Tuesday, December 10. The event will explore the impact of various technologies transforming cities, mobility, digital equity, the evolving regulatory and policy environment - and the investment opportunities these innovations create.</p><p>Speakers include Lindsey Parker, chief technology officer for the City of Washington, DC, and Michael Sherwood, the director for innovation and technology for the City of Las Vegas.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/attend-ignition-smart-cities-washington-dc-tickets">Click here for more information, and to apply to attend!</a></strong></p><h2>Finance and Investing</h2><section><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recruiters-tell-job-seekers-that-2020-will-be-challenging-year-2019-11">Top finance recruiters say 2020 will be rough, and have advice for job seekers: Go middle market, keep a sense of humor, and delete your Hotmail account</a></strong></p><p>For the dozens of job seekers gathered in the 10th floor of a building near Times Square, a text message from a friend that one panelist read aloud didn't exactly inspire confidence.</p><section><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/we-got-a-look-at-tishman-speyers-nyc-coworking-space-2019-11">Tishman Speyer is opening its own flex offices without go-betweens like WeWork. We got a look at the landlord's new space in New York.</a></strong></p><p>Coworking and flex-office space hit the big time this year, thanks to a mix of hype and front-page controversy.</p></section></section><h2>Tech, Media, Telecoms</h2><section><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-greylock-incubator-security-startup-abnormal-2019-11">Silicon Valley VC firm Greylock is betting big that startup founders are ready to trade garages and basements for swanky offices with its legendary startup incubator</a></strong></p></section><section><p>Garages have a special place in Silicon Valley lore.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/leaders-of-us-sports-betting-industry-power-player-execs-list-2019-11">Meet the 22 power players leading the explosion of the US sports betting space</a></strong></p><p>Gaming, media, and tech companies are vying to corner pieces of the burgeoning sports betting market in the US,  18 months after the Supreme Court lifted a federal ban on sports wagering in the country.</p></section><h2>Healthcare, Retail, Transportation</h2><section><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/power-players-washington-dc-healthcare-politics-policy-2019-11">Meet the 34 DC healthcare power players who shape the rules for a $3.5 trillion industry that touches every American</a></strong></p><p>Meet the top people shaping healthcare politics and policy in Washington.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-plan-to-fix-broken-global-supply-chain-2019-11">Mars CEO says the global supply chain is 'broken.' Now, the $35 billion food industry giant is investing $1 billion to fix it.</a></strong></p><p>Mars' CEO believes the global supply chain is "broken" - and that it is companies' responsibility to fix it.</p></section><p class="tagline"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/40-big-tech-predictions-for-2019?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=wework&amp;itm_campaign=40-big-tech-predictions-for-2019-2"></a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/we-used-the-motorola-droid-on-its-10th-anniversary-2019-11">I used the 10-year-old original Motorola Droid for a week</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A 300 times return, inside McDonald's CEO change, and what's next for WeWork

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Microsoft" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/533accc569bedd6e11c7e9fa-960/scroogled-vday-3.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.scroogled.com/">Microsoft</a></span></p></div><p></p></div>Before Gmail launched in "beta" mode 10 years ago today, there were skeptics that the search giant Google could create a useful email product.</p>
<p>"A lot of people thought it was a very bad idea, from both a product and a strategic standpoint," <a href="http://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/" target="_blank">Gmail creator Paul Buchheit told Time</a>. "The concern was this didn't have anything to do with web search. Some were also concerned that this would cause other companies such as Microsoft to kill us."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That's because at the time, Google was mostly focused on search. So to outsiders, it seemed that Google was going the route of Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos - three search pioneers that eventually rebranded themselves as "portals." And "portals" were typically known for doing a lot of things, but not necessarily well. And they all had email. Google insiders also worried that people's web browsers would crash to often trying to use the product, and some even thought it should be a paid subscription product.<br /></span></p>
<p>Luckily for the world today, those skeptics did not include Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. </p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Larry and Sergey were always supportive," Buchheit said. "A lot of other people were much less supportive."</span></p>
<p>Today, Gmail is undoubtedly the best email product in the world. It offers 15GB of free space, which is more than most people will ever need, and you can easily access it no matter where you are and no matter which device you have. </p>
<p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/28/gmail-hotmail-yahoo-email-users/" target="_blank">In June 2012</a>, Gmail officially became the largest email service in the world, having bypassed Hotmail with 425 million monthly active users. </p>

 A Lot Of People Initially Thought Gmail Was A Bad Idea 

BANGALORE: Indian entrepreneurs have worked out that innovative mobile-based technologies race the fastest to the one-million dollar revenue mark with little capital.<br />
<br />
These entrepreneurs develop the products--including mobile applications--within a month's time and then push for international acceptance. Once validated globally, the products lead to soaring revenues in quick time.<br />
<br />
Take the case of Nischal Shetty, for instance. It took just four weeks for the 29 year old to build JustUnfollow. Through this, enterprises (and others) can find out their inactive followers on Twitter and also how many have unfollowed them.<br />
<br />
This allows companies to give their undivided attention on potential customers. The Mumbai based company has already crossed Rs 6 crore in revenue by providing this technology to eight million users worldwide.<br />
<br /> Shetty, who worked at review site <keyword id="2440589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Burrp">Burrp</keyword>, launched the firm with a seed capital of Rs 30,000. JustUnfollow charges clients between $10 (Rs 600) and $200 (Rs 12,000) a month based on requirements.<br />
<br /> The startup expects to touch a topline of Rs 60 crore in a year. And industry leaders like <keyword id="11323" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Sabeer-Bhatia">Sabeer Bhatia</keyword> are bullish.<br />
<br /> “With Indian mobile-first companies, I am bullish on their prospects to make a mark globally ,“ said Bhatia who sold Hotmail to <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> for $400 million (Rs 2,400 crore) in 1997. “The categories where I believe mobile-first Indian startups will do well are communication and enterprise."<br />
<br /> Last December Bhatia, along with mobile advertising firm <keyword id="164941" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="inMobi">InMobi</keyword> cofounder Amit Gupta and <keyword id="192167" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Qualcomm-Ventures">Qualcomm Ventures</keyword> invested $600,000 (Rs 3.6 crore) in Deck. The Bangalore-based firm enables users to make smart PowerPoint presentations through their mobile device.<br />
<br />
Sumanth Raghavendra, 40, founder, said Deck's technology also adjusts automatically with available lighting. The firm, which built its first product in four months, has gained one million users globally and is profitable. It expects to cross Rs 6 crore in revenue by next year.<br />
<br />
“These startups showcase the blend of proof of traction, superior product thinking and capital efficiency," said Rahul Chandra, managing director of venture capital fund Helion Advisors.<br />
<br />
About 88% of Indian entrepreneurs in the mobility space are building solutions that are ‘mobile first’ and not mere transitions from the web world.<br />
<br />
This was evident in a survey of 100 entrepreneurs, building solutions focused on both enterprises and consumers, done by Helion.<br />
<br />
“India has domestic market advantage due to mobile, unlike services market, they had no domestic market,” said Amit Gupta, cofounder of mobile advertising firm InMobi.<br />
<br />
Similarly, Pune-based Scandid founded by former Microsoft engineers Sushil Choudhari and Madhur Khandelwal enables shoppers do price comparison in real time by scanning barcodes with their mobile phones.<br />
<br />
“Our revenue has more than doubled after going mobile," said Choudhari, 33, who expects to achieve revenue of Rs 6 crore by next year.<br />
<br />
The company pivoted to the mobile platform last August.<br />
<br />
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	<span style="display: none;">&#xa0;</span></div>
InMobi’s Gupta said products that took two years to develop, now takes just six months due to advances in technology and rising demand within the country.<br />
<br />
The domestic market is what Bangalore-based local discovery and commerce platform Wooplr is betting on. It helps shoppers discover new products from local offline stores around them based on interest, location and through recommendations from friends.<br />
<br />
“Now you can know a particular local store on Richmond Road (in Bangalore) that sells a particular keychain,” said Arjun Abraham Zacharia, 32-year-old Wooplr chief executive, who cofounded the firm in 2012 along with his three colleagues at security firm McAfee. Wooplr now helps over half a million users across Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi make shopping decisions.<br />
<br />
“The fact that there is now a large local market for mobile first companies in India itself opens up a new vector to achieve scale domestically before expanding globally,” Bhatia said.<br />
<br />

Indian Mobile Startups Hit The Million Dollar Revenue Mark Fast

<p>It can be easy to forget that your inbox often contains a treasure trove of account details and passwords, but if a hacker gains access it can mean trouble.</p><p>Luckily password manager Dashlane has a helpful online tool called <a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">Inbox Scan</a> that will scour your inbox for these details so you can see what sensitive information is sitting in your emails - and it only takes a minute.</p><p>First you'll need to head on over to the Dashlane Inbox Scan website by clicking here.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Dashlane" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5523f38b6da811e945b85d51-960/d1-2.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">Dashlane</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Next, you'll need to select "Scan my inbox" button, select which email account you'll be using, and authorize Dashlane with one-time access to inspect your inbox - don't worry, Dashlane is only granted temporary, read-only access to your email. Inbox Scan works with Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL email accounts.</p><p>The scan itself only takes a few seconds.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Dashlane" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5523f3dcecad04eb3efc827d-960/d2-2.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">Dashlane</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Once its finished scanning your inbox, Dashlane will then show you a collection of bubbles that represent every accounts and service with information stored in your email. The larger the bubble, the more important the account is - and if the bubble is red that means Dashlane found a plain-text password for that account as well.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Dashlane" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5523f53e69bedda63ffc827d-960/d3-2.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">Dashlane</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>It's especially important to pay attention to these red bubbles. If someone were to hack into your email, they'd also gain access to additional accounts and services by using any plain-text passwords found in your emails.</p><p>Once you've looked that over, you can click on the "Security Analysis" button for a more detailed summary page that tells you how many online accounts have information stored in your inbox, whether any of those companies or services have suffered a breach in the past, and your "favorite" passwords that you use for too many different sites (pro tip: Don't do that).</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Dashlane" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5523f5206da8110846b85d51-960/d4-2.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">Dashlane</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Of course, Dashlane is hoping that you'll also choose to manage your passwords more securely with its <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/id517914548">Dashlane Password Manager app</a>, but there's no charge for using Inbox Scan either way.</p><p>Dashlane also lets you download a full report in PDF form for a deeper dive into what Inbox Scan discovered, and it's a great way to see exactly which passwords or account details are stored in your email. If you download the full report, you should delete it once you're finished looking it over since it summarizes some of your most important account information and details.</p><p>"We built Inbox Scan as a cool educational tool to make people realize how easy it was to get sensitive information from their inbox," Dashlane co-founder Alexis Fogel wrote <a href="http://www.producthunt.com/posts/dashlane-inbox-scan">over on Product Hunt</a>. "In most cases, we are able in one click to show you what is your favorite password + a list of all websites you have created an accounts on (which is a gold mine for hackers)."</p><p>Convinced it's a good idea to give your inbox a scan? You can get started <a href="https://www.dashlane.com/scan/11?utm_source=ph&amp;ref=producthunt#/login">by clicking here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-southern-laws-2014-5">Sharing Your Netflix Password In This State Is Illegal - Plus 8 More Laws On The Books In The South</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="UxaGx5bTpaCwSnOLB9dbT753uIu_qJOq" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Scan your email inbox for hidden threats with this nifty tool

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Microsoft's $7.5 billion purchase of GitHub isn't sitting well with a vocal subset of developers.</strong></li><li><strong>GitHub is the center of open source software development - but Microsoft spent the Steve Ballmer years competing fiercely with open source, and many have never forgiven it.&#xa0;</strong></li><li><strong>Some GitHub competitors say they are already seeing a rush of renewed interests in their platforms.</strong></li><li><strong>Still, Microsoft has made a serious commitment to open source, and CEO Satya Nadella has urged the GitHub community to give the company a chance.&#xa0;</strong></li></ul><p>When it comes to the $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub, <a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/msft-stock">Microsoft</a> CEO Satya Nadella urged software developers to "<span>judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today and in the future."&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>From Microsoft's perspective, and Nadella's, GitHub fits right in to the master plan: The company has been investing heavily in open source in the four years since Nadella took the reins. In fact, Microsoft is the single biggest corporate contributor to open source projects on GitHub, edging out competitors like Google and Facebook. Microsoft even uses GitHub internally to build some of its products.</span></p><p>And yet, if Nadella sounds defensive, it's with good reason, as not everyone in the tech industry loves the deal - some GitHub users are already even decamping to competitors like the venture-backed GitLab and Atlassian BitBucket before the deal even closes.&#xa0;</p><p>"Microsoft buying GitHub feels like Exxon Mobil buying Greenpeace," as <a href="https://twitter.com/martinvars/status/1003733971228905475">investor and entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky put it on Twitter</a>.</p><p>The announcement of the deal struck a nerve with developers, who haven't so soon forgotten that Microsoft spent much of the '90s and '00s trying to quash Linux and other open source technologies. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once went so far as to call open source software a "cancer," though he&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-former-microsoft-ceo-ballmer-does-about-face-on-linux-technology-2016-3">later chilled out about it.</a></p><div><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0">The Nadella-led Microsoft has spent the past several years trying to improve its image and show the world that it's a kinder, gentler company; one more willing to play nicely with others. Now, with the fourth largest acquisition in Microsoft's 43-year history, Nadella's makeover will be put to the test as he tries to convince the GitHub community that they can trust Microsoft with such an important asset.&#xa0;</p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0">Indeed, some, like long-time coder Jacques Mattheij, are concerned that despite Nadella's public commitment to open source, Microsoft hasn't really changed its stripes and will use GitHub only to its own advantage.&#xa0;</p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0"><span>"I'm sure you'll be able to tell I'm a cranky old guy by looking up the dates to some of these references, but 'new boss, same as the old boss' applies as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the new boss is a nicer guy but it's the same corporate entity," Mattheij <a href="https://jacquesmattheij.com/what-is-wrong-with-microsoft-buying-github">wrote in a blog entry after news of the acquisition was first reported.</a></span></p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0"><span>Others have more immediate concerns: Microsoft doesn't have the best track record when it comes to making the most of their acquisitions.&#xa0;</span><span>The Nokia buy turned into a total fiasco, and many users believe Microsoft mismanaged Skype since its acquisition. Now, developers are concerned that Microsoft will interfere with all the things they like about GitHub.</span></p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0"><span>"What I really love about this is that M$&#xa0;<em>[sic]</em> realize the product's users are tightly wound to the brand's identity, and are hostile to M$'s. They know they're buying a 'lifestyle brand' and that they have to keep it hip and unencumbered by a corporate behemoth or it'll become worthless,"</span> <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230632">writes user peterwwillis in a Hacker News comment</a>.</p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0">Yet another criticism is more abstract. GitHub hosts the source code for millions of pieces of software, from personal passion projects all the way up to Facebook-created app frontend development tools. Having a $781 billion company in ultimate control of&#xa0;<em>all&#xa0;</em>that software is making some uneasy.</p><p lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0">"<span>I think what bothers me about this announcement is that _anyone_ owns Github; that is, a tech giant with a lot of influence in the software world owning the largest repository of code in history. Something feels wrong about it. I'd be as uncomfortable with it if Google or Facebook or Apple owned it," writes <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230273">Hacker News user dclowd9901</a>.</span><span></span>&#xa0;</p><p>&#xa0;</p><h2 lang="en" data-aria-label-part="0"><span>Developers are doing something about it</span></h2><p><span>In response to the acquisition, at least some developers are rushing to move from GitHub to its competitors. Venture-backed startup <a href="https://twitter.com/gitlab/status/1003409836170547200">GitLab</a> and <a href="https://blog.bitbucket.org/2018/06/04/10-reasons-teams-switching-github-bitbucket-microsoft-acquisition/">$15 billion Aussie software giant Atlassian</a> both released charts on Monday showing a surge of developers moving to their respective code-hosting services in the hours following word of the acquisition. SourceForge, too, <a href="https://twitter.com/sourceforge/status/1003768887157182465">says it saw a bump</a>.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>Indeed, GitLab CEO Sid&#xa0;Sijbrandij tells Business Insider that his company has seen 100,000 code repositories moved from GitHub since Bloomberg reported the imminent announcement of the deal on Sunday. In general, GitLab says that it's seen about 10 times as much upload activity than normal over the same span.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>Sijbrandij says that for "a lot of people, this is a wake up call." While both companies are built on the open source Git technology - hence the similar names - GitLab offers a free open source version of its software, and GitHub does not. In that sense,&#xa0;Sijbrandij says that GitHub is a little hypocritical: It supports open source, but doesn't offer any back.</span></p><p>Those competitors aren't being shy about shading Microsoft over the deal, either. In particular, GitLab has gotten the Twitter hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/movingtogitlab?src=hash">#MovingtoGitLab</a> going, encouraging users to tell their stories of ditching GitHub.&#xa0;</p><p>"We compete with Microsoft across many products, and have been very successful with a unique bottoms-up business model. We invest heavily in R&amp;D to build great products that customers choose to use instead of being forced to," Atlassian exec&#xa0;<span>Jens Schumacher tells Business Insider.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>Still, GitLab, at least, isn't writing GitHub off entirely. While Sijbrandij believes that GitLab offers developers a superior tool kit, he acknowledges that Microsoft is always a powerful competitor.</span></p><p><span>"For sure, we're not underestimating it," says&#xa0;Sijbrandij.</span></p><h2>The good news for Microsoft</h2><p>When Business Insider spoke with outgoing GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath earlier on Monday, he said that the success of the $26.2 billion LinkedIn acquisition, and the $2.5 billion buy of Minecraft creator Mojang, gave him optimism that Microsoft has gotten its act together with regards to big-ticket mergers.&#xa0;</p><p>The good news for Microsoft is that several people in Silicon Valley also share Wanstrath's outlook. There's no doubt that there are still many pessimists out there - but it's a sign of the times that Microsoft has its boosters, too.&#xa0;</p><p>&#xa0;</p><p><span>"Since this decision involves our - and that also means Microsoft's - livelihood and the open-source ecosystem as a whole, I'm sure that Microsoft won't f--k this up, and it will remain the GitHub we all know and love," writes <a href="https://dev.to/resir014/the-microsoft-thing-cb">Resi Respati on the Practical Dev blog</a>.</span></p><p><span>"Hot take: What people do not account for is that the </span>GitHub<span> they love would of had to make changes to become profitable. You and the community were getting a very expensive service for free. That would not have continued forever. </span>Microsoft<span> is potentially the best outcome," writes <a href="https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1003693704614436864">popular InfoSec Twitter account SwiftOnSecurity</a>.</span></p><p><span>And for Microsoft's part, there seems to be an understanding that there's an uphill battle to be fought to win over the hearts and minds of a significant portion of the community. In a very immediate sense, Microsoft is already willing to commit to never force GitHub users into using Microsoft technology.</span></p><p><span>"Skepticism is totally understandable, but we're on the right path," outgoing GitHub CEO and future Microsoft Technical Fellow <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-github-chris-wanstrath-2018-6">Chris Wanstrath told Business Insider.</a></span></p><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div></div> <p class="tagline">Get the latest Microsoft stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/MSFT-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-vp-technologies-changing-humanity-finding-success-blockchain-2018-1">An EVP at Microsoft gives his take on the technologies that will shape the world</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's master plan is about to be put to a $7.5 billion test

<p>WHEN <keyword id="110656" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="estonia">Estonia</keyword> regained its independence in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, less than half its population had a telephone line and its only independent link to the outside world was a Finnish mobile phone concealed in the foreign minister's garden. Two decades later, it is a world leader in <keyword id="6355118" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="technology">technology</keyword>. Estonian geeks developed the code behind Skype, Hotmail and Kazaa (an early file-sharing network). In 2007 it became the first country to allow online voting in a general election. It has among the world’s <a href="http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/good_for_business/?doc=52217">zippiest broadband speeds</a> and holds the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/07/estonias-technology-cluster">record for start-ups per person</a>. Its 1.3m citizens pay for parking spaces with their mobile phones and have their health records stored in the digital cloud. Filing an annual tax return online, <a href="http://e-estonia.com/components/e-tax">as 95% of Estonians do</a>, takes about five minutes. How did the smallest Baltic state develop such a strong tech culture?</p>
<p>The foundation was laid in 1992 when Mart Laar, Estonia’s prime minister at the time,<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/319371?zid=307&amp;ah=5e80419d1bc9821ebe173f4f0f060a07">defibrillated the flat-lining economy</a>. In less than two years his young government (average age: 35) gave Estonia a flat income-tax, free trade, sound money and privatisation. New businesses could be registered smoothly and without delays, an important spur for geeks lying in wait. Feeble infrastructure, a legacy of the Soviet era, meant that the political class began with a clean sheet. When Finland decided to upgrade to digital phone connections, it offered its archaic 1970s analogue telephone-exchange to Estonia for free. Estonia declined the proposal and built a digital system of its own. Similarly, the country went from having no land registry to creating a paperless one. “We just skipped certain things…Mosaic [the first popular web browser] had just come out and everyone was on a level playing field,” recalls Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president. Not saddled with legacy technology, the country's young ministers put their faith in the internet.</p>
<p>A nationwide project to equip classrooms with computers followed and by 1998 all schools were online. In 2000, when the government declared internet access to be a human right, the web spread into the boondocks. Free Wi-Fi became commonplace. Rubber stamps, carbon paper and long queues gave way to “e-government”. The private sector followed: the sale of Skype to eBay in 2005, for $2.6 billion, created a new class of Estonian investors, who made tens of millions of euros from their shareholdings—and have been putting their experience, and their windfalls, to good use. Today Tehnopol, a business hub in Tallinn, the perky capital, houses more than 150 tech companies. Given the country’s tiny domestic market, start-ups have been forced to think global, says Taavet Hinrikus, Skype’s first employee and co-founder of <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/01/international-money-transfers">TransferWise, a peer-to-peer money-transfer service</a> whose customers are spread across Europe and America. According to the World Bank, <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/start-ups-estonia">over 14,000 new companies registered in Estonia in 2011</a>, 40% more than during the same period in 2008. High-tech industries now account for about 15% of GDP.</p>
<p>How can other countries—that lack Estonia's small size and its clean sheet—follow its example? “It’s sort of obnoxious to say, ‘Do what we did’,” says Mr Ilves. But he submits that Estonia’s success is not so much about ditching legacy technology as it is about shedding “legacy thinking”. Replicating a paper-based tax-filing procedure on a computer, for instance, is no good; having such forms pre-filled so that the taxpayer has only to check the calculations has made the system a success. Education is important, too: last year, in a public-private partnership, a programme called ProgeTiiger (“Programming Tiger”) was announced, to teach five-year-olds the basics of coding. “In the 80s every boy in high-school wanted to be a rock star,” says Mr Hinrikus. “Now everybody in high-school wants to be an entrepreneur.”</p>

How Tiny Estonia Became A Leader In Technology

<p>The stock market is at an all-time high. <keyword id="6358815" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech">Tech</keyword> startups with no revenue have billion-dollar valuations. And engineers are demanding Tesla sports cars just to show up at work.</p>
<p>Here's the evidence that we're in a new tech bubble, heading for a crash, just like the dot com bust of 1999.</p>
<h3><strong>Interest rates are effectively at 0%.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Fred / Think Progress" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/527412fbeab8ea105e5941a4-960/fred_funds_rate_1970_now_line-e1364000016225.png"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/23/1765481/how-fed-policy-could-leave-the-country-at-the-mercy-of-another-recession/">Fred / Think Progress</a></p></div><p></p></div>Before we get into specific evidence that the tech sector is inflated, it's worth restating the macro-economic context: Interest rates are basically at zero and have been for some time. When borrowers are paying close to zero interest on loans, that makes money cheap to get. This chart shows the Fed's target rate for interest since 1970.</p>
<p>People with money generally have a choice: save it in interest-paying, risk-free bank accounts or invest it in riskier assets that may pay more money over time. When interest is at zero, virtually any other kind of investment is likely to pay more because the risk-free alternative is so lousy. So investment asset bubbles get created. Stocks tend to go up.</p>
<h3><strong>The stock market is at a peak, which is exactly what you'd expect in a zero-interest environment.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Yahoo Finance / Jim Edwards" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5274174d6bb3f7614ec39d5b-960/screen_shot_2013-11-01_at_4.56.32_pm.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">Yahoo Finance / Jim Edwards</p></div><p></p></div>We've had five years of solid growth in stocks. People who have invested in stocks in the last five years now feel very, very rich. What could possibly go wrong?<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p>The market moves up and down, in cycles, as this chart of the S&amp;P 500 stocks shows.</p>
<p>We're due for a downturn.</p>
<p>(BlackRock CEO <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/blackrock-s-fink-says-there-are-bubble-like-markets-again-1-.html">Laurence D. Fink, whose company manages $4.1 trillion in assets, agrees that the Federal Reserve is creating "bubble-like markets."</a>)</p>
<h3><strong>In the tech sector specifically, there has been a recent run-up in deal prices.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Thomson Reuters / PricewaterhouseCoopers" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5274208f69bedd3d14afe9b8-960/screen%20shot%202013-11-01%20at%205.42.18%20pm.png"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/transaction-services/publications/assets/technology-insights-q3-2013.pdf">Thomson Reuters / PricewaterhouseCoopers</a></p></div><p></p></div>This chart was <a href="http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/transaction-services/publications/assets/technology-insights-q3-2013.pdf">published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers</a>, which tracks merger and acquisition activity in the tech sector.</p>
<p>It notes that "software deal volume tripled that of the second quarter."</p>
<p>The driving force?</p>
<p>High stock prices and corporate giants who are rich with cash and need to invest it, PwC says.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>It's not just tech asset prices that are high. Salaries are high, too.<br /></strong></h3>
<p>While unemployment generally may be high, in the tech sector it is very low.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="REUTERS/Edgar Su " title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5272231869bedd46187d3d08-960/rtx14tt1.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">REUTERS/Edgar Su </p></div><p></p></div>Tech companies, led by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, are lobbying Congress to relax immigration rules so they can hire more foreign talent because they believe domestic talent has gotten too scarce and too expensive. It's driving up wages bills like crazy. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/vmove">Matt Allen, a tech recruiter at Vertical Move</a>, told me recently:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">We're experiencing first hand greater insanity than the dot-com days when Interwoven Software was pulling out BMW Z3's for engineers who joined. Instead, we're seeing sign-on bonuses for individuals five-years out of school in the $60,000 range. Candidates queuing-up six, eight or more offers and haggling over a few thousand-dollar differences among the offers. Engineers accepting offers and then fifteen minutes before they're supposed to start on a Monday, emailing (not calling) to explain they found something better elsewhere.</p>
<p>That suggests that wages in tech are in a bubble.</p>
<p>Want an example?</p>
<h3><strong>Twitter svp/technology Chris Fry got a $10 million pay packet. He only joined the company last year.</strong></h3>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-engineering-pay-chris-fry-2013-10"><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Twitter" title_caption="Twitter's Chris Fry comes with a high price." class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/52741e2b69bedd580cafe9a5-960/chris-fry-3.jpeg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="https://twitter.com/chfry">Twitter</a></p><p class="caption">Twitter's Chris Fry comes with a high price.</p></div><p></p></div></strong>Fry is paid more in annual compensation that Jack Dorsey</a>, the chairman of Twitter's board and the founder of the company.</p>
<p>That's how much the price of wages has risen in the tech world. Fry is not a one-off event. Facebook's vp/engineering, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/software-engineers-are-making-money-like-professional-athletes-2013-10">Mike Schroepfer, got $24.4 million</a> in 2011, Reuters noted:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">One start-up offered a coveted engineer a year's lease on a Tesla sedan, which costs in the neighborhood of $1,000 a month, said venture capitalist Venky Ganesan. He declined to identify the company, which his firm has invested in.</p>
<h3><strong>It's not just wages that are expensive. Company valuations are rising too. </strong></h3>
<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303376904579136873973130670">Supercell, the game company, just raised $1.5 billion</a> in new funding at a valuation of $3 billion. Supercell has real revenue - $178 million in Q1 alone. But you've got to question the logic of the people doing the deal: Investor Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank, believes he has a "300-year vision" of the future.</p>
<p>Even the <a href="http://www.supercell.net/blog/view/one-step-closer">CEO of Supercell thought he was joking</a> when he first heard about it.<strong></strong></p>
<h3><strong>Companies with broken business models are highly valued.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Jason / Goldberg / Facebook" title_caption="Fab CEO Jason Goldberg" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/52742f70eab8ea5e1c5941a8-960/jason-goldberg-17.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">Jason / Goldberg / Facebook</p><p class="caption">Fab CEO Jason Goldberg</p></div><p></p></div>Fab.com, the design retailer, recently raised $165 million in new investment this year, for a total of $336 million in all venture funding. It did so despite <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/at-fab-where-they-used-to-joke-about-being-fired-workers-arrive-this-morning-after-100-lost-their-jobs-2013-10">laying off 440 employees</a> after deciding that the flash sales model - in which customers are asked to suddenly purchase a daily deal - doesn't work. It was Fab's second business model "pivot" - the company started life as a gay community site.</p>
<p>We're not saying Fab is going out of business. We're saying that Fab's backers have been fabulously generous.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>Companies without meaningful revenue are highly valued.<br /></strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Natasha Foote / Pinterest" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/50116acc69bedda227000008-960/pinterest%20cats.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/265782815478517428/">Natasha Foote / Pinterest</a></p></div><p></p></div><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131023/pinterest-does-another-massive-funding-225-million-at-3-8-billion-valuation/">Pinterest just raised $225 million</a> in new investment funding, a stake that values the company at $3.8 billion. That valuation is fictional, of course. It's based on the notion that the company could be sold or go public at that price. That price is 10 times what investors have actually plowed into the company.</p>
<p>To be clear, Pinterest is showing every sign of turning into a great company. It has already solidified a role for itself as a key referrer of online retail and e-commerce traffic.</p>
<p>But still, this is a company that currently is <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2013/05/08/why-is-pinterest-a-2-5-billion-company-an-early-investor-explains/">rumored to make only between $9 million and $45 million</a> in revenue.</p>
<h3><strong>Companies with no revenue at all are highly valued.</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Snapchat / Apple iTunes" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5204596d69bedd0013000010-960/snapchat-6.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131025/snapchat-is-mulling-another-huge-round-at-a-3-5-billion-valuation/?mod=atdtweet"></a><p class="source">Snapchat / Apple iTunes</p></a></div><p></p></div>Snapchat is rumored to be raising a new round of funding that values the company at $3.6 billion on paper.</p>
<p>This company has zero revenues.</p>
<p>Zero.</p>
<p>And it's not easy to see how it might make money: It's defining product deletes itself after just a few seconds.</p>
<p>The last time we saw companies with no revenue receiving high valuations from investors was right before the 1999/2000 dot com crash.</p>
<h3><strong>Yahoo is again paying top dollar for companies with no meaningful revenue, just like it did in 1999.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Wikimedia, CC" title_caption="Tumblr's David Karp and Yahoo's Marissa Mayer" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/51965d366bb3f73814000020-960/untitled-1-617.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">Wikimedia, CC</p><p class="caption">Tumblr's David Karp and Yahoo's Marissa Mayer</p></div><p></p></div>Yahoo recently paid $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr, the social blog network. Tumblr's revenues are so small Yahoo isn't required to mention them in its financial statements - they just don't move the needle.</p>
<p>Again, to be clear, <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20130521/how-many-users-does-tumblr-really-have/">Tumblr is actually an excellent product with 50 million users</a>. But for Yahoo to make money on this deal Tumblr will have to generate profits after sales of greater than $1.1 billion.</p>
<p>My sources tell me that with the right adtech, Tumblr could generate several hundred million in ad sales revenue over the years. But they don't believe Yahoo will ever get its money back on the deal.</p>
<p>This is significant because Yahoo does not have a good track record when it comes to buying in a bubble. In 1999, right before the last tech crash, it bought Broadcast.com for $5.9 billion in stock and GeoCities for $3.57 billion. Neither business had meaningful revenue and both have since been shuttered.</p>
<h3><strong>Companies are making dumb decisions: This startup chose beef jerky over a 401 (k) plan.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="waitscm | Flickr" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4fe1da39eab8ea8c20000002-960/6000602472_8e50029011_b.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriswaits/6000602472/sizes/l/in/photostream/">waitscm | Flickr</a></p></div><p></p></div>The <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/10/14/131014fa_fact_heller">New Yorker recently wrote</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Hunter Walk, an entrepreneur who recently co-founded an early-phase venture firm called Homebrew, told me about a startup where he'd previously worked. The company had needed to figure out whether to spend its limited budget on beef jerky to keep around the office or 401k plans for the staff. "We put it to a vote: 'Do you want a 401k or jerky?' " he explained. "The vote was unanimously for jerky. The thought was that well-fed developers could create value better than the stock market."</p>
<h3><strong>Serious investors are beginning to suspect a tech bubble has formed, and that a crash is coming.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="UBS" title_caption="Art Cashin" class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52742d1469bedd5929afe9ad-960/art-cashin-4.png"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://www.ubs.com/us/en/wealth/misc/artcashin/_jcr_content/par/columncontrol_8550/col1/textimage_3f87.1655589281.file/dGV4dD0vY29udGVudC9kYW0vdWJzX21hbnVhbF9taWcvV01BL2RvY3VtZW50cy9CaW9fQ2FzaGluLnBkZg==/Bio_Cashin.pdf">UBS</a></p><p class="caption">Art Cashin</p></div><p></p></div>Art Cashin, the the director of floor operations for UBS Financial Services, has been around the block. He recently worried that he he was seeing things that <a href="%20http://www.businessinsider.com/art-cashin-reminded-of-dotcom-bubble-2013-10">reminded him of 1999</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"I do worry a little bit that we're beginning to hear things that are reminiscent of the 1999-2000 period-the number of hits, the number of eyeballs," said Cashin, ...</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"I think if we hold to the old tried-and-true-how many dollars are coming in-then we might be better served," Cashin said. " But people are extrapolating, in some way, in a manner similar to the way they did in 1999-2000." </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"For an old fogy like me," the trend of extrapolating future earnings based on users and viewers "gets the warning flags flying," Cashin said.</p>
<h3><strong>Andreessen Horowitz is pulling up the ladder.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge" style="width:400px"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Flickr / coltera " title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4f857b2769beddc714000000-960/ladder-2.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianspenceranderson/3302906137/in/photostream/">Flickr / coltera </a></p></div><p></p></div>Andreessen Horowitz is is the <em>sine qua non</em> of Silicon Valley investor groups. It had stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Groupon and Zynga. Now it is saying it will <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/10/weary-of-fruit-fly-consumer-startups-andreessen-horowitz-raises-series-a-bar/">no longer invest in early stage consumer-oriented startups</a>.</p>
<p>They're done.</p>
<p>Andreessen is interested more in later stage and business-to-business-oriented companies. Companies with actual prospects of real revenue, in other words.</p>
<p>This, arguably, is the kind of "flight to quality" you often see when asset prices and stocks start falling. What does Andreessen know that we don't?</p>
<h3><strong>One of the most legendary tech investors, Tim Draper, thinks we're at the end of the curve.</strong></h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="youtube/2millionminutes" title_caption="Tim Draper" class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5006c7b169bedd0e5d000021-960/tim%20draper.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xB9yyd5AdE&amp;feature=related">youtube/2millionminutes</a></p><p class="caption">Tim Draper</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Timothy Draper is the founder of  Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital outfit that has invested in dozens of tech startups. He's been around since the days when Hotmail was the big new thing. He recently told The New Yorker that he believed <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/10/14/131014fa_fact_heller">tech venture capital may have reached the top of its cycle</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"I'll draw you the cycle," he said, taking my notepad and pen. He scrawled a large zigzag across the page. "This is a weird shark's tooth that I kind of came up with. We'll call it the Emotional Market of Venture Capital, or the Draper Wave." He labeled all the valleys of the zigzag with the approximate years of low markets and recessions: 1957, 1968, 1974, 1983, and on. The lower teeth he labeled alternately "PE," for private equity, and "VC," for venture capital. Draper's theory is that venture booms always follow private-equity crashes. "After a recession, people lose their jobs, and start thinking, Well, I can do better than they did. Why don't I start a company? So then they start companies, and interesting things start happening, and then there's a boom." Eventually, though, venture capitalists get "sloppy"-they assume that anything they touch will turn to gold-and the venture market crashes. Then private-equity people streamline the system, and the cycle starts again. Right now, Draper suggested, we're on a venture-market upswing. He circled the last zigzag on his diagram: the line rose and then abruptly ended.</p>
<p>"Abruptly ended"?</p>
<p>Let's hope he's wrong.</p>

You Searched For "hotmail cofounder" and got 12 results

Hotmail co-founder wants to help people find jobs through TikTok-like video resume platform ‘ShowReel’

Marcia Sekhose

Salesforce's cofounder says he was initially shocked when the company became more valuable than Oracle: 'That's definitely a milestone'

Julie Bort

Tech's ultimate nepo babies: Meet the Drapers, the first family of Silicon Valley

Sindhu Sundar

Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat have a new rival called ‘Octi’ — an app that has NFTs, the metaverse and digital coins

Marcia Sekhose

One of Google's biggest critics is launching a paid new service that it hopes will bring about the 'absolute revival' of email, outside of Google's or Microsoft's control

Rosalie Chan

A 300 times return, inside McDonald's CEO change, and what's next for WeWork

Matt Turner

A Lot Of People Initially Thought Gmail Was A Bad Idea

Megan Rose Dickey

Indian Mobile Startups Hit The Million Dollar Revenue Mark Fast

Peerzada Abrar

Scan your email inbox for hidden threats with this nifty tool

Steven Tweedie

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's master plan is about to be put to a $7.5 billion test

Matt Weinberger

How Tiny Estonia Became A Leader In Technology

The Economist

Here's The Evidence That The Tech Sector Is In A Massive Bubble

Jim Edwards

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides