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<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/wework">WeWork</a> cofounder <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/adam-neumann">Adam Neumann</a> bought stakes in at least eight different startups while serving as CEO of the real estate firm, investing tens of millions of dollars.</li><li>People who knew Neumann in his role as a startup investor observed some of the same personality traits he became known for at WeWork - such as being boisterous, brash, and full of bluster.</li><li>But Neumann often took a much more hands-off approach to the startups in which he invested than he did to WeWork, those observers said.</li><li>One CEO of a company Neumann invested in found the relationship frustrating, because Neumann and his representatives were so difficult to reach.</li><li>One startup in which Neumann had a stake - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/faraday-grid">Faraday Grid</a> - failed mere months after he got involved, taking with it his $30 million investment.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-latest-wework-news-2019-6"><strong>Read more WeWork news here</strong></a>.</li></ul><p>Around January 2017, John Cole had a memorable and momentous drive in Northern California from Marin County to San Francisco with Adam Neumann, then the CEO of WeWork.</p><p>At the time, Cole was trying to raise new funding for SkyTran, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/skytran-cities-future-self-driving-monorail-lagos-nigeria-2016-5">a next-generation mass transit startup</a> that he cofounded. A mutual friend had recommended he talk to Neumann - a rising star in the startup world who was already thinking of ways to reinvent cities - about investing in SkyTran.</p><p>The long drive and subsequent conversation in a WeWork office in San Francisco was at turns tense and exciting.</p><p>Neumann was full of bravado and aggression, repeatedly saying, "fuck" this and "fuck" that, Cole recalls. He admonished Cole for raising what he deemed to be a puny amount of money - around $13 million - instead of setting his sights higher. If you're not raising a billion dollars, you're not serious, he told Cole.</p><p>"Adam Neumann is a walking stick of dynamite. He just wants to go out and kill something," Cole told Business Insider in a recent interview. Neumann, he continued, is "a very, very super self-confident, aggressive sort of person."</p><p>But Neumann seemed to get what SkyTran was about. The company is developing a transit system built around individual pods that glide on elevated tracks, whizzing people to much closer to their end destinations than traditional mass transit systems like subways. Neumann was already thinking about how he could incorporate SkyTran's system into his plan to remake cities around the world.</p><p>"He's a visionary guy," Cole said.</p><p>Neumann's whirlwind encounter with SkyTran provides another valuable perspective to better understand the man at the center of one of the business world's most fascinating rise-and-fall dramas in years. Even while building WeWork into a real-estate behemoth, Neumann fashioned himself into a kind of solo venture capitalist, hunting for innovative new companies and pumping tens of millions into <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-adam-neumann-investments-wavegarden-laird-superfood-full-list-2019-9">at least eight different startups</a> involved in everything from renewable energy to medical marijuana. </p><p>In his side-life as a startup investor, Neumann brought some of the same personality traits that he used to build WeWork into a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-business-model-softbank-ipo-risks-2019-5">$47 billion behemoth</a> - and that left it vulnerable to a <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/softbank-wework-valuation-5-billion-staggering-drop-2019-11-1028673855">massive collapse</a>. His intensity, passion, and power of persuasion were driving forces that were always on display - as were a super-sized ego, a free-spending attitude and a stunning disregard for traditional boundaries between personal projects and company business.</p><h2>A two-track process to do anything that required Neumann's sign off</h2><p>The behind-the-wheel meeting with Neumann, however jarring, was fruitful for Cole. Neumann not only decided to back SkyTran, he invested enough in the company to name a representative to its board of directors.</p><p>But Cole's relationship with Neumann soon turned frustrating. He never actually met with Neumann again. And he had to jump through numerous hoops to get Neumann's representatives to sign off on routine matters.</p><p>The person Neumann named to SkyTran's board - a WeWork employee who ran the real estate company's operations in Israel and whom Cole declined to name - didn't actually have the authority to speak for Neumann or for Neumann's family office, which oversaw his investment in the startup.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>That meant that anytime Cole needed board-level approval for something - a frequent occurrence at a startup where there are often miscellaneous papers to sign or small loans to take out - he had to go through two parallel tracks. He had to get the approval not only of the WeWork manager on his board, but also of someone who could actually sign off for Neumann.</p><p>The WeWork manager would typically point Cole to the family office. The office, in turn, often referred Cole to Neumann's lawyers. Neumann himself was "impossible" to reach, Cole said.</p><p>"It was a bit of a dysfunctional family office," Cole said. "They had more irons in the fire than they could manage. Stuff was falling through the cracks."</p><p>He ended up speaking frequently with Adi Neumann, the WeWork CEO's sister, who was involved in the family investment office - and was much easier to reach than her brother.</p><p>"It was very tough getting a board decision that required quick action through that office," Cole said.</p><p>Neumann, through his spokeswoman Laurie Hays, declined to comment on or respond to a list of questions Business Insider provided him for this story including ones dealing with his investment in SkyTran and his interactions with Cole.</p><h2>A new age philosophy and a diverse mix of investments</h2><p>In his former role as CEO and founder of WeWork, Neumann was frequently portrayed as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/employees-inside-adam-neumanns-wework-reveal-a-wild-culture-2019-9">boisterous</a>, brash, and full of bluster. The 40-year-old Israeli-born entrepreneur was also known for his eccentricity and for embracing a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-is-a-prime-example-of-counterfeit-capitalism-2019-9">New Age philosophy</a>, heavy on self-healing and showy concern for sustainability. He once <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-bans-meat-2018-7">banned employees from expensing meat-based meals</a> and forbade meat from being served at company events.</p><p>He's also long been known for his big-spending habits - and not just for the money he's invested in startups. He owns at least four homes, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-neumann-owns-millions-worth-of-real-estate-2019-7">a mansion in Marin County that has a guitar-shaped room</a> that he bought for $21 million, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/contractors-claimed-wework-ceo-adam-neumann-owed-them-1-million-2019-9">a townhome in New York City's Greenwich Village</a> that he purchased for $10.5 million. While he was still CEO of WeWork, he took out <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ipo-company-loaned-7-million-ceo-adam-neumann-2019-8">hundreds of millions of dollars in loans</a> backed by his shares in the company.</p><p>Neumann's personal tech investments in addition to SkyTran include a mobile app that lets users tune into the sound from nearby televisions, a medical marijuana company and an online forum for crowdsourcing home improvement projects.</p><p>These personal investments are distinct from the startups that received funding from the WeWork corporation after catching Neumann's eye, such as a Spanish wave pool company and a superfood company that sells "performance mushrooms." WeWork's investment in those disparate startups helped cement a reputation that Neumann - who at the time had complete control of WeWork - was making business decisions that weren't necessarily in the company's interest.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>And it's not just as a startup investor where Neumann <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/weworks-ipo-filings-show-founder-neumanns-real-estate-family-ties-2019-8">blurred the lines between his personal and business interests</a>. His wife ran one of WeWork's divisions and was given the power to help name his successor if he were incapacitated. One of his wife's cousins, Mark Lapidus, served for a time as the head of WeWork's real estate operations. Adi Neumann hosted events for the company and Neumann's brother-in-law served as its head of wellness.</p><h2>"I don't know that many people that talk about being prime minister"</h2><p>But Neumann the startup investor appears to differ from Neumann the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar startup in at least one important way. While he was consumed with WeWork's operations, he seems to have been fairly detached from the goings-on at his side bets.</p><p>That passivity seems unusual these days. Many venture capital firms boast of their close relationships with the founders of the startups they've backed. That's particularly the case with the kinds of companies that Neumann mostly invested in - nascent firms that are just trying to get off the ground and often in need of the guidance and hand-holding of experienced industry insiders.</p><p>But that's not the role that Neumann seems to have played, at least not at about half of the companies in which he's known to have invested. In at least one case, his detachment may have cost him tens of millions of dollars.</p><p>Michael Cheung co-invested with Neumann in a startup called Pins in 2013. The investment marked the first time Neumann had individually invested in a startup other than his own, according to data from PitchBook. At the time, WeWork was a young company with only a handful of locations. But even then, Neumann had an outsized ego, according to Cheung, the founder of Caerus Investment Advisors. Neumann even spoke of becoming the prime minister of Israel, Cheung said.</p><p>"He was hyper-aggressive and egotistical," Cheung said, continuing, "I don't know that many people that talk about being prime minister."</p><p>Pins developed a location-based application that allowed users to create a private list of places they'd visited and wanted to remember. The company was eventually acquired by Square. As with SkyTran, Neumann didn't play much of a role at the company other than giving it financial backing.</p><p>"Adam was fairly passive in his investment with Pins," Jonathan Bensamoun, the startup's founder, said in a message sent over LinkedIn. Neumann "just wrote a check to me early as a friend / supporter of my ideas."</p><h2>His investments sometimes blurred lines</h2><p>As with SkyTran, the line between Neumann's personal investment and his day job at WeWork appeared to blur at Pins. According to Cheung, Neumann came to his investment through a WeWork contact - Ariel Tiger, the real-estate company's first chief financial officer. Tiger had served in the Israeli military with Neumann and had gone to business school at the University of Chicago with Bensamoun and Cheung.</p><p>But he did more than just introduce Neumann to Bensamoun. Tiger also played a role in the decision to sell Pins to Square, Cheung said.</p><p>Tiger did not respond to emails seeking comment.</p><p>But Hays, Neumann's spokeswoman, said Tiger himself invested less than $30,000 in Pins, separately from Neumann. Neumann followed with his own small investment, according to Hays, who said Tiger asked her to speak on his behalf. </p><p>Some of those same patterns - or similar ones - repeat at other startups Neumann has been involved in.</p><p>His role at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hometalk-pitch-deck-do-it-yourself-diy-2019-4">HomeTalk</a>, in which he invested less than $10 million last year, according to a source close to the company that was familiar with Neumann's investment, resembles the one he played at SkyTran and Pins. Indeed, he's had no involvement with HomeTalk since putting money into the company, said the source.</p><h2>Faraday Grid collapsed months after Neumann's investment</h2><p>Then there's Faraday Grid, an energy technology startup in which Neumann invested $30 million earlier this year. According to Faraday's announcement of the investment, Neumann <a href="https://www.faradaygrid.com/news/2019/1/24/faraday-grid-receives-strategic-investment-from-adam-neumann-wework-co-founder-amp-ceonbsp">saw it as fitting into his vision for reinventing cities</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>But after taking such a big stake in the company, Neumann appears to have taken a fairly hands-off approach to it. He made the investment through his family office and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-grid-inside-the-collapse-wework-cofounder-adam-neumann-2019-10">sent his sister to the UK to meet with the company soon after backing it</a>. Although it was a personal investment, he put a WeWork employee - Daragh Murphy - in charge of overseeing it, at least for a short time.</p><p>That oversight - by Murphy and others - appears to have been lax. Faraday Grid's board didn't meet regularly, Business Insider reported, and the company's CEO was fired for alleged misconduct. The company collapsed into administration - the UK's version of bankruptcy - two months later, just seven months after Neumann's initial investment investment. After the company collapsed, Neumann's family office did step in and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-neumann-hardship-fund-employees-of-faraday-grid-2019-8">offer financial and other assistance to struggling employees</a>.</p><p>EquityBee, a startup that offers a marketplace for employees in private companies to exercise their stock options and sell their stock to investors, counted not just Neumann as an investor, but also Ron Gura, who runs WeWork's technology team in Tel Aviv as a senior vice president of product for the company.</p><p>It's unclear if Gura or Neumann have official roles at EquityBee. Gura did not respond to a LinkedIn message. Nor did EquityBee representatives.</p><p>For all the frustration he had dealing with Neumann's representatives, SkyTran's Cole said he didn't have any regrets about having WeWork's cofounder as one of his investors. In fact he credits Neumann for backing his company and understanding its vision when others didn't and couldn't. Neumann even made incremental investments after his initial one as SkyTran raised additional funds.</p><p>SkyTran is set to launch a pilot version of its pod transportation system in San Antonio, Texas in early 2020, and Cole estimates full scale commercialization could happen in three years. </p><p>But after Neumann and his family office declined to participate in SkyTran's recent financing round, Neumann's stake in the company declined to the point where he no longer was entitled to a board seat. Cole quietly asked Neumann's representative to step off the board.</p><p><em>Senior Finance Correspondent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dakin-campbell">Dakin Campbell</a> contributed to this story.</em></p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more about Adam Neumann:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-grid-inside-the-collapse-wework-cofounder-adam-neumann-2019-10" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Bullying allegations, $1,000 pens, and a celebrity chef: Inside the collapse of Faraday Grid, the '$6.5 billion' energy startup backed by Adam Neumann </a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/employees-inside-adam-neumanns-wework-reveal-a-wild-culture-2019-9" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked it</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/firing-adam-neumann-wont-solve-flaws-in-wework-business-model-2019-9" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Firing Adam Neumann doesn't solve WeWork's biggest problem: The underlying business stinks</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/contractors-claimed-wework-ceo-adam-neumann-owed-them-1-million-2019-9" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Renovation work on WeWork CEO Adam Neumann's $10.5 million Manhattan townhome led to disputes with contractors over $1 million in alleged unpaid bills</a></li></ul><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>

Adam Neumann led a side-life as startup investor even as he ran WeWork. Here's what those involved say they learned about his best and worst tendencies.

<keyword id="6355199" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="reliance-industries" source="Orion">Reliance Industries</keyword> - India's largest corporate by revenues, profits and market value - topped 2021 Wizikey News Score ranking as India's most visible corporate in the media.<br /><br />The recognition comes on the back of Exchange4Media Group's recognition recently to Reliance as one of India's Brands with Best In-house Communications Professionals 2021. Role of a vibrant and savvy Corporate Communications team is extremely important in ensuring media visibility for any company.<br /><br />Wizikey's News Score is world's first standardised metric to measure news visibility for brands and individuals using Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning and media intelligence. The News Score takes into account various key criteria like volume of news, headlines presence, the reach of publications, readership and the like. The score ranges from 0 to 100, and is based on monitoring of over 5000 publications. It represents the media presence of a brand in publications that matter.<br /><br />For its No 1 position Reliance has a News Score of 84.9 for 2021, followed by State Bank of India, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, Tata Motors. Only a few global companies like Google and Facebook have a score above 90.<br /><br />Reliance's News Score excludes standalone headline mentions of 'Jio'. The inclusion should have meaningfully enhanced the score.<br /><br />Reliance made quite a few key announcements this year across its businesses, as well as philanthropic initiatives, which played a key role in its media visibility.<br /><br />Reliance was at the forefront of India's fight against Covid during the second wave in 2021. Most importantly, it transformed its manufacturing units to emerge India's single largest medical oxygen producer equivalent of 11 per cent of India's total production. Reliance supplied over 1000 MT per day liquid oxygen to support over one lakh hospitalized patients free of cost.<br /><br />Reliance also carried out the largest vaccine drive among India Inc to administer over 2.5 million vaccine doses to its employees, their families, as well as members of society.<br /><br />Reliance announced its road map to lead India's transition to Green Energy, including four Giga Factories at Jamnagar with over $10 billion of investment commitments<br /><br />Reliance announced five key collaborations - NexWafe, REC, Ambri, Sterling &amp; Wilson Solar and Stiesdal - for critical next generation technologies and implementation capabilities to drive its Green Energy foray.<br /><br />Reliance commissioned two gas fields in KG basin and successfully conducted auctions to sell its gas to domestic consumers. Reliance is now on its way to contribute 15 per cent of India's total natural gas requirement.<br /><br />Reliance Jio augmented its spectrum by 55 per cent in the auctions held in March 2021 and emerged the largest holder of sub-GHz and 2300 MHz bands.<br /><br />Reliance launched the most affordable smartphone 'Jio Phone Next' in collaboration with Google at an entry level cost of Rs 1,999. The phone runs on optimized version of Google's Android OS called 'Pragati OS'.<br /><br />In line with its vision to add technology-led solutions to serve customers better, Reliance group also made a few acquisitions during the year. They included JustDial, SkyTran, and Urban Ladder.<br /><br />Jio-bp launched their first fuel retailing outlet to start offering additivated fuels and a differentiated value proposition.<br /><br />Reliance has been a leading newsmaker among Indian corporates in the past as well.<br /><strong>SEE ALSO</strong><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/snapdeal-ipo-paper-reveals-that-it-is-going-offline/articleshow/88408081.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Snapdeal IPO papers reveal the e-tailer’s offline aspirations for budget fashion</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/mapmyindia-ipo-makes-a-positive-stock-market-debut/articleshow/88403594.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">MapmyIndia debuts below expectation but IPO investors still make a sweet 53% return on listing</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/zepto-raised-100-million-at-570-valuation-to-deliver-product-in-10-minutes/articleshow/88394937.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Two teenage Stanford dropouts have made their startup worth half a billion in 7 months</a><br />

Reliance Industries ranked as India's most visible corporate in media

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of Trending.</p><p>We've got one week to go until Thanksgiving, and there's a lot on the menu this week. </p><p>If you're new here, I'm Alexei Oreskovic, Business Insider's West Coast bureau chief and global tech editor. This is the weekly newsletter that highlights the best of BI Prime's tech coverage.</p><p><a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/trending">You can sign up to get this newsletter in your email every week by clicking here</a>.</p><h3>This week: Michael Dell is ready for his comeback, but can he be an icon again?</h3><p>Twenty years ago, if you dreamed of being a big muckety-muck in business, you probably had a copy of "Direct from Dell" on your bedside table. The book's teachings on just-in-time inventory and the direct-to-consumer model were sacred tenets of modern business.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Michael Dell was a business revolutionary, and an icon ... kind of like Jeff Bezos is today.</p><p>The Amazon founder's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-jobs-leadership-principles-2018-8">"14 leadership principles"</a> and annual shareholder letters, not Dell's, are the management maxim's parroted by executives everywhere these days. Bezos' vision of a connected future is changing the world, while the consumer desktop computers that built Dell's fortune are a small, and shrinking, line item.</p><p>But Dell is staging a comeback. And in a poetic twist, the guru of business past has his eye on one of Bezos's trademark success stories: cloud computing. </p><p>Ben Pimentel <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-dell-pivot-reinvention-interview-cloud-multicloud-2019-11">travelled to Round Rock, Texas to meet the 54-year-old Dell on his home turf.</a> In an interview with BI, Dell described his company's journey of re-invention, taking refuge as a privately-held business and then returning to the public markets.</p><p>Dell <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-and-vmwares-new-partnership-shouldnt-please-amazon-2019-4">knows the future is the cloud</a> that Amazon pioneered. But he's betting that the answer, at least for big corporate customers, is "hybrid cloud," a combination of public clouds like Amazon's and Microsoft's and private datacenters stocked with gear made by vendors like Dell. </p><p>It's a sensible plan. And if Dell pulls it off, he'll have achieved an impressive comeback worthy of business school case studies. But it's an inherently cautious plan. Dell 2.0 is about how a business can thrive in the existing landscape rather than upend it. The new Dell is good business, but it isn't the bold business revolution of his younger days.</p><p>If you want that, you'll have to go buy "Direct from Dell." It's still available in paperback, on Amazon.</p><h3>Read the full story here:</h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-dell-pivot-reinvention-interview-cloud-multicloud-2019-11">When he was 19, Michael Dell made a smart pivot that turned Dell into a global powerhouse. 35 years and billions of dollars later, Dell explains his latest big bet in the cloud.</a></h3><h3>Adam Neumann's other job</h3><p>Imagine riding in a car with Adam Neumann, the boisterous WeWork founder, on a drive from Marin to San Francisco. </p><p>That's the situation John Cole, the cofounder of transportation startup SkyTran, found himself in a few years ago. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-neumann-startup-investor-role-revealed-best-and-worst-tendencies-2019-11">As Troy Wolverton reports, Neumann was a lively travel companion. </a></p><p>"Neumann was full of bravado and aggression, repeatedly saying, 'f---' this and 'f---' that," Wolverton writes of the rolling business meeting. "He admonished Cole for raising what he deemed to be a puny amount of money - about $13 million - instead of setting his sights higher. If you're not raising a billion dollars, you're not serious, he told Cole."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>As it turns out, Neumann went on to invest in SkyTran, acquiring a stake large enough to earn him the right to name a representative to SkyTran's board. But Neumann didn't take the board seat. Instead, he assigned it to a WeWork employee.</p><p>As Troy reports, it was part of a pattern that defined Neumann's side-gig as a startup investor. While <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/employees-inside-adam-neumanns-wework-reveal-a-wild-culture-2019-9">the story of WeWork's rise and fall is now familiar</a>, Neumann's forays into the world of startup funding provide another fascinating perspective into one of the tech world's most controversial characters.</p><h3>Read the full story here:</h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-neumann-startup-investor-role-revealed-best-and-worst-tendencies-2019-11">Adam Neumann personally invested tens of millions in startups while he ran WeWork. Founders who took his money reveal what it was like.</a></h3><h3>Keep on' truckin </h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>You may have noticed the waning enthusiasm for "tech" companies with business focused on disrupting established, physical-world businesses like real estate and cars (WeWork and Uber). </p><p>But when it comes to freight, and trucking, the road is wide open. </p><p>Convoy, a 4-year-old digital freight brokerage startup, recently raised $400 million at a $2.75 billion valuation. Rachel Premack <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-convoy-fund-raise-startup-founder-interview-2019-11">spoke to CEO and cofounder Dan Lewis </a>about the growing market, the competition, and the opportunities to bring Convoy's software to new businesses.</p><p>A veteran of Amazon, Lewis discusses some of the key lessons he carried with him in his move from Big Tech to startupland. He even mentions those famous Bezos leadership principles!</p><p>In fact, he crafted his own company adage for Convoy: "Love problems, not solutions."</p><h3>To find out what that means, read Rachel's interview with Convoy's CEO:</h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-convoy-fund-raise-startup-founder-interview-2019-11">Convoy just got another $400 million to fight Uber Freight for control of the digital-freight market. Its ex-Amazon cofounder revealed to us the next steps for the $2.75 billion company's quest to dominate truck brokerage.</a></h3><h3>Be careful what you gargle</h3><p>We'll end this week's note with a tale of mouthwash. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>The bathrooms at WeWork office buildings are equipped with handy mouthwash dispensers. It's a nice touch for tenants who may need to eradicate the lingering scent of a falafel from their breath before an afternoon pitch meeting. </p><p>Unfortunately, the blue breath gargle in the container might not be what you expect. As Julie Bort reports, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-memo-warns-about-glass-cleaner-in-mouthwash-containers-2019-11">WeWork recently distributed an internal memo warning employees not to put glass-cleaning fluid in the mouthwash dispensers. </a>The unsettling memo even provides staffers instructions on what to do if a tenant "approaches you and claims to have ingested cleaning supplies." (Answer: Protect the company's legal interests.)</p><p>It's not clear if any incidents of the sort have happened at a WeWork facility, or why WeWork is worried about such a thing happening in the first place.</p><p>But if you work at a WeWork, you might want to stick to Listerine. After all, that brand of mouthwash hasn't been sold as an antiseptic floor cleaner for decades.</p><h3>Read the full story here:</h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-memo-warns-about-glass-cleaner-in-mouthwash-containers-2019-11">WeWork warned employees not to put glass cleaner in tenants' mouthwash containers</a></h3><h3>Now check out some of the other recent tech highlights:</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jedi-means-war-microsoft-amazon-web-services-2019-11">Here are the power players at Amazon and Microsoft who will play a key role in their battles over the government cloud market, which could be worth $100 billion</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-npe-team-apps-aux-bump-few-thousand-downloads-2019-11">Facebook's experimental new apps are struggling to find an audience</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quip-toothbrush-company-takes-on-professional-dental-care-2019-11">A Brooklyn designer's startup made a sleek electric toothbrush that sold 1 million units. His next surprise will launch in months and could take on SmileDirectClub.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/virtual-kitchens-thinks-it-can-compete-with-kalanick-cloudkitchens-2019-11">The CEO of Virtual Kitchen believes restaurants are changing so radically that he's going head-to-head against his old boss at Uber, Travis Kalanick</a></li><li><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></li></ul><h3><strong>And more good stuff from across the BI newsroom:</strong></h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-new-ceo-quest-to-win-over-fast-food-giant-2019-11">Inside the new McDonald's CEO's quest to win over the massive fast-food giant after his predecessor's shocking exit</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/headhunter-morgan-stanley-facebook-tips-women-people-of-color-executive-c-suite">A headhunter who's helped execs at Morgan Stanley and Facebook break the glass ceiling shares the 3 strategies women and people of color should use to land in the C-suite</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-funding-wealth-tech-robinhood-moneyfarm-raisin-2019-11">Investors poured $761 million into wealth-tech startups like Robinhood and Goldman-backed Raisin in the third quarter. Here are the 5 biggest deals.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/toastmasters-world-champion-shares-process-for-first-place-speech-2019-11">This year's 'world champion' of public speaking is a PM at JPMorgan. Here's how he overcame stage fright and perfected his process.</a></li></ul><p>OK, that's it for this pre-Thanksgiving week. As always, I'm eager for your feedback, thoughts, and tips - you can email me at aoreskovic@businessinsider.com.</p><p>And if you like this newsletter, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/trending">please tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it</a>.</p><p>-Alexei</p><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=amazon&amp;itm_campaign=40-big-tech-predictions-for-2019-2"></a></p>

Dude, you're getting a Dell comeback story

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Imagine if instead of wasting hours in traffic, you could one day fly above it for a price only slightly higher than a&#xa0;subway ride.<p>That's the idea behind <a href="http://www.skytran.us/">SkyTran</a>, a self-driving monorail designed to hover&#xa0;20 feet above roads and travel up to 155 mph. <span>The system would</span>&#xa0;turn a two-hour car commute into a 10-minute trip, SkyTran&#xa0;CEO&#xa0;<span>Jerry Sanders tells Tech Insider.</span></p><p><span></span><span>The first SkyTran system will be in Lagos, Nigeria by 2020.&#xa0;</span><span>The company also just announced that it will launch a track across&#xa0;Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, partnering with local developer Miral. Although there's no official completion date yet, Sanders says&#xa0;there are eventual&#xa0;plans to link the track to the Abu Dhabi International Airport.</span></p><p><span></span><span>Yas Island, a popular tourist hub in Abu Dhabi, attracts over <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/business/travel-tourism/warner-bros-theme-park-to-open-on-abu-dhabis-yas-island-in-2018">25 million</a> visitors each year. With the opening of a Warner Bros. theme park in 2018, that number is expected&#xa0;to swell to 30 million.</span></p><p>"Everyone hates commuting, but there are no solutions,"&#xa0;<span>Sanders</span>&#xa0;tells Tech Insider. "The only way to get around traffic is to literally go above it."</p><p>Take a look.</p>

A new self-driving monorail will chop 2-hour commutes down to 10 minutes

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Imagine if instead of wasting hours in traffic, you could &#xa0;one day fly above it for a price only slightly higher than a&#xa0;subway ride.<p>That's the idea behind <a href="http://www.skytran.us/">SkyTran</a>, a self-driving monorail designed to hover&#xa0;20 feet above roads and travel up to 155 mph. <span>The system would</span>&#xa0;turn a two-hour car commute into a 10-minute trip, SkyTran&#xa0;CEO&#xa0;<span>Jerry Sanders tells Tech Insider.</span></p><p><span>The company&#xa0;just announced that it will launch its first-ever&#xa0;track&#xa0;in Lagos, Nigeria by 2020. The World Bank&#xa0;commissioned Systra, a global transportation consulting firm, to&#xa0;find a railway that could help alleviate traffic in the city,&#xa0;and SkyTran was chosen.</span></p><p><span>Lagos&#xa0;has&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lagos-traffic-the-worst-in-the-world-2012-10">some of the worst traffic jams</a> in the world, due largely to <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nigerian-mega-city-gridlock-great-unifier">its island-locked financial </a>hub&#xa0;and exponential&#xa0;population growth. To put things in perspective, the city has more than twice the population as&#xa0;New York City but roughly the same land area.</span></p><p>"Everyone hates commuting, but there are no solutions,"&#xa0;<span>Sanders</span>&#xa0;tells Tech Insider. "The only way to get around traffic is to literally go above it."</p><p>Take a look.</p>

These futuristic flying pods could make driving history

<p class="aboutText"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Tel Aviv will introduce a network of sky-high cars by 2016, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27995437">BBC reports.</a> If successful, the prototype will become the basis for a larger, commercial transit system.</span></p>
<p>The <span>500-meter loop of hovercraft rail</span> is a collaboration between <a href="http://www.iai.co.il/2013/22031-en/homepage.aspx">Israel Aerospace Industries</a> (IAI) and California-based company <a href="http://skytran.us/intro/">skyTran</a>. It will be constructed on IAI's Tel Aviv campus.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Image courtesy of: www.skytran.us</span></p><p class="caption">skyTran Cityscape rendering</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The system will include computer-controlled, two-person hover cars gliding along elevated railways through magnetic levitation (maglev) technology.</span></p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10924769/New-hover-car-trial-planned-for-Tel-Aviv.html">The Telegraph</a>, this will be the most substantial trial of skyTran to date. And although the cars in the test will only go 43 miles per hour, they are capable of "much higher speeds."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Image courtesy of: www.skytran.us</span></p><p class="caption">Inside the car</p></div><p></p></div></div>Silicon Valley-based skyTran's<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> mission is to "</span><a href="http://skytran.us/documents/skyTran_PressRelease-14-06-23.pdf">transport passengers in a safe, green, and economical manner</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">," intending to "revolutionize public <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> and, with it, urban and suburban commuting."</span></p>
<p>Individual tickets for the Tel Aviv system will be about <a href="http://skytran.us/skytran/">$5 per rider</a>, which locals and visitors can book through their <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10924769/New-hover-car-trial-planned-for-Tel-Aviv.html">smartphone</a>s.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Image courtesy of: www.skytran.us</span></p><p class="caption">skyTran above traffic rendering</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If the prototype succeeds, skyTran says the network be implemented throughout 125 miles of urban and suburban landscape of central Israel. </span></p>
<p class="aboutText">They plan to build more routes in France, India, and the San Francisco Bay Area.</p>

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