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<keyword id="18635" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon" source="Orion">Amazon</keyword> has shuttered its health-focused Halo division and discontinued Halo Band, Halo View, and Halo Rise devices which are no longer available on its website. The company has also laid off employees from the Halo team.<br /><br />The company said in a blog post late on Wednesday that beginning on August 1, <keyword id="9835404" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon-halo" source="Orion">Amazon Halo</keyword> devices, and the Amazon Halo app, will no longer function.<br /><br />"We recently made the very difficult decision to stop supporting Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023. We notified impacted employees in the US and Canada today. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees," said Amazon.<br /><br />For employees who are impacted by this decision, Amazon is providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.<br /><br />In the coming weeks, Amazon will fully refund purchases made in the preceding 12 months of Amazon Halo View, Amazon Halo Band, Amazon Halo Rise, and Amazon Halo accessory bands.<br /><br />"In addition, any unused prepaid Halo subscriptions fees will be refunded to your original payment method. If you have a paid subscription, as of today you will no longer be charged the monthly subscription fee. You do not need to take any additional steps," said the e-commerce giant.<br /><br />Amazon launched the original Halo Band in 2020.<br /><br />The company said it encourages users to recycle Amazon Halo devices and accessories through the Amazon Recycling Programme.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO: </strong><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/what-type-of-steps-we-should-take-after-a-vehicle-theft/articleshow/99791067.cms">Victim of a car theft? Here is all you need to know about claims</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/maruti-suzuki-q4-net-profit-zooms-43-to-2624-crore-beating-expectations-to-add-capacity-of-1-million-vehicles/articleshow/99790060.cms">Maruti Suzuki Q4 net profit zooms 43% to ₹2,624 crore beating expectations, to add capacity of 1 million vehicles</a><br />

Amazon shuts down health-focused Halo division, lays off employees

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Public investors have long treated founder CEOs of tech companies with a kind of deference not enjoyed by other heads of companies.</li><li>But the attempt by an activist shareholder to oust Jack Dorsey from his CEO seat at Twitter may indicate that era is coming to an end, business experts told Business Insider.</li><li>Dorsey is a Silicon Valley icon and was long thought to be the only person who could make Twitter work, but the company's stock price has been flat since he started and the social network has been left in the dust by rivals such as Facebook.</li><li>As they have become more powerful and influential, tech companies in general are facing more scrutiny, and public investors have become increasingly skeptical of tech startups, business experts say.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Jack Dorsey has just lost a powerful privilege enjoyed by only a tiny group of chief executives: the status of being untouchable. </p><p>The Twitter cofounder and CEO is being targeted by activist hedge fund Elliot Management, which wants to replace him with a new chief executive. Activist firms have antagonized underperforming public company CEOs for years, often in brutal, no-holds-barred campaigns, but they've largely steered clear of tech companies with founders in the top job.</p><p>Whether because of reverence, or fear, the tech "visionaries" leading their enterprises operate under a protective halo not available to ordinary CEOs. It's the so-called cult of the tech founder, based on the mystique of names like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, and it extends from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. </p><p>But <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-jack-dorsey-ouster-ceo-elliott-management-paul-singer-2020-2">the effort by activist investor Elliott Management to kick Dorsey out of the CEO chair at Twitter</a> may be a warning to tech founder CEOs that that privileged era is coming to an end. </p><p>At a time when tech companies have found themselves at the center of fierce debates over violations of user privacy and the spread of misinformation, the willingness to go after Dorsey underscores how far Silicon Valley and its tech leaders have fallen in the public esteem.</p><p>Kai Liekefett, a lawyer at Sidley Austin who leads the firm's practice defending companies against activist investors, says tech founders are no longer immune. "Those days are over," Liekefett said.</p><p>Were Dorsey not one of Twitter's founders or if he were the CEO of a different, non-tech company it likely wouldn't be at all surprising that an activist was targeting him for removal. While the broader market has been on a tear since he took over as the company's CEO in 2015, Twitter's stock has treaded water at best. It closed at $36 a share on Tuesday, just 60 cents higher than its price at the close of Dorsey's first day as CEO.</p><p>Twitter's bottom line has improved markedly in recent years, but its sales growth has slowed and its user base remains a small fraction of archrival Facebook's. Meanwhile, the company's product development has been notoriously sluggish, and Twitter has been slow to capitalize on trends such as the "stories" format that rivals including Instagram and Snapchat made popular. Dorsey has also drawn fire for being a part-time CEO - in addition to heading Twitter, he's the CEO of financial technology company Square - and for his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-says-moving-to-africa-2019-11">recently announced plan to spend half of each year in Africa</a>.</p><h2>Dorsey has benefitted from the founder mystique</h2><p>But Twitter has had a long and often disappointing history, and many outside observers and investors have assumed that Dorsey, as one of its founders, had the secret to make it work. Dorsey is "iconic" and intrinsic to the company's social fabric, Liekefett said.</p><p>"It's almost like going after Apple with Steve Jobs at the helm," he said.</p><p>That would have been unthinkable during Jobs' reign in the late 90s and the first decade of this century. But he's not the only one to whom public investors have given deference. Microsoft under Bill Gates, Oracle under Larry Ellison, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Salesforce's Marc Benioff have never seen their positions under serious threat from shareholders. Even despite all the controversies that have surrounded them in recent year, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla's Elon Musk have been fairly well ensconced in their CEO positions.</p><p>That's in large part, business experts say, due to the deference public investors have long given founder CEOs.</p><p>"The mystique of the founder is, I think, embedded in American mythology," said John Danner, a senior fellow at the Haas School of Business at Business at the University of California, Berkeley.</p><h2>Public investors are starting to challenge tech founders</h2><p>That mystique may not go away, but the reticence on the part of investors to challenge tech founder CEOs may be starting to.</p>When Jerry Yang was pressured to step down from Yahoo's CEO chair and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-did-jerry-yang-leave-yahoos-board-2012-1">later from its board</a> by activist investors, it was a highly unusual event. But there have been an increasing number of examples in recent years. Pandora cofounder Tim Westergren was <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/27/hes-out-pandora-lynchpin-tim-westergren-quits-as-ceo/">pressured by activist shareholders</a> to sell the company almost immediately after stepping back into the CEO seat in 2016. He <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-westergren-pandora-ceo-steps-down-2017-6">resigned from the company</a> just 15 months later after acceding to their wishes and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pandora-480-million-investment-sirius-xm-sells-ticketfly-200-million-2017-6">selling a big chunk of it to Sirius XM</a>.<p>In September, meanwhile, Box, headed by cofounder Aaron Levie, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-11/box-stuck-in-a-sales-rut-and-under-siege-by-an-activist-investor?sref=nOLch4DD">found itself in the sights of Starboard Value, an activist hedge fund</a>. So far, Starboard hasn't attempted to oust Levie. But in the document it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that it had taken a significant stake in Box, it made clear it thought the company's shares were undervalued and that it might push for a leadership shakeup or other changes.</p><p>"This will become much more of the norm," said Rob Siegel, a lecturer in management at Stanford Graduate School of Business.</p><p>Part of why Siegel thinks that's the case is because of how prominent the tech industry as a whole has become in society. The most valuable companies in America are all in the tech sector, and people around the world interact with their products on a daily basis. The companies are not only more valuable and visible than ever before, but their decisions impact the lives of their users and the societies they operate in sometime huge ways.</p><p>"It shouldn't be surprising" that such companies are attracting greater scrutiny from investors and the broader citizenry, Siegel said.</p><p>Investors have also been increasingly willing in recent years to question the policies and actions taken by corporate managers and to press companies to improve their management, he said. Regardless of Dorsey's iconic status, it's perfectly reasonable for shareholders to question whether he can run two public companies at the same time and be effective at either, especially given how Twitter's stock has performed.</p><p>"That's a question that investors have a right to ask," Siegel said.</p><p>The pressure on Dorsey and on Levie at Box comes amid growing skepticism among public investors toward tech and other venture capital-backed startups. Many such companies have been long on hype and sales growth and short on profits.</p><p>"Even in rising markets, more investors are less willing to buy into - or stick with - hyper growth stories and metrics that don't translate into traditional return metrics, like cash flow," Danner said in an email.</p><h2>Founders have often been removed at private startups</h2><p>And while targeting tech founders CEOs at public companies may be unusual, there's a long history of venture investors replacing such figures when the startups they back are still private. There's long been a recognition among such investors that the visionary figures who come up with the ideas for companies often are not the right people to lead them their next stage of growth, business experts say. Venture investors often replace them with professional managers who have experience doing just that.</p><p>In recent years, even powerful founder figures such as Travis Kalanick at Uber and Adam Neumann at WeWork found themselves ousted from their CEO spots by unhappy private investors.</p><p>"Many is the founder who has suddenly found himself or herself suddenly on the sidelines of the very organization they built," Danner said.</p><p>In addition to the investor deference, part of the reason why founder CEOs of public companies have been able to remain in their roles through ups and downs is because they've built up strong defenses around their positions. More than two decades after founding the company, Bezos remains Amazon's biggest shareholder. Jobs basically hand-picked Apple's board after ousting his predecessor, Gil Amelio. And Zuckerberg, like many other recent tech-founder CEOs, including Snap's Evan Spiegel and Slack's Stewart Butterfield, owns special shares that give him the ability to outvote other investors and effectively control his company.</p><p>Thanks in large part to the amount of money flowing into Silicon Valley in recent years, investors eager to get in on hot deals have been increasingly willing to give founders the kind of control that Zuckerberg and Spiegel have enjoyed, business experts say. That's helped to protect a growing number of tech founder CEOs from outside pressure after their companies have gone public.</p><p>The super-voting power enjoyed by such CEOs "significantly impedes governance should a course correction in management be required," said David Schonthal, clinical associate professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.</p><p>Dorsey doesn't enjoy such power. Nor does Levie, after Box got rid of its super-voting shares in 2018. That's made them more vulnerable than other tech founder CEOs.</p><p>But Siegel and the other business experts think there would be agitation among activists even if they did have that power, just because of the greater scrutiny on tech companies and their managers.</p><p>"The opportunity is now greater, and so the activists are going after them," Siegel said.</p><p><em><strong>Got a tip about Twitter or another tech company?</strong> Contact this reporter via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/troywolv/">@troywolv</a>, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. 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><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-jack-dorseys-management-style-at-twitter">The activist hedge fund Elliott wants Jack Dorsey out as Twitter CEO - so we analyzed his leadership approach, where he emphasizes mission and tries to 'decentralize decision-making'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-jack-dorsey-ouster-ceo-elliott-management-paul-singer-2020-2">An activist investor is reportedly preparing a plan to oust Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and the stock is rising</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/softbank-adam-neumann-over-1-billion-in-buyout-deal-2019-10">SoftBank is reportedly giving WeWork founder Adam Neumann $1.7 billion to step off the board</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/box-starboard-value-acquisition-undervalued-2019-9">Activist investor Starboard bought a 7.5% stake in Box. Experts say that what comes next could be restructuring, layoffs, and maybe even a big sale to a competitor.</a></li></ul>

Activist hedge fund Elliott Management's attack on Jack Dorsey is the first shot in brutal new reality for tech founder CEOs who have lost their protective halo

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>HBO</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Hello!<br /><br /><em>First, thanks for subscribing. If you got this newsletter forwarded, sign up for your own here.</em></p><p>It's been another newsy week. No sooner did AT&amp;T get the blessing to move ahead with its $85 billion merger with Time Warner than it restructured its <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Media">media</keyword> properties and named a new leader to oversee them, ex-NBC Entertainment chair Bob Greenblatt. The reorg combines parts of Turner and HBO in one unit, a sign that AT&amp;T believes that fiefdoms aren't the way to compete in a media landscape dominated by tech giants.</p><p>But the restructuring comes with fears for the future of the creative and ad sides of the business and is widely expected to come with massive layoffs, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rumors-are-flying-about-massive-layoffs-at-att-as-hbo-and-turner-execs-leave-2019-3">I reported last week</a>.</p><p><em>To read most of the articles here, subscribe to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/prime-vip">BI Prime</a> and use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month. If you're already a Prime subscriber, we want to know what you think. Take our quick survey <a href="https://bievents.typeform.com/to/thLadq">here</a>: </em><br /><br />Here's what else the <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> and media team has been busy with:</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-competitor-sinemia-asking-for-tips-as-it-terminates-accounts-2019-3"><strong>MoviePass competitor Sinemia is asking for tips of $1, $2, or $5, even as it faces criticism for a spree of account terminations</strong></a><br />Here's a case study in how not to run customer relations. The movie subscription service decided to test a tipping feature just as it's been terminating users' accounts. More than 50 users who had their accounts recently terminated have contacted Business Insider in the past week, claiming their accounts were unfairly canceled.<br /><br /><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/barstool-sports-founder-admits-company-was-moronic-in-its-spat-with-comedian-2019-3">Barstool Sports founder admits company was 'moronic' in its spat with comedian</a></strong><br />Miel Bredouw said Barstool posted a video clip of hers on Twitter without crediting her, then messaged her hundreds of times and offered her money to drop her complaint. The case also illustrates how Twitter's policy for handling copyright claims can put an unfair burden on creators. </p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dicks-sporting-goods-drove-10-million-by-automating-ads-on-facebook-2019-3">Dick's Sporting Goods used Facebook to automatically serve different ads to different people - driving $10 million in incremental sales during the holiday season</a></strong><br />Most purchases are still happening in physical stores, so Facebook is trying to show how it can help retailers drive in-store sales with dynamic ads and machine learning. It shared results of a Dick's Sporting Goods campaign to show how its tools work.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-just-opened-up-ads-within-its-instacart-killer-amazonfresh-to-win-over-big-packaged-goods-brands-2019-2">Amazon is opening up ads in AmazonFresh, its Instacart killer, to win over big packaged-goods brands</a></strong><br />Amazon's move into advertising is aiming at grocery. The company said it was rolling out ads in AmazonFresh, its online grocery service that competes with companies like Instacart and Peapod. Packaged-goods brands that sell items on AmazonFresh can now run ads in search results and on product detail pages.<br /><br /><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kraft-heinz-write-down-analysis-global-brand-officer-responds-2019-2">Kraft Heinz's stock tumbled after its $15 billion write-down of its Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands. Here's why the company's global brand officer says he's still bullish on them.</a></strong><br />It's hard for legacy brands to stand out these days. Kraft Heinz is trying to give Kraft new life by associating it with playfulness, while competing with disruptor brands by helping early-stage companies get off the ground. </p><p><em>Feel free to send tips or thoughts to me at lmoses@businessinsider.com.</em></p><p>Here are other good stories from tech, media, and entertainment:</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hulu-is-improving-the-margins-on-its-live-product-through-the-vod-2019-2">Digital live TV has terrible margins, but Hulu has found a way around that with its live service</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-launches-new-learning-platform-called-mytrailhead-2019-3">Salesforce will sell its employee training tools to other companies so they can be more like Salesforce</a> <br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-jackson-doc-leaving-neverland-gets-massive-ratings-nielsen-2019-3">'Leaving Neverland' is one of the most watched HBO documentaries of the past decade</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-halo-top-is-launching-its-first-ever-national-tv-campaign-2019-3">Ice-cream brand Halo Top grew up on the internet. Here's why it's launching its first national TV campaign.</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-more-men-employees-underpaid-than-women-2019-3">In its annual wage-equity study, Google found that more men were underpaid than women</a><br /><br /></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-not-paying-taxes-trump-bezos-2018-4">Amazon will pay $0 in federal taxes this year - here's how the $793 billion company gets away with it</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

AT&T's reorg, Barstool's 'moronic' admission, and Sinemia outrage

<p><div type="image" title="FILE PHOTO: Netflix logo is seen in front of diplayed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in this illustration taken March 19, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration" height="569" width="800" msid="75298823" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Hi everyone, welcome back to <keyword id="1083886" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="trending">Trending</keyword>, Business Insider Prime's weekly newsletter of the latest tech industry developments.</p><p>I'm Alexei Oreskovic, Business Insider's West Coast bureau chief and global tech editor. This week kicked off with a very special day. Not only was Monday the celebrated 4/20, it also marked my five-year anniversary at Business Insider. It's been an incredible honor covering the exciting world of tech for BI's smart and loyal readers. </p><p>What stories would you like to see us write more about? What companies or technologies are you excited about? Drop me a line at <a href="mailto:aoreskovic@businessinsider.com">aoreskovic@businessinsider.com</a>. </p><h3>This week: <keyword id="128682" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Netflix">Netflix</keyword>'s downturn plan — cash, credit, and content.</h3><p><div type="image" title="reed hastings" height="1676" width="2555" msid="75298830" hostid="261"></div></p><p>We got our first peek at how Big Tech is holding up against the coronavirus fallout on Tuesday, and it confirmed what the parent of any quarantined teen could have told you: People are spending a lot of time on Netflix and <keyword id="6358096" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="snapchat">Snapchat</keyword>. </p><p>The two internet companies reported booming user growth numbers for the first quarter. Netflix added <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-q1-2020-earnings-analysis-subscribers-revenue-eps-2020-4">nearly 16 million</a> new paying subscribers, while Snapchat's audience increased by 20% to 229 million daily users</p><p>The real surprise was how well <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/snap-beats-expectations-for-revenue-despite-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-4">Snapchat's advertising business</a> performed. A feared ad revenue meltdown, caused by big brands and small businesses frantically slashing their marketing expenses, has not yet happened.</p><p>That's good news for all the other ad-dependent internet companies out there, like Twitter, Facebook, and Google. And indeed, all of those stocks got a nice sympathy bump after Snap's earnings crossed the wire. But there's reason to be cautious. Snap noted that its 44% revenue growth rate in Q1, decelerated to a 15% clip during the first 19 days of April. And it slowed to 11% in the most recent week. </p><p>Yes, Snap's revenue is still growing, but the trendline is rapidly losing altitude. Perhaps that's why Snap stressed that in addition to the $2.1 billion in cash on its balance sheet, it has access to a $1 billion credit facility — a reassurance that, by its very necessity, might seem concerning.</p><p>Netflix, which has $5 billion in cash on its balance sheet, also felt compelled to mention on its conference call that it has an undrawn $750 million unsecured credit facility. </p><p>Netflix also touted another notable rainy day fund, of sorts.</p><p>With film production halted throughout the industry because of the virus, streaming video services like Netflix, Apple, and Disney+ will face challenges satisfying their viewers' appetite for new content. </p><p>Not to worry, says Netflix. Thanks to a library of thousands of titles it has amassed, the company has an advantage over streaming video rivals confronting the "shortage of new content."</p><p>As far as shortages go, this one is a decidedly first-world problem. But it's also a fitting expression of our quarantined times. Netflix has stockpiled something more valuable than cash or credit. It's got content. </p><h3>Even a toothbrush needs a halo effect</h3><p><div type="image" title="Screen Shot 2020 04 17 at 10.39.07 AM" height="1466" width="2448" msid="75298833" hostid="261"></div></p><p>An electric toothbrush may seem like a humble building block for an empire. But for Simon Enever, the 32-year-old founder of <keyword id="1778892" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Quip">Quip</keyword>, the toothbrush is the bridge over which an army of products, from floss to tongue scrapers, will conquer the broader oral care market.</p><p>As Melia Russell reports, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quip-toothbrush-layoffs-ceo-simon-enever-2020-3">Quip's dental masterplan has suffered a few setbacks</a>, many of which occured just before the coronavirus struck. Now the startup has refocused, laid off some staff, and put some initiatives on hold. And Enever says the company is better positioned to get through the coronavirus storm. </p><p>As a standard-bearer for the new breed of direct-to-consumer brands, Quip is sure to be closely watched in the months ahead.</p><h3>Read Melia's full story here:</h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quip-toothbrush-layoffs-ceo-simon-enever-2020-3">Former employees of Quip, a $170 million electric toothbrush startup that cut 10% of staffers weeks before the coronavirus hit, say a range of issues could frustrate its ability to ride out the pandemic</a></h3><h3>Tech workers are sweating...</h3><p>With 22 million Americans filing unemployment claims in the past month, anxiety about layoffs is running high.</p><p>The anonymous social network Blind surveyed nearly 7,000 tech workers for BI in March and in April asking: "Are you concerned your job security will be negatively affected by the economic trends stemming from the Coronavirus?" </p><p>Those who answered "yes" are depicted in blue in the chart below. The results show a wide disparity in opinion among  workers at tech companies. </p><p>At Expedia, a staggering 95% of workers surveyed expressed concern. (The company, which is closely tied to the devastated travel industry, had already laid off 12% of staff in February.) Worries at Lyft shot up over the past month, while Facebook workers appear to be keeping relatively calm. </p><p>Check out the full survey results, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/increasing-job-security-concerns-at-tech-companies-2020-4">which you can read here,</a> from workers at Apple, Salesforce, and numerous other big tech companies.</p><p><div type="image" title="Screen Shot 2020 04 21 at 6.00.16 PM" height="1094" width="1278" msid="75298839" hostid="261"></div></p><h3>Sound bite of the week:</h3><h3><div type="image" title="Andrew Yang" height="1334" width="1778" msid="75298840" hostid="261"></div></h3><h2>"Our biggest problems generally don't have market-based solutions and the true solutions often aren't aligned with profit maximizing activities the way they are currently defined."</h2><p>Former US presidential candidate <keyword id="739187" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Andrew-Yang">Andrew Yang</keyword>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-says-marc-andreessen-essay-overlooks-key-point-2020-4">responding to Marc Andreessen's essay prescribing a surge of entrepreneurial projects to solve big problems like climate change and pandemics.</a></p><h3>Recommended readings:</h3><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-slashing-international-interns-salary-2020-4">Some of Google's summer international interns are being told their pay will be slashed by almost half – and they have just 24 hours to accept the new offer</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-ceos-rethinking-need-for-offices-and-real-estate-2020-4">Tech CEOs say they plan to scale back on real estate for offices now that they know everyone can work from home, and it's not good news for WeWork</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-jersey-cobol-programmers-coronavirus-experts-mainframe-2020-4">The governor of New Jersey is asking for urgent help with COBOL, a 61-year-old programming language. Here's why it's causing problems with unemployment systems, and why it's so hard to replace.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/firms-acquisition-targets-amazon-microsoft-google-2020-4">These 15 companies could be acquisition targets for Amazon, Microsoft, and Google as the coronavirus crisis ratchets up the cloud wars and crushes tech valuations</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/org-chart-airbnb-board-of-directors-expertise-in-crisis-2020-4">Airbnb is facing an unprecedented threat from the coronavirus. Here are the veteran execs on Airbnb's board of directors who will be critical to CEO Brian Chesky's success or failure.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-i-tracked-down-racist-zoombombers-2020-4">Racist Zoombombers attacked my friends — here's how I tracked the trolls down</a></p><h3>Not necessarily in tech:</h3><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/negative-oil-prices-mean-producers-pay-people-to-take-oil-2020-4">The price of US crude oil just went negative for the first time. Here's what that really means and why it's not free to fill up your car.</a></p><p>That's a wrap. Thanks for reading, and remember, if you like this newsletter, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/trending">tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it</a>.</p><p>— Alexei</p>Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trending-cash-nice-in-crisis-but-netflix-stockpiling-content-2020-4">Business Insider</a>

Cash is nice in a crisis, but Netflix is stockpiling content

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>When the Kinect for Xbox 360 was first demonstrated&#xa0;in June 2009, it looked like the future of technology.<p>By tracking your body with an advanced infrared camera, sensors, and a microphone, the $150 Kinect accessory let you control games and media using just your body and your voice.</p><p>But then, after Microsoft sold about 29 million of them for&#xa0;the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it just kind of faded away.</p><p>A cursory Amazon search shows only&#xa0;seven games designed explicitly for Kinect have been released since the Xbox One console came out almost two years ago.</p><p>Developers have abandoned it in turn, with no new real Kinect games on the slate for the foreseeable future.</p><p>Even Microsoft appears to have given up on it&#xa0;- the Xbox One originally&#xa0;required Kinect to function, but&#xa0;Microsoft dropped that requirement last year.</p><p>What happened?</p><h2>It looked like the future</h2><p>&#xa0;</p><p>The goal of Kinect was to broaden the Xbox 360 console's appeal beyond who you would typically think of as "gamers." Instead of playing games with intimidating and complicated controllers, you just had to move.</p><p>The Xbox 360&#xa0;had been selling very well since its 2005 introduction, but now needed something to set itself apart, as the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii were both providing stiff competition.</p><p>The Kinect was intended to be a shot in the arm, extending the Xbox 360's appeal and providing a new platform for games and content that could take it into the future. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Shane Kim once claimed that the Kinect would mean that the Xbox 360 could stay on the market through 2015.</p><p>Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer even tellingly referred to the Kinect as a "new Xbox" in one presentation.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>At first,&#xa0;everything looked like it was going according to plan.<p>The Kinect launched with tons of fanfare (and a $500 million marketing budget) on November 4th, 2010, with the tagline "You Are the Controller." Oprah Winfrey even gave away Xbox 360s and Kinects on an episode of her show.</p><p>You could either buy it separately for $150 or with an Xbox 360 in bundles starting at $299. The Xbox 360 interface itself was given a revamp to be more Kinect-friendly.</p><p>The press, especially the non-gaming mainstream media, ate it up and gave the Kinect glowing reviews. And within 60 days, Microsoft&#xa0;sold 8 million Kinects, earning it the Guinness World Record of "fastest selling consumer device."</p><p>Developers started to line up to make games for the device, too, with 17 available at launch, including "Kinect Adventures," a Microsoft-made game that came packaged with the Kinect sensor.</p><p>Most of those games were panned by reviewers: "C<span>ritics are complaining about a lack of solid launch titles for the new control system; only Dance Central seems to have anything to recommend it," said a <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/feature/microsoft-xbox-kinect-review-roundup">Metacritic roundup of launch titles at the time</a>.</span>&#xa0;</p><p>But people realized it was brand new technology, and they were willing to give it time. Even when people noticed that you needed a lot of space&#xa0;to make good use of the Kinect sensor, nobody seemed to mind moving their furniture.</p><p>At least, not at first.</p><h2>Problem&#xa0;#1: Not enough great games</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>A slow but steady trickle of Kinect games came out over the following months, but a lot of them fell into the "family entertainment" or "fitness trainer" veins, far from the core gamer demographic that made up most of the Xbox 360-owning audience.</p><p>Worse, a lot of&#xa0;the titles <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/feature/microsoft-xbox-kinect-review-roundup">got poor reviews</a>, alienating those many who bought an Xbox 360 just to play Kinect games.&#xa0;</p><p>Microsoft convinced a lot of larger publishers of marquee franchise games to integrate Kinect features into their gameplay, but they were largely gimmicky&#xa0;- I'll never forget the time my friend got a red card in FIFA 15 soccer for the Xbox 360 because the Kinect's microphone caught him swearing.</p><p>We asked a former Xbox insider familiar with the development of the Kinect why it was so hard to find any good games that did cool&#xa0;things with the sensor.</p><p>The simple answer is that the best of the best developers simply weren't interested, because they had invested so much in making their existing, lucrative, big-budget franchises work frighteningly well with a traditional controller.</p><p><span>"Halo doesn't need Kinect - it has an incredibly precise and detailed control set, and further, can't give a Kinect user an unfair advantage over non-Kinect owners," the former Xbox insider says.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span>In other words, even if top-tier developers thought it was cool, they weren't going to blow the time and budget to make it work with their existing games.&#xa0;</span></p><p>Plus, you didn't <em>need </em>a Kinect to play those games, and so many players likely didn't even know there was any integration in those games at all.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>At the same time, circa the early 2010's, those developers who were best suited to creating really new, innovative games&#xa0;for non-gaming crowds were starting to shift their efforts towards the iPhone and Android platforms, where there was cash and a rapidly&#xa0;growing audience to be found, the insider says.</p><h2><strong>Problem #2: "85% magic, 15% frustrating"</strong></h2><p>The Kinect also introduced voice commands&#xa0;and a gesture interface to the Xbox 360 itself. You could pause a movie with your voice, or log in to your account on the console by standing in front of the camera.</p><p>But as cool as that all sounded, the Kinect was still a new technology, and there were some glitches with those cool new interface tricks.&#xa0;</p><p>"It<span>&#xa0;does do magic, but only 85% correctly. When you encounter the 15%, it's frustrating," the former Xbox insider&#xa0;said.</span></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>&#xa0;Serious gamers care very much about precise movements: Landing a perfect Super Combo in Street Fighter IV, or nailing a headshot in Call of Duty.&#xa0;Similarly, if you have voice controls for a movie, it had better work the first time, or else you're just shouting "pause" at your TV over and over again.<p>In both cases, it wasn't quite the totally accurate experience that people wanted.</p><p><span>"It's essentially a less precise replacement for a lot of things which, once the novelty wears off is not valued by the market. So, it's real value is for new experiences impossible before without it. There isn't enough interest or investment in those," the ex-insider says.</span></p><h2><span>Problem #3:&#xa0;It required a lot of space</span></h2><p>Worse, the longer people used Kinect, the more they found places and situations where it just fell short and didn't work as well as it should have.&#xa0;</p><p>In my apartment, playing a Kinect game requires moving furniture around to give the sensor the field of view that it needs to work well. It's a big problem for lots of gamers, since you need 6 to 10 feet between you and the sensor. Try playing that in a dorm room or small apartment.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"I<span>'d be surprised if even 20% of rooms with Xboxes 'work well' for the really new/fun experiences," the former Xbox insider says. Meanwhile, you can sit on a couch in a room of any size and play a more traditional video game.</span>&#xa0;<h2>A second push with the Xbox One</h2><p>Despite these pro, Kinect adoption was fairly strong, at least partially because Microsoft was pushing it as part of those bundles with the wildly popular Xbox 360 console.</p><p>But not every Xbox 360 owner took the plunge: In January of 2012, Microsoft announced that it had <a href="http://www.1up.com/news/xbox-36-sales-66-million">sold 18 million Kinects versus&#xa0;66 million total Xbox 360 consoles</a>.&#xa0;</p><p>A year after later, in February 2013, Microsoft Xbox community relations head Larry Hryb <a href="https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/301142123946852352">announced on Twitter</a> that the company had sold 24 million Kinects for 76 million-plus Xbox 360 consoles, which suggests (but doesn't prove) that most of them were sold bundled with the console.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Microsoft wasn't ready to give up on the Kinect just yet, though.&#xa0;<p>When the Xbox One was first introduced in November 2013, Microsoft made the shocking announcement that the new console would come&#xa0;with and require a new version of the Kinect sensor. That meant the Xbox One would cost $499, versus the competing Sony PlayStation 4's $399 price tag.&#xa0;</p><p data-wr_replaced="true">In exchange for the $100 premium over the competition, Microsoft promised that the new system would provide&#xa0;an unprecedented user experience, including immersive games and television shows that you could actually interact with. Plus, it shipped with Bing-powered search and the Internet Explorer browser preinstalled.&#xa0;</p><p data-wr_replaced="true">For Microsoft, it was all part of its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-tv-vs-microsoft-xbox-one-2015-8">long-time ambition to place a computer in the living room</a>. With the Kinect, Microsoft thought it had made a user-friendly multimedia hub with a natural interface that anybody could use for both games and media.&#xa0;</p><p>The Xbox One's core gamer demographic hated the idea. When the Xbox One hit the market in November 2013, it was quickly outsold by the cheaper PlayStation 4 for months after its launch. At one point, the PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One at a <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/187371-ps4-outselling-the-xbox-one-3-to-1-as-total-sales-gap-grows-to-9-million-vs-5-million">factor of 3-to-1</a>.</p><p>Microsoft refused to relent, and <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/how-microsoft-bungled-the-xbox-one-launch-2015-8">doubled down on its message that the Kinect was the future</a>.&#xa0;</p><p>That message was undercut by the fact that the Xbox One only launched with one game that needed the Kinect: The incredibly poorly reviewed "Fighter Within," with a 23% average on review aggregation site <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/fighter-within">Metacritic</a>.</p><p>Further, the actual Kinect for Xbox One sensor itself turned out to only be a minor improvement on the first, with some new, but still&#xa0;gimmicky, integrations with the interface. (For instance,&#xa0;you could take a screenshot in a game by asking the Kinect nicely to do so.)</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2><strong>The final retreat</strong></h2><p>In April 2014, the flagship "Kinect Sports Rivals" came out for the Xbox One. Published by Microsoft, it was going to be a big, if belated, showcase for what the new Kinect could do. It was a big bet for the company, with a team of 150 working on the title.&#xa0;</p><p>Instead, it ended up wildly underselling, ultimately getting written off as a massive loss that led to layoffs at developer studio Rare, according to <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-19-layoffs-hit-rare-following-kinect-sports-rivals-flop">reports at the time</a>.</p><p>In May 2014, Microsoft finally relented on its insistence on the Kinect sensor, and announced that it would sell a version of the Xbox One console without it for $399 (recently marked down again to $349). You can still buy a Kinect&#xa0;bundled with the Xbox One system for $499, or by itself for $150.</p><p>The move has significantly helped Xbox One's sales, and the gap between it and the leading Sony PlayStation 4 is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-one-is-making-a-big-comeback-2015-1">getting smaller by the quarter</a>.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>But it meant that the estimated 5 million Xbox One owners who had bought their console before the Kinect unbundling are stuck with an accessory they didn't necessarily want in the first place. Meanwhile, only a handful of games support Kinect for&#xa0;Xbox One at all, and of those, only a few received decent reviews.<p>And with the novelty gone after the first generation of Kinect for Xbox 360, even the most optimistic Xbox fans were out of patience for the device.&#xa0;</p><p>"<a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-has-only-itself-to-blame-for-kinects-failure">Microsoft has only itself to blame for Kinect's failure</a>," said a headline on Microsoft news site Neowin in May 2014. The gloves were off.</p><p>The article's author notes that no new big flagship games had&#xa0;been announced for the Kinect for Xbox One&#xa0;- not even from&#xa0;Microsoft itself. Over a year later, and that's still true.&#xa0;</p><p>In addition,&#xa0;Microsoft <a href="http://blogs.seattletimes.com/microsoftpri0/2014/10/31/xbox-entertainment-studios-officially-closes/">actually closed the TV studio</a> it had opened to provide interactive TV content with Kinect in October 2014.&#xa0;</p><p>In other words, it really seems like Kinect has been swept under a rug.&#xa0;</p><h2>Not game over</h2><p>There's an interesting coda here: The Kinect has found a strange second life outside of gaming entirely.&#xa0;</p><p>Its nifty motion-tracking tech has a ton of&#xa0;other applications. In 2010, <a href="http://www.adafruit.com">Adafruit </a>CEO Limor Fried released a set of unofficial drivers to make the Kinect for Xbox 360 work with Windows&#xa0;- which allegedly annoyed Microsoft at first, but they came around and released an official set of drivers down the line.&#xa0;</p><p>From there, artists&#xa0;and robotics hobbyists started working the Kinect into all kinds of projects, Fried tells Business Insider.&#xa0;</p><p>This bizarre "PomPom mirror" art piece uses a Kinect to match your motion, for example:</p><p><div><div class="vimeo-embed-container"></div></div></p><p class="embed-spacer">&#xa0;Meanwhile, startups like <a href="http://reflexionhealth.com/">Reflextion Health</a> are using Kinect to power their commercial products.&#xa0;</p><p class="embed-spacer">In short, with 23 million Kinects sold for the Xbox 360, and at least 5 million Xbox Ones sold that included the sensor, it's a little funny, and a little sad, that Microsoft couldn't make it work as the future of gaming. But at least it's getting good use somewhere.</p><p class="embed-spacer">And when the Microsoft HoloLens, its futuristic wearable computer, comes out down the line, it's going to face a lot of the same problems with finding a niche. Notably, Kinect's product lead, Alex Kipman, is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-alex-kipman-hololens-kinect-2015-1">also responsible for the HoloLens</a>.&#xa0;</p><p class="embed-spacer">But where Kinect led with gaming, Microsoft is being very careful to reaffirm that the HoloLens has lots of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-glass-hands-on-2015-4">commercial applications for business users</a>, even as it shows off <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-demonstrates-minecraft-for-hololens-at-e3-2015-6">holographic Minecraft demoes</a>.&#xa0;</p><p class="embed-spacer">Microsoft has become wary of trying to appease hardcore gamers alone, it seems.&#xa0;</p><p class="embed-spacer">Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment by press time.&#xa0;</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/phil-spencer-on-kinect-2015-6">The head of Xbox says this one product is 'critical' to the future of gaming</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Z2dDBydTqLAHyBSMtCPcDosMvsxd3n98" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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