<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5de9329bfd9db2565a0c470c-1238/skydio-redwood-city-california-office-10.jpg" alt="skydio redwood city california office 10" /><p class="source"><span>Katie Canales/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The Skydio2 drone.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Tom Moss, the COO of drone-maker <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/skydio">Skydio</a>, spent years in the smartphone business before migrating over to the drone company in 2018. </li><li>An early engineer at Google working on Android, Moss had a front-row seat to the rise of the mass-market smartphone. But he told Business Insider that "the reality is that phones have gotten kind of boring."</li><li>Drones, he said, are the next generation of what cameras should be.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul><p>Skydio COO Tom Moss knows a thing or two about smartphones.</p><p>He was an early engineer on Google's Android team before 2012, when he cofounded and served as CEO at Nextbit, the startup that created the cloud-based Robin smartphone.</p><p>Gaming titan Razer - not to be confused with Motorola's Razr, which recently debuted <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/motorola-razr-foldable-flip-phone-solves-real-problem-by-shrinking-2019-11">a $1,500 foldable smartphone</a> - acquired Nextbit in 2017 in what was the gaming company's <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/30/razer-acquires-nextbit-the-startup-behind-the-robin-smartphone/">first foray into mobile phones.</a></p><p>But about a year ago, Moss left phones for drones when he joined Skydio's team.</p><p>"The reality is that phones have gotten kind of boring," Moss told Business Insider.</p><p>Since the inception of the smartphone, Moss said there was an interesting initial period of rapid innovation and experimentation. Form factors and screens were getting bigger and bigger, and different technologies were being implemented. But, he said, the excitement has leveled out for the smartphone.</p><p>"Now, it's like a really essential item for everything we do," Moss said.</p><p>He said consumers are more commonly driven to upgrading if they simply feel it's time for a new device or if their current screen is damaged, versus buying the next best thing out of pure excitement.</p><p>Moss had been involved with Skydio since the company's founding five years ago. He was even Skydio's first investor. And one of the biggest draws that pulled him into the drone market was the hands-off capability that drones offer users while still allowing them to document themselves in the midst of an experience.</p><p>"This is the next generation of basically what cameras should be," Moss said. "It's just flying robots that is like you have your own film crew."</p><p>Moss may have made the industry crossover, but he said drones largely wouldn't be what they are today without the smartphone. The navigation cameras used in the Skydio drones are essentially developed for smartphones, among other devices. And the smartphone industry overall has focused on bringing down component costs and pushing the performance of smaller, lighter, cheaper cameras, Moss said.</p><p>They've helped Skydio in its process of making quite the splash in the drone arena. The company's drones are able to operate fully autonomously, meaning a user can program the drone to track and film them while the drone smartly avoids obstacles like trees. That's a feat that Skydio's competitors have yet to pull off, Moss said.</p><p>And in early October 2019, the company released the Skydio2, a second-generation drone that is smaller, faster, quieter, and cheaper than its predecessor. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/skydios-second-gen-drone-a-1000-self-flying-action-cam-sells-out-for-2019/">It promptly sold out</a> within a day.</p><p>"If you can use a camera app on your phone, you can use a Skydio2 to follow you and film you," Moss said. "And there's nothing else that does that."</p><p class="tagline"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/drones-101?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=drone&amp;itm_campaign=drones-101"><img src="https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5b199f571ae66246008b4923" alt="Exclusive FREE Report: Drones 101 by Business Insider Intelligence" style="width: 100% !important" /></a></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-with-tiktok-censorship-privacy-2019-11">What's going on with TikTok?</a></h3>                    <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/evLXITG3-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;"></iframe>            

An ex-Googler who's now an exec at drone-maker Skydio said he went from the phone to the drone industry because 'phones have gotten kind of boring'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>As a <keyword id="11910362" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="florida" source="Orion">Florida</keyword> local, <keyword id="14254012" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="key-west" source="Orion">Key West</keyword> is one of my favorite places because there's always something to do.</li><li>Here are my top 11 activities to do there, from the best museums to where to go bar-hopping.</li></ul><p>Although Key West isn't very large, at about four square miles in area, it's jam-packed with attractions. From quirky museums and historic homes to world-class dining and mind-blowing sunsets, there's plenty to keep you occupied. </p><p>And did I mention the water? Whether you're lounging on a beach or taking to the turquoise waters via kayak, stand-up paddleboard, motorboat, or Jet Ski, there's water, water everywhere in Key West.</p><p>This diversity of attractions within a manageable area makes it a popular destination for families, couples, and singles alike. I've been there for bachelorette parties, my wedding anniversary, and a family reunion. While many of the attractions are tried-and-true, there's always something new to discover, too.</p><p>Based on 20 years of visiting the island, this is a bucket list for just about anyone visiting Key West.</p><div type="image" title="Sunset cruise in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92371080" hostid="261" sizebytes="158528"></div><p><strong>Sunset cruise</strong></p><p>Key West's sunsets are legendary — and for good reason. When you're located at the western end of an archipelago, there's nothing in the way to block the view. While celebrating the sunset at Mallory Square is a must, experiencing it on the water is even better.</p><p>Many tour operators in Key West offer sunset cruises on a variety of ships, including pontoons, catamarans, and sailboats. Some of the larger vessels are less expensive, but they can get pretty packed with visitors.</p><p>If you can afford it and want a more intimate experience, I suggest a smaller ship, like the sailboat my husband and I went on during our first anniversary trip to Key West. It's not a private charter, but we prefer the smaller group size. Our two-hour ride on <a href="https://keywestschooners.com/sunset-sailings/schooner-champagne-sunset-sail/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Schooners' Appledore</a>, which moors in the historic seaport and accommodates no more than 22 passengers, included adult beverages and appetizers. As the sky turned shades of pink and orange above the shimmering waters, the view was picture-postcard perfect.</p><div type="image" title="Ghost tours in Key West, Florida" height="1500" width="2000" msid="92371082" hostid="261" sizebytes="177144"></div><p><strong>Ghost tour</strong></p><p>Considering its cemetery has headstones with epitaphs like "I told you I was sick" and "I'm just resting my eyes," it's not surprising that Key West has some spine-chilling ghost tours. (The cemetery itself is open to the public and worth a visit if you're into that kind of thing.) In fact, the island was originally called Bone Key because human bones were found along its shore.</p><p>Even if you don't believe in ghosts, take a nocturnal tour of the island's oldest buildings for a bit of history and a dash of chills. Key West's colorful past includes a motley crue of smugglers, presidents, foreign merchants, writers, pirates, and artists.</p><p>While I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to the supernatural, I had a blast on the popular <a href="https://www.ghostsandgravestones.com/key-west" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Ghosts &amp; Gravestones</a> tour. The one-hour trolley ride was just the right length, and our costumed guide was both funny and knowledgeable about the island's history. She even had a "ghost meter," which kids on the tour loved.</p><div type="image" title="The Southernmost point in Key West, Florida." height="1428" width="1905" msid="92371084" hostid="261" sizebytes="139634"></div><p><strong>Photos at Southernmost Point</strong></p><p>One of the most photographed attractions in the country is the Southernmost Point Buoy, which marks the point of lowest latitude in the contiguous US. Located at the corner of South Street and Whitehead Street, the colorful concrete monument was erected in 1983 and has endured several hurricanes in the years since. It's located just 18 feet above sea level and about 90 miles north of Cuba.</p><p>Yes, you'll be jockeying for position with other visitors to get a selfie with the buoy, which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. To beat the lines, try visiting early in the morning or at sunset, when most visitors are gathered in or around Mallory Square for the best views. </p><div type="image" title="Tiki Cruises in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92371086" hostid="261" sizebytes="149004"></div><p><strong>Cruisin' Tikis Key West</strong></p><p>The slogan of <a href="https://www.cruisintikiskeywest.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Cruisin' Tikis Key West</a> is "Why go bar hopping when you can hop on a bar?" And I can't argue with that logic. It combines the best of land and sea. On this floating, motorized Tiki bar, your host plays double duty as captain and bartender as you and five other passengers enjoy a morning or sunset tour. </p><p>Note that it's BYOB: The tiki boat provides coolers, water, sodas, and cups, so bring your favorite adult beverages, and let the good times roll. You can even blast your choice of tunes on the Bluetooth radio. (May we suggest the Radio Margaritaville channel on SiriusXM?)</p><p>Your best bet is the 120-minute sunset cruise, gliding past the historic seaport, Sunset Pier, and Mallory Square en route to your front-row seat for the main attraction: the sunset. Keep an eye out for the green flash, a rare phenomenon in which a burst of green light appears just as the sun slips below the horizon.</p><div type="image" title="Shopping for local goods in Key West, Florida." height="1333" width="1778" msid="92371088" hostid="261" sizebytes="388324"></div><p><strong>Shop locally made goods</strong></p><p>Take it from this shopaholic: Although Duval Street is lined with souvenir shops hawking cheap T-shirts, there's good shopping to be found in Key West. You just need to know where to look. </p><p>One of the most popular retailers on the island is <a href="https://kinosandals.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Kino Sandals</a>, where Cuban immigrant Roberto "Kino" Lopez and his family have been handcrafting affordable footwear since 1966. Other goods handmade on the island can be found at <a href="https://www.keywestpottery.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Pottery</a>, where Adam Russell and Kelly Lever create functional vessels as well as fine-art pieces with a modern take on the coastal aesthetic. The coffee mug I bought there is my go-to.</p><p>Of course, you'll find Key lime-flavored everything throughout Key West — think hot sauces, hard candies, fudge, and even wines — but my favorite is the frozen Key lime pie on a stick, dipped in chocolate. Several shops sell these, but <a href="https://www.keylimeshop.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe</a> makes some of the best. Wash down your snacks by sampling locally produced spirits at <a href="https://www.keywestlegalrum.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West's First Legal Rum Distillery</a> or <a href="https://www.papaspilar.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Papa's Pilar Rum Distillery</a>.</p><p>Finally, the <a href="https://keysartisanmarket.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Artisan Market</a> at Higgs Beach, open from November to April, features books by local authors, original art, handmade jewelry, and more.</p><div type="image" title="Audubon House in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92371090" hostid="261" sizebytes="527746"></div><p><strong>Audubon House and Tropical Garden</strong></p><p>Equal parts historic home, gallery, and botanical garden, the <a href="https://audubonhouse.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Audubon House and Tropical Garden</a> wasn't the residence of the famed bird painter John James Audubon. He did work at the home, though, which was built in the 1840s and has been historically restored and preserved. </p><p>Located in Old Town, the two-story house is in the American classic revival style, complete with lime-green shutters and spacious porches. Walking inside is like stepping into a time warp, thanks to the period-specific furniture, dishes, and clothing, while some of Audubon's original lithographs and watercolors grace the walls.</p><p>Outside, guests can stroll through the lush botanical gardens, admiring the koi pond and historic outdoor kitchen, and pursue the Audubon House Gallery. If you're tempted to purchase one of the limited-edition works by Audubon, framing services are available on site.</p><div type="image" title="Mallory Square in Key West, Florida" height="1332" width="1776" msid="92371092" hostid="261" sizebytes="136292"></div><p><strong>Mallory Square Sunset Celebration</strong></p><p>Every night is a party at Mallory Square, a waterfront plaza near the end of Duval Street on the northwest corner of the island. Since much of the island's waterfront is occupied by resorts, this is a prime spot for the public to gather for Key West's legendary sunsets and the <a href="https://www.mallorysquare.com/sunset-celebration/">Mallory Square Sunset Celebration</a>.</p><p>About two hours before sunset, street performers, musicians, and artists set up shop. (Don't miss Dominique the Cat Man and his feline circus.) Vendors at small booths and carts offer artisanal crafts and refreshments, like Key limeade. You can even get a tarot-card reading. While touristy, the vibe is laid-back, funky, and truly one of a kind.</p><p>If you want to cheers the sunset with your fellow revelers, I recommend buying a drink before you get to the square. While there are drink vendors onsite, the prices are high and the lines long.</p><div type="image" title="Harry S. Truman in Key West, Florida" height="1500" width="2000" msid="92371094" hostid="261" sizebytes="629102"></div><p><strong>Harry S. Truman Little White House</strong></p><p>Despite its name, the <a href="https://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Harry S. Truman Little White House</a> has hosted six presidents — William Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton — not just the 33rd. But Truman spent the most time there — 175 days of his presidency — after doctors advised him to relocate to a warmer climate for his health. While he attended to serious matters during his time there, like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, he had his share of fun, too, hosting fishing trips and playing poker with Cabinet members.</p><p>His custom-made poker table is among original furniture on view at the Little White House, alongside exhibits on the life and times of the president who decided to drop the atomic bomb. History buffs won't want to pass up the guided tour of Florida's only presidential museum, which was built in 1890.</p><p>During my first visit, I almost left without checking out the onsite botanical gardens until a guide pointed them out. Enclosed by the original wrought-iron fence from 1890, the one-acre garden is currently being restored to the way it looked in 1949.</p><div type="image" title="Hemingway's home in Key West, Florida." height="1200" width="1600" msid="92371096" hostid="261" sizebytes="411498"></div><p><strong>Hemingway Home and Museum</strong></p><p>While waiting on a car being delivered from Cuba, Ernest Hemingway (aka Papa) was stuck on Key West for a few weeks. Although he was eager to leave at first, he fell in love with the island, living there from 1928 to 1939.</p><p>Built in 1951, the <a href="https://www.hemingwayhome.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hemingway Home and Museum</a> is where he lived for the majority of his stay in Key West, and, today, it serves as a monument to the legendary writer and renaissance man. The Spanish colonial house stands out among the Key West-style homes on the island, boasting bright-yellow shutters, plentiful arched windows, and ornate wrought-iron railings on its second-floor wraparound balcony.</p><p>The Spanish theme continues inside, where much of Hemingway's collection of 17th- and 18th-century furniture remains. While other highlights include Papa's writing studio, the 80,784-gallon pool, and urinal from Sloppy Joe's bar, the estate may be best known for its polydactyl (six-toed) cats. </p><p>The felines, which descended from Snow White, Hemingway's six-toed pet, roam freely throughout the property. The author named his cats after famous people of the time, like Tennessee Williams and Clark Gable, and that tradition continues today. To learn more about the famed felines, download the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hemingway-cats/id1176245994" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hemingway Cats app</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Bar hopping Duval Street in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92371098" hostid="261" sizebytes="399962"></div><p><strong>Bar-hop Duval Street</strong></p><p>Akin to New Orleans' Bourbon Street, Duval Street is the main drag in Key West's Old Town. By day, tourists shop for souvenirs and eat ice cream; by night, drunken revelers order beers and groove to live music.</p><p>While touristy, bar-hopping down and around Duval Street is a must, where the famous bars serve shots with a chaser of history. For example, everyone knows that <a href="https://sloppyjoes.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Sloppy Joe's</a> is a Key West landmark. But what they might not know is that the original Sloppy Joe's was located where <a href="https://capttonyestore.com/shop/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Capt. Tony's Saloon</a> is today. Claiming to be the oldest bar in Florida, its list of famous patrons includes Williams, Truman Capote, and Hemingway, who met his third wife there.</p><p>Other options I recommend on and around Duval include <a href="https://fogartysofkeywest.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Flying Monkeys Saloon</a> for 20 frozen drink varieties; <a href="https://www.hogsbreath.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hog's Breath Saloon</a> for live music, including nationally known bands; <a href="https://irishkevins.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Irish Kevin's</a> for a classic pub setting and Irish fare; Mary Ellen's Bar for the drunken spelling bee; and <a href="https://www.twofriends.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Two Friends Patio</a> for their famous Bloody Marys. If you're feeling bold, check out <a href="https://bullkeywest.com/garden-of-eden" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Garden of Eden</a>, a clothing-optional adventure on a rooftop above the Bull &amp; Whistle bar. (I wore a bikini top and shorts. That was the extent of my foray into exhibitionism.)</p><p>Keep in mind that a lot of Key West's famous (or infamous) watering holes are dive bars. But that's part of the charm.</p><div type="image" title="Dry Tortugas" height="4689" width="6253" msid="92371100" hostid="261" sizebytes="2273068"></div><p><strong>Dry Tortugas National Park</strong></p><p>Yes, you'll invest most of a day on an excursion to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/drto/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Dry Tortugas National Park</a>, but it's well worth the trip — and many visitors have no clue it's there. About a 2.5-hour boat ride (or 70 miles) from Key West, the Dry Tortugas is a group of seven keys surrounded by crystalline water. They're located along a major shipping channel and thus have a colorful history of Spanish explorers and merchants plying the waters there.</p><p>Today, visitors can visit the historic Fort Jefferson, which was built between 1846 and 1875 to guard the United States' gateway to the Gulf of Mexico. The park is also lauded for its excellent diving and snorkeling opportunities, including the Little Africa reef, known for its large coral formations, and the Windjammer shipwreck.</p><p>But you'll have to pay to get there, and make sure to book in advance. Options for reaching Dry Tortugas include charters from private tour operators as well as the popular Yankee Freedom ferry. The ticket price for the latter includes breakfast and lunch, snorkeling equipment, a narrated tour of the fort, and the park entry fee.</p><p>Based on my visits there, I suggest going between November and April as the winds aren't as strong during this time of year, making for calmer waters — which divers and seasick-prone ferry passengers will appreciate.</p><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-traveling-to-key-west-florida"><em>View Insider's comprehensive guide to visiting Key West, Florida</em><em>.</em></a></p>

Key West is tiny but packed with things to do — here 11 activities that locals say you can't miss, from boozy Tiki cruises to spooky ghost tours

<ul class="summary-list"><li>As a <keyword id="11910362" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="florida" source="Orion">Florida</keyword> local, <keyword id="14254012" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="key-west" source="Orion">Key West</keyword> is one of my favorite places because there's always something to do.</li><li>Here are my top 11 activities to do there, from the best museums to where to go bar-hopping.</li></ul><p>Although Key West isn't very large, at about four square miles in area, it's jam-packed with attractions. From quirky museums and historic homes to world-class dining and mind-blowing sunsets, there's plenty to keep you occupied. </p><p>And did I mention the water? Whether you're lounging on a beach or taking to the turquoise waters via kayak, stand-up paddleboard, motorboat, or Jet Ski, there's water, water everywhere in Key West.</p><p>This diversity of attractions within a manageable area makes it a popular destination for families, couples, and singles alike. I've been there for bachelorette parties, my wedding anniversary, and a family reunion. While many of the attractions are tried-and-true, there's always something new to discover, too.</p><p>Based on 20 years of visiting the island, this is a bucket list for just about anyone visiting Key West.</p><div type="image" title="Sunset cruise in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92366069" hostid="261" sizebytes="158528"></div><p><strong>Sunset cruise</strong></p><p>Key West's sunsets are legendary — and for good reason. When you're located at the western end of an archipelago, there's nothing in the way to block the view. While celebrating the sunset at Mallory Square is a must, experiencing it on the water is even better.</p><p>Many tour operators in Key West offer sunset cruises on a variety of ships, including pontoons, catamarans, and sailboats. Some of the larger vessels are less expensive, but they can get pretty packed with visitors.</p><p>If you can afford it and want a more intimate experience, I suggest a smaller ship, like the sailboat my husband and I went on during our first anniversary trip to Key West. It's not a private charter, but we prefer the smaller group size. Our two-hour ride on <a href="https://keywestschooners.com/sunset-sailings/schooner-champagne-sunset-sail/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Schooners' Appledore</a>, which moors in the historic seaport and accommodates no more than 22 passengers, included adult beverages and appetizers. As the sky turned shades of pink and orange above the shimmering waters, the view was picture-postcard perfect.</p><div type="image" title="Ghost tours in Key West, Florida" height="1500" width="2000" msid="92366070" hostid="261" sizebytes="177144"></div><p><strong>Ghost tour</strong></p><p>Considering its cemetery has headstones with epitaphs like "I told you I was sick" and "I'm just resting my eyes," it's not surprising that Key West has some spine-chilling ghost tours. (The cemetery itself is open to the public and worth a visit if you're into that kind of thing.) In fact, the island was originally called Bone Key because human bones were found along its shore.</p><p>Even if you don't believe in ghosts, take a nocturnal tour of the island's oldest buildings for a bit of history and a dash of chills. Key West's colorful past includes a motley crue of smugglers, presidents, foreign merchants, writers, pirates, and artists.</p><p>While I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to the supernatural, I had a blast on the popular <a href="https://www.ghostsandgravestones.com/key-west" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Ghosts &amp; Gravestones</a> tour. The one-hour trolley ride was just the right length, and our costumed guide was both funny and knowledgeable about the island's history. She even had a "ghost meter," which kids on the tour loved.</p><div type="image" title="The Southernmost point in Key West, Florida." height="1428" width="1905" msid="92366072" hostid="261" sizebytes="139634"></div><p><strong>Photos at Southernmost Point</strong></p><p>One of the most photographed attractions in the country is the Southernmost Point Buoy, which marks the point of lowest latitude in the contiguous US. Located at the corner of South Street and Whitehead Street, the colorful concrete monument was erected in 1983 and has endured several hurricanes in the years since. It's located just 18 feet above sea level and about 90 miles north of Cuba.</p><p>Yes, you'll be jockeying for position with other visitors to get a selfie with the buoy, which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. To beat the lines, try visiting early in the morning or at sunset, when most visitors are gathered in or around Mallory Square for the best views. </p><div type="image" title="Tiki Cruises in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92366073" hostid="261" sizebytes="149004"></div><p><strong>Cruisin' Tikis Key West</strong></p><p>The slogan of <a href="https://www.cruisintikiskeywest.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Cruisin' Tikis Key West</a> is "Why go bar hopping when you can hop on a bar?" And I can't argue with that logic. It combines the best of land and sea. On this floating, motorized Tiki bar, your host plays double duty as captain and bartender as you and five other passengers enjoy a morning or sunset tour. </p><p>Note that it's BYOB: The tiki boat provides coolers, water, sodas, and cups, so bring your favorite adult beverages, and let the good times roll. You can even blast your choice of tunes on the Bluetooth radio. (May we suggest the Radio Margaritaville channel on SiriusXM?)</p><p>Your best bet is the 120-minute sunset cruise, gliding past the historic seaport, Sunset Pier, and Mallory Square en route to your front-row seat for the main attraction: the sunset. Keep an eye out for the green flash, a rare phenomenon in which a burst of green light appears just as the sun slips below the horizon.</p><div type="image" title="Shopping for local goods in Key West, Florida." height="1333" width="1778" msid="92366074" hostid="261" sizebytes="388324"></div><p><strong>Shop locally made goods</strong></p><p>Take it from this shopaholic: Although Duval Street is lined with souvenir shops hawking cheap T-shirts, there's good shopping to be found in Key West. You just need to know where to look. </p><p>One of the most popular retailers on the island is <a href="https://kinosandals.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Kino Sandals</a>, where Cuban immigrant Roberto "Kino" Lopez and his family have been handcrafting affordable footwear since 1966. Other goods handmade on the island can be found at <a href="https://www.keywestpottery.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Pottery</a>, where Adam Russell and Kelly Lever create functional vessels as well as fine-art pieces with a modern take on the coastal aesthetic. The coffee mug I bought there is my go-to.</p><p>Of course, you'll find Key lime-flavored everything throughout Key West — think hot sauces, hard candies, fudge, and even wines — but my favorite is the frozen Key lime pie on a stick, dipped in chocolate. Several shops sell these, but <a href="https://www.keylimeshop.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe</a> makes some of the best. Wash down your snacks by sampling locally produced spirits at <a href="https://www.keywestlegalrum.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West's First Legal Rum Distillery</a> or <a href="https://www.papaspilar.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Papa's Pilar Rum Distillery</a>.</p><p>Finally, the <a href="https://keysartisanmarket.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Key West Artisan Market</a> at Higgs Beach, open from November to April, features books by local authors, original art, handmade jewelry, and more.</p><div type="image" title="Audubon House in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92366075" hostid="261" sizebytes="527746"></div><p><strong>Audubon House and Tropical Garden</strong></p><p>Equal parts historic home, gallery, and botanical garden, the <a href="https://audubonhouse.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Audubon House and Tropical Garden</a> wasn't the residence of the famed bird painter John James Audubon. He did work at the home, though, which was built in the 1840s and has been historically restored and preserved. </p><p>Located in Old Town, the two-story house is in the American classic revival style, complete with lime-green shutters and spacious porches. Walking inside is like stepping into a time warp, thanks to the period-specific furniture, dishes, and clothing, while some of Audubon's original lithographs and watercolors grace the walls.</p><p>Outside, guests can stroll through the lush botanical gardens, admiring the koi pond and historic outdoor kitchen, and pursue the Audubon House Gallery. If you're tempted to purchase one of the limited-edition works by Audubon, framing services are available on site.</p><div type="image" title="Mallory Square in Key West, Florida" height="1332" width="1776" msid="92366078" hostid="261" sizebytes="136292"></div><p><strong>Mallory Square Sunset Celebration</strong></p><p>Every night is a party at Mallory Square, a waterfront plaza near the end of Duval Street on the northwest corner of the island. Since much of the island's waterfront is occupied by resorts, this is a prime spot for the public to gather for Key West's legendary sunsets and the <a href="https://www.mallorysquare.com/sunset-celebration/">Mallory Square Sunset Celebration</a>.</p><p>About two hours before sunset, street performers, musicians, and artists set up shop. (Don't miss Dominique the Cat Man and his feline circus.) Vendors at small booths and carts offer artisanal crafts and refreshments, like Key limeade. You can even get a tarot-card reading. While touristy, the vibe is laid-back, funky, and truly one of a kind.</p><p>If you want to cheers the sunset with your fellow revelers, I recommend buying a drink before you get to the square. While there are drink vendors onsite, the prices are high and the lines long.</p><div type="image" title="Harry S. Truman in Key West, Florida" height="1500" width="2000" msid="92366080" hostid="261" sizebytes="629102"></div><p><strong>Harry S. Truman Little White House</strong></p><p>Despite its name, the <a href="https://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Harry S. Truman Little White House</a> has hosted six presidents — William Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton — not just the 33rd. But Truman spent the most time there — 175 days of his presidency — after doctors advised him to relocate to a warmer climate for his health. While he attended to serious matters during his time there, like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, he had his share of fun, too, hosting fishing trips and playing poker with Cabinet members.</p><p>His custom-made poker table is among original furniture on view at the Little White House, alongside exhibits on the life and times of the president who decided to drop the atomic bomb. History buffs won't want to pass up the guided tour of Florida's only presidential museum, which was built in 1890.</p><p>During my first visit, I almost left without checking out the onsite botanical gardens until a guide pointed them out. Enclosed by the original wrought-iron fence from 1890, the one-acre garden is currently being restored to the way it looked in 1949.</p><div type="image" title="Hemingway's home in Key West, Florida." height="1200" width="1600" msid="92366084" hostid="261" sizebytes="411498"></div><p><strong>Hemingway Home and Museum</strong></p><p>While waiting on a car being delivered from Cuba, Ernest Hemingway (aka Papa) was stuck on Key West for a few weeks. Although he was eager to leave at first, he fell in love with the island, living there from 1928 to 1939.</p><p>Built in 1951, the <a href="https://www.hemingwayhome.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hemingway Home and Museum</a> is where he lived for the majority of his stay in Key West, and, today, it serves as a monument to the legendary writer and renaissance man. The Spanish colonial house stands out among the Key West-style homes on the island, boasting bright-yellow shutters, plentiful arched windows, and ornate wrought-iron railings on its second-floor wraparound balcony.</p><p>The Spanish theme continues inside, where much of Hemingway's collection of 17th- and 18th-century furniture remains. While other highlights include Papa's writing studio, the 80,784-gallon pool, and urinal from Sloppy Joe's bar, the estate may be best known for its polydactyl (six-toed) cats. </p><p>The felines, which descended from Snow White, Hemingway's six-toed pet, roam freely throughout the property. The author named his cats after famous people of the time, like Tennessee Williams and Clark Gable, and that tradition continues today. To learn more about the famed felines, download the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hemingway-cats/id1176245994" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hemingway Cats app</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Bar hopping Duval Street in Key West, Florida" height="1333" width="1778" msid="92366087" hostid="261" sizebytes="399962"></div><p><strong>Bar-hop Duval Street</strong></p><p>Akin to New Orleans' Bourbon Street, Duval Street is the main drag in Key West's Old Town. By day, tourists shop for souvenirs and eat ice cream; by night, drunken revelers order beers and groove to live music.</p><p>While touristy, bar-hopping down and around Duval Street is a must, where the famous bars serve shots with a chaser of history. For example, everyone knows that <a href="https://sloppyjoes.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Sloppy Joe's</a> is a Key West landmark. But what they might not know is that the original Sloppy Joe's was located where <a href="https://capttonyestore.com/shop/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Capt. Tony's Saloon</a> is today. Claiming to be the oldest bar in Florida, its list of famous patrons includes Williams, Truman Capote, and Hemingway, who met his third wife there.</p><p>Other options I recommend on and around Duval include <a href="https://fogartysofkeywest.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Flying Monkeys Saloon</a> for 20 frozen drink varieties; <a href="https://www.hogsbreath.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Hog's Breath Saloon</a> for live music, including nationally known bands; <a href="https://irishkevins.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Irish Kevin's</a> for a classic pub setting and Irish fare; Mary Ellen's Bar for the drunken spelling bee; and <a href="https://www.twofriends.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Two Friends Patio</a> for their famous Bloody Marys. If you're feeling bold, check out <a href="https://bullkeywest.com/garden-of-eden" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Garden of Eden</a>, a clothing-optional adventure on a rooftop above the Bull &amp; Whistle bar. (I wore a bikini top and shorts. That was the extent of my foray into exhibitionism.)</p><p>Keep in mind that a lot of Key West's famous (or infamous) watering holes are dive bars. But that's part of the charm.</p><div type="image" title="Dry Tortugas" height="4689" width="6253" msid="92366088" hostid="261" sizebytes="2273068"></div><p><strong>Dry Tortugas National Park</strong></p><p>Yes, you'll invest most of a day on an excursion to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/drto/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Dry Tortugas National Park</a>, but it's well worth the trip — and many visitors have no clue it's there. About a 2.5-hour boat ride (or 70 miles) from Key West, the Dry Tortugas is a group of seven keys surrounded by crystalline water. They're located along a major shipping channel and thus have a colorful history of Spanish explorers and merchants plying the waters there.</p><p>Today, visitors can visit the historic Fort Jefferson, which was built between 1846 and 1875 to guard the United States' gateway to the Gulf of Mexico. The park is also lauded for its excellent diving and snorkeling opportunities, including the Little Africa reef, known for its large coral formations, and the Windjammer shipwreck.</p><p>But you'll have to pay to get there, and make sure to book in advance. Options for reaching Dry Tortugas include charters from private tour operators as well as the popular Yankee Freedom ferry. The ticket price for the latter includes breakfast and lunch, snorkeling equipment, a narrated tour of the fort, and the park entry fee.</p><p>Based on my visits there, I suggest going between November and April as the winds aren't as strong during this time of year, making for calmer waters — which divers and seasick-prone ferry passengers will appreciate.</p><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-traveling-to-key-west-florida"><em>View Insider's comprehensive guide to visiting Key West, Florida</em><em>.</em></a></p>

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c06a776e60d4f69d140948b-2133/cal-henderson-slack-ignition.jpg" border="0" alt="cal henderson slack ignition.JPG" data-mce-source="Jin S. Lee" data-mce-caption="Slack CTO Cal Henderson speaks at Business Insider's IGNITION conference in December, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Jin S. Lee</span></p><p class="caption">Slack CTO Cal Henderson speaks at Business Insider's IGNITION conference in December, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Cal Henderson, CTO of workplace messaging app <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/slack">Slack</a>, spoke about the future of work at Business Insider's IGNITION 2018 conference.</strong></li><li>No matter how much things change at work in the next 10 or 20 years, he said, we're all still going to have to work with other people - so people skills will be crucial.</li><li><strong>Read more coverage from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/ignition-2018">IGNITION 2018</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>No one can predict the future.</p><p>"We overestimate change over the next five years, and massively underestimate it over the next 10," said Slack CTO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-cal-henderson-microsoft-becoming-biggest-competitor-2018-12">Cal Henderson</a> at Business Insider's IGNITION conference, when asked about his thoughts on the future of the internet, and what that will mean for the workplace.</p><p>"I feel fairly strongly that we're not going to be in a super VR future in the next ten years, that people at their desks in the workplace aren't going to be wearing VR headsets and shouting at Alexa," he continued. "But it's hard to imagine how it is going to evolve."</p><p>Henderson pointed to the shift to mobile in the workplace, which he said happened "really, really quickly." At first, he said, it was "a constant drumbeat of next year is going to be the year of mobile internet, and that just seemed so dumb - and then suddenly everybody is working in both modes."</p><p>Before working with now-Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield to build photo sharing site Flickr (which was ultimately sold to Yahoo) and pursuing a few different <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-cto-cal-henderson-failed-startups-flickr-yahoo-slack-7-billion-2018-11">failed gaming companies</a>, Henderson was an early blogger in London almost 20 years ago. He's had a front-row seat to how much the internet, and work, has changed already.</p><p>When Business Insider asked him which skills he'd make sure his own two children learn to in order to enter the workforce, he said that technology changes so rapidly he can't predict exactly which tech skills will be the most valuable in the next 10 or 20 years. The one thing he's sure will be needed, though, is the ability to work with other people.</p><p>"I don't know what the technological skills are going to be that they need," Henderson said, "but I think that whatever the workplace looks like 20 years from now, we're still going to have to work with other humans. And so the most important skills are communication and collaboration skills: empathy and courtesy."</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more from IGNITION 2018:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drew-houston-dropbox-startup-advice-2018-12" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">The CEO of Dropbox explains the one thing that's worse than having your startup fail: becoming a 'zombie startup'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-case-midwest-tech-2018-12" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">AOL founder Steve Case is making a bold bet on companies from the Midwest - and he says it's a lot like the early bet he made on the internet</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/match-group-publicly-shares-equal-pay-results-2018-12" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Match Group's CEO audited the company's payroll to make sure she was paying women equally and was surprised at the results</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zipline-ceo-keller-rinaudo-business-insider-ignition-2018-12" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Meet the Silicon Valley startup that beat Amazon to creating the world's largest fully autonomous drone delivery system</a></li></ul>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stewart-butterfield-advice-for-millenials-2015-7">Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack and Flickr, on two beliefs that have brought him the greatest success in life</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/jD0kRKql-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

A Silicon Valley CTO says the skills he'll make sure his children learn to enter the workforce have nothing to do with tech

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Mitch Lowe, who has been a leader at Netflix, Redbox, and MoviePass, is releasing his book "Watch and Learn" on September 6.</li><li>He talked with Insider about the time WME head Ari Emanuel almost bought MoviePass.</li></ul><p>Since the collapse of movie-ticket-subscription startup MoviePass in 2019, its former CEO Mitch Lowe has been trying to figure out what went wrong.</p><p>How did a promising app that caught the interest of so many moviegoers lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-says-investigations-pending-by-ftc-sec-ag-da-2020-1">investigations into its practices from the likes of the FTC and the SEC</a>?</p><p>"I didn't have the energy for all the different things I should have done," Lowe told Insider, as he reflected on the last few years during a Zoom chat earlier this month from his home in Mexico.</p><p>Lowe has put even more thoughts into a book, "<a href="https://www.hachettego.com/titles/mitch-lowe/watch-and-learn/9780306827280/">Watch and Learn: How I Turned Hollywood Upside Down with Netflix, Redbox, and MoviePass</a>" (available on September 6).</p><p>Describing himself in the book as a "zen disruptor" thanks to his Buddhist beliefs, Lowe narrates his colorful life in which he had a front-row seat for major shifts in Hollywood. He recounts becoming an executive during the early days of Netflix after working in the home video space; making Redbox a billion-dollar company when he was its COO (2005 to 2009) and president (2009 to 2011); and, finally, leading the meteoric <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-moviepass-rise-fall-2019-8">rise and fall of MoviePass</a>.</p><p>It's the latter part that's especially fascinating to read as Lowe gives an insightful glimpse inside the walls of the startup at its best and worst times. That includes his realization that one of his executives, Khalid Itum, was gunning for his job (Itum eventually took over the day-to-day operations from Lowe), and how a deal for MoviePass to be sold to WME head Ari Emanuel was upended by the CEO of MoviePass' parent company, Ted Farnsworth, who Lowe felt was too aggressive at the negotiating table. It's a deal Lowe still feels could have kept the company afloat to this day.</p><p>Lowe spoke with Insider about what went wrong with MoviePass, which was recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-relaunching-details-how-to-sign-up-2022-8">relaunched by cofounder Stacy Spikes</a>, and how a sobering chat with Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings led to a major wakeup call in his career.</p><p><em>This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.</em></p><p><strong>You say in the book something that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-cofounder-on-what-led-to-firing-2019-4">Stacy Spikes has said</a>, that the $10 a month price was only supposed to be temporary. Looking back, was it a mistake to keep it at that price for so long?</strong></p><p>When I look back now I know two things I would have done differently. But the timing of raising the prices, that's not one of them.</p><p>If you look at our forecast from November of 2017, it always showed raising the prices in March or May of the following year to $14.95. Of course, we kept putting it off. But it's more about your sustainability. The theory that I was operating under was build a large subscriber base and learn how to monetize that subscriber base. And the difference between $9.95 and $14.95 is you would have fewer newer subscribers at $14.95. I had gone back to all our analysis at Netflix where as we lowered the price we got more and more casual users who used the service less.</p><p>But the main issue was running out of capital. Because had we not been owned by a publicly traded company we would have had a lot more time. The momentum was progressing, but just not fast enough relative to the funding. The crazy thing is, looking back at all of this, all of this occurred over a nine-month period. It wasn't like we had a couple of years.</p><p>The thing I should have done, and this is where Stacy was absolutely right, was instituting a waiting list. Instead of accepting all and also figuring out at the same time how to get discount tickets from theaters, sell moviegoers other stuff, sell data or advertising, what I should have done was take a few customers at a time instead of everyone all at once. Stacy always told me when he didn't have enough capital he would do a waiting list. </p><div type="image" title="moviepass" height="1429" width="1905" msid="93907881" hostid="261"></div><strong>Was that attitude at the time because you thought the subscription climb was never going to stop? That you all were headed for greatness?</strong><p>It was more every time I would ask the question to everyone that I worked with, the answer back was to just grow, grow, grow. The growth will solve the problems. </p><p><strong>So, a waiting list is something you would do differently. You said there were two things you would change, what is the second thing?</strong></p><p>Not be owned by a publicly owned company. [<em>Laughs.</em>] You have a huge expense being public, the executives spend a huge amount of time on the aspects of that rather than solving the business problems.</p><p><strong>You mention in the book parties MoviePass threw at Coachella in 2018. This is something <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-moviepass-rise-fall-2019-8">Insider reported on</a>, in which MoviePass spent more than $1 million to promote the brand by throwing lavish parties during the festival. You say in the book it was something you and Ted disagreed on doing. Explain why this for you was the moment, as you wrote, when you "started losing faith in the future" of the company.</strong></p><p>I had this experience before at Redbox in my last year or so where some of the executives wanted my job. I guess in hindsight I was somewhat naive thinking that people will always do the best they can and work as a team. In regards to Coachella that was when I realized we weren't all on the same page. We weren't working functionally as an organization because it was clear to me that someone who reported to me was going directly to my boss, Ted, and making decisions without involving me about things that were big. </p><p><strong>And you're referring to Khalid Itum.</strong></p><p>Yeah. And believe me I don't mind people talking to each other or coming up with ideas, I'm not a huge organizational structure person, but it comes with a certain amount of trust for that to work. There still needs to be a certain amount of trust and it undermined that trust.</p><p><strong>With Khalid taking over the day-to-day from you, was that your decision?</strong></p><p>I would say it was me seeing the writing on the wall and just being proactive about not waiting for it to happen. I said in the book about the organization becoming dysfunctional and the outcome of that is that there was a better relationship between Ted and Khalid than there was between myself and Ted by that time. [Insider contacted Itum for comment but didn't get a response.] And at the same time all this other stuff was going on in my personal life. I was just finalizing a divorce, so it just seemed like the right time. </p><div type="image" title="MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe and Helios and Matheson Chief Executive Ted Farnsworth." height="1333" width="2000" msid="93907883" hostid="261"></div><strong>In hindsight, was the picture in front of the AMC marquee the right decision?</strong><p>No. [<em>Laughs</em>.] The conclusion that I had come to was the olive branches we had extended to exhibition would not be affected by that because —</p><p><strong>The tree of that olive branch was dead already. </strong></p><p>Not dead. I always felt the economics would eventually convince the naysayers to change their opinion. At least a negotiated working relationship. But over time, I've learned how naive I can be when thinking that what's good for you and is good for me leads to a deal.</p><p><strong>In regards to the MoviePass staff — product manager Eric Jeng left the company by sending a company-wide email that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-product-manager-resigns-after-emailed-scathing-all-staff-letter-2019-1">called the working environment toxic</a>, MoviePass was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-execs-hit-with-suit-alleging-discrimination-harassment-2020-8">sued by former marketing director Madison Geery who alleged sexual harassment by consultant Bob Ellis</a> — looking back, what could you have done as the CEO to make the staff feel more comfortable and safe?</strong></p><p>Things moved so fast that really in the end it would have been almost impossible to create and nurture the kind of culture I wanted and believed in. I'm not blaming my team, but I didn't have the right team working with me. Part of it was pushed on me, part of it was in the expedience of time I had to accept it, and in the right environment I would have made a bunch of changes. But there just wasn't time to do that. I will always say, having an amazing positive culture is a whole lot easier when things are going well. It's a lot harder when things are going downhill.</p><p>Something I truly believe in is having people willing to speak their mind and say just how bad things are. I never tried to quiet people internally, if they said something wasn't going well I always embraced it. Not everybody in the organization supported that but I always did. But I wanted them to look at things from my perspective. If I'm going to listen to you, please listen to me and recognize that I am the boss, so ultimately, I have to make the choice and you might not agree with it.</p><p><strong>You wrote takeaways at the end of every chapter, and in your final one you wrote: "Forgetting all the lessons and techniques and strategies you have learned is a path that can lead you to failure." Noting the "zen disruptor" label you have given yourself in the book, how did you lost sight of that when it came to MoviePass?</strong></p><p>I got completely distracted. Every day it was solving a small problem and not looking at the big picture. I wasn't spending time building allies. I was spending time kind of mitigating the immediate problem, whether it was an employee or whether it was a fraud issue, or working on changing the model, or how do we attract a more casual customer. I had lost my focus on the big picture. Which really means you need lots more allies than enemies. All those lessons, all those things about building a great team I lost.  </p><p><strong>In the book you reveal that Ari Emanuel and WME wanted to buy MoviePass in 2018. If that deal went through would MoviePass have closed its doors?</strong></p><p>I don't know how the pandemic would have affected it, but definitely the clout of the deal would have made it work. I didn't mention in the book the directors and other people in the movie business who realized that MoviePass could help their revenue. WME representing practically half of the major stars and directors, it would have made so much sense. I was all for it. I didn't care what price. It would have overcome all the resistance we were getting from people in the industry like AMC. It would have been an amazing future. </p><div type="image" title="ted farnsworth mitch lowe" height="704" width="939" msid="93907886" hostid="261"></div><strong>But Ted was too aggressive in the negotiations.</strong><p>Yeah. But it's so hard because at that moment there were all kinds of positive things happening so it wasn't completely crazy that his valuation should have been higher. We had won the bid to buy Landmark Cinemas, there were a couple of movies MoviePass was going to work on, things were positive. But I remember Ari telling me not to worry about anything, we're going to get "schmuck money," meaning that if everything works out the shareholders of MoviePass will make out down the line. [Insider contacted Emanuel for comment but didn't get a response.] But sometimes those deals are hard to structure. The buyer is often in the driver's seat and sets milestones that maybe are hard to accomplish. But I thought this was the thing that was going to help us overcome all the resistance.</p><p><strong>In regards to the settlements you made with the FTC and the SEC ... are you allowed to ever work at a company like MoviePass again?</strong></p><p>I cannot talk about any of the settlements. It's better for me not to comment on them. </p><p><strong>How did your "zen disruptor" mentality evolve through the eras of the business you navigated through — video stores, movies-to-mail, streaming versus theatrical?</strong></p><p>There was no real plan. No philosophical strategy behind it all. It was how I dealt with each opportunity or each moment. And the way I think about Buddhism as part of my life is that you never know what is going to result from the next moment in your life. I found over and over again, times where had I taken a legal sheet out, and put a pros and cons to pursuing this endeavor or going to that place, I probably wouldn't have done 90% of the things that I did. And even though probably 50% of the time I could have saved myself a lot of pain and loss, I wouldn't have become a part of Netflix, and Netflix may not have started if I had that pros and cons thing. The most crazy thing could end up being amazing, and the most amazing thing could end up being horrible. </p><p><strong>You didn't go to college and you never finished high school, so you really learned through experiencing things. Once you got into the business world was it a fake it till you make it mentality?</strong></p><p>I always had a lot of confidence in my ability to learn really fast and to adapt. So it wasn't fake it till you make it, it was more like I'm a sponge and I want to be around people who can teach me all kinds of things that I don't know and am fascinated by. </p><p><strong>But in the book it seemed there were moments of panic for you. Like you wrote that you "didn't know jack shit" when you first started at Netflix.</strong></p><p>Yeah, and what is true for all these disruptive ideas, which is just presenting a new idea for something that has been done before. If you know exactly what you need to know, likely someone else has already done it. You throw yourself in the foxhole and try to figure it out. </p><p><strong>An example of that is the thing that really made your name at Netflix, which was your idea of putting the footage of Bill Clinton's testimony of the Monica Lewinsky affair on DVD and making it available for subscribers. It had never been done, but you had to go figure out if it could.</strong></p><p>Right. And this is where I think the really good entrepreneur mindset is they are able to connect the dots. To take the internet and combine it with the post office and then implement it into a new thing.</p><p><strong>But you also had to roll with the punches because in this case Netflix mailed out thousands of the Clinton testimony on DVD and somehow a batch of porn DVDs were mailed out to subscribers as well. </strong></p><p>[<em>Laughs</em>.] In hindsight, the things I enjoyed the most were the totally unpredictable things and also the lack of regular resources to do things. So in those days making DVDs, you couldn't find in every town a place that would press DVDs nor create the masters. So the only place we could find that could stamp these DVDs was a place that also did porn.</p><p>We hadn't slept in three days and once we got the master that they could produce we weren't looking at anything closely because we had to mail them out. We rushed them back to the Netflix offices and it was only then we saw on the hub it didn't say "Clinton" it said "Cliton," which we all thought was funny until we learned that there were a couple hundred porn DVDs in the batch. </p><div type="image" title="Reed Hastings" height="2000" width="3000" msid="93907888" hostid="261"></div><strong>You are very candid in the book that Reed Hastings gave you some tough love. He let you go at Netflix basically because he felt you weren't cut out to work for a company of the magnitude Netflix was aspiring for. But then you went and became the CEO of Redbox, which under your reign became a billion-dollar company. What changed for you?</strong><p>What Reed said really was motivating. It was basically a kick in the pants, him saying I couldn't handle this. It made me want to prove him wrong. In this particular scenario, I kept thinking what do I need to know and the bible that helped me was the Harvard Business Review magazine. [Redbox founder] Gregg Kaplan has a Harvard MBA so I would go into his office and he had a stack of HBR magazines. I would borrow them and read them cover to cover and I just was a sponge. I learned this analytical way of looking at things. That taught me a lot. </p><p>And also, and I wrote this in the book, I hit a wall at Redbox. My executive team that had gotten us to over a couple hundred million dollars in revenue also hit a wall. I got introduced to Clyde Lowstuter, this organizational psychologist, and he's the one who got me to understand something. I always felt you had to be democratic and treat everybody the same, and treat them like you want to be treated, and he basically told me that's the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. And he was right. People have different interests. They have different motivations and goals. He told me what I had to figure out was what each of my leaders wanted and motivate them to get that if they achieve their milestones and goals. And that was the secret.</p><p><strong>Once the Redbox chapter of your life was over, why didn't you just tip your hat and ride off into the sunset. Consult. Speaking tour. Kick back. </strong></p><p>Some of this will sound pretty stupid, but I wanted to show that I wasn't just lucky. Like with Netflix I was super lucky, but I wanted to show myself, not anybody else, but just for myself, that I could be successful again. I tried to retire. I tried to not work and took a four-month trip to Southeast Asia. And I tried to be an advisor, but I learned that it wasn't fulfilling. I wasn't in the trenches. I was basically giving advice, but whether people took it or not was up to them. And [Netflix cofounder] Marc Randolph and I talk about this all the time, our favorite moments were when we didn't know what to do, and we all got together with smart and passionate people and figured things out. Those were the most fulfilling moments. So I just wanted to go back to that experience.</p><p>When I was offered to be CEO of MoviePass, I felt my whole career had led up to this moment. I'm totally prepared to make this work. I later learned I was not up to the game.</p><p><strong>Stacy has relaunched MoviePass. What advice do you have for him?</strong></p><p>I hope the best for him. I should have listened to him more often than I did, so he should just follow his own instincts, because if I did follow more of his advice, who knows what would have happened.</p>

Former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe looks back on the mistakes that led to the startup's collapse

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c5a3a3c74c5876c2b5d01d9-1000/matt-strauss-comcast-1.jpg" border="0" alt="matt strauss comcast 1" data-mce-source="Comcast/Business Insider/Hollis Johnson" /></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Comcast's Matt Strauss shares his theory about how the evolution of cable-TV networks parallels the cosmic theories of the Big Bang and Big Crunch. </li><li>Using the theoretical scenarios about the creation and fate of the universe as a blueprint, the TV bundle could be reformed from streaming-video services, instead of linear TV channels.</li><li>The economics of distributing SVOD services like ESPN Plus compared to ESPN's TV channels could create more opportunities for companies like Comcast.</li><li>"As a distributor we're paying on one end, and then the other, we're getting paid, our ability to launch more of these services direct-to-the consumer just gives us access to more choices," Strauss said.</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>Comcast Cable executive Matt Strauss has had a front-row seat to the seismic shifts upending the pay-TV industry, as head of the 56-year-old company's Xfinity unit, which includes home video, internet, security, and phone services.</p><p>The industry is poised for even more change as legacy media giants that operate the most-watched channels in the cable bundle - including Disney, WarnerMedia, and Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal - prepare to launch their own subscription-video services online.</p><p>Strauss doesn't think that trend will end with these big media company. </p><p>"It seems inevitable that, as the traditional pay-TV market declines, every existing network will have to launch some version of an [over-the-top] service," Strauss, executive vice president of Xfinity Services for Comcast Cable, told Business Insider. It "will likely lead to the great unbundling, where a lot of channels will fall out of the traditional bundle only to be likely followed by the great re-bundling of a subset of SVOD services in the future."</p><p>To understand what's happening in the TV industry, Strauss has looked to the stars, including a theory about the ultimate fate of the universe known as a the Big Crunch.</p><h2>The Big Crunch</h2><p><span>"I think there is an interesting parallel here with the evolution of cable networks," Strauss said.</span></p><p>Like the theory that the universe as we know it started with an explosion of energy called the Big Bang, the cable ecosystem as we know it today was shaped by the explosion of TV channels in the 1990s, created out of the industry shift from analog to digital transmissions that made it easier to launch TV networks, Strauss said.</p><p>It gave rise to multiplexes of cable channels, where one programmer could operate a collection of networks aimed at different audience segments. HBO, one of the first TV services to move to digital transmissions, grew in the 1990s from one pay-cable channel to at least seven, including HBO2, HBO Comedy, HBO Family, HBO Latino, HBO Signature, HBO Zone.</p><p>The Big Crunch, as Strauss referred to, theorizes that the expansion of the universe that started with the Big Bang will eventually stop, contract, and the universe will collapse in on itself. The scenario could lead to the birth a new universe with the start of another Big Bang. </p><p>We could be seeing an equivalent of that happening with cable networks now, as audiences become more fragmented.</p><h2><span>The Great Unbundling</span></h2><p>Comcast, like other US cable operators, has lost pay-TV customers as people watch more video through the internet, on services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, leaving them with less need for big TV packages like the ones Comcast sells.</p><p>Comcast's video customer base shrunk about 3% to around 21.7 million from the first quarter of 2017 to 2019, during which time its internet business grew nearly 10% to 27.6 million customers.</p><p><strong><em>Read more</em></strong><em>:</em><em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-exec-explains-why-it-doesnt-fear-the-death-of-cable-tv-2018-10"> 'The cord is still intact': A Comcast exec explains why America's largest TV provider can survive the death of cable TV</a></em></p><p><span>With more ways to watch TV and movies without traditional TV distributors, TV ratings have fallen at many of the top US cable channels. In the past two years, more network owners have been forced to merge, or rebrand their lower-performing networks, like Viacom's Paramount Network, formerly Spike TV, and NBCUniversal's Oxygen, a network aimed at women that has pivoted to true crime.</span></p><p><span>Meanwhile, other TV companies are shifting some programming to streaming - planting the seeds for the TV universe to be reformed from streaming-TV channels.</span></p><p>HBO Max, WarnerMedia's streaming service that's coming next year, could be thought of as an online "uber network;" it'll combine programming from the company's TV channels including HBO, TNT, TBS, truTV, and CNN with original series and movies that are exclusive to the platform. Disney's family friendly streaming service, Disney Plus, is a mishmash of programming from Disney brands such as Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar.</p><h2>The next evolution of the TV bundle</h2><p><span>Comcast has been preparing itself for the next phase - re-bundling - by positioning itself as the "aggregator of aggregators," as the company is fond of calling itself.</span></p><p><span>Comcast's Xfinity X1 and Flex set-top boxes integrate into its TV services streaming-video subscriptions like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and soon, Hulu, as well as free services like YouTube, Tubi TV, and Pluto TV. The company plans to continue working with media companies to bring the most popular offerings onto the platform.</span></p><p><span>The company is betting that the myriad services available will leave people with a cumbersome selection of apps to navigate, and that some customers will still be willing to pay up for simplicity.</span><span></span></p><p>Comcast is one of a handful of companies, including AT&amp;T, Roku, Apple, and Amazon Prime Video, that seem to be vying for this position by bundling streaming-video subscriptions and other video services.</p><p>"Having the choices available on our platform, is in many respects, a no-brainer," Strauss said. "As long as you have the option for customers to get access to their favorite channels or choices, even if they pay incrementally for it, is better than not having it at all."</p><p>Platforms like Disney Plus and HBO Max will give people more ways to watch movies and TV shows without going through traditional distributors like Comcast. But there's another way distributors can make money off these new streaming services.</p><p><span>Comcast gets a cut of the revenue generated by video services through its X1 set-top box, just like companies including Roku, Apple, and Amazon do from apps on their platforms. On the other hand, pay-TV providers pay fixed fees to license linear TV channels from companies like Disney or CBS.</span></p><p><span>"When you look at that distinction, where as a distributor we're paying on one end, and then the other, we're getting paid, our ability to launch more of these services direct-to-the consumer just gives us access to more choices," Strauss said. "It also gives us the ability to be much more sophisticated in truly understanding the price value of the content we are paying for."</span></p> 

A top Comcast exec on how the TV bundle could be fundamentally changed by new streaming services like Disney Plus and HBO Max

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bad3c17e55aa80e138b4567-1500/moore headshot 5x7.jpg" border="0" alt="Michelle Moore" data-mce-source="Bank of America" /><p class="source"><span>Bank of America</span></p><p class="caption">Michelle Moore, head of digital banking at Bank of America.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Bank of America Merrill Lynch is spending big to offer a ramp up its digital product for customers - $10 billion a year.</li><li>This massive tech investment has helped the bank recently poach senior tech talent away from the likes of Apple and Disney.</li><li>Michelle Moore, head of digital banking at the firm, told Business Insider she woos potential hires by pitching them on scale and impact, but also on the company's tech savvy and growing list of innovations.</li><li>Landing such talent is key to Bank of America making the most of its gaudy tech budget. </li></ul><p>Like its competitors, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is spending a colossal amount of money to stay competitive in the financial tech race: Its $10 billion annual tech budget sits just behind <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/theres-a-subtle-shift-underway-at-jpmorgan-and-it-shows-how-amazons-influenced-the-banking-giant-2018-4">JPMorgan's $10.8 billion</a> and ahead of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/citigroup-spending-8-billion-this-year-to-bolster-technology-2018-5">Citigroup's $8 billion</a>. </p><p>A large chunk of that spending goes to the firm's profit-driving consumer-banking operation, which accounts for $34.5 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in net income, which is 38% of the firm's total.</p><p>As the head of digital banking, Michelle Moore is responsible for wisely deploying a chunk of that budget to fuel the consumer bank's lofty tech ambitions. That partly entails building out cutting edge new features for the bank's customers, whether that's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bank-teller-automation-on-the-rise-with-new-atm-technology-2017-6">tricked-out ATMs</a> that can perform cardless transactions or the <a href="https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/press-releases/consumer-banking/bank-america-delivers-first-widely-available-ai-driven-virtual">AI-backed virtual banking assistant</a> Erica rolled out in April and has been used by 3 million customers through early September. </p><p>And it also entails luring top tech talent that can help in creating and maintaining such features, and Moore has had success in recent months landing top hires away from companies like Apple and Disney.</p><p>What's Moore's strategy for getting recruits to ditch sexy tech and entertainment companies for Bank of America?</p><p>She told Business Insider she woos potential hires by pitching them on the scale of impact they can have on individual customers - Bank of America has 67 million of them - but also on the company's tech savvy and growing list of innovations that she says make clear they "are not a boring, stodgy bank."</p><p>"This is an opportunity for you every day to help make a difference in someone's life," Moore said.</p><p>She added that recent hires have "left massive jobs and massive companies ... to come here" in part because "they could see the vision, they could see the opportunity."</p><p>The pitch worked on Tommy Elliott.</p><p>As a senior program manager on Apple Pay since 2014, Elliott had a front-row seat working with banks across the US, Europe, and Asia. He saw enough that he never wanted to work for one. </p><p>So how did he end up joining Bank of America as head of digital payments this June? </p><p>After a gauntlet of roughly a dozen interviews, he came away impressed not only by Moore's vision, but also by the bank's engineering talent, the loose and customer-focused culture, and the scale of the firm. </p><p>The impact he could have wasn't lost on him, either. While the number is growing, only 25 million customers actively use the mobile app, and only 4 million use Zelle, the peer-to-peer payments platform that launched to customers in 2017. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Bank of America Merrill Lynch" title_caption="What's Bank of America spending it's $10 billion on? Here are some of the features they've been working on." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5babe57491ff6d29798b4568-960/screen shot 2018-09-26 at 35859 pm.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5babe57491ff6d29798b4568-1458/screen shot 2018-09-26 at 35859 pm.png" border="0" alt="Bank of America tech features" data-mce-source="Bank of America Merrill Lynch" /></a><p class="source"><span>Bank of America Merrill Lynch</span></p><p class="caption">What's Bank of America spending it's $10 billion on? Here are some of the features they've been working on.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"<span style="font-weight: 400;">The biggest thing is just the potential," Elliott said. "</span>When I look at the scale of the products I'm responsible for, we have so much room to grow."</p><p>Nikki Katz joined in August from Disney, where she was a VP of technology, to run the mobile apps team as head of Digital Strategy and Emerging Experiences, and she said she was persuaded in part by the tangible results that had sprung from the firm's massive tech budget.</p><p>Even before she'd been recruited, Katz was pleasantly surprised by the innovations and upgrades she found in the firm's branches, including the fancy, new cardless ATMs as well as video monitors that let you speak remotely to financial experts. </p><p>"Here was a bank that was clearly investing significant capital in experimenting," Katz told Business Insider. "This is actually proof in the pudding."</p><p>To be sure, others big banks are also spending billions on tech and it remains unclear how BoA's strategy will pay off in the long-run as it competes head-to-head with rivals to attract and retain customers. </p><p>A chatbot like Erica isn't just cool toy to show off -  "We don't go run around chasing shiny objects," Moore told BI - it's goal is to make customer's lives simpler, as well as to automate processes and trim costs, like encouraging paperless e-statements or answering questions before a customer has to dial up a call center.</p><p>As Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan explained while highlighting the company's digital bank investments in a second-quarter earnings call: "By investing in client capabilities, we make our clients' lives easier, more efficient for them, more effective for them, and their satisfaction goes up. Our costs then, in turn, go down and because our process become more automated."</p><p>A product that increases customer satisfaction while stripping out costs makes a gaudy $10 billion tech budget justifiable. </p><p>Getting the best talent to imagine, construct, and execute such features will be key to Bank of America getting the best bang for its buck. </p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Bank of America stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/BAC-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/big-mistake-investors-make-late-cycle-inflection-point-economy-versus-stocks-liz-ann-sonders-2018-8">Beware one huge mistake investors often make when the economy is at a crossroads, says Charles Schwab's investment chief</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/udhN6ybJ-xjRU7l6Z.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

A top Bank of America executive explains how the bank is luring top talent from companies like Apple and Disney to fuel its $10 billion digital ambitions

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5746bf1791058425008c5147-1000-750/lopez.png" alt="Danny Lopez Blippar" data-mce-source="Twitter/Danny Lopez"><p class="source"><span>Twitter/Danny Lopez</span></p><p class="caption">British consul general to New York and future COO of Blippar, Danny Lopez.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Blippar, the company that&#xa0;plans to create "<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/blippar-raises-55-million-series-d-funding-2016-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">a </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/blippar-raises-55-million-series-d-funding-2016-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">visual catalog of every object in the world, using image recognition technology and machine learning</a>," <a href="http://www.investegate.co.uk/blippar/rns/blippar-appoints-chief-operating-officer/201605260700103430Z/">announced in a press release</a> on Thursday that senior British diplomat Danny Lopez would join its executive team as chief operating officer.<p>Lopez is currently British consul general to New York and director general for UK trade and investment in the US.</p><p>At 37, Lopez became the youngest ever British diplomat to take the prestigious New York post in 2011. During his five years in the role, Lopez drove trade and investment between British and American companies.</p><p>Lopez will take up the new role at Blippar on August 15, <a href="http://www.investegate.co.uk/blippar/rns/blippar-appoints-chief-operating-officer/201605260700103430Z/">according to the release</a>.</p><p><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Will be v sorry to leave <a href="https://twitter.com/foreignoffice">@foreignoffice</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/UKTIUSA">@UKTIUSA</a> this summer but so excited to be joining <a href="https://twitter.com/blippar">@blippar</a> <a href="https://t.co/3hObVBtFV2">https://t.co/3hObVBtFV2</a></p>- Danny Lopez  (@DannyLopez_UK) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/735667793203433472">May 26, 2016</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div></p><p>"I've enjoyed a front-row seat over the years watching Blippar grow from an upstart company in the UK to a major presence in New York and across the globe," Lopez <a href="http://www.investegate.co.uk/blippar/rns/blippar-appoints-chief-operating-officer/201605260700103430Z/">said in the release</a>.</p><p>"Having seen the company develop industry-leading technologies, I'm bullish on Blippar's vision to transform the phone and head-mounted wearables into a virtual browser for the physical world, while establishing itself as a first-class media company," Lopez added.</p><p>Blippar CEO Ambarish Mitra praised Lopez's experience in international business and economic development and his "operational prowess" and "strong leadership" in the release.</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/blippar-raises-55-million-series-d-funding-2016-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">In March, Blippar raised $54 million in Series D funding, </a>to help it build a "visual browser." This took the company's total funding to $99 million.</p><p>Mitra told Business Insider in 2015 that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blippar-ceo-ambarish-mitra-says-company-will-stay-independent-but-may-ipo-2015-8">"what I'm trying to build is bigger than the internet itself."</a></p><p>The yet-to-be-released-concept is a smartphone app that&#xa0;can recognize real-world objects, even as they go through subtle changes. On top of innumerable other potential uses,&#xa0;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/blippar-raises-55-million-series-d-funding-2016-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">Mitra hopes Blippar's ability to recognize physical objects could help empower the illiterate</a>.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sports-authority-stores-closing-2016-5">All 460 Sports Authority stores are closing - here's when clearance sales begin</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="k1ZmJvMzE6BKGMaAhDMIsE2LAkYG_0El" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'k1ZmJvMzE6BKGMaAhDMIsE2LAkYG_0El',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Blippar - the company bidding to build something 'bigger than the internet itself' - just appointed a top British diplomat as its COO

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5501a357ecad0430655f5315-1200-667/screen shot 2015-03-12 at 10.30.32 am.png" border="0" alt="Swatting get swatted"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3PG4LdYoU">Courier &amp; Press</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Imagine you're at home playing a video game, broadcasting your gameplay online for your followers to watch on Twitch. Without warning, the door to your room is busted open and SWAT officers are screaming at you to put your hands up and get on the ground -- all while thousands of people online get a front-row seat to the actions thanks to your computer's webcam that's still livestreaming.</p><p>This is what happens during a "swatting," an increasingly popular internet prank where cybercriminals call in a serious crime - such as a hostage situation or shooter on the loose - in the hopes of unleashing a SWAT team on an unsuspecting person.</p><p>The cybercriminals can use a variety of technical tricks to mask their own identities or to make it appear as if the prank call to police originated at the residence of the unsuspecting victim. Police, with no other choice than to react to the severity of the crime being described, often send out SWAT teams, bomb squads, and other emergency services such as fire trucks and ambulances.</p><p><span>"Uh oh, this isn't good," a gamer named <a href="http://thecreatures.wikia.com/wiki/Kootra">Jordan Mathewson</a>, who streams on Twitch under the name "Kootra," says to the camera during a live stream.</span><span> "They're clearing rooms. What in the world? I think we're getting swatted."</span></p><p><span>Seconds later, police storm in and Mathewson is handcuffed, searched, and questioned.</span></p><p><span>You can watch the entire ordeal below.</span></p><p><iframe width="800" height="450" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SGnPUUQ1ZoA"></iframe></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Eventually, the police realize that they've been duped and release Mathewson from custody, but it's hardly a harmless prank. Taxpayer dollars are wasted on police responding to a hoax, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/swatting-colorado-2014-8">the buildings and school nearby Mathewson's address were placed on lockdown</a> due to the threat.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While most swatting attempts revolve around targeting gamers who broadcast their gameplay on live streaming services such as Twitch, <span>celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Miley Cyrus, and Justin Bieber have all been "swatted" before.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>But swatting celebrities doesn't allow the public to watch the events play out in real-time, and that's part of the reason why gamers are consistently targeted while in the midst of playing their favorite game in front of thousands of spectators.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55019f19eab8ea561bffb7b1-1200-632/screen shot 2015-03-12 at 10.13.06 am.png" border="0" alt="Swatting Jess"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiW-BVPCbZk">CrowbCat</a></span></p><p class="caption">Another game named Jess seconds before getting swatted.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></span></p><p>Unfortunately, if one of those anonymous spectators get annoyed (or sadly, just bored) with the person streaming, they can try to dig up identifying information on the address of the live streamer, usually by capturing the IP address of the person's computer. After a bogus phone call to police, the live streamer finds themself in the middle of a SWAT raid.</p><p>If caught, those responsible for the swatting attack can face up to five years in prison. 19-year-old Brandon Wilson, known as "Famed God" online, <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/7/71/350553/las-vegas-man-arrested-naperville-swatting-incident">was recently arrested by the FBI for a swatting attempt </a>and is being charged <span>charged with two counts of computer tampering and one count each of intimidation, computer fraud, identity theft and disorderly conduct.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p><p><span>For now, gamers are doing everything they can to ensure that they don't leak any information on their location or identity to their Twitch spectators. The FBI has been aware of swatting since 2008, but there's unfortunately little police can do but to respond appropriately when they receive such a serious call.</span></p><p>To get a sense of exactly how terrifying it can be to get swatted, you can watch one of the many swatting compilations below (just a heads up, there's some strong language).</p><p><iframe width="800" height="450" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TiW-BVPCbZk"></iframe></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/police-google-change-waze-app-2015-2">Police are pleading with Google to ditch a feature in its Waze app that could help terrorists </a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="djYzg3czptfgWc7WO8ybI7hsnwt6GXYv" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'djYzg3czptfgWc7WO8ybI7hsnwt6GXYv',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Everything you need to know about 'swatting,' the increasingly popular prank of calling a SWAT team on an unsuspecting person while the internet watches

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/598ccbdfcb97012b008b474c-1200/bigraphicsceo1.png" alt="bi graphics ceos" data-mce-source="Ana Pelisson/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Ana Pelisson/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Reddit CEO Alexis Ohanian, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Men born between 1981 and 1984 are highly overrepresented at the top of the tech world.</strong></li><li><strong>There are a number of factors to explain the pattern, beginning with the introduction of the PC in the mid-1980s.</strong></li><li><strong>Sexism in the tech world has made it harder for women to advance and young girls to be inspired.</strong></li></ul><p>Creating a billion-dollar company isn't the only thing the founders of Reddit, Quora, Dropbox, Venmo, Airbnb, Instagram, Palantir, Pinterest, Lyft, Wish, Sofi, and Facebook have in common.</p><p>The 17 people who make up that list also happen to be men who were born within three years of each other, between 1981 and 1984.</p><p>The question of why, exactly, seven of the top 10 <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-unicorns-us-map/">billion-dollar-plus unicorns</a><span>, along with a handful of publicly traded titans, were all launched</span> by guys who could have been in the same high school class doesn't come with just one answer. But there are clear events throughout history that offer clues.</p><h2>Going back to the 1970s</h2><p>The arc of the early-30s techie actually began in the 1970s, with the prior generation of computer programmers, according to technology consultant Tim Bajarin. "The Bill Gateses of the world were actually the precursor to this," Bajarin told Business Insider.</p><p>People like Gates and Steve Jobs began working in the 1970s, alongside lesser-known luminaries like Mitch Kapor of Lotus and Fred Gibbons of Software Publishing. They mostly worked on mainframes and mini-computers, and they spent thousands of hours doing so. When the first personal computer debuted in 1975, these small-time programmers were poised to strike it rich.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56c740482e526557008b83cc-677/paul-allen-bill-gates-teen-kid.jpg" alt="Bill Gates kid" data-mce-source="CBS/YouTube" /><p class="source"><span>CBS/YouTube</span></p><p class="caption">As a teen, Bill Gates worked on a simple General Electric computer at Lakeside Prep School in Seattle.</p></div><p></p></div></div>As Malcolm Gladwell noted of this tech generation in his book 2008 "Outliers," they came of age in a special time. If they were slightly older, they would have left college to work for a large corporation, like IBM, and their career would have been set in stone. On the other hand, if they were born after the window, the wave would have already passed them by.</p><p>What's important about the latest generation is that they were born right when the PC was becoming available to the masses, in the early 1980s, which meant that many grew up with one in their home.</p><p>"That was huge," Bajarin said. "They already knew how a PC works, and in a lot of their cases they had PCs in their homes because their parents had PCs in their homes; whereas the generation before them, the production of digital technology was more of a product in the toy category."</p><h2>The gender gap persists</h2><p>However, the PC wasn't marketed to everyone across the board. In 2014, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding">NPR used data</a> from the National Science Foundation, American Bar Association, and American Association of Medical Colleges to show that computing companies stopped marketing their machines to girls around 1984.</p><p>It's had dramatic effects on female representation in computer science fields to this day. Women earn <a href="https://www.ncwit.org/infographic/3435">57% of all undergraduate degrees</a> but only 18% of all computer and information science degrees.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57f3d1c657540c22128b469b-2400/sundarpichai.jpg" alt="Sundar Pichai" data-mce-source="Justin Sullivan/Getty Images" /><p class="source"><span>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a follow-up memo to his staff emphasizing the importance of diversity.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Underrepresentation is only the start, though. Sexism and sexual harassment scandals <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sexual-harassment-scandals-tech-industry-2017-7">have plagued the industry</a> for decades. Women also have a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691066.2017.1349266?scroll=top&amp;needAccess=true">much harder time</a> earning venture capital money. One <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691066.2017.1349266?scroll=top&amp;needAccess=true">study</a> found that even if there was just one woman on a company's executive team, the company tended to receive less funding.</p><p>A recent manifesto <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sundar-pichai-anti-diversity-manifesto-fired-2017-8">written by a now ex-Google staffer</a> that criticized the company's emphasis on diversity is only the latest example of how women can be dissuaded from staying in the tech world.</p><h2>The factors come together</h2><p><span>It wasn't all boys who used the first PCs - rather, those from predominantly affluent areas. In 1981, <a href="http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/04/15/how-much-a-computer-cost-the-year-you-were-born/4/">the average PC</a> cost $1,565, or about $4,100 in 2016 dollars. And if you wanted to buy the first Macintosh when it came out in 1984, you had to fork over $2,495, or nearly $5,700 today. </span></p><p><span>Sam Altman, the 32-year-old president of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's largest startup accelerator, said growing up in St. Louis he had a Mac LC II at home, but most of his hacking took place on his elementary school's Mac IIGS. He would spend hours writing simple programs - a luxury kids living in poorer areas, with poorer schools, wouldn't necessarily have.</span></p><blockquote class="pullquote">The mobile explosion was starting to take off. And the opportunity was very large.</blockquote><p>"You could write a program to print all the prime numbers, and come back to school the next morning and the computer's run all night, and it's gotten to like to prime number a million-something," he told Business Insider. "And you think it's so cool."</p><p><span>When the dot-com bubble formed in the late 1990s, the kids writing these simple programs were now in their late teens. And since the internet's transformation was on display for all to see, through news media and the internet itself, these teens had a front-row seat, says Paul Saffo, a Stanford consulting professor and technology forecaster. This visibility, Saffo claims, is ultimately what separated the new tech generation from the old.</span></p><p>"During the dot-com bubble, when so many people are starting companies, you say to yourself, 'Well, that's not an aberration,'" which is how many viewed Gates' and Jobs' rise to prominence, he told Business Insider. Instead people said, "That's a career track."</p><p>That mixture - years of preparation as a kid combined with a budding tech landscape on the verge of tectonic change - ended up sending a slew of young tech geeks into a field that would write history books.</p><p>"The mobile explosion was starting to take off," Tim Bajarin said. "And the opportunity was very large."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5972179a552be58c008b5b9d-1024/gettyimages-813399302.jpg" alt="sam altman" data-mce-source="Drew Angerer/Getty" /><p class="source"><span>Drew Angerer/Getty</span></p><p class="caption">YC President Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford in 2005, at 19, to found the startup Loopt. He moved to Y Combinator in 2014.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Finding the next big thing</h2><p>Not all of today's most prominent tech founders are in their 30s. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is 46. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is 53. Likewise, a number of younger founders born after that early 1980s wave are rising to the top. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, the cofounders of Snap, are 27 and 29, respectively.</p><p>Nor did every founder between 33 and 36 launch their company at the same time. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in his college dorm in 2004, for example, while John Zimmer didn't cofound Lyft until 2012.</p><p>More important are the experiences they had growing up, and the relationships they formed to technology at the time. Altman says he grew to have such a fascination with computer programming specifically because he could write simple code that would print out strings of prime numbers. It didn't matter he wasn't creating super-smart apps - the seeds of inspiration were getting planted at the right time, with tech that was sufficiently hackable.</p><p>"If you give a kid an iPad today, they'll have a great time," Altman said. "But if you want to go make an app for an iPad it's a lot of work. A 7-year-old is not going to figure that out for him- or herself."</p><p>According to Saffo, the same wave Gates and Jobs rode and which resurfaced for Zuckerberg and many others is poised to happen a third time in the field of genomics. He said technologies like CRISPR, a gene editing tool, are ripe for innovation in the coming decade.</p><p>Altman, however, said to look at whatever the smartest kids in the best universities are talking about, and ignore the hype. "Because everybody says that," he said, "I expect that it's wrong."</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sneakers-worn-top-silicon-valley-tech-ceo-lanvin-nike-tim-cook-mark-zuckerberg-2017-5">Silicon Valley's ultimate status symbol is the sneaker - here are the rare, expensive, and goofy sneakers worn by the top tech CEOs</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/73bnEIOS-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

You Searched For "frontrow app" and got 10 results

An ex-Googler who's now an exec at drone-maker Skydio said he went from the phone to the drone industry because 'phones have gotten kind of boring'

Katie Canales

Key West is tiny but packed with things to do — here 11 activities that locals say you can't miss, from boozy Tiki cruises to spooky ghost tours

Chelsea Greenwood

Key West is tiny but packed with things to do — here 11 activities that locals say you can't miss, from boozy Tiki cruises to spooky ghost tours

Chelsea Greenwood

A Silicon Valley CTO says the skills he'll make sure his children learn to enter the workforce have nothing to do with tech

Libby Kane

Former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe looks back on the mistakes that led to the startup's collapse

Jason Guerrasio

A top Comcast exec on how the TV bundle could be fundamentally changed by new streaming services like Disney Plus and HBO Max

Ashley Rodriguez

A top Bank of America executive explains how the bank is luring top talent from companies like Apple and Disney to fuel its $10 billion digital ambitions

Alex Morrell

Blippar - the company bidding to build something 'bigger than the internet itself' - just appointed a top British diplomat as its COO

Will Heilpern,Will Heilpern

Everything you need to know about 'swatting,' the increasingly popular prank of calling a SWAT team on an unsuspecting person while the internet watches

Steven Tweedie

Today's hottest tech companies were founded by men born between 1981 and 1984 - here's why

Chris Weller