<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54b429256bb3f7bc6f454586-1200-924/uber-protest-11.jpg" border="0" alt="uber protest">Max Whittaker/ReutersTaxi drivers protest against transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft along with Assembly Bill 2293 at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California, June 25, 2014. </img></div></div></div>Three on-demand ride-hailing startups are forming a global alliance to take on Uber, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/global-taxi-alliance#.fegJBaZmq">BuzzFeed News reports</a>.
Executives at both GrabTaxi and OlaCabs, which are Asia-based companies that use taxis instead of private drivers, told BuzzFeed News they're working on "forming a global alliance of regional players."
These executives also suggested to BuzzFeed News that Softbank Capital - which has provided funding for both GrabTaxi and OlaCabs - is behind the potential alliance. Ron Fisher, a partner at Softbank Capital, told BuzzFeed he couldn't comment.
The potential alliance, which may serve to unify regional ride-hailing markets, "would include knowledge sharing and maybe cross-booking," Brian Cu, the co-founder of GrabTaxi, told BuzzFeed News. "If you're in the Philippines, you can book a GrabTaxi using the OlaCabs app; it's in the realm of possibilities, so maybe Softbank is trying to do that."
Oneal Bhambani, the CFO of Flywheel, which offers a similar taxi-hailing service and is based in San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News his company was also made aware of a potential alliance. Bhambani has apparently talked to teh CEOs of OlaCabs and GrabTaxi. 
This alliance would rival on-demand ride-hailing juggernaut Uber, which operates in 53 countries and 200 cities and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-just-raised-12-billion-2014-12">raised $1.2 billion in December</a> at a $41 billion post-money valuation. To date, Uber has raised $3.3 billion in funding, and has proven itself to be more than just an on-demand car service startup: by dipping into experimenting with <a href="http://blog.uber.com/uberFRESH">food delivery</a>, <a href="http://blog.uber.com/UberCARGO">moving</a>, on-demand <a href="http://blog.uber.com/healthchicago">flu shots</a>, and more, Uber could prove itself to be a large-scale dispatch and logistics company.
In a blog post announcing the company's latest round of funding, CEO Travis Kalanick said the new funding would be used to create more than 1 million jobs in 2015 and to "make significant investments, particularly in the Asia Pacific region."
<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/global-taxi-alliance#.fegJBaZmq">Check out the whole story over on BuzzFeed&gt;&gt;</a>

Three On-Demand Taxi Startups Are Joining Forces To Take On Uber 

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/524dd2126bb3f773458b456a-1200-924/gravity-behind-the-scenes-sandra-bullock-george-clooney-alfonso-cuaron-2.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="gravity behind the scenes sandra bullock george clooney alfonso cuaron" width="480" /><a href="http://gravitymovie.warnerbros.com/index.html">Murdo Macleod</a>"When he [George Clooney] left, I have never been hit with a depression like that," says <keyword id="53664" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="sandra-bullock">Sandra Bullock</keyword>.</div></div>Sandra Bullock's highly anticipated film "<keyword id="87920" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Gravity">Gravity</keyword>" opens tomorrow and it already has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gravity-reviews-go-see-it-2013-8" target="_blank">rave reviews</a> - but it hasn't been an easy road.
Bullock <a href="http://variety.com/2013/film/news/sandra-bullock-on-the-emotional-rollercoaster-of-shooting-gravity-1200688811/?utm_source=sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=breakingnewsalert" target="_blank">opened up to Variety</a> about the film being just as emotionally taxing to film as it was physically.
One source of comfort - and eventually pain - was Bullock's co-star, George Clooney.
"Every single day. When George came, it was like an energy force and I was so appreciative of him being there," the actress explains. "But when he left, I have never been hit with a depression like that. We had so much fun for three weeks, but then my friend left. I was amazed at how I was affected by him going."
Bullock admits, "I had a hard time saying goodbye, I didn't want to look at him I just gave him a pat and he walked away and I was mad because I felt like everyday I was pushed against a wall with technology."
Despite "Gravity" using <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/science-advisor-for-gravity-2013-9" target="_blank">groundbreaking technology</a>, Bullock says it wasn't easy to shoot the film alone in a box for up to 11 hours a day.
"I was angry at everyone who came up to me with a laptop to tell me where my hand had to be and where my head had to end up within a certain amount of time," she explains. "It was my job, with all of these constraints, to figure out how to be this person. I cut off all my sounds with ear wigs and the headpieces so I didn't have to be aware of teh technology that was happening around me."
Bullock, who stars alone in Alfonso Cuaron-directed film most of the time other than when she briefly shares the screen with Clooney, says that "breathing was our third character."
"We had a doctor that we talked to telling us what actually happens when these things happen, what happens to the eyes," Bullock says of what happens to humans if lost in space. "And I realized, 'I can't pretend that,' I'm going to have to do it every single day and that's when I would get the most frustrated because it made you light headed, you didn't have your bearings, you couldn't act while your peripheral vision was going but you had to get to that level so it looked right in the eyes and your skin did something special."
And it wasn't just a one time thing.
"Every day I would have to amp up to where I was before in the scene," she says. "We had to establish the level of panic and as it expressed the character's life or death struggles."
Watch Bullock explain the intense filming experience in her own words: 
<iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9EiTAqZLTb0"></iframe>

Sandra Bullock Says Filming 'Gravity' Made Her 'Depressed' 

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e6cb336bb3f73f7901829b-940-705/adam-pisoni-head-shot.jpg?maxX=600" border="0" alt="Adam Pisoni Head Shot" width="600">Adam Pisoni</img></div></div>Adam Pisoni co-founded collaboration software company Yammer with David Sacks, the former PayPal exec and Hollywood screenwriter. When Microsoft bought Yammer in July 2012 for more than $1 billion, Sacks disappeared from public sight, and he left the company <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-sacks-leaving-microsoft-2014-7">after just two years.</a>But Pisoni kept carrying the Yammer torch, both inside and outside Microsoft. In particular, he was a <a href="http://www.citeworld.com/article/2114910/development/yammer-cto-adam-pisoni-what-microsoft-can-learn.html">huge influence within Microsoft</a> as it tried to become a more modern cloud company.For years, Microsoft developed software in huge three-year shifts, then tried to sell those massive updates to customers all at once. The new Microsoft is aiming to sell subscriptions to cloud services, with smaller updates trickling out all the time. It's not a new technique -- Salesforce and other cloud companies have been doing it for years - but Pisoni was one of its main proponents at Microsoft.Now he's moved on as well.Pisoni left Microsoft as well to start his next project, <a href="http://www.responsive.org/">Responsive.org.</a> It has a much bigger mission: Instead of just changing how software is written, Pisoni and his partners want to change how businesses are run.And it all revolves around something called "halocracy.""It's a non-hierarchical way of running a company, or describing how a company runs," Pisoni told Business Insider. Most companies are run like military outfits. Everybody has an official rank, and their influence extends one level below. The exception is senior leadership, who gets to assign resources and titles to the rest of the company. The only way you get new influence is by getting promoted, or waiting for the company to reorganize.But a lot of companies are finding that this old way of doing things is no longer working. Information moves much more quickly between people and organizations, and that means change is happening at a dizzying pace. The old command-and-control structure can't keep up with the pace of change, and a lot of companies are experimenting with new ways of organizing their people. In a halocracy, people are organized into small groups called circles. Each circle has a broad purpose and specific goals, but the people in the circle define their own roles, and those roles and the circles themselves can change at any time.As Pisoni explains, when he ran engineering at Yammer, he had 200 people under him. "But that also meant a lot of baggage because of my rank. I was also doing HR, facilities. I don't know that I'm the best at all those things, but it rolls up to me." In a halocratic organization, the people who are best at those jobs would take them, and be accountable for the results.Pisoni says that halocracy isn't the end point, but rather a stopping point on the way to a more flexible organization.Tech companies like Zappos and Google and Facebook are already working this way, but as he started floating the idea for Responsive.org in 2013, and <a href="http://www.responsive.org/manifesto">posted a manifesto</a> describing the organization's goals, he heard from dozens of companies who were all struggling with the same idea. "In the last year or two, it's gone from a little experiment to the C level saying 'we want to know if it scales,'" said Pisoni. General Electric, NAB Bank, and Telstra are among the companies that Pisoni says are starting to think differently. Responsive.org, which officially launches today, is meant to give the people in these companies who want to change a place to learn from each other and share ideas - think meetups, shared resources, and that kind of thing. It sounds a little loose and vague, but it's similar to how the "agile" programming movement started in 2000 and has now become the standard way of programming at most tech companies. Responsive.org wants to do the same thing, but for business organization instead of mere software development.Pisoni is joined by co-founder Aaron Dignan, the CEO of management consultancy <a href="http://www.undercurrent.com/">Undercurrent</a>, and Zappos and Microsoft have both signed on as participants.Speaking of Microsoft, Pisoni says that CEO Satya Nadella really does get the need for change, but he can't do it by himself."I'm a huge Satya fan, he really gets it. But the lesson to be learned is even when teh CEO gets it, there's a lot more work to be done to transform the organization. They're doing a lot of the right things. Some will work out, some won't. The underlying issue is how quickly they can become more adaptive. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</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="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" 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', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ 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>

Yammer's cofounder has quit Microsoft to start a new business movement

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53a2c005eab8ea94016c413a-1069-802/american-apparel-colors.png" border="0" alt="american apparel colors" />REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonPeter Arispe from Mexico works as a quality control checker at the American Apparel factory in downtown Los Angeles October 17, 2008.</div></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know:
It's A Yellen Rally. The world stock markets are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/european-markets-june-19-2014-2014-6">on a tear</a> in the wake of yesterday's dovish Fed monetary policy announcement. In Europe, Britain's FTSE is up 0.8%, France's CAC 40 is up 0.9%, Germany's DAX is up 0.8%, Spain's IBEX is up 1.0%, and Italy's FTSE MIB is up 1.1%. This follows huge gains in Asia where Japan's Nikkei closed up 1.6% and Australia's S&amp;P/ASX closed up 1.6%.
ICYMI, Here's What Yellen Said. From yesterday's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/june-fomc-announcement-2014-6">FOMC statement</a>: "When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run." Here's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/janet-yellen-dove-2014-6">BI's Joe Weisenthal</a>: "What that means is, she's not overly concerned about the economy overheating, and not inclined to tighten policy early. And that's the big takeaway from [Wednesday's] FOMC events. At every opportunity, Yellen &amp; Co. took the dovish turn."
Volatility Collapses. If you already thought market volatility was low, you were probably surprised to see <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vix-craters-after-fomc-yellen-2014-6">volatility collapse further</a> in the wake of Yellen's comments. The CBOE Volatility Index sunk to as low as 10.57 on Wednesday afternoon. When asked about low volatility, Yellen said that the Fed has <a href="https://twitter.com/clusterstock/status/479336044522110976">no target for it</a>. She also said she was <a href="https://twitter.com/clusterstock/status/479336343383068672">unsure if it was caused by complacency</a>.
Facebook Goes Down. The social network went down across <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-facebook-website-crashes--2014-19">parts of Asia and Europe</a>. According to Bloomberg's Tim Culpan and Bianca Vazquez Toness, the roughly 30 minute outage affected users in Tokyo, Johannesburg, London, Paris, New Delhi, Amsterdam, Moscow, and Taipei. "We resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100 percent," said the company.
American Apparel's Dov Charney Is Out. Dov Charney, the controversial founder of American Apparel was ousted by the company's board for cause. "We take no joy in this, but the Board felt it was the right thing to do," <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/american-apparel-terminates-dov-charney-2014-6">board member Allan Mayer said in a statement</a>. "Dov Charney created American Apparel, but the Company has grown much larger than any one individual and we are confident that its greatest days are still ahead."
Roll-Royce Buybacks. British industrial giant Rolls-Royce is the latest company to announce that it'll shovel a ton of cash back to its shareholders. Its board announced that it would launch a 1 billion pound - or $1.7 billion - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-rolls-royce-to-return-1-billion-pound-no-acquisitions-planned--2014-19">share buyback program</a>. CEO John Rishton explained: "As no material acquisitions are planned, and reflecting the strength of our balance sheet, we will <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-rolls-royce-to-return-1-billion-pound-no-acquisitions-planned--2014-19">return the proceeds of the Energy sale</a> to our shareholders."
UK Retail Sales Slip. UK retail sales fell 0.5% month-over-month in May, which is the first decline in four months. This was largely due to a 2.4% drop in food sales. According to Bloomberg's Fergal O'Brien, this more than offset a jump in apparel sales thanks to demand for replica soccer jerseys ahead of the World Cup.
Jobless Claims. At 8:30 a.m. ET, we'll get teh latest weekly tally of initial unemployment claims. Economists estimate claims slipped to 313,000 from 317,000 last week. "Initial jobless claims continue to linger below 320k," said Nomura economists. "This suggests that layoffs have bottomed out and that more hiring will be needed to spur job growth."
Philly Fed. At 10:00 a.m. ET, we'll get the Philadelphia Fed' June Business Outlook report. Economists estimate the regional report's activity index fell to 14.0 in June from 15.4 in May. "Last month the new orders and shipment indices both posted meaningful declines, suggesting that the underlying trend is a bit weaker than the solid headline print would suggest," said Barclays economists. "That being said, all of the major components remain firmly in expansionary territory and are consistent with an improving manufacturing sector."
Yo. A startup mobile app called Yo - which allows user to message the word "Yo" to friends - briefly attracted a lot of attention and ire on Wednesday. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen warned naysayers about dismissing the concept too quickly. From <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-defends-yo-app-2014-6">his tweets this morning</a>: "Yo is an instance of "one-bit communication" - a message with no content other than the fact that it exists. Yes or no. Yo or no yo ... Other instances of one-bit communication: Police siren, flashing stop light, "Open" sign, light turned on, taxicab roof indicator lit." Andreesen noted that deliberate missed calls, a form of one-bit communications, are popular in developing parts of Asia where phone calls are just too expensive.

10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a70b1617e7a351e008b4ab0-1000/jay-kornegay.jpg" alt="Jay Kornegay" data-mce-source="Ethan Miller/Getty Images" />Ethan Miller/Getty Images</div></div></div><ul><li>Bettors in Las Vegas will have hundreds of betting options on Super Bowl Sunday thanks to the popularity of prop bets across the gambling world.</li><li>In a recent interview, Business Insider spoke with Jay Kornegay from the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, where he is responsible for overseeing over 400 prop bets for the Super Bowl.</li><li>Kornegay shared details of what makes a good prop bet and why they've become such a hit in the gambling community.</li></ul><hr /> Super Bowl Sunday is undoubtedly the best gambling day of the year.With literally <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-prop-bets-expert-picks-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hundreds of betting options in Las Vegas</a>, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-prop-bets-weird-bets-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thousands more at offshore books online</a>, there's no shortage of ways to bet on the big game.Jay Kornegay is VP of Race and Sports Operations at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook and is responsible for overseeing the creation of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-prop-bets-expert-picks-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over 400 Super Bowl proposition bets</a>. He recently spoke with Business Insider about the behind-the-scenes work it takes to create so many betting options for players, the ingredients to a good prop bet, and the worst beat his book ever took on a Super Bowl proposition.<hr /> Tyler Lauletta: So before we get too deep into things - you're offering over 400 prop bets on the Super Bowl this year?Jay Kornegay: Yep. We have over 400 propositions which translates to just over 14,000 betting options.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a70e8a0af61d825038b462f-993/lvh-superbook-3.jpg" alt="LVH SuperBook 3" data-mce-source="Ethan Miller/Getty Images" />Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesThe big board at the LVH SuperBook, lit up with every option bettors have on staking money on Super Bowl LII.</div></div></div>Lauletta: Right because a few of those - most receiving yards, most rushing yards, etc. - have multiple betting options. So over 14,000 possible bets on the board.Kornegay: Yeah, well, I would say just over 400 props. As far as options - some of the books are stating now that they have over 13,000 betting options because of a few propositions like - "How many points will the Eagles score?"Well, you have 0, 2, 3, 4, 5... all the way up to 60 or more! We just count that as one.Lauletta: When does the process of putting the list together begin? You have so many player-specific props - is that just the day after the conference championships?Kornegay: No, we actually start setting the template a few weeks out of the conference championship games. We have the email format, a customers' sheet, and we have to program these into the boards, and as you know, it has to be 100% correct. All the disclaimers and betting numbers have to be correct, or all of a sudden people are betting the wrong number.It's a process, and there's a lot of legwork involved here, so we try to get a head start on it and get as much prep work as we can done before the teams are decided.Lauletta: How many people are a part of the process of determining the lines/numbers?Kornegay: Well, there's about seven or eight of us that work on it at some level.Lauletta: That's shockingly low to me. In my head there was a board room with like 30 of you all divvying up different sections. What's your schedule like for putting the props together for Super Bowl Sunday?Kornegay: Well, when we start, we break down each team and set it up with the star players and even secondary players, and we'll just start going down the list and start making props up. But all that is just the legwork that leads up to setting the actual number for the prop.Then once the teams are determined, we still have Monday to fill in a lot of blanks, and then Tuesday and Wednesday is all about figuring out what all the numbers should be. Thursday is when we have to put all the numbers in, and like I said - you gotta put it on email, you gotta put it on our customer sheets, you gotta put it on the computer, you gotta put it on the board.I wish we could just enter it in one time, but it's not like that - everybody still want's their sheet. It's a 30-page document filled with a lot of information.Lauletta: When did prop bets begin to take off for you? It feels like they're a fairly new phenomena with the Super Bowl.Kornegay: As far as I know the props have been around for the Super Bowl for a long time - I mean as far back as I can remember, even before my time. But it never really took off until that one proposition - <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/how-william-the-refrigerator-perry-changed-betting-forever/431430/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Will "Refrigerator" Perry score a touchdown?</a> - and that was in 1985. Back in those days they probably only had like one page of props and they were really basic.When we put up the 49ers and Chargers in the 1994 Super Bowl, we put up "Who would score more points on Super Bowl Sunday - Michael Jordan or the 49ers?" and that was like the first cross-sports prop, where we took other events that were happening and connected it to something that could happen in the Super Bowl. And it got a lot of attention and publicity, and people loved it, so we started adding more props.The Niners were a 19.5-point favorite or something like that - there was no doubt who was going to win the game. So we took those 20 or 30 props that we were having, and we bumped it up to like 100. And it just took off like wildfire. People loved it.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a70e9037e7a3557008b4b5b-999/lvh-superbook-4.jpg" alt="LVH SuperBook 4" data-mce-source="Ethan Miller/Getty Images" />Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesJust a sample of the cross-sports prop bets available at the LVH SuperBook.</div></div></div>Lauletta: How do you go about putting together a cross-sports prop? There's so many options to draw from - what are the ingredients to making a good one?Kornegay: Well we are always thinking "What is going to create the most interest?" Because we don't want to do all this work for a proposition that nobody bets - even though they bet every proposition on the board. But we want to make sure it gets some interest so we usually try to get some key players.You can go on forever with those kinds of props. I could put "Total number of yards by both teams vs. goals by the Los Angeles Kings" and make the yards -782. You know what I mean?Lauletta: [Laughs] And you could do that with every NHL team if you wanted to.Kornegay: Yeah! So it goes on forever. You can do that for thousands of props. But time is limited. The only thing that restricts us from putting up a thousand props is time.Lauletta: What rules are there pertaining to prop bets? As I understand it, in Las Vegas props can only be booked for outcomes determined on the field of play, so you can't put a number on the national anthem, even though that one always gets a lot of press.Kornegay: Yep. And when lawmakers talk about that- especially in today's climate, when there's the possibility of sports gaming expansion across the country - that frustrates us a little bit too. They hear these crazy propositions that aren't available in Nevada, and legislators say "Oh, they shouldn't be putting a prop on 'Will Justin Timberlake have a hat on at halftime?'"Well, no, we don't have that in Nevada because of regulations. Our regulations state that it has to be an official result. You can't find out if Justin Timberlake wore a hat in the box score.Lauletta: So as a general rule, it has to be an outcome you can find in the box score?Kornegay: There has to be an official result for it. Whether it's in the box score, the game summary, or the game recap.Lauletta: And that's why you can book, say, the coin flip, but not the national anthem?Kornegay: Right. There's no official result for the national anthem. It's very subjective - sometimes they start humming. Not to mention, her friends and everybody in that rehearsal studio know exactly how long it's going to be.But is it the last note? The beginning of the last note? When do you stop the clock? I don't know. There's no official result.Lauletta: Of your total handle for the Super Bowl, how much of it will be from prop bets as opposed to spread bets, moneyline bets, and the over/under on the game?Kornegay: The props are actually more popular than the game itself. The props will be about 60% of the total handle. Because what a typical fan will do is they'll make their largest bet on the game itself, and then they'll make 6-10 prop bets.People really enjoy them. It's a lot of fun and it's a huge part of Super Bowl weekend in Nevada. Back in the day they used to call all these sucker bets!But people have become more and more comfortable betting these each and every year for a couple reasons - they're a lot more educated than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and they've had a lot of success. We had safeties in three consecutive Super Bowls, and they got overtime last year - people love that. The entertainment value of betting the propositions is just tremendous.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a70e76faf61d8f5038b4634-853/peyton-manning-super-bowl-safety.jpg" alt="Peyton Manning Super Bowl safety" data-mce-source="AP Photo/Paul Sancya" />AP Photo/Paul SancyaThe first snap of Super Bowl XLVIII sailed over Peyton Manning's head, giving teh Seahawks a safety and creating one of the most consequential moments in prop bet history.</div></div></div>Lauletta: Do you know the hardest you've ever been hit by a prop bet? That first-score safety in the Seahawks-Broncos Super Bowl jumps out to me as potentially rough for you.Kornegay: Yeah, that was the worst one probably - when they snapped it over Manning's head. The safety to be the first score was like 50/1 or something like that. And it also hit defensive score, Seattle to score first - it was so bad. I got texts from my senior executives like, "Uhhh, that probably wasn't good, huh?"It was a healthy six figures.Lauletta: Do you have any favorite props this year?Kornegay: There's a ton of great bets available this year. My team - Ed, Jeff, John and Randy - just did a tremendous job of doing all this legwork and they really were the creators of a lot of different propositions and deserve a lot of credit for it.We're really excited about the Vegas Knights props because the town is just going nuts over them. We know the locals in town are going to be betting on those propositions. So we're really interested to see how that money flows in on those.Lauletta: What makes a good prop bet?Kornegay: I just think for us we just want it to create some interest. We want it to get a lot of attention. We want them to play it. We want them to have fun with it.I think, first, we certainly want them to understand it. Then we want them to play it and enjoy rooting for it, one side or the other. It's a lot of fun. You know the over/under jersey number for the player to score the first touchdown is 32.5, and it's so funny because you'll hear people saying "I bet the Patriots, but I need Blount to score here!"You just hear a lot of that. We just want people to have a good time, and they usually do. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vince-stephanie-shane-mcmahon-wwe-successor-triple-h-jim-ross-wrestling-2018-1">JIM ROSS: Here's who will take over WWE after Vince McMahon</a></h3> <div> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/BDTTW4pO-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>

The man responsible for creating over 400 Super Bowl prop bets explains how they are picked and why they are so popular

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54cfb518ecad049333afa7db-900-695/slide-45.jpg" border="0" alt="fab pivot jason goldberg bradford shellhammer"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fab-year-in-review-2011-12#-5">Jason Goldberg/Business Insider</a>In early 2011, Bradford Shellhammer (left) and Jason Goldberg (right) shut down Fabulous and started Fab.</img></div></div></div>Fab.com was once considered the fastest growing startup in the world. The e-commerce site partnered with thousands of designers to sell their funky decor and trinkets via flash sales.
Within its first six months, Fab generated $20 million and Silicon Valley investors valued the company at $400 million. At its peak, the company raised a total of $336 million at a $900 million valuation with a $200 million+ run rate.
But then Fab crashed. 
This month, the assets of Fab are expected to be acquired by PCH Innovations for $15-50 million in a stock-based deal.
The company and its CEO, Jason Goldberg, made a lot of mistakes during the course of Fab. You can <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-billion-dollar-startup-fab-died-2015-2">read about them all in detail here</a>. 
When Goldberg realized Fab was failing, he wrote a 5-page memo to his executive team. It's dated October 11 2013, a few months after the company raised a $150 million round of financing at a $900 million valuation from Tencent.
Then, Fab was laying off hundreds of staffers and pivoting its business for the fourth or fifth time. The memo provides a transparent look into a troubled company that blew $200 million before figuring out a sustainable business model. It is proof that even the most hyped tech companies with gobs of funding can go sideways very quickly.
Printed copies of the memo were handed to the executives. Business Insider got a copy and typed it all out to protect the source. Here it is in full:
CEO Missive
October 11, 2013
We are going to make this work.
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">It has to start with brutal honesty</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have a job to do. That job is to make Fab successful.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I want your help doing that.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">But it won't be exactly the same as it has been.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">And you might not always be comfortable with everything we have to do. Change is hard.</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">And we have to establish a few ground rules:</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I have a full mandate from the board to do whatever it takes to guide this to a good outcome. I am responsible for their/our money. My role is to steer this ship and you have to be 100% ok with that.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Jason is allowed to ask and question anything. And he will make tough calls that the team may not like, but will need to try to find a way to get behind. We're in full-on preservation mode right now. This is serious.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">There has to be scrutiny and measurement on every aspect of the business, there is no room for blind faith bets.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I can't do this if the team -- the CPLUS group -- are are [sic] not in a good head space. The broader team takes their emotional cues from you.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We're better at this together than against each other.</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I have promised the board certain things:</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We will guide this business to being self-sustainable.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We will narrow our focus to a specific target customer while we figure out a repeatable business plan to service them. Jennifer/Michael.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We will question everything and apply analytical rigor to our decision process.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We will do a ruthless assessment of our talent and fill in our gaps.</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">The debate about our path is over. At this point it's about deliberate action.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We are not done righting this ship. It will be a constant, every day effort.</li>
</ul>
So..
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Step 1: Acknowledge that we have serious problems.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Step 2: Ground ourselves in reality on what it will take to fix our problems.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Step 3: Focus on fixing it.</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Resources.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Time.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">People.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Determination</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have to be brutally honest with ourselves about where we are at.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We spent $200M in the past 2 years. $200M!</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We spent $200M and we have not proven out our business model</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We spent $200M and we have not proven that we know precisely what customers want to buy.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">This is not an indictment about any person or persons or team.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">It must be a thoughtful discussion about what's best for Fab.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have north of $100M and we a) have to make it last b) figure out all the things we should have been figuring out over the last two years.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">This is it.</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">It will be super difficult to raise another round, and if we do raise a round some of the consequences (including not controlling our own destiny, potentially nasty down round, etc)</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We are the most heavily funded startup in NYC at 2 years in our life cycle and we have spent 2/3 of the cash - its a privilege and enormous responsibility</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have to figure all of this out quickly or we will run out of runway</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Holy shit this is a big deal</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Retail businesses are all about the merchandise.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">No amount of marketing or financial engineering can overcome the merchandise.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Successful retail is a marriage of merchandising and supply chain.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Successful retail is a marriage of merchandising and operations.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Selling a lifestyle = ruthlessly executing on a tight creative vision that is married with a deep and proven understanding of what customers will buy.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Turning around a retail business is a slog. It wont [sic] happen overnight. Planning cycles. We need time.</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">The only way we get time is to cut our spend - we need to be creative and brutal about it</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We must, must, must, narrow the focus. Even more than we already have. </li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Fab does X better than anyone else for Y. And here's the proof.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">That's not to say we can't come back and do more later and build that lifestyle brand we want to build, but we have to earn the right bit by bit right now.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Especially because we buy inventory. We can no longer afford to take big chances on stuff that doesn't sell. Everything has to be focused, even the misses.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We've got a limited shot at this and focus is the only way we are going to get there. Disciplined focus.</li>
</ul>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">It is not enough to say let's just get back to where we used to be.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Strict frameworks. Buy what we love, within a strict framework of what our customers want.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">What customers want and will pay for matters more right now than what we want them to want.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">It's not about us. It's about Jennifer and Michael. [Jennifer and Michael are made-up profiles of Fab's target user based on an internal customer survey]</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We won't [sic] have the opportunity to build a business that Jennifer and Michael admire and shop from unless we:</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Focus, focus, focus.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Slow things down.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Continue honing in on costs and inefficiencies.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Instrument and measure everything.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Clear everything off our plates to do this right.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
What do you all need in order to do this?
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have failed in the past to clearly identify what Fab's core value proposition is to consumers.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Who we target. Narrow, specific customer target.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">How, Product offering, price point.</li>
</ul>
We are doing [sic] do that now.
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">We have failed in the past to acknowledge the cost-focused, execution-focused, low margin requirements of an e-commerce business. We are doing that now.</li>
</ul>
I have made mistakes.
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I guided us to go too fast.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I enabled us to lose our core focus.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I didn't insist on our honing in on our target customer.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I didn't build discipline around costs and business metrics enough into our culture.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I didn't build a retail merchandising / marketing culture.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I spent too much on marketing before we got the consumer value proposition right.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I allowed us to over invest in Europe vs. insisting on scaling global teams from teh start.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I didn't build a culture and discipline that connected supply chain to merchandising to delivery. I allowed silos of teams and thinking, and that has seeded an awful an [sic] cancerous distrust.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">I didn't see the need to course correct fast enough.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Etc.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Etc.</li>
</ul>
And all of you have made mistakes too.
I need you all to do this: Write down the mistakes you made.
It's not about blame. It's about healthy introspective dose of realism that is needed by all of us in order to go forward. We can't build a better Fab until we have a clear sense for what we should have done different, better, smarter.
Things you can expect over the next weeks and months.
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Ruthless attention to righting this ship.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Ruthless attention to focusing the business.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Ruthless attention to opportunities to shave costs without hampering our future.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">More more more Jennifer and Michael.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Influx of retail and ecomm experience.</li>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Hires.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Brown-bags.</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">Advisors/mentors.</li>
</ul>
</ul>

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