This Amazon employee had a startling realization when he spent six months trying to recruit new people

This Amazon employee had a startling realization when he spent six months trying to recruit new people

James Thomson worked at Amazon for more than five years in multiple seller-services related roles. The entire time, he was blown away by his fellow coworkers.  With a background in consulting and investment banking, he figured he'd already worked among some of the smartest people he would ever meet, but joining the e-commerce giant proved him wrong.   "Lots of people had Type A personalities, were cutthroat, and all that kind of stuff, but in terms of just raw intellectual power, that was absolutely exhilarating," he told Business Insider. "The caliber of people I was working with was truly impressive." Thomson says that Amazon's dedication to careful hiring hit him hardest when he was managing recruiting for the company's US sales organization for about six months in 2012.  "It was at that point that I realized just how important it was to bring in the right type of talent," he says. "The six months I spent doing recruiting on the side, I realized that you have to start with amazing ingredients to make an amazing cake. At Amazon, a lot of positions remained open even when there was an absolutely desperate need to fill it. There was a rigid discipline in terms of validating every single candidate that I hadn't seen before." Thomson says he feels privleged to have had the chance to work at Amazon, even though it certainly wasn't "cupcakes and tea" every day.  "From the perspective of working with really smart people who knew how to ask the right questions, get the right data, and get to the root causes of problems, I never worked at an organization that did that as well," he says. Thomson left in 2013 to find ways to share what he learned at Amazon with the third-party sellers that he had been working with from within the company for so long. He opened a consulting business and is the President of the Professional retailers online and solution providers (PROSPER) Association. SEE ALSO: I'm obsessed with a music streaming service millions of people probably don't know they can use for free Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Apolo Ohno: Here's Why Talented People Fail

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How one woman turned her dog-walking side gig into an elite business without borrowing a dime

Kara Kleindienst's business, The Barking Meter, is as high-pressure as a dog-walking company can be. TBM is trusted with more than 100 of New York City's most pampered and posh pups (pictured throughout this post) — dogs owned by designer Philip Lim, fashion industry pro Lauren Santo Domingo, actress Blair Brown, and a slew of other bold-faced names that can't be disclosed. The company turns a neat profit, employs seven people, and is responsible not only for walking dogs, but also training them and taking them to the groomer and the vet. And it was all started by one woman seven years ago, without any venture capital. Kleindienst worked in politics for the first year or two of her professional life, but quickly realized the cutthroat environment on Capitol Hill wasn't for her. So in 2007, she moved in with friends in New York City — but her Plan B didn't extend much farther than relocation. While figuring out how to make ends meet, she was offered a side gig walking Philip Lim's dog by her roommate, who worked for the designer. Kleindienst admits she had no idea what a dog-walking business would entail — but she loved dogs and couldn't turn down a side gig.  on   She took the job, and now, eight and a half years later, she's the head of a full canine concierge service with 75 of New York City's most discerning human clients — as well as a brand new west coast branch in San Francisco. Here are Kleindienst's tips for success. Book smarts aren't everything Kleindienst attributes most of her success to one thing: her EQ, or emotional intelligence. "I don't think my IQ is anywhere near as high as my EQ, and I think that's what's allowed me to be successful in my friendships, my familial relationships and, most importantly, my business," she said. In fact, before she decided to turn The Barking Meter into a full-time career, Kleindienst was trying to get into graduate school, but to no avail. Now that she's a successful entrepreneur, she admits it might be a good thing that she didn't get in, although she was discouraged at the time. "It's taught me, in a humbling sense, that I am good enough even though I don't have those degrees," she said.  on Work hard on building relationships with your clients In addition to offering services like training and vet visits, what sets The Barking Meter apart from other dog-walking companies is its personal touch. The same person will show up to walk your dog every day, Kleindienst said, so the dog gets used to them and feels much more comfortable. And the clients feel better, too — some of them will come home early just to chat with their dog-walker, she said. Perhaps most valuable, thanks to her attention to clients' wants and needs, the expansion to San Francisco comes with a built-in client base.  "A few of our clients moved out there at the end of last year," Kleindienst said, "and they said there really isn't anything out there like The Barking Meter. I visited and checked it out, and I agree." Now, TBM is bicoastal — and they're hitting the ground running with built-in Bay Area clients, without even having to advertise.  on As long as your product is top-quality, your company doesn't have to reinvent the wheel Kleindienst is on her phone constantly, making sure everything is going smoothly. Each of her seven employees is trained at a high level to deal with every situation.  "I believe our company will do anything for you and your dog," Kleindienst said. "We joke that we're the dog's personal assistant." Many would-be entrepreneurs get caught up in trying to think of something that's never been done before, and this isn't always a successful formula. "You just have to do something really well," Kleindienst said, "and there has to be something that sets you apart."  on It's okay to be discerning about your customers Kleindienst has been meticulous about managing her company's growth – and that includes saying no to clients who might not be a good fit. "We interview our clients," she said, "and I'm happy to come out of the introductory meeting and call Joey [Kleindienst, her brother who serves as VP] and say, 'I don't think this is a client we want to work with.'" If a client has demands that can't be met, the company would rather send them elsewhere than disappoint them. Also, TBM is so popular that to even get an interview, a potential client must be referred by a current one. "We try to develop that relationship from the start — we trust you, you trust us, because your friend told you about us," Kleindienst explained.  on If you're not taking venture capital, be deliberate with your growth If Kleindienst had sought out investors in the beginning, she said, it would have been much easier to scale her company — but she also might have fallen into debt if she allowed TBM to grow too quickly. Instead, she was incredibly prudent, always saving enough to keep the business running for at least another three months before adding new hires or making changes. Even when she moved from DC to New York, she had saved enough money to live for exactly three months. "I'm a numbers person," she said. "I don't project five years from now. I like to project what's going to happen in three to six months." After three years of treating TBM like a side project while looking for something else, Kleindienst had an epiphany and realized she could become an entrepreneur and "really turn this into something," she said. So she hired her first two employees, but not until after she'd saved enough to pay them for at least three months. By the time the first three months had ended, business had doubled — and it's doubled every single year since.  on It might be tough in the beginning Kleindienst managed her own budget in an incredibly cautious way for the first few years of her business. "I'd count every day — how many dogs are on today, and what's the total?" she said. "That would determine if I could go out to dinner Saturday night with my friends... It wasn't until years later that I stopped counting how many dogs were on every day. I think that really keeps you grounded and committed. It might have been a great day today, but tomorrow, everyone could cancel." This is why any entrepreneur has to believe in what she's doing, Kleindienst said. "My ego was hit big time," she said. "But you're going to get yourself caught in a situation where you disappoint yourself and disappoint the people you're trying to service if you think you have all the answers."  on Always remember, you're smart enough "One of my biggest insecurities, and one that's still there [but] much less, is: am I smart enough?" Kleindienst said. "I am smart enough to navigate being a business owner, despite having no experience and not having a degree for it." In the beginning of TBM, her friends would introduce Kleindienst as the owner of a business. "And I'd be like, 'Yeah, whatever, I'm going to get a drink,'" she recalled. "I was never super proud. Now, I'm like, 'Yeah, can I tell you about it?' I'm very proud of what it's become." SEE ALSO: These companies didn't need venture capital to get off the ground Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: These Luxurious Hotels In Canada Are Treating Dogs Like Kings

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Samsung is in a pickle and its newest phone isn't helping

Samsung's bet on a new, well-designed flagship phone isn't paying off as well as the company had hoped. The company told the Korea-based Yonhap News Agency that it has shipped 10 million units of the new Samsung Galaxy S6, which launched about a month ago. That number is down from the amount of units sold for a similar time period for Samsung's last flagship phone, the Galaxy S5. Samsung sold 11 million Galaxy S5 phones during the first month of availability. It's important to note that these are shipments, not sales, for the Galaxy S6. It's unclear how many people actually bought the Galaxy S6. This is the same narrative we've been seeing for the last year with Samsung. Companies like the Chinese startup Xiaomi have figured out how to make Android phones that are just as good as Samsung phones but cost about half as much. Consumers are buying those cheaper phones instead, especially in China, which is one of the largest growth markets for smartphones. Meanwhile, Apple released two big-screen iPhones last year, finally catching up to the rest of the industry. Apple has said it's seeing more people switch to the iPhone from Android since the launch of the iPhone 6. Apple has also posted record iPhone sales in the last two quarters since the iPhone 6 launch. In its last earnings report, Samsung's profits fell almost 30% from the year-ago quarter, mostly due to the decline in smartphone sales. Galaxy S6 sales weren't reflected in that quarter's results, but the hope is that making a new phone with a premium design and cleaner software would help reinvigorate the company's smartphone business. We'll get an even better idea of how the Galaxy S6 affected profits when Samsung reports earnings for the second quarter of this year, but it's not a good sign that initial shipments are slower than last year's phone. In short, Apple is dominating the high end of the smartphone market and attracting more users from Android. Those who stick with Android are choosing cheaper phones from Xiaomi and others. Even though the Galaxy S6 got great reviews, it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the cheaper Android devices out there. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Kids settle the debate and tell us which is better: an Apple or Samsung phone

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The ugly truth about the wildly popular 'Game Of War' featuring Kate Upton

If you're a human with a phone or TV, chances are you've at least heard of "Game of War." The mobile war strategy game, made by Machine Zone, with spokeswoman Kate Upton is making a ton of money (currently, it's has the second highest gross in the App Store), and it's also clearly spent a ton of money in advertising. But is "Game of War" worth the hype? After trying it out for a couple of weeks, we have to answer a resounding no. This game is disaster. Here's the load screen. This is important because, if you don't have a reliable internet connection, you will be spending a LOT of time staring at this screen. You can't play "Game of War" without a connection. Chances are you've seen one of the game's ads, since they're plastered everywhere. This one came up in another game altogether ("Trivia Crack"). Once you get it open, this is what you see. Find the arrows confusing? That's how our eyes feel. There is way too much to look at here and click on. Some are ads to buy in-app purchases, some are actual gameplay controls, some are resource monitors, and the list goes on and on. See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Microsoft, Google, and Amazon haven't won the cloud wars yet

Amazon's cloud business brings in $6 billion in revenue. Microsoft is aiming for $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2018. Google is probably close to $1 billion a year, and growing at a rate of 74%, according to Synergy Research. In other words, the cloud computing market is booming. And it's only supposed to go higher: A report released by analyst firm Gartner this week indicates that this year alone, spending on cloud computing infrastructure services — where servers and applications are hosted in far-off, hyper-efficient data centers — is going to go up another 32.8 percent to almost $16.5 billion.  There's a consolidating effect at work, Gartner says. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google already make up the majority of the market between the three of them. Given how much it can cost to operate a data center, it's hard to compete with those kinds of deep pockets, Gartner says. "Few providers have the financial resources to invest in being broadly competitive in the cloud IaaS market," said Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Lydia Leong in a prepared statement. So while plenty of customers the world over are turning to the cloud for cost savings and large-scale efficiency, lots of cloud providers are feeling the crunch and changing their business model, Gartner says.  "We urge buyers to be extremely cautious when selecting providers; ask specific and detailed questions about the provider's roadmap for the service, and seek contractual commitments that do not permit the provider to modify substantially or to discontinue the offering without at least 12 months' notice," said Leong. Rackspace Hosting, for instance, fared well in Gartner's annual "Magic Quadrant" ranking of technologically complete cloud platforms. But after a disappointing quarter, the company has been signaling that it may reorient its business towards providing support for clouds like Amazon's.  Interestingly, a report released by Forrester Research today indicates that there might not be as much market crunch as Gartner thinks. In addition to the three big guys mentioned above, Forrester believes VMware vCloud is a major player in the public cloud. But the really shocking part of Forrester's differing opinion is that OpenStack — the free software that helps IT pros turn servers into the same kinds of elastic, scalable clouds as used by Google and Amazon — is going to become another "camp" that vendors are going to rally around, making it a major market player.  OpenStack is "well suited for application development" and mature enough for most, Forrester finds, with customers like Disney, Time Warner Cable, and Wal-Mart proving that it's ready for prime time. But OpenStack still faces some challenges, as Forrester admits: It can be too hard to use, too unreliable, and too hard to secure, Forrester says.  Meanwhile, the OpenStack Foundation, which oversees development of the OpenStack software with the backing of giants like IBM, Cisco, VMware, and Red Hat, says that it's made usability and interoperability between vendors a major priority. If that works out, it would greatly increase OpenStack's street cred with enterprise customers.  As Fierce IT DevOps notes from this week's OpenStack Summit, plenty of businesses are probably at least trying to use OpenStack, but very few outside of huge enterprises are finding success — yet. The bottom line here is that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the kings of the mountain when it comes to cloud services, and the trend seems to show that their dominance is only going to increase. But OpenStack's real strength is in providing the tools for even smaller vendors to build their clouds for very, very specific niches. It's unlikely that any one OpenStack vendor will take a significant chunk of the market away from the likes of Amazon. But collectively, OpenStack has the potential to be a significant thorn in their side.  READ NEXT:  Urs Hölzle, Google's 8th employee and tech guru, explains why it can win the cloud war against Amazon and Microsoft SEE ALSO: Microsoft just made an aggressive move against Google in the cloud wars Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos Slams Silly Google Perks Like Massages

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Tech investors have a 'copy paste mentality' that is fueling a dangerous boom in on-demand startups

It's called FOMO, or fear of missing out. Investors have a case of it and are now pouring money into Ubers for everything and anything. "There's a little bit of FOMO ventures happening," said Shervin Pishevar, a partner of Sherpa Venture and an early investor in Uber. "That’s part of the boom, bust cycles." Pishevar, speaking at the On Demand Conference, warned that a lot of the U.S. market is already saturated by consumer on-demand startups. Pishevar himself has invested in a lot of them: Uber, Munchery, Airbnb and TaskRabbit to name a few. These are startups that are commanding multi-million-dollar valuations, or in Uber's case, billions. But, depending on the specific market, it may be too late for many investors and entrepreneurs to cash in. Pishevar cautioned against acting on your FOMO and grabbing on to the tail-end of a trend, because you may end up getting wacked. If you are investing in the tail end of a trend the tail has a habit of whipping you off as fast as the trend tends to bend. — Shervin Pishevar (@shervin) May 11, 2015 The on-demand economy evolved out of what Pishevar called "the village economy" mentality, one that establishes trust between parties and allows for easy payments. These are traits of economies you see in small towns where everyone from hairdressers to doctors make house calls, and the level of trust is already established. When applying that to business, the on-demand economy took off by focusing on the points of friction in a consumer's every day life. "The front end of the tail is driven by much more consumer driven needs. That’s what people need multiple times a day, transportation and food," Pishevar said. "There’s probably not a great opportunity to do the next on-demand shoe shining." Instead, Pishevar said that entrepreneurs — and investors — need to focus on unique opportunities and products that are born out of frustrations. Pishevar, who was the son of a taxi driver, saw Uber as one of those opportunities. Pishevar said there are still opportunities for innovative services, citing healthcare and other vertical industries that haven't been tapped for on-demand services yet.  But he said warned that simply applying the on-demand model to any industry would not guarantee success. "The copy paste mentality of some investors and entrepreneurs  — be careful of that," Pishevar said. "Do something that is unique to you, not because someone else’s journey is mirroring it." SEE ALSO: Silicon Valley startups are obsessed with developing tech to replace their moms Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Uber has a new ad that promises to change everything about the food delivery game

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The highest-paying jobs at Tesla, ranked

Working at a company as ambitious as Tesla is no easy task. It's a demanding and even intimidating atmosphere, as Ashlee Vance illustrates in his new book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." But all that hard work is compensated well. Here's a look at some of the highest paying jobs at Tesla based on salaries posted by employees and former employees on career site Glassdoor. (Note: We only included jobs with at least five reviews. All figures refer to base salaries without bonuses.)  Mechanical engineer: $97,220 Tesla's various mechanical engineers are tasked with developing various parts of the company's vehicles, such as the power transmission, the components that make up the automobile's chassis, and more. With bonuses, the gig can pay up to $99,249 according to Glassdoor's data.  Source QA Engineer: $97,938 QA engineers, or quality assurance engineers, usually monitor every phase of software development to make sure it adheres to the company's standards. According to Glassdoor, Tesla's salary for this position is 19% above the national average for QA engineers.  Source Design engineer: $99,664 Tesla usually seeks design engineers that specialize in certain fields. Right now, the company is seeking mechanical design engineers for areas such as propulsion, stationary storage-wire harness designs, chassis systems, and more.  Source See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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There’s a ton of magic that happens instantaneously over the internet, except one thing

There are a lot of abstract problems related to money for which bitcoin is supposedly the savior. It is supposed to free us from central banks, and regular banks, and onerous centralized authority. So far, however, this hasn't worked out so well as regulators continue to crack down on those trying to use bitcoin to work around the current legal and regulatory frameworks. But there's still (at least) one way the bitcoin technology could be revolutionary: transferring money from place to place instantaneously. Take this passage from Nathaniel Popper's new book, Digital Gold, which was released Tuesday: Wences [Casares, an entrepreneur from Argentina] drew the group in with an explanation of the basic notion of a new kind of network that could allow people to move money anywhere in the world, instantaneously—something that these financiers, who were frequently moving millions between banks in different countries, could surely appreciate. "You can call someone in Jakarta on Skype," Wences told them. "you can see them and you can hear them and there's a synchronous connection with a lot of bandwidth. There's a ton of magic happening, which is incredible. And you hang up and you want to send them one cent and that's not possible. That's ridiculous. It should be a lot easier to send a cent than to see video and audio." Casares is right: it's really hard to move money around the world. Even within countries, the US in particular, it takes multiple days for money transmission to clear. Services like Venmo and PayPal make it easier by allowing you to move money from account to account instantly, but it still takes a day or two to get your money from that service into your bank account. Internationally, it's even harder and much more expensive. If the current money transfer system is like receiving mail in your mailbox once a day, bitcoin is like instant message. It's instant and cheap. (In this analogy, Venmo would be like an alert that lets you know you have a new email, but doesn't let you respond until the end of the day.) So bitcoin is theoretically an almost perfect solution. Practically, though, the problem still is that nobody uses it. SEE ALSO:  You can now track Bitcoin on the New York Stock Exchange Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The new trailer for 'Magic Mike XXL' promises a guaranteed box office smash

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Marissa Mayer: Here's why it never made sense for Yahoo to merge with AOL (YHOO, AOL)

Less than a week after AOL sold to Verizon for $4.4 billion, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer dished on-stage at Fortune's Most Powerful Women event about why her company didn't merge with AOL last year.  Late least year, investors and analysts were pushing hard for a tie-up between the two companies, but Mayer says that Yahoo and AOL are doing fundamentally different things. "While some people on the outside saw similarities between the companies, we didn't," she said.  Although there was some overlap in their focus on video, AOL is betting on programmatic advertising, while Yahoo is focusing on mobile, video, native advertising, and social (a strategy Mayer has dubbed "MaVeNS"). It doesn't want to be in the business of helping other sites monetize, like AOL, she says, it wants to make Yahoo a differentiated media outlet that people love.  "It's really important to me that we maintain a brand and a relationship with end users — that we're not simply helping other sites monetize," she says, "That we're actually providing services to end users that they really value, and that they continue to turn to Yahoo to inform, connect, and entertain." To help it achieve that goal, Yahoo has nabbed expensive talent like Katie Couric and David Pogue, the former for a reported salary of more than $5 million a year. Mayer mentioned on stage that the investment in Couric is already profitable, countering a recent Wall Street Journal report that, based on her total video views and standard ad rates, only half her salary had been paid for by April.  Overall, Mayer's explanation is actually a much kinder analysis of the potential deal between Yahoo and AOL than attributed to her in the past. When merger rumors swirled last July, Re/code's Kara Swisher reported that Mayer told a number of people that she thought such a deal would be "small, unexciting, uninspiring and backward-looking."  Despite not wanting to just be in the business of serving ads, Yahoo is actually a bigger ad network than AOL, according to ComScore data from March 2015.  SEE ALSO: Why adding a button that lets people buy things directly through Google could be a big win for the company Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: We did the math: Is Uber really cheaper than a taxi?

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The numbers are in about how many people are using others' Netflix and Hulu passwords

If you're using someone else's Netflix password, you're not alone.  A new report from Parks Associates, a Dallas-based market research firm, found that more than 10% of households in the U.S. that have a broadband connection and watch a subscription streaming service like Netflix or Hulu Plus use an account that someone outside of the house is paying for. The firm found that 11% of people who use Netflix, 10% who stream Hulu Plus, and 5% who use Amazon Prime Instant Video use someone else's account information to access the services. Not surprisingly, Parks Associates found that younger people share accounts more than older people. Of 18 to 24-year-olds who use a streaming service, 22% are using one that belongs to someone outside of their household.   The report comes amidst tremendous growth in new and existing streaming video services. Last month HBO launched HBO Now, a standalone streaming service that allows people in the U.S. to stream HBO without subscribing to cable or satellite. Earlier this year, Dish, the satellite company, launched Sling TV, a package of live TV channels streamed online that starts at $20 a month. People are watching less live TV than they used to and ratings are down. Americans are ditching expensive cable and satellite TV subscriptions, or not signing up for TV once they live on their own, and choosing streaming video services like Netflix instead. For the first time ever, pay TV providers — think cable and satellite companies like Comcast and DirecTV — lost TV subscribers in the first quarter of the year, a traditionally a strong period for them.  For the most part, streaming services have not cracked down on shared password use. Netflix's "Standard" $8.99 per month plan actually allows for two people to stream on different devices at the same time, while an $11.99 per month "Premium" subscription, which the company launched two years ago, allows for up to four people to stream concurrently.   Both HBO Now and HBO Go, the streaming service that's available only to those who subscribe to HBO through a TV company, allow for three concurrent streams. The idea with these services is that an immediate family can have one account, so parents can watch something while two kids stream something else. In the past, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has downplayed password sharing, saying in a call with investors two years ago that the company doesn't think that a lot of people share passwords with "marginal acquaintance[s]." But last year, Hastings had a more memorable response after an analyst asked the question again, noting that Richard Plepler, the CEO of HBO, had recently said that sharing HBO Go passwords had "no impact on the business." "So I guess Plepler ... doesn't mind me then sharing his [Netflix] account information," Hastings joked. "So it's plepler@hbo.com and his password is 'netflix bitch.' " Plepler, for his part, told CNN's Brian Stelter last month that HBO looks at password sharing “very carefully." For now, however, the number of people sharing passwords on HBO Go is “just simply not a big number.” Parks Associates found that 57% of households in the U.S. that have a broadband connection use a subscription streaming video service, but Parks Associates surveyed households in the third quarter of last year, before the release of HBO Now and Sling TV. SEE ALSO: Streaming services really are convincing people to ditch cable, and it's only going to get worse Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how to get HBO Now on your TV without Apple TV

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Microsoft will soon de-clutter your inbox and bring new Office apps to Android (MSFT)

The Microsoft Office team will soon turn on a new feature for email called "Clutter." Similar to Google's Priority Inbox, Clutter tries to figure out which emails you really need and sweep the rest out of view. It was introduced last fall as an option but in June, Microsoft will turn it on by default, the company explained in a blog post. Enterprises will be offered a bunch of controls over the features and individuals will be told when Clutter is sifting through your email. Users will have the option to turn it off, too. But they may love it. Microsoft says that since it first introduced the option in the fall, Clutter is now "moving over one million emails per day and saves users 82 minutes per month on average." We expect to see Microsoft turn on more new features by default, as it works to re-invent productivity and show off the smart, machine-learning stuff it is inventing. Clutter looks like this: A peek at new Android Office apps The Office team also unveiled new preview versions of its touch-friend Office apps for Android smartphones. In January, the team delivered an updated version of Office apps for Android tablets. These new apps makes Office work better on smaller smartphone touchscreens. Microsoft says that these apps would be available sometime later this year. The existing Office Mobile app for Android phone will remain available in the app store until the new ones were ready. You can try the new apps right now by agreeing to be a tester via Microsoft's Office for Android community and downloading the preview versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Here's a peek at the new PowerPoint for Android: Here's a peek at the new Excel for Android: Here's a peek at the new Word for Android: SEE ALSO: How MuleSoft founder Ross Mason turned free software into a $1.5 billion company Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's exactly when you should 'cc' someone on email

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Elon Musk is terrified of what Larry Page is doing

Despite being close friends, Elon Musk and Larry Page differ greatly on their opinions of artificial intelligence, according to Ashlee Vance, author of "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." Produced by Matthew Stuart Follow BI Video: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story »

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Remember 'Yo'? A start-up the app's founder helped build just raised £5 million

When single-word messaging app 'Yo' flew to the top of download charts and was valued at a reported $10 million last year, the app's architect Or Arbel found himself living out the dream of entrepreneurs around the world. But 'Yo' was actually just a side project that ended up taking over Arbel's real work — building an online stockbroking platform. For a little under a year Arbel was the chief technology officer of Stox.com, then in stealth mode. The Israeli start-up wants to use slick design and social functions to get the Facebook-generation interested in shares and Arbel helped build its platform. Arbel told Business Insider: "I left Stox, the serious and seriously amazing social stock trading platform, to focus on Yo, a crazy side project that went viral. But I'm still a board member and a shareholder at Stox and I am so proud of what [Stox co-founder] Roy Shaham and the team has accomplished." Stox has just raised $8 million (£5.16 million) from Israeli venture capital firm Singulariteam, headed by 'Yo' co-founder Moshe Hogeg. (Hogeg also employed Arbel as a developer at his photo sharing start-up Mobli — small world.) Now Stox, which is regulated in Cyprus, is planning to finally launch its product to the public, starting with the UK next month. Stox's VP of marketing and product Elliot Hool told Business Insider UK the start-ups goal was to "demystify" the stock market for a new generation of investors. He said: "Stox is aspiration. I think people would love to be in the stock market but they see it as a bit of a closed club." The company is hoping that slick, Apple-inspired design, a simple platform and social features can attract a new crowd to investing. Like rival Israeli trading platform eToro, Stox allows customers to 'follow' each other, letting them see what trades they've made and how they're performing. But while eToro trades on its customers behalf, Stox lets people buy shares directly. Stox also hopes to attract long term investors as opposed to traders looking for "a quick buck", Hool says. Stox is entering a highly competitive market, with plenty of stockbrokers vying for business. We'll see if the company blows up like 'Yo' did initially — or mimics its more recent performance. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Forget the Apple Watch — here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants

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How energy companies are using the 'Internet of Things' to be more efficient and save billions

The lowly energy meter is becoming a leading device in the transition to the Internet of Things. Government officials and utility executives are creating smart energy grids that will help make energy use more efficient, provide real-time billing information, and reduce the number of workers needed to check meters. In a new report from BI Intelligence, we size the smart meter market globally and in regions and countries through the world. We look at how smart meter installations will create smart energy grids that have a significant impact on energy usage and cost saving. Additionally, we conduct a cost-benefit analysis looking at how much it will cost to install smart meters and weigh it against the monetary and non monetary benefits the devices can provide. Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Trial Membership>> Here are a few of the key findings from the BI Intelligence report: Globally, we estimate the smart meter installed base will reach 454 million this year and more than double by 2020, making it a leading IoT device. Asia will lead the transition to smart energy grids, followed by Europe, North America, South America, and Africa.  China has aggressive smart meter plans. Beijing is expected to have 100% of its residential homes equipped with smart meters by the end of this year. The cost of installing these smart meters will be over $100 billion. But the financial benefits will reach nearly $160 billion. There are three primary security risks associated with smart meters: physical risks, electrical risks, and software risks. In full, the report: Provides a regional breakdown of the smart meter market and includes forecasts from the major smart meter countries within that region. Includes an analysis of the savings generated from smart grids Provides an average cost of installing a smart meter over the next five years. Assesses the other benefits to IoT-based meters and grids beyond revenue gains. Discusses the security risks of smart meters and provides solutions from leading tech firms. To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a 14-day trial here. Members also gain access to new in-depth reports, hundreds of charts and datasets, as well as daily newsletters on the digital industry. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This small landfill in New York turns trash into electricity for 400 homes

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In 1995 Bill Gates gave this crazy Microsoft presentation where he put himself inside the game 'Doom'

In the mid-1990s, Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a pretty radical dude. Here he is jumping over a chair for no reason on live TV: He's still pretty radical, of course. He's got a foundation with his wife that's aiming to eradicate several diseases in the next 15 years, for instance.  But back in the mid-'90s, he was a bit more comical in his radicalness. Look no further than the crazy video of Gates giving an internal Microsoft presentation from within classic computer game "Doom" for proof of said radicality. The video is a little anachronistically awkward. A technology company CEO shooting monsters with a shotgun isn't so awkard, but the party where he shoots an undead marine is a bit on the unsettling side. And what's that robe about? The real reason behind Gates' appearance in a classic game was to talk about how Windows 95 – the groundbreaking computer operating system that set the standard for modern Windows – was "the game platform."  He told viewers that over 75 games would arrive on Windows 95 by the end of the year, and Microsoft will "clean up this DOS mess." Truly, this video is steeped in the year it was made. Watch the whole thing right here: SEE ALSO: There's a ton of hype around this reboot of a classic '90s video game — and this leaked footage shows you why Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch Microsoft's Insane Holographic Computer In Action

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Tim Cook posted these pictures of his most recent trip to China on a Chinese social networking site (AAPL)

Tim Cook was in China last week to discuss Apple's environmental programs, including a plan to protect 1 million acres of Chinese forest land with the World Wildlife Fund. While he was there, Cook (or Apple's PR team) opened up an account on Weibo, China's microblogging service that's similar to Twitter, and used it to post some great pictures of his trip. All the pictures were uploaded from an iPhone 6, naturally. These first two pictures were taken at the Elementary School at Communication University of China.   This was at the Apple Store at Xidan Joy City: Here Cook is attending an Apple Watch workshop at another Apple Store in Huangzhou: Lastly, here he is meeting a school teacher named Mrs. Ma at an Apple Store in Shanghai:   SEE ALSO: Tim Cook used a graduation speech to trash Android phones Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: What it's like to try on the Apple Watch at the Apple store

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The internet is obsessing over this real-life optical illusion that looks like an M.C. Escher drawing — here's how it works

A photo depicting a seemingly impossible construction scene has risen to the top of "the front page of the internet" — Reddit — and the optical illusion is causing many to scratch their head in bewilderment. The photo, which was taken by Reddit user zibin, shows a pair of construction workers repairing a bridge — but the odd perspective of the photo makes it appear like a real-life version of an M.C. Escher drawing. Here's the photo. At first glance, it appears that there is no physical way that the construction lift would be able to access the underside of the bridge that's facing the camera, especially when you take into account the pillar's placement in the foreground and the lift's position on the street in the background. (The easiest way to notice the optical illusion is to start by looking at the lift's tires, gaze upwards to the bridge's underside, and then follow that over the bridge's pillar in the foreground.) How it works Luckily, another Redditor named MrDLTE3 managed to sketch out a quick drawing to explain what's really going on in the picture — it all boils down to the construction lift having a crane arm that can move horizontally (toward the photographer, here referred to as "original poster" or "OP") in addition to simply up and down. If that simple sketch wasn't enough concrete evidence for you, here's an example of a similar construction lift from Genie, which offers the same three-dimensional movement as the lift in the photo. Interestingly enough, some Redditors claim the true optical illusion is actually the traffic cone that appears to float above the head of the construction worker standing on the ground — but we'll let you decide which is more impressive. SEE ALSO: You can now watch the 'Netflix for pirated movies' right from your web browser Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This colorful chameleon is actually a stunning optical illusion

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Carl Icahn only wants one thing from Apple (AAPL, IEP)

There's been some drama surrounding activist hedge fund investor Carl Icahn and his considerable (~$6.8 billion) stake in Apple.  On Monday, Icahn published a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and argued that the stock was worth $240 per share. Shares were trading near $130 on Tuesday.  And while there has been a bit of a to-do about Icahn's assertions regarding Apple's potential to make a TV, or a car, Icahn revealed to CNBC's Scott Wapner on Tuesday the only thing he actually wants from the company. Which is basically the only thing he's ever wanted from Apple.  "We put this letter out for one purpose, Scott, to get the company to buy back more stock," Icahn said. "The one thing I disagree with the company on is not buying a great deal more stock here ... that's all I'm saying." Icahn added that he is not publishing these letters to recommend stocks to investors, but simply to point out what he thinks is a "no-brainer" for the company. Namely, with around $190 billion in cash, Icahn thinks Apple should be buying back more stock.  The economic argument for buying back stock is that it increases earnings per share because when a company buys back its own stock, you reduce the denominator for calculating earnings (earnings per share are earnings divided by shares outstanding).  And as for what Icahn is saying to the company aside from his letters, Icahn told Wapner, "Look I am certainly not going to talk to you about what I say to Tim Cook." Icahn revealed, however, that as one of the company's shareholders, he does talk to Cook from time to time.  Icahn added that he thinks Cook, Apple's board, and its management is doing a "great job." SEE ALSO: Carl Icahn read WSJ's report about Apple not making a TV and doesn't 'even know what it says' Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions

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Here's how to download the code NASA uses in its rockets

Nerds and future billionaires rejoice: codes used on NASA's rockets are now free and legal to download. For the second year in a row, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has released its public software catalogue, a list of over 1,000 selected programs and codes available for download via the agency's website. With only a few restrictions, the release allows US coders and programmers to peak under the hood of NASA programs that the agency doesn't deem too sensitive to share. Several private sector groups have already made use of NASA's code. According to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), software that NASA has made public in recent years have been used for a variety of purposes, from building roller coasters to tracking whales and designing the compatibility algorithms used in popular dating apps. The release is a part of a five-year agency plan to speed up the transfer of codes and programs to the the technology sector. The agency's goal is to make code, software, and research available to individuals and private companies to spur public and private sector development. This year's release adds to a growing list of publicly available NASA programs that includes the software used on the Mars rover, a vehicle sketch pad program used to create digital mock-ups of NASA aircraft and even the digital blueprint of the NASA iPhone app. The open source program has already been incredibly popular. According to the OSTP, last year's software manual has been downloaded over 100,000 times. Beyond its benefit to young coders looking to tinker with real space software, NASA's open source program also has plenty of gems for space history buffs. As Wired noted, last year, the organization released programs that ran on the original Apollo 11 lunar modules. NASA's program has been part of a broader push by the Obama administration to speed up the public release of government research. UP NEXT: Here's the futuristic piece of tech that NASA is betting all its Mars chips on SEE ALSO: How you can get NASA to pay you $29,000 Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: NASA scientists are stumped by this dwarf planet

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Why two music industry execs quit their jobs to start a wildly popular food site

The writers at The Infatuation are not your typical restaurant reviewers. About a dish at the Smith, a New American restaurant with multiple locations in New York City, Infatuation cofounder Andrew Steinthal writes:  "Behold, the dessert you cannot leave without getting. That's a s'mores, deconstructed in a jar in layers of chocolate mousse and graham cracker crumble, with toasted marshmallow and a chocolate crunch bar on top." "You deserve this." Steinthal and Chris Stang launched the Infatuation in April 2009 to bring a fresh voice to the world of restaurant reviewing, an industry marked by somewhat esoteric language and lots of name-dropping. "It dawned on us that there was no solution out there for regular people, specifically for restaurant reviews, that connected with or was useful to people who just like to go out to eat, but aren’t super foodies," Steinthal said. "The New York Times and New York Magazine are great, but they didn't have an app, and Yelp has no curation to it. If you write a review full of references to names of chefs I've never heard of, that means nothing to me. There was no voice of the people."  As executives in the music industry — Stang as the VP of Marketing at Atlantic Records, Steinthal as the VP of Public Relations at Warner Bros. Records — the two were already pretty knowledgeable about the New York restaurant scene. They had met on the set of TRL, when they were both attending a conference for music directors at college radio stations. "We were always the planners in our group of friends," Steinthal said. "We were always the people you would come up to at work and say something like: 'Kid Rock is in town. He likes Mexican food. Plan it.'" The Infatuation was just a side project until April 2014, when Steinthal and Stang quit their jobs after more than a decade in the music industry. They've since built an app for iOS and Android, raised a $1 million seed round, recruited an army of writers, and expanded their review coverage from New York to San Francisco, Chicago, and Denver. They're also launching in Los Angeles next month.  Keep it casual Infatuation reviewers don't accept invitations from restaurants, and, in the tradition of the disguise-wearing restaurant critic, they never announce their presence to a wait staff. Writers are allocated a small budget so that they can try out a bunch of different restaurants in their area.  And when it comes to hiring writers, a person's ability to convey a conversational tone is one of the key traits that Stang and Steinthal look for.  "A lot of times when people sit down to write a review, they sort of think to themselves, 'Well, what's a restaurant review supposed to sound like?'" Stang said. "We tell people to write the way they talk so that what they say sounds like it’s coming from a friend, not from a 'restaurant authority.'" The Infatuation has certainly caught the attention of the food world. In March, Stang was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in the "Humor" category for his parody review of a fake restaurant called "Underfinger." The review openly mocks the way traditional restaurant reviewers write about food.  Stang writes:  "I have no idea why it took us this long to make it to Underfinger (they’ve been open for eleven days), but we finally had dinner here over the weekend. All we can say is that you’ve never seen anything like this before, and yet it feels so familiar. Here’s the story. The chef at Underfinger, Jesper Paulsen, grew up in Copenhagen just a few miles from Noma, and has eaten there several times. He’s taken that training and applied it to the Scandinavian tradition of serving minimalist finger sandwiches at funerals. The end result is one of the city’s most impressive tasting menus, a somber celebration of “farm-to-finger” ingredients and classic Neo-Nordic techniques." For the real reviews, foodies can find exactly what they're looking for by searching through a number of different categories and situations — some that are more practical, like location and cuisine type, and some that are more objective, like "impressing out of towners," "adventurous eating," and even "scoping hot girls/guys." Barbuto, for example, is "a trendy spot, but for a more sedate group." The Spotted Pig, on the other hand, is "ideal for evenings where you’re looking to mix it up, throw a couple down, and see where the night takes you." Stang says that searches for restaurants that are ideal for birthdays and girls' night out are some of their most popular.  "There's always a situtational need for restaurants," he said. "We differentiate between a place that would be good for a first date and a place that would be good for a couple's date night, because those are two very different things."  Recent additions A big factor fueling the Infatuation's growth has been their creative use of social media.  A few years ago, they started tagging their food photos on Instagram with the hashtag "#EEEEEATS" As of this writing, there are 794,433 Instagram photos with that hashtag, the vast majority unaffiliated with the Infatuation. The site's own Instagram account has more than 231,000 followers.  But why five E's?  "We always wanted this to feel fun," Stang said. "People always take things too seriously."   on    on Along with the upcoming L.A. launch, Stang and Steinthal have unveiled a new product called Text Rex, where you can get a personalized restaurant recommendation from an Infatuation staff member over text message. Rather than use a complex system of ratings and anonymous recommendations like most restaurant review sites do, with Text Rex you're talking with a real, live person.  They also have a feature called "Friday Fives," where a notable person in tech, fashion, entertainment, and media picks their five favorite restaurants. They've gotten everyone from Mindy Kaling and Seth Rogen to Joanne Wilson and Warby Parker's Neil Blumenthal to share their Friday Fives. "We applied everything we knew about building a band to the marketing for our brand," Steinthal said. "It's a community tied to quality content."   SEE ALSO: This startup wants to solve a major problem facing business travelers Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 6 Food Myths That Are Completely Wrong

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Maya Rudolph nailed her Beyoncé impression at Tulane's graduation

Maya Rudolph gave the graduation speech for the Tulane class of 2015 on Saturday, and ended the speech with a phenomenal rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner." Rudolph's hilarious speech culminated with an improvised version of the "National Anthem," where she even mixed in portions of Beyoncé classics. Take a look here to see her attempt at the National Anthem: Rudolph has a personal connection to Tulane and paid homage to her father, who was a Tulane class of 1968 graduate. She also gave a nod to her cousin, Sabrina, who's in the 2015 graduating class.  While the "Saturday Night Live" comedian's entire speech was characteristically funny, she also took the time to offer some heartfelt advice which was to, "Say yes, and create your own destiny," as she had done many years ago when she told her dad her dream was to be on "SNL." You can listen to her entire speech here:     Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This College In Michigan Will Pay Off The Loans Of Graduates Who Can't Find A Job

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This Amazon employee had a startling realization when he spent six months trying to recruit new people

James Thomson worked at Amazon for more than five years in multiple seller-services related roles. The entire time, he was blown away by his fellow coworkers.  With a background in consulting and investment banking, he figured he'd already worked among some of the smartest people he would ever meet, but joining the e-commerce giant proved him wrong.   "Lots of people had Type A personalities, were cutthroat, and all that kind of stuff, but in terms of just raw intellectual power, that was absolutely exhilarating," he told Business Insider. "The caliber of people I was working with was truly impressive." Thomson says that Amazon's dedication to careful hiring hit him hardest when he was managing recruiting for the company's US sales organization for about six months in 2012.  "It was at that point that I realized just how important it was to bring in the right type of talent," he says. "The six months I spent doing recruiting on the side, I realized that you have to start with amazing ingredients to make an amazing cake. At Amazon, a lot of positions remained open even when there was an absolutely desperate need to fill it. There was a rigid discipline in terms of validating every single candidate that I hadn't seen before." Thomson says he feels privleged to have had the chance to work at Amazon, even though it certainly wasn't "cupcakes and tea" every day.  "From the perspective of working with really smart people who knew how to ask the right questions, get the right data, and get to the root causes of problems, I never worked at an organization that did that as well," he says. Thomson left in 2013 to find ways to share what he learned at Amazon with the third-party sellers that he had been working with from within the company for so long. He opened a consulting business and is the President of the Professional retailers online and solution providers (PROSPER) Association. SEE ALSO: I'm obsessed with a music streaming service millions of people probably don't know they can use for free Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Apolo Ohno: Here's Why Talented People Fail

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E!'s Bruce Jenner special gives 'Kardashians' a 40% ratings bump

Bruce Jenner is the breadwinner this week on E! Entertainment's "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." Sunday's Part one of the specials dubbed "Keeping Up With the Kardashians: About Bruce" brought in 2.92 million total viewers, according to TheWrap. That represents a 40% increase over the previous Sunday's episode audience of 2.09 viewers. The series also attracted 1.15 million viewers in the younger-skewing Adults, aged 18 to 34 years old, also a 40% bump over the previous episode. Furthermore, it scored a 33% increase in the group most popular with advertisers, Adults 18-49 and the older-skewing 25-54 year old demo. The ratings for Part 2, which aired on Monday, are not yet available. These were much-needed increases for the series, which seems to have shored up a trend of audience decline in recent seasons.  The current 10th season premiered on March 15 and held steady with the previous season's premiere with 2.55 million total viewers. That could be attributed to curiosity surrounding Bruce and Kris's recently finalized divorce and reports of Bruce's transition to a woman at the time. On "About Bruce," E! airs several intimate meetings between the former Olympian and his family that took place in January. Emotions are still very raw as Bruce was still planning his transition and had yet to shoot the Diane Sawyer interview for ABC. It would air on April 28 to an audience of 17.1 million viewers. SEE ALSO: THE INCREDIBLE EVOLUTION OF KRIS JENNER: From stay-at-home mom to megamillionaire manager MORE: He or she? Kim Kardashian explains how to refer to Bruce Jenner as he transitions to a woman Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Forget Kim Kardashian — the 'butt selfie' queen of Instagram is a 21-year-old from Long Island

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From Brando to Waco, bikers a slice of Americana

Washington (AFP) - Marlon Brando played one in a movie. The Rolling Stones hired some as concert bodyguards. Today, a top American TV show stars them. Bikers -- and the roaring, rolling, leather-clad motorcycle gangs they form -- are quintessential figures of American lore. But these days, along with that born-to-be-wild spirit that emerged in the second half of the 20th century as a counter-culture scream, come crimes like weapons and drug trafficking. So do spasms of violence when gangs clash, as they did over the weekend in Waco, Texas. Members of as many as five gangs turned a restaurant and parking lot into a veritable war zone as they fought with knives, chains, clubs and guns. Nine were killed and 170 were arrested. A group of gangs had arranged to meet at the restaurant and an uninvited one showed up. Among other possible, initial triggers to the violence, a gang member apparently had his foot run over in the parking lot, Sergeant Patrick Swanton, a Waco police spokesman, said Tuesday. The US government -- and motorcycle aficionados themselves -- is quick to point out that the vast majority of enthusiasts who form riding clubs are law abiding people who simply share a love of bikes, engines revving and the open road. The Justice Department uses the term "outlaw motorcycle gangs" to single out ones that use their clubs as vehicles to commit crime, such as drug and weapons trafficking and cross-border drug smuggling. Perhaps the best known of the gangs, the Hell's Angels, in addition to drugs, is also involved in assault, extortion, money laundering and homicide, the Justice Department says. That's a far, far cry from Brando character Johnny Strabler's famed wisecrack in the 1953 film "The Wild One," in which Brando plays the leader of the Black Rebels -- one of two rival motorcycle gangs that wreak havoc in a small California town. Asked by a young woman dancing to juke box music "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?," Brando's character, tapping his hands to the beat, billed cap tipped at a rakish angle, sneers and replies: "Whaddaya got?" - More than 300 in US - Today there are more than 300 active outlaw motorcycle gangs in the United States, "ranging in size from single chapters with five or six members to hundreds of chapters with thousands of members worldwide," the Justice Department website says. Outlaw motorcycle gangs represented just 2.5 per cent of all gang members in the United States in 2013, according to the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center.  A total of 88 percent were street gang members and 9.5 percent were prison gang members, it said. But it said the proportions might be misleading. The FBI report said "OMGs are more problematic than their modest numbers suggest. This is likely due to their solid organizational structure, criminal sophistication, and their tendency to employ violence to protect their interests." The Bandidos, one of the gangs involved in Sunday's mayhem in Texas, is one of the biggest in the United States -- with some 900 members and 93 chapters, according to the FBI. Over the decades, Americans seem to have been fascinated by this phenomenon. Counterculture icon Hunter S. Thompson embedded himself with the Hell's Angels to write a book about them that was published in 1966. Even today, the TV show "Sons of Anarchy," about a motorcycle club in a fictional town called Charming, is wildly popular. Academics who have studied these gangs say they started forming after World War II: US combat veterans returned home in huge numbers, found the transition to peaceful civilian life dull and hard to digest and missed the camaraderie of their military unit.  Military severance pay was good for buying a bike and hanging out in bars. "Thrill-seeking attracted some returning veterans to choose a saloon society lifestyle centered around motorcycles," writes James Quinn, a professor at the University of North Texas who has studied motorcycle gangs. "Positive views of military experiences, and the intense camaraderie they bred, also made such a lifestyle attractive," Quinn added. Join the conversation about this story »

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How one woman turned her dog-walking side gig into an elite business without borrowing a dime

Kara Kleindienst's business, The Barking Meter, is as high-pressure as a dog-walking company can be. TBM is trusted with more than 100 of New York City's most pampered and posh pups (pictured throughout this post) — dogs owned by designer Philip Lim, fashion industry pro Lauren Santo Domingo, actress Blair Brown, and a slew of other bold-faced names that can't be disclosed. The company turns a neat profit, employs seven people, and is responsible not only for walking dogs, but also training them and taking them to the groomer and the vet. And it was all started by one woman seven years ago, without any venture capital. Kleindienst worked in politics for the first year or two of her professional life, but quickly realized the cutthroat environment on Capitol Hill wasn't for her. So in 2007, she moved in with friends in New York City — but her Plan B didn't extend much farther than relocation. While figuring out how to make ends meet, she was offered a side gig walking Philip Lim's dog by her roommate, who worked for the designer. Kleindienst admits she had no idea what a dog-walking business would entail — but she loved dogs and couldn't turn down a side gig.  on   She took the job, and now, eight and a half years later, she's the head of a full canine concierge service with 75 of New York City's most discerning human clients — as well as a brand new west coast branch in San Francisco. Here are Kleindienst's tips for success. Book smarts aren't everything Kleindienst attributes most of her success to one thing: her EQ, or emotional intelligence. "I don't think my IQ is anywhere near as high as my EQ, and I think that's what's allowed me to be successful in my friendships, my familial relationships and, most importantly, my business," she said. In fact, before she decided to turn The Barking Meter into a full-time career, Kleindienst was trying to get into graduate school, but to no avail. Now that she's a successful entrepreneur, she admits it might be a good thing that she didn't get in, although she was discouraged at the time. "It's taught me, in a humbling sense, that I am good enough even though I don't have those degrees," she said.  on Work hard on building relationships with your clients In addition to offering services like training and vet visits, what sets The Barking Meter apart from other dog-walking companies is its personal touch. The same person will show up to walk your dog every day, Kleindienst said, so the dog gets used to them and feels much more comfortable. And the clients feel better, too — some of them will come home early just to chat with their dog-walker, she said. Perhaps most valuable, thanks to her attention to clients' wants and needs, the expansion to San Francisco comes with a built-in client base.  "A few of our clients moved out there at the end of last year," Kleindienst said, "and they said there really isn't anything out there like The Barking Meter. I visited and checked it out, and I agree." Now, TBM is bicoastal — and they're hitting the ground running with built-in Bay Area clients, without even having to advertise.  on As long as your product is top-quality, your company doesn't have to reinvent the wheel Kleindienst is on her phone constantly, making sure everything is going smoothly. Each of her seven employees is trained at a high level to deal with every situation.  "I believe our company will do anything for you and your dog," Kleindienst said. "We joke that we're the dog's personal assistant." Many would-be entrepreneurs get caught up in trying to think of something that's never been done before, and this isn't always a successful formula. "You just have to do something really well," Kleindienst said, "and there has to be something that sets you apart."  on It's okay to be discerning about your customers Kleindienst has been meticulous about managing her company's growth – and that includes saying no to clients who might not be a good fit. "We interview our clients," she said, "and I'm happy to come out of the introductory meeting and call Joey [Kleindienst, her brother who serves as VP] and say, 'I don't think this is a client we want to work with.'" If a client has demands that can't be met, the company would rather send them elsewhere than disappoint them. Also, TBM is so popular that to even get an interview, a potential client must be referred by a current one. "We try to develop that relationship from the start — we trust you, you trust us, because your friend told you about us," Kleindienst explained.  on If you're not taking venture capital, be deliberate with your growth If Kleindienst had sought out investors in the beginning, she said, it would have been much easier to scale her company — but she also might have fallen into debt if she allowed TBM to grow too quickly. Instead, she was incredibly prudent, always saving enough to keep the business running for at least another three months before adding new hires or making changes. Even when she moved from DC to New York, she had saved enough money to live for exactly three months. "I'm a numbers person," she said. "I don't project five years from now. I like to project what's going to happen in three to six months." After three years of treating TBM like a side project while looking for something else, Kleindienst had an epiphany and realized she could become an entrepreneur and "really turn this into something," she said. So she hired her first two employees, but not until after she'd saved enough to pay them for at least three months. By the time the first three months had ended, business had doubled — and it's doubled every single year since.  on It might be tough in the beginning Kleindienst managed her own budget in an incredibly cautious way for the first few years of her business. "I'd count every day — how many dogs are on today, and what's the total?" she said. "That would determine if I could go out to dinner Saturday night with my friends... It wasn't until years later that I stopped counting how many dogs were on every day. I think that really keeps you grounded and committed. It might have been a great day today, but tomorrow, everyone could cancel." This is why any entrepreneur has to believe in what she's doing, Kleindienst said. "My ego was hit big time," she said. "But you're going to get yourself caught in a situation where you disappoint yourself and disappoint the people you're trying to service if you think you have all the answers."  on Always remember, you're smart enough "One of my biggest insecurities, and one that's still there [but] much less, is: am I smart enough?" Kleindienst said. "I am smart enough to navigate being a business owner, despite having no experience and not having a degree for it." In the beginning of TBM, her friends would introduce Kleindienst as the owner of a business. "And I'd be like, 'Yeah, whatever, I'm going to get a drink,'" she recalled. "I was never super proud. Now, I'm like, 'Yeah, can I tell you about it?' I'm very proud of what it's become." SEE ALSO: These companies didn't need venture capital to get off the ground Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: These Luxurious Hotels In Canada Are Treating Dogs Like Kings

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Kiev shows off captured 'Russian soldiers' to media

Kiev (AFP) - Kiev on Tuesday showed off two purported Russian soldiers it captured during a gun battle in the separatist east that Ukraine's pro-Western leadership says proves the Kremlin's direct involvement in the war. The two wounded men -- recovering in a Kiev military hospital under the guard of masked state security men -- have turned into pawns in a bitter public relations battle being waged by Moscow and Kiev since Saturday's firefight. Russia insists that Captain Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Sergeant Aleksander Aleksandrov had been decommissioned from the armed forces by the time Kiev believes they entered the Ukrainian war zone more than a month ago. Moscow acknowledges the presence of Russian "volunteers" and off-duty servicemen in Ukraine while rejecting charges that they were there under orders from President Vladimir Putin's generals. But Ukraine's military has released interrogation videos in which the two say they were part of a force of about 200 men contracted to serve with the main military intelligence branch of the Russian General Staff. The storied unit -- known among global security experts by its Russian acronym "GRU" -- has been one of the most sophisticated and well-equipped branches of the armed forces since Soviet times. Its presence in Ukraine would suggest that Russia is covertly trying to stoke a separatist conflict that drains Kiev's dwindling resources and further complicates Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to move his ex-Soviet country into the European Union and under the military protection of NATO. Ukraine's military on Tuesday reported the death of four more servicemen in fighting that is once again flaring despite all sides being bound by a new February truce deal. Kiev's decision to organise an international media visit to the two captives' hospital rooms also threatens to further outrage the Kremlin and harden Putin's stance during international talks on finally resolving the crisis. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland cautioned during a visit to Moscow on Monday that Kiev must respect international laws governing the fair treatment of war captives even as it tries to lay out an irrefutable case against Putin.   - Faces shielded from reporters -   Both of the men looked wan and disturbed by the media's presence as they lay in their individual rooms dressed in brown hospital-issued pyjamas. Neither acknowledged their membership in the Russian armed forces nor revealed any details about their service. "I would like to express thanks to the hospital doctors for their professional help," the bearded Yerofeyev said while shielding his face with his elbow. The 30-year-old added that he wanted to tell "my relatives that I am fine, alive and well... Of course, it would be good to keep this from getting in the press." The slightly younger Aleksandrov's face had a yellow tint that signalled a more serious condition. He stared blankly at the media scrum and said little besides expressing a longing to see his parents and wife. "I will not answer that," he mumbled in response to a direct question about his membership in the Russian armed forces. Reporters were granted access after the men were visited for about 10 minutes by representatives of European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Several members of the Amnesty International human rights group also joined the European inspectors' group. Amnesty spokesman Bogdan Ovcharuk said the soldiers reported no complaints about their treatment thus far. "We asked them whether they had been tortured and they said no," Ovcharuk told AFP. "They added that they were satisfied with their (hospital) stay."   - Kiev rejects prisoner swap -   Kiev authorities said they would put both on a "public" trial for committing acts of terror and return them to Russia if they fully confessed. But a Russian defence ministry spokesman said the military command in Moscow intended to contact its counterparts in Kiev with a demand to immediately return the captives. "We are counting on the good sense of the Ukrainian leadership and the speedy release of Aleksander Aleksandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev," defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the Interfax news agency. Ukraine's military on Tuesday denied being in touch with the Russians and rejected suggestions from one eastern separatist leader that the men could be released as part of a broader prisoner swap. "We are not talking about their exchange," Ukrainian army spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters. Join the conversation about this story »

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It can be tricky for financial advisors to relate to their ultra affluent clients

FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors. Hillary Clinton and wealth managers have trouble relating to their target audience (Wealth Management) Hillary Clinton and wealth managers share the same problem. Both have trouble relating to their target audiences. According to Wealth Management, "For Hillary, the issue is how to connect with regular folk when she and her husband have been living a 1% lifestyle. For wealth advisors, it’s the opposite question: How are they going to relate to the ultra affluent when they are not ultra affluent themselves?" So what can be done to remedy the problem? Make sure you know your audience and are well informed about what is going on.  A look at valuations (Charles Schwab) Everyone has their own favorite valuation metrics, and that's why there are differing opinions about whether or not stocks are fairly valued. Robert Shiller's Cyclically-Adjusted P/E (CAPE) is better used for examining earnings over time because it looks at data from the past 10 years. Meanwhile, Forward P/E and Trailing P/E use much shorter time horizons. So what are the metrics saying now? Shiller's CAPE says the stock market is about 70% overvalued while Forward P/E and Trailing P/E point to valuations that are stretched, but not extreme.   The Supreme Court just gave a big win to Americans planning to retire (Business Insider)  A US Supreme Court ruling has made it easier for employees to fight back against high 401(k) fees. In a 9-0 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that Edison, a Rosemead, California public utility company, had a “continuing duty to monitor” the makeup of its 401(k) plan after employees sued to gain access to funds with lower management fees. Michael Graham, a partner in the employee benefits group at McDermott Will and Emery in Chicago, told Main Street, the high court did not give guidance on how often investments should be monitored or by whom, this means companies will need to develop processes. The case has been sent back to California's lower courts. Mistakes to avoid when rolling over your IRA (Financial Planning) Taxpayers often think they are in the clear because they consulted a team of professionals to help with their 401(k) rollovers, but that is not always the case. They should make sure they meet three key criteria before making the change. Rollovers should only occur once-per-year, must be the same property that was distributed and must be completed within a 60-day window. Financial Planning notes, "To avoid costly blunders like this, advisors need to understand these specific IRA rules." A movie about a female investment banker is coming (Bloomberg) Sarah Megan Thomas and Alysia Reiner's Equity, a movie about a female banker's troubled IPO deal on Wall Street, begins filming next month. Bloomberg notes the film is "the product of interviews and meetings with dozens of former and current dealmakers, including James B. Lee Jr., a vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Barbara Byrne, a vice chairman of Barclays, muni bond maestro Alexandra Lebenthal, and Elaine La Roche, a former Morgan Stanley managing director who reigned as one of the most powerful women in finance in the 1990s." The producers are still in talks for casting, and declined to reveal who was on the short list for the lead role.  Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions

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A disturbing experience made me question whether this wildly popular shopping website is really safe

Selling used clothes online can be highly lucrative; but as I learned recently, it can also lead to some creepy encounters. I wasn't even remotely concerned about my safety when I  joined the popular resale website Poshmark a couple weeks ago. Several friends had encouraged me to join after raving about the sales they were making. One co-worker of mine said she earned more than $700 over the course of a couple weeks.  So I cleaned out my closet and posted photos of several dresses and blouses to the website. A couple weeks went by without any offers. Then on April 30, I got a message from someone posing as a woman whom I'll call Stephanie. It seemed like a pretty normal inquiry — she wanted to know if the dress had been washed and how many times it had been worn.  But her next couple messages raised some red flags. She asked me to refrain from cleaning the dress if it hadn't already been cleaned. Then she asked me to describe all the times that I have worn the dress. I ignored the requests and over the following week, I received repeated offers and messages from her. I didn't answer any of them.  Here's a screenshot of our exchange: I told a couple friends about the ordeal, and they advised me to report the user to Poshmark. They suspected that "Stephanie" wasn't who she claimed to be. I assumed she would move on if I ignored her. So I was surprised get an email Monday from Poshmark saying that my dress was sold to Stephanie. She had offered to pay the full amount for the dress, so Poshmark completed the transaction and asked me to ship the dress to her.  But the buyer's name, which Poshmark provided for the shipping label, wasn't Stephanie. It was a man's name. After a quick search, I found him on Facebook. At this point, I was thoroughly creeped out.  I immediately cancelled the order. Every Poshmark shipment has the seller's return address on the label — meaning that if I had shipped this order, this person would know my first and last name and where I live. I have no idea what he planned to do with the dress or whether he posed any threat to me at all. But I'm so jarred by the experience that I'm not sure I'll use the website again. As resale websites get increasingly popular, it's important for women to be aware that this can happen. I asked my friends if they realized their return addresses were on their Poshmark shipping labels and none of them had given that detail much notice.  Poshmark is the leader in a growing group of secondhand fashion websites, such as Tradesy, the RealReal, Twice, Vinted, Thredup, and Copious, where users can buy anything from Banana Republic blouses to Chanel handbags at massive discounts. The company says it completed more than 1.5 million transactions in 2013 and it's on track to generate $200 million in sales this year. There are currently 700,000 registered sellers on the website and millions of shoppers, according to the company. It appears that most women have had positive experiences with Poshmark, based on the reviews. The app has 4.5 out of 5 stars on iTunes. When I told Poshmark about my experience, a company spokeswoman said they have a strict policy on harassment and suspicious activity. "If a community member feels they are being harassed or sees any suspicious activity on the platform, we recommend they immediately report the incident and Poshmark has policies and procedures in place in order to take quick action to protect community members," she said. "We also have a digital fingerprint on every community member who joins the marketplace and anyone who is violating any of our guidelines including harassment will be restricted and unable to join the community again." SEE ALSO: Wal-Mart CEO reveals where American consumers are spending their money Follow us: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow

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11 icons of American pop culture who are actually Canadian

You'll be surprised to find that these icons of American pop culture have one thing in common — a Canadian passport. Watch and learn. Produced by Justin Gmoser Follow BI Video: On Facebook     Join the conversation about this story »

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Samsung is in a pickle and its newest phone isn't helping

Samsung's bet on a new, well-designed flagship phone isn't paying off as well as the company had hoped. The company told the Korea-based Yonhap News Agency that it has shipped 10 million units of the new Samsung Galaxy S6, which launched about a month ago. That number is down from the amount of units sold for a similar time period for Samsung's last flagship phone, the Galaxy S5. Samsung sold 11 million Galaxy S5 phones during the first month of availability. It's important to note that these are shipments, not sales, for the Galaxy S6. It's unclear how many people actually bought the Galaxy S6. This is the same narrative we've been seeing for the last year with Samsung. Companies like the Chinese startup Xiaomi have figured out how to make Android phones that are just as good as Samsung phones but cost about half as much. Consumers are buying those cheaper phones instead, especially in China, which is one of the largest growth markets for smartphones. Meanwhile, Apple released two big-screen iPhones last year, finally catching up to the rest of the industry. Apple has said it's seeing more people switch to the iPhone from Android since the launch of the iPhone 6. Apple has also posted record iPhone sales in the last two quarters since the iPhone 6 launch. In its last earnings report, Samsung's profits fell almost 30% from the year-ago quarter, mostly due to the decline in smartphone sales. Galaxy S6 sales weren't reflected in that quarter's results, but the hope is that making a new phone with a premium design and cleaner software would help reinvigorate the company's smartphone business. We'll get an even better idea of how the Galaxy S6 affected profits when Samsung reports earnings for the second quarter of this year, but it's not a good sign that initial shipments are slower than last year's phone. In short, Apple is dominating the high end of the smartphone market and attracting more users from Android. Those who stick with Android are choosing cheaper phones from Xiaomi and others. Even though the Galaxy S6 got great reviews, it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the cheaper Android devices out there. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Kids settle the debate and tell us which is better: an Apple or Samsung phone

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The ugly truth about the wildly popular 'Game Of War' featuring Kate Upton

If you're a human with a phone or TV, chances are you've at least heard of "Game of War." The mobile war strategy game, made by Machine Zone, with spokeswoman Kate Upton is making a ton of money (currently, it's has the second highest gross in the App Store), and it's also clearly spent a ton of money in advertising. But is "Game of War" worth the hype? After trying it out for a couple of weeks, we have to answer a resounding no. This game is disaster. Here's the load screen. This is important because, if you don't have a reliable internet connection, you will be spending a LOT of time staring at this screen. You can't play "Game of War" without a connection. Chances are you've seen one of the game's ads, since they're plastered everywhere. This one came up in another game altogether ("Trivia Crack"). Once you get it open, this is what you see. Find the arrows confusing? That's how our eyes feel. There is way too much to look at here and click on. Some are ads to buy in-app purchases, some are actual gameplay controls, some are resource monitors, and the list goes on and on. See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Business Insider is hiring a commerce reporter

Business Insider is growing its e-commerce team and we're looking for a commerce reporter with a passion for finding the best technology deals and products, and an ability share his or her excitement with readers in clear, compelling copy. The ideal candidate will be a conversational writer who's confident and careful when reviewing products and can describe the pros and cons of any given item with conviction. Commerce content includes everything from awesome deals on must-have products to new and interesting items that just hit the market. Things you’d want to tell your friends about. You will have the opportunity to pursue your own coverage ideas, as well as build out an editorial calendar to support major retail events (think Cyber Monday). Business Insider generates revenue when readers buy products through our site. You’ll be coming on board to help us build out this program, and along the way, be a part of a new field of service journalism that adds value to readers. The program debuted in 2014 to great success, selling tens of thousands of products ranging from drones to clothes. If you have experience in product journalism and are passionate about covering deals, tech blogs, style sales, e-commerce sites and more, this is your dream job. Join our e-commerce team and help build an exciting new coverage area. This role reports to the Commerce Editor. Responsibilities Write deal round ups and make product recommendations, following the Business Insider voice and style-guide Research consumer and lifestyle electronics, household items, gadgets, and other things that are worth readers' time and money Source original exclusives from retailers with the help of our business team Take feedback from readers to improve existing articles and generate new ideas Promote your stories on social networks Track your posts in affiliate analytics Qualifications Someone who has writing experience and a desire to find the best tech deals and products around the web  You should have an understanding of Business Insider’s audience and writing style A huge interest in shopping for great products, good deals, and coupon codes Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Google Drive and Analytics Flawless grammar, spelling, and usage Basic level understanding of Photoshop and HTML (more than basic is a plus)   Business Insider offers competitive compensation packages complete with benefits.  Apply here with a resume and cover letter if this sounds like your dream job.   Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Victoria's Secret is making one mistake that is driving away a lot of women

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Microsoft, Google, and Amazon haven't won the cloud wars yet

Amazon's cloud business brings in $6 billion in revenue. Microsoft is aiming for $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2018. Google is probably close to $1 billion a year, and growing at a rate of 74%, according to Synergy Research. In other words, the cloud computing market is booming. And it's only supposed to go higher: A report released by analyst firm Gartner this week indicates that this year alone, spending on cloud computing infrastructure services — where servers and applications are hosted in far-off, hyper-efficient data centers — is going to go up another 32.8 percent to almost $16.5 billion.  There's a consolidating effect at work, Gartner says. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google already make up the majority of the market between the three of them. Given how much it can cost to operate a data center, it's hard to compete with those kinds of deep pockets, Gartner says. "Few providers have the financial resources to invest in being broadly competitive in the cloud IaaS market," said Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Lydia Leong in a prepared statement. So while plenty of customers the world over are turning to the cloud for cost savings and large-scale efficiency, lots of cloud providers are feeling the crunch and changing their business model, Gartner says.  "We urge buyers to be extremely cautious when selecting providers; ask specific and detailed questions about the provider's roadmap for the service, and seek contractual commitments that do not permit the provider to modify substantially or to discontinue the offering without at least 12 months' notice," said Leong. Rackspace Hosting, for instance, fared well in Gartner's annual "Magic Quadrant" ranking of technologically complete cloud platforms. But after a disappointing quarter, the company has been signaling that it may reorient its business towards providing support for clouds like Amazon's.  Interestingly, a report released by Forrester Research today indicates that there might not be as much market crunch as Gartner thinks. In addition to the three big guys mentioned above, Forrester believes VMware vCloud is a major player in the public cloud. But the really shocking part of Forrester's differing opinion is that OpenStack — the free software that helps IT pros turn servers into the same kinds of elastic, scalable clouds as used by Google and Amazon — is going to become another "camp" that vendors are going to rally around, making it a major market player.  OpenStack is "well suited for application development" and mature enough for most, Forrester finds, with customers like Disney, Time Warner Cable, and Wal-Mart proving that it's ready for prime time. But OpenStack still faces some challenges, as Forrester admits: It can be too hard to use, too unreliable, and too hard to secure, Forrester says.  Meanwhile, the OpenStack Foundation, which oversees development of the OpenStack software with the backing of giants like IBM, Cisco, VMware, and Red Hat, says that it's made usability and interoperability between vendors a major priority. If that works out, it would greatly increase OpenStack's street cred with enterprise customers.  As Fierce IT DevOps notes from this week's OpenStack Summit, plenty of businesses are probably at least trying to use OpenStack, but very few outside of huge enterprises are finding success — yet. The bottom line here is that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the kings of the mountain when it comes to cloud services, and the trend seems to show that their dominance is only going to increase. But OpenStack's real strength is in providing the tools for even smaller vendors to build their clouds for very, very specific niches. It's unlikely that any one OpenStack vendor will take a significant chunk of the market away from the likes of Amazon. But collectively, OpenStack has the potential to be a significant thorn in their side.  READ NEXT:  Urs Hölzle, Google's 8th employee and tech guru, explains why it can win the cloud war against Amazon and Microsoft SEE ALSO: Microsoft just made an aggressive move against Google in the cloud wars Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos Slams Silly Google Perks Like Massages

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Here are the year-end S&P 500 targets for 19 Wall Street gurus (SPY, DJI, IXIC)

Stocks are at all-time highs. The S&P 500 just touched an intraday high of 2,133. Via Birinyi Associates, here's where 19 Wall Street strategists see the S&P 500 at the end of 2015: Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow

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Tech investors have a 'copy paste mentality' that is fueling a dangerous boom in on-demand startups

It's called FOMO, or fear of missing out. Investors have a case of it and are now pouring money into Ubers for everything and anything. "There's a little bit of FOMO ventures happening," said Shervin Pishevar, a partner of Sherpa Venture and an early investor in Uber. "That’s part of the boom, bust cycles." Pishevar, speaking at the On Demand Conference, warned that a lot of the U.S. market is already saturated by consumer on-demand startups. Pishevar himself has invested in a lot of them: Uber, Munchery, Airbnb and TaskRabbit to name a few. These are startups that are commanding multi-million-dollar valuations, or in Uber's case, billions. But, depending on the specific market, it may be too late for many investors and entrepreneurs to cash in. Pishevar cautioned against acting on your FOMO and grabbing on to the tail-end of a trend, because you may end up getting wacked. If you are investing in the tail end of a trend the tail has a habit of whipping you off as fast as the trend tends to bend. — Shervin Pishevar (@shervin) May 11, 2015 The on-demand economy evolved out of what Pishevar called "the village economy" mentality, one that establishes trust between parties and allows for easy payments. These are traits of economies you see in small towns where everyone from hairdressers to doctors make house calls, and the level of trust is already established. When applying that to business, the on-demand economy took off by focusing on the points of friction in a consumer's every day life. "The front end of the tail is driven by much more consumer driven needs. That’s what people need multiple times a day, transportation and food," Pishevar said. "There’s probably not a great opportunity to do the next on-demand shoe shining." Instead, Pishevar said that entrepreneurs — and investors — need to focus on unique opportunities and products that are born out of frustrations. Pishevar, who was the son of a taxi driver, saw Uber as one of those opportunities. Pishevar said there are still opportunities for innovative services, citing healthcare and other vertical industries that haven't been tapped for on-demand services yet.  But he said warned that simply applying the on-demand model to any industry would not guarantee success. "The copy paste mentality of some investors and entrepreneurs  — be careful of that," Pishevar said. "Do something that is unique to you, not because someone else’s journey is mirroring it." SEE ALSO: Silicon Valley startups are obsessed with developing tech to replace their moms Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Uber has a new ad that promises to change everything about the food delivery game

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The highest-paying jobs at Tesla, ranked

Working at a company as ambitious as Tesla is no easy task. It's a demanding and even intimidating atmosphere, as Ashlee Vance illustrates in his new book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." But all that hard work is compensated well. Here's a look at some of the highest paying jobs at Tesla based on salaries posted by employees and former employees on career site Glassdoor. (Note: We only included jobs with at least five reviews. All figures refer to base salaries without bonuses.)  Mechanical engineer: $97,220 Tesla's various mechanical engineers are tasked with developing various parts of the company's vehicles, such as the power transmission, the components that make up the automobile's chassis, and more. With bonuses, the gig can pay up to $99,249 according to Glassdoor's data.  Source QA Engineer: $97,938 QA engineers, or quality assurance engineers, usually monitor every phase of software development to make sure it adheres to the company's standards. According to Glassdoor, Tesla's salary for this position is 19% above the national average for QA engineers.  Source Design engineer: $99,664 Tesla usually seeks design engineers that specialize in certain fields. Right now, the company is seeking mechanical design engineers for areas such as propulsion, stationary storage-wire harness designs, chassis systems, and more.  Source See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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There’s a ton of magic that happens instantaneously over the internet, except one thing

There are a lot of abstract problems related to money for which bitcoin is supposedly the savior. It is supposed to free us from central banks, and regular banks, and onerous centralized authority. So far, however, this hasn't worked out so well as regulators continue to crack down on those trying to use bitcoin to work around the current legal and regulatory frameworks. But there's still (at least) one way the bitcoin technology could be revolutionary: transferring money from place to place instantaneously. Take this passage from Nathaniel Popper's new book, Digital Gold, which was released Tuesday: Wences [Casares, an entrepreneur from Argentina] drew the group in with an explanation of the basic notion of a new kind of network that could allow people to move money anywhere in the world, instantaneously—something that these financiers, who were frequently moving millions between banks in different countries, could surely appreciate. "You can call someone in Jakarta on Skype," Wences told them. "you can see them and you can hear them and there's a synchronous connection with a lot of bandwidth. There's a ton of magic happening, which is incredible. And you hang up and you want to send them one cent and that's not possible. That's ridiculous. It should be a lot easier to send a cent than to see video and audio." Casares is right: it's really hard to move money around the world. Even within countries, the US in particular, it takes multiple days for money transmission to clear. Services like Venmo and PayPal make it easier by allowing you to move money from account to account instantly, but it still takes a day or two to get your money from that service into your bank account. Internationally, it's even harder and much more expensive. If the current money transfer system is like receiving mail in your mailbox once a day, bitcoin is like instant message. It's instant and cheap. (In this analogy, Venmo would be like an alert that lets you know you have a new email, but doesn't let you respond until the end of the day.) So bitcoin is theoretically an almost perfect solution. Practically, though, the problem still is that nobody uses it. SEE ALSO:  You can now track Bitcoin on the New York Stock Exchange Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The new trailer for 'Magic Mike XXL' promises a guaranteed box office smash

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NYC's most legendary prosecutor sees a darker threat in Venezuela's alleged global cocaine hub

On Monday the Wall Street Journal reported that the United States is investigating high-level Venezuelan government officials for allegedly turning their country into a global cocaine hub. Robert Morgenthau, the legendary former Manhattan District Attorney, has been making exactly that accusation for years. And for him, the Venezuelan government's questionable activity doesn't stop at drug running.  As early as 2009, Morgenthau was telling anyone that would listen about ties that his office was finding between the cocaine that ended up in New York City, the Venezuelan government, and Iran and its agents like the terror group Hezbollah. From a Wall Street Journal op-ed he wrote in 2009 (emphasis ours): A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study reported a high level of corruption within the Venezuelan government, military and law enforcement that has allowed that country to become a major transshipment route for trafficking cocaine out of Colombia. Intelligence gathered by my office strongly supports the conclusion that Hezbollah supporters in South America are engaged in the trafficking of narcotics ... In the past several years Iranian entities have employed a pervasive system of deceitful and fraudulent practices to move money all over the world without detection. The regime has done this, I believe, to pay for materials necessary to develop nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and road-side bombs. Venezuela has an established financial system that Iran, with the help of Mr. Chávez's government, can exploit to avoid economic sanctions. Morgenthau was the District Attorney of Manhattan from 1975 to 2009 inspiring the popular television show 'Law and Order.' In that time, of course, he saw his share of drug cases. However, when it came to Venezuela, beginning with the Chavez years, he saw that another actor was getting heavily involved in trafficking — Iran. On top of prosecuting tons of drug-related cases, Morgenthau's office was familiar with how the government in Tehran tried to move money around the world, having prosecuted high-profile Iran-related money laundering and sanctions-evading cases involving banks like Lloyds (a UK bank), Credit Suisse, Barclays, Paribas, Commerze Bank and HSBC. Morgethau believed, and still does, that Chavez's regime was allowing Iran to use the country's banking system, and that former Venezeulan Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami specifically helped Iran's agents obtain Venezuelan passports so they could travel freely around the world. "We ... fought against Iran’s effort to establish a sphere of influence in the western hemisphere," Morgenthau said at an awards ceremony in Washington last month. "I came to Washington in September 2009 to speak about some of the evidence my office had gathered demonstrating the growth of Iran’s influence in the West, specifically in Venezuela." He continued: "In 2009 my office uncovered evidence that the Iranians were supplying manned drones to Venezuela – information we shared with our intelligence services. Time has again proven us right, with public reports in 2012 and 2013 confirming the presence of Iranian drones in Venezuela. Venezuela and Iran have sixty separate agreements covering their business dealings." If both the Department of Justice and Morgenthau are correct, one of those business dealings is the trafficking of cocaine. Morgenthau's assessment goes along with recent reports by journalists in Brazil, as well as the findings of slain Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman. Nisman died — and was likely murdered — under still-mysterious circumstances in January after over a decade of work investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. When he was found shot to the head in his apartment, he was about to present his findings, which showed that the Argentine government was attempting to hide Iran's involvement in the bombing. Nisman believed, and reports corroborate, that it was the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who made that cover-up possible after he promised then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he would inter broker a deal between Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Iran. That was in 2007, and in that same meeting, say Venezuelan defectors, Chavez and Ahmadinejad negotiated a flight between Caracas, Damascus and Tehran known as Aeroterror — it was (and perhaps is) a flight that requires a government clearance, and carries more drugs and money than people. The Venezuelan officials under investigation include Diosdado Cabello, the head of the country's national legislature, and his brother who is the head of the country's tax collection agency. “There is extensive evidence to justify that he [Diosdado] is one of the heads, if not the head, of the cartel,” a Justice Department official told the Wall Street Journal, speaking of a group of military officers and top officials suspected of being involved in the drug trade. “He certainly is a main target.” National Security experts tell Business Insider that it could take years before the US develops the political operation to bring a powerful figure like Cabello to justice. It will take cooperation from other regional governments. It will take time. But you've got to start somewhere.  Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions

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Peter Dinklage is a Donkey Kong champ in new 'Pixels' trailer

The second trailer for "Pixels" — this summer's Adam Sandler movie about classic video games out to destroy us all — is a lot like the first. Aliens are on an arcade game-inspired rampage, and only Adam Sandler and his pals (Kevin James, Josh Gad, and Peter Dinklage) can save us because they're all former arcade champs.  The new trailer introduces the entire gang, which includes "Game of Thrones" star Peter Dinklage as former Donkey Kong champ (and current prison inmate?) Eddie Plant. We see him do a little impression of Kong. It may be the best part of the trailer.  "Pixels" arrives in theaters July 24, 2015. Follow BI Video: On Facebook SEE ALSO: Why Adam Sandler movies keep getting made Join the conversation about this story »

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Takata will declare 33.8 million vehicles defective due to exploding airbags

Takata will declare 33.8 million vehicles defective because they are equipped with airbags that can explode and spray occupants with shards of metal, various media outlets reported on Tuesday. "U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced that at the Department’s insistence, air bag manufacturer Takata has acknowledged that a defect exists in its air bag inflators," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement. "Takata has agreed to a national recall of certain types of driver and passenger side air bag inflators," NHTSA continued. "These inflators were made with a propellant that can degrade over time and has led to ruptures that have been blamed for six deaths worldwide. The action expands the number of vehicles to be recalled for defective Takata inflators to nearly 34 million." This action expands the US Takata recall, adding 17 million vehicles to the previous 16 million total. It is among the most monumental recalls in US history and has captured the attention of Congress, which last year held hearings of the the matter. Prior to Tuesday, 28 million vehicles had been recalled worldwide. In the the US, Takata's reluctance to cooperate with the government has been costly. "NHTSA in February began fining Takata $14,000 a day for not completely answering questions about air-bag inflater production and company efforts to investigate the explosions," Bloomberg's Jeff Plungis reported. "It said at the time that most of the 2.4 million pages of documents the company had produced didn’t actually relate to the agency’s specific inquiries." Bloomberg reported that Takata had agreed to larger fine with NHTSA, but didn't name a figure. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham) Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's exactly when you should 'cc' someone on email

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