What it's like to be a Google intern, and how to get a job there when you graduate | ||
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Rohan Shah is 22, and he's a software engineer at Google. He was offered the job just before his senior year of college at the University of Illinois, but his career with Google started six months prior, in January 2013, when he was 20. Then, Shah remembers receiving an email from his dream employer. The search giant – the best company to work for in the world! – was interested in interviewing him for one of its coveted internship positions. It had been weeks since Shah filled out the online application following a career fair at his college, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He had already accepted another summer internship at Qualcomm one month prior. But this was Google! And Shah couldn't let the opportunity slip by. A Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company accepts only 1,500 interns out of about 40,000 applicants every year in the United States. Earning a spot at Google is so competitive, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn starred in a movie about it. Shah went through with the interview process, which spanned more than one month. By the end of January, he was offered an internship position. Instead of canceling his summer plans with Qualcomm, Shah called his school and took a leave of absence. He flew to Mountain View, California and became one of about 50 interns during the spring of 2013. What was the interview process like? What's it really like being a Google intern? And how does a Google internship turn into a job? Shah and other interns recount their tales. Getting The Interview: A Slow And Tedious ProcessThe Google interview process, whether you're applying for an internship or a full-time position, begins with an online application. The hopeful candidate fills out forms that inquire about his or her grade point average, past experiences, extra curricular activities and more. Shah didn't do anything fancy with his resume to attract attention. But he can speak three languages, he has received a volunteering medal of honor, and he was on his school's Dean's List. In addition, he was a teaching assistant, he held previous internships and, just for fun, he created Android apps. Still, it took multiple weeks for Google to respond to his November application. When Google finally did, it sent him an email. Another intern candidate, Evan Carmi, said he waited a month and a half before hearing from Google HR when he applied in 2010. The email correspondence between Google HR and the candidate leads to two phone interviews with current Google employees. That's when the process really begins. A Series Of 'Highly Technical' 45-Minute InterviewsGoogle was once infamous for asking tough brainteasers during its interview process. After a bout of negative press, Google forbid its staff from asking candidates questions like "How many cows are in Canada?" Still, the interviews – even for interns – are highly technical. "It was essentially applying your knowledge in a very practical situation," Shah explains, which is about as in-depth as Google will let him go. Google has a strict policy against sharing company information, although it allowed our interview with Shah. "It's figuring out if you can scale a system, or you can make something much more efficient," he says. The best applicants are able to apply those concepts quickly throughout the entire 45-minute process. Carmi's interviews were equally technical, and he wrote freely about them in a 2010 blog post. His first of the back-to-back calls was from a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. He asked Carmi questions pertaining to Python, such as "Write a function with the following specification: Input: a list. Output: a copy of the list with duplicates removed." Carmi's second interview was with a Carnegie Mellon graduate on Google's Webmaster Tools Team who asked him to write actual code. A single question took up the vast majority of the 45-minute slot and caused Carmi to all but break a sweat. Carmi was asked to do a third technical phone interview and his dreams of becoming a Google intern died there. Shah was more fortunate. One week after his two phone interviews, he received an email from HR: "You did well in the interviews, we want to continue the process," he was told. The Google recruiter then helped him figure out which department he'd like to intern for, and more interviews followed. "I had interviews with around five different teams," he says. Unlike the phone interviews, the team interviews aren't technical. They help the potential interns get to know the different groups within Google and learn if they'll like working in one over another. By late January – three months after submitting his application – Shah was officially a Google intern. He'd be joining Google's Android department. His next stop: Mountain View. Housing, Roommates, And Commute, All Covered By GoogleIt may seem impossible to get an internship offer across the country and start working there two weeks later. But if you're a Google intern, the company solves all of your housing and travel logistics for you. Shah was put up in Google-paid corporate housing, in San Jose's North Park, with fellow Google interns for roommates. Shah was assigned three roommates, two from Argentina and one from Ukraine. "I got to meet people from a completely different culture. I got to learn from them and picked up a bit of their languages as well," says Shah. "It was a great housing experience for me." Shah describes the apartment as "very nice" with a train station close by for easy access to most places in Silicon Valley. There's no need for a car or a bike when you're a Google intern. Google sends free shuttles throughout the entire Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto and Berkeley, to take employees to work and home at night. Bikes are available on Google's campus for long-term rent, or for hopping from office to office around the 'Plex. A Week And A Half Of OrientationThe intern orientation process goes on for a week and a half. Interns are taught how the data centers work, how the company functions, and what Google's goals are. They also meet all the other new Googlers. "Just in the first week you feel like you've been an employee for a year," Shah says. "You get acclimated with the company very quickly." From the moment he stepped onto Google's grassy campus, Shah was in love. "My first day was amazing," he says. Making The MoneyGoogle interns get paid more than most full-time employees across the country. According to Glassdoor, the average Google intern makes $5,678 per month, or $68,136 per year. Shah's pay was slightly more at about $6,100 per month or $80,000 per year.* Take into account all of the perks, including free rent, transportation, gym membership and food, and a Google intern is living large. "I didn't find myself wasting any money, except on weekends when I went exploring," says Shah. "It was a great semester." So, What Do Google Interns Do All Day?A lot of work, and a lot of team building activities. Shah recalls trips to museums, movies, hiking and biking excursions, as well as several trips to San Francisco, all organized by Google. He was the only intern on his Android team, and there were a lot of team dinners, including one on his 20th birthday. Unlike most other internships, where the underlings send faxes and grab coffees, Google interns work on real products that will be used by the world. Each intern is assigned a project within his or her group. They're also assigned a mentor who will chat with them weekly, or as frequently as the intern needs, and give feedback on their progress.
"It was a great sense of satisfaction," Shah recalls. A current Google software engineer, Kitt Vanderwater, had a similar experience when she interned in the Google+ department. "I had a lot of responsibility," she says. "It was a little overwhelming because I was doing all these things I had never done before. I was the one who was driving a lot of the decisions we were making, I ended up making the page for signed-out search, which was the first experience anyone got in the new Google+ search. So basically I owned this page that tons of people were going to land on when Search was actually launched." What Googlers Are Really LikeGooglers aren't a bunch of social misfits, although that's how they're occasionally portrayed. Shah was surprised how normal and non-geeky everyone at Google was, engineers included. "One thing that really surprised me working at Google was that every single employee is extremely creative and extremely active," Shah says. "There's a very clear divide between work and life. Google engineers are very well-balanced. I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." "I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." Meeting Sergey BrinInterns aren't all introduced to Google's top executives. Nor are they allowed to test out all of the cool-new devices that Google is building. Shah never zipped around in a driverless car or wore Google Glass while he was there. But he did run into Google co-founder Sergey Brin once. "The one time I did meet Sergey, three intern friends and I were going bowling," Shah explained. (But not bowling off campus, of course. Google has its own alley.) "Sergey happened to be passing by, showing his friend around the place. That's actually as much as I saw of Sergey." The Perks: 24 Cafes, Multiple Gyms, A Wellness Center And MoreYou won't starve working for Google. Like most Googlers, Shah says the food was "probably the biggest perk." He estimated the Googleplex had 24 cafes with a wide variety of cuisines to choose from: Mexican, American, Indian, salad bars, pizza shops and burger joints. Gyms are located close to cafes for anyone feeling over-fed. The gyms are well equipped and are often completely full, says Shah. If you get sick, you just go to Google's wellness center. Feel a knot in your back? Go to the on-campus masseuse. All are available for interns as well as employees. "Free food and refreshments, free gym membership, laundry, dancing lessons, etc," Paul Baltescu, a two-time Google intern, rattles off perks on Quora. "Intern events are also loads of fun: you may go to paintball, laser tag, watch a SF Giants game and all summer interns go on a luxury boat trip on the San Francisco Bay. Also, depending on your team you may attend other fun events like white river rafting, a three days trip to Lake Tahoe or may get to visit other Google offices." The Cons of Being A Google Intern? There Are NoneIf there are any downsides to being a Google intern, Shah can't recall any. His only complaint is more of a frustration with himself. Shah wasn't as experienced an Android developer as Google's full-time engineers, so it took him some time before he could fully contribute to the team. But he says his co-workers were understanding and his mentor was always there for encouragement. Like Shah, Baltescu can think of only pros when he recalls his internship experience. "Both internships helped me develop basic software engineering skills that I wouldn't have otherwise learned from school projects (how to code search efficiently, how to unit test properly, how to use version control systems, etc.)," he writes on Quora. "I also learned some new technologies like python and App Engine and brushed on my JavaScript and C++. I'm very grateful for what I've learned at Google and I strongly recommend their internship program to any student wishing to become a software engineer in the near future." Life After A Google InternshipFor Shah, one internship (Google's) led right into another (Qualcomm's). But at the end of his Google internship, he was able to interview for a full-time job that would be waiting for him when he graduated in 2014. Google interns can interview before their departure, and their mentors can help them prep. That summer, a few months after the interview, Shah was told he could become an official Googler. Jenna Wandres, Google's Communications Associate who oversees all things culture, told Business Insider then, "We rely heavily on those interns when we're thinking about hiring." Shah's advice to other hopeful Google interns? "Google is really looking for experience," he says. "They want to find engineers who are motivated, so activities outside of school really help. At the same time, you need to know your basics. You need to understand simple algorithms and how to apply them. Google is all about application." The best piece of advice comes from Shah's Google mentor: Stay calm. "I know every interviewer says that, But Google interviews are kind of unnerving because they're highly technical. Calming down was what really helped me through." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: We did the math: Is Uber really cheaper than a taxi?  | ||
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Shah's project involved working with old Gmail code and launching a new, top-secret feature. His favorite memory from the internship is the day he rolled out the Android feature internally. He received tons of feedback from his peers, and then it hit him: The work he had done at Google was going to impact millions of people. An SEC lockdown almost killed this startup right after it launched - now it's worth more than $6.5 billion (LC) | ||
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But founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche isn’t the type of leader who likes to go around telling the world about his success. He’s more reserved and humble, merely calling his accomplishment, “A big honor for sure…but outside of that particular [IPO] week, it’s really business as usual.” But one thing Laplanche doesn’t mind talking about is the challenges his company, founded in 2007, had to overcome to get to where it is today. In 2008, for example, it had to cease operations for 6 months —right in the thick of the financial crisis — because of an SEC registration process. “It was a pretty stressful and uncertain time,” Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche told Business Insider. Back in 2008, Lending Club was a scrappy startup with a disruptive idea. Its online software significantly dropped the cost of vetting and matching borrowers with potential lenders, creating an alternative to physical banks who typically charged a lot more to facilitate loans.
But it didn’t catch on right away. The idea of lending money to strangers over the internet was too risky at the time, especially when Lending Club didn’t have a track record just yet. And, Lending Club needed an SEC registration for the loans it was facilitating. Laplanche's company operates a bit differently that most online lending marketplaces: its model allows it to split up loans in pieces as small as $25, so investors could spread their risk across multiple borrowers. The problem was that the SEC didn’t have a registration framework for these kinds of loans and required Lending Club to register it as a new type of security. “There was no precedent for the type of registration we were trying to get,” Laplanche said. So, about a year following its launch, Lending Club had to suspend all new lender signups, essentially stalling its growth for six months - without knowing if it would ever get SEC approval. It was still allowed to run its lending market, but there was no new capital flowing in. Worse, Lending Club was running out of money. And the economy was heading to the bottom, with large financial firms like Lehman Brothers going out of business. “There were headlines in the newspaper of people defaulting almost every day,” Laplanche recalls. Things couldn’t get more bleak at that point. But Laplanche didn’t lose his composure and still believed that he’d eventually turn things around. “I was confident that we’d get it done, but there was a lot of uncertainty around us,” he said. Luckily, Lending Club’s early investors, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, saw Laplanche’s confidence and remained as strong supporters. Even with all the uncertainty, they ended up doing a Series A follow-on round under the same terms as the Series A round. “Who would invest in a company that was stuck in limbo negotiating for its life with the government while the rest of the country was in an economic crisis?” Jeff Crowe, Managing Partner at Norwest, wrote on LinkedIn. “But we still thought that marketplace lending was a hugely important idea, and we continued to believe in Renaud.”
From 2012, Lending Club has been on a true hockey-stick growth, facilitating more than $9 billion in total loans so far. And in December 2014, Lending Club had its historic IPO, raising almost $900 million. Looking back, the 6-month freezing period couldn't have happened at a better time for Lending Club, says Laplanche. Right when it got the SEC approval in late 2008 and started to really accelerate its growth in early 2009, large banks were starting to pull back, making credit unavailable because of the financial crisis. “In hindsight, it was good timing,” Laplanche said. And Laplanche believes things are only going to get better. “Nobody ever looked at banking as an engineering problem,” he said. “We believe we can set up a marketplace where the banks become participants, and that process has already started.” Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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Lending Club, a startup worth over $6.5 billion, is one of the biggest online lending marketplaces in the world. Its IPO last year was 
Finally, in October 2008, Lending Club gained approval from the SEC and returned to normal operations. From there, things started moving fast: within a few months, it received its first $50,000 unsolicited check by mail, and a couple of years later, it saw the first $5 million institutional investment made on its platform. What it's like to be a Google intern, and how to get a job there when you graduate | ||
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Rohan Shah is 22, and he's a software engineer at Google. He was offered the job just before his senior year of college at the University of Illinois, but his career with Google started six months prior, in January 2013, when he was 20. Then, Shah remembers receiving an email from his dream employer. The search giant – the best company to work for in the world! – was interested in interviewing him for one of its coveted internship positions. It had been weeks since Shah filled out the online application following a career fair at his college, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He had already accepted another summer internship at Qualcomm one month prior. But this was Google! And Shah couldn't let the opportunity slip by. A Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company accepts only 1,500 interns out of about 40,000 applicants every year in the United States. Earning a spot at Google is so competitive, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn starred in a movie about it. Shah went through with the interview process, which spanned more than one month. By the end of January, he was offered an internship position. Instead of canceling his summer plans with Qualcomm, Shah called his school and took a leave of absence. He flew to Mountain View, California and became one of about 50 interns during the spring of 2013. What was the interview process like? What's it really like being a Google intern? And how does a Google internship turn into a job? Shah and other interns recount their tales. Getting The Interview: A Slow And Tedious ProcessThe Google interview process, whether you're applying for an internship or a full-time position, begins with an online application. The hopeful candidate fills out forms that inquire about his or her grade point average, past experiences, extra curricular activities and more. Shah didn't do anything fancy with his resume to attract attention. But he can speak three languages, he has received a volunteering medal of honor, and he was on his school's Dean's List. In addition, he was a teaching assistant, he held previous internships and, just for fun, he created Android apps. Still, it took multiple weeks for Google to respond to his November application. When Google finally did, it sent him an email. Another intern candidate, Evan Carmi, said he waited a month and a half before hearing from Google HR when he applied in 2010. The email correspondence between Google HR and the candidate leads to two phone interviews with current Google employees. That's when the process really begins. A Series Of 'Highly Technical' 45-Minute InterviewsGoogle was once infamous for asking tough brainteasers during its interview process. After a bout of negative press, Google forbid its staff from asking candidates questions like "How many cows are in Canada?" Still, the interviews – even for interns – are highly technical. "It was essentially applying your knowledge in a very practical situation," Shah explains, which is about as in-depth as Google will let him go. Google has a strict policy against sharing company information, although it allowed our interview with Shah. "It's figuring out if you can scale a system, or you can make something much more efficient," he says. The best applicants are able to apply those concepts quickly throughout the entire 45-minute process. Carmi's interviews were equally technical, and he wrote freely about them in a 2010 blog post. His first of the back-to-back calls was from a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. He asked Carmi questions pertaining to Python, such as "Write a function with the following specification: Input: a list. Output: a copy of the list with duplicates removed." Carmi's second interview was with a Carnegie Mellon graduate on Google's Webmaster Tools Team who asked him to write actual code. A single question took up the vast majority of the 45-minute slot and caused Carmi to all but break a sweat. Carmi was asked to do a third technical phone interview and his dreams of becoming a Google intern died there. Shah was more fortunate. One week after his two phone interviews, he received an email from HR: "You did well in the interviews, we want to continue the process," he was told. The Google recruiter then helped him figure out which department he'd like to intern for, and more interviews followed. "I had interviews with around five different teams," he says. Unlike the phone interviews, the team interviews aren't technical. They help the potential interns get to know the different groups within Google and learn if they'll like working in one over another. By late January – three months after submitting his application – Shah was officially a Google intern. He'd be joining Google's Android department. His next stop: Mountain View. Housing, Roommates, And Commute, All Covered By GoogleIt may seem impossible to get an internship offer across the country and start working there two weeks later. But if you're a Google intern, the company solves all of your housing and travel logistics for you. Shah was put up in Google-paid corporate housing, in San Jose's North Park, with fellow Google interns for roommates. Shah was assigned three roommates, two from Argentina and one from Ukraine. "I got to meet people from a completely different culture. I got to learn from them and picked up a bit of their languages as well," says Shah. "It was a great housing experience for me." Shah describes the apartment as "very nice" with a train station close by for easy access to most places in Silicon Valley. There's no need for a car or a bike when you're a Google intern. Google sends free shuttles throughout the entire Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto and Berkeley, to take employees to work and home at night. Bikes are available on Google's campus for long-term rent, or for hopping from office to office around the 'Plex. A Week And A Half Of OrientationThe intern orientation process goes on for a week and a half. Interns are taught how the data centers work, how the company functions, and what Google's goals are. They also meet all the other new Googlers. "Just in the first week you feel like you've been an employee for a year," Shah says. "You get acclimated with the company very quickly." From the moment he stepped onto Google's grassy campus, Shah was in love. "My first day was amazing," he says. Making The MoneyGoogle interns get paid more than most full-time employees across the country. According to Glassdoor, the average Google intern makes $5,678 per month, or $68,136 per year. Shah's pay was slightly more at about $6,100 per month or $80,000 per year.* Take into account all of the perks, including free rent, transportation, gym membership and food, and a Google intern is living large. "I didn't find myself wasting any money, except on weekends when I went exploring," says Shah. "It was a great semester." So, What Do Google Interns Do All Day?A lot of work, and a lot of team building activities. Shah recalls trips to museums, movies, hiking and biking excursions, as well as several trips to San Francisco, all organized by Google. He was the only intern on his Android team, and there were a lot of team dinners, including one on his 20th birthday. Unlike most other internships, where the underlings send faxes and grab coffees, Google interns work on real products that will be used by the world. Each intern is assigned a project within his or her group. They're also assigned a mentor who will chat with them weekly, or as frequently as the intern needs, and give feedback on their progress.
"It was a great sense of satisfaction," Shah recalls. A current Google software engineer, Kitt Vanderwater, had a similar experience when she interned in the Google+ department. "I had a lot of responsibility," she says. "It was a little overwhelming because I was doing all these things I had never done before. I was the one who was driving a lot of the decisions we were making, I ended up making the page for signed-out search, which was the first experience anyone got in the new Google+ search. So basically I owned this page that tons of people were going to land on when Search was actually launched." What Googlers Are Really LikeGooglers aren't a bunch of social misfits, although that's how they're occasionally portrayed. Shah was surprised how normal and non-geeky everyone at Google was, engineers included. "One thing that really surprised me working at Google was that every single employee is extremely creative and extremely active," Shah says. "There's a very clear divide between work and life. Google engineers are very well-balanced. I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." "I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." Meeting Sergey BrinInterns aren't all introduced to Google's top executives. Nor are they allowed to test out all of the cool-new devices that Google is building. Shah never zipped around in a driverless car or wore Google Glass while he was there. But he did run into Google co-founder Sergey Brin once. "The one time I did meet Sergey, three intern friends and I were going bowling," Shah explained. (But not bowling off campus, of course. Google has its own alley.) "Sergey happened to be passing by, showing his friend around the place. That's actually as much as I saw of Sergey." The Perks: 24 Cafes, Multiple Gyms, A Wellness Center And MoreYou won't starve working for Google. Like most Googlers, Shah says the food was "probably the biggest perk." He estimated the Googleplex had 24 cafes with a wide variety of cuisines to choose from: Mexican, American, Indian, salad bars, pizza shops and burger joints. Gyms are located close to cafes for anyone feeling over-fed. The gyms are well equipped and are often completely full, says Shah. If you get sick, you just go to Google's wellness center. Feel a knot in your back? Go to the on-campus masseuse. All are available for interns as well as employees. "Free food and refreshments, free gym membership, laundry, dancing lessons, etc," Paul Baltescu, a two-time Google intern, rattles off perks on Quora. "Intern events are also loads of fun: you may go to paintball, laser tag, watch a SF Giants game and all summer interns go on a luxury boat trip on the San Francisco Bay. Also, depending on your team you may attend other fun events like white river rafting, a three days trip to Lake Tahoe or may get to visit other Google offices." The Cons of Being A Google Intern? There Are NoneIf there are any downsides to being a Google intern, Shah can't recall any. His only complaint is more of a frustration with himself. Shah wasn't as experienced an Android developer as Google's full-time engineers, so it took him some time before he could fully contribute to the team. But he says his co-workers were understanding and his mentor was always there for encouragement. Like Shah, Baltescu can think of only pros when he recalls his internship experience. "Both internships helped me develop basic software engineering skills that I wouldn't have otherwise learned from school projects (how to code search efficiently, how to unit test properly, how to use version control systems, etc.)," he writes on Quora. "I also learned some new technologies like python and App Engine and brushed on my JavaScript and C++. I'm very grateful for what I've learned at Google and I strongly recommend their internship program to any student wishing to become a software engineer in the near future." Life After A Google InternshipFor Shah, one internship (Google's) led right into another (Qualcomm's). But at the end of his Google internship, he was able to interview for a full-time job that would be waiting for him when he graduated in 2014. Google interns can interview before their departure, and their mentors can help them prep. That summer, a few months after the interview, Shah was told he could become an official Googler. Jenna Wandres, Google's Communications Associate who oversees all things culture, told Business Insider then, "We rely heavily on those interns when we're thinking about hiring." Shah's advice to other hopeful Google interns? "Google is really looking for experience," he says. "They want to find engineers who are motivated, so activities outside of school really help. At the same time, you need to know your basics. You need to understand simple algorithms and how to apply them. Google is all about application." The best piece of advice comes from Shah's Google mentor: Stay calm. "I know every interviewer says that, But Google interviews are kind of unnerving because they're highly technical. Calming down was what really helped me through." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: We did the math: Is Uber really cheaper than a taxi?  | ||
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Spain votes as new forces seek 'historic' change | ||
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Madrid (AFP) - Spaniards voted Sunday in elections that could see the anti-austerity protest movement conquer city halls and transform Spanish politics. New left-wing and centrist movements are fighting to end the two-party system of the past four decades and drive out the ruling conservative Popular Party (PP). Surging in popularity after the wave of anti-austerity protests that erupted in 2011, they vow to fight corruption and heal a country stricken by unemployment and spending cuts. "This is the first time we have felt hopeful when coming out to vote," said Eva Quintas, 32, after casting her ballot in central Madrid for left-wing protest party Podemos and the local group it is backing, Ahora Madrid. Another voter, Fernando Martin, 50, said he eventually made up his mind to vote for the PP. "These elections are important. I think there are going to be big changes," he said. "People feel let down by politicians of all parties." Podemos wants to drive the PP out of power and challenge the mainstream left as the force of opposition in the eurozone's fourth-biggest economy, as the Syriza party has done in Greece. The economically liberal Ciudadanos party meanwhile is luring voters from right and left, promising more moderate, market-friendly reforms. In the city hall elections, numerous grassroots groups opposed to the government's austerity measures are running with Podemos's backing. They are polling strongly in the two biggest cities, Madrid and Barcelona. Leading centre-left newspaper El Pais called it a choice between "the old and the new politics". Conservative daily ABC pointed out the high level of undecided voters -- some 30 percent according to polls.
- 'Historic' vote - Polls opened across mainland Spain at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), and will close at 1800 GMT. Voters were being asked to choose leaders in more than 8,000 city halls and 13 of the 17 regional governments which control health and education budgets. More than 35 million people were registered to vote. Podemos and Ciudadanos have surged over the past year to occupy third and fourth place in the polls behind the Popular Party and the mainstream opposition Socialists. Those two parties have taken turns running Spain for more than 30 years. "There is no doubt that a majority of Spaniards want change. What they want now are governments that make pacts and engage in dialogue," said Jose Pablo Ferrandiz from major pollster Metroscopia. "That is truly something new in Spain. We are not used to coalition governments." The polls also indicated a marked rise in turnout was likely, driven by young voters. "This is a historic campaign for political change in Spain, just like during the transition" from dictatorship in the 1970s, Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera said. Polls have consistently shown the PP losing support overall. "In 2011 we demonstrated on the town squares. In 2015 we will throw them out of power," Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said.
- General election warm-up -
Spain's economic growth is gradually improving, but the unemployment rate was at more than 23 percent at the last count and anti-austerity campaigners say the recovery is not reaching the poorest. Sunday's vote is an important warm-up for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he fights to stay in office in the general election due around November. He warns that ejecting the PP from office could disrupt Spain's economic recovery. "This is not a time to experiment," he said. "You cannot experiment with the interests of the Spanish people." Analysts say a Podemos surge could undermine foreign investors' confidence in Spain's financial stability, like Syriza's rise to power in Greece. But Ciudadanos has offered them a more market-friendly alternative and could act as an "important power broker" to keep Spain's economic reforms on track, said analyst Christian Schulz of German bank Berenberg. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Church reels after Ireland's huge 'Yes' to gay marriage | ||
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Dublin (AFP) - The once all-powerful Catholic Church in Ireland was trying to come to terms Sunday with the country's overwhelming vote to allow gay marriage and confront the "social revolution" behind it. As jubilant "Yes" supporters nursed their hangovers after partying long into the night following Saturday's referendum result announcement, the faithful were going to mass to hear their priests reflect on the new social landscape in Ireland. Bishops spoke against changing the law and older and rural voters were thought to have accounted for much of the "No" vote. Final results showed 62 percent of votes in favour and 38 percent against introducing gay marriage, in a country where being homosexual was a crime until 1993. As Sunday's newspapers celebrated the result with colourful pictures of partying "Yes" supporters, they noted the heavy blow to Church authority. The Irish Sun on Sunday newspaper said in its editorial: "Ireland officially emerged from the shadow of the Catholic Church yesterday to show its love and respect to people who have suffered here for centuries." Niall O'Connor wrote in the Sunday Independent: "The once unshakable influence of the Catholic Church over Middle Ireland has been confronted." Ireland will become the 19th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages once the necessary legislation is approved as expected in the coming months.
- 'Reality check' -
Adopting gay marriage is a seismic change in Ireland, where the Catholic Church has traditionally been hugely influential. The majority of Irish people still identify themselves as Catholic and abortion is still banned except in cases where the mother's life is in danger. But the Church's influence has waned in recent years amid growing secularisation and after a wave of child sex abuse scandals that discredited the clergy. "I think the Church needs to do a reality check right across the board... Have we drifted away completely from young people?" Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, told national broadcaster RTE Saturday. He warned against the Church in Ireland becoming "a safe space for the like-minded rather than the Church which Pope Francis is talking about, which is reaching out." All of Ireland's 43 constituencies except one voted in favour of the measure and the 60-percent turnout was far higher than in previous referendums, as thousands of expatriates returned home to cast their ballots. It was the first time ever that gay marriage had been approved by popular vote. The referendum asked voters whether or not they approved the statement: "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex." Tony Flannery, co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, was stripped of his ministry in 2012 due to his outspoken liberal views on contraception and the ordination of female priests. The Redemptorist priest, who voted Yes, said the Church needed to rethink how it approaches Ireland's youth if it is to reverse its waning position in society. "The last thing the Irish bishops should be doing is further alienating the young generation who the Church, to a fair degree, has lost already," he told AFP. Instead of relying on traditional rules and telling people how they should live, Irish bishops should instead "get back to the more fundamental tenets of the Christian faith which is about love and compassion and mercy, and Pope Francis is very much doing that," he said. "If they do they will begin to reconnect with the younger generation."
- Mixed feelings -
Congratulations poured in to Ireland from around the world, including from British Prime Minister David Cameron and US Vice President Joe Biden. In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Sunday his country would not follow Ireland's lead and hold a referendum on gay marriage, adding that any decisions would be made by parliament. Gay marriage was explicitly outlawed in Australia under a 2004 revision of the national Marriage Act. In Germany, Jens Spahn, a member of the executive committee of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, appeared open to change. "One should think, what the Catholic Irish can do, we can too," he was quoted by Welt Online as saying, adding: "The population is often more ahead in these matters than we think." Some citizens voiced mixed feelings as they went about their business in Dublin on Sunday. "I'm saddened, because I don't think it was a good idea. I think there are much more important things to be looked after in this country," said one woman, Bernadette. Another, Caroline, told AFP: "While I'm happy with the result, I don't think we should be voting necessarily on something which should be a human right anyway."
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An SEC lockdown almost killed this startup right after it launched - now it's worth more than $6.5 billion (LC) | ||
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But founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche isn’t the type of leader who likes to go around telling the world about his success. He’s more reserved and humble, merely calling his accomplishment, “A big honor for sure…but outside of that particular [IPO] week, it’s really business as usual.” But one thing Laplanche doesn’t mind talking about is the challenges his company, founded in 2007, had to overcome to get to where it is today. In 2008, for example, it had to cease operations for 6 months —right in the thick of the financial crisis — because of an SEC registration process. “It was a pretty stressful and uncertain time,” Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche told Business Insider. Back in 2008, Lending Club was a scrappy startup with a disruptive idea. Its online software significantly dropped the cost of vetting and matching borrowers with potential lenders, creating an alternative to physical banks who typically charged a lot more to facilitate loans.
But it didn’t catch on right away. The idea of lending money to strangers over the internet was too risky at the time, especially when Lending Club didn’t have a track record just yet. And, Lending Club needed an SEC registration for the loans it was facilitating. Laplanche's company operates a bit differently that most online lending marketplaces: its model allows it to split up loans in pieces as small as $25, so investors could spread their risk across multiple borrowers. The problem was that the SEC didn’t have a registration framework for these kinds of loans and required Lending Club to register it as a new type of security. “There was no precedent for the type of registration we were trying to get,” Laplanche said. So, about a year following its launch, Lending Club had to suspend all new lender signups, essentially stalling its growth for six months - without knowing if it would ever get SEC approval. It was still allowed to run its lending market, but there was no new capital flowing in. Worse, Lending Club was running out of money. And the economy was heading to the bottom, with large financial firms like Lehman Brothers going out of business. “There were headlines in the newspaper of people defaulting almost every day,” Laplanche recalls. Things couldn’t get more bleak at that point. But Laplanche didn’t lose his composure and still believed that he’d eventually turn things around. “I was confident that we’d get it done, but there was a lot of uncertainty around us,” he said. Luckily, Lending Club’s early investors, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, saw Laplanche’s confidence and remained as strong supporters. Even with all the uncertainty, they ended up doing a Series A follow-on round under the same terms as the Series A round. “Who would invest in a company that was stuck in limbo negotiating for its life with the government while the rest of the country was in an economic crisis?” Jeff Crowe, Managing Partner at Norwest, wrote on LinkedIn. “But we still thought that marketplace lending was a hugely important idea, and we continued to believe in Renaud.”
From 2012, Lending Club has been on a true hockey-stick growth, facilitating more than $9 billion in total loans so far. And in December 2014, Lending Club had its historic IPO, raising almost $900 million. Looking back, the 6-month freezing period couldn't have happened at a better time for Lending Club, says Laplanche. Right when it got the SEC approval in late 2008 and started to really accelerate its growth in early 2009, large banks were starting to pull back, making credit unavailable because of the financial crisis. “In hindsight, it was good timing,” Laplanche said. And Laplanche believes things are only going to get better. “Nobody ever looked at banking as an engineering problem,” he said. “We believe we can set up a marketplace where the banks become participants, and that process has already started.” Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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The only 3 knives you need in your kitchen | ||
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Stop cutting your tomatoes with a butter knife. Dan Mawhinney of Haven's Kitchen shares the 3 knives you need to get the job done in the kitchen. Produced by Justin Gmoser and Megan Willett Follow BI Video: On Facebook
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Here's how George W. Bush handled the big question that's dogging Jeb | ||
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) could learn a lessen from his older brother on how to field questions about the Bush family political dynasty. As Bush considers a 2016 presidential bid, he has tried to insist "I am my own man," in order to differentiate himself from his older brother, former President George W. Bush, and father, former President George H.W. Bush. But the intrigue into the high profile family isn't dying down. "I'm a Bush, I'm proud of it. Like what am I supposed to say?" Jeb Bush quipped to reporters this week in New Hampshire, according to The New York Times. At the same event, Bush said, "I love my mom and dad. I love my brother, and people are just going to have to get over that." However, the former Florida governor has struggled in recent days with how to handle questions about his brother, whose controversial tenure in office includes the widely unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003. Indeed, George W. Bush reportedly said "me" last month when asked about obstacles to his brother's candidacy. "It's an easy line to say, 'Haven't we had enough Bushes?' After all, even my mother said, 'Yes,'" he said, according to Politico. But George W. Bush, Jeb Bush's elder by six years, may be able to shed some light on navigating the tricky family dynamic, as the older brother was similarly hounded by familial questions during his political career. Here's how George W. Bush has responded to questions about his famous last name and the legacy of his father: In 1978, during George W. Bush's bid to win a Texas congressional seatWhen his eldest son was a contender for Congress, George H.W. Bush had just left his post as director at the CIA, a role he assumed after serving as the US ambassador to the United Nations. In light of his father's high profile, George W. Bush faced claims he was an entitled New Englander during the campaign. "We've been attacked for where I was born, for who my family is, and where my money has come from," Bush told the Midland Reporter-Telegram in 1978, according to a New York Times article in 2000. "I don't think that's fair." "I can't abandon my background. I'm not trying to hide behind any facade," he said in separate comments, adding that despite the connections of his famous father, "We don't need dad in this race," according to the Associated Press.
During the 1994 campaign for governor of Texas"Bill Clinton drove the agenda against my father. My father let Bill Clinton decide what issues the two of them were going to talk about. That was a major mistake," he told the New York Times. "Incumbents have to project into the future, offer a fresh vision. My father didn't do it." During the 2000 presidential electionEarly in his 2000 campaign for president, George W. Bush's father was attacked by other Republicans vying for the party's nomination in a GOP primary debate. "I will let my dad defend himself. My dad will go down in history as a really good president. His record stands for itself. I'm the person who's running for president," he said after the debate, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "He's an extraordinary man. I know people may disagree with my politics and stuff, but you can never disagree on the fact that he set the right priorities — his faith, his family, and his country." On George H.W. Bush's infamous decision to renege on 'read my lips, no new taxes' campaign promise"I think the mistake was to say, 'read my lips' ... and then raise the taxes," he told ABC's Barbara Walters in 2000. "I think it undermined some of his credibility, particularly with Republicans and fiscal conservatives," Bush said.
And in 1998, here's how George H.W. Bush's advised his sons on how to deal with family comparisons:The elder Bush, famous for writing hand written letters, penned a note to both his sons in 1998, when they were launching their respective political careers and trying to step of of their father's shadow. "At some point both of you may want to say 'Well, I don't agree with my Dad on that point' or 'Frankly I think Dad was wrong on that.' Do it. Chart your own course, no just on the issues but on defining yourselves," Bush wrote, according to a copy of the note that was published in a book of his letters, "All the Best." "Nothing that crowd can ever say or those journalists can ever write will diminish my pride in you both, so worry not. These comparisons are inevitable and they will inevitably be hurtful to all of us, but not harmful enough to divide, not hurtful enough to really mean anything. So when the next one surfaces just say 'Dad understands. He is at my side. He understands that I would never say anything much less do anything to hurt any member of our family.' "So read my lips — no more worrying." SEE ALSO: Jeb Bush finally disagrees with his brother on something Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 11 amazing facts about Vladimir Putin  | ||
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Greece issues fresh warning on IMF payment in June | ||
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Athens (AFP) - A Greek government minister said Sunday that Athens will be unable to repay the IMF on schedule next month, reiterating previous warnings by officials during tense talks with the country's creditors. "The instalment to the IMF won't be paid," Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told Mega TV. "The instalments for the IMF in June are 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion). This money will not be given. There isn't any to be given. This is a known fact," he said. Voutsis added however that the negotiations between Athens and its creditors were taking place "on the basis of cautious optimism that there will be a strong agreement". Greece faces four debt repayments to the IMF from June 5. Athens would struggle to meet all of them without using bailout funds due to it that are being blocked by its international creditors. A failure to honour the repayments could result in default, raising the spectre of a possible exit from the euro. Last week, the parliamentary spokesman for Greece’s ruling Syriza Party said that the government cannot repay a loan to the IMF on June 5 as its priority is to pay salaries, pensions and running costs. "No country can repay its debts with only the money from its budget," Nikos Filis told Ant1 television. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, speaking to the New York Times, also raised the prospect. "I am not going to pay the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and not pay pensions in the next few weeks. So I said to them: 'Decide. Do you want this to be a proper bargaining round, or do you want this to be a post-mortem?'", he said with his trademark outspokeness. Government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis was less confrontational on Friday however. "The Greek government's plan is to cover all its requirements. With a priority on domestic requirements and then requirements towards the creditors. The government plans to respond to all the needs. This it has proven with great toil and under extremely difficult and trap-filled conditions this past period. This is what we will do in June," he said. The Syriza-led government is locked in talks with the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to release a blocked final 7.2-billion-euro ($7.9 billon) tranche of its 240-billion-euro bailout. In exchange for the aid, creditors are demanding Greece accept tough reforms and spending cuts that anti-austerity Syriza pledged to reject when it was elected in January. According to reports, creditors are demanding further budget cuts worth five billion euros including pension cuts and mass lay-offs. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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