WebProNews

Category: CEOTrends

Articles for CEOs

  • Snap CEO the Latest to Slam the Metaverse

    Snap CEO the Latest to Slam the Metaverse

    Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is the latest CEO to voice criticism of Meta’s vision of the metaverse.

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is virtual reality’s biggest fan and is driving his company to create the metaverse, investing billions to do so. Many of the tech industry’s most influential CEOs, however, are not sold on the idea and Spiegel is one of them.

    “The metaverse is ‘living inside of a computer.’ The last thing I want to do when I get home from work during a long day is live inside of a computer,” Spiegel said, according to Business Insider.

    Spiegel’s remarks illustrate the challenges Meta has moving forward. Many of the people who have the disposable income to purchase the necessary equipment to use the metaverse are the very people who have no desire to use it. It’s little wonder that Meta is turning to Microsoft in an effort to more closely tie the metaverse to business use.

  • Elon Musk Says He Will Close Twitter Deal by Friday

    Elon Musk Says He Will Close Twitter Deal by Friday

    The Elon Musk/Twitter saga may finally be coming to a close, with the CEO planning to close the deal by Friday.

    Elon Musk initially put in an offer to purchase Twitter before trying to back out of the deal, sparking a legal battle. Musk eventually agreed to proceed with the purchase, prompting the judge in the case to impose an October 28 deadline for the deal to close, otherwise the case will go to trial.

    According to Bloomberg, Musk has told bankers he plans to close the deal by the deadline on Friday, easing investors’ minds regarding the social media company’s future.

    Twitter employees, on the other hand, are likely less than thrilled with the news. Musk has indicated he plans to lay off as much as 75% of the company’s workforce, prompting an open letter from employees calling the plan “reckless.”

  • Twitter Employees Push Back on Elon Musk’s Layoff Plans

    Twitter Employees Push Back on Elon Musk’s Layoff Plans

    Twitter employees have written an open letter, pushing back against Elon Musk’s reported plans to lay off 75% of the company’s staff.

    Musk’s Twitter acquisition appears to be moving forward, but Musk has reportedly told investors he wants to let up to 75% of the company’s staff go once the deal is done. This would leave the company with just 2,000 of its 7,500 employees.

    According to Time, Twitter employees have penned an open letter objecting to the plans, even going so far as to call them “reckless.” The number of signatures is not yet know, with the authors of the letter saying “signatures will not be made public unless we have critical mass.”

    Below is a copy of the letter in full, courtesy of Time:

    Staff, Elon Musk, and Board of Directors:

    We, the undersigned Twitter workers, believe the public conversation is in jeopardy.

    Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation. A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.

    Twitter has significant effects on societies and communities across the globe. As we speak, Twitter is helping to uplift independent journalism in Ukraine and Iran, as well as powering social movements around the world.

    A threat to workers at Twitter is a threat to Twitter’s future. These threats have an impact on us as workers and demonstrate a fundamental disconnect with the realities of operating Twitter. They threaten our livelihoods, access to essential healthcare, and the ability for visa holders to stay in the country they work in. We cannot do our work in an environment of constant harassment and threats. Without our work, there is no Twitter.

    We, the workers at Twitter, will not be intimidated. We recommit to supporting the communities, organizations, and businesses who rely on Twitter. We will not stop serving the public conversation.

    We call on Twitter management and Elon Musk to cease these negligent layoff threats. As workers, we deserve concrete commitments so we can continue to preserve the integrity of our platform.

    We demand of current and future leadership:

    Respect: We demand leadership to respect the platform and the workers who maintain it by committing to preserving the current headcount.

    Safety: We demand that leadership does not discriminate against workers on the basis of their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. We also demand safety for workers on visas, who will be forced to leave the country they work in if they are laid off.

    Protection: We demand Elon Musk explicitly commit to preserve our benefits, those both listed in the merger agreement and not (e.g. remote work). We demand leadership to establish and ensure fair severance policies for all workers before and after any change in ownership.

    Dignity: We demand transparent, prompt and thoughtful communication around our working conditions. We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.

    Sincerely,

    Twitter workers

  • FTC Takes Action Against a CEO for His Company’s Data Privacy Failures

    FTC Takes Action Against a CEO for His Company’s Data Privacy Failures

    The Federal Trade Commission has thrown down the gauntlet on data privacy, taking action against a CEO for his company’s failures.

    According to the FTC, alcohol marketplace Drizly was notified of security issues at least two years prior to a data breach but failed to take any action to address the problems.

    The problems stemmed from an initial 2018 incident that alerted the company to the issues. The company claimed to address the problem but took little to no action to actually do so, leaving the company open to an even bigger breach two years later.

    In 2018, a Drizly employee posted company cloud computing account login information on the software development and hosting platform GitHub. As a result of this security breakdown, hackers were able to use Drizly’s servers to mine cryptocurrency until the company changed its login information for its cloud computing account. Drizly failed to take steps to adequately address its security problems while publicly claiming to have appropriate security protections in place. Two years later, a hacker breached an employee account, got access to Drizly’s corporate GitHub login information, hacked into the company’s database, and then stole customers’ information.

    As a result, the FTC is holding Drizly and CEO James Cory Rellas responsible, imposing a range of restrictions on the company.

    “Our proposed order against Drizly not only restricts what the company can retain and collect going forward but also ensures the CEO faces consequences for the company’s carelessness,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “CEOs who take shortcuts on security should take note.”

    Companies should take note of the Drizly case as it sends a clear message that the FTC is cracking down on companies, and their executives, for negligent data breaches.

  • Major Meta Investor Urges Company to Scale Back Metaverse Investments

    Major Meta Investor Urges Company to Scale Back Metaverse Investments

    Brad Gerstner, Altimeter Capital CEO, has written an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg urging him to reign in spending.

    Meta has been heavily investing in the metaverse, driven by Zuckerberg’s near-obsession with his vision of what the metaverse should be. Unfortunately for Zuckerberg & Company, the metaverse is not exactly a raging success, opening the company to criticism.

    Gerstner is leveling some of that criticism at Zuckerberg & Company. After pointing out that Meta’s “core business hit a wall last fall,” and pointing out the importance of focusing its efforts on AI, Gerstner urged the CEO to scale back metaverse investments:

    “The company has announced investments of $10–15B per year into a metaverse project that largely includes AR / VR / immersive 3D / Horizon World and that it may take 10 years to yield results,” Gerstner writes. “An estimated $100B+ investment in an unknown future is super-sized and terrifying, even by Silicon Valley standards.”

    Gerstner then compares Meta’s investment in the metaverse with Amazon’s investment to create AWS:

    By any normal company or start up standard, $5 B per year would seem like an extraordinary amount,” Gerstner continues. “I have been told that Amazon spent far less in total to build AWS. As such, we think Meta company should cap its metaverse investments to no more than $5B per year with more discrete targets and measures of success, as opposed to today’s much more ambitious and open-ended strategy. We have little doubt investors and others would happily support scaling up these investments as the ROI becomes more tangible — even if still long-term.”

    Gerstner also pointed out Meta’s explosive headcount growth, a whopping 3x in the past four years, bringing the company from 25,000 to 85,000 employees. Gerstner urges Zuckerberg to cut employee-related costs by 20% by the start of 2023.

    Ultimately, Gerstner believes Meta has simply become too big and too unfocused for its own good.

    “Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency,” he adds. “This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.”

  • Musk’s Twitter Deal May Be Subject to National Security Review

    Musk’s Twitter Deal May Be Subject to National Security Review

    The Elon Musk/Twitter drama has taken another turn on news the deal may be subject to a national security review.

    After months of speculation and legal fighting over whether Musk would go through with his offer to buy Twitter, the deal appears to finally be moving forward. The latest challenge may come from the US government itself over concerns about Musk’s foreign connections, according to Bloomberg.

    Elon Musk has made headlines in recent weeks over what appears to be an about-face on his stance on the war in Ukraine. Some of this statements have appeared to be pro-Russia. What’s more, as TheStreet points out, Musk has deep ties to China as a result of so much of Tesla’s production being centered there, and some of Musk’s Twitter investors are from China and Saudi Arabia.

    It’s still too early to know what the US government will or will not do, but if it chooses to investigate, it could create a major wrinkle for Twitter.

  • Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai Will Not Be Questioned in Privacy Suit

    Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai Will Not Be Questioned in Privacy Suit

    Google scored a major victory in the privacy lawsuit it is facing in California, with a judge ruling that Sundar Pichai cannot be questioned.

    Google is facing a legal challenge over its Chrome browser’s Incognito mode. Incognito mode is supposed to prevent Google from collecting data about the user’s web browsing, but the plaintiffs allege that the company continued data collection even when the mode was activated.

    According to Reuters, the plaintiffs wanted to question Pichai, but the judged ruled that his position as a high-ranking officer of the company would likely preclude him from having “unique knowledge” of the situation. The issue goes to the “apex doctrine,” where plaintiffs have an uphill battle to prove that those at the very top of a company know enough about day-to-day operations to justify questioning them.

    “The challenge presented by the apex doctrine is whether a senior executive has relevant information to a particular subject,” US Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen wrote, saying that Chrome’s Incognito mode was already the “subject of extensive discovery and testimony in this action.”

  • Twitter Plans to Accept Elon Musk’s Proposal to Finish Original Deal

    Twitter Plans to Accept Elon Musk’s Proposal to Finish Original Deal

    Twitter has signaled it intends to accept Elon Musk’s proposal to finalize a deal based on the original terms.

    Elon Musk and Twitter have been locked in a legal battle after the tech icon tried to back out of his deal to purchase Twitter. Earlier today, and just two weeks before their court case begins, reports surfaced that Musk proposed moving forward with the deal under the original terms.

    According to its Twitter account, the social media company plans to accept the proposal.

    https://twitter.com/TwitterIR/status/1577380758192197632?s=20&t=SGO-e8XyLHLQwmB5MOt3Xw

    Given that the company’s board of directors and shareholders have already approved the deal, Musk could be Twitter’s new owner in the very near future.

  • Elon Musk Reportedly Wants to Proceed With Original Twitter Deal

    Elon Musk Reportedly Wants to Proceed With Original Twitter Deal

    In what may be the most pointless legal exercise ever, Elon Musk now wants to proceed with his original deal to buy Twitter.

    Elon Musk launched a high-profile attempt to buy Twitter, only to then turn around and try to back out of the deal. Telsa’s CEO claimed that Twitter was hiding the true scope of its bot issues. Twitter sued in an effort to force Musk to go through with the deal, leading to months of legal wrangling.

    According to Bloomberg, Musk has sent a letter to Twitter offering to move forward with the original deal, which would see the tech mogul buy the company for $54.20 per share.

  • Gates Foundation Likely to Shut Down in 25 Years

    Gates Foundation Likely to Shut Down in 25 Years

    Bill Gates has shared his thoughts on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, revealing it will likely shut down in 25 years.

    The Gates Foundation is “a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world.” Founded in 2000, the foundation is involved in addressing some of the biggest challenges facing mankind. The foundation has benefited greatly from Gates’ wealth, with Bill Gates recently donating $20 billion to it.

    Despite its stature in the philanthropic community, Gates sees the foundation shutting down in the next couple of decades.

    “The goal for the foundation is to run for another 25 years,” Gates said at the 2022 Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit.

    At the same time, Gates emphasized the foundation’s goals in the remaining time it has.

    “Try and bring infectious disease, or all of the diseases that make the world inequitable, to bring those largely to an end, either through eradication or getting them down to very low levels,” he added.

    By the time the Gates Foundation comes to an end, Bill Gates would be 91, and Melinda would be 83. It’s clear the two don’t want to trust the foundation’s future to someone else. Given how involved they have been in the foundation, it’s understandable they wouldn’t want to risk it going in a direction they would not have agreed with.

  • Google CEO Under Fire by Employees Upset at Being ‘Nickel-and-Dimed’

    Google CEO Under Fire by Employees Upset at Being ‘Nickel-and-Dimed’

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced the ire of Google employees over the company’s cost-saving measures.

    Like many companies in the tech industry, Google has been slowing hiring, cutting costs, and has left the door open to layoffs over economic fears. According to CNBC, employees are not impressed with the company’s actions and made that clear to Pichai in an all-hands meeting this week.

    One of the more popular questions Pichai was asked was why the company is “nickel-and-diming” employees when “Google has record profits and huge cash reserves.” The “nickel-and-diming” was a reference to the company cutting travel, swag, and entertainment budgets.

    “How do I say it?” Pichai responded. “Look, I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. The fact that you know, we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade, I think it’s important that as a company, we pull together to get through moments like this.”

    Pichai later doubled down on his response, making the point that more money isn’t always needed to have fun.

    “I remember when Google was small and scrappy,” he added. “Fun didn’t always — we shouldn’t always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn’t always equate to money.”

    Despite Pichai’s responses, CNBC says the meeting was rather heated. The CEO didn’t help his case when he dodged questions about trimming executive compensation as a way to cut costs, showing that employees clearly believe they’re being asked to make sacrifices that executives are immune to.

  • FTC May Take Action Against Twitter and CEO Over Whistleblower Allegations

    FTC May Take Action Against Twitter and CEO Over Whistleblower Allegations

    Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan opened the door to the possibility of new action against Twitter and CEO Parag Agrawal.

    Peiter “Mudge” Zatko is a well-known hacker who previously served as Twitter’s head of security. Zatko was hired by then-CEO Jack Dorsey before being fired by his successor. Zatko came forward in August to blow the whistle about mismanagement at the company, claiming Twitter and its executives had misled investors about the scope of its bot problem, as well as its security issues.

    Even more concerning, Zatko said the company was in violation of its 2011 settlement with the FTC over security issues. Chairwoman Khan is taking those allegations seriously, opening the door to an investigation into Twitter’s compliance with the terms of the settlement.

    “There has absolutely been a problem with companies treating FTC orders as suggestions,” Khan said during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing, according to MarketWatch. “We have a program underway to really toughen that up.”

    Khan also said she was “extremely disturbed” over the allegations and that the agency would be “looking at this closely.”

    Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed Khan on whether the agency would name Agrawal in any action taken against the company, given Zatko’s claims that Agrawal was aware of the issues and Twitter’s alleged deception.

    “Absolutely,” Khan said. “If we have a basis for naming individuals because we find that they meet the legal standard for that we won’t hesitate to do it.”

  • Patagonia Founder Gives Away $3 Billion Company

    Patagonia Founder Gives Away $3 Billion Company

    Capping what has been a long and unusual career, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is giving away his $3 billion company.

    Patagonia has made a name for itself as an environmentally conscious company, one that gave away 1% of its yearly sales and ultimately changed its company purpose to reflect its goal of saving the Earth. With such a legacy, knowing how to move forward was a challenge.

    “One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money,” writes Chouinard. “But we couldn’t be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed.

    “Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility.”

    Instead, Patagonia is striking its own path as it has done for nearly half a century.

    “Here’s how it works: 100% of the company’s voting stock transfers to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s values; and 100% of the nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature,” Chouinard continues. “The funding will come from Patagonia: Each year, the money we make after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the crisis.”

    Chouinard’s solution is an innovative one, and could well serve as a template for other companies who want to ensure their legacy lives on.

  • RH CEO: ‘Anybody Who Thinks We’re Not In a Recession Is Crazy’

    RH CEO: ‘Anybody Who Thinks We’re Not In a Recession Is Crazy’

    Anyone hoping the current economic downturn is just a blip will surely be disappointed by RH CEO Gary Friedman’s warning.

    Companies and business leaders have been sounding the alarm about the state of the economy, freezing hiring and laying off workers in an effort to cut costs and weather what’s coming. According to Friedman, the economy may be worse off than some want to admit.

    “Anybody who thinks we’re not in a recession is crazy,” Friedman told analysts, via CNN. “The housing market is in a recession, and it’s just getting started. So it’s probably going to be a difficult 12 to 18 months in our industry. But these are the times where you can really capitalize.”

    Friedman is hardly the only one to sound a dire warning about the economy. In June, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned there was a hurricane coming, although it was too soon then to tell how big it would be.

    “That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way” the CEO said. “We don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy. You better brace yourself.”

    Three months later, it appears the view is clear enough for Friedman to make the observation he did.

  • Elizabeth Holmes Ask for a New Trial

    Elizabeth Holmes Ask for a New Trial

    Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes is asking for a new trial based on a change of heart by a key witness for the prosecution.

    Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of fraud when her company failed to deliver what she had promised investors. According to Gizmodo, Holmes is now requesting a new trial, saying lab director Adam Rosendorff regretted his testimony and claimed “the government made things seem worse than they were.”

    Holmes has already been denied an appeal on the guilty verdicts, so it remains to be seen if this request will fair any better.

    The Holmes verdict was a controversial one, with some experts warning that it set a dangerous precedent for entrepreneurs and could make it difficult for them to attract investors or market their companies without fear of criminal charges if the company fails.

    While a new trial seems like a long shot, it could help clear some of the ethical questions raised by the first one.

  • Layoffs Possible As Google CEO Wants ‘Company 20% More Productive’

    Layoffs Possible As Google CEO Wants ‘Company 20% More Productive’

    Google employees could face layoffs in the near future if recent remarks by CEO Sundar Pichai are any indication.

    Like other companies, Google has been adapting to a changing economy. The company has already scaled back hiring and taken other measures to improve efficiency, including Pichai asking employees to be more productive and look for ways to “stay entrepreneurial.”

    According to CNBC, Pichai is shedding light on some of the challenges Google is facing, as well as some of the possible solutions.

    “The more we try to understand the macroeconomic, we feel very uncertain about it,” Pichai said Tuesday at the Code Conference in Los Angeles. “The macroeconomic performance is correlated to ad spend, consumer spend and so on,” he added.

    “We want to make sure as a company, when you have fewer resources than before, you are prioritizing all the right things to be working on and your employees are really productive that they can actually have impact on the things they’re working on so that’s what we are spending our time on.”

    When pressed for specifics by host Kara Swisher, Pichai seemed to take aim at Google’s growing bureaucracy, which has been blamed for slower decision-making.

    “Across everything we do, we can be slower to make decisions,” Pichai. “You look at it end-to-end and figure out how to make the company 20% more productive.”

    “Sometimes there are areas to make progress [where] you have three people making decisions, understanding that and bringing it down to two or one improves efficiency by 20%,” he added.

    Pichai’s response is one of the strongest indications yet that Google may join other Big Tech companies in laying off workers.

  • Dan Price: ‘Only American Workers Made to Feel Guilty for PTO’

    Dan Price: ‘Only American Workers Made to Feel Guilty for PTO’

    Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price has some strong words for the American workplace, saying it’s unique in making workers feel bad for paid time off.

    Virtually everyone has received an email auto-response explaining the person will be out of the office for X number of days for health reasons, maternity leave, paternity leave, family responsibilities, or a host of other reasons. Price makes the case that the explanations are unnecessary and indicative of a bigger issue.

    “Only in America are workers made to feel so guilty that they have to ‘apologize for the late response’ and put an excuse for why they’re out,” writes Price in a LinkedIn post. “If you need to, direct people to a coworker or team that can help while you’re gone. Don’t check your email unless you want to diminish the benefits of your time off.

    “Time off is a benefit you earned,” Price adds. “Use it all, unapologetically. Sick but work from home? Take the time off. Don’t have anywhere to go but feel burned out? Take the time off. Just need a random mental health day to chill on the couch? Take the time off.”

    Price goes on to make the case that bosses don’t need to know why an employee is taking time off and shouldn’t ask. He says bosses also shouldn’t expect to be able to reach their employees during PTO.

    “I heard recently about someone who always tells their boss ‘I’m camping’ when they go on PTO so they’d know he had no service,” Price continues. “This is the result of a toxic culture that assumes people exist only to work, and are not whole people with full, rich lives.”

    Price is famous for the progressive way he treats employees, lowering his salary to $70,000 while raising his employees’ minimum salary to match in 2015. Since then, he has continued to be a vocal advocate for fair treatment and pay of employees and a critic of the status quo where executives often make hundreds of times the amount as their employees.

    Price has also been a proponent of letting employees work from wherever they want, saying: “If you get your work done, that’s all that matters.”

  • Startup Helmed by WeWork Ex-CEO Is Andreessen Horowitz’s Biggest Gamble

    Startup Helmed by WeWork Ex-CEO Is Andreessen Horowitz’s Biggest Gamble

    Andreessen Horowitz is making its largest single investment in a startup helmed by Adam Neumann, WeWork’s ex-CEO.

    Neumann famously fell from grace as the CEO of WeWork, stepping down when he failed to help the company go public. Despite that high-profile flop, his latest venture is getting some major backing from the VC firm founded by internet legend Marc Andreessen.

    While WeWork helped revolutionize commercial real estate, Neumann’s latest company Flow looks to revolutionize residential real estate.

    “Adam is a visionary leader who revolutionized the second largest asset class in the world — commercial real estate — by bringing community and brand to an industry in which neither existed before,” writes Andreessen in a blog post. “Adam, and the story of WeWork, have been exhaustively chronicled, analyzed, and fictionalized – sometimes accurately. For all the energy put into covering the story, it’s often under appreciated that only one person has fundamentally redesigned the office experience and led a paradigm-changing global company in the process: Adam Neumann. We understand how difficult it is to build something like this and we love seeing repeat-founders build on past successes by growing from lessons learned. For Adam, the successes and lessons are plenty and we are excited to go on this journey with him and his colleagues building the future of living.”

    Andreessen voices his confidence that Neumann can make lightning strike twice with the residential market.

    “We think it is natural that for his first venture since WeWork, Adam returns to the theme of connecting people through transforming their physical spaces and building communities where people spend the most time: their homes,” Andreessen continues. “Residential real estate — the world’s largest asset class — is ready for exactly this change.”

    While Andreessen doesn’t talk money in his blog, The New York Times says his firm has already invested $350 million in Flow, valuing it at more than $1 billion, and representing the VC firm’s single largest investment in its history.

  • ServiceNow CEO Says Cloud Computing Is Century’s ‘Pervasive Computing Theme’

    ServiceNow CEO Says Cloud Computing Is Century’s ‘Pervasive Computing Theme’

    ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott has called cloud computing the “pervasive computing theme of the 21st century.”

    The cloud computing market is experiencing major growth, due in no small part to the pandemic and the rise of hybrid work. All three of the top providers are experiencing major growth, with no signs of it slowing down. According to McDermott, cloud computing’s success is because of its “pervasive” and transformative nature.

    “It simplifies everything. Everything’s on the mobile. Everything’s beautiful and easy to use,” McDermott told Yahoo Finance.

    “It’s one platform that can single thread business across an entire enterprise, all functions of the business. So, it is a great unifier in a sense, because some people have very powerful Chief Information Officers, others have Chief Digital Officers, others have Chief People officers, others have these wonderful data managers,” McDermott added. “But to have one platform, that single thread, all of those powerful relationships to deliver great experiences is super exciting to us.”

    While the economic downturn has many companies hedging their bets and cutting costs, McDermott believes the cloud computing market can continue growing, buoyed by companies’ digital first strategies.

    “Ninety-five percent of CEOs have a digital first strategy. So, they’re leaning in to digital transformation. Because it’s the only way out. On one hand, it’s software as the great deflationary force,” McDermott said. “On another hand, if you can’t transform and recreate your business model, and innovate digitally, you lose the game. So, CEOs are very well aware of this. So, that tailwind is super strong.”

    McDermott’s predictions are good news for the cloud market and underscore the opportunities available to cloud providers.

  • Elon Musk Teases Twitter Rival X.com

    Elon Musk Teases Twitter Rival X.com

    Elon Musk has once again teased the idea of creating a Twitter rival using his X.com domain, should the deal fall through.

    Musk is one of Twitter’s most high-profile users, but the two are locked in a heated legal battle over Musk’s attempt to back out of his offer to purchase the company. The Tesla Owners Silicon Valley asked if the tech CEO would consider starting his own social media alternative to Twitter if the deal falls through, and Musk indicated he would.

    This isn’t the first time Musk has been critical of Twitter and its policies. His criticism of the platform led him to post a poll in March asking if it was time to replace the platform.

    Should the deal fall through, it appears Twitter may have have more troubles on its hands.

  • Elon Musk Hedges His Bets, Sells Tesla Stock

    Elon Musk Hedges His Bets, Sells Tesla Stock

    Elon Musk has sold some 7.92 million shares of Tesla stock, hedging his bets in his legal battle with Twitter.

    Musk originally tried to buy Twitter, lining up investors to help him do so. After weeks of back-and-forth, in which Musk accused Twitter of not disclosing the true scope of bots on the platform, the CEO called off his purchase. Twitter sued Musk to keep the deal alive, leading him to sell off some of his Tesla stock.

    According to CNBC, Musk has sold 7.92 million shares of Tesla stock for approximately $6.88 billion. Musk confirmed the news in a tweet when asked if he planned to sell any additional shares.

    Musk said he had sold the stock as a safety measure in the event some of his equity partners don’t come through.