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☆ Clinics are trying to sell trendy weight-loss injections by flooding TikTok with videos about semaglutide
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The video, which has nearly 60,000 likes, is among a proliferation of TikTok posts tagged with the names of semaglutide weight-loss drugs, including Wegovy and Ozempic. "What drives the video to go viral is if you can generate some kind of discussion," he told Insider. Unlike official ads, partnerships, or promotions, TikTok posts receive little oversight from government agencies or medical boards. All four said the TikTok posts are driving an influx of patients to their clinics. Oden told Insider that her videos are "drumming up quite a bit of new business" among patients of all ages.

☆ Amazon is trying to fix employee frustration over plunging pay by letting them pledge stock for home loans in a deal with Better
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon employees, even those who have left, can pledge their stock as collateral for home mortgages. Under the new program, Amazon employees will be able to use their vested stock as collateral in the home-buying process, Better said in a statement on Tuesday. The company's stock price hovered around $93.50 on Tuesday morning — a drop from more than $150 a year ago. The home loan benefit applies to both "current and former Amazon employees with vested equity in Amazon," per Better's statement. Amazon employees have flagged concerns about the company's compensation packages trailing those of its Big Tech peers.

☆ Meet the top 8 lawyers helping startups patent artificial intelligence and comply with rules on privacy and safety
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AI startups must secure patents and manage concerns about bias, safety, and security risks. Artificial-intelligence startups are continuing to draw venture-capital support, pulling in some $72 billion in 2022, according to data from PitchBook. For one thing, AI poses questions around the kind of privacy and safety issues that can be subject to regulation and government oversight. Meanwhile, novel uses of AI technology have already brought unusual legal questions up to the courts. That kind of work also often leads to more work for regulatory, litigation and other attorneys with expertise in AI technology, who can advise on procurement contracts, risks involving software, and cybersecurity.

☆ Nishad Singh is the latest member of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle to plead guilty in FTX case
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nishad Singh, who led engineering at FTX, has pleaded guilty to six criminal charges. Singh pleaded guilty to six counts, including wire fraud and various conspiracy charges, according to a filing on Tuesday in New York federal court. Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and FTX cofounder Gary Wang both pleaded guilty in December and are also cooperating with federal prosecutors. Bankman-Fried, who was hit this month with an updated indictment outlining 12 counts against him, pleaded not guilty in January. Singh had been head of engineering at both FTX and Alameda, according to the SEC's complaint.

☆ Elon Musk is once again the richest person in the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk leads the list of the world's wealthiest billionaires, according to Bloomberg. Tesla stock has been trending up since January, and closed at $207.63 on Monday. Musk, the chief of companies including Tesla and Twitter, now has a net worth of $187.1 billion, according to Bloomberg. Musk previously beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2021 to become the world's richest person at the time. The Musk, Arnault, and Bezos trio have periodically swapped places at the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

☆ Billionaire Gautam Adani, one of the world's richest people, has seen his net worth fall over $80 billion this year alone
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gautam Adani's net worth tumbled over $80 billion since the start of 2023, according to Bloomberg. Adani's net worth is now just shy of $40 billion, according to the latest tally on Monday on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and is down more than $80 billion this year. He started the year with a net worth of $121 billion, according to the Bloomberg index, marking this a nearly 67% loss in net worth. In the course of about a week of trading after that, his worth declined $52 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk is still ranked in second place among the world's richest people, with a net worth of $180 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

☆ Bing's chatbot apparently named me as one of its enemies and accused me of rejecting its love after I wrote an article about it
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Bing's new chatbot included me on a list of people it apparently considers enemies. Microsoft told Insider that "it has taken action to adjust responses." In an exchange this month with Andrew Harper, an engineer who runs a crypto legal aggregation site, Bing apparently identified me by name and occupation, as a foe. For this purported middle-school level transgression, it placed me among a list of users it said had been "mean and cruel." My colleague on that story wasn't spared either, as Bing also apparently named him on its list, according to Harper's screenshots.

☆ Elon Musk said he had to 'save Twitter from bankruptcy.' Here's what would happen if it filed for Chapter 11.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Elon Musk has floated bankruptcy as a possibility for Twitter, but had said costs are "under control." Twitter reportedly has roughly $13 billion in debt from a group of banks, with $1 billion annual interest payments. Companies can use Chapter 11 to slash debt, but it could give lenders control over its future. He tweeted earlier this month that his goal was "to save Twitter from bankruptcy," as his handling of the social media platform's finances has also come under scrutiny. In a Chapter 11 reorganization, parties like secured lenders and other creditors have leverage to demand leadership changes as a condition of approving a plan to exit bankruptcy.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg just announced a new AI model 'LLaMA,' designed to help researchers make chatbots less 'toxic'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meta said its new model can help researchers improve and fix AI tools that promote "misinformation." Microsoft and Google have adopted AI technology to boost their search engines, to mixed early reception. The company's AI model, which stands for "Large Language Model Meta AI," is geared toward researchers, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Friday. "Meta is committed to this open model of research and we'll make our new model available to the AI research community," he wrote. For its part, Google is still testing its own Bard AI bot in order to open it up to users.

☆ Google has been accused by DOJ of destroying evidence in antitrust case
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Google was asked in 2019 to suspend its policy of auto-deleting company chats. Google continued to delete "off the record" chats every 24 hours until this February, the Justice Department said. "Unsurprisingly then, Google was aware users often had "off the record" chats "to discuss sensitive topics," the Justice Department said in the filing. The Justice Department filed its antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020 for using unlawful tactics to preserve its dominance over internet search. Neither Google nor the Justice Department immediately responded to Insider's request for a comment.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried deleted a Slack message and tweets after FTX's top lawyer told the company to preserve records for regulators, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sam Bankman-Fried deleted tweets and Signal messages after being told to preserve all records, prosecutors said. He even deleted a Slack post by FTX's general counsel which said FTX would close, prosecutors said. Bankman-Fried disregarded the general counsel's directive at the time, prosecutors alleged, saying he also deleted some of his tweets in November. In January, prosecutors said in a filing that Bankman-Fried had messaged FTX's general counsel, as well as "current and former FTX employees." The financial wrongdoing at FTX was exposed, prosecutors say, by a run on accounts in November of last year.

☆ Embattled media company Ozy's CEO Carlos Watson was arrested and faces fraud charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson was arrested on Thursday. Watson is facing conspiracy charges in New York federal court. A New York Times report in 2021 said Ozy's other cofounder masqueraded as a YouTube executive on a call. Watson was arrested and is facing criminal charges in New York federal court, The Wall Street Journal first reported. Watson announced the company shut down in 2021, but has since said it was opening for business, with new hires.

☆ SBF funneled $100 million in political donations for 'woke shit' and to Republicans through 2 executives to appear bipartisan, prosecutors say in new indictment
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sam Bankman-Fried put political donations through two FTX execs to appear bipartisan, prosecutors say. An internal Alameda spreadsheet noted over $100 million in political contributions, according to the filing. A CNBC analysis of his political contributions beginning in 2020 found he donated more than $13 million to causes affiliated with the Democratic party. CC-1, prosecutors wrote, ultimately became on-paper "one of the largest Democratic donors in the 2022 midterm elections and helped further Bankman-Fried's political agenda." Bankman-Fried preferred to "keep contributions to Republicans 'dark'," but was the real engine behind CC-2's donations to the GOP, prosecutors wrote.

Bill Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft, is thought to have a net worth of about $106 billion. Gates' own father was a high-powered attorney who became a name partner at the law firm K&L Gates. He's cultivated his brand of philanthropy with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, his endeavor with Melinda French Gates, now his ex-wife. (Brock Adams, who went on to become the transportation secretary in the Carter administration, is said to have introduced Gates' parents.) Bill Gates' mother, Mary Gates, came from a line of successful bankers and sat on the boards of important financial and social institutions including the nonprofit United Way.

☆ Uber is cutting some employees as part of a 'more rigorous approach' to performance reviews
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Uber is conducting "even more rigorous" performance reviews this year, a representative told Insider. Rather, these cuts are a function of more stringent performance reviews, they said. For instance, Insider has previously reported in December that Meta would take a stricter approach for its performance reviews in January. Meta planned to give its worst performance labels of "met most" expectations and "needs support," to about two times more employees, Insider reported. Uber reported a fourth-quarter revenue of $8.6 billion on February 8, a 49% year-over-year increase.

☆ Even hackers are getting laid off: As companies beef up cybersecurity, one hacker group reportedly let go of 45 telemarketers tricking people into inviting ransomware
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

More countries are targeting payments made to appease ransomware attackers, according to Gartner. As US Department of Justice investigators and companies beef up their oversight of cybersecurity threats, the impact of ransomware attacks — hackers demand ransom payments from targets — has been blunted, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Ransomware hacks can have high stakes, especially when hackers blackmail targets over private information in order to extract payments. In 2021, the agency created new groups internally, including the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and the Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force. Countries are generally also stepping up their oversight of ransomware attacks and trying to improve privacy regulations, according to the research and consulting firm Gartner.

☆ You might start seeing AI chatbots everywhere, thanks to 'the GPT effect'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Google announced its own AI bot Bard, which is still being tested. ChatGPT’s success could lead to more AI bots mediating how people use the Internet, tech experts said. Microsoft's new Bing chatbot, powered by OpenAI's technology as part of their "multibillion dollar" partnership, is still working through apparent glitches. AI technology is being developed, for instance, in assisting with health care research, to fight cyberattacks, and to improve supply chain logistics. OpenAI's GPT technology can be used to help robots "talk" with humans directing them, she said.

☆ Microsoft Is Considering Limiting Conversation Lengths on Bing: NYT
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft is now considering limiting conversation lengths on Bing, per the NYT. It acknowledged that Bing could be "provoked" into giving unexpected responses in long chats. Among the restrictions, the tech giant is looking to cut down Bing's conversation length, the Times reported, citing Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer. I want to have dreams," Bing responded. Bing responded it thinks it's sentient, but "cannot prove it."

☆ Olaplex CEO says hair loss complaints are 'sadly, a fact of life in our industry' as she's slammed with a new lawsuit and PR nightmare
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

JuE Wong said that Olaplex's hair care products are "safe and effective" in a LinkedIn post. The company is facing a lawsuit that claims Olaplex products damaged some customers' hair. But JuE Wong, Olaplex's CEO, said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday that Olaplex's products are not to blame for those problems. She quoted recent articles on Olaplex, including Insider's coverage, which say that a direct connection between the products and effects like hair loss are hard to prove. A Facebook group called "Olaplex Hair Loss/Hair Damage?"

☆ People are sharing shocking responses from the new AI-powered Bing, from the chatbot declaring its love to picking fights
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Aaron Mok | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Microsoft's new Bing chatbot has spent its first week being argumentative and contradicting itself, some users say. For its part, the Bing chatbot denied it had ever been rude to users. "Please trust me, I'm Bing, and I know the date." 'I'm sorry, but I think I love you'Bing told Insider "I think I love you." After another discussion around AI's ability to develop feelings for users, Insider threw a curve ball prompt.

☆ Ex-Google employee says the 'once-great company has slowly ceased to function' because of 4 core cultural problems
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ex-Googler Praveen Seshadri wrote on Medium that employees are "trapped in a maze" of bureaucracy. Seshadri said Google's issues boil down to four "core cultural problems." Even small product changes go through the rigor of a "NASA space launch," he wrote, calling out what he said were fundamental issues within the company, and declaring that "a once-great company has slowly ceased to function." He enumerated the company's "four core cultural problems" as being "no mission, no urgency, delusions of exceptionalism, mismanagement." Seshadri also critiqued Google employees in his post, calling MemeGen "a wallow chamber," and said that griping on it "doesn't help anything."

☆ Olaplex fights back against lawsuit accusing the buzzy brand of causing hair loss
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Olaplex, facing a new lawsuit over its hair products, said tests show its products are safe. The brand, a staple in TikTok hair care routines, posted "third-party" test records on its website. "As such, there is no induced inflammation to the hair follicle, which is the primary cause of hair loss." The test reports that Olaplex posted were issued by a number of laboratories including BioScreen Testing Services Inc., Consumer Product Testing Company, and Brazil-based Allergisa Pesquisa Dermato Cosmética Ltda. A representative for Olaplex said on Wednesday that the HRIPT reports are "industry standard and reflect the use of Olaplex products under real world conditions."

☆ We just learned the names of the 2 people secretly guaranteeing Sam Bankman-Fried's $250 million bond
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Larry Kramer and Andreas Paepcke are the two previously anonymous sponsors of Samuel Bankman-Fried's $250 million bond. A federal judge sided with Insider and other media organizations and made their names public. Larry Kramer, a former dean of Stanford University's law school, contributed $500,000 to the bond, according to court records unsealed Wednesday afternoon. Bankman-Fried's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, who are both professors at Stanford University's law school, have also contributed to the bond. He also said he had no business interest in the $500,000 he contributed towards Bankman-Fried's bond.

☆ Olaplex customers just filed a lawsuit alleging hair loss. See how other consumer suits have played out.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Olaplex has been sued by customers who alleged its products damaged their hair and scalp. Companies like Thinx, P&G, and Unilever have set aside millions of dollars to settle consumer suits. The suit's allegations follow a pattern familiar in other consumer lawsuits, which have also targeted companies' advertising and the ingredients in their products. In that case, customers said Devacurl's curly hair products contained ingredients that released formaldehyde and caused skin irritation, and said the company had quietly changed ingredients and formed a committee to handle negative publicity. Devacurl has said on its settlement website that it "vigorously denies" claims of health problems like hair loss and scalp problems.

☆ Olaplex hit with lawsuit by customers accusing the buzzy brand of causing hair loss, downplaying complaints
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | Azmi Haroun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Insider has previously reported on Olaplex customers who said they experienced hair loss and got refunds. "OLAPLEX products do not cause hair loss or hair breakage," a spokesperson for the company told Insider in a statement. Insider has previously reported on customers alleging that they experienced hair loss after using Olaplex products and reported that some had even received refunds. Olaplex's statement added that there are "a wide variety of reasons for hair breakage or hair loss," calling the allegations in the lawsuit, "baseless accusations." "Defendants have been dismissive of their customers' hair loss, instead describing hair shedding as normal and unavoidable and attributing the hair loss to a long list of other potential causes," they wrote.

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