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☆ Sen. Warren demands answers from Silvergate Bank about its business dealings with FTX
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Gretchen Morgenson | Gretchen Morgenson Is The Senior Financial Reporter For The Nbc News Investigative Unit. A Former Stockbroker | She Won The Pulitzer Prize In For Her | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +13 min

“Life as a crypto firm can be divided up into before Silvergate and after Silvergate,” Bankman-Fried gushed in a testimonial featured recently, and prominently, on Silvergate Bank’s website. But in a conversation with an investment manager, a former top FTX employee said Silvergate was FTX’s primary banking partner. As a regulated bank, Silvergate has a duty to monitor clients’ accounts for suspicious activities that could signal fraud, money laundering or tax evasion, the filings note. FTX frequently used the Silvergate Exchange Network, according to the former FTX employee with direct knowledge of the transactions. A Silvergate spokeswoman said the change reflected a shift in functions taken on by a new president at the bank.

☆ The Fed can’t stop raising interest rates due to these 4 factors, Jim Cramer says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday listed four reasons why the Federal Reserve can't stop tightening the economy just yet. That makes it more difficult for the Fed to stamp out wage inflation. The abundance of these workers means the enterprise software industry is "bloated" and more layoffs are likely coming. "This market's hostage to the Federal Reserve, and the Fed's not going to stop tightening until they see more evidence of real economic pain. Cramer attributed the market's volatility to how difficult it is to predict how the central bank will continue its fight against inflation.

☆ Cramer talks about some hot industrial stocks, and how we're playing Wall Street's pivot from tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has done so much better than the average semiconductor company, or even the above-average enterprise software company that it's insane that we even focus on some of the latter. The 600 companies formed in the last two years rent too much of your brain space even in passing. What enterprise software company can say that? As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio.

Salesforce, which develops cloud-based, customer relationship management software for businesses, has consistently delivered revenue growth in recent years through its subscription-license model. Near-term operating margins Investors will be closely watching operating margins to ensure the company can scale up and expand into new markets, all while maintaining profitability. Last quarter, Salesforce reiterated it expects its operating margin for 2023 to climb by 170-basis points year-over-year, to 20.4%, a bullish forecast in the face of currency headwinds and broader economic uncertainty. In a research note Sunday, analysts at Stifel described the margin expansion forecast as "intriguing in a slower growth environment," while calling the target "highly achievable." Last quarter, Salesforce warned that its customers have taken a more "measured approach" to their businesses due to macro uncertainty.

☆ 7 CEOs on the ‘innovative’ and ‘timely’ books everyone should read this winter
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Many of the world's most successful CEOs and business leaders swear by their reading habit. CNBC Make It asked 7 CEOs to share their favorite reads for the holiday season. It is so timely and necessary given the pace of work and the amount of distractions. Unlike reading a typical book, which can feel passive, 'Embrace The Work, Love Your Career' is an experiential journal. This book is a quick read that really helped me connect to the ways we tend to tell ourselves stories to self-justify our thoughts and actions.

☆ Rivian’s CEO created buzzy, outdoorsy EVs. Now big automakers are coming after it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Even now, as the company’s assembly lines have started churning out its electric vehicles, success still isn’t assured. The 39-year-old is running the car company he founded, building electric vehicles he helped engineer and design. Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesEver since he was a child growing up in Melbourne, Florida, Scaringe wanted to start his own car company. At the time, the idea of starting a car company seemed very farfetched. Robert Joseph "RJ" Scaringe, Rivian's founder and CEO, said he had wanted to start a car company since he was a child.

☆ Rivian’s founder had an early advantage with his electric truck. Now rivals GM and Ford are closing in
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Even now, as the company’s assembly lines have started churning out its electric vehicles, success still isn’t assured. The 39-year-old is running the car company he founded, building electric vehicles he helped engineer and design. A Rivian R1T pickup truck at the company's manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois. Robert Joseph "RJ" Scaringe, Rivian's founder and CEO, said he had wanted to start a car company since he was a child. In 2021, Ford revealed the F-150 Lightning electric truck, which went into production this year.

☆ Meet a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur who says starting a company is 'an art and creative process'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Gili Malinsky | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The 26-year-old, Toronto, Canada, native co-founded her first company, Ranomics, at 18. She founded her second company, Locke Bio, a "Shopify" for pharmaceutical and other companies selling FDA approved drugs, at 23. For Tie, art and creativity is not exactly as on-the-nose as writing in iambic pentameter or dancing at Lincoln Center. "That's, I think, more of an art and creative process than something that is technical." Here's how the entrepreneur, now based in Los Angeles, has leaned into her creative, big-picture thinking to find success in fields like tech and science.

☆ Leaked Salesforce policy documents show up to six-months severance. But laid-off workers were told to expect 60 days.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An internal policy document viewed by Insider shows Salesforce offering up to six months severance. Employees laid off this month were told to expect 60 days. An internal Salesforce document viewed by Insider outlines a severance policy where laid-off employees could qualify for up to six months of pay, depending on their years of tenure. And yet, employees terminated in Salesforce's November round of layoffs were told to expect 60 days, according to two sources, regardless of tenure. The person said they had read the up-to-six-month severance policy shortly before these layoffs hit, and that the company has yet to send the formal severance offer beyond that informal notification to expect 60 days of pay.

☆ TikTok is still hiring despite the tech downturn. Here's how much it pays for hundreds of engineering, marketing, and other US jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Ashley Rodriguez | Dan Whateley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +42 min

Insider analyzed US work-visa data to gauge salary levels at TikTok and parent company ByteDance. The data show TikTok and ByteDance offered staffers on US work visas $30 an hour to $400,000 a year. And TikTok has begun to get into its stride with advertisers who are now taking it more seriously as a marketing platform. Based on the data, TikTok and ByteDance offered from late-2020 to mid-2022 base salaries ranging from $30 per hour to $400,000 per year for various roles. TikTok's median annual base salary was roughly $184,000 per year, based on data from 319 foreign-labor certification applications.

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☆ Salesforce insiders say the performance review system set some of its top salespeople up for failure ahead of layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Recent Salesforce layoffs impacted salespeople, insiders say. Salesforce insiders say the company set up its own salesforce for failure ahead of layoffs by using a quota system that penalized top performers with unrealistic goals and difficult accounts. "Our sales performance process drives accountability," a Salesforce spokesperson said in a statement provided to Insider. Marc Benioff SalesforceSalespeople describe a stretch-goal quota systemInsiders say the system Salesforce used to evaluate individual sales performance often gave even top salespeople unrealistic goals. When sales momentum slowed this year, Salesforce reacted first with a hiring slowdown, as Insider reported, and now with layoffs.

☆ Keeping Employees Happy On The Front Lines
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailKeeping Employees Happy On The Front LinesAs the founder of Hearsay Systems and the current CEO of Service Cloud for Salesforce, Silicon Valley veteran Clara Shih knows a thing or two about keeping workers happy and engaged even in the most demanding roles. We'll talk to Clara about the changing nature of customer relations, get her tips on navigating this new era of remote and hybrid work, and hear her strategies on winning the war for talent in a tight market.

☆ Carbon-accounting startup Planetly was shut down and all 200 staff laid off just a year after acquisition. Insiders say it's a bad omen for 2023.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

European carbon accounting companies lured $670 million in venture capital last year, as investors banked on growing appetite from corporates to bolster their ESG credentials. The slowdown means 2023 will be the toughest year since the Lehman Brothers collapse for potential closures of acquired companies, the source said. Still, carbon accounting companies are struggling with commercial traction due to market saturation and little differentiation, he said. "But if you acquire a carbon accounting software solution, you are probably a large organisation that has established customer relationships and had conversations about this before. European industry sources added that they expect further consolidation in the carbon accounting space.

☆ China's Covid controls are hurting more of the economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING — China's Covid situation is only getting worse, preventing the country from stamping out the virus and relaxing controls. As of Monday, China's Covid controls negatively affected 12.2% of national GDP — up from 9.5% a week ago, according to Nomura's model. Recent Covid infections have been reported in more than 20 of China's 31 province-level regions. It was not immediately clear whether there was any impact on factory production in the South China region. China's Ministry of Commerce did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

☆ Buy Salesforce as cloud company goes down the 'Microsoft pathway,' Macquarie says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce could be a big winner going forward, according to Macquarie. The cloud software company got an outperform rating from the firm and a $210 price target, which represents upside of 28.8%, after an analyst coverage transfer. Analyst Sarah Hindlian-Bowler said the company is less likely to be hit by global macro headwinds while entering a period of "graceful maturation." The analyst added that, with its C-suite shifts, Salesforce likely saved itself 10 years of underperformance and is "moving down the Microsoft pathway." Within the next two years, she said there is potential for Salesforce's products to consolidate in a "suite" like Microsoft did.

☆ Premarket stocks: Why investors aren't going green
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

ESG funds in September saw their largest outflow of investor cash since the March 2020 recession. These ESG and responsible investing funds saw assets under management peak above $8.5 trillion in late 2021. That’s because ESG ratings agencies tend to rate companies against others within their industry, so oil and gas companies are rated separately from automotive companies. A debate over how to regulate ESG funds is also adding to the noisy picture. But the hurdles facing ESG investing show that doing so is easier said than done.

☆ Two potential opportunities for value creation emerge as Starboard takes a stake in Salesforce
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Kenneth Squire | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Starboard views Salesforce as a high quality and sticky business at an attractive valuation with the potential for significant value creation through a better balance of growth and profitability. Salesforce peers are operating at a "rule of 50" – average revenue growth plus adjusted operating margins of peers equals 49.4. Salesforce currently has a revenue growth rate of 17.0% and 20.4% operating margins, which brings it to 37.4 combined. Starboard has had extensive experience with growth companies that begin to see slowing growth rates and need to either regain that growth and/or focus on margins. Even if they were to hit that target, this would only bring them to a growth + margin of 42.

☆ How to Find a Financial Advisor
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +12 min

Read on to get started:Types of financial advisorsMany financial professionals, including financial planners, securities brokers, investment managers, and insurance brokers call themselves financial advisors so it’s important to know exactly what services an advisor provides before hiring one. Financial advisor designationsThere are myriad designations for financial advisors but only a handful that indicate the expertise most consumers need. Advisor fees and minimumsHow a financial advisor gets paid can be as important as how much you pay them because you want an advisor whose paramount consideration is your best interest, not their own, and whether or not that is the case is largely determined by how you pay them. How to find a financial advisorFinding a financial advisor is not so different from finding any other specialized service you’re in the market for. The right financial advisor can help navigate your financial life, from budgeting everyday spending to fulfilling long-term financial goals over a lifetime including the purchase of a home and a comfortable retirement.

☆ Leaked Microsoft organizational chart shows the 19 people running its all-important cloud business
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An internal org chart shows the 19 people running Microsoft's Cloud + AI org under CEO Satya Nadella. An internal Microsoft organizational chart viewed by Insider shows the people in charge of the company's cloud and artificial intelligence business — a business so tremendous, it employs at least one-third of Microsoft's massive workforce. The Cloud + AI org is responsible for Microsoft's Azure cloud business, plus its data platform, developer services, and software like its Dynamics 365 customer relationship management tool. The org is run by Scott Guthrie, one of CEO Satya Nadella's top lieutenants and the exec who has led Microsoft's cloud business since at least 2011. Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Microsoft subsidiary GitHub who stepped down in November 2021, also remained on the org chart viewed by Insider.

☆ Data-management company InfoSum has laid off staff as its tech struggles to gain traction in the US, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sources said the company had struggled to gain traction in the US and missed revenue targets. Data-management company InfoSum had a recent round of layoffs, the company confirmed. Founded in the UK in 2016, InfoSum is a software-as-a-service platform that offers companies tools to store and manage their data. Another person familiar with the matter estimated the layoffs hit 12% of Infosum's staff, or about 20 employees. The company didn't hit its revenue goal last year and these people said it was unlikely it'd hit its 2022 target either.

☆ 'Sharks circling in the water': Contentious cram-down rounds are coming and going to dilute startup shareholders. Founders and investors should be wary.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Funding rounds are set to become more contentious; "knives tend to come out," said one investor. Having been in the VC game for more than 25 years, he knows what inevitably follows periods of irrational exuberance: cram downs. A cram-down round refers to a situation in which a company raises money at terms favorable to new investors, at the expense of current shareholders. In good times, when valuations are going up and VCs have money to spare, exercising pro rata rights is usually a no-brainer. The investors that step up to fill that void — usually late-stage VC growth funds or strategic investors — often demand terms that severely dilute or "cram down" the shares of existing shareholders.

☆ Top Wall Street analysts name their best stock ideas to ride out the market turbulence
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Tipranks.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

To choose the right stocks, staying aware of what Wall Street analysts are saying can be of help. related investing news Analysts name the top 'high conviction' stocks for playing the market turbulence The perils and promise of quantum computing are nearing. The North American housing market has slowed considerably, with the ill effects trickling down to construction equipment demand. He holds the 782nd position among almost 8,000 analysts tracked on TipRanks and has a success rate of 52%. According to the law, a $3 per kg production tax credit will be provided to developers producing green hydrogen (hydrogen produced with electrolyzers sourced from clean energy).

And Jim Cramer was on site in San Francisco to talk with leading tech CEOs , including the heads of Salesforce and its subsidiary Slack. Salesforce Co-CEO Marc Benioff Benioff said Salesforce is integrating Slack into Customer 360, the company's customer relationship management platform, so that it becomes the primary messaging system for users. Quip, the word processing app Salesforce acquired in 2016, will also be integrated into Slack. Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor Taylor highlighted Salesforce's shift towards profitability -- it's aiming for a 25% operating margin in 2026 by limiting spending — and commitment to returning cash to shareholders. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade.

☆ I'm a virtual assistant making 6 figures a year. Here's how I found clients and scaled up to start my own company.
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-01 | by ( Layne Van Vranken | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Falyn Golub is a virtual assistant and the founder of boutique VA company The Invisible Assistant. I didn't know that a virtual assistant was even a job when I decided to start working from home in 2016. Over the past five years, I've created my own virtual assistant business, and it's become an incredible career for me. This isn't an industry-specific career because the need for a virtual assistant can be applied to just about any industry. Are you a virtual assistant who wants to share your story?

☆ Adobe's chief product officer predicts the 5 biggest tech trends of 2022
▼ + stars: | 2021-12-31 | by ( Scott Belsky | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Scott Belsky is the founder of Behance and the chief product officer at Adobe. The next generation of talent entering the workforce will overwhelmingly opt for what I've come to call "polygamous careers." The rise of immersive experiences will mainstream 3D creationI promised myself I wouldn't say it…but "Metaverse." We'll want AI-driven immersive experiences to know us well, but not at the expense of our security and comfort. Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur (Behance, 99U), and chief product officer of Adobe.

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