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Friday, July 31, 2015
Twitter Product Executives Are Leaving In A Hurry
Interim Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said his product team’s shortcomings are “unacceptable.” Now, they’re walking out the door.
Jack Dorsey is experiencing his first wave of executive departures since returning to Twitter as interim CEO earlier this month.
Dorsey lost three top product execs this week. On Tuesday, right after the company's earnings results were announced, news broke that Director of Product Management Todd Jackson and Head of Growth Christian Oestlien were on the way out.
And then, on Friday, Twitter confirmed to Re/Code that Trevor O'Brien, the product lead in charge of the company's apps, is also leaving.
The departures could be little shakers that amount to nothing, or tremors foreshadowing a larger tectonic shift.
Dorsey hasn't hid his dissatisfaction with Twitter's product efforts. He's also made clear that he's willing to rethink the social media platform's fundamentals in order to grow the service.
"Product initiatives we'd mentioned in previous earnings calls, like Instant Timelines and Logged-Out experiences, have not yet had meaningful impact on growing our audience or participation," Dorsey said during the earnings call earlier this week. "This is unacceptable and we're not happy about it."
Both Oestlien and Jackson are headed to new jobs — Oestlien to YouTube and Jackson to Dropbox. There's no word yet on what O'Brien's plans are.
The moves didn't happen overnight, but the wheels begin turning during times of uncertainty: That head hunter you turned down a few times all of a sudden gets a few minutes. One conversation turns into another. And then it's decision time.
As Dorsey sets out to remake the company, he's losing a fair deal of institutional knowledge. But for someone who's said, "I want us to question everything to make it better," that may not be a bad thing.
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Famous Silicon Valley Matchmaker's Charity Is Not Actually A Charity
Instead of charging a fee, Pari Livermore asks clients to send donations to her pet charities. Problem is, one of them was not a charity at all and donations went straight to her home address.
Pari Livermore at her home in San Rafael, California, on Oct. 30, 2007.
Darcy Padilla/The New York Times
Pari Livermore, a matchmaker to many Silicon Valley elites, has become famous for the unconventional bargain she strikes with her clients: Instead of paying her directly for her services, they instead donate to her chosen charities. Glowing profiles in the New York Times and GQ, among others, have attested to the thousands of singles who paid to attend her "Red & White" parties and to private clients who paid $10,000 a year or more for her services. She often says her introductions have led to hundreds of marriages.
Over the years, Livermore has championed a variety of charities, but at least since 2007 she has directed some clients to support an organization called Spotlight on Heroes, which she described as a charity helping underserved kids in Northern California and other causes.
But BuzzFeed News has found that Spotlight on Heroes is not in fact a charity.
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How Well Do You Remember The First Episode Of "Once Upon A Time"?
So much has happened since then. So how well do you recall our first glimpse at Storybrooke?
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Here's All The Chocolate Frog Cards We Made For Your Trip To Hogwarts
Find your submission from this post here!
BuzzFeed / Warner Bros.
BuzzFeed / Warner Bros.
BuzzFeed / Warner Bros.
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Hogwarts Is Actually The Worst School Ever
Like, can I go to class for once without the fear of dying?
That's great and all, but it doesn't change the fact that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the worst school ever.
How, you ask, could a school that produced some of the greatest witches and wizards of our time (which TBH doesn't necessarily include Harry Potter), a school that teaches MAGIC, be a bad school?
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First off, the school is filled with dangerous monsters.
There's a giant, vicious, three-headed dog, an aggressive troll, and a fucking BASILISK within this school's walls, and some of them were put there on purpose! By faculty members! You would think that if you had a giant snake that petrified people slithering about where there are 11-year-old children present, you would at least call the magical exterminators or something.
Warner Bros. / Via doctorwhos.tumblr.com
The rules are all kinds of dumb and dangerous, too.
Hey, you know that place with the nest of killer spiders? Let's send some first-year students out there with the groundskeeper who isn't even legally supposed to be able to do magic.
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Mark Zuckerberg Announces Pregnancy With First Child And Opens Up About Past Miscarriages
“We hope that sharing our experience will give more people the same hope we felt.”
"Priscilla and I have some exciting news: we're expecting a baby girl!" Zuckerberg writes.
The 31-year-old Facebook founder and 30-year-old doctor have been married since 2012. The pregnancy marks a new chapter in the couples' lives, as they prepare to "make the world a better place for [their] child and the next generation."
Zuckerberg continues the announcement by sharing that this pregnancy marks the end of a difficult struggle with miscarriages over the past few years.
"We've been trying to have a child for a couple of years and have had three miscarriages along the way," Zuckerberg writes. He goes on to explain how isolating and lonely the experience was for him and his wife.
"You feel so hopeful when you learn you're going to have a child," he writes. "You start imagining who they'll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they're gone. It's a lonely experience."
Mark Zuckerberg / Via facebook.com
"Most people don't discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you [...] So you struggle on your own. [But] When we started talking to our friends, we realized how frequently this happened — that many people we knew had similar issues and that nearly all had healthy children after all."
"In today's open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn't distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance, and it gives us hope [...] We hope that sharing our experience will give more people the same hope we felt and will help more people feel comfortable sharing their stories as well," Zuckerberg writes.
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Watch Bill Nye Read Mean Tweets About Himself
Even a science legend and climate change educator can’t escape the heat.
Scientist Bill Nye has an immense Twitter following, which also means that he gets mean tweets from time to time.
As part of a Kickstarter to make a documentary about the "Science Guy," the filmmakers had Nye read some of the less-than-favorable messages he's received.
There was this user with a penchant for elegance:
(TFIOS is, presumably, The Fault in Our Stars.)
Structure Films / Via vimeo.com
Then there was this allusion to the winged godmother of climate change:
Structure Films / Via vimeo.com
This user would rather participate in a boring idiom than watch Bill:
Structure Films / Via vimeo.com
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Submit Your Picture And We'll Turn You Into A Chocolate Frog Card
In honor of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s birthday! This post was made with the help of BuzzFeed BFF, and you should follow them on Facebook and Twitter!
Hello, everyone. Today is an important day. It's Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling's birthday!
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In honor of the duo's birthday, we've got a special surprise for you.
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We're going to make you your very own Chocolate Frog card!
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All you need to do is submit your name and photo of yourself!
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Bakers Around The World Celebrated JK Rowling's Birthday With Incredible "Harry Potter" Cakes
How do you art? How do you cake?
As many fans know, J.K. Rowling and her most famous character, Harry Potter, were born on July 31st.
AFP / Getty Images
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Happy J.K. Rowling And Harry Potter Birthday Day!
Accio birthday cake!
Dan Meth / BuzzFeed
Today we're celebrating the 50th birthday of our favorite ~magical~ author and the 35th birthday of our favorite fictional character!
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We've all learned some very important lessons from reading the series.
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And we probably wouldn't be the same people we are today if we hadn't had Harry Potter in our lives.
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The Congressional Black Caucus Presses Tech Companies On Diversity
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will meet with executives of Apple, Google and Intel to encourage greater inclusion in the tech sector.
Chair G.K. Butterfield and members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Five years from now will the workplaces of Silicon Valley's leading tech companies remain as overwhelmingly white as they are today? The Congressional Black Caucus hopes not.
Lawmakers from the CBC's diversity task force, Reps. Barbara Lee, Hakeem Jeffries and G. K. Butterfield, the Chair of the Caucus, will meet with top brass of several major tech firms next week, in a push to increase representation of African Americans. Apple, Google, Intel, and Pandora are among the firms hosting the CBC delegation. The trip is part of the Caucus' Tech 2020 initiative, a five-year plan to address the dearth of black employees within the tech world.
"Increasing the representation of African Americans in the tech sector is a moral and economic imperative," Rep. Lee told BuzzFeed News. "When you have a diverse and inclusive workforce and leadership, new doors for growth and opportunity are opened."
A central goal of the Congressional Black Caucus is getting tech companies to develop and publish their plans to increase diversity. These inclusion plans, the Caucus says, should define short and long term benchmarks and capture both engineering and non-technical jobs. That many of the Valley's heavyweights have made a recent habit of releasing their diversity numbers has sparked real optimism within the Caucus, a group eager to partner with the private sector to grapple with enduring racial bias.
"I don't believe that the technology and innovation-economy companies are reluctant to diversify their workforce," Rep. Jeffries told BuzzFeed News. "Quite the contrary, there is a refreshing acknowledgement of the problem, and a commitment amongst many to do everything possible to remedy it."
For the CBC, the pledges of transparency and improvement coming from tech companies is an encouraging first step. Solid plans come next. "This trip will help develop concrete steps that we could collectively take to ensure that the diversity problem is addressed in a meaningful fashion," Jeffries said.
A major focus of the CBC's Tech 2020 initiative, Lee and Jeffries said, is strengthening the pipeline of qualified talent. Not only does this include exposing middle and high school-aged students to the STEM disciplines, but also connecting talented women and people of color with tech companies that have narrow, monochromatic professional networks.
Juanita Leveroni, diversity account manager at CODE2040, a nonprofit that promotes greater representation of black and Latino technologists, says she wants to expand the discussion of the pipeline problem to encompass how tech companies recruit and hire. "We can broaden the pipeline, but if we are not doing anything to change the funnel — the vetting process, the interview process, company culture, company leadership, then we are essentially just getting different people to the same result," she told BuzzFeed News.
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Pandora expressed excitement for the upcoming visit, while also using a phrase common among tech companies earnestly describing their efforts to improve diversity. "We have work that we need to do, and the CBC will certainly add an important voice in this conversation." Pandora's diversity numbers published last August showed a near 50/50 gender split of its overall workforce.
Intel, another company hosting the lawmakers, has pledged by 2020 to shape its workforce to match the available talent pool of minorities. The company told BuzzFeed News that their diversity programs are aligned with the CBC's goals.
"I look forward to working with the tech executives to find new and innovative ways of advancing our goal of greater inclusion for African Americans in the tech sector," Lee said. "Our goal is to make this a cooperative effort."
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Here's What Apple Is Worth In Terms We Can Actually Understand
Explain it to me like I’m not in tech.
That's 16 trillion calories.
Starbucks / Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed
*Kind of makes sense to get a package at that point?
Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed
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13 Rubeus Hagrid GIFs That Perfectly Describe Being Drunk
One too many shots of firewhiskey.
When you walk into the bar after a solid pregame:
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When you're on your fourth drink and start to over-share:
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When the heart-to-hearts get a little too real:
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When you've lost your squad at the bar:
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15 "Harry Potter" Crossovers That Are Seriously Magical
Accio fandom-mixing fun!
Wizards in Black.
THE BADASS MAGICAL ALIEN CRIME FIGHTING TRIO OF YOUR DREAMS.
Game of Wands.
Wizards are coming.
Via pinterest.com
Pottermon.
A wild Voldemort appeared.
Via hypable.com
Sherlock: Hogwarts Edition.
It's just a boggart... just a boggart.
Via pinterest.com
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How Should You Celebrate Harry Potter's Birthday?
July 31st is Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling’s birthday, which means it’s time to celebrate!
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What Would Your Life Be Like If You Went To Hogwarts?
MAGICAL. And much like real life, this is a game of chance.
Let's set the mood.
John Williams / Warner Bros
What if I had gotten my letter? What if I had been at Hogwarts with Harry? What if I had BEEN IN THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS?
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32 Lessons The Harry Potter Books Taught Us About Love
The most powerful magic of all.
You won't always know The One when you meet them.
Taking the time to fall in love with someone doesn't make you love them any less. Love is about growing with someone, getting to know them and yourself. It's about becoming your own people and respecting each other for it.
Ron and Hermione were both PRETTY obnoxious at the outset of the series, and we all know James had a LONG way to go before he was worthy of Lily, and that's ok! People can surprise you, people can get better, and everybody needs a little time to find themselves
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But you might.
Ginny was mad about Harry from the second she saw him, but that didn't keep their relationship from deepening and becoming its own thing, unfettered by a childhood crush, as the years went on.
Some people fall in love at first sight, some people do it slowly, but what matters is keeping the commitment once you've made it.
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Platonic love is real.
The nonexistent love triangle that launched a thousand shipping wars proves it. Harry and Hermione were great friends without a hint or interest in romance. They loved each other, they were family, and it was beautiful. A strong, truly platonic friendship is hard to find, but ones built on mutual respect, trust, and admiration are possible.
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And romantic love isn't rational.
Dormant Harmony shippers MAY want to argue in the comments regarding JK Rowling's recent suggestion that maybe Harry and Hermione were more compatible than Ron and Hermione, but compatible as they were, they weren't into each other, sorry.
And the truth is, that's kind of beautiful. Compatibility is important in friendships AND romantic relationships, but just because something ticks all the boxes on paper doesn't mean it feels right in the heart.
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A New App Lets Uber Drivers Report Fare Discrepancies
SquaredFare, an app independent of Uber, keeps track of rides to make sure Uber pays drivers the right amount.
When it comes to interacting with Uber, its drivers have only two options: email support or physically go into the nearest office. Neither of which is easy for someone who spends all day driving to wherever their next passenger will take them. If, say, there is a problem with the fare Uber calculated, how does a driver know — much less quickly report it to Uber?
Now, drivers have a fast, efficient means to rectify a fare discrepancy. SquaredFare, an app created by president of the California App-Based Drivers Association Joseph DeWolf, works alongside and yet independently of the Uber app to keep track of all your fares in order to ensure they are accurate. (This app, DeWolf told BuzzFeed News, is not affiliated with CADA.)
"Another thing the app does is it allows the driver to report rider issues in a very efficient way," DeWolf told BuzzFeed News. "If there was an unsupervised child in the car, drivers can immediately send Uber a pre-scripted email explaining exactly what's happening. Drivers don't have a lot of time to stop their cars and type out emails so we have tried to make it as simple as possible to report fare issues and rider issues and get back on the road."
And even if there is nothing to report, SquaredFare keeps a record of all of a driver's rides and fares in case a driver's account is deactivated or deleted for any reason. The logistics of the app is much like that of Uber: A driver will start and stop the trip and the GPS-activated algorithm will input the time, distance, and local base fare and any applicable surge pricing into Uber's formula to determine how much that trip costs. SquaredFare, however, is not integrated with Uber's open API, which prevents the app from starting and stopping a trip automatically when the driver does so in the Uber app. In other words drivers have to start and stop the trips in SquaredFare themselves. But DeWolf said there was good reason for that choice.
"We did not use their API because number one we didn't want them to access what we're doing," DeWolf said. "It's just a trust issue, but also if we were using their API any network error that was happening in the Uber app would happen to us too. Our calculation would be shorted if Uber's was."
Though DeWolf initially feared a backlash from Uber he provided emails to BuzzFeed News showing that Uber's customer service has responded well to the pre-scripted requests to change a fare. After listing the pick up and drop off locations the pre-scripted email reads:
Please be advised that Uber undercharged the rider.
My calculation shows my mileage at 4.43 Miles, and the trip duration was hours:0, mins:13, secs:55. The fare breakdown was a base fare of $5.00. Mile charges were $10.41. Time charges were $5.57. Toll charges were $5.00. The safe rides fee was $1.00. The surge was 1.00 x.
According to my calculation, that the fare should have been $26.98. The Uber fare was shown on my phone was $26.39.
And after requesting some more information, Uber responded:
Happy to adjust this trip for you, Mohsen.
The fare has been adjusted to the correct amount of $26.98 to reflect the pickup and drop-off locations you provided.
Please continue to let us know about any trips that may need adjustment within 48 hours so that we may charge the rider and adjust appropriately.
As of right now, SquaredFare is only available in Los Angeles and San Francisco and cannot be used to report Lyft fare discrepancies. It is free to download and use for now, but DeWolf says all that will change as the company grows. "When we come up with the second version that we're already working on we'll ask for a subscription from the drivers," he said. "Some of our drivers are saving up to $70 a month on just fare adjustments and they have said to us for this particular service they'd be willing to pay up to $10 a month for this."
As for why DeWolf and his team chose not to build an app that reports discrepancies to Lyft, he said: "The vast majority of the complaints were regarding the Uber network and we saw fewer complaints about Lyft. We decided that there was a definite need for Uber riders but not so much for Lyft drivers. But certainly if they reach out to us we can build one for Lyft."
A pre-scripted email an Uber driver sent through SquaredFare
BuzzFeed News
Uber's response:
BuzzFeed News
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Thursday, July 30, 2015
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