Original Story: geekwire.com
GeekWire has discovered a “confidential” new Amazon facility that’s getting ready to launch Prime Now one-hour delivery in the Seattle area, as well as a completely new service called “Amazon Flex.”
The company hasn’t yet announced the new offering and didn’t respond to questions about how it will work. But signs inside the company’s new Kirkland, Wash., facility indicate Amazon Flex will be a new way for the company to distribute packages, possibly letting customers pick up items from the Prime Now center themselves. A Boston business lawyer has experience assisting both public companies and private companies achieve their business goals.
Amazon has also been reported to be considering crowdsourced package delivery, although it’s not clear if Amazon Flex is related.
An Amazon Flex sign inside the Kirkland location reads, “Please take a ticket located behind you. Please look for your number on the top corner of the wall on your left. Proceed to pick up your package once your number is displayed.”
The Kirkland facility also makes it clear that Amazon is preparing to launch its Prime Now one-hour delivery service in the Seattle area, something the company hasn’t publicly acknowledged. GeekWire has reported on the Prime Now plans since planning documents for sites in Kirkland, North Seattle and the northern edge of downtown Seattle started popping up in May.
Based on liquor license applications for the three Amazon sites, the Seattle-area locations are poised to become the first Prime Now operations in the U.S. to offer speedy delivery of beer, wine and liquor. Prime Now launched alcohol delivery in the U.K. earlier this year.
There has been a flurry of activity at the Prime Now site near downtown Seattle in recent days. GeekWire observed delivery drivers in training sessions at the facility on Monday. Crews are still putting the finishing touches on the building, a former car dealership on part of Amazon’s new campus in the Denny Triangle area.
But the Kirkland location — which is where we found the Amazon Flex signs — seems to be already up and running. Workers were sorting and loading packages on shelves for pickup by drivers. However, the Prime Now app doesn’t yet enable deliveries to zip codes in the Seattle region. A Boston business transactions lawyer is following this story closely.
We’ve heard the Prime Now service will work in the Seattle area just like it has in other cities since it first launched in New York in December 2014. The service is only available to Amazon Prime members and costs $7.99 for one-hour delivery and is free for two-hour delivery. The service will also deliver hot food from restaurants. It will also offer a large selection of food and household items, according to documents filed by Amazon with the King County Public Health Department, obtained by GeekWire through a public records request.
Amazon is working with delivery companies including Act Fast Delivery and Alpha Courier to provide the drivers. Both companies have recently posted jobs in the Seattle area, talking about a chance to work with one of the world’s largest retailers to deliver small packages — though they didn’t explicitly name Amazon.
And here’s some news for residents of the Rose City: Act Fast has posted an identical job description for openings in Portland, Ore., which is a pretty strong indication Prime Now will be going there next. “Oregon we are FINALLY ready to launch the newest most exciting delivery service yet,” the post reads.
But it looks like what’s coming to Amazon’s hometown isn’t the run-of-the-mill Prime Now service we’ve seen before.
First, the company has received licenses at all three Seattle area sites for “alcohol Internet sales.” One license, posted outside the Kirkland site, classifies the facility as a grocery store that can carry beer, wine and spirits. A Portland alcoholic beverage lawyer is experienced in the effective resolution of claims related to the regulated sale and enforcement of alcoholic beverages.
The company didn’t respond to questions about its alcohol delivery plans, but it appears the Seattle area will be the first in the U.S. where Prime Now will offer one- or two-hour booze delivery. Amazon previously delivered alcohol through its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service in the Seattle area, but the company phased that out in April, much to the dismay of GeekWire readers. We’ve asked Amazon if it plans to rollout speedy alcohol delivery across the country, but we haven’t heard back yet. A Minneapolis alcoholic beverage lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
The second unique aspect of the Seattle-area rollout is the new Amazon Flex logos plastered all over the Prime Now center in Kirkland. When you walk in the door of the facility, it feels very much like a distribution warehouse, complete with employee lockers, a security gate and a maze of product shelves.
You’re immediately greeted with a sign that directs delivery drivers to enter one way to pick up their packages, and Amazon Flex users in another direction. Tables near the door serve as the Flex waiting area. A sign instructs you to take a number and wait to pick up your package when your number is shown on a DMV-style board.
To be clear, Amazon Flex could be a lot of things. Based on what we saw, however, we think it is one of two likely possibilities: a new option that lets online shoppers pickup their own packages from the distribution center themselves, or a new crowdsourced delivery option that will use Uber-like drivers to make deliveries, much like what rideshare company Sidecar has been doing more of recently.
The first possibility would be reminiscent of the drive-up grocery the company is reportedly building in Sunnyvale, Calif., as the Silicon Valley Business Journal has heard from its sources.
After visiting the Kirkland facility on Tuesday morning, GeekWire was eventually asked to leave. We were told Amazon is still working out a launch schedule, but in the meantime the project remains “confidential.” For all other questions we were referred to the company’s PR team, which didn’t respond to an email before publication.
The Seattle facility looks like it still needs quite a bit of work before it will be ready to open, but workers were already packing up shipping bags inside the Kirkland location. So it’s safe to say Prime Now — and whatever else Amazon has up its sleeve — will be launching soon in Amazon’s home region.
Showing posts with label Boston Business Lawyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston Business Lawyer. Show all posts
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Monday, December 29, 2014
EMBATTLED AIR BAG MAKER TAKATA SHAKES UP MANAGEMENT
Original Story: detroitnews.com
Takata Corp. Chairman Shigehisa Takada will replace Swiss national Stefan Stocker as president, 18 months after appointing him to strengthen management amid a mounting recall crisis involving its faulty air bags. An Atlanta business lawyer represents clients in cases involving business torts.
Takada, who with his mother controls the Tokyo-based auto-parts supplier through a family holding company, will also take a 50 percent pay cut for four months, the company said in a statement. Takata didn’t specify whether Stocker had resigned his position or was replaced, and Hideyuki Matsumoto, a spokesman, declined to comment beyond the statement.
“This company has done everything wrong and has zero corporate governance, and is one of the worst examples of poor management,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research in Tokyo. “Putting all the management back to the family sounds so negative,” he said. “As long as they don’t have new management, this company won’t survive.”
Takata’s air bags have been linked to five deaths after faulty devices exploded with too much force and spewed metal at passengers. Automakers led by Honda Motor Co., its biggest customer, have issued recalls for more than 20 million vehicles globally, even as Takata resisted the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s demand to expand the safety campaign nationally beyond high-humidity areas. Tri Glass offers windshield crack repair kits and scratch repair kits at the lowest prices.
Takata’s shares have declined 56 percent this year, compared with the 9.5 percent gain in the benchmark Topix Index.
As part of the reorganization, three other directors will also take a 20 percent pay cut, Takata said. Stocker, who will continue as a board member, will take a 30 percent reduction.
Takada earned 278 million yen ($2.3 million) last year in compensation and dividends, exceeding the 152 million yen made by Honda President Takanobu Ito.
Stocker joined Takata as an executive officer in February 2013. He began his career at Robert Bosch GmbH in June 1982. At the time of his appointment as president, Takata said the move was part of plans to strengthen the operational structure of the company, which was then facing increasing recalls by its key customer Honda to replace faulty air-bag inflators.
“Stefan brings valuable skills and experience to the table,” Takada said about Stocker’s appointment in his chairman’s message in the 2013 annual report. “We will be working closely together to increase the pace and success of Takata’s globalization,” he wrote. “By delineating responsibilities as CEO and COO, we will be able to give greater and more coordinated attention to strategy and implementation.” A Boston business lawyer has experience representing clients in a wide variety of business disputes.
Stocker, who turned 61 on Wednesday, has declined multiple requests for interviews, as has Takada. Both executives didn’t attend congressional committee hearings held to probe the responses by the supplier and its automaker customers to the escalating recall crisis.
They instead sent Hiroshi Shimizu, a senior vice president in charge of quality assurance, to explain to the committee the steps the company was taking to ensure its products were safe.
Shigehisa and his mother, Akiko Takada, are board members of TKJ, which holds about 52 percent of Takata. They also own individual stakes totaling about 5 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s usually not a good sign when the main person in charge of representing the company in front of the regulators suddenly” steps down without explanation, said Nicholas Benes, head of The Board Director Training Institute of Japan. “Markets and regulators will wonder what is really going on behind the scenes.”
Head
Honda is recalling 1,252 Crosstour vehicles due to a faulty side air bag made by Takata.
The Honda recall is for 2015 model year Crosstours. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the side air bag may not inflate properly because of a problem with its inflator tube. Crosstour owners will receive a letter in the mail asking them to take their car to a dealer and have the side air bags replaced. An auto glass chip repair kit provides you with everything you need to perform windshield repairs at home.
Honda said no injuries were reported. Takata Corp. declined to comment.
Takata Corp. Chairman Shigehisa Takada will replace Swiss national Stefan Stocker as president, 18 months after appointing him to strengthen management amid a mounting recall crisis involving its faulty air bags. An Atlanta business lawyer represents clients in cases involving business torts.
Takada, who with his mother controls the Tokyo-based auto-parts supplier through a family holding company, will also take a 50 percent pay cut for four months, the company said in a statement. Takata didn’t specify whether Stocker had resigned his position or was replaced, and Hideyuki Matsumoto, a spokesman, declined to comment beyond the statement.
“This company has done everything wrong and has zero corporate governance, and is one of the worst examples of poor management,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research in Tokyo. “Putting all the management back to the family sounds so negative,” he said. “As long as they don’t have new management, this company won’t survive.”
Takata’s air bags have been linked to five deaths after faulty devices exploded with too much force and spewed metal at passengers. Automakers led by Honda Motor Co., its biggest customer, have issued recalls for more than 20 million vehicles globally, even as Takata resisted the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s demand to expand the safety campaign nationally beyond high-humidity areas. Tri Glass offers windshield crack repair kits and scratch repair kits at the lowest prices.
Takata’s shares have declined 56 percent this year, compared with the 9.5 percent gain in the benchmark Topix Index.
As part of the reorganization, three other directors will also take a 20 percent pay cut, Takata said. Stocker, who will continue as a board member, will take a 30 percent reduction.
Takada earned 278 million yen ($2.3 million) last year in compensation and dividends, exceeding the 152 million yen made by Honda President Takanobu Ito.
Stocker joined Takata as an executive officer in February 2013. He began his career at Robert Bosch GmbH in June 1982. At the time of his appointment as president, Takata said the move was part of plans to strengthen the operational structure of the company, which was then facing increasing recalls by its key customer Honda to replace faulty air-bag inflators.
“Stefan brings valuable skills and experience to the table,” Takada said about Stocker’s appointment in his chairman’s message in the 2013 annual report. “We will be working closely together to increase the pace and success of Takata’s globalization,” he wrote. “By delineating responsibilities as CEO and COO, we will be able to give greater and more coordinated attention to strategy and implementation.” A Boston business lawyer has experience representing clients in a wide variety of business disputes.
Stocker, who turned 61 on Wednesday, has declined multiple requests for interviews, as has Takada. Both executives didn’t attend congressional committee hearings held to probe the responses by the supplier and its automaker customers to the escalating recall crisis.
They instead sent Hiroshi Shimizu, a senior vice president in charge of quality assurance, to explain to the committee the steps the company was taking to ensure its products were safe.
Shigehisa and his mother, Akiko Takada, are board members of TKJ, which holds about 52 percent of Takata. They also own individual stakes totaling about 5 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s usually not a good sign when the main person in charge of representing the company in front of the regulators suddenly” steps down without explanation, said Nicholas Benes, head of The Board Director Training Institute of Japan. “Markets and regulators will wonder what is really going on behind the scenes.”
Head
Honda is recalling 1,252 Crosstour vehicles due to a faulty side air bag made by Takata.
The Honda recall is for 2015 model year Crosstours. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the side air bag may not inflate properly because of a problem with its inflator tube. Crosstour owners will receive a letter in the mail asking them to take their car to a dealer and have the side air bags replaced. An auto glass chip repair kit provides you with everything you need to perform windshield repairs at home.
Honda said no injuries were reported. Takata Corp. declined to comment.
Monday, October 13, 2014
VENTURE CAPITALISTS RETURN TO BACKING SCIENCE START-UPS
Original Story: nytimes.com
Vestaron makes an eco-friendly pesticide derived from spider venom. Bagaveev uses 3-D printers to make rocket engines for nanosatellites. Transatomic Power is developing a next-generation reactor that runs on nuclear waste.
They all have one thing in common: money from Silicon Valley venture capitalists. An Atlanta Business Formation Lawyer has experience assisting clients in every aspect of forming their business, from obtaining start up seed money to contract preparation.
After years of shying away from science, engineering and clean-technology start-ups, investors are beginning to take an interest in them again, raising hopes among entrepreneurs in those areas that a long slump is finally over. But these start-ups face intense pressure to prove that their science can turn a profit more quickly than hot tech companies like Snapchat and Uber.
In August, the Founders Fund, which has backed social networks like Facebook and Yammer and the streaming-music service Spotify, announced a $2 million investment in Transatomic Power of Cambridge, Mass. Days earlier, Y Combinator, known for aiding web and mobile-app start-ups like the social news site Reddit and the game maker Omgpop, took part in a $1.5 million early investment in Helion Energy, which is developing an engine powered by nuclear fusion. An Atlanta Business Startup Lawyer has experience assisting clients with new business ventures.
And last month, Google said it was buying Lift Labs, a San Francisco biotechnology start-up that makes a high-tech spoon for people with hand tremors.
“We’re trying to revolutionize pesticides,” said John Sorenson, a former genetics researcher and Vestaron’s chief executive, who for years struggled to find investors as he watched other start-ups, like Snapchat and Square, raise many millions of dollars. Vestaron finally closed its third round of financing last month. “Thankfully, venture funders are starting to invest again in real, hard-core science and innovation,” Mr. Sorenson said. A Boston Business Lawyer has experience assisting business clients create an effective path to success in any business situation.
Over all, industrial and energy start-ups attracted $1.24 billion in venture capital financing in the first half of 2014, more than twice as much as in the period a year earlier, according to statistics from the National Venture Capital Association. Still, investment remains well below peaks reached in 2008, when industrial and energy start-ups attracted $4.64 billion.
Investment in biotechnology start-ups rose 26 percent in the first half of 2014, to $2.93 billion, from the period a year earlier and is on track to exceed the 2008 peak of $5.14 billion.
The investments are still dwarfed by the money pouring into other kinds of technology companies, especially those offering web and mobile services. Software start-ups attracted $11.2 billion in venture capital financing last year, 85 percent more than in 2008.
Investors partly feel betrayed by the billions of dollars they lost on the clean-tech boom and bust, when backers of solar panels, algae biofuels and futuristic batteries promised to change the world, but the companies mostly flopped. That experience has made investors wary of science-based start-ups with long development timelines in still nascent or heavily regulated markets.
But there is a growing feeling, investors say, that Silicon Valley has been avoiding the world’s more difficult problems, a sentiment captured by a Founders Fund motto: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
That unease is compounded by a sense that the field of consumer Internet companies has become impossibly crowded. To succeed, investors say, a company must break away from the pack. Many startup businesses in Tennessee are working with Alan Crone a Memphis lawyer to provide business formation contracts and draft articles of incorporation for an LLC.
“I’m just so interested in anything that gets me closer to an Iron Man suit,” said Adam Draper, the chief executive and founder of Boost VC. One of the companies that Boost has mentored or coached is Bagaveev, a start-up using 3-D printers to make rocket engines that launch nanosatellites, a type of satellite that may weigh as little as a couple of pounds, into orbit. “Social media’s already happened. V.C. funding is supposed to be about funding what comes next.”
Transatomic Power, founded in 2011 by nuclear scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is in the early stages of developing small-scale molten-salt reactors that could generate reliable, clean energy without creating nuclear waste. The technology is from the 1960s, but Transatomic Power is developing new designs, using its financing to run tests on materials and models. The start-up would need far more funding, or a partner, to start building the reactors.
“The world needs a source of stable, cheap electricity, and a new approach to nuclear power would seem like an obvious solution,” said Leslie Dewan, a co-founder and the chief executive of Transatomic Power. “But it’s tricky getting $300 million from investors,” she said. “Maybe we need to build an iPhone app.”
Vestaron, a pesticide company started in 2001, has similarly lofty goals in agriculture and food, a specialty basking in newfound attention from Silicon Valley. Vestaron says its spider-venom insecticide controls beetles, caterpillars and other pests without harming other animals. The insecticide, the company says, reduces agriculture’s environmental footprint, makes work safer for agricultural laborers and overcomes the resistance pests have built up to other pesticides over the years.
This year, the Environmental Protection Agency approved the active ingredient Vestaron derives from the venom, giving the start-up the go-ahead to sell its pesticide commercially to vegetable and greenhouse farmers in 2015. Vestaron, which has a target of $1 million in sales in the first year, will use the latest round of financing to introduce its products to farmers, and eventually to home and garden uses, Mr. Sorenson, Vestaron’s chief, said.
But even when science start-ups attract money, they are pressured from the beginning to think about profit.
For Xcor Aerospace in Mojave, Calif., that meant putting aside its long-term goals of building suborbital space planes and focusing instead on developing rocket-engine igniters to sell to NASA and aerospace companies. With a steady stream of income, Xcor was able to put the engine on the back of an experimental aircraft to test its space plane concept. After raising $14.2 million in May through the Space Angels Network, a group of angel investors in the aerospace field, Xcor is finally putting together its plane’s fuselage.
“They knew that you couldn’t come and ask for a billion dollars to build a space plane,” said Chad Anderson, a managing director for the Space Angels Network. “So what they started with was the smallest component they could make that had commercial value.”
Bagaveev can only dream of that kind of money. It raised just $535,000 in seed funding in April from a group of investors to develop reusable launchers that can send a satellite weighing up to 22 pounds into space — a technology that Nadir Bagaveyev, the company’s founder and chief executive, says will help open outer space to small companies that cannot afford multimillion-dollar satellites.
“We’re like the UPS of space,” Mr. Bagaveyev said. “You bring it to us, and we promise to bring it up within a week to a month.”
Bagaveev will use the seed money, Mr. Bagaveyev said, to try to prove that his idea has potential. The start-up is planning its first test launch at the end of the year, and Mr. Bagaveyev hopes that will help the company attract more investment.
“We’ll show what we’re capable of, and then we’ll be back for more investment,” he said. “I think investors are bored with investing in another messaging app. And our idea is crazy enough that it might just work.”
Vestaron makes an eco-friendly pesticide derived from spider venom. Bagaveev uses 3-D printers to make rocket engines for nanosatellites. Transatomic Power is developing a next-generation reactor that runs on nuclear waste.
They all have one thing in common: money from Silicon Valley venture capitalists. An Atlanta Business Formation Lawyer has experience assisting clients in every aspect of forming their business, from obtaining start up seed money to contract preparation.
After years of shying away from science, engineering and clean-technology start-ups, investors are beginning to take an interest in them again, raising hopes among entrepreneurs in those areas that a long slump is finally over. But these start-ups face intense pressure to prove that their science can turn a profit more quickly than hot tech companies like Snapchat and Uber.
In August, the Founders Fund, which has backed social networks like Facebook and Yammer and the streaming-music service Spotify, announced a $2 million investment in Transatomic Power of Cambridge, Mass. Days earlier, Y Combinator, known for aiding web and mobile-app start-ups like the social news site Reddit and the game maker Omgpop, took part in a $1.5 million early investment in Helion Energy, which is developing an engine powered by nuclear fusion. An Atlanta Business Startup Lawyer has experience assisting clients with new business ventures.
And last month, Google said it was buying Lift Labs, a San Francisco biotechnology start-up that makes a high-tech spoon for people with hand tremors.
“We’re trying to revolutionize pesticides,” said John Sorenson, a former genetics researcher and Vestaron’s chief executive, who for years struggled to find investors as he watched other start-ups, like Snapchat and Square, raise many millions of dollars. Vestaron finally closed its third round of financing last month. “Thankfully, venture funders are starting to invest again in real, hard-core science and innovation,” Mr. Sorenson said. A Boston Business Lawyer has experience assisting business clients create an effective path to success in any business situation.
Over all, industrial and energy start-ups attracted $1.24 billion in venture capital financing in the first half of 2014, more than twice as much as in the period a year earlier, according to statistics from the National Venture Capital Association. Still, investment remains well below peaks reached in 2008, when industrial and energy start-ups attracted $4.64 billion.
Investment in biotechnology start-ups rose 26 percent in the first half of 2014, to $2.93 billion, from the period a year earlier and is on track to exceed the 2008 peak of $5.14 billion.
The investments are still dwarfed by the money pouring into other kinds of technology companies, especially those offering web and mobile services. Software start-ups attracted $11.2 billion in venture capital financing last year, 85 percent more than in 2008.
Investors partly feel betrayed by the billions of dollars they lost on the clean-tech boom and bust, when backers of solar panels, algae biofuels and futuristic batteries promised to change the world, but the companies mostly flopped. That experience has made investors wary of science-based start-ups with long development timelines in still nascent or heavily regulated markets.
But there is a growing feeling, investors say, that Silicon Valley has been avoiding the world’s more difficult problems, a sentiment captured by a Founders Fund motto: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
That unease is compounded by a sense that the field of consumer Internet companies has become impossibly crowded. To succeed, investors say, a company must break away from the pack. Many startup businesses in Tennessee are working with Alan Crone a Memphis lawyer to provide business formation contracts and draft articles of incorporation for an LLC.
“I’m just so interested in anything that gets me closer to an Iron Man suit,” said Adam Draper, the chief executive and founder of Boost VC. One of the companies that Boost has mentored or coached is Bagaveev, a start-up using 3-D printers to make rocket engines that launch nanosatellites, a type of satellite that may weigh as little as a couple of pounds, into orbit. “Social media’s already happened. V.C. funding is supposed to be about funding what comes next.”
Transatomic Power, founded in 2011 by nuclear scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is in the early stages of developing small-scale molten-salt reactors that could generate reliable, clean energy without creating nuclear waste. The technology is from the 1960s, but Transatomic Power is developing new designs, using its financing to run tests on materials and models. The start-up would need far more funding, or a partner, to start building the reactors.
“The world needs a source of stable, cheap electricity, and a new approach to nuclear power would seem like an obvious solution,” said Leslie Dewan, a co-founder and the chief executive of Transatomic Power. “But it’s tricky getting $300 million from investors,” she said. “Maybe we need to build an iPhone app.”
Vestaron, a pesticide company started in 2001, has similarly lofty goals in agriculture and food, a specialty basking in newfound attention from Silicon Valley. Vestaron says its spider-venom insecticide controls beetles, caterpillars and other pests without harming other animals. The insecticide, the company says, reduces agriculture’s environmental footprint, makes work safer for agricultural laborers and overcomes the resistance pests have built up to other pesticides over the years.
This year, the Environmental Protection Agency approved the active ingredient Vestaron derives from the venom, giving the start-up the go-ahead to sell its pesticide commercially to vegetable and greenhouse farmers in 2015. Vestaron, which has a target of $1 million in sales in the first year, will use the latest round of financing to introduce its products to farmers, and eventually to home and garden uses, Mr. Sorenson, Vestaron’s chief, said.
But even when science start-ups attract money, they are pressured from the beginning to think about profit.
For Xcor Aerospace in Mojave, Calif., that meant putting aside its long-term goals of building suborbital space planes and focusing instead on developing rocket-engine igniters to sell to NASA and aerospace companies. With a steady stream of income, Xcor was able to put the engine on the back of an experimental aircraft to test its space plane concept. After raising $14.2 million in May through the Space Angels Network, a group of angel investors in the aerospace field, Xcor is finally putting together its plane’s fuselage.
“They knew that you couldn’t come and ask for a billion dollars to build a space plane,” said Chad Anderson, a managing director for the Space Angels Network. “So what they started with was the smallest component they could make that had commercial value.”
Bagaveev can only dream of that kind of money. It raised just $535,000 in seed funding in April from a group of investors to develop reusable launchers that can send a satellite weighing up to 22 pounds into space — a technology that Nadir Bagaveyev, the company’s founder and chief executive, says will help open outer space to small companies that cannot afford multimillion-dollar satellites.
“We’re like the UPS of space,” Mr. Bagaveyev said. “You bring it to us, and we promise to bring it up within a week to a month.”
Bagaveev will use the seed money, Mr. Bagaveyev said, to try to prove that his idea has potential. The start-up is planning its first test launch at the end of the year, and Mr. Bagaveyev hopes that will help the company attract more investment.
“We’ll show what we’re capable of, and then we’ll be back for more investment,” he said. “I think investors are bored with investing in another messaging app. And our idea is crazy enough that it might just work.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
HACKERS’ ATTACK CRACKED 10 COMPANIES IN MAJOR ASSAULT
Original Story: nytimes.com
The huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase that touched more than 83 million households and businesses was one of the most serious computer intrusions into an American corporation. But it could have been much worse.
Questions over who the hackers are and the approach of their attack concern government and industry officials. Also troubling is that about nine other financial institutions — a number that has not been previously reported — were also infiltrated by the same group of overseas hackers, according to people briefed on the matter. The hackers are thought to be operating from Russia and appear to have at least loose connections with officials of the Russian government, the people briefed on the matter said. An Atlanta Intellectual Property Lawyer assist clients in protecting their intellectual property and exclusive technologies.
It is unclear whether the other intrusions, at banks and brokerage firms, were as deep as the one that JPMorgan disclosed on Thursday. The identities of the other institutions could not be immediately learned. A Boston Intellectual Property Lawyer has experience in protecting the intellectual property assets of their clients.
The breadth of the attacks — and the lack of clarity about whether it was an effort to steal from accounts or to demonstrate that the hackers could penetrate even the best-protected American financial institutions — has left Washington intelligence officials and policy makers far more concerned than they have let on publicly. Some American officials speculate that the breach was intended to send a message to Wall Street and the United States about the vulnerability of the digital network of one of the world’s most important banking institutions. A Boston Business Lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
“It could be in retaliation for the sanctions” placed on Russia, one senior official briefed on the intelligence said. “But it could be mixed motives — to steal if they can, or to sell whatever information they could glean.”
Ways to Protect Yourself After the JPMorgan Hacking
The JPMorgan hackers burrowed into the digital network of the bank and went down a path that gave them access to information about the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of account holders. They never made it into where the more critical financial information and personal information are stored.
The bank’s security team, which first discovered the attack in late July, managed to block the hackers before they could compromise the most sensitive information about tens of millions of JPMorgan customers, said several security experts and others briefed on the matter. The attack was not completely halted until the middle of August and it was only in recent days that the bank began to tally its full extent.
American officials say they have been working with JPMorgan since the intrusion was detected, chiefly through the Treasury, the Secret Service and intelligence agencies that seek to find the source of the attacks. But that is slow work and one official cautioned against leaping to conclusions about the identities or the motives of the attackers.
“We’ve been wrong before,” he said.
JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, has begun contacting customers and making clear that no money was taken from any accounts. There has been no evidence of any fraudulent use of customer information. Most of the household accounts belong to United States residents. The hackers ended up with the addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of everyone who logged into JPMorgan’s websites and mobile applications in the recent past.
Still, the recent attacks on the financial firms raise the possibility that the banks may not be up to the job of defending themselves. The attacks will also stoke questions about regulations governing when companies must inform regulators and their customers about a breach.
“It was a huge surprise that they were able to compromise a huge bank like JPMorgan,” said Al Pascual, a security analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research. “It scared the pants off many people.”
Several financial regulators have warned that a coordinated attack on the banking system could set off another financial crisis.
On Friday, George Jepsen, the Connecticut attorney general, opened an investigation into the breach at JPMorgan, while Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s top financial regulator, began calling bank officials to warn them to take the threat more seriously.
“There needs to be far more urgency,” Mr. Lawsky said in an interview.
JPMorgan has also been working with law enforcement, including the F.B.I., since shortly after detecting the intrusion, which affected about 90 of the bank’s computer servers. The bank said it believed that its systems were now secure and that the threat of the hackers’ returning was over.
“To date, we have not seen any unusual fraud activity related to this incident,” said Kristin Lemkau, a bank spokeswoman. “We have identified and closed the known access paths. We have no evidence that the attackers are still in our system. We have apologized to our customers.”
But much remains unanswered about the intrusion, including just who the hackers are, which other financial institutions were hit and why the hackers went down a path inside JPMorgan’s computer system that contained troves of customer information, but not financial data.
The intrusion also highlights a possible gap in United States regulations. Banks are not required to report data breaches and online intrusions unless the incident is deemed to have resulted in a financial loss to customers. Breach notification laws differ by state, but most laws require only that companies disclose a breach if customer names were stolen in conjunction with other information like a credit card, Social Security number or driver’s license number.
In some states, companies can wait up to a month to inform customers of a breach. Other state laws are more vague.
In California, for example, banks, companies and large organizations must inform the state attorney general’s office and consumers about a breach without unreasonable delay — a rule that some companies interpret liberally, officials say. This year, Kamala Harris, the California attorney general, sued the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, saying that it took four months for the foundation to disclose to some employees that their personal information may have been compromised.
For years, there have been attempts in Congress to force companies to inform customers more quickly when their information has been compromised, but recent bills have failed to muster enough support. One bill, sponsored by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would create a clearinghouse where companies could exchange information about attacks.
United States bank executives say privately that they already share intelligence informally about attacks, which are occurring frequently on their systems.
This summer, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew called on Congress to pass legislation that he said would bolster the information sharing process.
“As it stands, our laws do not do enough to foster information sharing and defend the public from digital threats,” Mr. Lew said.
That the hackers were apparently able to move around JPMorgan’s computer system undetected for several weeks is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the recent breach, officials at other large banks say.
The hackers were able to attain high administrative privileges within JPMorgan’s network, rooting more than 90 servers and rummaging through customer databases with detailed information for 76 million households and seven million small-business online accounts.
As they looked around, according to one person with knowledge of the breach, the hackers gleaned some critical details of customers’ accounts. With these, the hackers were able to determine whether the accounts fell within the private bank or in other business categories like mortgages.
Some people briefed on the results of the attack contend that it was only a matter of time before attackers could have gained access to customer funds and critical personal data.
Weeks into the attack, in mid-July, unusual behavior on the bank’s network was spotted, and the attackers were stopped before they had a chance to pull any customer data back to their servers abroad.
But they did make off with one file which has unnerved executives. That file contained a list of every application and program deployed on standard JPMorgan computers that hackers can crosscheck with known, or new, vulnerabilities in each system in a search for a backdoor entry.
Swapping out those programs is costly and time-consuming, people say, because the bank would have to renegotiate licensing deals with technology suppliers and swap out programs and applications for hundreds of thousands of bank employees.
As one former employee explained: “It’s as if they stole the schematics to the Capitol — they can’t just switch out every single door and window pane overnight.”
The attack came after a recent turnover within JPMorgan’s information security group.
A number of staff members followed Frank Bisignano, JPMorgan’s former co-chief operating officer, to First Data last year. This year, First Data agreed to pay JPMorgan over accusations that by wooing other executives to the payment processor, Mr. Bisignano had violated the terms of his former employment contract.
By then, First Data had already hired JPMorgan’s chief information officer, Guy Chiarello; its cybersecurity czar, Anthony Belfiore; its head of compliance, Cindy Armine; and Tom Higgins, JPMorgan’s head of operation control.
Anish Bhimani, the bank’s chief information risk officer, remained. Mr. Bhimani, who is well respected in the cybersecurity industry, is a co-author of a 1996 book on cybersecurity, “Internet Security for Business.”
Ms. Lemkau said the bank was pleased with its current cybersecurity personnel. “This is the highest-quality team we have ever had,” she said.
Last December, JPMorgan hired Dana Deasy as chief information officer from BP. Greg Rattray, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel who specialized in cyberdefense was named the head of information security in June.
Challenges quickly followed. That same month, hackers found a way into the bank’s systems.
The huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase that touched more than 83 million households and businesses was one of the most serious computer intrusions into an American corporation. But it could have been much worse.
Questions over who the hackers are and the approach of their attack concern government and industry officials. Also troubling is that about nine other financial institutions — a number that has not been previously reported — were also infiltrated by the same group of overseas hackers, according to people briefed on the matter. The hackers are thought to be operating from Russia and appear to have at least loose connections with officials of the Russian government, the people briefed on the matter said. An Atlanta Intellectual Property Lawyer assist clients in protecting their intellectual property and exclusive technologies.
It is unclear whether the other intrusions, at banks and brokerage firms, were as deep as the one that JPMorgan disclosed on Thursday. The identities of the other institutions could not be immediately learned. A Boston Intellectual Property Lawyer has experience in protecting the intellectual property assets of their clients.
The breadth of the attacks — and the lack of clarity about whether it was an effort to steal from accounts or to demonstrate that the hackers could penetrate even the best-protected American financial institutions — has left Washington intelligence officials and policy makers far more concerned than they have let on publicly. Some American officials speculate that the breach was intended to send a message to Wall Street and the United States about the vulnerability of the digital network of one of the world’s most important banking institutions. A Boston Business Lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
“It could be in retaliation for the sanctions” placed on Russia, one senior official briefed on the intelligence said. “But it could be mixed motives — to steal if they can, or to sell whatever information they could glean.”
Ways to Protect Yourself After the JPMorgan Hacking
The JPMorgan hackers burrowed into the digital network of the bank and went down a path that gave them access to information about the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of account holders. They never made it into where the more critical financial information and personal information are stored.
The bank’s security team, which first discovered the attack in late July, managed to block the hackers before they could compromise the most sensitive information about tens of millions of JPMorgan customers, said several security experts and others briefed on the matter. The attack was not completely halted until the middle of August and it was only in recent days that the bank began to tally its full extent.
American officials say they have been working with JPMorgan since the intrusion was detected, chiefly through the Treasury, the Secret Service and intelligence agencies that seek to find the source of the attacks. But that is slow work and one official cautioned against leaping to conclusions about the identities or the motives of the attackers.
“We’ve been wrong before,” he said.
JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, has begun contacting customers and making clear that no money was taken from any accounts. There has been no evidence of any fraudulent use of customer information. Most of the household accounts belong to United States residents. The hackers ended up with the addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of everyone who logged into JPMorgan’s websites and mobile applications in the recent past.
Still, the recent attacks on the financial firms raise the possibility that the banks may not be up to the job of defending themselves. The attacks will also stoke questions about regulations governing when companies must inform regulators and their customers about a breach.
“It was a huge surprise that they were able to compromise a huge bank like JPMorgan,” said Al Pascual, a security analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research. “It scared the pants off many people.”
Several financial regulators have warned that a coordinated attack on the banking system could set off another financial crisis.
On Friday, George Jepsen, the Connecticut attorney general, opened an investigation into the breach at JPMorgan, while Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s top financial regulator, began calling bank officials to warn them to take the threat more seriously.
“There needs to be far more urgency,” Mr. Lawsky said in an interview.
JPMorgan has also been working with law enforcement, including the F.B.I., since shortly after detecting the intrusion, which affected about 90 of the bank’s computer servers. The bank said it believed that its systems were now secure and that the threat of the hackers’ returning was over.
“To date, we have not seen any unusual fraud activity related to this incident,” said Kristin Lemkau, a bank spokeswoman. “We have identified and closed the known access paths. We have no evidence that the attackers are still in our system. We have apologized to our customers.”
But much remains unanswered about the intrusion, including just who the hackers are, which other financial institutions were hit and why the hackers went down a path inside JPMorgan’s computer system that contained troves of customer information, but not financial data.
The intrusion also highlights a possible gap in United States regulations. Banks are not required to report data breaches and online intrusions unless the incident is deemed to have resulted in a financial loss to customers. Breach notification laws differ by state, but most laws require only that companies disclose a breach if customer names were stolen in conjunction with other information like a credit card, Social Security number or driver’s license number.
In some states, companies can wait up to a month to inform customers of a breach. Other state laws are more vague.
In California, for example, banks, companies and large organizations must inform the state attorney general’s office and consumers about a breach without unreasonable delay — a rule that some companies interpret liberally, officials say. This year, Kamala Harris, the California attorney general, sued the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, saying that it took four months for the foundation to disclose to some employees that their personal information may have been compromised.
For years, there have been attempts in Congress to force companies to inform customers more quickly when their information has been compromised, but recent bills have failed to muster enough support. One bill, sponsored by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would create a clearinghouse where companies could exchange information about attacks.
United States bank executives say privately that they already share intelligence informally about attacks, which are occurring frequently on their systems.
This summer, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew called on Congress to pass legislation that he said would bolster the information sharing process.
“As it stands, our laws do not do enough to foster information sharing and defend the public from digital threats,” Mr. Lew said.
That the hackers were apparently able to move around JPMorgan’s computer system undetected for several weeks is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the recent breach, officials at other large banks say.
The hackers were able to attain high administrative privileges within JPMorgan’s network, rooting more than 90 servers and rummaging through customer databases with detailed information for 76 million households and seven million small-business online accounts.
As they looked around, according to one person with knowledge of the breach, the hackers gleaned some critical details of customers’ accounts. With these, the hackers were able to determine whether the accounts fell within the private bank or in other business categories like mortgages.
Some people briefed on the results of the attack contend that it was only a matter of time before attackers could have gained access to customer funds and critical personal data.
Weeks into the attack, in mid-July, unusual behavior on the bank’s network was spotted, and the attackers were stopped before they had a chance to pull any customer data back to their servers abroad.
But they did make off with one file which has unnerved executives. That file contained a list of every application and program deployed on standard JPMorgan computers that hackers can crosscheck with known, or new, vulnerabilities in each system in a search for a backdoor entry.
Swapping out those programs is costly and time-consuming, people say, because the bank would have to renegotiate licensing deals with technology suppliers and swap out programs and applications for hundreds of thousands of bank employees.
As one former employee explained: “It’s as if they stole the schematics to the Capitol — they can’t just switch out every single door and window pane overnight.”
The attack came after a recent turnover within JPMorgan’s information security group.
A number of staff members followed Frank Bisignano, JPMorgan’s former co-chief operating officer, to First Data last year. This year, First Data agreed to pay JPMorgan over accusations that by wooing other executives to the payment processor, Mr. Bisignano had violated the terms of his former employment contract.
By then, First Data had already hired JPMorgan’s chief information officer, Guy Chiarello; its cybersecurity czar, Anthony Belfiore; its head of compliance, Cindy Armine; and Tom Higgins, JPMorgan’s head of operation control.
Anish Bhimani, the bank’s chief information risk officer, remained. Mr. Bhimani, who is well respected in the cybersecurity industry, is a co-author of a 1996 book on cybersecurity, “Internet Security for Business.”
Ms. Lemkau said the bank was pleased with its current cybersecurity personnel. “This is the highest-quality team we have ever had,” she said.
Last December, JPMorgan hired Dana Deasy as chief information officer from BP. Greg Rattray, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel who specialized in cyberdefense was named the head of information security in June.
Challenges quickly followed. That same month, hackers found a way into the bank’s systems.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
SECRETS OF A TRULY SUCCESSFUL BOARD PITCH
Original Story: bbc.com
One of the most frequent questions I get asked when people hear I sit on company boards isn’t about executive pay packages. Instead, they want to know how to present to a board so its members will say yes.
The question always calls to mind a presentation that went wrong. Several years ago, a rather dandified fellow from inside a company gave a presentation to a board I sat on. He was snide at times, made several off-colour jokes, winked at board members and made his political leanings clear with side remarks about the government of the day. When he didn’t know the answers to questions we asked, he tried to fob them off as irrelevant.
When the chair finally ended the presentation, we looked at each other in disbelief. We weren’t just unsure about the proposal, but also unsure of the person who brought the proposal. I think you can guess how we voted.
Don’t let this be you. A Boston Employment Lawyer agrees.
People present to corporate boards for many reasons—they could be suggesting a new direction for the company, explaining a complex legal issue that needs to be decided quickly, or simply giving an update on an on-going project. But boards come in all shapes and sizes, be they school boards, neighbourhood watch boards, apartment boards, non-profit boards, employee committees.
No matter the context, the principles of presenting to decision making bodies are the same, and getting it right is crucial. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, so long as you keep some guidelines in mind. Here are nine do’s and six don’ts of being effective:
Board Presentations Do’s:
Board Presentations Don’ts:
Clear, Concise, and to the Point
Think of your presentation as a memo, not a novel. Board members thrive on facts presented in a clear concise manner. Even if you leave your presentation without getting the answer yes you hoped for, you will at least leave the people at the table with a good impression of you. And that will go a long way if you come back to the board with a revised proposal.
Give it a go and let me know if it helped, and if you know someone who preparing to give a presentation, clip this and send it to them. Chances are not only will they be grateful, but so will the board members who hear the presentation.
One of the most frequent questions I get asked when people hear I sit on company boards isn’t about executive pay packages. Instead, they want to know how to present to a board so its members will say yes.
The question always calls to mind a presentation that went wrong. Several years ago, a rather dandified fellow from inside a company gave a presentation to a board I sat on. He was snide at times, made several off-colour jokes, winked at board members and made his political leanings clear with side remarks about the government of the day. When he didn’t know the answers to questions we asked, he tried to fob them off as irrelevant.
When the chair finally ended the presentation, we looked at each other in disbelief. We weren’t just unsure about the proposal, but also unsure of the person who brought the proposal. I think you can guess how we voted.
Don’t let this be you. A Boston Employment Lawyer agrees.
People present to corporate boards for many reasons—they could be suggesting a new direction for the company, explaining a complex legal issue that needs to be decided quickly, or simply giving an update on an on-going project. But boards come in all shapes and sizes, be they school boards, neighbourhood watch boards, apartment boards, non-profit boards, employee committees.
No matter the context, the principles of presenting to decision making bodies are the same, and getting it right is crucial. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, so long as you keep some guidelines in mind. Here are nine do’s and six don’ts of being effective:
Board Presentations Do’s:
- Know what you are walking into. Board meetings are often jam packed with a long agenda. In the past couple of months I’ve been in meetings that have lasted up to 8 hours, covering up to 20 topics. Your topic is special to you, but you have a finite amount of time to get essential information across.
- Do your homework. Who is on the board? What is their background? It helps to be able to tailor the presentation when applicable, so you are not telling them things they already know, nor assuming knowledge they might not have. An Atlanta Business Lawyer has experience drafting corporate documents.
- Send documents in plenty of time. I try to ensure board members get their papers at least a week in advance. If there’s a deadline, meet it with several days to spare in case there is feedback before it goes to the board. Please don't "surprise" us, as in "I didn't provide the papers in advance because I wanted to keep you in suspense". This isn't an Agatha Christie novel, it’s a board meeting. Give us the tools we need to make a decision.
- Know in advance how much time you have. Do not go over your allotment. If the chair feels more time is warranted, he or she will extend it. Make sure to leave plenty of time for questions.
- Ask how the board would like the information presented. For example, ask the chair, "shall I present the whole thing or hit the high points?". Another approach: suggest that you "take the papers as already read". That means you presume that everyone has reviewed the documents you sent in advance, and you will just address the most important points and avoid repeating every detail.
- Be prepared. Be professional. Be concise. Board members will judge the content of your presentation, but also the confidence with which you deliver it. A Boston Business Lawyer can provide legal advice for a variety of business matters.
- Stay calm and answer the question asked. If you don't know the answer, don't get flustered, defensive or try to fake it. Instead, promise to come back with the answer as swiftly as possible. Then follow through quickly. Also, and this is really important, don’t get thrown off if you get a lot of hard questions. If we didn’t think your proposal had merit we wouldn't bother with questions, we'd simply say no. Board members ask questions differently — some meander, others get straight to it. No matter the style, stay even-tempered and answer clearly and concisely. Also, don't give attitude about questions you think are "dumb" or obvious — we are doing our job. Often the most interesting or important information comes from seemingly simplistic questions.
- Be clear and concise about the outcome. If there is a decision to be taken by the end of your presentation, make sure the options are very clear. It never hurts to state the options up front, explain them, and then present the options again.
- End with grace. When it is time for you to go, say thanks and leave. Don’t linger.
Board Presentations Don’ts:
- You may be kept waiting — don’t complain. Meetings can run late depending on the agenda. If it is a closed door meeting you’ll be kept waiting outside. If not, you’ll be there watching other people presenting, or listening to debates on other agenda items. Don't under any circumstances grumble about it, as it will taint the room's view of your presentation before it even starts. A cheerful "no problem" goes a long way.
- Don’t bore us. I recently sat through a report that essentially told everyone in the room something we all already knew. The presenter quickly lost our attention. Even worse, we had all mentally checked out by the time he’d gotten to the "ask".
- Don’t lobby. Your presentation is not an opportunity to take the stand on other areas. If you are there to talk about upgrading the IT infrastructure, throwing in a “while I’m here I’d like to make a pitch for better parking facilities” is not helpful to you or us.
- Don't use jargon. We are not necessarily experts in your field. Use clear language that everyone around the table will understand. The first time out, explain what you mean by ESG, grok, and API, otherwise it just sounds like a string of nonsensical letters and words. Try to avoid overblown statements — a “complete sea change” better be pretty big. Also trend-driven words that will make people roll their eyes. “Thinkfluencer” comes to mind.
- We are not all the same — don’t air your bias and political inclinations. With any luck the group around the table is a diverse one, with diverse opinions. Off-colour jokes and political comments have no place in your presentation and could offend the very people you are trying to persuade.
- Don’t go over the top with bells and whistles. There’s no need to pass out flowers or an entertaining video unless it is directly related to the topic. Useful: “Here is a sample of what we are talking about.” Strange: “Here is a flower for all you lovely people.” And yes, I was in a meeting where someone once handed out flowers to “all the lovely lady board members”.
Clear, Concise, and to the Point
Think of your presentation as a memo, not a novel. Board members thrive on facts presented in a clear concise manner. Even if you leave your presentation without getting the answer yes you hoped for, you will at least leave the people at the table with a good impression of you. And that will go a long way if you come back to the board with a revised proposal.
Give it a go and let me know if it helped, and if you know someone who preparing to give a presentation, clip this and send it to them. Chances are not only will they be grateful, but so will the board members who hear the presentation.
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