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Yashica Vashishtha

Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.

Ben Silbermann : The Co-founder of World’s Largest Professional Community

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A believer of persistence and continuous hard work, Ben Silbermann, is an American billionaire Internet entrepreneur and one of the three co-founders of Pinterest. Silbermann would have never thought that his childhood habit of collecting things, like bugs, postal stamps and baseball cards, will make him a billionaire one day. The photo sharing and pinning them onto a pinning board, on Pinterest, isn’t different from his old hobby of collecting things. And now, Pinterest has become one of the most used social media platforms that boast over 20 million users worldwide.

Early Life

Silbermann was born on 14 July 1982. He was a native of Des Moines, living with his parents Jane Wang and Neil Silbermann, both of whom were ophthalmologists. He did his schooling from Des Moines Central Academy and attended the Research Science Institute at MIT. When he was in school, he also went through a heart transplant surgery. In 2003, he received a graduate degree in political science from the Yale University.

Ben Silbermann
Image Source: Flickr

Career

After graduating, Silbermann got a chance to work with Google, as a member of the online advertising group. At the time, he became more interested in programming and conceived an idea of a startup. He discussed the matter with his friend and the future co-founder of Pinterest, Paul Sciarra, and quit his job. Sciarra started teaching Silbermann the basic programming, and both started working on an iOS app, Tote. Tote was a fail, and the two started thinking of a new idea that could help them with their startup.

Founding Pinterest

The two thought of creating an app that could help the people for keeping the necessary records in the phone, and see the things they wanted to see. The idea was great for the people who wanted to avoid filling up of their email accounts, with unnecessary catalogues. But, the timing of the idea was not that good, as at the same time the financial crisis had occurred, and nobody was ready to invest in technology startups.

Ben and Paul had meetings with many of the capitalists, but everybody was happy investing their money in gold. At last, Silbermann found out about a competition happening in NYU, which had a huge cash prize for the winners. Though the two won the second prize with no money, they were able to meet a few investors., one of whom was convinced to fund the half of the round, only if they could get the other half of the round.

Finally, they managed to arrange the money and started working on their startup project. Silbermann had met his third partner Evan Sharp, through a common friend, when Sharp was studying at the NYU. Evan and Silbermann shared a common interest of collecting things and wanted to create something related to it for their themselves.

In the startup project, Evan also joined hands with Silbermann, and in 2009, they started developing Pinterest. In March 2010, they launched the site as a closed beta, soon followed by the launch of an invitation-only open beta. Just within nine months of its launch, Pinterest had 10000 users, and in March 2011, the company launched an iPhone app. Silbermann contacted 5000 of Pinterest users, through letters, and even met a few of them in person, to receive feedback from them. Until the summer of 2011, the three founders of the company were operating the company from a small apartment.

In late October 2013, the website was valued at $3.8 billion. By October 2016, it had 150 million monthly active users, and in June 2017, Pinterest raised $150 million of funding from its investors.

Personal Life

Silbermann lives in San Francisco, California, with his wife Divya Bhaskaran and two children. Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.6 billion as of 2018. He was listed 12 among America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 (2016) and also got featured with Mark Zuckerberg on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2014).

The Six Best Gadgets of 2018 that became the Favourites of All

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2018 showcased a number of gadgets and devices, some of which failed badly and some of which were incredibly good at performance. Many gadgets gave the device goals, even to their rival companies along with tough competition. The year is coming to an end, and still, many companies are coming with their new ideas and launches. But as there are only a few days left for the new year, we are already set with our list of the 6 best gadgets of 2018.

best gadgets 2018
Image Source: gsmnation.com

Microsoft Surface Go: The Microsoft Surface Go is a ten inches netbook from Microsoft, which is not as powerful as much as a Windows desktop or laptop computer, but still is one of the best netbooks. The device ships with Windows 10, which is a plus point over the other tablets, as Windows is more versatile than iOS or Android. The device provides you with the facial recognition technique, Windows Hello and is faster than any other low price laptops. The device comes with a sleek keyboard, that also has a touchpad, that enables to move the cursor on the screen.

Fat Shark 101: Fat Shark 101 is a ready-to-fly FPV racer kit for the FPV pilots, that comes with a quadcopter, FPV Goggles and radio transmitter. As the name suggests, the Fat Shark 101’s design is similar to a shark, it even as a fin and a shark tail. The kit is based on three levels, beginners, intermediate and expert. It comes with brushed motors along with two extra brushed motors. The Fat Shark 101 is embedded with two batteries which can be easily charged via USB cables. The cost of the FPV kit is a bit on the expensive side, but still, its performance makes it worth that much.

Oculus Go: Oculus Go, a virtual reality headset from Oculus is a wireless standalone VR Box, that runs independently of a smartphone or PC. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, the VR box has got integrated speakers and microphones, along with a high-resolution fast-switch panel. Performance wise, it is as good as the Oculus Rift. It is a premium device, at an affordable price that still has not been launched in India, but can be ordered online through Amazon.

Bose Sleepbuds: As the name suggests, the Bose Sleepbuds are specially designed to eliminate the disruption and the noise with soothing sounds to help the user get to sleep. The beautifully designed earplugs are super comfortable and are able to mask the outer noise effectively. Though the device is at the higher end of the price, still the earplugs do its job of masking most sounds without damaging the hearing, perfectly.

Nikon Z7: The Nikon Z7 is one of the best-rounded cameras. The lightweight camera is as good as a Nikon DSLR shooter and provides the best quality for the videos as well as stills. It is the first full frame mirror-less camera from Nikon, having three lenses: a 24-70mm f4 ‘kit’ zoom, along with 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.8 primes. Although companies like Sony and Canon have already come with their mirror-less cameras much before than Nikon, the Nikon’s patience in launching its first has paid off as it has brought one of the best mirror-less cameras of 2018.

Apple Watch Series 4: Apple’s smartwatches have always been ahead of its contemporaries. The new Series 4 watch not only has a fantastic display, but it also supports many excellent features as well. The watch lets the users handle its calls and messages, and supports LTE. It also supports ECG. The smartwatch is extremely comfortable, and it also comes with the new Activity Competitions, that lets you stay motivated and challenge your friends.

Pinterest is Looking for Underwriters to Take the Company Public in 2019

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Uber and Lyft have already announced their initial public offering in 2019. After the IPO, the valuation of Uber could hit $120 billion, and Lyft may value over $30 billion. Following the footsteps of the two, now Pinterest is also about to enter the list of the companies which are planning their IPOs in the coming year.

pinterest
Image Source: wsj.com

Pinterest is a visual search engine and shopping tool, which earns money through ads inserted into its stream of ‘pins’. The evaluated revenue of the company for the year 2018 was evaluated to be $1 billion. In the month of September, the platform tracked 250 million monthly users. With 1.5 million businesses on the platform, the company may value at more than $12 billion after it goes public.

Currently, Pinterest is in talks with various banks and is looking for underwriters for its IPO. Also, according to the reports, Pinterest may hire the former Google and Alibaba exec Jane Penner as its head of investor relations.

Ben Silbermann, the CEO of Pinterest had already talked about the company going public in 2019 but had not confirmed the dates. Now if the reports are to be believed, the company will go public as soon as in April 2019.

Pinterest was founded in 2010 and is growing at its own pace following its own niche, way different to its contemporaries, Facebook and Instagram. The company currently is valued at between $13 billion to $15 billion, having 800+ employees. The year 2019 is going to be the year for the IPOs, as companies like Uber and Lyft have already registered for their IPOs in the early December, followed by Slack and Pinterest in the same queue.

Drew Houston : The Co-founder & the CEO of Dropbox

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Drew Houston is an American Internet billionaire entrepreneur, who co-founded the multi-billion company Dropbox at the mere age of 24. Once just an idea, now has more than 500 worldwide users subscribed to it. Houston a computer enthusiast, gives the credit of his success to his partner and co-founder of Dropbox, Arash Ferdowsi, and the education he received at MIT. In one of his speeches at MIT, he said that people should surround themselves with inspiring people. He said, “Surrounding yourself with inspiring people is now just as important as being talented or working hard.”

Drew Houston
Image Source: nytimes.com

Early Life

Houston was born on 4 March 1983, in Acton, Massachusetts. His father was an electrical engineer. Houston was a student at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. Initially, he was influenced by video games and had decided that he would become a video game tester. But as soon his father introduced him with programming, his focus diverted towards the computers. At the age of 14, while playing a video game, on his father’s Pcjr computer, he found a bug in the game and reported to the video game company, upon which he was offered a job at the same company. In 1990, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from where he earned a graduate degree in Computer Science.

Career & Founding Dropbox

Along with an offer for a job at the early age of 14, he had also been a part of many startups including Bit9, Accolade and Hubspot. Houston was still in college when he thought of developing Dropbox. He wrote the first line of code for Dropbox, while he was travelling on a bus, as he had forgotten his USB drive. At the time he was frustrated with his habit of forgetting and losing those USB flash drives all the time. So he conceived the idea of creating a cloud-based system for keeping the files in it. At first, he started working on the project for his personal use, but then he realised that the product could benefit other people too.

Houston released a video regarding the idea, his college mate Arash Ferdowsi being one of the viewers of it. Ferdowsi was really impressed by the idea and contacted Houston for partnership. From here the two started working on the project together.

In May 2007, Houston founded the parent company to Dropbox, Evenflow, Inc. In the same year, the company was able to get a seed funding from venture capitalists like Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Y Combinator. In 2008, the company launched Dropbox at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Within one year, Dropbox had more than 3 million registered users. By 2011, the number of users reached 50 million, and in March 2016, it had 500 million users.

During the evolution of the company, it also went through some successful acquisitions including TapEngage, Audiogalaxy, Snapjoy in 2012, Bubbli in 2014, CloudOn in 2015, etc. In 2011, the total revenue earned by the company was over $240 million. Dropbox is considered as one of the twenty best startups of Silicon Valley.

In February 2018, Dropbox filed an IPO to be listed on the Nasdaq.

Personal Life

Houston is a huge video game lover. He also likes to sing, and during the college, he was a part of ’90s cover band. Business Week named Houston as one of the most promising players aged 30 and under. He was also named among the top 30 under-30 entrepreneurs by inc.com.

AT&T’s 5G Network will Go Live in 12 Cities by the End of this Week

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AT&T has been prepping for the launch of its 5G network for a long time, followed by a conference early this month, in which it demoed the speed of its upcoming 5G network. After such a long wait, AT&T has announced that its 5G network will go live on 21 December, in some of the parts of 12 cities in the United States. AT&T has become the first company to launch a mobile network based on the 5G standard, although Verizon had also launched its first 5G network earlier this year, as a home broadband replacement.

5G-ATT
Images Source: GlobalMediaIT

Currently, the network is only available to a specific group of people. It’s not like you can go to a store and directly buy the hotspot from there. The company is mainly targetting to provide the service to the businesses in the area. There may be a strategy behind the idea, as the company might be still testing the network, and would want to assure that the service is working well before it goes out to more consumers. So the company is approaching the targeted clients by itself.

AT&T is offering a free 5G hotspot service to those companies, and won’t charge anything until the official launch. The company is planning to launch the network in the other parts of the world by the coming spring and will sell the hot spot for $499. It is also going to announce the monthly plan for the 5G network starting with $70 per month for 15GB.

The cities which have got the access to this 5G service are New Orleans, Charlotte, Atlanta, Raleigh, Houston, Indianapolis, Dallas, Louisville, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and Waco and the cities that may get access to the same service in the coming six months may include Nashville, Los Angeles, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Johe and San Francisco. Even though AT&T will expand to those cities, here too, only some specific parts of those cities will be able to use the 5G network.

AT&T has also announced that it will launch two Samsung 5G phones in 2019, in the two halves of the year. The company is also offering tempting deals for the early subscribers of the 5G network along with free access to it for at least 90 days.

5 Best Smartphones of the Year : Our Pick List for the 2018 Smartphones

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2018 had been a tough year for tech giants like Facebook and Google, especially due to the raised security concerns. But at the same time, the year had new inventions and launches, too, especially the launches of new smartphones, including the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. Many of the smartphones became the best sellers of the year, and many failed the expectations of its users.

2018-best-phone
Image Source: newatlas.com

After evaluating the specifications, performance and the selling rate of the smartphones, we are here with the top 5 smartphones that were incredibly good and will remain in the favourite’s list of its users in 2019, too.

Google Pixel 3: The Google Pixel 3 was launched in October 2018. The phone is a real challenge for the new iPhones with its impressive features at such a price. The phone ships with a 12.2-megapixel primary rear camera and with two selfie cameras, one for the normal selfie and the other for a wide-angle selfie. Both the front cameras are of 8 megapixels. With excellent build, the phone is a pure Android device, embedded with all the latest software updates. The smartphone has a 5.8-inch OLED display with a 2,260 x 1,080-pixel resolution. The outstanding camera and the unique A.I. features, of this phone, made Google Pixel 3 top our best 2018 smartphones list.

iPhone XS: An elite phone having not much upgrade to the iPhone X, iPhone XS is the most-awaited device for the iPhone lovers. The excellent camera quality and the top-notch performance of the phone is everything a user demands at such a price. The high range of the price does complete justice with its attractive design, outstanding camera and faster processor.

OnePlus 6T: The OnePlus series has been around for a couple of years now and are continuously surprising its users with its performance. The latest addition to the series was the OnePlus 6T phone, that was also launched in October 2018. As soon as the phone arrived it was in the list of the best sellers. The 6.41-inch display phone provides you with the resolution of 1080×2340 pixels. The phone is known for its excellent dual rear camera (16-megapixel and 20-megapixel ), and a 16-megapixel front camera.

Samsung Galaxy S9: The Samsung Galaxy S9 was released in the early March of this year. The phone is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. It has a beautiful sleek design (similar to the early phones in this series) and is high on performance, too. The latest features added to the phone are facial recognition and biometric security, wireless charging as well as the water resistance. The phone has a 5.8-inch display with a Super AMOLED panel, providing resolution of 1440×2960. Its high performance makes it one of the most powerful Android phones of 2018.

LG V40: The LG V40. The smartphone is one of the best smartphones built by LG. The smartphone renders the best performance, outstanding camera quality, best display and certainly a beautiful and sleek design. The phone has a 6.4-inch QHD+ OLED Display and offers a resolution of 3120×1440. It is the first phone having the wide angle (16MP) and the telephoto lens (12MP) rear camera, together. It supports the wireless charging for its 3,300 mAh non-removable battery. The phone is already out in the markets outside India, and release date for the phone in India is 26 December. So even being a 2018 phone, it will be the newest for the year 2019.