Daily Archives: May 27, 2021

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has convened a special grand jury to decide whether to indict former President Donald Trump or executives at his company, the Washington Post reported Tuesday afternoon. Vance has been investigating Trumps business practices before he was president for more than two years. And the impaneling of a grand jury suggests that the wide-ranging probe is entering its final stages and that New York prosecutors believe they have found evidence of a crime.

Heres what we know about the case so far.

President Trump in January 2019. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

When did the probe start?

Vances criminal investigation began in 2018 after Trumps former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and making hush-money payments on the eve of the 2016 election to women who said they'd had affairs with Trump. The probe soon expanded to include the Trump Organization's business dealings, with investigators scrutinizing Trumps real estate portfolio to determine whether the company illegally manipulated the value of its properties or committed tax fraud.

What does a grand jury actually do?

When a grand jury is called, it meets in private with prosecutors to review evidence and hear witness testimony in order to determine whether theres evidence of a crime. The reason its done in private is so that witnesses can speak freely without potential harm to their reputations if prosecutors dont move forward with an indictment.

It's unclear exactly how many people are on this particular panel, but grand juries in New York have between 16 and 23 members. Grand juries dont meet every day. In this case, it will meet three days a week for about six months, according to the Post, and will be hearing evidence in other cases as well.

Trump arrives to speak to reporters in the White House Briefing Room, April 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

What does this mean for Trump?

Its unclear. Because the criminal probe into the former president and his business is believed to be wide-ranging from alleged tax fraud to hush-money payments its not clear what this grand jury will be focusing on specifically. Fraud cases, though, are especially hard to prosecute because they need to prove direct knowledge and intent.

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"This doesn't mean that they are going to indict Donald Trump," former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman said on CNN. "Fraud cases are hard. He has what would be perceived as an advice-of-counsel defense to some of the fraud charges. And he doesn't email, so we know that there isn't going to be a lot of documentary evidence that demonstrates Donald Trump's knowledge of any misrepresentations."

Who else from Trumpworld is involved?

The Washington Post previously reported that Vances office has been trying to pressure Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organizations longtime chief financial officer, into cooperating against his boss. Its unclear if Weisselberg has already flipped, or whether the grand jury was impaneled in part to coax him into cooperating with investigators.

Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York in 2017. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images/File)

What does Trump himself have to say?

The former president called Vances case the continuation of a witch hunt that began when he announced his run for president in 2015.

It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and its never stopped, Trump said in a statement posted to his website. They wasted two years and $48 million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information."

This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and its being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors, he added. New York City and State are suffering the highest crime rates in their history, and instead of going after murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, they come after Donald Trump.

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What we know about the grand jury in Trump probe - Yahoo News

As vaccinations increase and the reopening continues, the battered travel industry is getting back in the air. But unsurprisingly, the recovery is once again K-shaped some sub-sectors are doing much better than others.

According to Jefferies senior research analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu, total U.S. airline traffic is around 40% of what it was at the same time in 2019. But the difference between destinations is stark: international is down 67% and domestic is only 22% lower.

"International is still quite weak," Kahyaoglu told Yahoo Finance Live.

Because of this, domestic airlines like Southwest (LUV) have been seeing much better numbers compared to the larger airlines that fly broader routes out of the country. This appears to be somewhat of consensus right now, due to the discrepancies of the U.S. vaccination campaigns versus the rest of the world that still waits. (Airlines are becoming creative around incentivizing vaccinations.)

According to Cowan managing director Helane Becker, the airlines best positioned now are Spirit, Allegiant, Frontier, Southwest, and also American, though it has a little more international exposure than the others.

If were wrong and international comes back faster than we think, United is the one that benefits the most, she said. To bet on the international recovery, she added, you would own United, because theyre 50% domestic, 50% international.

Passengers wearing personal protective face masks walk past the Southwest Airlines ticket counter June 16, 2020, at the Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Getting back to 2019 levels may not happen without that international travel, as well as the other key laggard business travel.

I think its going to be difficult for us to get back to 2019 without some international and business traffic coming back, Becker said. We dont think that will happen before 2023.

Still, some people are banking on this.

Investors right now are starting to transition to international, because international hasnt worked yet, Kahyaoglu said. Going forward, if Europe is on the table for Americans vacation plans, that could change the airline landscape.

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In a note published Tuesday, DataTreks Jessica Rabe dove into some of the data on airlines. In the airline industry, supply and demand move ticket prices in an almost instantaneous fashion because of the algorithmic nature of pricing, which makes for a very public dataset to look at supply and demand. To find out demand for Thanksgiving flights, for example, you just need to go through the motions of booking a flight. If theyre cheap, that tells you something about the demand especially when coupled with Google searches.

A passenger arrives for a United Airlines flight at O'Hare International Airport on February 05, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Her takeaway: US airlines pricing power heading into the summer paints a mixed picture.

Looking at pricing in the near-term, midterm, and long-term, theres a sharp favoritism for the now.

On the one hand, prices are still rising for nearer-dated trips over the July 4th holiday, she wrote. On the other, theres a drop-off over Labor Day weekend, a little boost over Thanksgiving, but no improvement over Christmas. As with our analysis two weeks ago, Americans still seem focused on nearer-term trips.

So when it comes to travel plans, people are still adopting a wait-and-see attitude, which could mean a bunch of growth or just fewer plans. Because of this, Rabe says airline stocks got ahead of themselves as investors misjudged the speed of reopening.

Additionally, many Americans remain routinized into staying close to home, she wrote. Our other work using Google Trends shows Americans continue to spruce up their residences/backyards and increasingly go out to nearby restaurants and take local trips.

In the longer run, however, Rabe remains positive for the future and 2022 might be a year of big vacations as consumers save and plan a big one when they know things will be more normal and open internationally.

Bottom line, Rabe wrote, we still like U.S. airline stocks for a longer-term holding period (12-18 months).

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, personal finance, retail, airlines, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.

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The airline recovery is looking K-shaped - Yahoo Finance

The New England Patriots' infamous Spygate videotape cheating scandal happened nearly 15 years ago, but apparently there's still more we don't know about it. And the new details are juicy.

According to Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham of ESPN, Donald Trump met with late Sen. Arlen Specter in 2008, nearly a decade before Trump's presidency, and offered him "money in Palm Beach" if he dropped his investigation into Spygate. Trump was reportedly acting on behalf of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Spokespeople for Trump and Kraft denied the allegation that either man tried to influence Specter's investigation.

"This is completely false," said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump. "We have no idea what you're talking about." Miller declined to answer a series of follow-up questions. A Patriots spokesman said Kraft "never asked Donald Trump to talk to Arlen Specter on his behalf."

"Mr. Kraft is not aware of any involvement of Trump on this topic and he did not have any other engagement with Specter or his staff," the spokesman said via email.

Charles Robbins, Specter's longtime communications aide, told ESPN that Specter first discussed the supposed Spygate money meeting with him in 2010, during a tape-recorded conversation for his final memoir. This exchange appeared in that book, "Life Among the Cannibals."

"On the signal stealing, a mutual friend had told me that 'if I laid off the Patriots, there'd be a lot of money in Palm Beach.' And I replied, 'I couldn't care less.'"

Specter never revealed the name of the "mutual friend" to Robbins, but he was "pretty darn sure" it was Trump. Trump and Specter were friends, and had been since the early 1980s when Trump first donated to Specter's campaign. Trump would go on to donate over $11,000 to Specter's campaign committees, and referred to Specter as a "close friend" in handwritten notes.

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According to ESPN, Donald Trump was acting on behalf of Patriots owner Robert Kraft when he tried to offer Sen. Arlen Specter campaign money if he ended his investigation into Spygate. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

Despite the denials from Trump and Kraft, Shanin Specter, Arlen Specter's son, told ESPN that he got the story directly from his father.

"My father told me that Trump was acting as a messenger for Kraft," Shanin Specter says via ESPN. "But I'm equally sure the reference to money in Palm Beach was campaign contributions, not cash. The offer was Kraft assistance with campaign contributions. ... My father said it was Kraft's offer, not someone else's."

Trump and Kraft were once close friends, with Kraft attending Trump's wedding to Melania in 2005 and Trump attending the funeral of Kraft's wife, Myra, in 2011. Trump even reportedly called Kraft every week for a year after his wife died, just to check in on him. According to ESPN, both men disapproved of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of the Spygate investigation.

Specter says that his father told him about the meeting soon after it happened.

"He was pissed," Shanin Specter says about his father. "He told me about the call in the wake of the conversation and his anger about it. ... My father was upset when [such overtures] would happen because he felt as if it were tantamount to a bribe solicitation, though the case law on this subject says it isn't. ... He would tell me these things when they occurred. We were very close."

Specter turned down the offer of "money in Palm Beach" (which is not illegal if referring to campaign contributions) and continued his pursuit of the truth he felt Goodell was hiding. Specter was furious that Goodell had the evidence actual Spygate video tapes destroyed, and even though his investigation was a one-man crusade that lacked subpoena power, his strong rhetoric scared the NFL.

Goodell was so scared of Specter's investigation which could have led to a wider probe with subpoena powers that he convinced the Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, and former St. Louis Rams head coach Mike Martz to release statements saying that the NFL had done its "due diligence." None of those parties reportedly felt that was true, and Martz told ESPN that the statement he wrote was heavily edited by the NFL before its release.

Despite Goodell's fear, the NFL still had the power to stonewall Specter, and prevented him from obtaining any documents or interviewing any employees of the NFL or the Patriots. Nearing 80 years old and undergoing chemotherapy to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Specter, who died in 2012, ended the investigation himself in June 2008 having failed to get his fellow senators on board for a larger probe.

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The fourth edition of "The Match" is about six weeks away, but Tom Brady is already taking shots at his opponents Aaron Rodgers and Bryson DeChambeau. And his trash talk is devastating.

No, really. Brady and likely his social media team, because let's be honest, Brady probably isn't doing this all on his own set Twitter ablaze Wednesday after "The Match" was announced. He started slow, taking an easy shot at Rodgers.

Little did we know that was just the beginning.

Brady decided to capitalize on the latest golf drama between Brooks Koepka and DeChambeau. Koepka is not a fan of DeChambeau, something he made very clear in a post-PGA Championship interview that spawned a thousand memes including several that Brady posted on Wednesday afternoon.

He didn't stop there, next posting a meme about the Green Bay Packers infamously kicking a field goal while losing by only a touchdown.

As the grand finale, Brady turned the humor on himself.

As drama-loving sports fans, there's not much more we could ask for than three Brady-branded memes making fun of Rodgers, DeChambeau and himself. But then a few more people joined the conversation.

Koepka, who is not part of "The Match," tweeted Rodgers an apology, presumably because, as Brady put it, he'll be spending the entire day with DeChambeau.

DeChambeau couldn't pass up the chance to needle Koepka, and replied to his tweet.

Then Dad chimed in. Phil Mickelson, who at 50 just became the oldest man to win a major tournament, is the oldest of all four participants in "The Match." He's paired with Brady, the meme-maker, but does he know what a meme is? It's not clear, but one thing is for sure: he knows how to deliver a good burn.

Koepka may still feel the sizzle from that one, since he essentially played himself out of a chance to overtake Mickelson in the final round of the PGA Championship.

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One person was notably missing from all the trash talking on Wednesday: Rodgers. It seems like all this would be right up his alley, but his Twitter account remained silent.

So what could he be doing that prevented him from staying glued to Twitter all afternoon? What could possibly be more important than hurling sports insults at fellow athlete bros? A Hawaiian vacation with his future wife and their friends.

Rodgers and his fiance Shailene Woodley have been on an island vacation with actor Miles Teller and his wife Keleigh. Rodgers hasn't posted any photos to social media, but Keleigh has.

Rodgers is clearly too busy having fun and enjoying a relaxing, stress-free vacation to care about anything being said on Twitter. Hopefully Brady & Co. understand.

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Tom Brady is already talking trash to Aaron Rodgers about 'The Match,' and he's really good at it - Yahoo Sports

When countries went into lockdown to stop transmission of the coronavirus, travel particularly business travel took a brutal hit.

"Business travel as we knew it is never fully coming back," Airbnb (ABNB) CEO Brian Chesky told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "The bar to get on a plane to go for a meeting is now higher, and fewer people are going to do it."

And though demand for travel is slowly picking up as the country heads into the summer, business travel will still face an excruciating uphill struggle, according to a new Barclays report.

"Global business travel especially long haul will likely be among the last markets to recover," Barclays economists wrote in a special report on May 25. "Companies were quick to halt international travel as the pandemic struck, and businesses will also be careful when it comes to restarting travel for work purposes."

Pre-pandemic, business tourism-related spending accounted for 21.4% of the global travel and tourism industry in 2019, with bigger contributions in countries like Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., the authors stated.

A businessman waiting at the US Air terminal in La Guardia Airport works on his laptop computer. (Photo by mark peterson/Corbis via Getty Images)

Business tourism contributed to 1.5% of global GDP, and had been growing at an average of 3.6% over the last five years, they added, with the U.S. and China accounting for nearly 45% of all global business travel.

But between April and the end of December 2020, global spending on business travel fell 68% and is estimated to have fallen more than 50% year-over-year. (In contrast, in 2001, business travel fell around 11%; in 2009, it fell around 7.5%).

"Corporate travelers are disproportionately important for the aviation industry," Barclays noted. "They make up just 12% of airline passengers, but are twice as lucrative as non-business passengers, and account for nearly 75% of airline profits in some cases."

Barclays, May 25

One of the key reasons for a possibly anemic recovery is that a state of "persistent pandemic may render some border restrictions permanent," said Barclays, "making international travel more difficult."

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In other words, the dizzying variation in entry requirements and quarantine rules may give businesses a reason to rethink how much flying is actually necessary for their employees.

"Business travelers will likely reassess how much flying they need to do, balancing health risks associated with intermingling compared to virtual meetings from the comfort of their office," Barclays said. "Work-from-home and the swift adjustment of many work categories to video conferencing has led to behavioral changes that may be difficult to reverse. Increased productivity, with less time, energy, and money spent on travel is an added advantage."

And even if people are anxious to get back on a plane, countries' varying border restrictions will "make companies reassess what may or may not warrant a trip due to the higher cost of compliance and the risk of traveling for work in an uncertain or insecure environment," Barclays added.

For instance, if a country imposes a multi-day or multi-week quarantine requirement (such as in Australia), travelers have to spend it in hotels at their own cost. That is a "key impediment" to the industry's recovery, stressed Barclays, given that some quarantine periods are longer than the length of travel in a typical pre-COVID time period.

Chesky thinks that "there will be a new type of business travel that ... will emerge." For instance, when employees who are fully remote having moved out of their company's state, for instance come back for meetings, they may stay a longer duration than traditional business travelers pre-pandemic. So, Chesky added, "when they do make trips, they're gonna make them longer. It might be longer stays."

Barclays, May 25

The international aspect is key.

Domestically, while the situation isn't that much better for overall travel, some airlines are outperforming competitors, Jefferies Senior Research Analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu told Yahoo Finance Live (video above).

"Domestically-focused airlines are doing the best," she said. "[Southwest Airlines] LUV has been our top pick in the space. And if you look in Q2, their capacity is down about 16%. The other airlines are down anywhere from 25% to 40%."

Though traveling within the U.S. is much easier for citizens due to the lack of restrictions for Americans, there's still plenty of room for recovery.

"Overall, what we're seeing for air capacity from the U.S. major airlines, is [we are] about down 40% versus 2019 levels," Kahyaoglu said. "Domestically, we're down 22% for the upcoming week and into Memorial Day ... And internationally, we're down about 67%. So international is still quite weak."

Aarthi Swaminathan is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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'Business travel as we knew it is never fully coming back,' Airbnb CEO says - Yahoo Finance

Were previewing every NFL team to get you ready for the 2021 season. Our analysts will tackle pressing fantasy questions and team win totals, in order from the squad with the least amount of fantasy relevancy all the way to the most talented team. Next up, the 25th-ranked Chicago Bears.

Andy: The point of drafting Robinson is that his bust potential is vanishingly small almost nonexistent, assuming a healthy season. He's already produced WR1-level performances despite being attached to some of the least impressive starting quarterbacks of his era. Songs should have been written about his incredible 2015 season.

Robinson will be working with some combination of Andy Dalton and Justin Fields this year, which is about as good as he's ever had it. We can safely forecast another 150-plus target, as he's reached that total in each of the past two seasons. There's basically no chance that Chicago's offense can keep pace with KC or Buffalo, so it's tough to put Robinson in the same tier as guys like Tyreek Hill and Stefon Diggs. But a top-5 positional finish? He's done it before and can certainly do it again, with just a small amount of TD luck. If you need a precise percentage, let's say 33.7.

Matt: A top-five finish is within Robinsons range of outcomes every year because hes that good of a player. Weve seen his floor over the last two years amid hideous Chicago quarterback play, and thats proven to be a trusty proposition. At some point, Justin Fields can be the type of quarterback to boost Robinson back toward the career-ceiling weve seen from him. However, projecting that and the type of overall target/scoring volume hed need during Fields rookie year is aggressive. Thats not to mention how deep and top-heavy the position is right now. Its possible but a less than 50 percent chance.

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Scott: Robinson's overcome bad quarterback play his entire career, and that dates back to Penn State. He's unbreakable. And maybe Justin Fields will be a quick study (or Andy Dalton a quality placeholder). There is no reason to worry about Robinson; he's long been in the circle of trust. I agree that Robinson is likely more a floor pick than upside pick, but when you're drafted in his ADP pocket, there's plenty of upside too.

Matt: Most of the risk and likely regression is already baked into David Montgomerys 2021 ADP (RB20 range). Having Justin Fields waiting in the wings should boost the overall efficiency of this offense, staving off at least one of the major warts in the running backs outlook. He profiles as a high season-long floor, upper-tier RB2.

Scott: Montgomery took advantage of a heavy workload, and no one expects him to slide back to RB4. But I love drafting a player who can hit a fair amount of regression and still return a fantasy profit. Late-third or early-fourth round on Montgomery, I'll be open minded.

Andy: Credit to Montgomery for taking full advantage of that layup line of a schedule he faced at the end of 2020. He also handled the increase in receiving workload well, following the season-ending injury to Tarik Cohen. I have little doubt that he can produce similar rushing numbers in 2021 let's say another 250-ish carries for just over 1,000 yards but there's really no path to another 68 targets. We have to expect his receiving opportunities to be slashed, because this team is definitely gonna put Cohen back to work. This is a conversation we had back in January. A reasonable expectation for Montgomery's year-end stats is probably 1,250 scrimmage yards, 25-30 receptions and 7-9 touchdowns. Those numbers won't carry you to a title on their own, but they can certainly help.

Scott: Frisky, exciting upside play for Supeflex and DFS. Dual-threat quarterbacks are a well-established cheat code.

Andy: Fields obviously has a rushing element to his game that will make him fantasy relevant as soon as he plays, plus he'll have a strong supporting cast around him. It's not realistic to stash him if you play in, say, a 10-team league with typical one-QB rosters. But in a deeper format with more than four bench spots, he should be in someone's draft plans. I'm expecting to see him at the controls of Chicago's offense in October, when the schedule takes a friendly turn. From the moment he takes over, he'll have weekly top-10 upside.

Matt: Ill believe Justin Fields isnt starting Week 1 when I see it. Theres every bit the chance the rookie just blows the doors off of the current version of Andy Dalton in training camp. In that scenario, a coaching staff looking to save their jobs wont be able to afford their Golden Ticket quarterback for some foolish reason like, but we play the Rams in Week 1. When/if hes named the starter, hell have an immediate path to fantasy appeal given his rushing potential. Being tethered to a stud WR1 in Robinson only helps matters. Hed push for a top-20 fantasy quarterback ranking if we knew for sure hes starting Week 1.

QB: Andy Dalton / Justin Fields

RB: David Montgomery / Tarik Cohen

WR: Allen Robinson / Darnell Mooney

TE: Cole Kmet

Scott: I'm not racing to the window to punch the ticket, but I have to shade over. Green Bay is staring regression in the face. Detroit is in a rebuild. Minnesota should be better, but it's a team with problems, too. Not that anyone is in love with Matt Nagy, but he's never finished under .500 and he's made the playoffs twice in three years. Chicago figures to be competitive again.

Follow Andy: @andybehrens

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NFL Team Preview: How long will Bears wait to turn to Justin Fields? - Yahoo Sports

Vishwanath Ramarao needs no introduction in the world of technology and engineering. In two decades, he has developed over 15 patents in search system designs, IM, mail, and communication.

Today, as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer of digital insurance startup Acko, Vishwanath is responsible for data science, product, design, and engineering, and focuses on ensuring newer strategic technology initiatives.

His belief has stood him in good stead: If you fall in love with your craft and look at technology as an art form, you will have a very satisfying career path and trajectory.

Born in Kolar, a small mining town near Bengaluru, Vishwanaths father was a supervisor at the Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) while his mother, was a housewife, Carnatic musician, and radio artist.

My sister, whos five years older than me influenced me to take up technology and engineering. She paved the path for me, as she had taken engineering before me, and I wanted to follow her footsteps he says.

Vishwanath got his first computer when he was in Class 12, and learnt Fortran programming. He was good at math and science, and engineering seemed the way ahead.

By this time, his sister was already studying engineering. But in 1994-95, computer science was relatively new;engineering meant electronic communication as the country then was looking closely at manufacturing.

I grew up in an era when getting a job was important. In my middle-class upbringing, entrepreneurship during or immediately after college was unheard of, Vishwanath recalls.

Hailing from a middle-class family, Vishwanath went to SIT Tumkur, which seemed economically viable in 1996. He took the electronics and communications stream and in the second year of his course, the college had a placement process reengineering programme.

It was a new effort with a minor university and Bengalurus PESIT, and close to 70 people across the university were trained for software services. By 1997, Wipro and Infosys had started growing and trained people were needed. This programme was to help students skill up, and Vishwanath was one of the 70 chosen students.

Vishwanath says this is where he learnt different programming languages. It was a brand new world. I had come across the idea of a coding standard, for the first time. It took time to master the course content.

As a part of the course, Vishwanath got placed in Wipro in 1999. He worked in the telecom group with hardcore C++ coding, building apps for the internet as the Valley boom rubbed off.

The analog telephony network was getting replaced by packet telephony. Networking systems were coming in. One of Wipros clients was a Canadian startup, Nortel Networks. They were building telecom switches for the internet, and I was working on the project, he says.

At Wipro, he feels he learnt to be a professional and what it actually means to be a professional engineer. Connecting with one of the seasoned Nortel engineers who spent two months with the Wipro team was transformative.

Talking to seasoned engineers like him helped challenge my thought processes and the world I lived in, Vishwanath explains.

Vishwanath soon got an introduction to Silicon Valley, and the new technologies that were being built.

Vishwanath says, Universities in the US are the bedrock of technology development and professors end up being mentors for several entrepreneurs.

This opened the possibility to try different routes, think critically and problem-solve, and break away from the services mindset.

Vishwanath had initially wanted to do a PhD, but after his masters course he chose to focus on building solutions rather than pure research. For more than academics, the heart of building for a problem appealed to him.

The fact that he worked with a professors startup, Decision pro, while he was doing his masters from 2000 to 2003 may also have contributed to this. It was his first exposure to a startup, and Vishwanath realised he was learning and applying at the same time.

The constant feedback loop was something I always wanted. Seeing a product go live and seeing tech being used can be extremely transformative and addictive, he explains.

By 2002, the internet bubble had burst. It was a challenging time and Vishwanath returned to India and joined Yahoos Bengaluru R&D centre in 2003. He was there for the next seven years.

A small group was building these products. During this time Vishwanath worked on a problem on tracking captcha for nine months. The question was: could it be cracked in an automated way, which meant a better technology.

In 2003 end, Vishwanath worked on a computer vision problem to solve the problem using his masters ideas, and made a presentation to the SVP, who had come to Bengaluru to see different products that were being built.

Vishwanath was roped in to deal with spam technology problems as they had captcha foundations. He ended up starting the spam team in Bengaluru and went on to become the tech lead and recruit other engineers. By 2005, a steady stream of work was being done out of Bengaluru.

That very year, Vishwanaths then fiance moved to the US and he wanted to be there as well.

At that time, Yahoo had acquired a search company, Overture. It was the original sponsored search business site for paid search links that primarily powers Google now. The Overture acquisition strengthened Yahoos position.

As Vishwanath had built the spam tech, he had open offers and joined as the sponsored search international expansion lead at Yahoo in Los Angeles.

In 2008, Vishwanath and his wife were looking for a change due to personal reasons. The person running Yahoo Mail then reached out to him, seeking help with their spam issues.

Vishwanath moved back to SunnyVale, worked on Yahoo Mail, expanded to Messenger, and also worked with general abuse technologies at Yahoo.

I realised we had a 10-year old stack and had to take a fundamental approach. A lot of the university training and the ability to innovate and think help, rather than just systems building or software development.

By 2010, Vishwanath had worked with multiple leaders at Yahoo. Having seen the company change, he realised it was time to move. He teamed up with a few colleagues and started Impermium, a startup that built social algorithms, in Palo Alto, California.

We were building real-time, adversarial machine learning frameworks to protect the next generation of social web applications. We were doing 25 billion transactions, and the scale was massive. So we decided to build an API, Vishwanath says. We were valued at $40 million within a year.

Vishwanath lost his father in 2012, and sadly couldnt visit his father much when he was unwell. It was a watershed moment. Keen to be closer to his family, he wanted to do something in India. I realised if you have the confidence to create technology, you can do it anywhere, he says.

Exiting his company, he chose to do something different. That was also the time that Imepermium was acquired by Google, and Vishwanath explains that most of the tech they had built was used by the systems at Google.

He went on to join Eventbrite, a marketplace for event organisers and creators, and was there for a year before moving back to India in 2014. For me, Eventbrite was different from mail and messaging, he ays.

His colleagues at his startup

In August 2014, a colleague and friend from Yahoo who was at AOL asked Vishwanath to join this was his ticket back to India.

Here, he led engineering for AOL.com, AOL Mail, Messenger, and Desktop.

We launched a brand new email client called Alto, an Android award-winning client for mail management across multiple providers. We built several multi-media technologies; this was alongside the M&A, Vishwanath says.

Soon Yahoo was acquired by Verizon and it was like life had come a full circle for Vishwanath.

He continued working and building technology for mail and messaging, and in 2016 got the opportunity to join Hike as CTO.

My background has been in scale and messaging, and it was a brilliant problem to solve for a billion people. We tried several pivots at a time. Whatever tech we built, we were always behind a Snapchat or WhatsApp, and had to hit the reset the button, he recalls.

After shutting the messaging centre in 2019, people from his old startup - now in Google - got Vishwanath to the search engine giant in Mountain View. He learnt many lessons in technology, but Vishwanath wanted more speed.

In 2020, he decided to join Acko. Vishwanath says, Acko is at a critical mass stage where it can grow super big, and insurance and fintech are booming in India. The scope to use technology at scale is really strong.

Today, while hiring engineers he looks for discipline and curiosity.

I look for curious people with the ability to learn and the discipline to achieve their goals. This is not a space where what you have learned stays for too long. You have to keep picking up new skills, reading, keep reinventing yourself. You have to keep thinking, being curious.

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[Techie Tuesday] Meet the man who built patented systems at Yahoo, and is now leading tech at Acko - YourStory

Oxygen

The Amish live a life free of most of the conveniences of the modern world, like cell phones, television, and cars. They also live a life with very little violent crime, which is why the murder of Barbara Weaver, a devoted Amish woman, quickly made nationwide headlines -- and generated even more after the shocking culprits were unmasked. On June 2, 2009, a call was made to emergency dispatch in Wayne County, Ohio from a woman who said she had found her neighbor, 30-year-old Barbara Weaver, unresponsive at home after Barbara's children contacted her for help. "No. I don't think she's breathing, the neighbor tells 911 in audio obtained by "Killer Couples," airing Sundays at 8/7c on Oxygen. When authorities arrived at the scene, they found Barbara dead and covered in blood from a shotgun wound to the chest. There was no weapon nearby and no gunshot residue on her hands. Whatever had happened, it clearly wasn't suicide. Officials discovered there was no sign of forced entry and that cash had been left out in plain view in several areas of the home, making robbery an unlikely motive. Barbara's husband, Eli Weaver, who owned a hunting and sports equipment store next to their house, was nowhere to be found. They were able to track him down, though, when they discovered Eli was on a fishing trip with a few friends, one of whom wasn't Amish and had a cell phone. Investigators were thus able to contact Eli and have him come in for questioning right away. A distraught Eli told police he had nothing to do with the murder, and said he had last seen his wife at 3 a.m. right before he left for his fishing trip. His friends on the trip confirmed his alibi. However, even with an airtight alibi, Eli remained a suspect after investigators talked with Barbara's sister. She told them Eli and Barbara, who wed very young and shared five children, had a rocky marriage thanks to Eli's history of cheating. "According to Barbaras sister, Elis infidelity had been a huge problem throughout their entire marriage. In fact, it started back during Elis Rumspringa, back when they first started dating. Eli was much wilder than Barbara, always partying, seeing people outside of the Amish faith," Kristin Farley, a former reporter with WATE, told producers. In fact, Eli had cheated on Barbara twice with women who weren't Amish and temporarily left the marriage, getting shunned from the Amish community and having to ask the elders to let him back in, the sister explained to investigators. Shortly before she was killed, Barbara had even been suspicious Eli was cheating on her again. He just wanted to dabble in things that were forbidden. He seemed to have a real attraction to things that were forbidden," the Weavers' neighbor Mary Eicher told producers. As a devoted Amish woman, Barbara didn't consider divorce an option, but she was deeply hurt by the infidelity, those who knew her said. She was also frightened by it. "She told a friend she wasn't afraid of Eli, but she was afraid of Elis girlfriends and that somebody would be so jealous and wanting Eli so much they would harm Barbara," Rebecca Morris, author of "A Killing In Amish Country," told producers. When questioned again by police, Eli insisted his cheating days were behind him. But while talking to members of the community, they learned there was a possible new woman in his life. In the days after Barbara's murder the police got a lot of tips indicating Eli was spending a lot of time with someone referred to as 'the taxi lady,'" Farley told producers. The so-called "taxi lady" was Barbara Raber, a married mother of three who had grown up in the Amish community but had since left it with her husband to join the Mennonite faith, which is considerably less conservative than the Amish one. Mennonites can own cars and cell phones, for example. Raber was known to work as a driver for the Amish, specifically spending a lot of time with Eli. Raber admitted to police she had an affair with Eli, but insisted it had ended six months earlier and she had been home with her husband at the time of the murder. Then, new incriminating information was uncovered. Dandi Heasley contacted police to tell them she had briefly had a relationship with Eli awhile back. They had met on a dating site, where Eli described himself as "Amish stud." He contacted her on a cell phone, which piqued authorities' interest, as the secret phone could reveal much-needed information. But what also raised red flags for investigators was what Heasley had to say about Eli's attitude toward his wife. According to her, he was deeply unhappy in the marriage and made several comments alluding to wanting to know how to kill someone and getting rid of his wife permanently. Other women soon reached out, revealing they, too, had had affairs with Eli and he had made strange comments to them about having his wife killed. To find the secret cell phone, Heasley made a new dating profile to reach out to Eli and ask him to call her. Eli obliged, meaning investigators now had his phone number -- which they were astonished to learn was registered in Raber's name. After getting a subpoena for the phone records, detectives discovered tons of messages between the two that made it clear they were still together. The messages also made it clear they wanted to get rid of Barbara badly. Eli and Raber texted often about potential ways to kill Barbara, including a poisoned cupcake, carbon monoxide, and a home explosion, with Eli even dismissing the possibility of his five children dying as collateral damage, insisting it was fine because "they would go straight to heaven," according to copies of the text messages obtained by "Killer Couples." The night of the murder, Eli texted Barbara directions on where to park outside, told her the door was unlocked, and encouraged her when she expressed fear and possible regret. On June 10, the pair was arrested. Authorities combed through Rabe's computer, and over 800 searches on how to poison somebody were uncovered. You cant play that off as a joke. That's determination," Det. Doyle Burke with the Dayton Police Department told producers. Barbara Raber and Eli Weaver While Eli refused to talk, Raber admitted she had fallen in love with Eli, who convinced her the only way they could be together was if she killed his wife. She said she crept into Eli and Barbara's home with her husband's shotgun and shot Barbara -- although she insisted she was just trying to scare her and the gun went off accidentally. Eli, meanwhile, eventually agreed to take a plea deal in exchange for testifying against Raber. He pleased guilty to complicity to commit murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 2024 when he is 44 years old. Raber went to trial, where she was found guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2032. For more on this case and others like it, watch "Killer Couples," airing Sundays at 8/7c on Oxygen or stream episodes here.

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