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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.

Mike Cannon-Brookes & Scott Farquhar : The Accidental Billionaires From Australia

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Life is better with friends, and it is best when your friendship leads you to achieve your goals. An example of similar friendship is from Australia, where two college friends achieved their mutual goals and became the Accidental Billionaires of Australia. Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes are the co-founders and co-CEOs of the software company Atlassian, who together started the company with the simple plan to replicate the A$48,000 graduate starting salary typical at the big corporations without having to work for someone else. But their hard work paid them beyond their imagination.

Early Life

Mike Cannon-Brookes was born in November 1979, as Michael Cannon-Brookes, to a global banking executive Mike, and his wife, Helen. He spent his childhood in Sydney and attended Cranbrook School there. On the other hand, Scott Farquhar born in the December of the same year as Mike. He was the student of James Ruse Agricultural High School in Carlingford, NSW.

After graduating from school, the two enrolled in the University of New South Wales, where they met each other the very first time. Both of them were in the same class and grew a strong bond with one another. Both received a Bachelors in Arts and also a Bachelor’s degree in Science.

Founding Atlassian

The two shared an interest in starting own software company, so they went through a lot of research and work to design, launch and run their new business. Finally, in 2002, they founded their software company with the name Atlassian. They established the company’s first office in Sydney with a $10,000 credit card debt.

scott farquhar and mike cannon-brookes
Image Source: dailynews.lk

The same year, the Atlassian was launched, it released its flagship product, Jira. Jira is an issue tracker software that is used by various big and small companies for bug tracking and agile project management. In 2004, the company released another software named Confluence, written in Java. The software is a team collaboration platform that lets users work together on projects, co-create content, and share documents and other media assets.

Within four years of the founding of the company, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurs of the Year for Australia, in 2006. It also raised a funding worth $60 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, in the year 2010. In the same year, the company acquired Bitbucket, a hosted service for code collaboration. Just after a year, the company announced a revenue of $102 million, followed by a $144 million revenue in 2013, and $215 million revenue in 2014. In November 2015, Atlassian produced a revenue worth $320 million.

In May 2012, the Atlassian launched its official website, that allowed the users to download plug-ins for various Atlassian products. In 2014, the company was restructured and renamed as Atlassian Corporation plc opening, an office established in London, keeping the headquarter of the company remain in Sydney. Atlassian has over 2,200 employees serving more than 60,000 customers and millions of users across the world, having its offices in five different countries.

Atlassian made its initial public offering (IPO), putting its market capitalization at $4.37 billion on the NASDAQ stock exchange, in December 2015. It has many programming-based products under its name, including Crucible, FishEye, Bamboo, and Clover. It has also tried its hands in the chat business by acquiring HipChat, an instant messenger and launching Stride, a web chat alternative to Slack, but soon quit their operations in the same. Atlassian biggest acquisitions include Trello for $425 million, in January 2017, and OpsGenie for $295m, in September 2018.

Personal Life

Mike is married to Annie Todd and has four children with her. Farquhar is married to Kim Jackson, and they have three children together. Mike and Farquhar are neighbours and live in Centennial Park, Sydney, in their lavish homes. Farquhar bought the Fairfax family’s former ancestral Sydney harbourside home worth A$75 million, in 2017, and in 2018, Mike also purchased Australia’s most expensive house for around $100million, the Fairwater, next to Farquhar’s.

The two were named among the richest Australians, aged under 40 on the BRW Young Rich list in 2007. In 2016, the two were also placed in the Forbes list of Australia’s 50 Richest people.

Walmart to Replace Apple as No. 3 Online Retailer in the U.S. by the End of 2018

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According to a report released on Friday, Walmart has overtaken Apple as America’s third-largest online retailer. Last year, Apple was at the third position, after Amazon and eBay in the list of the top retailers of the U.S. with 3.8% share in the total online sale (2017). Due to a decrease in the sales of Apple’s smartphones and electronic devices this year, Walmart was successful in surpassing Apple and taking over its position on the list.

walmart
Image Source: pymnts.com

The eMarketers had estimated a boost in the sales of Walmart that it will have approximately 3.7% of the share in the online sales in the U.S., but as the Walmart’s online business is growing quickly, its share in the total online sales of the U.S., raised to 4 per cent. Apple managed to get only a per cent rise in its online sales from the previous year, i.e., 3.9 per cent. It is expected that the growth in the sales of Walmart would grow by 39.4 per cent, just behind the sales growth of Wayfair, that is expected to be 40.1 per cent, by the end of 2018.

The latest prediction by the eMarketers shows that by the end of the year Walmart will capture $20.91 billion online retail spending this year. Walmart, itself, had also reported its third-quarter profits with revenue of $124.9 billion, 1.4 per cent up from a year ago. The company has seen a rapid growth in its sales due to its efforts through every means.

Wallmart has adopted the right technology to ensure a better customer experience, providing them with an omnichannel platform to use all its services. The app provided by Wallmart helps in easy shopping as well as let them track their orders and locate the items in the store using digital maps. In the holiday season, it has also got rid of the $35 fees for its two-day delivery and has offered no-delivery charges for other delivery options. After Wallmart, the two-day delivery service has also been adopted by Amazon for its festive-season sales.

Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran said, “We can provide a much better customer experience because we are in stock of the right item, at the right time at the same time it is going to help us be much more precise.”

The tech giant, along with its online retail business, is also planning to raise outlook of its physical stores to increase up to 3 per cent share in its sales for the fiscal year 2019, targeting the same years earning up to $4.65 to $4.80 a share.

Bitcoin is Plunging after Months of Stability; Drops the Whole Crypto Market

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Bitcoin had just recovered from its price drop last month, and it again has faced a plunge in its value by more than 10%, on Wednesday. The currency valued the lowest, since October 2017, now trading around $5500. In the past one year, the value of Bitcoin was fluctuating around $6600.

Bitcoin
Image Source: oracletimes.com

Bitcoin’s price plummetted to $5,534 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, but soon, regained to a somewhat higher value. But still, it has not reacquired any of the previous values, lowering down the values of other cryptocurrencies, as well, including Ethereum’s Ether down to almost 13%, Bitcoin Cash down to 8.7%, and XRP (Ripple) to 9.2%. Since last year’s October month, the market cap for Bitcoin has first time fallen below $100 billion, and the total market capitalization for the same now stands at $96 billion. The total market capitalization for the cryptocurrency combined now stands at $181 billion.

Charlie Hayter, the founder of crypto data website Cryptocompare, said, “The market had been entering a wedge, with the volatility so low. What you are seeing low is a breakout on the downside. Sometimes when things happen, it takes a while for the true reason to become clear – an exchange trade or regulatory action.”

Bitcoin has provided some multimillion deals to people making them rich, but, most of the crypto experts are aware of the volatility of Bitcoin. The so-called “hard fork” scheduled for yesterday, in bitcoin cash, is being considered as the reason behind the huge plunge in the price of the Bitcoin. A hard fork includes the splitting up of one cryptocurrency into two, and it is acknowledged as the upgrade of the cryptocurrency by the crypto experts.

The crypto market has been calm for the past few years, but 2018 has been an unfavourable year for the cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin Cash, itself, is the resultant of the first Bitcoin hard fork, and this time the hard fork will leave the investors with two digital currencies that will go by the names Bitcoin ABC (core Bitcoin Cash) and Bitcoin SV. Some experts contemplated that investors may leave Bitcoin to raise funds to buy Bitcoin Cash after it splits in hope that both of the new coins will experience.

India Successfully Launches GSLV-Mk III; Green Signal to Chandrayaan-2 & Manned Mission

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On Wednesday, the launch of India’s heaviest rocket, the GSLV-Mk III, carrying 3,423 kg communication satellite GSAT-29, from the ISRO’s Sriharikota centre (Satish Dhawan Space Centre), in Andhra Pradesh. The launch took place at 5.08 pm, carrying the GSAT-29 satellite, that has been set into the Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). With the help of the thrusters, the satellite will be placed in Earth’s Geostationary Orbit (GEO). The rocket has proven its ability by putting the satellite into the GTO just within sixteen minutes.

GSAT-29-lifts-off
Image Source: freepressjournal.in

The ISRO chairman K Sivan said, “Today India has achieved a significant milestone. The GSLV Mk III, India’s heaviest launcher, has launched GSAT 29. The launch completed the developmental flights of the rocket.”

The launch of GSLV Mk III is the second developmental flight of the rocket. It carried its first development flight on June 5, 2017, in which it successfully launched a 3,136 kg GSAT-19 satellite (the first heaviest satellite launched from India). ISRO has plans of sending the astronauts to space in the 2022 Gaganyaan mission with the help of the same rocket.

The rocket is 43.4 meters tall and weighs around 640 tonnes, having a capacity of carrying up to four tonnes of weight to space. It is a heavy-lift three-stage rocket. The first stage consists of two solid fuel strap-on engines, at the second stage it has a liquid propellant core, and the third stage is for a cryogenic engine. India is one of the six countries, including the US, Russia, France, Japan and China, to own the cryogenic engine technology.

The GSAT 29 satellite contains the communication transponders to provide communication in remote regions of India, specifically in Jammu Kashmir and the northeast, under the Digital India programme.

A spokesperson from ISRO said. “The GSAT 29 carries Ka/Ku-band high throughput communication transponders intended to meet the communication requirements of users including those in remote areas. In addition, several new technologies such as Q/V-band payload, data transmission through optical communication link will be demonstrated. This will help in realising future advanced satellites.’’

ISRO has been doing amazingly well in its space missions for the past few years, and now it intends to have ten more launches before the new year. And the successful launch of the GSLV Mk III rocket has confirmed the moon mission Chandrayaan 2, that will be carried out in January next year and India’s first human spaceflight programme scheduled for 2022.

Bill McDermott : The Inspirational Life Story of the First American CEO of SAP

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Great minds and great ideas will find their way to success, even after facing difficulties. Such a great person with a great mind is the American businessman and the highest paid CEO of SAP SE, Bill McDermott, who despite spending his childhood in poverty emerged as one of the most powerful businessmen of America. McDermott has described his whole amazing life story in his book, “Winners Dream,” co-written by Joanne Gordon, that has been awarded a gold medal for a business memoir of the year by the Axiom Business Book Awards.

Early Life

McDermott was born in Amityville on Long Island, to Kathleen and Bill McDermott. His father worked as a power maintenance specialist at Con Edison, and his grandfather, Bobby McDermott, was a famous basketball player. According to his book, he had a tough childhood, and his family faced critical financial conditions. Even the family used to live in a house with a floor that flooded every time it rained.

bill mcdermott
Image Source: gettyimages.com

McDermott, from a very tender age, started working in part-time jobs. At the age of 11, he started selling newspapers, greeting cards, cookies, and other products and saved enough money to start a new business. When he was sixteen, he bought a Country Deli for $7,000, with the money he earned in past five years, with different jobs and businesses. His County Deli business proved to be most beneficial for him, as he was able to get admission into an undergraduate course in business management at Dowling College, with the earned profits.

After completing the undergraduate course, McDermott joined Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management to pursue an MBA degree and later, attended the Wharton School of Business, where he completed the Executive Development Program.

Career

Possessed with awesome management skills and an MBA degree, McDermott managed to get a job in the sales department of Xerox. He continued working in the same department for 16 years, and at the age of 36, he was promoted to the post of Division President of Xerox’s sales, becoming the youngest person to hold that position in the company.

Later, in 2000, McDermott became the President of Gartner and served at the same position till 2002. He also worked as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Siebel Systems.

Career with SAP

In 2002, McDormett joined SAP America, as the CEO of the company. Only in few years, he was designated to the SAP Executive Board, followed by gaining the position of co-CEO of SAP AG, in February 2010. SAP is a German company, and McDermott became the first American to hold the position of the CEO of the company, on May 21, 2014.

Personal Life

McDormett is married to Julie McDormett, and the couple has two sons together. At the time he was working in Gartner, Julie suffered from breast cancer. After six months of chemo, she recovered from the disease. But later, his mother suffered and died of pancreatic cancer. The incident encouraged him to launch the Kathleen McDermott Foundation for pancreatic cancer.

McDermott is a member of the Business Roundtable and the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT). He has won many honorary awards including the GENYOUth’s Vanguard Award, the City Year’s Idealist of the Year, and the Manager of the Year by the German Business Daily.

Google’s G Suite & Target Joins the List of the Victims of Ongoing Bitcoin Scam

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After the breach into the twitter accounts of the US and Israeli politicians, as well as the official account of the Indian Consulate in Frankfurt, on Monday, a group of hackers hacked the official Twitter account of the retail giant Target on the very next day.

In the brief time of half an hour, the hackers posted a fake tweet on the account to promote a malicious cryptocurrency giveaway. The fake giveaway’s worth was 5000 BTC (approx. $31 million), that was put on to the tweet with a QR code, Bitcoin address, and line of text that claims it will return deposits tenfold, to lure the naive investors. The tweet addressed the 1.92 million followers of Target’s twitter account and had asked them to send BTC on the given address, to become a part of the giveaway.

google-twitter
Image source: hot97svg.com

The hackers were smart enough, to put some replies on the tweet from some high-profile accounts, to make the tweet look more legit and convincing. The hacking lasted for a small time, and according to the Bitcoin insiders, the hackers were able to arrange not more than a handful of BTC from the followers.

In such a small time, the media and other parties got notice of the incident, and Target took control over its account back, just after thirty minutes of hacking and posted another tweet, that confirmed the hack. The tweet read, “Early this morning, Target’s Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approximately half an hour and one fake tweet was posted during that time about a Bitcoin scam.”

After taking the control over its Twitter account, Target is still in active discussions with the social media platform, regarding the matter. Not more than a few hours passed for the Target’s twitter hack, another hack came into light when another major account i.e., the official Twitter account for Google’s G Suite, a group of software/products that includes Drive, Docs, Gmail, Hangouts, and others, was hacked by the hackers. The hackers posted a similar fake tweet on the account that mentioned a giveaway of 10000 BTC to the winners of the giveaway. The tweet included a similar link along with an image of a QR code and Bitcoin address. Google was quick to take down the tweet, and it still has to confirm the breach.

Other breaches like the hacking of the official account of Elon Musk and the major European film company, Pathé, which took place earlier this month, and TV Chef, Tyler Florence had also occurred around last month, and now Target as well as Google has also joined the list. For now, there has been no other news of any other hacking of any account, and we can expect that Twitter will now be more focused on the security of the accounts of its users.