What You Need to Know Today: August 20

Good afternoon, Early Risers!

Here’s what you need to know

TECH

What to say when Jared Fogle drives your Uber? Lyft, please. The district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles escalated their fight with Uber Tuesday in a revised lawsuit that faults the company for giving the public false assurances that its drivers are safe (Bloomberg). Uber’s criminal background checks for drivers failed to prevent it from hiring registered sex offenders, identity thieves, burglars, a kidnapper and a convicted murderer, California prosecutors said.  

“What, you got 98 extra cents lying around at home, Smalls?” – Sandlot  How about an extra $140,000, Smalls? Because that’s how much it would cost to get the King to sponsor The Daily Brief on twitter.

+ How much do you think a sponsored post from MJ would cost?

Wet Hot American Imgur. “The easiest, if not crudest, way to explain Imgur is that it’s like Pinterest but for dudes,” says Jack Smith IV. You would never guess it but Imgur is the most popular online destination for millennial males in the US. With over 150 million monthly visitors, Imgur crushes BuzzFeed, Reddit and even Tumblr. So why do millennial males love Imgur so much? “It’s the last true internet culture remaining,” says Smith. The site held its first ever live event – Camp Imgur – and it sounded like a rager. Take home point: “You can’t stick to your thing because it’s yours; you have to shape the product based on how people use it,” says Alan Shaaf, founder of Imgur, about his decision to clone Reddit’s upvote system, which has been the key to Imgur’s success.

CAREER

Why you can’t afford NOT to travel. My friends in San Francisco and Seattle often ask me: “How can you afford to travel so much?” I can’t afford not to travel. I’m bootstrapping a company and living in San Francisco was draining my savings, says Jay Meistrich. If you work on a laptop every day, read this now.

Silicon Valley attacks Donald Trump. Fwd.us, a group founded by Mark Zuckerberg and others to lobby for issues important to the tech industry such as immigration reform, Wednesday argued in favor of increasing, not decreasing, the number of H-1B visas, reports The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s immigration plan, released Sunday, wants to curb work visas for skilled foreign workers. Trump said foreign workers are using the H-1B program to take jobs away from Americans. In reality, Fwd.us President Todd Schulte explains that high-skilled immigrants actually create American jobs.

+ “My name is not Deez Nuts, I am a 15-year-old who filled out a form, had the campaign catch on fire, and am now putting up the best third-party numbers since Ross Perot.” Meet the hilarious independent “candidate” who’s gone viral.

How to make money selling  products for no profit. Xiomi and OnePlus are two of China’s fastest growing smartphone companies. They’re able to manufacture beautiful looking, high quality smartphones, that they can sell for a fraction of the cost of Samsung or Apple. How can they afford this? Two words: back end. Their plan is to sell handsets for almost no profit, to gain market share and edge out competitors like Samsung and Apple. Then make up for lost profits by selling to users on their back end. Here’s why this strategy works and one tip you should steal to find out valuable information on your competitors.

LIFESTYLE

Why is anyone surprised by Girl Power? A story that’s been getting a lot of attention lately has been about two new Rangers, Captain Kristen Griest and First Lt. Shaye Haver. These ladies are the first women set to graduate from the Army’s Ranger School. In a country of 300 million, you’re going to have some superfit, strong, hard-as-nails women. Why is anyone surprised by this? Has Cross-Fit taught us nothing? Here’s a look at 7 of 2015’s hottest Cross-Fit girls.

“Hustle until you no longer have to introduce yourself.” 832 pages, four pounds, three ounces, that’s how big the September issue of Vogue magazine is. But the story everyone is talking about is not the behemoth coffee table book, but Vogue’s cover star Beyonce, who doesn’t say a word in the issue. Queen Bey has apparently not given an interview in over a year. Why the silent treatment? The NY Times has some answers.

#NOWYOUKNOW

Scientists have found an incredibly easy solution to bland tasting tomatoes. Put them in hot water before they are chilled. The heated tomatoes retain more of their flavor and tasted better, says plant physiologist Jinhe Bai. Bam!

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