GuideWell, a mutual insurance holding company serving more than 38 million people, announced the appointment of Thurman Justice as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Triple-S Management Corporation,

GuideWell Announces Appointment of Thurman Justice as Triple-S Chief Executive Officer

It’s time to pick health coverage for next year on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, and experts caution against focusing your choice on price alone. In order

It's time to buy health insurance through the marketplace. Experts suggest doing your research first

According to the study “... most expressed flexible time off or work arrangements, followed by a private health insurance plan and mental health support.”

Amid cost of living crisis, SG workers want more health support from employers—study

Exchange insurers are charging more, expanding geographic footprints and creating disease-specific policies to separate themselves from the competition.

Marketplace open enrollment has arrived. Here's what to know

The ACA marketplace’s open enrollment season is also open season for scammers, who look to prey on people overwhelmed by the health insurance marketplace.

No, you won’t get a $6,400 spending allowance from a free health insurance plan

Medicare beneficiaries should watch for shopping surprises when choosing a Medigap plan to avoid paying too much for coverage.

Watch for These 3 Medigap Shopping Surprises to Avoid Overpaying

Completing a routine depression screening questionnaire during an annual checkup is cost-free under federal law. But, as one woman discovered, answering a doctor's follow-up questions might not be.

She talked about depression at a checkup — and got billed for two visits

In this article, we discuss the 14 most undervalued healthcare stocks to buy according to hedge funds. To skip the detailed analysis of the healthcare industry, go directly to the 5 Most Undervalued Healthcare Stocks To Buy According To Hedge Funds.

14 Most Undervalued Healthcare Stocks To Buy According To Hedge Funds

The procedure, called nerve grafting, involves using nerve tissue to fill a gap between damaged nerves, thereby restoring feeling and sensation. During a mastectomy, nerves can be severed and some patients can have permanent numbness in their chests.

Insurance coverage of sensation restoration procedure post-mastectomy under debate

The following companies, ranked according to the number of hedge funds that hold their shares, all offer health insurance services within the United States, and/or internationally. Globe Life Inc ...

12 Best Health Insurance Stocks to Buy

Get the most recent info and news about Cigna on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Cigna Corporation provides insurance and related products and services in the United States. Its Evernorth segment provides a range of coordinated and point solution health services, including pharmacy, benefits management, care delivery and management, and intelligence solutions to health plans, employers, government organizations, and health care providers. The company's Cigna Healthcare segment offers medical, pharmacy, behavioral health, dental, vision, health advocacy programs, and other products and services for insured and self-insured customers; Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Medicare Part D plans for seniors, as well as individual health insurance plans to on and off the public exchanges; and health care coverage in its international markets, as well as health care benefits for mobile individuals and employees of multinational organizations. The company also offers permanent insurance contracts sold to corporations to provide coverage on the lives of certain employees for financing employer-paid future benefit obligations. It distributes its products and services through insurance brokers and consultants; directly to employers, unions and other groups, or individuals; and private and public exchanges. The company was founded in 1792 and is headquartered in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

Cigna

Thanks to big data, today an organization can quickly obtain the necessary information from an unordered data set and deploy it effectively. The growing popularity of big data analytics has led to a significant increase in the number of companies providing big data solutions and related services. Today, there are in the global market, and this number may be very confusing. Big data skills, experience, and related technical expertise can significantly vary among vendors, which may puzzle anyone looking for a big data service provider. almost 1000 big data analytics companies How to identify the best big data consulting firms I set myself the goal to identify the most reliable big data consulting companies on today’s IT market. To do this, I investigated hundreds of data providers and studied their characteristics. Each company was analyzed according to the set of specifically designed criteria. Among the criteria are big data expertise, major clients, offering strategy, track record, and online reviews. Below you can see the results of the conducted market research. 1. Itransition Founded in 1998, Itransition is a custom software development company that provides big data consulting and platform engineering services. The company also offers business intelligence (BI) portals development and boosts them with machine learning (ML) and other technologies. The company offers data store design, data migration, performance optimization, and support services. The company’s client base includes IBM, Expedia, Toyota, eBay, Xerox, PayPal, and Adidas. With more than 150 completed projects and 810 clients worldwide, IAOP recognizes the company as one of The Global Outsourcing 100. Denver, CO Headquarters: Expedia, Xerox, Toyota, eBay, IBM, PayPal, Adidas Core clients: $25 — $49 Pay per hour: 1000–9999 Number of employees: Website: https://www.itransition.com/ 2. Saviant Consulting Saviant is a consulting company with more than 120 experts in its team and more than 100 clients in various countries, including UK, Canada, and the US. The company specifically focuses on Energy, Logistics, and Retail. Among the company’s big data services are big data analytics and management, full-cycle big data solution development, and more. Pune, India Headquarters: JJ Food Service, BuilderMT, Transparent Technologies, Inc Core clients: Not Revealed Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.saviantconsulting.com/ 3. Squadex Headquartered in California, USA, Squadex is a technology consulting and engineering company that provides big data services. It offers big data analytics, consulting, and big data platform engineering. Squadex is an AWS certified consulting partner that works with companies of different size, from small startups to large enterprises. Palo Alto, CA Headquarters: Model N, NinthDecimal, Nitrio Core clients: Not Revealed Pay per hour: 250–999 Number of employees: Website: https://squadex.com/ 4. CBIG Consulting Founded in 2002, CBIG Consulting is an American company offering business intelligence and big data analytics solutions. Besides analytics and consulting, the company provides big data solutions architecture. For this purpose, CBIG Consulting employs Hadoop distributions, Hive, Sqoop, etc. The company’s industrial focus is on Finance, Healthcare, and Retail. Chicago, IL Headquarters: Abbott, Astellas, Baxter, Cigna, DePaul University Core clients: $150 — $199 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.cbigconsulting.com/ 5. Clavax Technologies Founded in 2011, Clavax is a software development company headquartered in San Jose, California. It delivers big data consulting and implementation. By employing big data technologies, the company provides services for data warehousing, data processing, and data integration. Clavax’ client list includes PWC, Football.com, Bookfari, and Honeywell. San Jose, CA Headquarters: PWC, Football.com, Bookfari, Honeywell, Jabil Core clients: $25 — $49 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.clavax.com/ 6. ThirdEye Data ThirdEye Data is a big data services company that delivers big data consulting, analytics and engineering while using artificial intelligence, deep learning, and machine learning. ThirdEye Data has served such companies as Nokia, Ford, Amgen, GettyImages, Actian, and others. The company focuses on Finance, Government, IT, Retail, and Manufacturing. Santa Clara, CA Headquarters: Microsoft, Nokia, Ford, Amgen, GettyImages, Actian, Google Core clients: $50 — $99 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://thirdeyedata.io/ 7. Signity Solutions Established in 2009, Signity Solutions is a company that delivers custom software development and big data solutions. The company helps with big data analysis and brings data solutions empowered by machine learning. Signity works for the Commerce, Education, Media, and other industries. Rajiv Gandhi IT Park, India Headquarters: Samsung, Grupio, The Project Factory Core clients: $25 — $49 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.signitysolutions.com 8. Caserta Founded in 2001, Caserta is a NY-based IT company that delivers a wide range of data-related services. The company offers big data consulting and solution architecture/development. Caserta also provides data visualization, data warehousing services, and more. The company has worked with such clients as New York Times, Capital One, Equinox, and HBO. New York, NY Headquarters: New York Times, Capital One, Equinox, HBO Core clients: Not Revealed Pay per hour: 10–49 Number of employees: Website: https://caserta.com/ 9. RapidOps, Inc RapidOps is a custom software development company based in the USA. The company’s expertise includes big data analytics, consulting, and visualization. The company’s team of 60+ professional developers delivers its services to the Manufacturing, Retail, and IT industries. Charlotte, NC Headquarters: YoDish, Zurn Industries, DassaultSystemes Core clients: $25 — $49 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.rapidops.com/ 10. Aegis Soft Tech Since 2003, Aegis Soft Tech has been providing software development to Healthcare, Finance, Retail, Manufacturing, and other industries. Aegis provides big data consultation, management, and analysis. Among that, Aegis helps with data migration processes. The company’s pool of developers expertizes in Hadoop, Cloudera, and Hortonworks platforms. Rajkot, India Headquarters: Sunzinet, Zydus, PointRF, Efacec Core clients: < $25 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://www.aegissofttech.com/ 11. GetInData GetInData is a Poland-based company that unites more than 30 professionals. The company has carried out more than 30 projects. GetInData delivers the following big data services: big data infrastructure development, analytics, consulting, engineering, and maintenance. GetInData delivered its services to such companies as Spotify, Allegro, Agora, and Freshmail. Warsaw, Poland Headquarters: Spotify, Allegro, Agora, Freshmail, Truecaller, GoEuro Core clients: $50 — $99 Pay per hour: 10–49 Number of employees: Website: https://getindata.com/ 12. Kavi Global Established in 2008, Kavi Global is an analytical company that delivers a whole spectrum of big data services. They include consulting, big data solution architecture, and platform implementation. The company also offers data mining and data management services. Kavi Global’s industrial expertise includes Transportation, Manufacturing, Education, and Healthcare. Barrington, IL Headquarters: General Electric, TEAMHealth, Thomson Reuters, Ryder Core clients: $150 — $199 Pay per hour: 10–49 Number of employees: Website: https://www.kaviglobal.com/ 13. Indium Software Since 1999, Indium Software has been providing technological solutions for 19 various industries. The company has worked with 750 clients from all over the world. Employing such technologies as Hadoop, Spark, and Apache Kafka, Indium Software delivers big data architecture and consulting services. Princeton, NJ Headquarters: Not Revealed Core clients: < $25 Pay per hour: 250–999 Number of employees: Website: https://www.indiumsoftware.com/ 14. Fayrix Israel-based Fayrix is a custom software development company and big data services provider with 1530 IT experts on board. The company deals with various projects, from initial data analysis and consulting to big data infrastructure design, big data software development, and its implementation into a client’s existing technological landscape. Pitu’akh, Israel Headquarters: Biosence Webster, SCR, S7 Airlines Core clients: < $25 Pay per hour: 1000–9999 Number of employees: Website: https://fayrix.com/ 15. Denologix Established in 2002, Denologix is an analytics and information management company providing a wide range of big data services, including data analysis, consulting, and big data solution implementation and support. The company deploys a large number of technological tools for big data, including Hortonworks Data Platform, Cloudera СВР Hadoop Distribution, and more. Among the company’s clients are Adidas, Allstream, Aviva, Canada Post, and others. Toronto, Canada Headquarters: Adidas, Allstream, Aviva, Canada Post, Bell, Brookfield Core clients: $150 — $199 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: http://www.denologix.com/ 16. Data Reply Established in 2015, Data Reply is a big data and analytics consultancy based in London, UK. Besides big data consulting and training, the company offers data engineering and data science services. The company focuses on such industries as Retail, Media, Telecommunications, and Commerce. London, United Kingdom Headquarters: Not revealed Core clients: $100 — $149 Pay per hour: 10–49 Number of employees: Website: https://www.datareply.co.uk/ 17. Dexlock Established in 2012, Dexlock is an Indian company that delivers big data services. Among them are large data store development and deep learning/machine learning implementation. The company’s technological expertise includes Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, and more. Dexlock works with the Healthcare, Retail, Insurance, Energy and other industries. Kochi, India Headquarters: FindCharisma, Splash of Colors, StatFuel, MyPeepz Core clients: < $25 Pay per hour: 50–249 Number of employees: Website: http://www.dexlock.com/ 18. 47Billion 47Billion is a bespoke software development company that provides mobile and web development and UI/UX design. Besides these services, the company delivers end-to-end big data analysis, consulting, and engineering. The company’s industrial focus includes IT, Gaming, and Consumer Services. 47Billion’s clients include Cisco, Nazara, and Apsalar. Bangalore, India Headquarters: Cisco, Nazara, Apsalar Core clients: : $25 — $49 Pay per hour 50–249 Number of employees: Website: https://47billion.com/ 19. 51zero 51zero is a UK-based company that specializes in big data services providing. The company delivers big data consulting and solutions development and focuses on the financial service domain. The company’s pool of technological experts deploys such big data technologies as Spark, Apache Kafka, Docker, and others. London, United Kingdom Headquarters: HSBC, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Core clients: $200 — $300 Pay per hour: 2–9 Number of employees: Website: https://www.51zero.com/ 20. SCI-BI SCI-BI is a company based in India. With more than seven years of experience, the company specializes in big data consulting and engineering. The company also helps with data integration strategy. SCI-BI’s big data technological expertise includes Cloudera and Hortonworks. The company focuses explicitly on Logistics and Retail. Chennai, India Headquarters: Executive Planning Services, USA SaasByDesign Inc, USA Caravel Logistics Core clients: < $25 Pay per hour: 10–49 Number of employees: Website: http://sci-bi.com/

The Top Big Data Consulting Firms

Healthcare Innovation in 2018

245 Tools & Resources for Travelers and Digital Nomads

What is Brand Management Software? Brand Management tools are helpful to businesses in order to manage their brand globally and locally and you can easily ensure yourself that your branding is in your control. Brand owners or managers can easily manage the complete brand messaging of their business with the help of brand management software. A business owner or brand manager can easily create an effective discipline for those who represent their brand; agencies, vendor partners and other marketing sources represent the brand in the market so the brand manager can easily create the effective roadmap for them and it really increases the brand reputation in the market. The user can easily get a centralized database where he/she can create, manage, store, share and distribute the brand assets and relevant files. This thing really increases brand consistency in all different stages. If you need to create new marketing techniques and strategies for your brand and you need the best process to regulate it, brand management software is the best solution for you where you can easily manage workflow process. You can also approve new marketing techniques and other activities to boost your brand power and awareness. Let’s take a look, here you can find the leading brand management software for your business. 1. Brand24 Discover what people are saying online about your brand — as it unfolds in real time. Brand24 gives you instant access to mentions about your brand across the web, from social networks to influential publishers. React and engage quickly to real-time comments made about your brand. Follow-up on positive comments from your brand ambassadors, or respond to a dissatisfied customer before the story gets ahead of you. 2. Widen Collective Widen Collective is a cloud-based digital asset management solution that allows users to find, share, upload, download and analyze visual content anywhere, on any device. The product is suitable for marketers, creative teams, IT managers and software architects of SMBs and enterprises. It is designed to cater to the needs of various industries that include apparel, construction, consumer goods, hospitality, healthcare, engineering, medical devices, travel and retail. 3. Grade.us If you’ve got your pulse on growing tends in digital marketing, you know the importance of online reviews. Not only are they an increasingly valuable ranking factor for search engines, they are becoming an inevitable step for your customers as they look to make a purchase decision themselves! In other words, they help you get more customers because of visibility and influence. 4. Justuno Justuno is the most innovative and robust conversion optimization suite for sales conversions, email list growth, and onsite promotions using real-time user data. We deliver powerful results for agencies, grow audiences for brands, and increase conversions for merchants. 5. Cision Cision covers all aspects of your communication needs, helping you reach, target and engage your audience. The Cision Communications Cloud® features a suite of metrics and automated analyses that translate your activities and earned media coverage into valuable insights and most importantly verifiable return-on-investment. 6. Reputology Reputology is the review monitoring and management solution designed for organizations that operate multiple physical locations. We help restaurants, gyms, hotels, auto dealers, hospitals, marketing agencies, retail stores, banks & more. 7. Percolate Percolate offers solutions to introduce visibility into the marketing process, improve coordination of work, and effectively build marketing campaigns and content. The world’s largest brands — including Mastercard, Cisco, Cigna, Electronic Arts, and Bosch — use Percolate to create a coordinated customer experience, reduce production costs, and understand marketing impact. 8. Bynder Bynder’s success is not only down to the quality of our work and outstanding customer care, but it’s driven by the attitude and approach of our global team. We believe focused and passionate teamwork should influence everything we do, and our desire to produce exceptional solutions runs deep. We are united with you in the drive to get the best from your project; we listen hard to understand your business and your needs, and we’re 100% committed to making all our features the best they can possibly be. 9. Prisync Prisync is a competitor price tracking & dynamic pricing software for all sizes of e-commerce companies from all around the world. It tracks online prices and stock availabilities and lets e-commerce companies define smart pricing rules depending on their unit product costs and competitor prices to apply dynamic pricing on their webshop to increase sales and profit margins. Prisync is already helping various sizes of e-commerce companies from more than 40 countries. 10. Asset Bank The first version of Asset Bank was established in 2005. We were inspired to enter the world of Digital Asset Management (DAM) after developing a bespoke image management system for our client GKN Driveline. As part of the development process we realised there were quite a few companies already offering DAM systems, but at an exorbitant cost. Our vision was to offer quality DAM software at a great price. 11. Frontify Frontify is the SaaS-based brand management platform for the digital age used by 2000 companies worldwide including Vodafone, Lufthansa, IBM, Nasdaq, and Bosch. With our cloud-based software, brand managers can create online Style Guides, manage their brand assets, create UI Pattern Libraries, Brand Portals and work collaboratively in creative projects. Strengthen your brand consistency over all channels using Frontify. Ideally suited for Enterprise level companies. 12. NiceJob NiceJob is a reputation marketing solution to aid businesses with gathering more and better quality reviews, marketing across social platforms, and improving SEO ranking. With the aim of helping businesses of any type or size to improve their online reputation, NiceJob provides tools such as review invitations, automated email and SMS follow-ups, review funnels, stories, SEO management, and more. 13. Third Light Third Light is a fast, feature-rich, digital asset management tool. Organise, tag, find, share, edit and download all of your digital files quickly, easily and securely. Online chat and share supports centralized, collaborative working with internal teams and external partners. Convert formats, trace copyright, protect and distribute files. Cloud-based or licensed solutions with free, seamless updates and API available. Great price, offers unlimited users and supports industry standards. 14. Outbrain Outbrain is a premium discovery platform that helps connect marketers to their target audience through personalized recommendations on the world’s leading publishers. We use proprietary interest and behavioral data to capture audience’s attention all the way to inspiring their next action. 15. CleanPix CleanPix is a web-based digital, brand, and media asset management solution which automatically processes files into multiple sizes and formats, enables users to organize assets into public and private galleries, and allows distribution of assets through public portals, access-controlled private galleries, and directly by email. The Core Elements of Brand Management Software Brand Management software is specially designed for all sizes business where a brand manager can easily organize and advertise their products and services to their most potential customers in the most effective manner. We can also understand this software as marketing category software. Here you can find the most essential elements of brand asset management software: Effective Marketing Campaigns: As I told you earlier that it manages to brand globally and locally however it also works to maintain brand loyalty internally and externally. Marketing is one and the only option to reach your audience so you can easily reach to your audience and create the effective brand awareness with the help of brand management tools. You can create a robust and error-less marketing campaign with these branding tools. Project Workflows: You can easily manage project workflows with brand management software; it usually takes care of your all work steps; you can also track the workflow with the same software. You can create new marketing strategies and regulate it to across all channels. You can create the effective work cycle at all channels of business and it will help you to create the best workflows. You can easily increase the team collaboration level with brand management. Design Assets: Design defines the business. It attracts the customer and increases brand value so never compromise with design assets. You can easily develop and market impactful designs which one shows the higher relevancy of your business. You can create designs in any format and share directly to social media with the help of brand management tools. You can even restore the asset and recreate the design with your team. Social Media Social media is the most powerful way for you if you really want to reach to your audience. You can easily create relevant and impressive designs with this type of tool and directly share to social media. You can easily integrate any of social media platforms into your brand management software. You can easily double your social media effort through brand management software. Common Functionality of Brand Management: Here, I am going to show you some most common functionality of brand management software. Social Media Integration: You can easily integrate your brand management software with your business social media handles like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Tumblr, Reddit and much more. It really creates the easiest way to do social media for your business. Real-time analytics You can easily access real-time analytics across the complete brand management process. You can easily get an idea about critical insights through this software. User-defined permissions You can easily provide and denied access to the particular user. You can deliver and share your business assets to the right person with this feature. Search functionality It’s the best option to locate the right asset in right time. You can search and get needed assets anytime with this feature. Multi-format output You can easily create your content in multi-format like you can create content in PDF, HTML, and other formats. Fulfillment distribution You can easily distribute the relevant asset to the right users and groups in seconds even you can control your distribution among users. Asset management The User can easily create, store and manage all the marketing and design assets even he/she can share with others within certainly located online portal or database. Artwork automation It allows the user to streamline design processes and this thing really improves the brand accuracy and productivity level of the particular user. Approval Process Control The user can easily review the social media posts and marketing strategies and after they can manually or automatically approve it. Alert Feature The user can easily send alerts to a particular user or group regarding content reviews and approval stages. It will also help to generate custom email alerts to the selected groups. What things buyers should keep in mind? As I told you that it works for all size businesses as per their needs so before choosing the best software, you must have to understand your needs. If you are the small business owner, cloud-based brand management software is the best option for you because of its affordable and cost-effective options to manage your branding. 1. For larger and big enterprises, there is another category of corporate brand management software where you can find the on-premise solution for your brand. You can easily organize and control in-house branding activities with the help of this software. 2. You must also understand the third-party integration features of software because of it will make your way easier with proper integration. You can integrate your social media accounts, email accounts, online store, your website and much more thing to your brand management software. 3. Why You Need Brand Management Software For Your Business? You can do many things manually to increase your business but it only offers limited space. All the successful company works on big data and analytics and if you want to work with big data, brand management tools are the best option to make your system automated. You can easily discover more useful insights and understand your customer needs very well. You can even enter to the new market with the help of valuable and exact data. Mobile offers major traffic to brands than desktop, laptop, and other devices. Most returning users and new users (approx 51%) interact with mobile to the brand so the business turns their approach to mobile devices. You can easily integrate your brand software to your mobile app and create effective marketing and branding strategies for your business.

List of Top 10+ Brand Management Software With Ultimate Buyer Guide

Originally published on Scrappy & Strange, the Founder Collective Newsletter — Sign up here ! David Frankel relayed this quote from , which was delivered at annual gathering, as a reminder that capital is a constraint — though probably not the biggest constraint facing most startups. Hustle tends to be in much shorter supply. Here are a few inspiring stories of entrepreneurs illustrating the power of hustle over capital: Regie Gibson Cue Ball Capital’s Instead of investing in costly ad campaigns in the company’s cash-strapped early days, , with ultra-specific names like “RacksAndStands.com” to game Google’s search algorithm, paving the way for what has become a $4B business. Wayfair: Wayfair built 270 highly targeted websites a $2B stock photo service, was started by a hacker/amateur photographer who personally built the site and launched it with 100,000 images from his photo collection. ShutterStock , Hustle doesn’t stop once you have raised venture capital. Langley Steinert raised $5M to get CarGurus started, but instead of seeking VC to hire even more engineers, he used the revenue he was generating to hire — now the company is cruising towards an IPO. CarGurus: hundreds of sales reps to generate even more revenue Meet The Efficient Entrepreneur Who Replaced RadioShack Limor Fried, founder/CEO of AdaFruit. Photo: . Make: Magazine started out of her dorm room at MIT and has bootstrapped her ecommerce/electronics startup (now based in NYC) to $45M in revenue with 105 FTEs, and a product line which features 400+ hardware products and kits. Read this profile to learn more about the company, including how they’ve acquired 20M+ YouTube views, 100K Twitter followers, and 2M monthly website visits. Limor Fried AdaFruit Make: Magazine Unity Raised No VC for its First Four Years, Gets $400M in One Round , makers of the game engine that powers Pokemon Go and just raised . Even more interesting is the of how the founders hustled during the company’s first four years, building out , before raising . Unity 34% of top mobile games $400M from PE giant Silver Lake history mobile-friendly 3-D rendering tech forgoing salary, and even waiting tables to pay the bills venture capital Should Startups Care About Profitability? makes a compelling argument that profitability is overrated for companies that are well suited to venture capital. It’s a nuanced argument, but one that almost any entrepreneur would benefit from reading. Here’s an excerpt: Mark Suster If the market they are targeting is very large and fast growing, then the venture-backed businesses often make it harder for the non-venture-backed businesses to compete in the long-term. If the markets aren’t large then the company who managed its costs may be able to get a modest exit at a fair price and make the team wealthy precisely because they didn’t take on venture capital. The VC-backed businesses sometimes “blow up.” As is often the case — there are no obvious or right answers. responded with a post about the beneficial effects enjoyed by his portfolio companies that have prioritized profitability. shared his experience from the dot-com era, “I learned that the markets reward growth until they don’t. Then they reward profitability.” Also, be sure to read to the discussion. Fred Wilson Brad Feld Roger Ehrenberg’s thoughtful contribution Weirdness from Around the Web Filmmaker replaces missing eyeball with a video camera. [ ] Motherboard “During a recent type-in at Albuquerque soul food restaurant Nexus Brewery, around three dozen fans took turns clicking the keys of an Italian-made 1964 Olivetti Lettera 32 Typewriter.” [ ] MySanAntonio British researchers scan 6,000 faces to create database for plastic surgeons to use for reconstructive surgery [ ] 3Ders The first blue pigment created in over 200 years to be used in a crayon [ ] Colossal Founder Collective in the News Deconstructing the “Near” Perfect Deal — Our Investment in Julia Computing By D avid Frankel , Partner An excerpt: I’m fortunate to have been involved with some amazing entrepreneurs and startups over the years, but each of those deals had some flaw when I invested. These obviously weren’t disqualifying; it’s just the reality that high-risk seed-stage venture investing is predicated on … risk. That’s why I’m both excited and somewhat concerned that I’ve recently had the opportunity to invest in a deal that is as close to the platonic ideal that I’m ever likely to see. Want to know what makes a deal “near” perfect? Read More! What Startups & VCs Can Learn From Indiana Jones By Micah Rosenbloom , Partner An excerpt: It might be a useful exercise for founders to think of themselves as auteurs rather than entrepreneurs. Filmmakers and founders are both creative professionals, but directors have to contend with a world where capital is a fixed sum, not a seemingly endless stream. Directors must have a vision for their product, a rough understanding of what it would cost to realize that vision, and then execute within those constraints. Contrast that to startup founders who always have the possibility of raising another round of funding. Strict limitations for filmmakers have led to a slew of indie projects, made on shoe-string budgets by unknown creators, that go on to rival star-studded Hollywood blockbusters. For instance: These are career-making projects that put stars, and catchphrases, on the map. All were made — at most — with a series A level of funding. What makes these low-budget films so successful? There seem to be a few common themes: Want to know what Napoleon Dynamite can teach your startup? . Read the rest here There’s No Shame in a $100M Startup By E ric Paley , Partner & Joe Flaherty , C&C We’ve expanded our list of and found that billion dollar outcomes remain in short supply. entrepreneurs who have become VCs Portfolio Updates CEO Zach Bookman appeared on CNBC to discuss how tech companies can help streamline and strengthen government services OpenGov [CNBC] raised $50M from Cigna to fight diabetes Omada Health [Omada] announced a new package design and PharmacyOS PillPack [Wired] released data demonstrating that meal delivery apps don’t cannibalize restaurant sales. S ense360 [CNBC] breaks down the new changes to Apple’s podcast ecosystem Bumpers [Bumpers] is one of the Wall Street Journal’s “25 Tech Companies to Watch” Andela [WSJ] Job of the Week 3-D Printing market leader is looking to hire 100+ people in the next year, but first, they need to find an . Do you know how to seek out the best software engineers? The techniques to attract top notch talent in engineering, design, marketing, and sales? If so, Formlabs is building something amazing — be a part of it. Formlabs ace recruiter

“Hustling is the art of practicing capitalism without capital”

The Noonification: Unpacking Cinnamon—A New Resiliency Approach at Uber (1/22/2024)

Last year, the Uber Engineering team on their new load-shedding mechanism designed for their published an article microservice architecture. This article is very interesting from various perspectives. So, I took some notes as I was reading it to capture my understanding and write down things that I would like to delve deeper into later if I don’t get the answers by the end. I’ve found multiple times that this is the best way for me to learn new things. What got me from the start was the reference to century-old principles used to build this solution. That’s something I love — borrowing concepts/ideas from different fields and adapting them to solve a problem in a different domain. If system resiliency and stability are of interest to you, I recommend also reading the excellent book by Michael T. Nygard. ‘Release It!’ It’s an oldie but a goodie — a book that delves into strategies, patterns, and practical guidance for building resilient and stable software systems, emphasizing how to handle failures effectively. Uber has implemented a new load shedding solution called Cinnamon that takes advantage of a PID controller (the centuries-old mechanism) to decide which requests should be processed or discarded by a service based on the service’s current load and the request priority. It does not involve any tuning at the service level (although I had a question about that), is automatically adaptable, and much more efficient than their previous solution QALM. Remember also that Uber’s microservices architecture is not for the faint of heart… What is this famous PID controller and how is it used? A PID controller is an instrument used in industrial control applications to regulate temperature, flow, pressure, speed, and other process variables. PID (proportional integral derivative) controllers use a control loop feedback mechanism to control process variables and are the most accurate and stable controllers. — https://www.omega.co.uk/prodinfo/pid-controllers.html If you want more information about this centuries-old concept, head to Wikipedia. Now, back to the article. PID stands for Proportional, Integral, and Derivative. In their case, they use a component known as a PID controller to monitor the health of a service (input requests) based on three components (or measures). Proportional The term “proportional” indicates that the action taken is proportional to the current error. In simple terms, this means that the correction applied is directly proportional to the difference between the desired state and the actual state. If the error is large, the corrective action is proportionally large. When an endpoint is overloaded, the background goroutine starts to monitor the inflow and outflow of requests into the priority queue. So, the Proportional (P) component in the load shedder adjusts the shedding rate based on how far the current queue size is from the target or desired queue size. If the queue is larger than desired, more shedding occurs; if it’s smaller, shedding is reduced. That’s my understanding of it. Integral The PID controller’s job is to minimize the number of queued requests, whereas the auto-tuner’s job is to maximize the throughput of the service, without sacrificing the response latencies (too much). While the text doesn’t explicitly mention “Integral (I)” in the context of the queue size, it indicates that the PID controller’s role is to minimize the number of queued requests. The minimization of queued requests aligns with the Integral component’s goal of addressing accumulated errors over time. To determine whether an endpoint is overloaded we keep track of the last time the request queue was empty, and if it has not been emptied in the last say 10 seconds we deem the endpoint to be overloaded (inspired by Facebook). In the load shedder, it may be associated with decisions related to the historical behavior of the request queue, such as the time since it was last empty. Honestly, that’s not entirely clear to me. It’s a bit frustrating, I must say. While they mention leveraging a centuries-old mechanism, it would have been helpful if they explicitly stated which part corresponds to what or how it operates. I do not want to diminish the value of their amazing article. That’s just my rant here… After all, I’m French… ;) Derivative I think this one is easier to identify. In a classical PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) controller, the “Derivative (D)” action is particularly useful when you want the controller to anticipate the future behavior of the system based on the current rate of change of the error. It helps dampen oscillations and improve the system’s stability. In the context of the load shedder and the PID controller mentioned in the article, the Derivative component is likely employed to assess how fast the request queue is filling up. By doing so, it aids in making decisions that aim to maintain a stable system and prevent sudden or unpredictable changes. The rejector component has two responsibilities: a) figure out whether an endpoint is overloaded and b), if an endpoint is overloaded, shed a percentage of the requests to make sure the request queue is as small as possible. When an endpoint is overloaded, the background goroutine starts to monitor the inflow and outflow of requests into the priority queue. Based on these numbers, it uses a PID controller to determine a ratio of requests to shed. The PID controller is very fast (as in very few iterations are needed) at finding the correct level and once the request queue has been drained, the PID ensures that we only slowly reduce the ratio. In the mentioned context, the PID controller is used to determine the ratio of requests to shed when an endpoint is overloaded, and it monitors the inflow and outflow of requests. The derivative component of the PID controller, which responds to the rate of change, is implicitly involved in assessing how fast the request queue is being filled or drained. This helps in making dynamic decisions to maintain system stability. Both the Integral and Derivative components are involved in monitoring the behavior of the request queue over time Integral Component In the context of determining overload, the integral component might be associated with tracking how long the request queue has been in a non-empty state. This aligns with the idea of accumulating the integral of the error signal over time. “Integral — based on how long the request has been in the queue…” Derivative Component The derivative component, on the other hand, is related to the rate of change. It responds to how quickly the state of the request queue is changing. “Derivative — rejection based on how fast the queue is filling up…” While both Integral and Derivative aspects involve observing the request queue, they focus on different aspects of its behavior The Integral component emphasizes the duration of the non-empty state, while the Derivative component considers the rate at which the queue is changing. At the end of the game, they utilize these three measures to determine the course of action for a request. The question I have is how they combine these three components, if at all. I’m curious to understand how they monitor them as well. Nevertheless, I think I’ve got the idea… Which request do they decide to shelve depending on these 3 components, and how? The endpoint in the edge is annotated with the priority of the request and this is propagated from the edge to all downstream dependencies via . By propagating this information, all services in the request chain will know the importance of the request and how critical it is for our users. Jaeger The first thought that comes to mind is that it would seamlessly integrate into a service mesh architecture. I appreciate the concept of employing distributed service tracing and headers to propagate request priority. Along these lines, why opt for a shared library with this dependency added to each microservice, instead of placing it outside the service, perhaps as an Istio plugin? Considering the benefits it offers: independent release/deployment cycles, polyglot support, etc. Here are some additional thoughts: Is there a possibility that, over time, the request priority may degrade or change based on contextual shifts, such as the initiation of an unplanned high-priority batch process or task, or alterations at the timezone/region level? How does this approach play out with other ‘standard’ resiliency management approaches/patterns, such as circuit breakers, timeouts, leases, bulkheads, etc.? I’m interested in understanding to what extent a service decides (owns the decision) to shed requests based on the input request priority. They mention a lack of configuration (an aspect I would like to explore further), so it’s not specific to the service and entirely independent of the service implementation, kind of transparent. This brings back the point of service mesh/independent release cycles versus dependent library. Well, I’m biased, as I’m not a big fan of shared libraries, if only because I think they complicate the release/deployment process. However, I’m not sure if there is a service-specific configuration aspect to consider. Perhaps they configure how long the service should wait to start processing a query and complete it? Perhaps one aspect worth testing is the decision-making process of the ejector. From what I understand, it determines whether to reject a request based on the PID controller, which is localized to the service. Is there an option for a more global approach? For instance, if it’s known that one of the downstream services in the pipeline is overloaded (due to its own PID controller), could any upstream service decide to reject the request before it reaches this overloaded service (which could be n steps further down the path)? This decision could be based on the value returned by the PID controller or the auto-tuner of the downstream service. Now, I’m musing on various aspects mentioned as they wrap up the article and provide some numbers to showcase the efficiency of their system, which is quite impressive They mention at some point that ‘Each request has a timeout of 1 second.’ We run tests of 5 minutes, where we send a fixed amount of RPS (e.g., 1,000), where 50% of the traffic is tier 1 and 50% is tier 5. Each request has a timeout of 1 second. It is common in distributed systems to associate a request with a specific expiration time or deadline, with each service along the processing path responsible for enforcing this time limit. If the expiration time is reached before the request is completed, any service in the chain has the option to abort or reject the request. I assume this 1-second timeout is attached to the request, and each service, depending on where we are in this deadline, can decide to abort the request. This is a measure that is global because it is aggregated through the services. I think it resonates with the point I was making earlier about having a global view of the full system health or dependencies to decide to abort the request as soon as possible if it does not have a chance to complete due to one of the services down the path. Could the ‘health’ of the downstream services (comprising data from their local PID controllers) be returned as headers attached to the responses and used to build a more evolved circuit breaker/early preemptive shedding mechanism? Finally, I’m curious to learn more about the previous approach because, based on the description given in this paper, it seems to be sound. When you examine the measures of goodput and latencies, there is no doubt about which one, QALM or Cinnamon, performs the best. Note that they mention a link to the QALM approach in the article. Probably should start from ;) there As always, these approaches are not for everybody. Uber’s architecture and load are kind of its own. I’m actually impatient to read the next articles in this series, specifically to learn more about the PID controller and auto-tuner. With Cinnamon we have built an efficient load shedder that uses century-old techniques to dynamically set thresholds for rejecting and estimating capacity of the services. It solves the issues we noticed with QALM (and thus any CoDel-based load shedder), namely, that Cinnamon is able to: - Quickly find a stable rejection rate - Automatically adjust the capacity of the service - Be used without setting any configuration parameters - Incur very low overhead What is interesting about this approach is that they consider all the requests to be processed to decide what to do for each new input request, as they use a (priority) queue. As mentioned, I’m curious if the mechanism could also take into account the health of all the dependent services based on the same PID measures… There are other interesting aspects in this article, such as how they measure the effect of their strategies and the comparison with the previous approach. However, it does not require more detailed notes from me than what is already presented. So, I highly encourage you to read . the original article , Found this article useful? Follow me on Linkedin , and Hackernoon ! 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Unpacking Cinnamon — A New Resiliency Approach at Uber

দারুচিনি আনপ্যাক করা—উবারে একটি নতুন স্থিতিস্থাপক পদ্ধতি

Cinnamon auspacken – ein neuer Resilienz-Ansatz bei Uber

Desempacar Cinnamon: un nuevo enfoque de resiliencia en Uber

Déballer Cinnamon : une nouvelle approche de résilience chez Uber

दालचीनी को खोलना-उबेर में एक नया लचीलापन दृष्टिकोण

シナモンの開梱 — Uber における新しい回復力アプローチ

Unpacking Cinnamon - Uber의 새로운 탄력성 접근 방식

Desempacotando a Canela – Uma Nova Abordagem de Resiliência na Uber

Распаковка Cinnamon — новый подход к обеспечению устойчивости в Uber

Tarçın Paketini Açmak—Uber'de Yeni Bir Dayanıklılık Yaklaşımı

Giải mã Quế—Phương pháp tiếp cận khả năng phục hồi mới tại Uber

打开 Cinnamon 包装——Uber 的新弹性方法

Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Vanilla, Cinnamon, Cocoanut. here Vanilla, Cinnamon, Cocoanut. The following interesting facts concerning the cultivation of the above products in the island of Ceylon, were given in Mr. H. B. Brady's recent address before the British Pharmaceutical Conference at Swansea: The vanilla plant is trained on poles placed about twelve or eighteen inches apart—one planter has a line of plants about three miles in length. Like the cardamom, it yields fruit after three years, and then continues producing its pods for an indefinite period. The cinnamon ( ) is, as its name indicates, a native of Ceylon. It is cultivated on a light sandy soil about three miles from the sea, on the southwest coast of the island, from Negumbo to Matura. In its cultivated state it becomes really productive after the sixth year, and continues from forty to sixty years. The superintendent of the largest estate in this neighborhood stated that there were not less than fifteen varieties of cinnamon, sufficiently distinct in flavor to be easily recognized. The production of the best so injures the plants that it does not pay to cut this at any price under 4s. 6d. to 5s. per lb. The estate alluded to above yields from 30,000 to 40,000 lb. per annum; a uniform rate of 4-1/2 d. per lb. of finished bark is paid for the labor. Cinnamon oil is produced from this bark by distillation; the mode is very primitive and wasteful. About 40 lb. of bark, previously macerated in water, form one charge for the still, which is heated over a fire made of the spent bark of a previous distillation. Each charge of bark yields about three ounces of oil, and two charges are worked daily in each still. Cinnamomum zeylanicum The cultivation of the cocoanut tree and the production of the valuable cocoanut oil are two important Cingalese occupations. These trees, it appears, do not grow with any luxuriance at a distance from human dwellings, a fact which may perhaps be accounted for by the benefit they derive from the smoke inseparable from the fires in human habitations. The cultivation of cocoanuts would seem to be decidedly profitable, as some 4,000 nuts per year are yielded by each acre, the selling price being £3 per thousand, while the cost of cultivation is about £2 per acre. In extracting the oil, the white pulp is removed and dried, roughly powdered, and pressed in similar machinery to the linseed oil crushing mills of this country. The dried pulp yields about 63 per cent by weight of limpid, colorless oil, which in our climate forms the white mass so well known in pharmacy. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2007). Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/21081/pg21081-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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