*By Tanaya Macheel*
PayPal is giving its employees a crash course in crypto token economics.
The company has launched an internal blockchain-based incentive platform for employees, Cheddar has learned. The initiative was built over a period of six months by about 25 people in PayPal's ($PYPL) San Jose-based innovation lab and launched in mid-November, according to Michael Todasco, the director of innovation.
Employees can access their tokens through the company's internal website and continue earning more by participating in innovation-related programs and contributing ideas. The tokens, which hold no value outside of PayPal's walls, are also tradable among employees with each transaction being posted to, effectively, a "public ledger."
PayPal historically has kept a firm stance against using Bitcoin for payments – particularly because of its large merchant customer base. If a small business accepts a payment in Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s volatile price drops 30 percent, so does that merchant’s profit.
In August 2016, PayPal filed a patent for an expedited virtual currency transaction system that became public this March. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the filing, maintaining that patent filings don’t necessarily indicate its product plans.
PayPal’s tokens are redeemable for more than 100 “experiences” offered on the platform, including poker tournaments with a couple of their vice presidents, a trail run and coffee with CFO John Rainey, and morning martial arts with CEO Dan Schulman. Gabrielle Scheibe Rabinovitch, the company’s head of investor relations, has offered to let employees borrow her dog for a day, Todasco said.
Todasco described it as a “Venmo-like feed people can like and comment on and see all the activity going on within PayPal related to innovation.”
The experiment is similar to one conducted by the Spanish bank BBVA, whose 4,000 employees in Spain and Argentina have access to a “BBVA Campus Wallet.” The bank provides tokens to employees who can redeem them for an hour of training; they can also earn tokens if they train another employee. As a regulated financial institution, BBVA is restricted from holding crypto assets, despite their demonstrated interest.
PayPal’s San Jose innovation lab is three years old; it also has innovation labs in Singapore, Bangalore, Chennai, and Scottsdale, Ariz. Though prototyping is the primary focus, Todasco said employees strive to learn how to work with new platforms so eventually they can bring it into the businessー provided there’s a business case for it.
For example, one of the first things the lab studied was voice technology. Now PayPal has teams that are dedicated to voice and works with the learnings, code base, and some of the people that came out of the innovation lab’s exploration. The lab itself no longer works on those projects, Todasco said.
(Disclosure: PayPal is one of Cheddar's sponsors but had no editorial influence over this story.)
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
