*By Jacqueline Corba*
Salesforce has saved a seat at its executive meetings for Einstein, an artificial intelligence-powered robot developed by the cloud computing company.
"The fact that we are using our own products to really drive our forecasting, it's pretty amazing," said Bob Stutz, CEO of Salesforce's Marketing Cloud. "It is really great to have that tool that you can use every single day to run your business."
Salesforce's chief executive, Marc Benioff, has been an outspoken proponent of the company's use of A.I., and said that Einstein has [been at every weekly senior staff meeting](http://fortune.com/2018/01/25/salesforce-benioff-einstein-davos-ai/) for the last year.
Stutz said Einstein pulls his weight on a team that has grown its quarterly revenue by 41 percent year over year.
"We are on an incredible tear right now," Stutz said in an interview with Cheddar. "It's really helping customers connect with their consumers across sales, marketing, service ー it's a real growth driver for us nowadays."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-salesforce-marketing-cloud-growth).
Care to watch the original "Star Wars" trilogy? Don't assume Disney's forthcoming streaming service Disney+ will have it. And while AT&T owns "Friends," it won't be streaming it exclusively on its own OTT platform when it launches in 2019 ー viewers will still be able to binge the series on Netflix. "Star Wars" and "Friends" are just a couple of the confusing licensing arrangements viewers should expect as more media companies push to debut their own streaming services to rival Netflix and Hulu.
In the virtual-reality world, "Mission Impossible" is possible after all. VR start-up Nomadic has partnered with VRWERX and Paramount to create a "tactile" experience for the "Mission Impossible" movie franchise that will allow users to interact physically with the virtual world of the movie.
After Tumblr announced it would pull so-called "adult content" from its platform, a larger-than-expected group of users erupted in protest. According to Shannon Liao, a tech and culture reporter at The Verge, many flocked to the platform "to browse sex-positive blogs and also different kinds of curated porn," in a "safe place."
Reports indicate that widespread 5G may arrive in 2019, and providers are scurrying to meet that unofficial deadline in the wake of Verizon's recent announcement that it will partner with Samsung to release a 5G phone by June.
Instagram and WhatsApp are reasons to believe in the future of Facebook as social media trends toward community-based social platforms that reflect users' specific interests, Reddit co-founder, investor, and 21st century renaissance man Alexis Ohanian told Cheddar on Tuesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018.
SpaceX plans to launch an unmanned cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station on Tuesday. But the scientific equipment and experiments aboard the ship are actually meant to improve life on Earth, Ken Shields, chief operating officer for the ISS National Laboratory, told Cheddar. With increasing privatization of the aerospace industry, Shields said space on shuttles to ISS is increasingly in-demand, even if the experiments aboard aren't exactly out-of-this-world.
Uber is sniffing around a possible acquisition of either Lime or Bird, the leaders in the growing e-scooter rental market, according to a report in The Information. One of the reporters who broke that story told Cheddar on Monday that there is a "growing realization" among ride-hailing companies that bike and scooters will continue to be a significant part of the urban mobility landscape.
Some of the top cars and tech were on display at the
Los Angeles Auto Show. Cheddar's Tamara Warren caught up with Bob Wheeler, president & CEO of Airstream, and discussed updates in their iconic travel trailers.
John Paul DeJoria may be a billionaire now, but the self-made founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Spirits will never forget the periods of homelessness from his past. Even after he's built an empire, DeJoria said he gives first and generates profit second ー a philosophy that is now influencing the launch of his new smartphone, ROKiT.
