*By Alex Heath*
Snap’s Vice President of Marketing, Steve LaBella, is leaving the company, Cheddar has learned.
A former marketing executive at Mattel, LaBella joined Snap ($SNAP) in May 2016 and oversaw the company’s marketing efforts, including Snapchat’s first national TV campaign earlier this year. He announced to employees that he is leaving Snap last week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A Snap spokesperson confirmed LaBella's departure to Cheddar on Friday and said he would stay through the end of November.
“Steve has been a valuable member of our team, building our consumer marketing department and continually finding new ways to surprise and inspire the Snapchat community," Snap said in a statement. "We are grateful for all of his hard work and many contributions and wish him the very best.”
LaBella is the latest in a long string of executive departures from Snap since the company’s public offering in early 2017. Senior executives who have either left or announced their intention to leave since the IPO include the Chief Strategy Officer, Senior VP of Engineering, Chief Financial Officer, VP of Product, VP of Sales, General Counsel, Chief Security Officer, VP of Hardware, and VP of Communications.
In a 15-page memo to employees that was [first published by Cheddar on Thursday](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-company-memo-on-2019-strategic-goals-and-profitability), Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that one of the company’s goals is to change “our marketing and communications around Snapchat” and better educate advertisers about how to use the app.
“In the past, we've tried to make presentations or videos to explain Snapchat to advertisers; this year we are going to spend less time explaining and more time helping advertisers learn by using our product,” Spiegel wrote. “This challenge extends to anyone at Snap that interfaces with our partners, the media, or Wall Street. Rather than trying to explain everything, let's help people use the product themselves.”
Snap’s controversial redesign led to its first-ever decline in daily active users in the second quarter, and the stock is trading at all-time lows. In his memo to employees, Spiegel said that the company would aim to achieve full-year profitability in 2019, despite it posting a net loss of $353.31 million last quarter.
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.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
