TikTok’s Deal Drama | Nvidia’s $40 Billion Arm | Amazon Hiring Bonanza

Plus: This Ex-Israeli Commando Is Betting $16 Million That People Will Use His App Rather Than Calling The Cops

Know Now

• Oracle’s Bid For TikTok Could Be Blocked After ByteDance Rejects Sale Of Algorithm: Reports

• Largest Wildfire In California History Now Up To 877,477 Acres Burned, 28% Contained
MORE IN PHOTOS: Homes Burn And Smoke Chokes Cities As Wildfires Continue To Ravage The West Coast

• Amazon Is Hiring A Further 100,000 People To Keep Up With Pandemic-Induced Demand

• Trump Says He Will ‘Negotiate’ Third Term Because He’s ‘Entitled’ To It

• Nvidia Acquires Arm For $40 Billion To Create What Could Be A Tech Juggernaut

Top Take-Aways

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg plans to spend at least $100 million to help Joe Biden win Florida, a state which allows early voting to begin in late September and will be crucial in determining who is elected president.

A parade of health insurance companies—including Cigna, Centene and Oscar Health— are offering individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act to hundreds of new counties for 2021. The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, is also working on a return to Obamacare.

Three of the retail industry’s most iconic companies are ready to restart. JCPenney and Neiman Marcus will join J.Crew in returning from Chapter 11 in the next few weeks with new owners, fewer stores and updated balance sheets. Their prospects remain to be seen.

A new record of young adults are nesting with mom and dad: the majority of 18 to 29-years old (52%) are living at home—surpassing the record high of 48% set in the Great Depression. Covid-19 and pandemic-induced unemployment, high rents, college student debt are all factors.

Five NFL teams remained in their locker rooms during the national anthem Sunday, the first full day of game play, as all eyes watched how the league—where Colin Kaepernick started the kneeling protests in 2016—would handle the growing protests over systemic racism.

Louis Vuitton will start selling luxury face shields complete with the recognizable LV monogram and gold studs, an attempt to make personal protective equipment into a fashion statement. It will be available next month for $961, according to reports.

Today's Must-Read

At a time when people are on high alert, yet possibly hesitant to call the police, a new app called Our Bond is aiming to provide a sense of security to those in situations that occur “below the 911 emergency line,” says founder Doron Kempel. About 150,000 people are using the software, which launched nationally in November of 2019.

“The authorities, with our tax dollars, cannot afford to establish a platform that allows all of us to reach out to them when we feel uncomfortable,” says 57-year-old Kempel, the once second-in-command of Israel’s version of Delta Force turned tech entrepreneur. “We call it the personal security gap.”

So far, Kempel has put $16.5 million million of his own money into Bond, and has raised another $55.5 million in equity and debt from other investors, including a firm owned by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar and Jerusalem Venture Partners.

On first glance, notes staff writer David Jeans, Bond appears to be targeting a sliver of a niche market. After all, how many people find themselves in unsafe situations so frequently that they are willing to pay for an app for peace of mind? So far, only 10% of Bond’s users, or around 15,000 people, are paying about $10 a month for the service, generating estimated revenues of $1.5 million. 

“This is a new paradigm,” Kempel says. “New paradigms take time for people to understand and adopt.”

See the full story here. 

Across Forbes