Stimulus Saga Continues | Star-Studded Facebook Boycott | Billionaire Cowboys

Plus: Cloud 100: The World's Top Private Cloud Companies 2020

Know Now

• Hurricane Sally Threatens ‘Catastrophic’ Flooding Along Northern Gulf Coast As Landfall Expected On Wednesday

• Bipartisan $1.5 Trillion Stimulus Deal Proposed: $1,200 Second Stimulus Check, $450 Unemployment Benefit

• CDC Knows That America’s Covid-19 Tracking Has Failed

• Louisville Agrees To $12 Million Settlement In Breonna Taylor Case

• Trump Campaign Declares Middle East Peace Achieved As Israel Sustains Rocket Attacks

Top Take-Aways

Bill Gates Sr., the father of one of the most famous tech entrepreneurs in modern history, has died at age 94. “I never stopped learning from his wisdom, kindness, and humility,” his son remembered him. 

Despite the recent market sell-off, rising optimism about a coronavirus vaccine and progress with reopening the economy should propel stocks back to record highs before year’s end.

Apple didn’t unveil a new iPhone at its “Time Flies” event, but it did announce a new Apple Watch and a new iPad. Here are the four biggest announcements from the virtual event.

Stripe is offering a $20,000 bonus to employees who move away from San Francisco, New York or Seattle but it comes with a 10% pay reduction. It’s the latest tech company to implement pay cuts for workers who relocate to less expensive locations because of the pandemic.

With her combined 217 million Instagram followers and Facebook page likes, Kim Kardashian West joins stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio to boycott the two social media sites for one day to draw attention to what they say is a failure to adequately address hate speech posted on the platforms.

Billionaire cowboys are buying—and selling—the largest ranches in America. The ultimate social distancing retreat, billionaire style mega-ranches are dominating the luxury real estate market, with opportunistic investors looking to liquidate their assets.

Today's Must-Read

Once an outsider category, cloud computing now powers every industry. Look no further than this year’s Forbes Cloud 100 list, the annual ranking of the world’s top private cloud companies, where this year's standouts are keeping businesses surviving — and thriving — from real estate to retail, data to design.

Produced for the fifth consecutive year in partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures, the Cloud 100, edited by Senior Editor Alex Konrad, recognizes standouts in tech’s hottest category from small startups to private-equity-backed giants, from Silicon Valley to Australia and Hong Kong.

This year’s new No. 1 has set a record for shortest time running atop the list. Database leader Snowflake takes the top slot, up from No. 2 last year and just hours before graduating from the list by going public in one of the year’s buzziest IPOs. Moving into the Top 10 are Canva (No. 7), Databricks (No. 5) and Toast (No. 10), while no companies moved up more than Pendo (No. 54) and Guild Education (No. 46).

Leading the next guard of 27 newcomers to the list is Checkout.com, the London-based unicorn riding the pandemic’s boost to online commerce to a No. 15 debut rank.

Make no mistake: Covid-19 hasn’t slowed this group down. With a record combined value of about $270 billion and at least 87 companies valued at $1 billion or more, the Cloud 100 list is bigger and stronger than ever before.

See the full ranking here.

Across Forbes