Ubisoft stock crashes after 3 top execs resign over toxic company culture-Computerfanfield

Ubisoft stock fell 8% on Monday morning following the ousting of three top executives over company-wide sexual misconduct allegations this weekend.

In a weekend press release — just before the French video game giant’s first virtual conference — Ubisoft chief creative officer Serge Hascoët formally resigned in the wake of an internal investigation. He later confirmed he’d leave the company altogether.

Hascoët is credited as the lead “creative force” behind much of Ubisoft‘s catalogue over the past decade, including Assassin’s Creed and The Division. Hascoët started at the company way back in 2000.

“Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees,” wrote CEO Yves Guillemot. “This is unacceptable, as toxic behaviors are in direct contrast to values on which I have never compromised — and never will.”

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Ubisoft‘s global HR chief Cécile Cornet and the head of its Canadian arm Yannis Mallat also vacated their positions over the scandal, with the latter leaving the company alongside Hascoët.

Ubisoft Forward made little difference to industry analysts

Saturday’s executive shake-up comes just three weeks after Ubisoft creative director Ashraf Ismail resigned from his role on the latest Assassin’s Creed game Valhalla. He’d been accused via social media of infidelity and sexual misconduct with fans.

Shareholders might’ve hoped to find some reprieve in Ubisoft Forward , the company’s virtual conference hosted in light of the canceled E3 2020.

However, many of the studio’s reveals had already leaked in the lead-up to the event, which left little to surprise.

To make matters worse, reports surfaced this morning indicating financial institutions Societe Generale and Jeffries have downgraded Ubisoft stock from “buy” to “hold,” which means their analysts expect it to track alongside the market, at least for now.

But, that might prove difficult: Ubisoft stock is now down 6% over the past year, while STOXX’s index of European tech stocks is up 20%.

Zoom execs dumped $580M of stock as its share price rose 622%

It’s well documented that tech insiders have made veritable oceans of money in 2020, but it’s tough to find any who’ve benefitted nearly as much as Zoom’s chief Eric Yuan.

Last week, Yuan sold $69.3 million worth of company shares to bring the total sum of cash raised by Zoom insiders this year to a tendon-twisting $581.33 million — more than half a billion dollars split between just 10 execs (and one fund).

Yuan leads the video conferencing company’s 2020 leaderboard for stock dumps with $251 million, representing nearly half of all Zoom insider sales this year.

Next is company director Carl Eschenbach, a partner at influential VC fund Sequoia Capital who’s made $96.36 million by selling Zoom shares, followed by the company’s chief marketing officer Janine Pelosi with $59.45 million.

Compared to Bezos, Zoom’s insider dumps are rookie numbers

While SEC docs show that each Zoom insider sold shares according to pre-set trading plans, Yuan’s latest trades were even more profitable due to company’s raging share price.

Overall, Zoom stock has returned 622.5% year-to-date, having skyrocketed from $68.72 to $496.50 to propel its CEO to #43 on Forbes’ billionaires list . Zoom stock has also more than doubled since Yuan last sold stock in August.

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To most people, Yuan’s $251 million is a fortune, but to Amazon’s baldking Jeff Bezos, it’s chump change.

Indeed, Bezos has dumped $7.2 billion worth of Amazon stock so far in 2020 — more than 12 times the money Zoom execs have collectively cashed in over the same period.

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘88% of all Bitcoin has been mined’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Kierkegaard used to say: Crack open this tasty lobster!

Bitcoin price

We closed the day, September 27 2020, at a price of $10,774. That’s a minor 0.19 percent increase in 24 hours, or $21. It was the highest closing price in six days.

We’re still 46 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin‘s market cap ended the day at $199,347,495,686. It now commands 58 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $18,016,880,214 was the lowest in twenty-eight days, 21 percent below last year’s average, and 75 percent below the year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 302 tons of gold.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 259,230 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 18 percent below last year’s average and 42 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.74. That’s $3.17 below last year’s high of $3.91.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 17,911 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 4.8 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.1 percent, and the top 1000 34.8 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $200 billion, Pfizer has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s $621K behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $632K by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin energy consumption

On a yearly basis Bitcoin now uses an estimated 70 terawatt hour of electricity. That’s the equivalent of Colombia’s energy consumption.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 37,113 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 77.1 percent above last year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day last year about Bitcoin was 82,838.