Technology

People should get paid for work they have done. Ita pretty simple principle of capitalism, but a principle that seems increasingly violated in the modern economy. With semi-monthly paychecks, the work an employee does on the first day of the month won&t be paid until the end of the third week — a delay of up to 21 days. That delay is despite the massive digitalization of bank transfers and accounting over the past few decades that should have made paychecks far more regular.

Gusto, a payroll and HR benefits provider focused on small businesses, announced the launch of Flexible Pay today, a new feature that will allow its payroll users to select when they receive their income for work already completed. The feature, which must be switched on by an employer, will cost employers nothing out-of-pocket today. The launch is limited to customers in Texas, but will expand to other states in the coming year.

As Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves explained it to me, a kid mowing lawns in a neighborhood has a much more visceral connection to income than the modern knowledge economy worker. Cut the grass, get cash — itthat simple. He also pointed out, with irony, that terminated employees experience much better payroll service than regular employees: they have to be paid out on their last day of work outside of the standard paycheck schedule. Reeves and his team wanted to offer that flexibility and convenience to every worker.

Flexible Pay allows users to choose when they get paid, outside of typical paycheck schedules

The key to this new feature has been Gustoincreasing data about small businesses. Gusto now serves 1 percent of all small businesses in the U.S., and it has comprehensive access to its customers& financial and payroll data. With integrations to time sheet services and proper risk modeling, Gusto is able to predict exactly what salary a worker has already earned, and can front the money at minimum risk to itself.

One major challenge for Gusto was how to reconcile the books of the employer with the irregular paycheck schedules desired by employees. Gusto handles all the logistics transparently, including tax withholding, so that for employers, the paycheck distribution looks and feels &normal& on its books.

That means that Gusto is effectively loaning money to companies, since it is paying payroll in advance. Gusto is funding those loans off its balance sheet today, but over time, the company expects to create a financial facility to underwrite the product.

For Reeves, Flexible Pay is &the right thing to do.& He believes that this new level of flexibility will empower workers to control their financial lives. In the long run, as more users get habituated to the product and its convenience, he hopes that the feature will draw other employers into using Gusto based on employee demand.

The unfortunate reality in the American workforce is that huge numbers of workers live paycheck-to-paycheck, by some counts as many as 80 percent. A bill can come due just a day or two before a paycheck hits, but without cash in a checking account, people often have to resort to predatory financial products like payday loans or high-interest credit cards in order to make ends meet. Flexible Pay is one step in the right direction of fighting for workers to get the money they justly deserve.

Match Group, parent company of dating apps Tinder, OkCupid and Match, announced yesterday that it has acquired a 51 percent stake in Hinge. With this new acquisition, Match Group has the right to acquire all remaining shares of Hinge within a 12-month period.

Match Group says its interest in Hinge began in 2017 after a redesign in which it did away with the &right swipe& in favor of more detailed profiles.According to a statement from Hinge, its app saw 400 percent growth in its user base after these changes. In a dating world often dominated by &hook-ups,& Hinge positions itself as a &relationship app& and focuses on building real relationships instead.

Hinge in many ways is the antithesis to Tinder, but Match Group says this is part of the advantage to the partnership, not an obstacle.

&Dating isn&t a one-size-fits-all approach,& a Match Group spokesperson told TechCrunch. &We operate a variety of products because people gravitate to different apps for different reasons.&

Hinge CEO Justin McLeod says that this merger will help the company expand even further than it could alone.

&At a certain point, having the scaling capability of a well-funded and experienced partner [like Match Group] makes sense,& McLeod told TechCrunch. &We want to bring a more thoughtful dating experience to the most people.&

This acquisition by Match Group follows a reportedly failed attempt to acquire the dating app Bumble in November. Following the collapse of those discussions, Match Group filed a lawsuit against Bumble in March for patent infringement, claiming that it &copied Tinderworld-changing, card-swipe-based, mutual opt-in premise.& Two weeks later,Bumble followed up with its own lawsuit to the tune of $400 million that alleged Match Group fraudulently obtained trade secrets during its acquisition talks six months earlier. These lawsuits are still being settled.

Hinge offers an alternative acquisition for Match, which is clearly looking to continue diversifying its dating offerings. &[Hinge]has been getting real traction with cosmopolitan millennials,&a Match Group spokesperson said. &Wehope to meaningfully accelerate [its] growth.&

Tesla lawsuit against a former employee was filed just 24 hours ago and italready ripe fodder for Hollywood. As CEO Elon Musk has noted in the past, Tesla is a real drama magnet. Get ready, itexhausting.

Tesla filed the lawsuit against former employee Martin Tripp for $1 million, alleging the man, who worked as a process technician at the massive battery factory near Reno, hacked the companyconfidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties, according to court documents. The lawsuit also claims the employee leaked false information to the media.

Within hours, The Washington Posthad an interview with Tripp, who saidhe did not tamper with internal systems and is insteada whistleblower who was compelled to act. Tripp admitted to speaking to the media, but only because he saw &some really scary things& inside the company. Post reporter Drew Harwell later tweeted that Tripp told him Musk emailed him shortly after the lawsuit today to say he was a &horrible person.&

An email exchange obtained by TechCrunch, and confirmed by Tesla, suggests otherwise, and shows Tripp lobbing the first written attack. To be clear, the emails viewed by TechCrunchcould have been edited or show an incomplete exchange. We&ll update the story as we learn more.

Herethe email exchange, which kicks off rather suddenly:

From:Marty Tripp Date:June 20, 2018 at 8:57:29 AM PDT To:Elon Musk
/> Subject:Termination/Lawsuit

Don&t worry, you have whatcoming to you for the lies you have told to the public and investors.

On Jun 20, 2018, at 9:42 AM, Elon Musk wrote:

Threatening me only makes it worse for you

On Jun 20, 2018, at 9:59 AM, Marty Tripp wrote:

I never made a threat. I simply told you that you have whatcoming.

Thank you for this gift!!!!

On Jun 20, 2018, at 10:00 AM, Elon Musk wrote:

You should ashamed of yourself for framing other people. You&re a horrible human being.

On Jun 20, 2018, at 10:03 AM, Marty Tripp wrote:

I NEVER ‘framed& anyone else or even insinuated anyone else as being involved in my production of documents of your MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF WASTE, Safety concerns, lying to investors/the WORLD.

Putting cars on the road with safety issues is being a horrible human being!

On Jun 20, 2018, at 5:16 PM, Elon Musk wrote:

Begin forwarded message: From:Elon Musk Date:June 20, 2018 at 10:28:06 AM PDT To:Marty Tripp

Subject:Re: Termination/Lawsuit

There are literally injuries with Model 3. It is by far the safest car in the world for any midsize vehicle. And of course a company with billions of dollars in product is going to have millions of dollars in scrap. This is not news.

However, betraying your word of honor, breaking the deal you had when Tesla gave you a job and framing your colleagues are wrong and some come with legal penalties. So it goes. Be well.

From: Elon MuskDate: 6/20/18 5:17 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Todd Maron, Sarah O&Brien Cc: EMDesk Subject: Re: Termination/Lawsuit

Meant to say &no injuries&

After Musk and Tripp battled it out via email, the former employee allegedly told a friend he was going to attack the companyGigafactory in Sparks, Nevada.The friend then called Teslacustomer service line, according to a source. Tesla notified the police. Itnot clear why this friend turned first to Tesla and not the police. But there you go.

And since TechCrunch has been unable to reach Tripp, itworth noting that this is one side — Teslaside — of a developing and complex story.

Tesla confirmed receiving a call.

&Yesterday afternoon, we received a phone call from a friend of Mr. Tripp telling us that Mr. Tripp would be coming tothe Gigafactory to ‘shoot the place up,& & a Tesla spokesman said. &Police have been notified and actions are being taken to enhancesecurity at the Gigafactory.&

TechCrunch reached out to Storey County Sheriffdepartment, which confirmed they sent deputies to investigate the threat. The deputies found no credible threat.

&After several hours of investigation deputies were able to determine there was no credible threat,& Sheriff Gerald Antinoro said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. &Further investigation in the origins of the threat continues.&