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Let's see how far we can take this...

[21]:

Emphasis my own.

History

In late 2008, Lithium completed a detailed, time-series analysis of up to a decade's worth of proprietary data that represents billions of interactions, millions of users, and scores of communities. This research, coupled with the company's expertise in planning, deploying, and managing customer communities, enabled Lithium to identify and calculate key factors that contributed to a new standard for measuring community health – the Community Health Index.[3]

At the beginning of 2010, Lithium announced over 100 percent growth in annual recurring revenue, coupled with securing $18MM in Series C financing.[4] On May 11, 2010, Lithium acquired social media monitoring (SMM) provider, Scout Labs, whose service allows brands to engage with their customers beyond the community and monitor, map, and measure customer conversations on the social web.[5]

In August 2011, Lithium announced the appointment of Enterprise Software Veteran Rob Tarkoff as Chief Executive Officer to succeed Lyle Fong, co-founder of Lithium. Fong took up the role of Chief Strategist and continued serving on the board of directors.[6]

In January 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company secured a $53.4 million Series D round of financing, led by New Enterprise Associates. The funding round also included Greenspring Associates, SAP Ventures, the venture capital firm associated with Germany's SAP AG.[7] The WSJ reported that the Series D financing round brought the company's total funding to date to $101 million.

Silicon Valley high-tech consultant and author Geoffrey Moore joined the company's board of directors in August 2012.[8]

In October 2012, the company acquired Austin, Texas-based Social Dynamx, which provided cloud-based software that allows large call centers to manage their social customer service.[9][10] Lithium renamed the former Social Dynamx product as "Lithium Social Web" and integrated it with its core Lithium Communities product.[11]

In September 2013, Lithium announced a $50 million pre-IPO mezzanine funding round.[12] The company said it secured the new financing from a syndicate of global institutional investors along with existing investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

In February 2014, Lithium bought Klout.[13]

In June 2015, Microsoft and Lithium signed a strategic alliance agreement to integrate Lithium social interactions and community data into Microsoft Dynamics [null CRM].

In June 2016, Lithium announced Lithium Reach,[14] a social marketing product that redefines how brands can maximize engagement across social channels, blogs and online communities. Lithium is a member of the Facebook Marketing Partner Program[15] and Twitter Certified Partner Program.[16]

In July 2017, Lithium announced that it was acquired by Vista Equity Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on investments in software, data and technology-enabled businesses. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In October 2017, Lithium announced its acquisition of the Jive-x external community business from Jive Software, an Aurea company.[citation needed]

Operations

Headquartered in San Francisco, Lithium has additional offices in Austin, TX (US) New York, NY (US) Portland, OR (US) London (UK) Paris (FR) Singapore (SG) Sydney (AU) Zurich (CH) Bangalore (IND).

The company sells largely to enterprise customers, including HP, Best Buy, Sony, Comcast, Symantec, AT&T, Sephora, Spotify, Google, Sky, Samsung and Microsoft.[17][18]

• Uber ~|~ Otto ~|~ Klout | Lithium | Social Media Monitoring/Facebook/Twitter; AI

[16]:

Otto is an American self-driving technology company founded in January 2016 by Lior Ron and Anthony Levandowski.

The company is based in San Francisco and employees 90 people as of August 2016. The company focuses on retrofitting semi trucks with radars, cameras and laser sensors to make them capable of driving themselves. In August 2016, Otto was acquired by the transportation network company Uber. Lior Ron, the co-founder of the company, has stated that Otto will have self-driving fleets of trucks on the road by early 2017.[1]

---

Lawsuits

In February 2017, Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging that Anthony Levandowski "downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation" before resigning to found Otto.[16][17] In March 2017, United States District Judge William Haskell Alsup, referred the case to federal prosecutors after Levandowski exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.[18] In May 2017, Judge Alsup ordered Levandowski to refrain from working on Otto's Lidar and required Uber to disclose its discussions on the technology.[19]

Clearpath Robotics filed a complaint in the Northern district of California on August 24, 2016 against Ottomotto LLC with respect to its OTTO brand. The action was dismissed with prejudice on February 1, 2017. Clearpath Robotics continues to operate the OTTO brand. In response, Clearpath issued a statement to about the confusion.[20] In May 2017, Uber officially retired the Otto brand as a result of the lawsuit with Clearpath Robotics Inc.[21]

Starting to sound familiar?

• Facebook/Cambridge Analytica | Mark Zuckerberg | Cory Booker | Ashton Kutcher | Danny Masterson | Tom Cruise | Scientology | NXIVM | Sep 11/Black September | Chuck Schumer | Waco/Jonestown | Democrats | Clinton/Obama*
• Danny Masterson | Dracula 2000 | Harvey Weinstein ~|~ anti-Dragon; pro-Ottoman

* Remember Beverly Eckert?

[22]:

Joe Fernandez is a Cuban American businessman most well known for his work on the social media company Klout. He attended, but did not graduate from, the University of Miami. He moved to New York City where he met his wife. He had several jobs at several companies, including Adjoined Technologies, Onboard Information, and Evalulogix, the latter which he co-founded. Fernandez underwent jaw surgery at the age of 30, which contributed to his idea for Klout due to his inability to speak. He started Klout in New York City, and the website launched on December 24, 2008.~~

Career

Fernandez began his career working as a web developer for Adjoined Technologies from 2000 to 2001, but lost his job after the dot com bubble burst occurred.[1] He met the co-founder by chance, who was a school psychologist, shortly after the No Child Left Behind act had passed. The co-founder took issue with how much paperwork he had to do and how it prevented him from helping children. The two of them worked to make the company in order to create software that helps schools deal with paperwork.[1] At its peak, the company's paperwork software was being used in 80% of schools in the United States.[1] While the startup was not a major success, the Arkansas-based company Computer Automation System paid Fernandez and his co-workers royalties for their product.[2] His next job was as a director for research and innovation at Onboard Informatics.[1] Fernandez was a standout at WorldLink media both as a computer programmer and at Cupball. A game created among Joe and three other employees. Joe's ideas and inspiration springboarded the games popularity during the Shaq/Kobe years in Los Angeles. Fernandez's idea for Klout came from being bedridden during his recovery from jaw surgery in 2007, as he had been using Twitter as his means for communication and came up with the idea of measurable influence through this experience.[1][3] The name "Klout" came as he wrote it down on a piece of paper while delirious from pain relievers.[3] After coming up with the idea for the website, Fernandez quit his job at Onboard Information in order to pursue it.[3] He went to Singapore in order to start up the business, using his own money to hire a team to work on the website.[3] Fernandez was in talks with the former owner of Klout.com to purchase the domain name, but was having difficulties coming to terms on price with him. He met with the domain name owner in person to offer him $5,000 for the domain, which he accepted.[4] The website launched on December 24, 2008.[3] Initially, Fernandez handled the scores of Klout users manually by himself.[3] In 2012, Fernandez was able to raise $30 million in funding.[1] On March 27, 2014, it was announced that Lithium Technologies had purchased Klout from Fernandez.[5] On April 17, 2015, Fernandez announced that he has stepped down from his position at Klout after it was purchased by Lithium in order to pursue other business ventures.[6] Following his decision to step down, Fernandez joined Lithium as one of its board of directors, replacing former board member Chi-Hua Chien (who also joined the board following the acquisition).[7]

Impact and reception

Fernandez received some criticism due to the perception that a recent change to Klout's score algorithm included a design that punishes users by reducing their Klout scores if they speak to people with "low influence."[3] There was also a public perception that Klout's algorithm was just a "vanity."[6] Following the change in the algorithm (which caused people's Klout scores to lower), a Twitter campaign called "#OccupyKlout" was created, his cell phone was leaked, and he received hundreds of death threats.[1]

• Death threat campaigns are a bit too familiar here...

Can you see what I see?

This is all reminding me starkly of my most recent research, however, putting this into a | link | link | layout is not easy, due to the abstract nature of the connections.

Wait for it, it gets weirder...

Remember: | [Anchor ]"Bay"[ Entertainment] | Weinstein |?

Continued ahead in comment 4...