We should note the selection bias here. The author specifically asked economists for graphs that would "scare" them as part of a halloween themed post. So we are only getting the curated "scariest" charts someone could take out of all the macroeconomic data out there and not a real opinion of what they think of the market as a whole.
My speculation here is that the FBI realized it has a strong chance of losing the case and this is their way of backing out before the courts rule and there is a precedent.
Seems a bit fishy to me as it felt from the article that they only found correlations between negative emotions and positive performance and then came up with a rationale (vs testing for negative emotions first...)
I am guessing the founder in this case is going not going to be rewarded at all. Sounds like the company had a lot of debt and the "acquisition" was an asset sale. This means that they startups.co bought the assets and left the original company with the liabilities (aka millions of dollars debt). The Zirtual company will likely have to go through a chapter 11 which will be painful. She might get a little bit of extra salary from consulting for the new company but I'm guessing that's it. Overall I am guessing this is a horrible experience for her.
Dave was one of the best people in the tech space -- genuinely honest, super-smart and just an all-around good guy. He was one of the few people I really looked up to and admired in the valley. This is a huge loss today.
As for name and email -- Shop It To Me is not just an app but also a website and email service and so we need a way to link them all together. If we did not have an email and the member lost their phone, they'd lose their account forever.