Finland, a perennial chart-topper on global rankings of well-being and prosperity, has just been named the world’s happiest country in the World Happiness Report. Finns are not happy about the news.
A media executive friend still shakes her head when she remembers the story: as she was preparing to leave for a 12-week maternity leave with her first son, a younger colleague stopped by her desk and pouted, “I wish I could go on a paid vacation.”
He’s back!
At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha on May 5, chairman Warren Buffett called his decision to pass on Amazon and Google a mistake. A shareholder then rose from the audience to ask: If Buffett regrets turning down those companies, does he feel the same way about not investing in Microsoft?
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
A big part of being a business person in the new global economy is attending conferences with other globally minded businesspeople. Whether in Davos or Aspen, New York or London, these conferences are jam-packed with activities that must be prioritized accordingly: sessions (important), networking between and after the sessions (very important), and telling everyone you know for weeks before and after that things have just been crazy lately because you are either soon leaving for this conference or have just returned from it (extremely important).
It is hard not to look at New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady—and his five Super Bowl rings, four Super Bowl MVPs, supermodel wife, three beautiful children, and face that looks like what a computer would spit back when you type in “handsome guy”—and not think that he must be doing something right.
Shrinking America’s yawning trade deficit is much harder than simply blocking imports and boosting exports—and will likely involve tough tradeoffs, according to Guggenheim Partners’ Scott Minerd.
You know that thing on your to-do list? The one you haven’t gotten to because it’s too complicated, or too hard, or too frightening to face?
The first nonstop transcontinental commercial-jet trip took off from Los Angeles in 1959. In the six decades since, humans have landed on the moon, invented the iPhone, and started planning a trip to Mars. Yet between increased gate time, delays at congested airports, and fuel-saving slower speeds, it actually takes longer to fly across the US today than it did at the dawn of the commercial air-travel age.
Los Angeles
Figuring out the cost of daycare in the US is like figuring out the cost of sandwiches. Are we talking the shrink-wrapped kind shoved in a convenient store fridge, or one custom made at a high-end deli counter? Where in the US are you buying these sandwiches? How many do you need?
Venture capitalists have a notorious bias against older founders—“older” being relative in youth-obsessed Silicon Valley. “The cutoff in investors’ heads is 32,” Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham (now 53) told the New York Times in 2013. “After 32, they start to be a little skeptical.”
Nothing about the “Now That’s What I Call Music!” series is cool. Not the title, which is something a dad says quietly to himself when the Eagles finally comes on, nor the overeager cover design, nor the late night infomercials that hawked them on US television. But it is possible that when future archaeologists are piecing together the shards of our fallen civilization, no other artifact will be as vital to establishing the evolutionary timeline of the industrialized world’s musical tastes than these battered CDs.
Queen Elizabeth II has reigned in Britain for 66 years, longer than any of her predecessors or indeed any other living monarch on the planet.
After years of failed attempts, a research team in Singapore has successfully taught a pair of robots to do something that many humans still can’t: build an IKEA chair.
Advertising titan Martin Sorrell’s abrupt resignation from his advertising conglomerate WPP elicited professional tributes from his friends, and very public schadenfreude from his rivals. Maurice Levy, the former CEO of the ad group Publicis, offered particularly choice comments on his competitor’s departure.
BPP University Law School in London considers its exams a test on all aspects of practicing law. Students are docked points for answering questions wrongly, but also for failing to conduct themselves as professionally as they would in court. According to a school manual leaked to the website Legal Cheek, students can lose points for anything a judge might frown upon in a courtroom: slurping from a water bottle, forgetting the judge’s name, or addressing the judge with hands stuffed in pockets.
Apple doesn’t take leaks lightly. According to a recent memo (which was itself leaked to Bloomberg) the company caught 29 employees, contractors, and suppliers leaking information last year, 12 of whom were arrested for network intrusion or stealing trade secrets. Other consequences for leakers included job loss, jail time, and fines.
The city of Las Vegas hosts more than 21,000 conferences a year, gatherings that collectively draw 6.3 million delegates from around the world to gamble, drink, and frolic between program sessions.
Severe and unexpected financial loss is hard at any stage of life. When it occurs in middle age or later, however, the blow can be devastating.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg goes before the US Senate Judiciary Committee today to give much-anticipated testimony on his company’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
