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☆ Does the Boss Need to Weigh In on the War in the Middle East?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Emma Goldberg | More About Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

But as an American business leader condemning Hamas’s attacks, he said, he felt surprisingly lonely. “I was disappointed that fewer leaders than I anticipated spoke out emphatically, clearly and with moral clarity on this issue,” Mr. Karp said. Some business leaders made donations to humanitarian organizations and pointed their employees to company-sponsored mental health resources. “No company does business in Gaza — as opposed to, say, in Russia, where there are 1,500 major companies doing business,” he said, comparing this war with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The dynamics in the Middle East have always been difficult and complex,” he wrote.

Persons: Brad Karp, Paul, Weiss, Roe, Wade, George Floyd, ” Mr, Karp, ’ ”, Iliya Rybchin, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Sonnenfeld, “, ”, Joelle Emerson, Andrew Ward, Gabe Zichermann, Bud Light, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs, David Zaslav, ” David Barrett, We’re, Barrett Organizations: ” Company, Hamas, Fortune, Yale School of Management, Lehigh University’s College of Business, Warner Bros, ” JPMorgan Locations: Israel, American, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, Tel Aviv

☆ Fact Check-Clip of UFOs in Nevada created with simulation game
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Footage from a video game has been miscaptioned as saying it shows UFOs flying over Nevada. Other online posts use the clip to fuel a conspiracy called Project Blue Beam, which says the U.S. government falsifies UFO footage. Both claims are false, as the footage stems from Digital Combat Simulator (DCS), a free-to-play combat flight simulation game. Some shared the clip with the caption: “was project blue beam on your 2023 bingo card? The social media clip shows a simulation of UFOs in Nevada stemming from a video game.

Persons: “, Joseph A, ”, iceman_fox1, Read Organizations: U.S, ., Lehigh University, USAF, Raptors, Reuters Locations: Nevada

☆ Australia’s having an intense flu season, and it could be a signal of what’s to come in the US
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Jen Christensen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —It’s only June, but scientists in the US are already thinking about flu season. As always at this time of year, they’re keeping a close eye on Australia, which saw an early start to its flu season. “We closely monitor what happens in countries throughout the Southern Hemisphere this time of year, just to see what’s happening during their flu season. If many people opt out of the flu vaccine, cases could rise. So while Reed and her colleagues will be watching Australia’s flu numbers and running their calculations, it’s still not totally clear what 2023’s flu season will bring for the US.

Persons: CNN — It’s, don’t, Care, It’s, ”, Carrie Reed, Reed, “ We’ve, Thomas McAndrew, “, Taylor Swift, ” McAndrew, William Schaffner, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, –, it’s, ” Reed Organizations: CNN, Australian Department of Health, US Centers for Disease Control, CDC, Department of Community, Population Health, Lehigh University . “, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, CNN Health, World Health Organization, agency’s Department of Health, Care Locations: Australia, Southern, Chicago, agency’s

☆ For Turkey, Erdogan Victory Brings More Risky Economic Policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Patricia Cohen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Critics of the president’s economic approach were somewhat heartened by reports that Mr. Erdogan is expected this weekend to appoint Mehmet Simsek, a former finance minister and deputy prime minister, to the cabinet. Mr. Simsek is well thought of in financial circles and has previously supported a tighter monetary policy. Mr. Barkey argues that Mr. Erdogan will have no choice but to make a U-turn on policy by winter, when energy import costs rise and some debt payments are due. Others are more skeptical that Mr. Erdogan will back down from his insistence that high interest rates fuel inflation. To deal with the large external deficit and depleted central bank reserves, Mr. Erdogan has been relying on allies like Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to help bolster its reserves by depositing dollars with the central bank or extending payment deadlines and discounts for imported goods like natural gas.

Persons: Mr, Erdogan, Mehmet Simsek, Simsek, ”, Henri Barkey, Simsek’s, Barkey, Kadri Tastan, didn’t, “ Organizations: Lehigh University ., German Marshall Fund, Capital Economics Locations: Turkey, Brussels, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

☆ Energy Department boosts university programs designed to help small manufacturers find savings of up to $130,000 a year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

STILLWATER, OK - OCTOBER 1: Student Union building on the campus of the Oklahoma State University on October 1, 2005 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Three out of five of the new programs have specific expertise in climate mitigation strategies, including energy management, industrial electrification, industrial decarbonization, resiliency planning, renewable energy, and waste and water management, according to the Energy Department. At the universities, teams perform assessments that will typically identify more than $130,000 in potential annual savings for small manufacturers. The IAC at Georgia Tech in Atlanta will focus on energy management and industrial electrification. San Francisco State University's center will study renewable energy, energy demand management, thermal systems design, and waste and water management, especially in the Western U.S.

Organizations: & $

☆ ChatGPT is for suckers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Chatbots are bullshit engines built to say things with incontrovertible certainty and a complete lack of expertise. What is it that makes human beings trust a machine we know is untrustworthy? After millennia of debate, the world's leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists haven't even agreed on a mechanism for why people come to believe things, or what beliefs even are. We want Google results to be true, because we think of Google as a trusted arbiter, if not an authority. The power of storyAnother possible explanation of why we're suckers for chatbots is that we're suckers for explanation.

☆ Bob Born, the ‘Father of Peeps,’ has died
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Ira “Bob” Born, known as the “Father of Peeps,” died on Sunday. Just Born Quality Confections, the Pennsylvania-based company that makes various candies, including the chick-shaped marshmallows, confirmed Born’s death in a statement. That helped him earn the nickname “Father of Peeps.”Originally created for Easter, Peeps makes themed candy for other holidays, too, including Valentine’s Day and Halloween. His father, Sam, a Russian immigrant, founded Just Born a year prior. Ross Born told the Lehigh Valley News said his father was a “real mensch,” adding that he was a “kind person, he was generous with his talents, sharing his abilities.”“The candy business was kind of catchy … it was interesting to him,” Ross Born told the newspaper.

☆ Why do people buy crackpot conspiracy theories?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

When it comes to the spread of cockamamie conspiracy theories, Twitter was a maximum viable product long before Elon Musk paid $44 billion for the keys. The more you think you're right all the time, a new study suggests, the more likely you are to buy conspiracy theories, regardless of the evidence. It'd be better, or at least more reassuring, if conspiracy theories were fueled by dumb yahoos rather than self-centered monsters. Still, most scientists thought conspiracy theories weren't worth their time, the province of weirdos connecting JFK's death to lizard aliens. Pennycook's findings also suggest an explanation for why conspiracy theories have become so widely accepted.

☆ The anesthesiologist who is putting you under may work for a private-equity firm
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Gretchen Morgenson | Gretchen Morgenson Is The Senior Financial Reporter For The Nbc News Investigative Unit. A Former Stockbroker | She Won The Pulitzer Prize In For Her | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +12 min

But some physicians and patient advocates say the health care investments of private-equity firms and their drive to reap relatively short-term profits are inconsistent with putting patients first. Independent academic studies find that private equity’s laser focus on profits in health care operations can result in lower staffing levels at hospitals and nursing homes. Neither the FTC nor U.S. Anesthesia Partners responded to voice mails seeking comment; a spokesman for U.S. Anesthesia Partners confirmed the inquiry to the Journal, saying it is cooperating. NBC News asked both of NAPA’s private-equity owners about the disputes involving the company and the research showing higher costs associated with private-equity ownership of anesthesiology practices. Covid was sweeping the country and Moses Taylor was doing its best to respond to the health care crisis, according to its lawsuit.

☆ Read the pitch deck and 7-minute script that the founder of Modern Picnic, a fashion-forward lunch-box brand, used to raise $900K in pre-seed funding
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

She launched Modern Picnic in 2018 when she was 22, and has raised $900,000 in pre-seed funding. She walked Insider through her pitch deck and the seven-minute script she follows. Modern PicnicIn 2018, Kaminetsky left her assistant-buyer job to launch Modern Picnic, a brand that creates vegan-leather lunch boxes that look just like handbags. Modern Picnic closed a $900,000 round of pre-seed funding in April 2021, led by Michael Cline, the founder of the ticketing company Fandango. Kaminetsky shared her pitch deck and walked Insider through her speedy seven-minute pitch to investors.

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