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☆ How universities became giant piggy banks for hedge-fund billionaires
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Catherine Liu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

The move also marked the beginning of a new way to manage endowment funds. The arrangement has been a boon for the hedge-fund managers who received university endowment cash, but the benefits for the schools are trickier to parse. As Eaton put it in his book, universities directed funds to "wherever those allocations would generate the largest further investment returns." Eaton estimated in 2017 that tax breaks for university endowments cost federal coffers up to $19 billion a year. As the influence of billionaires and hedge-fund managers has grown, universities have moved further away from their ultimate goal: educating people.

☆ She was weeks away from maternity leave at Twitter. Then Elon Musk took over
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Twitter now reportedly has fewer than 2,000 employees following more cuts late last month, down from around 7,500 before Musk took over. CNN“We were on the Twitter-coaster, the Elon Musk chapter, for seven months,” Ali said. De Caires is one of the former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following mass layoffs after Musk took over. Jeff Chiu/APInstead, Twitter employees say they heard very little from their new leader in the days immediately after his takeover. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan is representing around 1,500 former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following Musk's takeover.

☆ A manhole cover launched into space with a nuclear test is the fastest human-made object. A scientist on Operation Plumbbob told us the unbelievable story.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Rebecca Harrington | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Pedestrians walk past a manhole cover that wasn't shot into space in Berkeley, California, on July 18, 2019. AP/Jeff ChiuHow could an iron manhole cover be the fastest human-made object ever launched? This manhole cover was shot into space with a nuclear bomb. Robert Brownlee, an astrophysicist who designed the nuclear test in question, told Insider the unbelievable story in 2016, before he died at the age of 94 in 2018. Brownlee refuted the non-believers and asserted that yes, it likely was the fastest object that humankind ever launched.

☆ Back-to-back California shootings reflect an American tragedy, not an ‘Asian issue,’ experts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Kimmy Yam | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Mirna-Alsharif-Byline-Jm.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Gun violence isn’t innate in Asian culturesGun violence, experts note, is not inherent in the Asian diaspora's culture. So Ho condemned those attempting to paint the Asian American community with a broad brush due to the pair of tragedies. Gun control organizations haven’t invested enough time and resources in the Asian American community, Ramakrishnan said. And campaigns and parties have often targeted Asian American voters with a focus on education and affirmative action, he said. And Dhingra said he fears that, as more attacks occur in Asian American spaces, it could lead to more Asian Americans purchasing weapons for self-defense, leading to more firearms to be used and misused.

☆ Elon Musk returns to the stand in class-action lawsuit over controversial tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand again on Monday morning in a California courtroom to testify for a second day in the lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet from 2018. Musk had spoken to executives of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund about the funding he would need to take Tesla private. However, it was anything but “secured.” Musk shared his recollection of the incident in his testimony Monday. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.” The stock price dropped the day of his tweet but recovered and closed the year higher than it had opened. Musk testified Friday that no one at Tesla reviewed his tweets in 2018 before he published them.

☆ Google's moonshot factory is coming down to Earth
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The project, known internally by its codename, "Valkyrie," was the typical science-fiction-sounding idea that Google's self-described "moonshot factory" was designed to dream up. But amid a lack of successful launches and a tech industry facing economic headwinds, insiders say the lab is now hitting the hard-reset button and rethinking its purpose within Alphabet, Google's parent company. X swapped standard corporate titles like "Communications Lead" and "Manager" for grander and more-nebulous names like "Factory Whisperer" and "Firestarter." Its internet-balloon unit, Google Loon, meant to bring people in rural areas online, was shuttered in January 2021. "I think the infusion of VC people is a good thing," one former senior X employee said.

☆ Amazon is gutting its voice-assistant Alexa. Once founder Jeff Bezos's pet project it's now the primary target of historic layoffs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Amazon's Alexa and the devices team at large is now the prime target of the biggest layoffs in the company's history, according to press reports and an internal email seen by Insider. Instead, Amazon wanted shoppers to buy more things through Echo devices by placing orders through the voice-assistant. Reports of Alexa mistakenly sending voice recordings to the wrong person or Amazon employees secretly listening to private conversations stoked fear of privacy concerns. But even so, its financial contribution often fell short of expectations, more than half a dozen employees told Insider. Employees told Insider the product is Bezos's latest pet project.

That plan quickly falls through — and Twitter decides to adopt a poison-pill strategy to fend off a hostile takeover from Musk. At this point, shares in Musk's automotive company, Tesla, began to decline; by mid-November, they will have lost close to half their value. “Musk’s conduct simply confirms that he wants to escape the binding contract he freely signed, and to damage Twitter in the process,” Twitter says. In the meantime, Musk and Twitter jockey for position ahead of the October trial — with Judge Kathaleen McCormick increasingly siding with Twitter in key pre-trial motions. Within 48 hours, the site was flooded with users who bought blue checkmarks only to turn around and impersonate official accounts, including Musk's.

CNN —Suspended Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving reportedly met with NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday, according to multiple reports, including one from the Athletic’s Shams Charania, citing unnamed sources. According to Charania, Silver and Irving met and had “a productive and understanding visit,” as Irving and the Nets work toward his return to the court. CNN has reached out to the NBA, the Nets and Irving’s representatives but has not heard back. Before the game, the Nets named assistant coach Jacque Vaughn as their next permanent head coach. Vaughn was the interim head coach after Brooklyn parted ways with former head coach Steve Nash last week after a disappointing 2-5 start.

☆ The era of Big Tech moonshots is over. Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are pulling back on ambitious, risky long-term projects after many of them failed.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Hugh Langley | Eugene Kim | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have scaled back their ambitious "moonshot" projects. Moonshots like Google X and Amazon Grand Challenge allowed tech firms to build innovative projects. Before Amazon, Parviz led a similar team at Google called Google X. Page and Brin championed X projects they loved, helping them gain funding and headcount within the unit. Parviz, who created the once-hyped-up Google Glass, left Google X in 2014 to start Amazon's Grand Challenge.

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