DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Deloitte's chief purpose officer says he's pushing execs to think differently about change in corporate America
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Josée Rose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Kwasi Mitchell, Deloitte's chief purpose officer, says he's driven, not overwhelmed, by his job. As Deloitte's first chief purpose officer, his reach across corporate America is great. I had a conversation with my boss at that time, and he said, "We've heard you with respect to your concerns on not wanting to step into this role right now. Not only were we not worried about D&I efforts being cut, organizations didn't have significant D&I programming to cut to begin with. That person that you just hired two years ago should not be the first person to exit your organization.

Launched in February 2022, the FTX Future Fund was part of the FTX Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire which fell apart last year, in what U.S. prosecutors called an "epic" fraud. Representatives for FTX also declined to comment and declined to say whether the FTX Foundation is included in the bankruptcy proceedings. The FTX Future Fund supported research into topics that "improve humanity's long-term prospects" and was funded primarily by Bankman-Fried, according to a profile of its activities published on Twitter. FTX's statement did not reference the FTX Future Fund specifically. One FTX Future Fund beneficiary in the U.S., who asked not to be named, said they received a grant of more than $150,000.

☆ How a 23-year-old earned about $35,000 in 3 months teaching ChatGPT to newbies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Lance Junck, 23, earned $35,000 in just three months selling his ChatGPT course on Udemy. In late December, Lance Junck, 23, launched an online course on education platform Udemy that teaches people to use ChatGPT. It starts with how to write your first ChatGPT prompt, then moves into specific ChatGPT applications for businesses, students, and programmers. Within a week, 90 students enrolled in the course, Junck said. He has gotten paid speaking opportunities to teach companies like CEO advisory firm Sage Executive Group and tech news site HPCwire how to use ChatGPT, according to emails reviewed by Insider.

☆ Teacher transitions from the classroom to a major accounting firm — and reminds others 'you haven't just taught'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Michael Sanders taught US history at two different charter schools around the start of the pandemic. He talked to Insider about how he transitioned out of teaching to working at a Big Four firm. In 2019, he started teaching tenth grade US history at a charter school in Barnstable, Mass., which he enjoyed. The next school year, he moved to a larger charter school network in Austin, Texas, and taught AP US history to eleventh-graders. He still talks to some of his former students and teacher colleagues too.

☆ The three-day LA school strike is over. But get used to short, disruptive strikes like it
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

But technically, this was a strike to protest the school district’s labor practices, not over the state of the contract negotiations. Most of those short strikes started with both strikers and management knowing the length of the strike at the start. Los Angeles school workers and supporters rally in Los Angeles State Historic Park on the last day of a three-day strike this past week. Sometimes the union waging the strike doesn’t have the option, at least not at that time, to have an open-ended strike. Workers on strike sometimes receive strike benefits but they’re not eligible for unemployment benefits from their state.

☆ Harvard career expert: The No. 1 'desirable skill' that very few people have—especially men
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Heidi K. Gardner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

These people shouldn't just have different knowledge domains. A groundbreaking study by Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg found that workers, especially men, often take their professional networks for granted. Communities created through Slack and similar messaging tools are a great way to spur virtual forms of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and knowledge distribution. Previously, she was a professor at Harvard Business School. Heidi earned master's degree from the London School of Economics, and a second PhD from London Business School.

China's four new vice premiers:Ding Xuexiang, 60, is the first-ranked vice premier who also sits in the ruling Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee, China's top echelon of power. Wang Zhigang, 65, remains minister of science and technology. Huai Jinpeng, 60, remains minister of educationPan Yue, 62, remains head of the National Ethnic Affairs CommissionWang Xiaohong, 65, remains minister of public securityChen Yixin, 63, remains minister of state security. Considered a Xi ally, he had worked with Xi when the latter was party chief of Zhejiang province from 2002-2007. Tang Dengjie, 63, remains minister of civil affairsHe Rong, 60, remains minister of justiceWang Xiaoping, 59, remains minister of human resources and social securityWang Guanghua, 59, remains minister of natural resourcesHuang Runqiu, 59, remains minister of ecology and environmentNi Hong, 60, remains minister of housing and urban-rural developmentLi Xiaopeng, 63, remains minister of transportLi Guoying, 63, remains minister of water resourcesTang Renjian, 60, remains minister of agriculture and rural affairsHu Heping, 60, remains minister of culture and tourismMa Xiaowei, 63, remains head of the National Health CommissionPei Jinjia, 59, remains minister of veterans affairsWang Xiangxi, 60, remains minister of emergency managementHou Kai, 60, remains auditor-general of the National Audit OfficeReporting by Yew Lun Tian, Ziyi Tang, additional reporting by Albee Zhang; Editing by Raju GopalakrishnanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Climate change is making plane turbulence worse, and it could make flights bumpier and more expensive
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Crystal Raypole | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Experts believe severe turbulence may increase in years to come as patterns of severe weather continue around the globe. But pilots also have to contend with clear-air turbulence, which is turbulence that has no visible cause. Weather researchers further predict clear-air turbulence will double by 2050, with severe turbulence increasing the most. "The highest altitude flights over the North Atlantic will encounter the most significant increase in severe turbulence," Bennett said. Only 1% of the atmosphere has moderately severe turbulence, and a few tenths of a percent have severe turbulence," she said.

☆ Google search is bad and getting worse. Here's how search is evolving in the era of AI.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Mason Pelt | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

He says Google search is worse than ever, and the company isn't financially incentivized to fix it. Google search is worse than it was three years ago. People use Google search in two waysPeople use Google to either find general information where any credible source is acceptable. Searching, "who is Neil Gaiman," or "list of the endless in the Neil Gaiman series" will likely give searchers the answers they seek. That sentence's chaotic grammatical mess is a window into the Google search results pages.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at how startup HeadRace raised $6 million in seed funding from Greylock to help headhunters beat the hiring slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Marketplace startup HeadRace helps connect recruiters with employers looking to hire. The startup has raised $6 million in seed funding from Greylock, Susa Ventures, and Breyer Capital. After going through the exhausting process of hiring dozens of employees while at Uber and Flexport, Korsos was inspired to change the hiring system. Although hiring has slowed in large, public companies, it's actually accelerated in early-stage startups looking to fill a number of specialized roles, Korsos told Insider. Moving forward, the startup plans on using its seed funding to build out its technology offerings and improve its scalability, Korsos told Insider.

☆ In economics, women's voices still struggle to be heard
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Maria Martinez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

There seems to be a lot to celebrate on International Women's Day in the field of economics. Women head the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the U.S. Treasury and the European Central Bank. "The pervasive underrepresentation of women in economics is systemic and structural," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman to head the World Trade Organization, told Reuters. "There are no women in the textbooks and most big names in economics are men," said Sandra Kretschmer, economics researcher and member of the Women in Economics Initiative. Women and men tend to have different research interests, said Alisa Weinberger, economics researcher at Goethe.

☆ No, artificial vanilla flavoring doesn't come from beaver butts. Flavor scientists explain.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Rebecca Strong | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

It's a myth that artificial vanilla flavoring comes from castoreum extracted from beaver castor sacs. Flavor chemists explain that artificial vanilla flavor is made from synthetic vanillin. He said, many food companies use artificial flavors because extracting natural flavors from fruits and other plants is labor-intensive and expensive. For example, a chemical appropriately named "raspberry ketone" — which also occurs naturally in raspberries — is an essential component of artificial raspberry flavor. Scientists are still working out how to replicate these flavor volatiles, which is why artificial vanilla flavors tend to lack complexity.

☆ Facebook and Google are handing over user data to help police prosecute abortion seekers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Police make requests for social media user data to aid prosecution after a crime has been committed. ProPublica found similar web trackers that capture user data on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies that offer abortion pills by mail, including Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy, and Online Abortion Pill Rx. Private content by users — such as location data or messages — requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant before it can be turned over. She said because the platforms themselves are unlikely to prioritize user privacy, the burden to do so falls on the individual user. "All the angst directed social media services for being a pawn in law enforcement's game seems misdirected to me.

☆ Orca pair devour 17 sharks in a day in South African killing spree, say marine biologists
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A pair of orca whales in South Africa killed 17 sharks in just "one sitting," said marine biologists. The male duo had previously terrorized great white sharks that used to hunt in the area. Days later, they found the remains of 11 of the 17 killed sevengill sharks in Pearly Beach. The carcasses of several great white sharks have since washed up on the shores of False Bay, all grossly injured and with their oil-rich livers ripped out. For the first time in May 2022, scientists were able to film Starboard killing a great white shark.

☆ Writing your résumé with AI makes it easier to find a job, a study finds. But this edge could vanish once everybody's doing it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Madison Hoff | Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Using AI to help write your résumé improves your odds of landing a job, a study found. While the study didn't use ChatGPT, it points to AI's potential to help job seekers. Meaning, van Inwegen said, that employers "do care about" résumé writing. But if AI tools like ChatGPT proliferate — and millions of job seekers begin using AI tools to craft their résumé, it might get harder to stand out. "Everyone's résumé will have gone through some sort of algorithmic checker," van Inwegen said.

Around 40% of outstanding federal student loan debt is now taken on post-college for master's and PhD programs. The average student debt balance among parents was more than $35,000 in 2018-19, up from around $5,000 in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the private student loan market has grown more than 70% over the last decade, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center. Americans now owe more in private student loans than they do for past-due medical debt or payday loans. Every year millions of new students are pumped into the student loan system while current borrowers struggle to exit it.

☆ This SoftBank-backed startup that uses AI to draft legal documents just raised $10 million. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck Robin AI used to land the cash.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Robin AI, a legal tech startup that uses AI to read and negotiate contracts, has raised $10 million. A startup that uses AI to make legal contracts simpler to draft and negotiate has raised $10 million in fresh funding. London-based Robin AI, which counts SoftBank among its backers, was founded by former lawyer Richard Robinson and physics PhD James Clough. The startup uses machine learning to review and negotiate legal contracts through a software platform. The startup claimed to have grown its revenues 20x since its previous raise, a $3.3 million funding from SoftBank in December 2021.

☆ This SoftBank-backed startup that uses AI to draft legal documents just raised $10.5 million. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck Robin AI used to land the cash.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Robin AI, a legal tech startup that uses AI to read and negotiate contracts, has raised $10.5 million. A startup that uses AI to make legal contracts simpler to draft and negotiate has raised $10.5 million in fresh funding. London-based Robin AI, which counts SoftBank among its backers, was founded by former lawyer Richard Robinson and physics PhD James Clough. The startup uses machine learning to review and negotiate legal contracts through a software platform. The startup claimed to have grown its revenues 20x since its previous raise, a $3.3 million funding from SoftBank in December 2021.

☆ Freshman Rep. Andy Ogles admits he didn't know what he majored in
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Freshman Rep. Andy Ogles claimed he had a degree in "policy and economics" while campaiging. Ogles, a freshman representative from Tennessee, originally claimed on the campaign trail that he had a degree in international policy and economics, according to Nashville's NewsChannel5. But while it's true Ogles studied at Middle Tennessee State University, he did not major in international policy nor economics. An Insider interview with Laffer, however, revealed that Ogles' role working with Laffer primarily didn't involve economics — instead, Laffer claimed Ogles mainly worked in fundraising, though he didn't question Ogles' claim of being an economist. "An economist is a person who works in economics," Laffer told Insider.

☆ Analysis: With record diversity on their boards, Fed bank chiefs see lower chances of policy error
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Ann Saphir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Fed bank directors generally stay out of the limelight, but many U.S. central bankers view them as a critical resource. "I think the probabilities are far higher of achieving that gentle transition, that smoother transition," San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly told Reuters in an interview. This year, of the 108 spots on the 12 Fed bank boards, 44% are filled by women, and 41% by people of color, a review of the data shows. Still, a majority of the Fed's economists are white men, as are its top two monetary policymakers: Powell and New York Fed President John Williams. Hispanics and Latinos, Menendez notes, are a fast-growing segment of the population but are underrepresented at the Fed at all levels, including on Fed bank boards.

Kazuo Ueda, a 71-year-old university professor who has kept a low profile despite strong credentials as a monetary policy expert, ticked some important boxes. While he was not even on the list of dark horse candidates floated by the media, Ueda was well known in global central bank circles. The bank's preferred choices were incumbent deputy governor Amamiya, as well as former deputies Hiroshi Nakaso and Hirohide Yamaguchi, given their deep knowledge on monetary policy. Matsuno said he hoped the BOJ works closely with the government and guides monetary policy flexibly, when asked whether Ueda's appointment could lead to a retreat from Abenomics. While he warned of the rising cost of the BOJ's yield control policy, Ueda has called for the need to keep monetary policy loose to ensure Japan stably achieves the bank's 2% inflation target.

☆ Fact Check-Rumors Patrick Mahomes failed drug test after the Super Bowl stem from satire account
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes did not test positive for drugs following his team’s victory at the Super Bowl, contrary to claims online. He said that, under the NFL-NFLPA performance-enhancing substances policy, five players on each team were tested after being randomly chosen. No credible news outlets have reported that Mahomes tested positive for drugs (bit.ly/3IqLFt3). Reuters reported on Feb. 12 that the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 to win their third Super Bowl championship in franchise history (here). Patrick Mahomes did not test positive for drugs following the Super Bowl.

☆ Factbox: Some potential successors to Brainard at the Fed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Meanwhile, analysts and Fed observers are already swapping notes on potential replacements for Brainard at the Fed from a bench of economists aligned with Biden's Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate. MARY DALYDaly is president of the San Francisco Fed, ascending to that position in 2018 after 22 years at the regional Fed bank, including a stint as its director of research. Furman has been a prominent, Twitter-savvy commentator on macroeconomic and Fed policy. He has a PhD from the University of Virginia and served as a Fed economist for a little over a year in the mid-1990s. With a PhD from Stanford University, he's held staff positions at the Fed board and the San Francisco Fed, where he also served as president before moving to the New York Fed role in 2018.

☆ Microsoft and Google promised to invest in these communities. Now they’re backtracking
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Hyosub Shin/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/ZUMA Press WireFacebook-parent Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Snap have each shuttered offices or announced plans to cut back on real estate, according to recent corporate announcements, filings and local news reports. But residents also had cautious optimism about the benefits Microsoft promised to the community, according to Hope. Hope’s community isn’t alone in confronting the whiplash of Silicon Valley’s real estate pullback. An office sits vacant on October 27, 2022 in San Francisco, California. The US Census Bureau reports an estimated 35% of employees in San Francisco and San Jose continue to work from home.

Feb 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to name Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard as his top economic policy adviser as early as Tuesday, a source familiar with the matter said, as the 2024 elections approach. Brainard, an experienced fiscal and monetary affairs official, would replace White House National Economic Council (NEC) Director Brian Deese, who has announced his resignation. In addition, Biden confidant Jared Bernstein is expected to replace Cecilia Rouse as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the source said. The White House declined to comment. Biden's overhaul of his top economic team comes as the Fed is still trying to glide inflation down without causing a recession.

Search resuls for: "Phd"

25 mentions found