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☆ He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

But, "you do at some point need to start having contact with reality," he told Insider. The plan was still only a rough sketch, Blania told Insider, but that didn't seem to matter to his host. "He always wanted to understand everything at a very deep level," Thrun told Insider in an email. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ A fund manager who beat 95% of competitors in the last 2 years explains how he finds 'tremendous opportunities' for value creation and returns amid today's volatile stock market
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Lisa Kailai Han | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Companies with healthy balance sheets and access to low or no-cost funding are likely to outperform. Ferguson is a fund manager for the BNY Mellon Dynamic Value Fund at Newton Investment Management. Across all sectors, Ferguson believes that companies with strong balance sheets and good liquidity will widely outperform their peers, especially in the face of a looming economic slowdown. Strong balance sheets in particular can help businesses endure turbulent times, since companies aren't forced to issue — and eventually pay back — a lot of high-cost debt. Likewise, Ferguson is currently bullish on the energy sector due to its incredibly strong balance sheets and focus on return of capital versus growth.

☆ Americans Wary of Big Brother AI Watching in the Workplace
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Richard Vanderford | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

U.S. respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said they were largely opposed to using artificial intelligence to monitor them at work. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg NewsAmericans are largely leery of artificial intelligence peering over their shoulder at the workplace to watch for bad behavior, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, though only a fraction think AI will have a major impact on them personally. AI has been used for years in technologies that can monitor what employees do at work, including surveillance systems that can try to see if retail employees are stealing, software that scrutinizes truck drivers for bad behavior, and plug-ins for email and chat applications that can flag foul language or fraud in offices.

☆ Dominion’s case against Fox News goes to trial next week. Is the First Amendment really on the line?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

But even by the standards of the profession, the language in Dominion's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News has been downright apocalyptic. A victory for Dominion against Fox, they say, could wreak havoc for other journalism organizations across the country. The sheer closeness between Trump and Fox News makes a case like this unlikely to harm journalism organizations down the line, Goodale said. The vast majority of defamation cases against media organizations are settled, which gives few high-profile precedents to the Dominion lawsuit. "And that's the balance that the Sullivan court strike tried to strike in 1964.

☆ Influencers make being a landlord with lots of rental properties seem easy. But a real-estate investor with 482 units warns newbies to not scale up too quickly.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Aj Latrace | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The prospect of easy money and equity lured people to invest in real estate between 2020 and now. Those who purchased rental properties in the last two years saw a windfall, a veteran investor said. But new landlords who follow landlord influencers on TikTok and Instagram extolling the merits of quick-scaling strategies could use a dose of reality, one veteran real-estate investor told Insider. It all means that investors still have to play it safe when looking at a new deal, Ainley said. They buy properties, fix them up, then refinance them to get out cash that they funnel into purchase the fixer-upper.

☆ Venture Capital Investors Are Trying to Take Over Pandemic Response
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

Private capital has been eyeing public health for years. Several founders and investors told me that the failure of Kleiner's fund made Silicon Valley wary of investing in pandemic preparedness. Venture investors love that kind of thing. Public health and private industryWhen COVID hit, Charity Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. In the end, almost every pandemic-related product created by Silicon Valley will ultimately require the government as a primary customer.

☆ Joe Biden Is Bernie Sanders
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Daniel Henninger | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

When Mr. Biden finally announces his re-election bid, he will be running as a democratic socialist. That is the clear takeaway from the more than 70 minutes Mr. Biden spent describing his plans to push federal spending and mandates into every nook of American life. What a welcome departure this is from the misrepresentation Rep. Jim Clyburn perpetrated on voters to get Mr. Biden elected as a centrist in 2020. Recall how the South Carolina congressman endorsed Mr. Biden before his state’s primary, explicitly warning on ABC’s “This Week” against the insurgent campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: “I do believe it will be an extra burden for us to have to carry. This is South Carolina, and South Carolinians are pretty leery about that title ‘socialist.’ ”

[1/4] Spectators watch after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast in Holden Beach, North Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023. Regional analysts and diplomats are closely watching China's response after a U.S. fighter jet shot down the balloon - which Beijing says was an errant weather-monitoring craft - in the Atlantic off South Carolina on Saturday. China on Sunday condemned the attack as an "over-reaction", saying it reserved the right to use the necessary means to deal with "similar situations", without elaborating. But while bilateral tension has risen in the past few days over the balloon incident, Beijing and Washington have been seeking to improve ties. Naval Postgraduate School in California, said any Chinese response would be limited.

☆ How analysts are playing gig economy stocks ahead of earnings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The 2022 selloffs underscored the challenges gig economy stocks have faced in recent years as novelty and venture capital funding chilled, analysts have said to clients. Analysts are now contemplating how to position ahead of the major gig companies' earnings reports, which kick off with Uber on Feb. 8. A look at where each company stands: Uber UBER LYFT,DASH 5Y mountain Gig economy stocks One area where analysts at SVB MoffettNathanson, Jefferies and Bernstein all agree: be bullish on Uber. Lyft Analysts at the three firms, however, are leery when it comes to competitor Lyft. DoorDash Analysts were split on DoorDash.

☆ Capital Wealth's Kevin Simpson says investors should temper rally enthusiasm
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailCapital Wealth's Kevin Simpson says investors should temper rally enthusiasmKevin Simpson, Capital Wealth Planning founder, joins 'Closing Bell: Overtime' to discuss why he believes investors should be leery of the recent market rally.

☆ Foreign Investors Are Leery of China Bets, Despite Rebound Expectations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Rebecca Feng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Market strategists say the stars are aligned in 2023 for Chinese assets to stage a comeback—but a return of foreign capital may take longer. Foreign investors have pulled more than $100 billion out of China’s bond market since February, according to two major Chinese clearinghouses. They have also dramatically slowed their investments in the country’s stock market. Foreign institutions bought a net $13 billion worth of yuan-denominated shares last year via a Hong Kong stock-trading link, down sharply from $63 billion in 2021.

To capture this moment of adaptation, we contacted 200 New York Times readers who had sent us photographs of their pandemic lives at the end of 2020 and asked them to share a new photo reflecting what normal means two years later. Nearly the same share, 42 percent, said the pandemic had changed their lives in lasting and significant ways. Just 12 percent said the pandemic never changed much: “I didn’t give up anything,” one respondent said. What is one thing about your life that the pandemic has changed in a lasting way? Together, the photos collected below capture a kind of then-and-now of pandemic times, when many are still figuring out what comes next.

☆ As child vaccine rates slip, local health officials fight misinformation
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lauren Sausser | Kaiser Health News | Lauren Sausser Covers Health Across The South As Part Of Khn'S Southern Bureau. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

So the Health Department conducted something called an online “sentiment search,” which gauges how certain words are perceived on social media. An analysis conducted by KHN and The Associated Press found local health department spending dropped by 18% per capita from 2010 to 2020. To that end, the health department has partnered with local leaders and groups to encourage vaccinations. — Phil Maytubby, Oklahoma city County health departmentThe more than 3,000 public health departments nationwide stand to benefit from a unified message, he said. In late 2020, the foundation, working with other public health groups, established the Public Health Communications Collaborative to amplify easy-to-understand information about vaccines.

☆ Amazon bulked up its advertising behemoth in 2022 — and its becoming an even bigger threat to Meta
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Amazon's digital ad business is only behind Google's and Meta's — and it's already stolen budget from Meta. Today, that advertising business is no longer simply a way to drive product sales on Amazon. Amazon's ad business, which generated $9.5 billion during the third quarter of 2022, dwarfed Microsoft and Snap and ranked third behind Google and Facebook parent, Meta. There are now nearly 600 advertising partners in Amazon's advertising ecosystem, according to Amazon's directory of companies in the space. As part of its ambitions to grow advertising, Amazon also pitches a data clean room called Amazon Marketing Cloud.

☆ What to know about a judicial privacy bill Congress is passing with a major defense package
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

But the legislation is also rankling court watchdogs who contend the bill could complicate efforts to scrutinize the judicial branch for ethics issues. The bill does not displace the ethical disclosure requirements judges already face, the congressional aide noted to CNN. And it extends the threat-monitoring programs that are being offered to Article III judges to administrative judges as well. Now that the bill has been added to the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive defense package that Congress passes annually, Paul’s options for scuttling it are limited. “Because, if I am sued, someone is going to be bringing it to a federal judge.

☆ EU angst over “Buy American” reopens old wounds
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Rebecca Christie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The European Commission is the main gatekeeper on state aid, which the EU limits to protect fair competition in the single market. Von der Leyen’s plan might let it decide which champions are deserving in the first place. The free spending has sparked concerns of a handout war with other European countries, particularly given the EU’s recent focus on fiscal discipline. Von der Leyen wants to create a central pot of money to provide catch-up funds to smaller countries. Relaxing EU state aid rules fairly won’t be easy, and Europe will need a clearer industrial policy beyond handing out cash.

My wife and I are fortunate enough to travel around the country in our 21-foot teardrop trailer. While there are many benefits to living like nomads and traveling back and forth across the U.S., we were leery when we began our first cross-country trip. As a same-sex couple, the seismic political and cultural divide that has been rapidly spreading since the 2016 presidential election made us fearful about traveling through ultra-conservative Southern states. The author's teardrop trailer on a lavender farm in Northern California. I have long believed love overcomes hate, and our teardrop trailer travels remind me that there are good people everywhere, even in those places where you least expect them to be.

Amazon fired Smalls in March 2020, saying he joined a protest at the Staten Island warehouse where he supervised other workers despite being on paid quarantine after he had close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19. Smalls in the lawsuit says he was targeted because of his race and his advocacy for the warehouse's largely non-white workforce. The 2nd Circuit judges on Tuesday said he failed to back up those claims, echoing a New York federal judge who dismissed the case last year. Smalls and other workers at the warehouse founded the Amazon Labor Union, which in April won the first U.S. union vote in Amazon's 27-year history. Smalls may have believed that Amazon's practices were racially motivated, Schwartz said, but "Amazon is not required to read his mind."

☆ Analysis: Trump lesson on U.S. protectionism guides Canadian foreign policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Steve Scherer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

OTTAWA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government learned a lesson when former U.S. President Donald Trump forced the renegotiation of the North American trade pact five years ago: never underestimate U.S. protectionism. The next U.S. presidential election is less than two years away and Trump last week said he would run again, suggesting the "America first" trade policy could again be on the ballot. Even without Trump, the United States has shown signs of becoming increasingly leery of free trade in recent years. When America goes America first, they forget Canada's right next door," said a senior source familiar with the Canadian government's thinking on foreign policy. "I don't want to undermine the Indo-Pacific strategy by saying it's entirely about the United States, because it's not, but having a strong Indo-Pacific strategy is also important in our bilateral relationship with the United States," the senior source said.

☆ Coupa Software Weighs Right Time to Refinance Low-Rate Debt Amid High Rates
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Coupa Software Inc. is searching for the right time to refinance over $2 billion in convertible debt that it holds at nearly evanescent rates—despite rising financing costs and the fact that its maturities are more than two years away. Tony Tiscornia, chief financial officer at Coupa Software. “For a young software company, we would really like to see a lot of the focus on just growth at this time, over profitability,” she said, speaking generally. The company will likely refinance with convertible debt because the interest rate tends to be lower than that of straight debt, he said, adding that more equity would dilute shareholdings. Conagra said it had $8.98 billion in net debt as of Aug. 28, down from $9.19 billion a year earlier.

☆ What the FTX debacle means for crypto's attempt to become a legitimate asset class
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Bob Pisani | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

What happens to other crypto platforms like Coinbase? That creates an opportunity for centralized, regulated, retail-focused crypto platforms (like Coinbase). What does this mean for the crypto space? We believe the episode is likely to accelerate regulation of the crypto space in the U.S. and elsewhere. Bitcoin has already been determined to be a commodity and not a security, but other crypto tokens may be deemed to be securities.

☆ The two words investors want to hear from Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

As markets look for signs that the Federal Reserve is stepping away from its breakneck pace of interest rate hikes, two words from this week's meeting could be crucial. No one is expecting the Fed to stop rate hikes, at least for several months. "The November FOMC meeting is not about the November policy rate decision. Instead, the meeting is about future policy rate guidance and what to expect in December and beyond." Even with the step-down hopes from Wednesday's meeting, market expectations are still for a fairly aggressive Fed.

WASHINGTON — One week from Election Day, the race for Senate control remains neck and neck in an unusually volatile political environment, with small margins carrying high stakes for the future of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda and judicial nominees. Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the battle for the Senate looks like a coin-flip. “Polling for the Senate is still real close in a lot of these states.”The Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote giving Democrats control. The FiveThirtyEight Senate projection is dead even, giving both Republicans and Democrats 50% chances of winning control. A perception that GOP control would threaten democracy is also motivating liberal-leaning voters.

☆ Biden's student-debt relief plans aren't enough to restore the value of a college degree as more young people decide to skip it
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

College enrollment has fallen in recent years, part of a broader trend over the past decade. President Joe Biden's student-debt reforms could make college more attractive to some but not all. College enrollment has fallen over 1% since last fall, according to a recent report from the National Student Clearinghouse. While Democratic lawmakers have pushed back on the idea that Biden's student-debt relief will cause tuition to spike, GOP lawmakers have latched onto that criticism. While there are few signs of a significant tuition decline on the horizon, the American Enterprise Institute's Mark Perry previously told Insider there had been a flicker of relief.

☆ The war in Ukraine may keep Russia's new Su-75 stealth fighter jet out of the air
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( Maya Carlin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Su-75 "Checkmate" is Russia's attempt at building a fifth-generation fighter for export. Originally revealed at the MAKS Airshow last year, the Su-75 was hailed as a solid move by Russia's United Aerospace Corporation, building off the Su-57 platform — Russia's first fifth-generation fighter. Stats and specsA Su-75 Checkmate prototype at MAKS-2021 in July 2021. They note that "The Checkmate fighter is outfitted with versatile armaments capable of fighting any threat: from unsheltered command posts to especially sensitive targets for a potential enemy." Additionally, if the production estimates of the Su-75 continue to be delayed, foreign clients may look elsewhere to fulfill their fighter needs.

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