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☆ Resistance is futile. Welcome to the "generative AI" era
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

This is going to be the year of “generative AI” the way 2012 was the year of Instagram. (Yes, Bing still exists and Microsoft hopes AI can make it relevant again for the first time ever.) Generative AI is the technology that underpins ChatGPT, the chatbot that’s gotten everyone in the content-generation biz (hello!) But Google, Microsoft and their rivals are still bullish. “We have even more exciting, AI-enabled innovations in the works that will change the way people search, work and play.”

☆ Congress has so much to do before Christmas
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Zachary B. Wolf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Second, the newly elected Congress will be sworn in on January 3. Everything resets in the new Congress, and lawmakers will have to start from scratch on anything they don’t finish up this month. One major looming question is whether Senate Republicans and Democrats can agree on a bill to fund the government for a full year or whether they have to punt to the next Congress. If the Electoral Count Act can pass, it could be slipped into that massive spending bill. But that’s a very open question, since that massive spending bill has not yet been put together.

☆ What Could 20 Years’ of Savings Buy on the West Side? Two Longtime Renters Found Out.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Mr. Robbins, an artist and photography professor, craved space for an at-home studio. Ms. Fulwiler, a self-employed development consultant, wanted an office she could call her own. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]“By New York City standards, it was a very large apartment,” said Ms. Fulwiler, 56. “We looked and looked and looked a bit more,” said Mr. Robbins, 61, who grew up in San Francisco in one of the city’s classic Victorian townhomes. condos across the Upper West Side.

☆ Ohio GOP congressman's niece was among the 154 people killed in a crush of people in South Korea on Halloween weekend
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

At least 154 people were killed after a crowd surge on Saturday in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul. Rep. Brad Wenstrup said in a statement that his niece was one of the victims of the crush of people. Rep. Brad Wenstrup said in a press release on Monday that his niece, Anne Marie Gieske, was one of the victims. "Monica and I, and our entire family, are grieving the loss of our niece Anne Marie Gieske," Rep. Wenstrup wrote. Due to privacy considerations, the spokesperson could not confirm if the victims included Gieske.

☆ Early-stage VCs are leaving $100 billion on the table by not exercising rights to buy into later startup funding rounds. One investor is trying to make sure they don't.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pro rata rights give early investors a place in later funding rounds and protect against dilution. Nearly 95% of pro rata rights go unused, often because investors lack the capital to exercise them. Alpha Partners provides the capital VCs need to take advantage of their lucrative pro rata rights. The company allows early-stage VCs to exercise their pro rata rights and participate in follow-on rounds by providing capital when no one else will. From a founder's perspective, pro rata rights can be a way of protecting those that took an early chance on the company.

☆ 'Sharks circling in the water': Contentious cram-down rounds are coming and going to dilute startup shareholders. Founders and investors should be wary.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Funding rounds are set to become more contentious; "knives tend to come out," said one investor. Having been in the VC game for more than 25 years, he knows what inevitably follows periods of irrational exuberance: cram downs. A cram-down round refers to a situation in which a company raises money at terms favorable to new investors, at the expense of current shareholders. In good times, when valuations are going up and VCs have money to spare, exercising pro rata rights is usually a no-brainer. The investors that step up to fill that void — usually late-stage VC growth funds or strategic investors — often demand terms that severely dilute or "cram down" the shares of existing shareholders.

☆ Sick of toxic social media? Meet the tech revolutionaries who are working to create a healthier online experience that puts you in charge.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Evan Malmgren | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Critics on both sides of the political divide say that social-media platforms have too much power over public discourse and use this power irresponsibly. In fact, a fresh wave of decentralized social networks is forming. What even is a decentralized platform? Still, decentralized and descaled social-media platforms pose a promising, if incremental, framework to address many ills of modern mass communication. "I compare it to the growth of organic, sustainably grown food," Bill Ottman, the founder and CEO of the partially decentralized social-media platform Minds, told me.

☆ Nancy Pelosi's congressional stock trading ban has a massive blind trust loophole and is too broad, ethics experts warn
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

But ethics experts say the bill has a major loophole when it comes to blind trusts, and is too broad. Broadly speaking, a blind trust is a financial arrangement wherein people turn over their assets to be managed by an independent entity to prevent a conflict of interest. Several previously-introduced bills to ban stock trading allow for lawmakers to place their stocks into a blind trust, rather than fully selling off existing stock holdings. "You'd be able to create any kind of a trust you want to, put anything you want into it, and call it a blind trust, even though there wouldn't actually be any way to prove that it is, in fact, a blind trust." Payne also said the blind trust loophole was a "small risk," but that in an optimistic scenario, "that language allows this law to grow for future circumstances that you just can't be prepared for."

☆ Siemens automates design process for testing new chips with advanced packaging
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Visitors walk under a Siemens sign at the international consumer technology fair IFA in Berlin, Germany September 2, 2022. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File PhotoSept 26 (Reuters) - Siemens Digital Industries Software, a unit of Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE), on Monday said it launched new software called Tessent Multi-die that automates a design process for testing chips made with advanced packaging. But testing these chips after they are made has been difficult as there are several layers of tiles, and Siemens’ head of the Tessent business Ankur Gupta said until now Siemens has had to work with customers on a case-by-case basis. He said making the testing process easier for chips with advanced packaging, also referred to as 2.5 and 3-dimensional packaging, will help give the new technology a boost. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Time-off policies are more generous than ever. So why does everyone feel more burned out than ever?
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Molly Lipson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Nearly a fifth of respondents said they avoided taking vacation time for fear of being seen as not committed enough to their jobs. Many companies don't adjust their expectations based on their new leave policies and simply expect workers to cram in the same amount of work. When it was time to return to work, Paraskeva found herself unable to go in. The hypocrisy of time-off policies makes it clear that they seem to benefit the employer much more than workers themselves. By forcing people to pile on work before they leave and scramble once they return, companies are undercutting their supposedly generous time-off policies and making the workplace worse for everyone.

☆ How to make the most of your time with the boss
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-17 | by ( Kathryn Vasel | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The agenda will not only help keep the discussion on track, but it also allows your boss to prepare for the meeting. But 10 things…that is probably not realistic.”If your boss is requesting the meeting, it’s okay to confirm and ask for additional information. Are there any particular topics you want to cover so that I can be prepared?’ Find out what’s on your boss’ agenda. And at some point during the conversation, Abbajay suggested asking the boss about their priorities and concerns. “Employees do themselves well when they make it about 70% about them and 30% about what the boss needs,” she said.

☆ The $107,000 Lexus LC500 is the best-kept secret on the car market
▼ + stars: | 2020-08-03 | by ( Alanis King | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Alanis KingThe Lexus LC500. Alanis KingThe Lexus LC500. Alanis KingThe Lexus LC500. Alanis KingThe Lexus LC500. Alanis KingThe Lexus LC500.

Our experts answer readers' credit card questions and write unbiased product reviews (here's how we assess credit cards). Credit card expert Holly Johnson has 26 different personal and business credit card accounts alongside her husband, but she doesn't carry all the cards at once. The answer to that question is no — of course I don't cram 26 different rewards and cash-back credit cards into my wallet. This is basically a blogger's dream credit card, and my husband runs our blog for a living. Curious which credit cards I use the most and why?

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