Washingtonian staff goes on publishing strike after CEO's op-ed about remote work

Washingtonian magazine staffers launched a day-long protest on Friday in response to an op-ed written by their boss, who warned that continuing to work from home as the pandemic subsides could make employees less valuable and easier to "let go."

Cathy Merrill, chief executive of the District of Columbia-centered magazine, shared her concerns about the popularity of remote work in a Washington Post op-ed published Thursday, originally titled: "As a CEO, I want my employees to understand the risks of not returning to work in the office." READ MORE

Here's why waiving patent rights on COVID vaccines is a big mistake

Up until last week, even prior Big Pharma naysayers were touting the successful development of effective COVID-19 vaccines. Within 15 months of the pandemic, not one, but three pharmaceutical companies developed and made available vaccines to lead the United States toward immunity nirvana. Now, over 250 million doses have been delivered in under five months.   

Rather than congratulating Big Pharma on their tremendous efforts during a time of peril, last week President Biden held true on a controversial campaign promise doing the opposite.  READ MORE

To buy time for a failing startup, recreate the engineering process

In non-aerobatic fixed-wing aviation, spins are an emergency. If you don’t have spin recovery training, you can easily make things worse, dramatically increasing your chances of crashing. Despite the life-and-death consequences, licensed amateur pilots in the United States are not required to train for this. Uncontrolled spins don’t happen often enough to warrant the training.

Startups can enter the equivalent of a spin as well. My startup, Kolide, entered a dangerous spin in early 2018, only a year after our Series A fundraise. We had little traction and we were quickly burning through our sizable cash reserves. We were spinning out of control, certain to hit the ground in no time. READ MORE

Inflation nation heats up as CEOs to White House talk prices

Inflation talk, after years of being dead in the water, is gaining momentum on Main and Wall Street as reports of higher prices at the grocery store and the pump, with gas averaging $2.91 a gallon per AAA, are fueling the conversation. 

"Mentions of "inflation" are now up nearly 800%" compared to the year-ago first-quarter earnings season, noted the team at Bank of America led by Savita Subramanian.  READ MORE

Sit tight, chip shortage likely to last to 2023, says top supplier to auto industry

Carmakers hoping for relief from the acute global chip shortage may have to wait until 2023 before things return to normal, German semiconductor supplier Infineon warned on Tuesday.

Infineon’s own inventories are depleted; downstream facilities responsible for final assembly are waiting on shipments of raw chips; and its factory in Austin would need four months to fully recover from February’s storm-related power outages in Texas. READ MORE

Mind the GAAP

Is a company making profit or a loss? It’s undoubtedly an important question in the minds of managers, investors, bankers, and boards of directors (investors would like to buy shares of, and banks would prefer to lend money to, a profitable company). But surprisingly, this question is becoming increasingly difficult to answer. The bottom-line number in income statements, which shows a profit or a loss, is calculated after so many deductions and adjustments that it provides no assurance of a firm’s core profitability. Compounding this development is the fact that, along with earnings based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), firms increasingly report a number called non-GAAP or pro-forma earnings. READ MORE

Signal tried to use Facebook's targeted advertising data against it

Facebook runs a massively successful digital advertising operation on the back of its granular categories based on user behavior. Yet, many of the people who actively use its services aren't aware of how the social network shares their data with advertisers. To shed light on the issue, privacy-focused messaging app Signal tried to use Facebook's targeted ad machine against it. However, what may have started as activism-meets-self-promotion has since boiled over into a full-blown spat, with both companies disputing each other's version of events. READ MORE

American factories are desperate for workers

Demand for goods is skyrocketing as the US economy reopens from the pandemic. But there's a big problem: American factories can't find enough people to do the work.

Even though US manufacturing activity surged to a 37-year high in March, the industry has more than half a million job openings. Factories are struggling to find skilled workers for specialized roles such as welders and machinists. Manufacturers are even having trouble hiring entry-level positions that do not require expertise. READ MORE