Despite the promise of two-hour flights from New York to Los Angeles, the supersonic airline industry never really got off the ground. That is largely because of physics: specifically, the sonic boom, the thunderclap noise made when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, which essentially doomed supersonic aviation as a viable business. READ MORE
Musk would liquidate Tesla shares to 'solve world hunger' if UN can explain how money would be spent
Elon Musk, the founder of Telsa whose net worth is approaching $300 billion, responded Sunday to calls from social media users to sell some stock to solve world hunger.
Musk responded to a repost of a CNN article that quoted David Beasley, the director of the UN’s World Food Program, who said billionaires need to "step up now" — namely Musk and Jeff Bezos. READ MORE
SEC Enforcement Developments: Fessing Up and Paying Up
As the SEC has recently completed its fiscal year on September 30, 2021, where it pushed its enforcement initiatives under new Chairman Gary Gensler, a brief overview of its recent track record is in order. No one can now doubt the enhanced enforcement already underway in the Biden Administration. Basically, the SEC mantra is "fess up" and "pay up." READ MORE
Four Retail IPOs
I make predictions, which is a shitty business. If they come true, circumstances leading up to the event make the prediction seem less bold. If they don’t, the Twitter troll army comes for you. On a risk-adjusted basis, bad idea.
Like that’s going to stop me. READ MORE
Employees are designing the workplace of the future
Why do we go to the office?
This is not a rhetorical question. Do we go to be around other people and work collaboratively? Do we go because it’s a dedicated location that allows us to focus on our work in a unique way? Do we go because we believe it’s necessary to be “seen”? Do we go because we’re just supposed to, because it’s what we’ve always done? READ MORE
MeWork
Two years ago, WeWork’s IPO was aborted, and the company was put on SoftBank life-support. Things changed yesterday. WeWork took its first steps in the public markets, opening at $9.5 billion, which is a fifth of its 2019 valuation. Sanity restored.
The stock’s doing well. It closed up 13.5%, which is an especially nice gift to Adam Neumann, whose 11% ownership is now worth more than $1 billion. He celebrated in standard douchebaggery: spraying champagne at the Standard Hotel in a shirt that read “Student for Life.” It took the greatest catastrophe in IPO history for Neumann to realize he’s not fit to teach. READ MORE
Gas hits $7.59 a gallon in CA town
Gas keeps getting more and more expensive, especially in California. But perhaps nowhere is it pricier than the remote central coast community of Gorda.
The town's only gas station is offering regular unleaded for $7.59. Premium is nearly $8.50. READ MORE
Labor flexes its muscle as leverage tips from employers to workers
Workers are saying enough is enough.
And many of them are either hitting the picket lines or quitting their jobs as a result.
The changing dynamics of the US labor market, which has put employees rather than employers in the driver's seat in a way not seen for decades, is allowing unions to flex their muscle. READ MORE
Andy Puzder: Biden is about to drive us off an economic cliff
It is difficult to imagine a worse time for massive increases in taxes and spending, yet that’s exactly what Democrats in Washington, D.C. have in mind. We are all aware that, as Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated this week, President Joe Biden views the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to "make fundamental changes in our economy." But the changes he has in mind are about to drive us over an economic cliff. READ MORE
Tech's big bad morale problem
The rank-and-file runs the tech industry now. If you want to boil down many of the events of the last weeks and months, one thing that unites them all is that employees at tech companies are flexing their individual and collective power more than ever. Even a vocal minority has more ways than ever to make noise and press for change. And instead of worrying about public opinion and business ramifications, bosses are increasingly worried about employee morale above all else.
Facebook is the most obvious example. The company's increasingly aggressive public stance, pushing back on whistleblower testimony and news stories, is less about changing public opinion and more about getting the team back on track. READ MORE
5 Reasons Not to Quit Your Job (Yet)
Has there ever been a better time for employees to quit their jobs?
Whether you call it “The Great WorkQuake,” The Great Resignation,” or “The Great Reset,” up to 41% of employees are thinking about changing careers right now. There are a lot of reasons for them to consider leaving. A strong labor market is pushing up wages and benefits, and companies are offering additional perks to attract new talent. Some workers may be fed up with their existing company’s toxic or unappreciative culture, inflexible work arrangements, or pay inequity. Some may be suffering from burnout or general work/life dissatisfaction. Some are leaving their jobs simply because they can afford to — U.S. personal savings hit a record high of 33% this year. Add in the opportunities to “work from anywhere,” and you can understand why we’re seeing employees quitting in record numbers in 2021. READ MORE
The office is the new offsite
Social media is awash with the cognitive dissonance of how many people are still working from home (it's less than some might think). But those who are going back to the office are also spending a lot less time there. Many of the people with the flexibility to choose what days and how often they go into the office appear to be adopting the "less is more" strategy.
Protocol spoke with OfficeTogether's founder and CEO Amy Yin to learn more about the trends related to the return to work. The desk reservation and team-scheduling startup was born in the age of the pandemic and its software helps companies figure out who is coming to the office and how to complete health checks for those returning. Insights have poured in as workers head back to their respective office spaces. Here are some of the biggest takeaways. READ MORE
Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands
Amazon.com Inc has been repeatedly accused of knocking off products it sells on its website and of exploiting its vast trove of internal data to promote its own merchandise at the expense of other sellers. The company has denied the accusations.
But thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company’s largest growth markets. READ MORE
Few individual investors participate in shareholder voting. Here’s how that may be changing
Despite the high demand for values-driven investing, few individual shareholders participate in corporate decisions. But some companies and funds are making it easier for investors to voice concerns through a proxy voting process.
When someone buys a stock, they become part-owner of the company and may vote on decisions — such as executive compensation or picking the board of directors — at the corporation’s annual meeting. READ MORE
Is Stagflation a Serious Market Risk?
Stagflation: that ghoul from the era of shag carpet and disco balls.
It's something that hasn't been seriously discussed in economics circles since the late 1970s. But today, with inflation pushing multidecade highs and company after company reporting that results might end up being disappointing over the next several quarters due to rising labor and materials costs, stagflation is a real topic of concern again.
The question is: Should it be? READ MORE
‘It’s Not Sustainable’: What America’s Port Crisis Looks Like Up Close
Like toy blocks hurled from the heavens, nearly 80,000 shipping containers are stacked in various configurations at the Port of Savannah — 50 percent more than usual.
The steel boxes are waiting for ships to carry them to their final destination, or for trucks to haul them to warehouses that are themselves stuffed to the rafters. Some 700 containers have been left at the port, on the banks of the Savannah River, by their owners for a month or more. READ MORE
No college degree? More employers than ever just don't care
If you don't have a four-year college degree, you're hardly alone. The majority of US working age adults do not.
You may assume you have little chance of developing a well-paying career with benefits and growth potential at a Fortune 500 company. After all, so many jobs require a Bachelor's degree. READ MORE
Qualities To Look For When Choosing Board Members For Your Micro- To Mid-Sized Company
The lasting effects of the global pandemic; environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations; political dynamics — today’s business climate is challenging. As the owner of a micro to mid-capitalized company, these pressures can be magnified, and having board members who are aligned with your company’s goals is critical. If you are considering or are already in the process of taking your company public, the selection of board members requires careful consideration. READ MORE
Why Trust Is the Top Requirement for Building and Growing Your Company
What's more important for your company: growth or trust?
If you said the former, you're not alone. Organic growth is overwhelmingly the top goal for business executives, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers's twenty-fourth annual global survey of CEOs. It's what 88 percent of U.S. company heads and 73 percent of global leaders reported as their number-one priority for 2021. READ MORE
Amazon return-to-office plans left up to managers
Amazon's senior leadership is open to mixing it up when it comes to corporate workers' return to the office and has handed the decision down the chain of command as to whether, when and how often employees will make the trek to the workplace once their offices open again in 2022.
In a notice to Amazon employees on Monday, CEO Andy Jassy pointed out that the company first thought they would be back in the office in September 2021, before pushing that date back to Jan. 3 "with the suggestion we should all try to be in the office at least three days a week." READ MORE