Saturday, April 30, 2016

The only 6 things a modern gentleman should keep in his wallet

The only 6 things a modern gentleman should keep in his wallet

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walletiStockKeep your wallet slim and minimal.
You already know the dangers of carrying too large a wallet (and of keeping it in your back pocket).
In that same vein, we thought we'd go over what you should actually keep in your wallet on a day-to-day basis.
And, in the spirit of minimalism, it's honestly not a whole lot.
You probably only need:
  • Credit card and debit card. Plastic is now the norm, but there's no need to overdo it. One credit card and one debit card is all that you should have in your wallet.
  • ID card (and business ID, if needed). 
  • Cash. For drinks at bars, paying friends back, and those annoying restaurants that arestill cash-only, cash is necessary. 
  • Transit card. If you're in a major city, it's likely that you'll take public transit regularly.
  • Insurance cards. Should the worst happen, it's a good thing to have your insurance information on hand. The cards are thin and don't take up much room, and they're handy to have in an emergency.
  • A business card. You never know when you'll need it, and it's a lot easier than trying to find a pen and paper to write down your email or phone number. 
Notice what's missing? No rewards cards, no punch cards, no gift cards, and nothing else that you don't use on a daily basis. Not even a Social Security card.
Financial blog Dumb Little Man advocates a 1-2-2 rule (one ID, two forms of payment, and two insurance cards) as the most someone should carry around in their wallet, and we're pretty on board with that.
Once you slim down your wallet, it'll be easier to find what you're looking for, and your life will be just that much simpler.
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Friday, April 29, 2016

A former Google exec who now runs her own company says too many leaders make the same big mistake

A former Google exec who now runs her own company says too many leaders make the same big mistake

  • Apr. 27, 2016, 6:16 PM
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As a manager, you're likely accustomed to telling your reports what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and how they can improve their performance.
You may be less used to switching roles and letting your employees give you the same kind of guidance.
But plowing ahead assuming you're perfect is hardly a reasonable alternative. In fact, it can be a huge mistake.
That's according to Meg Crosby, a former Google exec who now runs her own company, PeopleCap Advisors. Crosby managed human resources for Google's mergers and acquisitions between 2003 and 2008; at PeopleCap she helps organizations navigate change through a focus on people strategy.
Her experiences working with managers at both Google and PeopleCap taught her that the biggest mistake leaders make is not seeking enough feedback from their employees.
You might think you're hearing employees' concerns, but Crosby told Business Insider that the more senior you are and the larger the organization is, the more "filtered" the feedback you'll receive.
In other words, employees on the ground level might complain about something to their managers, who report back to their bosses, who report to the executive team, who finally deliver the feedback to the CEO. "It just is diluted at every stage," Crosby said.
One solution, which PeopleCap uses with clients, is to conduct company-wide employee surveys. Those surveys can ask questions around areas like communication, leadership, culture, and performance.
"The more CEOs [and leaders] can get that very candid feedback and value that and understand it and think about it as they're making decisions, the better the decisions they will make," Crosby said.
job interview, boss, meetingWOCinTech Chat/flickrAsk employees about the key problems in the organization.
In fact, research from leadership consultancy Zenger/Folkman suggests that leaders who ask for feedback most often are also the most effective.
Writing in Forbes, Joseph Folkman, president and cofounder of Zenger/Folkman, says that asking for feedback is a better strategy than waiting to receive it unsolicited. That's because you'll be in a better position to listen carefully and your employees will try to provide an honest and productive perspective.
As for the survey, Crosby says that once leaders receive the results, the next step is to go back to employees and get more specific feedback on problematic areas.
PeopleCap typically leads focus groups with different groups of employees as well as one-on-one interviews with key people in the organization. But even if you're not working with a consultancy, you can select employees from different areas of the company to get more specific examples of how certain problems are occurring.
"Think through solutions for implementing change in those areas," Crosby said. If you're not the CEO, figure out how to present that information to senior leadership.
Finally, the CEO should put together a list of themes that they've heard and present that information to employees, as a way of acknowledging that their voices have been heard.
"It doesn't just end with the interviews," Crosby said, "but rather the CEO coming back to confirm, 'This is what I heard, and this is what we're going to do about it.'"

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Elon Musk: We need to leave Earth as soon as possible

Elon Musk: We need to leave Earth as soon as possible

  • Oct. 10, 2015, 10:15 AM
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In all the billions and billions of planets in our home galaxy, humanity happens to find itself on one perfectly suited for life.
Earth isn't without its hazards though. The planet has seen five mass extinctions throughout its history, due to cataclysmic disasters like giant asteroids and massive volcanic eruptions.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is worried about the next apocalypse.
He's so concerned that he thinks we need to get off Earth and become a multi-planet species as quickly as possible, according to a post written by blogger Tim Urban called "How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars."
Musk's reasoning is straightforward. Maybe by the time the next giant asteroid heads our way, we'll have the technology to shield the planet or redirect the space rock. But if it's something more catastrophic, like a nearby star exploding, we may all get vaporized. Musk says we can't afford to wait around and find out.
In his blog post, Urban gives us another way to think about it: Imagine Earth as a hard drive, and every species is a word document saved on that hard drive. The hard drive has already crashed five times (those five mass extinctions), and each time it loses a huge chunk of those documents (species going extinct). So you can think of the human species as an incredibly valuable document created on that hard drive:
Now—if you owned a hard drive with an extraordinarily important Excel doc on it, and you knew that the hard drive pretty reliably tended to crash every month or two, with the last crash happening five weeks ago—what’s the very obvious thing you’d do? You’d copy the document onto a second hard drive.
That's exactly why Musk is so hell-bent on Mars — it could become humanity's backup drive.
Musk doesn't want to send a handful of colonists, either; he'd like to launch 1 million peopleto the red planet. If we want anything resembling the industry and infrastructure here on Earth, and ample genetic diversity, then we'll need at least that many people to get things going. That's the only way we'll survive as a species on Mars, Musk reportedly told Urban.
Later this year, via his rocket company SpaceX, Musk plans to reveal a spacecraft designed to carry as many as 100 people at a time to the red planet. In the meantime, he's teased the world with a vision of how he'd land humans on Mars in a capsule called Red Dragon:

Read Urban's full series about Elon Musk and his grand plans at Wait But Why.

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Google has a new division called 'Area 120' where employees can build their own startups

Google has a new division called 'Area 120' where employees can build their own startups

  • Apr. 24, 2016, 1:05 PM
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sergey brinRe/code, Asa Mathat
Google is creating an in-house startup incubator to help keep its entrepreneurial talent closer to home, according to The Information.
The incubator is called “Area 120” and will be headed up by Google executives Don Harrison and Bradley Horowitz, sources told The Information.
Here’s how Area 120 will work:
  • First, teams within Google will submit a business plan and apply to join Area 120.
  • If successful, the teams will get to work full-time on their idea for a few months.
  • They’ll then have the opportunity to pitch Google for additional funding and create a new company (which Google will invest in).
The name “Area 120” is a reference to Google’s famous “20% time.” Here’s a description of 20% time that Larry Page and Sergey Brin included in their 2004 IPO letter:
"We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner."
Big 20% successes have included the development of Google News, Gmail, and AdSense. But there have been questions for years as to whether 20% time actually exists at Google at all anymore.
Area 120 seems to be a bid to encourage more of that entrepreneurial spirit to stay within Google, which was also part of the rationale behind the creation of Alphabet, the larger parent company Google is now a part of.
When Google debuted Alphabet last year, Larry Page wrote that one of its goals was “empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish,” some of whom might not want to build their companies within Google proper.
Area 120 will be located inside one of Google’s San Francisco office buildings.
Additional reporting by Jillian D'Onfro.
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AB InBev offers more SAB Europe assets to win EU deal approval

AB InBev offers more SAB Europe assets to win EU deal approval

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The logo of Anheuser-Busch InBev is pictured outside the brewer's headquarters in Leuven, Belgium February 25, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman Thomson ReutersThe logo of Anheuser-Busch InBev is pictured outside the brewer's headquarters in Leuven
By Philip Blenkinsop
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Anheuser-Busch InBev , the world's largest brewer, intends to sell the Eastern European brewing assets of SABMiller to secure regulatory approval for its $100 billion-plus takeover of its rival.
AB InBev has already lined up Japan's Asahi Group Holdings to buy SABMiller's Grolsch, Peroni and Meantime brands for 2.55 billion euros ($2.90 billion) and said on Friday that it has put up for sale SABMiller's activities in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
It has notified the European Commission, the European Union's antitrust regulator, which is set to deliver its verdict by May 24.
A number of analysts expressed surprise at the news, given that AB InBev has barely any business in eastern Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
"It seems slightly strange. There is no antitrust overlap that I can see. AB InBev has no presence to speak of in these countries," said Andrew Holland, beverage analyst at Societe Generale. "Perhaps the EU is looking at the pan-European market share."
If the Commission chose to open an in-depth investigation into the SABMiller takeover, it would not receive clearance for up to 90 working days, a delay AB InBev may be keen to avoid.
Initial valuations for SAB's eastern European breweries varied widely, from $4 billion to $7 billion, based on multiples of earnings or price per volume.
Heineken , Carlsberg and Molson Coors could face antitrust problems of their own if they wanted to buy unless the assets were sold separately.
Alternatively, Asahi might be looking for further European expansion or a private equity group could come in.
AB InBev said in a statement that the disposal included a number of top brands in their markets, such as Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic and Dreher in Hungary. The company said it expects to attract considerable interest from potential buyers.
The sale would be conditional on AB InBev concluding its purchase of SABMiller, expected in the second half of this year.
The divestment could ease regulatory approval, though eastern Europe has not been part of AB InBev's core business. Its interest in SABMiller is due to prize assets of faster growing Africa and parts of Latin America, rather than expansion in Europe, where beer consumption per capita is already high.
After InBev's 2008 takeover of Anheuser-Busch, the company sold its operations in Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and a handful of smaller eastern European countries for $2.2 billion to CVC Capital Partners [CVC.UL] as part of a deleveraging drive.
The business, including Staropramen lager, is now owned by Molson Coors .
($1 = 0.8784 euros)
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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LinkedIn soars on earnings beat

LinkedIn soars on earnings beat

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jeff weinerJustin Sullivan/GettyCEO Jeff Weiner.
LinkedIn just reported its Q1 earnings, beating Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines.
The stock soared more than 15% after-hours, but settled at about 8%.
Here are the most important numbers:
  • Adjusted earnings per share: $0.74 ($0.60 expected).
  • Revenue: $860.7 million ($828 million expected).
That revenue is up 35% year-over-year.
LinkedIn's GAAP net loss was $46 million, making its GAAP-diluted EPS $0.35.
"We are off to a good start in 2016 with strength in our core and emerging businesses," Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn, wrote in the company's earnings release. "We continue to invest heavily in innovation and in our core products, while at the same time driving focus and scale to enable growth and leverage across the business."
The reaction to this report comes in stark contrast to LinkedIn's Q4, when the stock tanked more than 40%.

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Amazon crushes earnings, stock goes crazy

Amazon crushes earnings, stock goes crazy

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Amazon just reported its 2016 first-quarter earnings on Thursday after the bell.
It's a huge beat across the board, and the stock is up 12% in after-hours.
Here are the most important numbers:
  • Earnings per share:$1.07 vs. $0.58 estimated.
  • Revenue: $29.1 billion vs. $27.99 billion estimated — up 28% year-over-year.
  • Amazon Web Services revenue: $2.57 billion vs. $2.53 billion estimated — up 64% year-over-year.
  • Operating cash flow:$11.3 billion, up 44% from $7.8 billion last year.
Amazon, known for investing in growth at a loss, swung to its fourth-profitable quarter, reporting $513 million in net income. That's the largest profit ever for the company, and a huge jump from the $57 million loss it recorded last year.
AWS, its cloud business, drove the growth, seeing a 64% year-over-year revenue increase this quarter. AWS is now the most profitable business at Amazon, surpassing its North American retail business' operating profit of $588 million.
Amazon gave revenue guidance in the range of $28 billion to $30.5 billion for the second quarter, which at its midpoint is higher than street estimates of $28.3 billion. Operating income is expected to range in between $375 million and $975 million next quarter.
CEO Jeff Bezos noted in a statement that the Fire tablets doubled their sales compared to last year. He also added that Amazon's struggling to keep Echo in stock because of high demand. Amazon doesn't disclose sales figures for individual hardware products.
Shipping costs grew to $3.3 billion, up 42% from the same quarter last year. That's the highest year-over-year growth rate it's seen in over a year. Amazon's rising shipping cost has been a concern for investors, and the company has been rumored to be building its own logistics network to handle delivery on its own.
Amazon was one of the best-performing stocks last year, nearly doubling its market value in 2015. Although it's still reporting tiny profits, it passed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time last year.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

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