Chipotle Founder Reveals Why People Thought His Restaurant Wouldn’t Work

Chipotle Founder Reveals Why People Thought His Restaurant Wouldn’t Work

ASHLEY LUTZ JUL. 19, 2013, 3:13 PM 2,432 1

Chipotle founder and CEO Steve Ells started an empire. But Ells said that many thought his idea of making burritos and tacos from a few fresh ingredients wouldn’t work. On an earnings conference call, Ells described the biggest criticism people had with his first restaurant: “I remember 20 years ago people said, ‘Steve, a menu with burritos and tacos, I mean, you’re going to have to add new stuff pretty soon,'” Ells told investors. “But it’s the combinations of things that people can make, not only for taste but for diet and people can vary enough over the years during their visits that really keeps Chipotle fresh.” Ells opened the first Chipotle in Denver, Colorado in 1993. Today the chain has more than 1,500 locations. And while Chipotle might have few ingredients on the menu, there are a mind-boggling number of combinations to be had. Our math found that 655,360 different options were possible from Chipotle’s current ingredients.

A Buffett Fortune Fades in Brooklyn; Case of Othmer Gift to Ailing Hospital Is Cautionary Tale for Wealthy Donors; As early investors with Warren Buffett, Donald and Mildred Othmer quietly amassed a fortune that they believed would sustain their favorite charities for generations

July 19, 2013, 4:39 p.m. ET

A Buffett Fortune Fades in Brooklyn

Case of Othmer Gift to Ailing Hospital Is Cautionary Tale for Wealthy Donors

ANUPREETA DAS

As early investors with Warren Buffett, Donald and Mildred Othmer quietly amassed a fortune that they believed would sustain their favorite charities for generations. Among those organizations: Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., for which the Othmers created a $135 million endowment in the 1990s, “to be held in perpetuity,” according to their wills.

Mildred Topp Othmer and Donald Frederick Othmer cutting their wedding cake in Manhattan, November 1950. Read more of this post

Bruce Lee’s daughter recalls his energy as fans mark anniversary

Bruce Lee’s daughter recalls his energy as fans mark anniversary

8:41am EDT

By Brian Yap

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The daughter of kung fu legend Bruce Lee spoke fondly on Friday of her father’s powerful presence and energy at a preview of an exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of his death. Fans are gathering in the former British colony of Hong Kong for a series of commemorative events, including art gallery shows, exhibitions and even street graffiti. Many fans are urging the Hong Kong government to do more to honor the star of movies such as Enter The Dragon and Game Of Death. Shannon Lee was just four years old when her father died in Hong Kong from acute swelling of the brain at the age of 32, at the height of his career. Read more of this post

The latest research suggests humans are not warriors in their genes, after all

The latest research suggests humans are not warriors in their genes, after all

Jul 20th 2013 |From the print edition

EDWARD WILSON, the inventor of the field of sociobiology, once wrote that “war is embedded in our very nature”. This is a belief commonly held not just by sociobiologists but also by anthropologists and other students of human behaviour. They base it not only on the propensity of modern man to go to war with his neighbours (and, indeed, with people halfway around the world, given the chance) but also on observations of the way those who still live a pre-agricultural “hunter-gatherer” life behave. Add this to field studies of the sometimes violent behaviour of mankind’s closest living relative, the chimpanzee, and the idea that making war is somehow in humanity’s genes has seemed quite plausible. It has even been advanced as an explanation for the extreme levels of self- sacrificial altruism people sometimes display. (If a neighbouring tribe is coming to wipe yours out completely, then giving up your own life to save your fellows might actually make evolutionary sense.) Read more of this post

Make It Brew: The rise of craft breweries is less a story about business than one about taste

July 19, 2013, 3:55 p.m. ET

Make It Brew

The rise of craft breweries is less a story about business than one about taste.

MAX WATMAN

Do you remember where you were when you tasted your first Anchor Steam? If you do (and don’t worry, you’re not alone), then Tom Acitelli’s “The Audacity of Hops” is going to make you very happy. Mr. Acitelli’s exhaustive chronicle of the American beer revolution begins “on a breezy, warm day in August 1965,” when Fritz Maytag walked into the Old Spaghetti Factory “and ordered his usual beer: an Anchor Steam.” The brewery was about to close, and the next day, Fritz Maytag—inheritor of not just his great grandfather’s washing machine fortune, but his father’s blue cheese fortune, as well—bought 51% of the company, tweaked the recipe and lit a fire under the brew kettle of American beer that is still burning. For hop heads, this is a defining moment. It’s like reading about Henri Cartier-Bresson looking at Martin Munkácsi’s “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika,” going out to a shop in Marseilles and finding a box with a curvy “L” printed on the side. Read more of this post

The 10 greatest white elephants

Thursday 18 July 2013 11.52 BST

The 10 greatest white elephants

Benidorm’s In Tempo is the latest huge construction project to end up unused. Here are nine more examples from history

Benidorm’s In Tempo building. Photograph: intempobenidorm.com

Sometimes man’s optimism knows no bounds. In a bad way. Take yourself back to 2005, when people would’ve given themselves hernias laughing if you suggested the world was about to be plunged into a crisis that would make the Great Depression look puny. The European property market was at its frothiest, with developers throwing up luxury apartments and offices at the slightest excuse. In Spain they went a bit wilder than most. As a result, when the sun set of this fantasy in 2008, many cities found themselves lumbered with zombie projects. Read more of this post

Working late at the office, milking it too; White-collar criminals are often dedicated employees with a problem they can’t share, but are they getting off lightly?

Working late at the office, milking it too

July 20, 2013

Ben Butler

White-collar criminals are often dedicated employees with a problem they can’t share, but are they getting off lightly? Ben Butler reports.

They are quietly beavering away at the accounts, stalwart senior managers willing to shoulder more than their share of the management load, trusted members of the team who have put in plenty of years and are perhaps a little overdue for a pay rise, but don’t complain. And they’re stealing from the company. Forget the portrait of embezzlers as snakes in suits, sharp operators and office psychopaths who talk fast and bully others to get their way. New research based on interviews with convicted white-collar criminals shows the average person who decides to steal a substantial amount of money from work is a self-sacrificing hard worker with a problem he or she can’t share. Usually it’s gambling, but the pressure to maintain appearances can also drive managers and company owners – especially men – to dip their fingers in the till. Read more of this post

Inside the shady world of Asian finance; “Nothing Gained” is a thriller that paints an intriguing, if unsettling, portrait of the world of investment banking

2013-07-19 17:11

Inside the shady world of Asian finance

By Kim Young-jin

After the 2008 financial crisis, plenty of ink was spilt to explain why stock markets plunged and governments bailed out large financial institutions. For those unversed in the jargon of international finance, it was not an easy event to understand. The evictions, foreclosures and unemployment that followed in some parts of the world, of course, were a gut-punch for millions. But factors such as sub-prime mortgages and high risk, complex financial products didn’t exactly make for riveting reading. Phillip Y. Kim, a first-time novelist with a long history in the banking industry, is out to change that. His new book, “Nothing Gained,” is a thriller that paints an intriguing, if unsettling, portrait of the world of investment banking. Having worked for 25 years at such firms as Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, the Korean-American is well placed to shed light on some of the more colorful, if unsavory, aspects of the industry. Rife with details about the high-rolling lifestyles of the nouveau riche, and with a plot filled with intrigue, Kim is able to expose readers to the complicated world of banking in Asia and the pitfalls of unfettered greed. “The pursuit of wealth inevitably attracts unique and charismatic personalities, and often leads to incredible circumstances,” Kim said in an email interview. “I wanted to tell an entertaining story that was based on some of the events I witnessed or heard about over the years. The plot stems from the drowning death of Jason Donahue, a wealthy expat banker in Hong Kong, which sends tremors through the corporate elite. Cheryl, his wife, is forced to deal with his web of unethical business dealings, including the matter of $20 million unaccounted for.  To protect her family, Cheryl, a Korean-American, engages with a motley crue of shady characters, and traverses the globe to find the one person that can help her. He is aided by Todd Leahy, Jason’s chief of staff. We asked Kim ­ who has spent much of his career in Asia ― about the transition from banker to novelist, Asia’s “one percent,” and the role of Asian economies in global finance. Read more of this post