Greed and Hustle Have Become Virtues: While many of us believe in honest work, we also see that wealth is mostly acquired via hustles and scams, and so we relate to stories that validate this

Why We Like to Watch Rich People

INTRODUCTION

Several Academy Award contenders like “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “American Hustle” glorify white-collar criminals and scammers, and many reality TV shows embrace the wealthy, too. A new series, “#RichKids of Beverly Hills,” is the latest example of our enthusiasm for “ogling the filthy rich.” Why are we so obsessed with watching the antics of the 1 percent?

Greed and Hustle Have Become Virtues

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist who writes and speaks on how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. His most recent book is “Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated and Battling the Corporate Elite.”

UPDATED JANUARY 16, 2014, 8:48 PM

The lives of the outlandishly rich are so unreal and so bizarre for most of us that watching their self-indulgence, careless spending and decadence can be an escape from the unpleasant reality of our own constant money worries. Read more of this post

Forget annual reports. Go to the canteen for what makes a company tick

Forget annual reports. Go to the canteen for what makes a company tick

Jan 11th 2014 | From the print edition

Leverage: The CEO’s Guide to Corporate Culture. By John Childress. Principia Associates; 353 pages; $24. Buy from Amazon.com

IN JULY 2012 the treasury committee of Britain’s House of Commons summoned the boss of Barclays, Bob Diamond, to face the music. Barclays had been caught taking part in an industry-wide conspiracy to fix Libor, a benchmark interest rate, and the members of parliament wanted to know what was going on. Why had friendly high-street banks been transformed into financial casinos? And why did scandals keep piling upon scandals despite outrage from the public and promises to mend their ways from banking CEOs? Much of the answer, according to both Mr Diamond and his interrogators, lay in a phrase that was used more than 50 times during the hearing: “corporate culture”. Read more of this post

This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Pull An All-Nighter

This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Pull An All-Nighter

LINETTE LOPEZ

JAN. 16, 2014, 10:52 AM 72,508 4

There’s been a lot of talk on Wall Street lately about the grueling hours that junior staff, interns, and analysts, have to work in order to get ahead. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan have all announced that they’ll start encouraging their young employees to take more time off. It’s an effort to improve their quality of life so they don’t jump ship for other companies in and out of the financial space once they’ve been trained. It could be hard to make this new policy stick, because on Wall Street, the all-nighter is almost a rite of passage. Read more of this post

The dark side: Founder’s blues; Are startups just for workaholics? Ask founders why they put up with the hardships, and they reply with predictable enthusiasm. But beneath this fervour there is often a world of uncertainty. In essence, a founder’s job is to create something out of nothing

The dark side: Founder’s blues; Are startups just for workaholic white male lumpen-preneurs?

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

A YEAR AGO Jody Sherman shot himself. His online shop, Ecomom, which sold eco-friendly and health products for children, was running out of cash. A few weeks later the business closed its virtual doors. A new owner relaunched it in June. Read more of this post

Why Top Graduates Still Want To Work 90-Hour Weeks On Wall Street

Why Top Graduates Still Want To Work 90-Hour Weeks On Wall Street

MAX NISEN

JAN. 16, 2014, 7:10 PM 3,657 4

A lot of people seem to think that Wall Street is losing its hold on top graduates.

The thinking, outlined in a recent article in The New York Times, is that the falling prestige of Wall Street means that banks are having to compete for talent with other industries, the perk- and stock-option-laden tech sector in particular. That banks are reevaluating their internship programs and curbing famously long weekend hours is cited as more evidence for the trend. Read more of this post

Tales from an overworked City

January 16, 2014 4:44 pm

Tales from an overworked City

By Emma Jacobs

During an internship at Goldman Sachs, one undergraduate, who prefers not to be named, learnt a great deal about banking – and himself. “I know that I can work 15 to 20-hour days without collapsing,” he says, although he admits to nodding off in the toilet a couple of times. Such stamina “is a useful skill to have”, the student reflects. Read more of this post

Lui Becomes Asia’s Richest Person With Six Macau Casinos

5 December 2013

How sleep makes your mind more creative

Tom Stafford

It’s a tried and tested technique used by writers and poets, but can psychology explain why first moments after waking can be among our most imaginative?

It is 6.06am and I’m typing this in my pyjamas. I awoke at 6.04am, walked from the bedroom to the study, switched on my computer and got to work immediately. This is unusual behaviour for me. However, it’s a tried and tested technique for enhancing creativity, long used by writers, poets and others, including the inventor Benjamin Franklin. And psychology research appears to back this up, providing an explanation for why we might be at our most creative when our minds are still emerging from the realm of sleep. Read more of this post

How To Win Over Customers: Lessons From 8 Rock-Star Brands

How To Win Over Customers: Lessons From 8 Rock-Star Brands

ZIBA EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL O’CONNOR, WHO HAS WORKED WITH COMPANIES SUCH AS HEINZ, INTEL, AND PROCTOR & GAMBLE, LOOKS BACK AT SOME OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE BRANDS OF 2013, AND OFFERS A GLIMPSE OF WHAT BRANDS WILL NEED TO SUCCEED IN 2014.

The things that make us care about goods, services, and brands are shifting. It used to be that a successful brand conveyed authority and reliability (think General Motors or IBM); now it’s all about empathy. Technology used to attract us through specs and features; today it has to enable an experience. Even our perception of what makes a product valuable has shifted, to the point where a brand-new sound system or a dress like the one on the magazine cover is actually less desirable than something with a strong story attached. That can take many forms: a revived speaker from the ‘80s, a box of mystery items curated by a favorite brand, or an outfit chosen with the help of a trusted expert. It’s these stories–coupled with basic functionality that’s absolutely dialed in–that win people over in the long run. Here, we look at the innovation stories of eight key brands and reveal what, exactly, they got right in 2013–and what you can learn from them in 2014. Read more of this post

Home help: The government wants you to have a comfortable (and cheap) death

Home help: The government wants you to have a comfortable (and cheap) death

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

DEATH comes to all, but some are more sure of its timing, and can make plans. Kate Granger, a 32-year-old doctor suffering from an incurable form of sarcoma, has “very strong ambitions” for her last hours. She plans to avoid hospital emergency departments and die at her parents’ house—music playing, candles glowing, family by her side. Read more of this post

5 Morning Rituals That Will Keep You Productive All Day

5 Morning Rituals That Will Keep You Productive All Day

JAMES REINHART, ENTREPRENEUR
JAN. 15, 2014, 3:30 PM 129,078 16

Most of us work long hours: 40, 50 or even 60 hours each week. But chances are, given distractions like online entertainment, office snacking habits and ill-designed time management, we’re only churning out high-quality work a portion of each day. Read more of this post

Bankers and lawyers are on an unhealthy treadmill; While long hours are not worth the effort, those able to effect change do not care

January 15, 2014 6:56 pm

Bankers and lawyers are on an unhealthy treadmill

By John Gapper

While long hours are not worth the effort, those able to effect change do not care

For years, getting a job at a Wall Street bank, a Magic Circle law firm or a blue-chip management consultancy was a route to a very rewarding career in return for an awful lot of work. Lately, the bargain has lost some of its appeal to the best and the brightest. Read more of this post