Buffett speaks: Highlights from his annual letter

Buffett speaks: Highlights from his annual letter

By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, March 2, 5:24 AM

OMAHA, Neb. — Investors eagerly await Warren Buffett’s letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders each year for its plain-spoken insight into the billionaire’s financial strategy and economic predictions. Buffett had plenty of good news to discuss Saturday as he recounted the performance of his Omaha, Neb., based company with humor and wit. He also dispensed some investing advice. Read more of this post

Advice from Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block, Handle Criticism, and Nurture Your Sense of Self-Worth

Advice from Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block, Handle Criticism, and Nurture Your Sense of Self-Worth

“Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work,” Chuck Close scoffed. “A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood,” Tchaikovsky admonished. “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too,” Isabel Allende urged. But true as this general sentiment may be, it isn’t always an easy or a livable truth – most creative people do get stuck every once in a while, or at the very least hit the OK plateau. What then? Read more of this post

The enemy within: Fraud within companies is a risk that can never be eliminated, just managed

The enemy within: Fraud within companies is a risk that can never be eliminated, just managed

Mar 1st 2014 | From the print edition

BUSINESS has always been plagued by fraud: witness the South Sea Company in the 1710s (which enveloped the British economy in a giant bubble) or Charles Ponzi’s Securities Exchange Company in 1920 (which gave the world the Ponzi scheme) or the Enron and WorldCom scandals in the early 2000s. Ambitious fraudsters are attracted to businesses for the same reason that Willie Sutton, a contemporary of Ponzi, reportedly said he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.” Read more of this post

Homo sapiens became black to beat cancer

Homo sapiens became black to beat cancer

Mar 1st 2014 | From the print edition

SHAVE a chimpanzee and you will find that beneath its hairy coat its skin is white. Human skin, though, was almost always black—at least it was until a few thousand years ago when the species began settling in parts of the world so far north that the sunshine was too weak to allow dark skin to synthesise enough vitamin D. This means that, sometime after chimps and people parted ways, the colour of human skin changed. And that, in turn, must have required an evolutionary pressure. Read more of this post

High-tech shipping containers: Engineers are trying to upgrade the humble shipping container

High-tech shipping containers: Engineers are trying to upgrade the humble shipping container

Mar 1st 2014 | CHICAGO | From the print edition

ASK somebody to name the most important inventions of the second half of the 20th century, and you may hear of the silicon chip, the contraceptive pill or the hydrogen bomb. Few would plump for the shipping container. Yet those humble, standard-sized steel boxes, invented in 1956 by Malcolm McLean, have changed the world. Some economists reckon the shipping container has done more for global trade than every trade agreement signed in the past 50 years. Read more of this post

Keep four separate rooms, and your ‘crocodile brain’ in check: how to thrive while leading a family business

Keep four separate rooms, and your ‘crocodile brain’ in check: how to thrive while leading a family business

Published 27 February 2014 12:20, Updated 28 February 2014 11:56

Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

We’ve seen both ends of the spectrum. At one end are family executives who hate their jobs, their businesses and their families, who feel exhausted and underappreciated, and who want nothing more than to sell their businesses and get out. At the other are family executives who thrive with rewards that are richer and more profound than a leader of a publicly traded company could possibly derive. Their companies flourish, their kids prosper and their families have a collective purpose that unites them. Read more of this post

The Economic Case for a Nontraditional Career Path; the economic potential of individuals and America alike instead relies on risk takers who choose a different path

THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR A NONTRADITIONAL CAREER PATH

FOR MANY YOUNG PEOPLE, LAW SCHOOL OR A JOB IN FINANCE SEEMS LIKE A SAFE BET. IN HIS NEW BOOK, SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS, VENTURE FOR AMERICA FOUNDER ANDREW YANG ARGUES THAT THE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF INDIVIDUALS AND AMERICA ALIKE INSTEAD RELIES ON RISK TAKERS WHO CHOOSE A DIFFERENT PATH.

BY ANDREW YANG

Who was the eighth employee at Google back in 1999?

I don’t know either; I tried to Google it and couldn’t find out. But I’m pretty confident that the eighth employee joined before the company was cool, built some amazing things, and had an incredible experience–and is now loaded. Read more of this post

What is the “Notre Dame model” of managing money? 25 Years Later, Scott Malpass Is Still Notre Dame MVP

25 Years Later, Scott Malpass Is Still Notre Dame MVP

18 FEB 2014 – FRANCES DENMARK

It was an unusual sight. On a Thursday morning, August 22, 2013, the investment officers of the University of Notre Dame endowment filed into a tiny log chapel on campus for a special prayer service. This was not the annual back-to-school Mass that occurs after the students return. Instead, Notre Dame’s chief investment officer, Scott Malpass, had chosen the oldest, most intimate chapel on campus — 57 are scattered across Notre Dame’s bucolic 1,200 acres — to celebrate a more personal milestone. “It was my 25th anniversary, and I wanted to do it there,” says Malpass, 51, who became CIO in August 1988, just after his 26th birthday. Read more of this post