Some entrepreneurs want to do good. Many more are driven by a chip on the shoulder, a desire for revenge, a distaste for authority.

July 30, 2013, 4:21 p.m. ET

Who Moved My Fortune?

Some entrepreneurs want to do good. Many more are driven by a chip on the shoulder, a desire for revenge, a distaste for authority.

PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON

Successful entrepreneurs, in my experience, are tenacious, hardheaded and creative. They persist with their ideas long after others might have given up, and they are good at persuading clients, partners and investors to take a chance. Like successful people in any field, they are driven by a powerful inner need, sometimes positive, like the hunger to do something entirely original, but often less appealing: a large chip on the shoulder, a desire for revenge, a distaste for authority and in many cases flat-out greed. “The Social Network,” David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s 2010 movie about the founding of Facebook, gave a good sense of how all these forces churned inside Mark Zuckerberg: the sense of social insecurity at Harvard; the delight in confronting authority; and the ruthless unwillingness to share equity. Read more of this post

On Henry Ford’s 150th Birthday, His Greatest Insight Has Been Tragically Forgotten

On Henry Ford’s 150th Birthday, His Greatest Insight Has Been Tragically Forgotten

GUS LUBIN JUL. 30, 2013, 10:15 AM 15,137 73

Henry Ford, who was born 150 years ago today, is remembered as the guy who unleashed the full potential of the assembly line, beginning in 1913 when the Ford Motor Company cranked out Model T’s much faster and cheaper than anyone could imagine. But his business philosophy, known as Fordism, went beyond the implementation of mass production. Ford argued that high wages were essential for economic and moral reasons. As he wrote in his autobiography: What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages — most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living — the rate of their wages — determines the prosperity of the country. Ford set a powerful precedent in 1914 when he doubled wages for workers on his assembly line in Detroit, Mich. The move was in part a reaction to high turnover among his workers, who found the work too hard and unrewarding. At the same time, he argued that it was good for his business.  Read more of this post

FBI Agents Arrest Sell-Side Tech Analyst Sandeep Aggarwal For Leaking Non-Public Info To A Former SAC Portfolio Manager

FBI Agents Arrest Tech Analyst Sandeep Aggarwal For Leaking Non-Public Info To A Former SAC Portfolio Manager

JULIA LA ROCHE JUL. 30, 2013, 12:08 PM 7,825 1

San Francisco-based technology sell-side analyst Sandeep Aggarwal was arrested yesterday by FBI agents in San Jose, California on insider trading charges, the FBI New York bureau Tweeted. Today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Aggarwal.  Aggarwal, 40, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He has also been civilly charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Aggarwal, who lives in India and recently returned to the U.S.,  is accused of tipping off former SAC portfolio manager Richard Lee about a pending deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!.

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Sir Luke Johnson: It’s time for educators to learn new tricks; we need more students qualified in science, technology, engineering and maths

Last updated: July 30, 2013 4:06 pm

It’s time for educators to learn new tricks

By Luke Johnson

The west needs more students qualified in science, technology, engineering and maths

Ihave seen firsthand how the online revolution has inflicted convulsions across various industries, including retailing, the media business and financial services. Soon it will start to affect public services such as education profoundly. This shake-up will no doubt prove traumatic for participants, but in the longer run it could prove hugely beneficial for society and students. Many developed nations need more productive schools and better educated citizens. We spend too much to accomplish mediocre results. The way to achieve improvements is through technology – and altered attitudes among educational leaders. Read more of this post

As China’s heatwave hits 104 °F in a slew of cities, people get creative about cooling off

As China’s heatwave hits 104 °F in a slew of cities, people get creative about cooling off

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros July 30, 2013

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4 Simple Ways To Spot A Fake Rolex Watch

4 Simple Ways To Spot A Fake Rolex Watch

MEGAN WILLETT JUL. 30, 2013, 7:55 PM 3,687 5

Even if you’re not a watch aficionado, chances are you’ve heard of the Swiss brand Rolex. Rolex is a widely known status symbol, with over 700,000 of its timepieces pumped out annually. It’s also one of the most counterfeited watch brands out there. Bloomberg interviewed watch dealer David Duggan, who has been selling watches since 1975, to find out the best way to determine if a Rolex is fake or not. Here are some of his top tips:

1. The cheapest fakes are easy to spot because of their quartz dial movements. The second hand stutters along inside the counterfeit watch, whereas a real Rolex has a smooth second hand movement. If you’re still unsure about the difference between a “stuttering” second hand and a “smooth” one, listen closely — there should not be a ticking noise coming from a true Rolex. Read more of this post

Plastic film used by China’s supermarkets to wrap meat and vegetables may contain banned toxic plasticizers

Danger in supermarket plastic wrap

English.news.cn   2013-07-30

By Hu Min

BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhuanet) — Plastic film used by supermarkets to wrap meat and vegetables may contain banned toxic plasticizers that could impair male sexual function and lead to premature sexual development in females, according to China Central Television. Fifteen samples of polyvinyl chloride plastic wrap out of 16 samples sent for tests were found to contain bis(2-ethylhexyl) adipate (DEHA), some at an alarming level, CCTV said. The plastic film was from produce bought in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, but CCTV did not name the brands or the supermarkets involved. Read more of this post

3 Key Life Lessons You Can Learn From A Very Odd Mathematician; If you want to be the best, put in the hours.

JULY 28, 2013 by ERIC BARKER

3 Key Life Lessons You Can Learn From A Very Odd Mathematician

By all accounts, Paul Erdos was a very odd guy. If you were a friend of Erdos he might show up at your house in the middle of the night wanting to do math and announce, “My brain is open.” He wouldn’t do laundry. If he was staying with you, you had to do it for him. If he wanted to work on a theorem at 5AM he’d bang pots and pans until you came downstairs. He is also one of the world’s most accomplished mathematicians. He collaborated with more people in the field of math than anyone who has ever lived and is recognized as the center of the mathematical world. And people loved him because he brought out the best in them. What made him weird made him great and what made him great made him weird. This is what you can learn from him.

1) If you want to be the best, put in the hours.

Ever since Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, people have been taken with the idea of 10,000 hours of practice being the threshold of expertise. Paul Erdos makes that number look like a low-water mark. Even in his 70′s, he often published more papers in a year than most solid mathematicians do in their entire lives. Read more of this post

After divorce or a job loss comes a period of recovery from grief and rebuilding your life. It takes two years. No shortcuts.

July 29, 2013, 9:11 p.m. ET

After Divorce or Job Loss Comes the Good Identity Crisis

Experts say most people should give themselves a good two years to recover from an emotional trauma

ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN

Recover and Rebuild: Getting over a divorce involves two overlapping processes—recovery from grief and restructuring your life. Where will you eat dinner? Who will your friends be? After all, when you are married, even if you hate your spouse, ‘you know when to show up and when to come home,’ an expert says. 

Whether you’ve lost a job or a girlfriend, it won’t take long before someone tells you, Dust yourself off. Time heals all wounds. Yes, but how much time? Experts say most people should give themselves a good two years to recover from an emotional trauma such as a breakup or the loss of a job. And if you were blindsided by the event—your spouse left abruptly, you were fired unexpectedly—it could take longer. That is more time than most people expect, says Prudence Gourguechon, a psychiatrist in Chicago and former president of the American Psychoanalytic Association. It’s important to know roughly how long the emotional disruption will last. Once you get over the shock that it is going to be a long process, you can relax, Dr. Gourguechon says. “You don’t have to feel pressure to be OK, because you’re not OK.” Read more of this post

What’s an Idea Worth? Why the billable hour no longer makes economic sense.

July 29, 2013

What’s an Idea Worth?

By ADAM DAVIDSON

Like a lot of accountants, Jason Blumer never really wanted to be an accountant; he wanted to play guitar in a hair-metal band. But like most guys who want to play guitar in a hair-metal band, Blumer eventually realized that there wasn’t much money in touring bars and being paid in beer-smeared $20 bills. So he changed gears and decided to follow his dad into what seemed like one of the more steady businesses around. After college, he bought some suits, joined a midsize firm in South Carolina and processed his clients’ payroll and tax returns. He billed them by the hour. He hated every second of it.

Blumer, 42, wanted to infuse a bit more rock ’n’ roll into his industry. So when he eventually took over his father’s small firm, he made his own rules: There would be no time sheets, no dress code and, most radical of all, no billable hours. He was convinced, in fact, that the billable hour was part of a series of mistakes that took all the fun out of his profession. To him, it seemed like a relic of a dying economic age and one that was depriving his industry of billions in profit. Read more of this post

9-Year-Old Massachusetts Girl Carissa Yip Becomes Youngest-Ever Chess Expert

9-Year-Old Massachusetts Girl Becomes Youngest-Ever Chess Expert

GRANT WELKER, ASSOCIATED PRESS JUL. 28, 2013, 5:51 PM 1,382 4

CHELMSFORD, Mass. (AP) — Only three years or so since first picking up the game of chess, 9-year-old Carissa Yip can already look down at 93 percent of the more than 51,000 players registered with the U.S. Chess Federation. She has risen so far up the rankings that she has reached the expert level at a younger age than anyone since the chess federation began electronic record-keeping in 1991, a new level she reached in recent weeks. Her father, Percy, who taught her until she began beating him within a year, said she could reach master level in as soon as a year. “Some never reach master level,” he said. “From expert to master, it’s a huge jump.” Read more of this post

Michael O’Leary, the outspoken CEO of Ireland’s Ryanair, is fanatical about making air travel affordable for the masses

SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2013

No Frills, and No Excuses

By JONATHAN BUCK | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Michael O’Leary, the outspoken CEO of Ireland’s Ryanair, is fanatical about making air travel affordable for the masses. He’s pretty keen on rewarding shareholders, too. The pitch for owning Aer Lingus.

Brash, cocky, outrageous? Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ireland’s Ryanair, has been called all that and more. And no wonder. He dressed as the Pope when his airline opened a new route to Rome. He wants to charge passengers who stand in line to use the bathroom on his fleet of Boeing 737-800s. And—get this—he has offered to donate the levy to charity “for incontinence, or something like that.” Read more of this post

Launch of Lee Kuan Yew’s new book: One Man’s View of the World

Launch of Lee Kuan Yew’s new book

Monday, July 29, 2013 – 10:45

AsiaOne

SINGAPORE – Straits Times Press, the book publishing unit of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), announced today the launch of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s new book. Titled One Man’s View of the World by Lee Kuan Yew, the 400-page volume conveys Mr Lee’s views on the future of the major powers and regions of the world. The book is made up of 11 chapters. The first seven cover countries or regions: China, the United States, Europe, other Asian powers (Japan, India and Korea), South-east Asia, Singapore and the Middle East. Mr Lee also gives his views on the global economy and energy and climate change. Read more of this post

Joseph Wong Chong-chun leads his family business as chairman and chief executive of Stelux to become one of the three largest watch makers in Hong Kong

Man on a mission
Natalie Ngan
Monday, July 29, 2013

The boss of one of the leading watch makers and retailers in town did not exactly start out as a timepiece fan. “I didn’t know how to appreciate watches when I was young,” says Joseph Wong Chong-chun, who leads his family business as chairman and chief executive of Stelux Holdings International (0084). “But my dad gave me one before I went to Britain for university. That’s when I developed a liking for watches.” Wong got a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Bradford, and a master’s in operational research from the University of Southampton. His father Wong Chue-meng was the founder of Stelux, which started making watch components in 1963 and grew to become one of the three largest watch makers in Hong Kong. Read more of this post

Giorgio Riello’s account of the history of cotton reveals much about globalisation

July 28, 2013 3:43 pm

A rich picking for the re-emerging powers

Review by James Crabtree

Giorgio Riello’s account of the history of cotton reveals much about globalisation

Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World, by Giorgio Riello,Cambridge University Press, RRP£25/$35

The skyline of south Mumbai is dominated by imposing neo-gothic buildings, with ornate turrets and grinning gargoyles that might look more at home in Manchester or London than the financial capital of modern India. These incongruous edifices at first seem to be the likely result of simple colonial ambition (some might say of excess). But the impetus behind their construction actually came from a more unlikely commercial source: the global cotton trade. Read more of this post

James Gordon Dies at 85; Work Paved Way for Laser that help revolutionize modern life with a wide range of practical applications, from long-distance telephone calls to eye surgery, from missile guidance systems to the checkout counter at the supermarket

July 27, 2013

James Gordon Dies at 85; Work Paved Way for Laser

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Charles H. Townes, left, with James P. Gordon and the maser they developed.

Distinguished Columbia University physicists, some of them Nobel Prize winners, called it a “harebrained scheme.” But James P. Gordon, principal builder of a refrigerator-size device that would help revolutionize modern life, believed in it enough to bet a bottle of bourbon that it would work. He was a 25-year-old graduate student in December 1953 when he burst into the seminar room where Charles H. Townes, his mentor and the inventor of the device, was teaching. The device, he announced, had succeeded in emitting a narrow beam of intense microwave energy. Dr. Townes’s team named it the maser, for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, and it would lead to the building of the first laser, which amplified light waves instead of microwaves and became essential to the birth of a new technological age. Lasers have found a wide range of practical applications, from long-distance telephone calls to eye surgery, from missile guidance systems to the checkout counter at the supermarket. Read more of this post

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

The life of Jesus

Perhaps Jesus was no pacifist

Jul 27th 2013 |From the print edition

Rebel with a cause

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. By Reza Aslan. Random House; 296 pages; $27. Buy from Amazon.com

IN HIS earlier book about Islam, Reza Aslan, an Iranian-born American writer, presented a subtle view of the different layers of truth that can be found in sacred writings. For example, he explained that stories about Muhammad’s childhood are not meant to relate to historical events, but rather “to elucidate the mystery of the prophetic experience”. In any case, he added teasingly, myth is always true somehow; if it did not express a powerful truth, it would not last. The sensibility that Mr Aslan brings to his latest book, about the founder of another monotheism, is by comparison rather one-dimensional, although his considerable gifts as a storyteller and populariser of complex religious ideas remain intact. The purpose of “Zealot” is not to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth as a source of ultimate meaning, but to investigate and describe the story of his life. The book’s underlying assumption is that if Jesus has any significance at all, it is to be found in the facts of his earthly existence. And these facts, Mr Aslan maintains, are often diametrically opposed to the story set out in the New Testament—which is one the author himself once embraced as a 15-year-old convert to evangelical Christianity. Read more of this post

The CEO Of Overstock.com Took Out A Full Page Ad In The Wall Street Journal Mocking Steven Cohen

The CEO Of Overstock.com Took Out A Full Page Ad In The Wall Street Journal Mocking Steven Cohen

LINETTE LOPEZ JUL. 27, 2013, 11:56 AM 8,734 14

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne took out a full-page ad in this morning’s Wall Street Journal shredding billionaire Steven Cohen for his hedge fund’s indictment by a Federal Grand Jury earlier this week. The firm, SAC Capital, has been charged with insider trading. Byrne’s animosity didn’t come out of nowhere — on a 20o5 conference call the CEO of Overstock.com said that “Sith Lords” were naked short-selling his stock and destroying the company. He later identified them to be SAC’s Steve Cohen and Michael Milken. And indeed, last year a bunch of lawyers for major banks accidentally leaked emails describing how they allegedly short-sold the stock and leaked techniques to hedge fund clients. Now that you know where all the hate comes from, check out the ad below (via Instagram: ognjenglisic) “Congratulations on the indictment, Stevie, and remember: roll early, roll often. You friend Patrick M. Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com,” it reads. Major schadenfreude.

Peter Buffett: The Charitable-Industrial Complex; As more lives are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.”

July 26, 2013

The Charitable-Industrial Complex

By PETER BUFFETT

I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to give nearly all of his accumulated wealth back to society. In addition to making several large donations, he added generously to the three foundations that my parents had created years earlier, one for each of their children to run.

Early on in our philanthropic journey, my wife and I became aware of something I started to call Philanthropic Colonialism. I noticed that a donor had the urge to “save the day” in some fashion. People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education practices, job training or business development, over and over I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms. Read more of this post

Embracing the Dark Side: In our haste to embrace a 24/7 lifestyle, nocturnal hours once reserved for sociability, reflection and rest have been usurped

July 26, 2013, 5:19 p.m. ET

Embracing the Dark Side

In our haste to embrace a 24/7 lifestyle, nocturnal hours once reserved for sociability, reflection and rest have been usurped.

A. ROGER EKIRCH

For more than 300 years, nocturnal darkness—Shakespeare’s “vast sin-concealing chaos”—has fought a rear-guard battle to fend off the forces of light. By the early 18th century, most European metropolises, from London to Vienna, had installed streetlights in response to mounting fears over crime. “The reign of the night is finally going to end,” a Parisian pamphleteer exulted in 1746. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, accompanied by gas and then electric lighting, evening was open for pleasure as well as for business. Artificial illumination, by pushing back ages of primordial darkness, became the mightiest symbol of modern progress. Read more of this post

Does Evolution Want Us to Be Unhappy?

July 26, 2013, 6:51 p.m. ET

Does Evolution Want Us to Be Unhappy?

ALISON GOPNIK

Samuel Johnson called it the vanity of human wishes, and Buddhists talk about the endless cycle of desire. Social psychologists say we get trapped on a hedonic treadmill. What they all mean is that we wish, plan and work for things that we think will make us happy, but when we finally get them, we aren’t nearly as happy as we thought we’d be. Summer makes this particularly vivid. All through the busy winter I longed and planned and saved for my current vacation. I daydreamed about peaceful summer days in this beautiful village by the Thames with nothing to do but write. Sure enough, the first walk down the towpath was sheer ecstasy—but by the fifth, it was just another walk. The long English evenings hang heavy, and the damned book I’m writing comes along no more easily than it did in December. Read more of this post

The Appeal of Embarrassment: Blushing, fidgeting, looking down—the more contrite a wrongdoer looks, the more likable he seems

July 26, 2013, 7:03 p.m. ET

The Appeal of Embarrassment

Blushing, fidgeting, looking down—the more contrite a wrongdoer looks, the more likable he seems

ROBERT M. SAPOLSKY

Anthony Weineris front-page news again for all the wrong reasons. Just when he seemed to have turned a corner and become a credible candidate for mayor of New York City, he is embroiled in yet another flap over sexting. The usual has ensued: the news conference, the grim apology to disappointed supporters, the wife at his side amid murmurs of “how can she stick with him?” Watching the writhing of a celebrity caught doing something bad has become an American pastime. Regardless of the transgression, and whether it concerns a politician, athlete, actor or religious leader, there is great consistency to the spectacle of a public figure trying to seem contrite. Read more of this post

Why Smokers Still Smoke: The personality trait that distinguishes smokers from nonsmokers: poor self-control

July 26, 2013

Why Smokers Still Smoke

By EYAL ERT and ELDAD YECHIAM

GIVEN how hazardous it is to their health, why do smokers continue to smoke? It’s not that they are all hopeless addicts. Many smokers are capable of quitting. It’s not that they are ignorant. Studies show that smokers are at least as informed as nonsmokers about the risks of smoking — and possibly more informed. You might suspect, then, that smokers tend to be risk takers by nature. And some evidence suggests that smokers do take more risks than nonsmokers: they are more often involved in traffic accidents, less likely to wear seat belts and more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior. Women who smoke even have mammograms less frequently than their nonsmoking counterparts. Read more of this post

Oppenheimer family of Stemcor steel, one of Britain’s largest private companies, pushed into spotlight in fight with India’s Jindal billionaire brothers

July 26, 2013 7:58 pm

Jindal fight puts focus on British steel trader

By Duncan Robinson

A fraternal scrap between two Indian billionaire brothers has pushed one of Britain’s largest private companies, and the family who control it, into the spotlight. The fight between the Jindal brothers aboutwho will buy steel trader Stemcor’s $800m Indian assets has dragged the London-based company into the public arena, which it has happily ignored since it was formed by a German immigrant in 1951. Its founder, Hans Oppenheimer, was raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Stuttgart before the second world war. A job with his uncle took him to Alexandria, the Egyptian port, before he and his young family settled in Orpington, a small town nestled in London’s commuter belt in 1949. It was from here that Mr Oppenheimer set up Coutinho, Caro & Co (London) – a joint venture with a German steel trading company of the same name. Read more of this post

Nate Silver, data guru and political forecaster, shows the new power of one-man brands

July 26, 2013 7:28 pm

Nate Silver, data guru returns to sport

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

The political forecaster shows the new power of one-man brands, says Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

Early in the 2008 US presidential campaign, a blogger on the Daily Kos website started attracting attention. Writing under the pseudonym “Poblano”, he calculated that Hillary Clinton was not faring nearly as well in the primaries as pundits said. One by one, his forecasts embarrassed the pollsters and political reporters. After months of finding flaws in others’ poll interpretations, Nate Silver outed himself. “You can’t name yourself after a chilli pepper and do much media stuff,” he said. His path from anonymity to stardom began with FiveThirtyEight, the politics site he created that year – named after the number of votes in the US electoral college. This week it culminated in a deal to move the blog from the New York Times, which has licensed it since 2010, to ESPN, Walt Disney’s sports network.

Read more of this post

The Science of Winning Poker; Bluffing still matters, but the best players now depend on math theory

July 26, 2013, 6:56 p.m. ET

The Science of Winning Poker

Bluffing still matters, but the best players now depend on math theory

CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS

More than 6,300 players, each paying an entry fee of $10,000, gathered in Las Vegas early this month for the championship event of the 44th annual World Series of Poker. The tournament ran for 10 days, and just nine players now remain. They will reunite in November for a two-day live telecast to determine who wins the first prize: $8.3 million. Poker didn’t get this big overnight. In 2003, a then-record 839 players entered the championship for a shot at $2.5 million. The winner was an amateur with the improbable name of Chris Moneymaker. After ESPN devoted seven prime-time hours to his triumph, online poker took off and tournament participation ballooned, as did prize pools. The U.S. government’s ban on the major online poker sites in 2011 reined in enthusiasm, but the game has continued to grow in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Read more of this post