position:ceo

Narcissism Is a Bad Sign: CEO Signature Size, Investment, and Performance by Charles (Chad) Ham, Nicholas Seybert, Sean Wang
▻http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144419

Using the size of CEO signatures in SEC filings to measure individual narcissism, we find that it is associated with several negative firm outcomes. We first validate signature size as a measure of narcissism in a laboratory experiment. We then use CEO signatures to study the relation between CEO narcissism, the firm’s investment policies, and firm performance. CEO narcissism is associated with overinvestment, particularly in the form of R&D and M&A expenditures, but not capital expenditures. Firms led by narcissistic CEOs are associated with lower innovative productivity in the form of patents and lower financial productivity in the form of profitability and operating cash flows. Despite this negative performance, narcissistic CEOs enjoy higher absolute and relative compensation. Using an options-based measure of overconfidence, we document our results are not driven by CEO overconfidence.

Why Aetna’s CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep
▻http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/05/why-aetnas-ceo-pays-workers-up-to-500-to-sleep.html

Creating a culture that encourages workers to get more sleep can be a boon to your business, said Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini. Sleep is “really important,” he said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “Being present in the workplace and making better decisions has a lot to do with our business fundamentals.” "You can’t be prepared if you’re half-asleep," Bertolini added, saying he has the numbers to back-up his assertion that better sleep can lead to bigger (...)

#Aetna #Fitbit #surveillance #bracelet #surveillance

4月8日のツイート
▻http://twilog.org/ChikuwaQ/date-160408

Top story: GE CEO: Bernie Sanders says we’re ‘destroying the moral fabric’ of A… www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ge-ce…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 03:35:02

If You Want to Be Able to Tell Your Boss to Eat Shit, Unionize
▻http://gawker.com/if-you-want-to-be-able-to-tell-your-boss-to-eat-shit-u-1769463225

This is what unions are for:

Alain Sherter reports that two unionized mine workers in West Virginia were very unhappy with a company-sponsored bonus plan that the union had opposed as unsafe. So the workers returned their (paltry) bonus checks to the company inscribed with special messages for CEO Robert Murray (pictured above): “kiss my ass Bob,” and “eat shit, Bob.”

They were fired.

But then their union appealed their firings and the National Labor Relations Board reinstated them, ruling that their words were legal “expressions of protest.”

If you want to tell your boss to kiss your ass, unionize.

#syndicats #union

What It’s Like Being a Sudden Savant - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/what-its-like-being-a-sudden-savant

http://static.nautil.us/8794_503e7dbbd6217b9a591f3322f39b5a6c.jpg

Before her accident Heather Thompson was, by any measure, very successful. She lived just outside Seattle’s urban sprawl, was a CEO and a nationally respected business strategist, married, and had a two-year-old daughter. “I was at the pinnacle of my career,” she said. Then, on March 6, 2011, Thompson went to the grocery store and, when she lifted the hatch of her SUV, without warning, the hatch collapsed on her head. The impact had Thompson buckled to the ground in eye-shattering pain. Thompson’s first thought was that she’d lost her teeth. She then heard her daughter, still strapped into the shopping cart, wailing. “Immediately, the adrenaline hit,” she said. She scooped her daughter, drove home, and then felt an inexplicable need to sleep—which she did, for three hours. She woke sitting (...)

#Washington_Post Ran 16 Negative Stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 Hours
▻http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/08/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-bernie-sanders-16-hours

The Washington Post was sold in 2013 to libertarian Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is worth approximately $49.8 billion

#mainstream

“They really don’t want this out”: The biggest Iraq War scandal that nobody’s talking about - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/burn_pits

Thousands of soldiers have suffered similar fates since serving in the vicinity of the more than 250 military burn pits that operated at bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Many who haven’t succumbed to their illnesses yet have passed along the legacy of their poisoning to their children. “The rate of having a child with birth defects is three times higher for service members who served in those countries,” according to the book.

The impact on local civilian populations is even more widespread. Although collecting data in these war-ravaged areas is extremely difficult, the studies that have been conducted reveal sharp increases in cancer and leukemia rates and skyrocketing numbers of birth defects. The toxic legacies of these burn pits will likely continue to devastate these regions for decades.

So what are the “burn pits”? When the U.S. military set up a base in Iraq or Afghanistan, instead of building incinerators to dispose of the thousands of pounds of waste produced each day, they burned the garbage in big holes in the ground. The garbage they constantly burned included “every type of waste imaginable” including “tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, pesticide containers, Styrofoam, metals, paints, plastic, medical waste and even human corpses.”

Here’s where the story gets even more infuriating. As a result of the privatization of many aspects of military operations, the burn pits were operated by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of #Halliburton, the company where Dick #Cheney was CEO before ascending to the White House. During the Bush administration, Halliburton made nearly $40 billion from lucrative government contracts (despite many corruption scandals), Dick Cheney and his corporate allies got incredibly rich, and the soldiers whose lives have likely been destroyed by this reckless operation… are pretty much screwed.

#fosses_de_brulage #crimes #états-unis #Irak

Can You Stop Disease With Smart Devices ? - Fortune

▻http://fortune.com/2015/12/28/stop-disease-smart-devices

Intéressant mais juste « un peu » inquiétant tout de même.

▻https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/tec_map2.jpg?quality=80

WHAT: Track the spread of disease using connected thermometers.

THE PROBLEM: For public health officials, tracking how a disease spreads is as important as understanding its symptoms. But today’s methods are unreliable or too slow.

THE PROPONENT: Kinsa CEO Inder Singh believes that giving away a low-cost, Internet-connected thermometer to the parents of schoolchildren will enable his company to reliably track the spread of illness—no pediatrician necessary.

#santé #contrôle #surveillance #vie_privée #new_york #états-unis #fièvre

Facebook the Colonial Empire
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/facebook-and-the-new-colonialism/462393

The Bitcoin Gospel, VPRO Backlight documentary, Novembre 2015

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zKuoqZLyKg

A very good and critical documentary about how it works, how it came to be, and it’s limitations.

Features:
• Roger Ver, bitcoin evangelist and founder of ▻https://blockchain.info

• Marshal Long, CEO of Final Hash, one of the largest bitcoin mines in the world, in China.

• Garrick Hileman, Economic Historian at the London School of Economics & University of Cambridge, best known for his research on financial and monetary innovation.

• The critical views of Izabella Kaminska, of Financial Times, who says

In the current economy, because of the way our money is structured, if I decide to horde my dollars then I’m usually hording them in an institution that is using them as a means of capital and they will be lending them out. So that money, even though I am saving, is going into an investment somewhere else. […] But in Bitcoin, there isn’t that opportunity. So a horded Bitcoin is a horded Bitcoin. It’s totally idle. It has no interest, it has no yield. It is simply sitting there and yet the person who is holding onto it thinks they have a right to future income flow, as if they have been investing.

An article summarising her criticism can be found here:
▻http://notesonliberty.com/2015/11/08/the-bitcoin-gospel-and-its-critiques

An interesting thought evoked by her is that bitcoin is supposed to democratic, but the power starts to concentrate in those 1% who have the power/capacity (money) and to mine. If you want to be a miner you have to invest a lot of money in equipment. Anyone can use bitcoin, but not everyone can mine bitcoins (anymore).

• Brett Scott, author of “The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money”
▻http://www.amazon.fr/Heretics-Guide-Global-Finance-Hacking/dp/0745333508

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510ksH%2BAHZL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Popular anger against the financial system has never been higher, yet the practical workings of the system remain opaque to many people. The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance aims to bridge the gap between protest slogans and practical proposals for reform. Brett Scott is a campaigner and former derivatives broker who has a unique understanding of life inside and outside the financial sector. He builds up a framework for approaching it based on the three principles of ’Exploring’, ’Jamming’ and ’Building’, offering a practical guide for those who wish to deepen their understanding of, and access to, the inner workings of financial institutions. Scott covers aspects frequently overlooked, such as the cultural dimensions of the financial system, and considers major issues such as agricultural speculation, carbon markets and tar-sands financing. Crucially, it also showcases the growing alternative finance movement, showing how everyday people can get involved in building a new, democratic, financial system.

• Andreas Antonopoulos, author of the O’Reilly series book “Mastering Bitcoin”

▻http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do

http://akamaicovers.oreilly.com/images/0636920032281/lrg.jpg

Want to join the technological revolution that’s taking the world of finance by storm? Mastering Bitcoin is your guide through the seemingly complex world of bitcoin, providing the requisite knowledge to help you participate in the internet of money. Whether you’re building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this practical book is essential reading.

Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, is still in its infancy and it’s already spawned a multi-billion dollar global economy. This economy is open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides you with the knowledge you need (passion not included).

This book includes:
○ A broad introduction to bitcoin—ideal for non-technical users, investors, and business executives
○ An explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects
○ Details of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles
○ Offshoots of the bitcoin and blockchain inventions, including alternative chains, currencies, and applications
○ User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts

• There is also a part on the Dutch city of Arnhem and it’s “Bitcoin Boulevard” where you can spend an entire extended weekend on vacation paying only in bitcoins.

#bitcoin

The Inside Story of Uber’s Radical Rebranding | WIRED
▻http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-inside-story-behind-ubers-colorful-redesign

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/N0A1330.jpg

“The early app was an attempt at something luxury,” says Kalanick. “That’s where we came from, but it’s not where are today.”

Today, you’ll find Uber in 400 cities in 65 countries. Almost two-thirds of its 6,000 or so people have been with the company less than one year.
...
For the past three years, he’s worked alongside Uber design director Shalin Amin and a dozen or so others, hammering out ideas from a stuffy space they call the War Room. Along the way, he studied up on concepts ranging from kerning to color palettes. “I didn’t know any of this stuff,” says Kalanick. “I just knew it was important, and so I wanted it to be good.”
...
Anyone can draw an icon, he told them. What’s the story behind it? As they sketched on the wall and sifted through materials, the group began to focus on a blog post Kalanick had written, in which he described Uber’s culture as the combination of bits and atoms. Bits represented the machine efficiency involved in Uber’s mapping and dispatch software. The atoms represented people.
...
The problem was that even Kalanick realized he shouldn’t be controlling everything. It felt wrong for Uber’s global and local brands to revolve around the color preferences of a rich, white guy in California—even if that rich, white guy in California is the CEO. “We walked out and we were like, this is crazy—we’re designing a brand for Travis,” says Amin. At some point, Amin realized the process would be easier if the group established a set of principles other designers could follow. That’s when they hit on the idea of designing different color palettes for different regions.

cf. Uber-Taxi und der Übermensch
►http://seenthis.net/messages/391223

#Uber #design #fascisme

GoPro vire 7% de son personnel (soit 100 personnes)

GoPro pounded 24% on late-day stunner
▻http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/01/13/gopro-wipes-out-after-hours-stunner/78754134

The company said it only expects to post revenue of $435 million during the fourth quarter, missing analysts forecasts calling for revenue of $508 million by 14%. The company blamed “lower than anticipated sales of its capture devices due to slower than expected sell through at retailers,” in a statement.

The company also announced it would cut 7% of its workforce of more than 1,500 employees as of the end of 2015. GoPro is one of the most severe examples of the recent crop of over-hyped technology companies selling hardware and winning a huge valuation with investors. Wednesday, Zander Lurie, who ran GoPro’s entertainment division, left to become CEO of SurveyMonkey.

Orange to Sever Ties With Israeli Cellular Firm in February, Eight Months After Boycott Controversy
Partner Communications agrees to stop licensing Orange brand after long-standing relationship unraveled in June 2015.

Amitai Ziv Jan 03, 2016

▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-1.695206

Partner Communications will stop using the Orange brand name in February, eight months after the CEO of French firm Orange SA sparked a storm after saying he wanted to end the relationship – a move interpreted as supporting a boycott of Israel.
At the time, Orange SA CEO Stéphane Richard – whose company owns the Orange brand – sought to diffuse the crisis by insisting it was purely a business decision. He traveled to Israel in a bid to underline that his company didn’t support the BDS movement. Nonetheless, the two companies have now agreed to part ways.
Partner, Israel’s second-biggest mobile company, will get 50 million euros ($54.3 million) in compensation for agreeing to give up the brand under which it has marketed its products and services since its formation in 1998. The company will now have to rebrand itself, an expensive and risky process.
Partner declined to comment, other than to say it is in the midst of exploring the issue of rebranding. Its shares finished 3.3% higher at 17.75 shekels ($4.55) in Tel Aviv Stock Exchange trading Sunday.
Partner, which is controlled by the Israeli-American media tycoon Haim Saban, hasn’t decided on a new brand name, but may use the 012 Smile or 012 Mobile names it uses for some of its services and which are already well known.
Richard set off the controversy last June when, in response to a question at a Cairo news conference, said he was willing to withdraw the Orange brand from Israel “tomorrow morning,” but that moving too quickly would expose his company to legal risks and possible financial penalties.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded France “publicly renounce the distressing statement and action” taken by Orange. The French government, which owns 25% of Orange, later called Richard’s remarks “clumsy,” and Orange continues to operate a research and development facility in Israel.
In fact, Partner and Orange had renewed the licensing agreement for the Orange name for another 10 years only a few months before Richard’s remarks. But after the controversy erupted, the two sides agreed terms to end the agreement, giving Partner 40 million euros immediately and another 50 million euros if it ended the agreement within 12 months.

Orange CEO Stephane Richard, March 6, 2014.Bloomberg
The initial 40-million-euro payment was supposed to finance Partner’s study of the Orange brand’s worth to the company and develop alternatives, a process the company has kept secret but is expected to be completed by next month.
Partner had several more months to continue using the Orange name, but intense competition in the mobile market and skidding profits makes the 50 million euros it is due a welcome cash infusion. Partner posted a 9-million-shekel loss in the third quarter.
Dropping the Orange name will also save the Israeli company licensing fees that in 2014 alone added up to an estimated 49 million shekels, said Ori Licht, an analyst at IBI Israel Brokerage & Investments. The 90 million euros from Orange will enable Partner to fund a major rebranding program.
In any case, Licht added, in the current cellular market, price more than brand and image is the decisive factor in recruiting and retaining subscribers.

#Shkreli, le feuilleton épisode 3 : Martin Shkreli, Controversial Pharmaceuticals CEO and $2 Million Wu-Tang LP Purchaser, Arrested
Just yesterday, Shkreli revealed that he’s been working to bail Bobby Shmurda out of jail (and is fighting with RZA)

Shkreli has been “charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings,” according to Bloomberg.

▻http://pitchfork.com/news/62596-martin-shkreli-controversial-pharmaceuticals-ceo-and-2-million-wu-t

#big_pharma et #gros_cons

Group Funded by Coke to Fight Obesity Disbanding - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/01/us/ap-us-coke-health-group.html

A nonprofit funded by the Coca-Cola Co. to combat obesity is disbanding following revelations about the beverage maker’s involvement with the group.

The Global Energy Balance Network said on its website Monday night that it is “discontinuing operations due to resource limitations.” The decision was effective immediately.

The group had previously said that it received an “unrestricted gift” from Coke and that the Atlanta-based soft drink giant had “no input” into its activities.

But last week, The Associated Press reported on emails showing that Coke helped with the selection of the group’s leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested content for its website. When contacted about the exchanges, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent said in a statement there wasn’t enough transparency regarding the company’s involvement.

Coke also told the AP that it accepted the retirement of Rhona Applebaum, its chief health and science officer who initially managed the relationship with the group. The company said it was no longer working with the Global Energy Balance Network.

The emails obtained by the AP through a records request showed Coke executives and the group’s leaders held meetings and conference calls to develop the group’s mission. A proposal circulated via email at Coke laid out a vision for a group that would “quickly establish itself as the place the media goes to for comment on any obesity issue.” It said the group would run a political-style campaign to counter the “shrill rhetoric” of “public health extremists.”

#la_main_dans_le_sac #à_l'insu_de_son_plein_gré

Reimagining Journalism: The Story of the One Percent by Michael Massing | The New York Review of Books
▻http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/dec/17/reimagining-journalism-story-one-percent

http://assets.nybooks.com/media/photo/2015/11/23/massing_1-121715.jpg

Even amid the outpouring of coverage of rising income inequality, however, the richest Americans have remained largely hidden from view. On all sides, billionaires are shaping policy, influencing opinion, promoting favorite causes, polishing their images—and carefully shielding themselves from scrutiny. Journalists have largely let them get away with it. News organizations need to find new ways to lift the veil off the superrich and lay bare their power and influence. Digital technology, with its flexibility, speed, boundless capacity, and ease of interactivity, seems ideally suited to this task, but only if it’s used more creatively than it has been to date.

Consider, for instance, DealBook, the online daily financial report of The #New_York_Times. It has a staff of twelve reporters plus a half-dozen columnists covering investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, and regulatory matters. Every day, DealBook posts a dozen or so pieces on the Times website, some of which also appear in the print edition, making it seem a good vehicle for showing how #Wall_Street really works.

Unfortunately, it only intermittently delivers. Most DealBook postings are narrowly framed, with a heavy emphasis on CEO comings and goings, earnings and expectations, buyouts and IPOs. Some sample headlines: “BB&T Is New Deal-Making Powerhouse in Banking.” “Investors Hope to Ride Swell of SoulCycle Fever in Coming IPO.” “Dell Is the Straw That Stirs Tech M&A.” “Strong Profit for Bank of America, and Investors See Signs of Progress.” Some pieces veer into outright boosterism. A long feature on “How Jonathan Steinberg Made Good on a Second Chance,” for instance, described in admiring detail how this mogul, through a combination of pluck and savvy, built his asset management firm into “one of the fastest-growing fund companies around.”

DealBook’s founder and editor, Andrew Ross Sorkin, is known for his closeness to Wall Street executives (many of whom serve as sources of information), and it often shows in his weekly column. [...]

#faillite des #médias #MSM

Russia stops gas supplies to Ukraine

▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/russia-and-former-soviet-union/russia-stops-gas-supplies-to-ukraine-402778.html

La guerre du gaz repart.

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2015/09/24/p1a0097nls1lkqph31c0kf5h1aju4/original_big.jpg

MOSCOW - Supplies of Russian gas to Naftogaz Ukrainy are being stopped on Wednesday because prepayments have ended, and new money has not arrived, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told journalists.

#gaz #ukraine #russie #guerre_du_gaz

Mass Surveillance Isn’t the Answer to Fighting Terrorism

►http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/opinion/mass-surveillance-isnt-the-answer-to-fighting-terrorism.html

It happens after ever terrorist attack: authorities & intelligence agencies complain about surveillance and encrypted communication. But,

indiscriminate bulk data sweeps have not been useful. In the more than two years since the N.S.A.’s data collection programs became known to the public, the intelligence community has failed to show that the phone program has thwarted a terrorist attack. Yet for years intelligence officials and members of Congress repeatedly misled the public by claiming that it was effective.

Often, the problem is not lack of information but means to act upon that information:

Most of the men who carried out the Paris attacks were already on the radar of intelligence officials in France and Belgium, where several of the attackers lived only hundreds of yards from the main police station, in a neighborhood known as a haven for extremists.

What’s more:

“Every time there is an attack, we discover that the perpetrators were known to the authorities,” said François Heisbourg[1], a [French] counterterrorism expert and former defense official. “What this shows is that our intelligence is actually pretty good, but our ability to act on it is limited by the sheer numbers.”

We all agree that

There is no dispute that law enforcement agencies should have the necessary powers to detect and stop attacks before they happen. But that does not mean unquestioning acceptance of ineffective and very likely unconstitutional tactics that reduce civil liberties without making the public safer.

#terrorism
#surveillance #mass_surveillance
_____
[1] ▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Heisbourg

10月22日のツイート
▻http://twilog.org/ChikuwaQ/date-151022

Top story: Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/sci…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 10:22:22

Papier is out! paper.li/ChikuwaQ/13277… Stories via @Donjipez @carlagastal @_blondeblueeyes posted at 09:15:01

Top story: WikiLeaks - CIA Director John Brennan emails wikileaks.org/cia-emails/, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 06:36:44

Top story: Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes Goes on Stage at WSJDLive 2015 — Live … blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/10…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 04:34:20

Top story: Fujifilm Unveils a Weather Resistant 35mm f/2 and a 1.4x Teleconvert… petapixel.com/2015/10/21/fuj…, see more tweetedtimes.com/ChikuwaQ?s=tnp posted at 02:28:32

La vie de tous les jours dans un camp (...)

Jeff Bezos falls from No. 1 to No. 87 on list of best-performing CEOs, ranks below former Volkswagen CEO - Puget Sound Business Journal
▻http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/10/jeff-bezos-falls-from-no-1-to-no-87-on-list-of.html

http://media.bizj.us/view/img/813881/jeff-bezos-02*1200xx2180-1226-0-109.jpg

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos fell from No. 1 to No. 87 on Harvard Business Review’s annual list of best-performing chief executives after the publication started to include a company’s social conscience as part of the ranking.

Bezos, who topped last year’s list, would have been No. 1 again if HBR stuck to its former ranking system – based solely on long-term financial factors including shareholder return. But a new metric dragged the Amazon chief down more than 80 spots.

Old-Drug Price Hike ‘Perversion of the System,’ Biogen CEO Says - Bloomberg Business
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/old-drug-price-hike-perversion-of-the-system-biogen-ceo-says

Turing Pharmaceuticals AG’s decision to raise the price of a decades-old drug it company acquired by 50-fold was a “perversion of the system,” said the leader of one of the U.S. largest biotechnology companies and the incoming head of the drug industry’s lobby group.
The pricing decision by Martin Shkreli, Turing’s founder and chief executive officer, “dropped down a storm on the whole industry" that drugmakers don’t deserve, Biogen Inc. Chief Executive Officer George Scangos said Friday in a telephone interview. He called the move by Turing’s CEO “arrogant” and “naïve.”
Scangos is next in line to be chairman of the pharmaceutical industry’s Washington lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which has defended drugmakers this year as they’ve come under criticism for the price of medicine.

Two in Ukraine to Pay $30M to Settle Hacking-Insider Trading Charges - NBC News
▻http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/two-ukraine-pay-30m-settle-hacking-insider-trading-charges-n427141

Two defendants agreed to pay $30 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil insider trading charges over a scheme to hack into networks that distribute corporate news releases, the regulator said Monday.

Jaspen Capital Partners Ltd. and CEO Andriy Supranonok, both from Kiev, Ukraine, are the first of 34 defendants to settle SEC charges over allegations of the theft of more than 150,000 press releases from Business Wire, Marketwired and PR Newswire before the news became public.

The SEC said the scheme resulted in more than $100 million of illegal profit over a roughly five-year period. Authorities said traders would give hackers “shopping lists” of press releases they wanted to see in advance, and then make trades based on them.

Nine of the defendants also face criminal charges. Jaspen and Supranonok were not criminally charged.
[…]
Without admitting wrongdoing, the defendants agreed to transfer $30 million from frozen brokerage accounts, the SEC said. The accord requires court approval.

Cost of Tianjin Explosions Could Reach $3.3 Billion : Guy Carpenter
▻http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2015/09/04/380787.htm

The two massive explosions which hit China’s Port of Tianjin last month could generate insurance losses of up $3.3 billion, according to a report published by Guy Carpenter.

The report estimates damages between $1.6 billion and $3.3 billion, which could more than double early estimates released by Credit Suisse of $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

“The explosions that occurred in Tianjin, China are likely to constitute one of the largest insured man-made losses to date in Asia and will certainly be considered one of the most complex insurance and reinsurance losses in recent history,” said James Nash, CEO of Asia Pacific Operations for Guy Carpenter.

Le communiqué de presse de Guy Carpenter
▻http://www.guycarp.com/content/dam/guycarp/en/documents/PressRelease/2015/Port%20of%20Tianjin%20Explosions%20set%20to%20become%20One%20of%20Asia's%20

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/dkth19h74dnwz9i/20150911Tianjin.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qc7FPxa.jpg.jpg

D’après Mathieu Daubin, directeur souscription marine du groupe Axa, cité par Le Marin ▻http://www.lemarin.fr/secteurs-activites/shipping/22919-assurances-marine-probable-hausse-des-tarifs-apres-tianjin derrière #paywall, le coût serait supérieur à celui du Costa Concordia (2Mds USD) mais derrière le coût de l’ouragan Sandy aux É.-U. en 2012, précédents records de l’assurance marine.

18000 véhicules neufs détruits (300-400 M USD)
18000 conteneurs complètement détruits avec leur marchandise.

Impact probable sur les tarifs d’assurance : le montant annuel des primes « marine » est de 32 Mds USD.

La catastrophe de Tianjin met une nouvelle fois en lumière l’accumulation croissante de risques liée au gigantisme des ports et des navires. Un seul événement suffit à causer un sinistre exceptionnel. Ce qui est vrai de l’accident de Tianjin le serait aussi en cas de perte totale d’un porte-conteneurs géant. «  Un navire de 20 000 EVP représente 2 milliards de dollars de valeurs accumulées, constate Mathieu Daubin. La question de pose de savoir comment gérer ce risque. Le gigantisme constitue un frein à l’assurabilité.  »

Novak, Sefcovic begin bilateral gas talks in Vienna, Gazprom CEO attending
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/novak-sefcovic-begin-bilateral-gas-talks-in-vienna-gazprom-ceo-attending-3

Bilateral negotiations between Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and European Commission Vice President in charge of Energy Union Maros Sefcovic have begun in Vienna, and the CEO of Gazprom, Alexei Miller is also attending the meeting, an Interfax correspondent reported.

(intégralité de la brève)

Hacking a Corporate Culture: Stories, Heroes and Rituals in Startups and Companies | Steve Blank
▻http://steveblank.com/2015/09/09/hacking-a-corporate-culture-stories-heroes-and-rituals-in-startups-and-c

https://steveblank.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/dilbert083015.jpg

All too often a corporate innovation initiative starts and ends with a board meeting mandate to the CEO followed by a series of memos to the staff, with lots of posters, and one-day workshops. This typically creates “innovation theater” but very little innovation.

For innovation to happen by design not by exception, companies need to hack their corporate culture. This is akin to waging psychological warfare on your own company. It needs to be a careful, calculated process coordinated with HR and Finance.

Failure to realign incentives doom any new culture change.