E.U. will give Turkey an ‘initial’ €3 billion to stem migrant flows and unfreeze its bid to join the bloc. - Fortune

E.U. will give Turkey an ‘initial’ €3 billion to stem migrant flows and unfreeze its bid to join the bloc. 

Desperation makes for strange bedfellows.

On the one hand, the European Union, whose attempts to stop the biggest movement of migrants in Europe since World War 2 have failed dismally. On the other, Turkey, which finds itself under sudden and potentially acute economic pressure from Russia after shooting down one of its warplanes last week.

After weeks of behind-the-scenes haggling, the two sides formally agreed a deal Sunday that will see the E.U. pay Turkey an initial €3 billion ($3.3 billion) to help it stop the flood of refugees and other migrants ‘not requiring international protection.’ Turkey had asked before the meeting for that amount to be paid every year, but the two sides left the issue of any future payments open.

“We do not expect anyone to guard our borders for us,” E.U. Council president Donald Tusk said after them meeting. “That can and should only be done by Europeans. But we expect a major step towards changing the rules of the game when it comes to stemming the migration flow that is coming to the E.U. via Turkey.”

A more radical outcome of the summit was the decision to revive talks on letting Turkey join the E.U., a process that has been effectively moribund for years.

The irony is acute. Above all, it was popular hostility to Turkish migration into the E.U. that led the bloc to effectively suspend accession talks in 2010, although the formal reason was concerns about Turkey’s worsening record on human rights and judicial issues. If anything, the latter has deteriorated even further since 2010, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cracked down on political opposition and dissenting media.

But the flow of refugees and other migrants, largely from Syria, but also from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries, has pushed concerns about Turkish immigration and domestic repression way down the list of European concerns. Of much more concern now is the near-collapse of the E.U.’s internal border-free regime, as one member state after another has reinstated border checks and, in some cases, built physical barriers to stop illegal immigration. E.U. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned last week that if the “Schengen” agreement on open internal borders falls apart, then Europe’s monetary union would soon follow.

One of the first ‘chapters’ regarding Turkey’s accession to be revived will be an agreement on visa-free travel to the E.U. for Turkish citizens. The two sides said they will try to launch formal talks on this within a year (on the implicit conditions that Turkey meets conditions on tightening its borders in the east to Asian migrants). That development comes only two days after Russia unilaterally suspended its bilateral agreement with Turkey on visa-free travel.

“Today is a historic day in our accession process to the EU,” Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters on arrival. “I am grateful to all European leaders for this new beginning.”

Silicon Valley Has Jus Arrived at a Major Turning Point - TIME

Silicon Valley Has Jus Arrived at a Major Turning Point Posted: 12 Nov 2015 07:59 AM PST This year has been an unusual one for corporate finance–record M&A dealmaking, a drought in IPOs–but as 2015 wears on, things are starting to get downright weird. The trend is especially noticeable in the tech industry, where startups have been shunning the IPO market for a few years, hoping instead to tap into mega-rounds of private financing. Only now are they moving into the IPO queue, with Square, Match Group and Atlassian aiming for IPOs by year’s end. The trouble is, they are going public just as public investors are growing finickier. And that’s costing them potential capital. Square now plans to go public with a valuation of about $4 billion, down from the $6 billion valuation it enjoyed during its last private round a year ago. Square is seen as a test case for other tech startups that will likely feel pressure to go public now that the private venture financing is starting to dry up. It’s already setting one not-so-great trend: marking down IPO prices below the exuberant private valuations. Tech companies that have fought for years to stay private may end up wishing they had gone public when the going was good. Elsewhere, there’s a sense that companies are scrambling to do something–anything–to position themselves when the inevitable downturn hits. After years of arguing why it would never split up, HP did just that. HP now says severing itself in two is the best way forward. Even as two of its rivals–Dell and EMC–are moving in the exact opposite direction. The whole tech sector, flush for years with confidence and talk of disruption, suddenly has an air of desperation about it. The Fed will raise interest rates soon, an incremental move that could have an outsize impact on investment strategies. Some tech startups are securing financing where they can, while others are trying to burn less cash. Tech giants are reorganizing, hoping to get a foothold in a promising market like cloud computing. Nothing illustrates just how desperate tech companies are feeling these days than the ambitious merger of Dell and EMC. Valued at $67 billion when it was announced, the Dell-EMC will rank not only as the largest tech M&A in history but also the largest leveraged buyout ever staged to take a company private. To pull it off, the companies need to use creative financing – a polite way of describing a hairily complex deal. Square Inc.'s Timeline | FindTheCompany In addition to new equity from Michael Dell, EMC and Dell have lined up nearly $50 billion in loans from eight banks, an impressive accomplishment given the rising concerns in the corporate lending market and waning demand for high-yield debt tied to mergers. When Dell financed its buyout in 2013, it secured a 4.6% interest rate. Today, that rate could be as high as 7%. Like those tech IPOs, Dell and EMC may have waited too long to make their move. EMC shareholders will get paid in cash as well as shares in a tracking stock of VMware, of which EMC owns 81%. The tracking stock is a controversial provision. It will be “linked to a portion of EMC’s economic interest in the VMware business. Owners of the tracking stock won’t be able to vote and they won’t even own a piece of a company, but of an entity that mimics actual VMware shares. In effect, there will be two stocks for VMware, the one currently trading (and falling, since this deal was announced) and a virtual one given to current EMC shareholders. Confused yet? An excellent (but long) explainer can be found on Andreessen Horowitz’ blog. There are plenty more details, but here is a simple test to gauge the complexity of a financial deal: Is it harder to explain to someone than the plot of Lost? The Dell-EMC merger is. It is much, much easier to explain what the Dharma Initiative did or what exactly that smoke monster was than it is to explain why a tracking stock for VMWare is necessary to help Dell sell cloud computing. Which raises an interesting question about Dell-EMC. Why exactly does the deal need to be this complex? The apparent answer is to better position both companies in a competitive market for enterprise tech. But IT budgets have been dwindling, and cloud computing is favoring a select companies, like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Mega-mergers also distract companies for years while they integrate, a distraction that a more focused company like Microsoft doesn’t face. And there are bound to be layoffs. When Michael Dell and EMC CEO Joe Tucci announced the merger to EMC employees, Dell assured them, “that’s what this is all about, continuing the great innovations and success that you all have created.” When, in a separate call with reporters that same day, someone asked about layoffs, Dell became both vague and tetchy. Layoffs would come in 2016, he said, lecturing reporters this was a “normal course of business.” Then Dell snapped at the reporter, “I think there’s some other companies in our industries that are maybe far better at reducing head count than we are. So maybe jump on their calls.” Shareholders, meanwhile, aren’t thrilled with the deal either. EMC is down 10% since its announcement and VMware is down 23%. None of Dell’s potential rivals are inclined or able to wage a takeover battle, so the merger and buyout is likely to happen, barring any regulatory moves that could complicate it further. So if no one but Michael Dell and Joe Tucci are thrilled with the deal, why is it happening? A clue can be found in the transcript of the announcement to EMC workers. After striding onto a stage, Tucci had a bizarre request. “I’ve never used a selfie stick… where’s that selfie stick?” As the two posed with another EMC executive, Dell had his own request: “Get the logos in here.” That’s right. In announcing the largest tech M&A–and what may be the most complex in structure–the executives brought in a prop that is synonymous with narcissism and self-absorption. In front of employees who may be laid off in a few months–and who weren’t even in the selfie photo that the companies later tweeted. And that image, as much as anything, shows just how weird things have gotten in the world of tech corporate financing this year.

1 Exercise That Will Make You Feel More Powerful - Business Insider

1 Exercise That Will Make You Feel More Powerful Posted: 20 Nov 2015 12:23 PM PST Plenty of leadership books and seminars promise to educate you in the mysterious ways of the powerful. But for those who’ve got minimal time and attention to spare, there’s a simpler strategy that can help you stand out in virtually any circumstance: Channel the confidence to act like a leader by recalling a time when you felt powerful. The technique is based on a study by Gavin Kilduff, Ph.D., and Adam Galinsky, Ph.D. The research is cited in the new book Friend and Foe by Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer, Ph.D., in which the authors argue that both competition and cooperation are crucial to success in business and in life. In one experiment featured in the study, researchers divided 60 undergrads into 20 groups of three. One third of the participants were asked to recall and describe a time when they had power over other people. Another third were asked to describe a time when someone else held power over them. The rest of the participants were asked to describe a recent trip to the grocery store. Each group was made up of one participant from each condition. When the groups convened, they were videotaped working together on an “arctic survival” task for 20 minutes: They had to rank 12 items based on how useful they would be to survival in a snowstorm. Afterward, everyone completed a survey in which they had to rank each group member on the degree to which they had status in the group, led the group, and had influence in the group. Two days later, the same groups assembled and were given two tasks: coming up with an idea for an environmental organization in 20 minutes and estimating some statistics for five minutes. Then they completed the same survey as before. Results showed that participants who were asked to think of a time they were powerful were perceived as having higher status in both the first and second group meetings. When independent coders reviewed the video tapes, they noticed that the individuals who wrote about having power were more likely to speak in the first few minutes of the meeting and spoke more assertively. In other words, they were perceived as leaders because they acted like leaders. “Put simply,” Galinsky and Schweitzer write in Friend and Foe, “we can all achieve significantly higher status if we adjust our psychological states at the outset of a group interaction.” Of course, there are downsides to becoming overly taken with your own leadership abilities. Galinsky and Schweitzer note that it’s equally important to show deference to others and try to take their perspectives so that your confidence doesn’t become off-putting. This article originally appeared on Business Insider

This Could Be Google’s Next Move to Fight Apple - TIME

This Could Be Google’s Next Move to Fight Apple Posted: 06 Nov 2015 06:53 AM PST There are many differences between Android and Apple’s iOS, but among the biggest is that each Android phone is slightly different than the next. While every generation of iPhone runs the same type of software and features similar hardware specifications, most Android phones come with different processors and software that’s been slightly tweaked or modified by the phone’s manufacturer, like Samsung or HTC. Google, however, wants to create more consistency within the Android universe, according to a new report from The Information’s Amir Efrati. The company is said to be in talks with microchip companies about developing chips based on Google’s own preferred designs, the report says. This likely won’t impact whether Android phone makers decide to modify software on Android phones. It just means phones running on these Google chips would likely offer similar performance and consistent features since they’re powered by the same processors. The move would also give Google’s Android more ammunition to combat Apple’s iPhone at the high end. Many flagship Android phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G4, and HTC One M9, come with software that looks and feels entirely different from one another. Samsung, for instance, layers its own software called TouchWiz over Google’s basic Android. HTC adds its Sense software to its Android phones, too. These phones also come with different features and run on different processor models, which makes the experience of using one Android phone noticeably different than using another made by a separate manufacturer. That’s not the case with the iPhone. Provided they’re all running the same version of iOS, the software experience between an iPhone 6s, an iPhone 6, and an iPhone 5 is exactly the same. That’s because Apple doesn’t deal with other hardware manufacturers that add their own apps and services to phones. And, since all iPhones run on processors designed by Apple, they offer the same level of power and similar features. However, based on The Information’s report, it sounds like Google is looking to change this in order to better compete with the iPhone at the high-end of the market. That’s a space where Android had some trouble. One of Android’s benefits is that there are phones available in various price ranges. Chinese startup OnePlus, for example, saw wide success with its first Android phone in 2014 because it was priced much lower than phones made by Samsung and LG while offering similar high-quality hardware. Samsung, which creates more expensive Android phones that are meant to compete directly with the iPhone at the high end, has seen its profits decline over the past two years. But the company had a turnaround in October, when it announced that its operating profits increased by 80%. Still, those numbers were thanks to its component-making business, not because of Galaxy phone sales. This isn’t the first time reports have suggested that Google is brainstorming ways to help Android better compete at the high-end. Google was reportedly working on a program called Android Silver last year, which Efrati also reported for The Information. It was meant to be a re-branding of Android that would make the platform more premium and unified like the iPhone. However, it was reportedly delayed due to the departure of former Google executive Nikesh Arora.

Why Hillary Clinton Is Right About Pfizer - TIME

Why Hillary Clinton Is Right About Pfizer Posted: 24 Nov 2015 07:14 AM PST Three cheers for Hillary Clinton and other politicians who are decrying Pfizer’s tax “inversion” deal that would allow it to take over an Irish pharma company and relocate there, thus saving $21 billion in American taxes. Tax inversion deals—mergers done pretty much for the sole purpose of saving tax money by moving to a foreign tax jurisdiction—have been on the rise for a while now. One of the many reasons they are so egregious is that the very firms that are most able to do them—including pharmaceutical and tech companies that have most of their value in intellectual property that can be easily relocated elsewhere—have also been the biggest beneficiaries of government help. Pfizer and other such firms will argue that they need to pay lower taxes to fund the research that results in miracle drugs. But that is a myth. We credit the private sector for the innovation and growth in our economy. But a number of academics and policy thinkers, including University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, argue powerfully that it is the government (and thus taxpayers) rather than the private sector that deserves the credit for such innovation. “Every major technological change in recent years traces most of its funding back to the state,” says Mazzucato, who backs the claim up with powerful statistics and anecdotes in her book. Most parts of the smartphone that make it smart–GPS, touchscreens, the Internet–were advanced by the Defense Department. Tesla’s batteries came out of a Department of Energy grant. Google’s search algorithm was boosted by a National Science Foundation innovation. Likewise, many new drugs that have made big money for firms like Pfizer have come out of NIH research. The National Institutes of Health have spent almost a trillion dollars since its founding on the research that created both the pharmaceutical and the biotech sectors—with venture capitalists only entering biotech once the red carpet was laid down in the 1980s. So why the mythology that the private sector deserves all the profits and the credit for innovation? Because there are huge profits to be made with that narrative. It was the National Venture Capital industry that in 1976 convinced the government to reduce capital gains tax by 50% in only five years. Likewise, says Mazzucato, “It is Big Pharma that is able to charge exorbitant prices in the name of recouping their high innovation costs—and also lobby for massive tax reductions related to patents that have no effect on their investments.” There are better models. Israel and Finland retain equity in firms that come out of basic government research. And the U.S. government in the past has dictated that companies reinvest money in Main Street rather than give it to Wall Street. That’s how Bell Labs was born, after the federal government pressured AT&T to reinvest profits in innovation. We got the C++ programming language and cell-phone calling technology, among many other advances, out of that. Not a bad precedent. The NIH invests $30 billion per year in research that enriches companies like Pfizer. Meanwhile, Big Pharma spends more on marketing than R&D, and is the leader, along with the tech and energy sectors, in share buybacks that make investors wealthy without creating any real growth or jobs. Clinton and others should keep the pressure on Pfizer and other such firms—and the next president should make both buybacks and inversions, which cheat the true economic makers in this country, illegal.

Emails Reveal Coca-Cola’s Hand in Anti-Obesity Group Posted: 24 Nov 2015 07:08 AM PST (NEW YORK) — A nonprofit founded to combat obesity says the $1.5 million it received from Coke has no influence on its work. But emails obtained by The Associated Press show the world’s largest beverage maker was instrumental in shaping the Global Energy Balance Network, which is led by a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Coke helped pick the group’s leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested articles and videos for its website. In an email last November, the group’s president tells a top Coke executive: “I want to help your company avoid the image of being a problem in peoples’ lives and back to being a company that brings important and fun things to them.” Coke executives had similarly high hopes. A proposal circulated via email at the company 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 use social media and run a political-style campaign to counter the “shrill rhetoric” of “public health extremists” who want to tax or limit foods they deem unhealthy. When contacted by the AP about the emails, Coca-Cola Co. CEO Muhtar Kent said in a statement that “it has become clear to us that there was not a sufficient level of transparency with regard to the company’s involvement with the Global Energy Balance Network.” “Clearly, we have more work to do to reflect the values of this great company in all that we do,” Kent said. The Atlanta-based company told the AP it has accepted the retirement of its chief health and science officer, Rhona Applebaum, who initially managed the relationship with the group. It said it will not fill the position as it overhauls how it goes about its health efforts. It also said it has stopped working the Global Energy Balance Network. It’s just the latest example of Coke working with outside experts to promote messages that benefit the company. Coke has long maintained that the academics and other experts it works with espouse their own views. But the collaborations can be fraught and blur the lines between advertisements and genuine advice. In February, several health and fitness experts paid by the company wrote online posts with tips on healthy habits. Each suggested a mini-soda as a snack idea. One dietitian wrote five such posts in less than a year. The Global Energy Balance Network came under fire in August after The New York Times reported it was funded by Coke. On Nov. 6, the University of Colorado School of Medicine said it was returning $1 million from the company because of the distraction it was creating. The University of South Carolina said it plans to keep $500,000 it received from Coke because one of its professors is also among the group’s leaders. The school said there was no misuse of funds. On its website, the Global Energy Balance Network says it received an “unrestricted gift” from Coke, but that the company has “no input” into its activities. Behind the scenes, however, Coke executives and the group’s leaders held meetings and conference calls to hash out the group’s mission and activities, according to emails obtained through a public records request. Early on, Applebaum informed the group’s president, James Hill, that those involved would need to be open about collaboration with private industry. “That is non-negotiable,” she wrote. Relatively minor matters, such as the group’s logo, were also covered. “Color will not be an issue — except for blue. Hope you can understand why,” Applebaum. Coke’s cans are red, while Pepsi’s are blue. “It seems like another one of these classic cases of money coming from industry with no strings attached — that’s the official message. But it’s a very different kind of story taking place,” said Leigh Turner, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics, who studies academic integrity and conflicts of interest. The exchanges weren’t strictly limited to discussions about the group, and included Applebaum expressing approval or disapproval of health articles, and talk of other work with Coke. In an email to another Coke executive, Hill proposes research on “energy balance” that would be “very specific to coke interests.” Coke has long stressed the idea of “energy balance,” or the need to offset calorie intake with physical activity. It’s a basic concept few would disagree with, but critics say the company uses it to downplay the effects of sugary drinks by shifting more attention to the need for exercise. In an introductory video, one of the Global Energy Balance Network’s leaders said the media focuses on “eating too much, eating too much, eating too much — blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on.” The video has since been taken down, and the group said the idea that it only focuses on physical activity is inaccurate. Hill declined a request for a phone interview, but said in an email that the group’s strategy benefits “all who are concerned about obesity.” He said Coke provided input into the group’s “organizational structure,” but that it was understood the company would be “hands off.” The group wants to continue its work, he said. Since 2010, Coke said it gave $550,000 to Hill that was unrelated to the group. A big part of that was research he and others were involved with, but the figure also covers travel expenses and fees for speaking engagements and other work. It does not include money from Coke’s overseas divisions or industry groups such as the American Beverage Association.

4 Ways Richard Branson Makes Difficult Decisions - Business Insider

4 Ways Richard Branson Makes Difficult Decisions Posted: 20 Nov 2015 11:13 AM PST In the summer of 2012, the British government informed Virgin Trains that it had lost the bid to retain the operating rights to the U.K.’s West Coast rail franchise. Virgin Trains had been running the £7 billion ($10.9 billion) franchise for 15 years, expanding the line and growing its annual passenger numbers from 13 million to 30 million. Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Train’s parent company the Virgin Group, writes in his book The Virgin Way that he was “stunned and baffled” that he could have lost the bid to the company FirstGroup. He decided to stay quiet for awhile, meeting with lawyers and advisers to see if Virgin had actually been beaten fairly. Everyone he spoke with seemed to conclude that FirstGroup’s numbers were unsustainable, meaning the British government had made a mistake in calculations. Regardless, many of his senior team told Branson that he’d only be wasting his time and hurting his image with a lawsuit. But, after carefully weighing the facts, he decided to move forward with it. A week before he was scheduled to meet the Department for Transport in the U.K.’s high court, Branson got a phone call from the department’s secretary. The secretary told him that on further review, the department had indeed made grave miscalculations and Virgin had offered the better deal. Branson considers his decision to sue the government, which ultimately saved his rail business, to be one of the best high-stakes decisions he’s ever made. In his book he highlights four rules that he’s used to make tough decisions like this one throughout his business career, and we’ve described them below. 1. Don’t act on an emotional response Branson says he was flabbergasted when he first heard that the Virgin Trains deal had not gone through, but he was experienced enough to know that he should take some time to settle down and collect data instead of letting his feelings take control of him. Had he made a statement to the press out of frustration or demanded to sue the British government solely out of instinct rather than fact, he would have increased the likelihood of having his case dismissed and appearing reckless. It’s just as bad to act on a positive emotion, he says. Give decisions you’re considering enough time to lose the influence of your first impressions. 2. Find as many downsides to an idea as possible Branson carefully considers everything that could go wrong before he goes forward with a decision. Regarding the rail case, Branson’s lawyers initially told him he had a 10% chance of winning a case against the government. But after collecting proof that some numbers in his competitor’s deals were off, he was convinced he had truth and customer support on his side. “Nothing is perfect, so work hard at uncovering whatever hidden warts the thing might have and by removing them you’ll only make it better still,” he writes. 3. Look at the big picture Before he makes a decision, Branson takes a look at how it will affect his other projects in both the short and long term. “This one may be a ‘too good to miss’ opportunity but how will it affect other projects or priorities and, if now is not the best time to do it, what risks if any are there in putting the thing on hold for an agreed period of time?” he writes. “If you cannot manage this project in addition to another that’s waiting in the wings, which one gets the nod and why?” Branson’s latest project is Virgin Hotels, which he hopes will take advantage of a booming American hotel market. With every project he undertakes and manages, he considers how the Virgin brand and his own name will be represented. 4. Protect the downside In a LinkedIn blog post from 2014, Branson writes that the best lesson his father ever taught him was to protect the downside; that is, limit possible losses before moving forward with a new business venture. Branson’s father told him that he would allow him, at age 15, to leave high school and start Student magazine only if he sold £4,000 worth of advertising to cover printing and paper costs. It’s a strategy he repeated in 1984 when he made a huge leap from the music business into the airline business with Virgin Atlantic. He was only able to convince his business partners at Virgin Records to agree to the deal after he got Boeing to agree to take back Virgin’s one 747 jet after a year if the business wasn’t operating as planned. These four simple guidelines can become habit, whether you’re about to approach a prospective client or sue the British government. This article originally appeared on Business Insider

Google Made a Secret Prototype That Works Like the Star Trek Communicator - TIME

Google Made a Secret Prototype That Works Like the Star Trek Communicator Posted: 22 Nov 2015 01:05 PM PST Google developed a prototype wearable device based on the communicator in Star Trek. In science fiction, Captain Picard and his crew used their lapel pins to talk to the artificial intelligence and crew onboard the Starship Enterprise. In real life, the search giant created a circular device with a built-in microphone and Bluetooth allowing it to connect to a smartphone. The prototype was described to TIME in an interview by Amit Singhal, the executive in charge of the firm’s search initiatives. The concept was intended to test out how users might interact with voice search in new ways. Worn on the chest, the Google pin was activated with a light tap. The prototype (pictured above) might output sound through an onboard speaker or by connecting to headphones. The idea was to make it easier for people to query to Google without having to fish out their cell phones. “I always wanted that pin,” Singhal said. “You just ask it anything and it works. That’s why we were like, ‘Let’s go prototype that and see how it feels.’” The device hasn’t left the testing phase but illustrates how far Google is willing to go to chart the future of search. The company is trying to redefine the way people access information through voice search, which is getting more adept at understanding natural language, as well as Google Now, a predictive service that tries to surface valuable information for users before they even think to search for it. Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft are all aiming to develop similar services. Google engineers have had a long, well-documented obsession with Star Trek—in particular, the supersmart computer aboard the Enterprise. Google executives regularly bring up the Star Trek computer in interviews, and in product meetings Googlers sometimes reference the long-running television series when discussing upcoming features. For more, read TIME’s feature story on Google’s search for its future.

15 Quotes That Take You Inside the Mind of Warren Buffett - Business Insider

15 Quotes That Take You Inside the Mind of Warren Buffett Posted: 20 Nov 2015 12:06 PM PST Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors in history. Today, he has an estimated net worth of over $70 billion, making him the third richest man in the world. From drinking Coke for breakfast to carrying around an old-school flip phone, Buffett has always done things his way. We compiled a few of his best quotes to take you inside his head: Separate yourself from the noise “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” Source: Wiley Always know who you’re dealing with “You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.” Source: Forbes Act with integrity “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Source: Time Keep it simple “It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” Source: The Motley Fool You don’t have to be a genius to invest well “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.” Source: Warren Buffett Speaks, via msnbc.msn Pick the right crowd “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” Source: The Motley Fool If you want to be successful, make reading a habit “I just sit in my office and read all day.” Source: The Week Go against the crowd “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” Source: Letter to shareholders, 2004 Give to those less fortunate “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.” Source: Forbes Some things take time “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” Source: Forbes Bad things aren’t obvious when times are good “After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” Source: Letter to shareholders, 2001 Eat how you please “If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it every day … I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among 6-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a 6-year-old.” Source: Fortune, via Business Insider Don’t forget business basics “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” Source: Letter to shareholders, 2008 Success is not defined by a price tag or number “I measure success by how many people love me.” Source: James Altucher Be confident “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.” Source: goodreads This article originally appeared on Business Insider

33 Questions That Were Asked at Apple Job Interviews

33 Questions That Were Asked at Apple Job Interviews Posted: 20 Nov 2015 11:01 AM PST Apple is known for being one of the most challenging and exciting places to work, so it’s not surprising to learn that getting a job there is no easy task. Like Google and other big tech companies, Apple asks both technical questions based on your past work experience and some mind-boggling puzzles. We combed through recent posts on Glassdoor to find some of the toughest interview questions candidates have been asked. Some require solving tricky math problems, while others are simple but vague enough to keep you on your toes. “Explain to an 8 year old what a modem/router is and its functions.” — At-Home Advisor candidate  “Who is your best friend?” — Family Room Specialist candidate  “If you have 2 eggs, and you want to figure out what’s the highest floor from which you can drop the egg without breaking it, how would you do it? What’s the optimal solution?” — Software Engineer candidate  “Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it.” — Software Engineer candidate  “How many children are born every day?” — Global Supply Manager candidate  “You have a 100 coins laying flat on a table, each with a head side and a tail side. 10 of them are heads up, 90 are tails up. You can’t feel, see or in any other way find out which side is up. Split the coins into two piles such that there are the same number of heads in each pile.” — Software Engineer candidate  “Describe yourself, what excites you?” — Software Engineer candidate  “If we hired you, what do you want to work on?” — Senior Software Engineer candidate  “There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?” — Software QA Engineer candidate  “Scenario: You’re dealing with an angry customer who was waiting for help for the past 20 minutes and is causing a commotion. She claims that she’ll just walk over to Best Buy or the Microsoft Store to get the computer she wants. Resolve this issue.” — Specialist candidate  “How would you breakdown the cost of this pen?” — Global Supply Manager candidate  “A man calls in and has an older computer that is essentially a brick. What do you do?” — Apple Care At-Home Consultant candidate  “Are you smart?” — Build Engineer candidate  “What are your failures, and how have you learned from them?” — Software Manager candidate  “Have you ever disagreed with a manager’s decision, and how did you approach the disagreement? Give a specific example and explain how you rectified this disagreement, what the final outcome was, and how that individual would describe you today.” — Software Engineer candidate  “You put a glass of water on a record turntable and begin slowly increasing the speed. What happens first — does the glass slide off, tip over, or does the water splash out?” — Mechanical Engineer candidate  “Tell me something that you have done in your life which you are particularly proud of.” — Software Engineering Manager candidate  “Why should we hire you?” — Senior Software Engineer candidate  “Are you creative? What’s something creative that you can think of?” — Software Engineer candidate  “Describe a humbling experience.” — Apple Retail Specialist candidate  “What’s more important, fixing the customer’s problem or creating a good customer experience?” — Apple At Home Advisor candidate  “Why did Apple change its name from Apple Computers Incorporated to Apple Inc.?” — Specialist candidate  “You seem pretty positive, what types of things bring you down?” — Family Room Specialist candidate  “Show me (role play) how you would show a customer you’re willing to help them by only using your voice.” — College At-Home Advisor candidate  “What brings you here today?” — Software Engineer candidate  “Given an iTunes type of app that pulls down lots of images that get stale over time, what strategy would you use to flush disused images over time?” — Software Engineer candidate  “If you’re given a jar with a mix of fair and unfair coins, and you pull one out and flip it 3 times, and get the specific sequence heads heads tails, what are the chances that you pulled out a fair or an unfair coin?” — Lead Analyst candidate  “What was your best day in the last 4 years? What was your worst?” — Engineering Project Manager candidate  “When you walk in the Apple Store as a customer, what do you notice about the store/how do you feel when you first walk in?” — Specialist candidate  “Why do you want to join Apple and what will you miss at your current work if Apple hired you?” — Software Engineer candidate  “How would you test your favorite app?” — Software QA Engineer candidate  “What would you want to do 5 years from now?” — Software Engineer candidate  “How would you test a toaster?” — Software QA Engineer candidate

Hillary Still Needs to Define Her Brand of Clintonomics

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Hillary Still Needs to Define Her Brand of Clintonomics

Posted: 16 Nov 2015 06:14 AM PST

Foreign policy is the topic of the moment for the 2016 candidates, given the horror of Paris. But what interested me most about Saturday’s Democratic debate was how Hillary Clinton came under attack from both Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley over whether she had the gumption to stand up to Wall Street, given that she is the Democratic candidate of choice for the financial lobby and has received millions of dollars in campaign donations from financiers. I thought one of the most pointed moments in any Democratic debate so far was when O’Malley said he wouldn’t have either Larry Summers or Bob Rubin on his economic advisory team, as Bill Clinton did, given their role in some of the policies that created and exacerbated the financial crisis of 2008. I keep waiting for Hillary to answer that challenge head on and say, “neither will I.” But so far, she hasn’t.
That’s important because the legacy of Clintonomics, meaning specifically Bill Clintonomics, still needs to be addressed. Bill Clinton put the final nail in the coffin of Glass-Steagall, the Depression Era legislation that separated commercial and investment banking, something that both Sanders and O’Malley would like to see reinstated. I would too, though you can make a fair argument, as Hillary does, that Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have prevented the 2008 meltdown and that the problems within our financial system go way beyond just too big to fail banks. They include shadow banks, insurance companies, money market funds and like.
But that’s not an argument for not limiting the power of the biggest banks, which are bigger and more powerful than before the crisis. And it also doesn’t address the rest of the Summers-Rubin legacy, namely shifts in the tax and executive compensation structure that led to perverse incentives for corporate executives who could now receive pay in options, and manipulate the value of those options by doing more and more share buybacks (which exacerbate inequality) rather than investing in Main Street.
Hillary has said she would look closely at buybacks, but Sanders and others like Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren would like to see them make illegal as they were before 1983. One thing that is becoming clearer and clearer in any campaign discussion of Wall Street is that Hillary is going to have to clearly address her husband’s economic legacy, and clearly state if and how, she’d address the things that he and his advisors did to create a situation in which inequality is growing, wages are stagnating, and growth is more dependent on financial sugar highs than on a healthy Main Street economy.
I think it would be incredibly powerful if Hillary came out and took on that issue directly, and said what her version of Clintonomics would look like, rather than letting Sanders and O’Malley put her on the defensive. It would also answer the question of whether she is truly willing to go against the powerful financial lobby should the country need her to, or not.

Why Europe Needs More Integration to Fight Terror—and All Its Other Problems - TIME

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Why Europe Needs More Integration to Fight Terror—and All Its Other Problems Posted: 17 Nov 2015 08:11 AM PST The European Union, the world’s greatest ever experiment in globalization, was under threat before the Paris attacks: The debt crisis and the influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa, as well as the lack of a cohesive response to either, has threatened the future of a united Europe. Now, the future of European integration is truly at a tipping point. Globalization is commonly defined as the free movement of goods, people, and capital. These days, every single one of those things is under threat in Europe, starting with people. French President François Hollande has understandably imposed stricter border controls in France, and is asking Europe for help monitoring intra-European travel. All that makes sense, but the question is whether it will lead to a breakdown of the Schengen zone, the free travel zone that is at the core of the EU and has led to huge upticks in trade and tourism revenue throughout the Eurozone. It’s easy to see how each country could end up in a hunker down position, closing off individual borders, which would threaten regional trade (the biggest contributor to overall trade in Europe) as well as the movement of people. Combine that with the existing Balkanization of capital flows following the debt crisis (banks simply don’t lend as easily across borders as they used to, because the debt crisis exposed that a Greek or Italian euro isn’t the same as a German one) and you have the makings of a breakdown of European regional integration. It’s no surprise that many politicians, even sensible ones like Germany’s minister of finance Wolfgang Schauble, are using this moment to bash immigration, open borders, and more shared economic policy in Europe. But ironically, the only solutions to the big problems that face the EU is more integration. Europe is at a pivot point in how it responds not only to terror, but to foreign policy as a whole, and economic growth. The European Union was created in good times, but needs to be able to weather bad times. That means that Germany, along with France, has to recommit to the ideal of a truly, deeply politically integrated Europe, not just a superficial economic one. If Europe actually had a common foreign policy, security policy, and fiscal policy, think about how much easier it would be to fight terror—migrants would be tracked and settled much more efficiently, and France wouldn’t have to worry about breaking the EU budget rules to send bombers to Syria since it would by necessity be a pan-European effort. Europe as a whole would be able to present a stronger and more integrated defense of its own social democratic system. Russia would take note. So would many countries in the Middle East. A stronger Europe would be a crucial counter-balance to the rise of state capitalist systems in places like China. The Franco-German alliance was at the center of the post-World War II European integration. A recommitment to that—to the goal of total political integration in Europe—is what’s needed now to solve all the big problems: terror, security, economic growth and stability. Germany’s foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, was sitting right next to Hollande in the Stade de France when the attacks occurred. What an amazing statement it would be now if German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hollande stood together and recommitted in a big way to the Franco-German alliance that made modern Europe—the world’s best ever counterexample to the “clash of civilizations” underscored by the terror attacks—possible.

4 Reasons This Holiday Shopping Season Will Be Different from the Past - Kit Yarrow, Ph.D.

4 Reasons This Holiday Shopping Season Will Be Different from the Past Posted: 17 Nov 2015 03:30 AM PST In many ways, the 2015 holiday season will be similar to the last one—and the one before that, and the one before that. People will stress out about what presents to give family and friends. Sales around Black Friday will attract crowds of crazed shoppers, many of whom will make bad purchasing decisions because of the rushed, pressure-filled atmosphere. And far too many of us will wind up swimming in stuff thanks to generous gift-giving traditions. But in a few ways listed below, the holiday season is changing little by little. 1. Consumers Have Gotten Crafty Thanks to inspiration from visually potent websites like Pinterest and Instagram, Christmas cookies won’t be the only homemade gifts this year. Inspired consumers are whipping up things like homemade jam, crafty earrings, knitted ditties, spice rubs and bath salt concoctions to give as holiday gifts. Those who lack the talent, time or inspiration to create their own homemade gifts will let others do the work and purchase from websites such as Etsy and Handcrafted on Amazon. Why the trend toward the handcrafted gift? It’s the anti-gift card—something unique that feels more personal to the giver and recipient alike. Social media helps the case too: It’s where people get inspiration for gifts to give, and where people share images of what they give and receive. 2. Experiences Are Gaining on Ties and Sweaters Every gift has intangible, experiential components—the anticipation, for instance, or the emotions associated with how the new “thing” will enhance one’s life or boost one’s mood. Ginger, one of the many consumers I’ve interviewed in my field of research, told me she experiences a thrill whenever she looks at the woven gold bracelet her husband gave her the first Christmas they were dating. “Yes, it’s beautiful and I enjoy wearing it in its own right,” Ginger said. “But when I look at it I also remember every bit of the excitement I felt when he gave it to me.” MORE: Why Christmas Creep Turns So Many Shoppers into Grinches Yet when we reach acquisition saturation, the impact of those emotions diminishes. If Ginger’s husband gave her a new bracelet every weekend, none of them would match the emotional resonance of that initial gift. What’s more, many modern-day consumers feel like they simply have too much. The thrill of new has lost its punch. Look at the staggering recent success of a book about decluttering—here’s proof that simplification and stuff-purging is a new religion for some and a message to consider for most. The antidote to more stuff isn’t necessarily no gift-giving whatsoever, but another option: the “experience gift,” which ideally provides the emotional lift of a great tangible gift without baggage. Experiential gifts include spa days, surprise weekend getaways, tickets to a favorite sporting event or concert, lessons in rock-climbing or sculpture, and so on. The one thing they have in common is that none results in more clutter—and hopefully they’re more memorable and fun than just another sweater or piece of electronica. Again, social media provides gift recipients ample opportunity to share (or for some show-off) their experiences, which makes these kinds of gifts feel more permanent and valuable. 3. Virtual and Real Shopping Worlds Unite Consumers won’t be shopping online or in stores this year — they’ll be browsing and buying in both. Shopping is no longer an either/or, which/when equation. Our social, work and entertainment lives have long been a mashup of online and real-world experiences, and this year our virtual and real shopping worlds become as integrated as the rest of our lives. In research that I’ve conducted about technology-enabled shopping, consumers have told me that they wish they could get more of the convenience of online shopping (inventory info, fast check-out, easier searching and social media validation) when they’re in stores. Likewise, when shoppers are online they wish they could get a little more service and a better sense of fit and quality like they do in stores. Many retailers have beefed-up technology in both worlds to satisfy those needs. Since there’s still no substitute for Santa, shoppers will visit malls for that essential wish list chat and photo session. Even people without kids will do some physical shopping to see holiday windows and perhaps enjoy a whiff of pine and all the other traditional allures of the holiday season. Overall, however, foot traffic in shopping centers has been steadily declining during holiday seasons, and it’s expected that trend will continue this year. Mall traffic on any single day will be diluted not only because of more online buying, but also because consumers start their holiday shopping earlier nowadays, and the typical customer goes shopping in shorter bursts as opposed to the marathon days of the past. And it’s the retailers who provide shoppers with exactly what they want—great deals that are easy to buy, and great services available seamlessly online and in-store—that’ll have successful holiday seasons. 4. It’s the Season of Buying, Not Just Giving According to the National Retail Federation, nearly 60% of consumers will buy things for themselves during holiday shopping outings, and the increase in the amount spent on “self-gifting” is expected to outpace the rise in gift purchases this year. There are several reasons why this isn’t just because people are greedy. The holidays have developed a reputation as the best time of the year to buy nearly everything. Consumers tell me they find better merchandise selection, better inventory, and better prices during the holidays. What’s more, shoppers are no longer tied to traditional purchasing seasons. For example, they don’t feel compelled to buy a winter coat in autumn because that’s when stores begin stocking and selling them. Instead, consumers with literally a world of merchandise to choose from year-round increasingly make purchases when the best price and selection arises–and that’s the holiday season. It’s more a case of smart and opportunistic shopping than “self-gifting” in the sense of splurging on oneself. Kit Yarrow, Ph.D., is a consumer psychologist who is obsessed with all things related to how, when and why we shop and buy. She conducts research through her professorship at Golden Gate University and shares her findings in speeches, consulting work, and her books, Decoding the New Consumer Mind and Gen BuY.

Silicon Valley Has Jus Arrived at a Major Turning Point - TIME

Silicon Valley Has Jus Arrived at a Major Turning Point Posted: 12 Nov 2015 07:59 AM PST This year has been an unusual one for corporate finance–record M&A dealmaking, a drought in IPOs–but as 2015 wears on, things are starting to get downright weird. The trend is especially noticeable in the tech industry, where startups have been shunning the IPO market for a few years, hoping instead to tap into mega-rounds of private financing. Only now are they moving into the IPO queue, with Square, Match Group and Atlassian aiming for IPOs by year’s end. The trouble is, they are going public just as public investors are growing finickier. And that’s costing them potential capital. Square now plans to go public with a valuation of about $4 billion, down from the $6 billion valuation it enjoyed during its last private round a year ago. Square is seen as a test case for other tech startups that will likely feel pressure to go public now that the private venture financing is starting to dry up. It’s already setting one not-so-great trend: marking down IPO prices below the exuberant private valuations. Tech companies that have fought for years to stay private may end up wishing they had gone public when the going was good. Elsewhere, there’s a sense that companies are scrambling to do something–anything–to position themselves when the inevitable downturn hits. After years of arguing why it would never split up, HP did just that. HP now says severing itself in two is the best way forward. Even as two of its rivals–Dell and EMC–are moving in the exact opposite direction. The whole tech sector, flush for years with confidence and talk of disruption, suddenly has an air of desperation about it. The Fed will raise interest rates soon, an incremental move that could have an outsize impact on investment strategies. Some tech startups are securing financing where they can, while others are trying to burn less cash. Tech giants are reorganizing, hoping to get a foothold in a promising market like cloud computing. Nothing illustrates just how desperate tech companies are feeling these days than the ambitious merger of Dell and EMC. Valued at $67 billion when it was announced, the Dell-EMC will rank not only as the largest tech M&A in history but also the largest leveraged buyout ever staged to take a company private. To pull it off, the companies need to use creative financing – a polite way of describing a hairily complex deal. Square Inc.'s Timeline | FindTheCompany In addition to new equity from Michael Dell, EMC and Dell have lined up nearly $50 billion in loans from eight banks, an impressive accomplishment given the rising concerns in the corporate lending market and waning demand for high-yield debt tied to mergers. When Dell financed its buyout in 2013, it secured a 4.6% interest rate. Today, that rate could be as high as 7%. Like those tech IPOs, Dell and EMC may have waited too long to make their move. EMC shareholders will get paid in cash as well as shares in a tracking stock of VMware, of which EMC owns 81%. The tracking stock is a controversial provision. It will be “linked to a portion of EMC’s economic interest in the VMware business. Owners of the tracking stock won’t be able to vote and they won’t even own a piece of a company, but of an entity that mimics actual VMware shares. In effect, there will be two stocks for VMware, the one currently trading (and falling, since this deal was announced) and a virtual one given to current EMC shareholders. Confused yet? An excellent (but long) explainer can be found on Andreessen Horowitz’ blog. There are plenty more details, but here is a simple test to gauge the complexity of a financial deal: Is it harder to explain to someone than the plot of Lost? The Dell-EMC merger is. It is much, much easier to explain what the Dharma Initiative did or what exactly that smoke monster was than it is to explain why a tracking stock for VMWare is necessary to help Dell sell cloud computing. Which raises an interesting question about Dell-EMC. Why exactly does the deal need to be this complex? The apparent answer is to better position both companies in a competitive market for enterprise tech. But IT budgets have been dwindling, and cloud computing is favoring a select companies, like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Mega-mergers also distract companies for years while they integrate, a distraction that a more focused company like Microsoft doesn’t face. And there are bound to be layoffs. When Michael Dell and EMC CEO Joe Tucci announced the merger to EMC employees, Dell assured them, “that’s what this is all about, continuing the great innovations and success that you all have created.” When, in a separate call with reporters that same day, someone asked about layoffs, Dell became both vague and tetchy. Layoffs would come in 2016, he said, lecturing reporters this was a “normal course of business.” Then Dell snapped at the reporter, “I think there’s some other companies in our industries that are maybe far better at reducing head count than we are. So maybe jump on their calls.” Shareholders, meanwhile, aren’t thrilled with the deal either. EMC is down 10% since its announcement and VMware is down 23%. None of Dell’s potential rivals are inclined or able to wage a takeover battle, so the merger and buyout is likely to happen, barring any regulatory moves that could complicate it further. So if no one but Michael Dell and Joe Tucci are thrilled with the deal, why is it happening? A clue can be found in the transcript of the announcement to EMC workers. After striding onto a stage, Tucci had a bizarre request. “I’ve never used a selfie stick… where’s that selfie stick?” As the two posed with another EMC executive, Dell had his own request: “Get the logos in here.” That’s right. In announcing the largest tech M&A–and what may be the most complex in structure–the executives brought in a prop that is synonymous with narcissism and self-absorption. In front of employees who may be laid off in a few months–and who weren’t even in the selfie photo that the companies later tweeted. And that image, as much as anything, shows just how weird things have gotten in the world of tech corporate financing this year.

Why Millennials Are Saving at a Younger Age Than Any Other Generation -TIME

Why Millennials Are Saving at a Younger Age Than Any Other Generation Posted: 12 Nov 2015 03:00 AM PST Boomers may have spurred the mutual fund industry, but millennials are embracing it at a far younger age—plunking down their first dollars a decade earlier in life, new research shows. The average age that millennial households started investing in funds is 23, according to the Investment Company Institute. That compares with age 37 for older boomers and 32 for younger boomers. Gen X started at age 26. The latest results echo earlier research from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, which found that millennials began saving at a median age of 22, Gen X at 27, and boomers at 35. Yet it doesn’t tell the whole story. Mutual funds, as we know them today, date to 1928. But their numbers did not soar until the 1980s—well after the first boomers entered the workforce. Those boomers were promised pensions and felt less pressure to save. Meanwhile, to the extent they wanted to invest their own money for long-term growth it was a difficult proposition. Individual stocks were their primary option. The Revenue Act of 1978, with a section called 401(k), changed everything. The oldest boomers were then 32, and it wasn’t long before there was a steady flow into this newfangled product. The 401(k) plan became a gateway to mutual funds and helped take fund assets to $16 trillion today from less than $50 billion in the late 1970s, according to the ICI. Today we have nearly 8,000 mutual funds, compared with fewer than 500 in the mid-1970s. Many boomers seized the opportunity to invest this way as it became available. Today they represent 40% of all mutual fund owning households—the largest share of any generation. Gen X makes up 32%, while millennials make up just 16% of mutual fund owning households, ICI reports. None of this diminishes the impressive job many millennials are doing in getting started early. Eight in 10 millennials say the recession convinced them they must save more now, and more than half are putting away money regularly, according to Wells Fargo. They are taking advantage of their 401(k) plans for tax-deferred growth, using the automatic escalation feature to increase contributions, and target-date funds to remain diversified and practice sound asset allocation. Their early start gives them a huge advantage over boomers: an additional decade of growth that has the potential to double their nest eggs so that they’ll never miss the pension they never had.

Self-Driving Cars Are More Accident-Prone, Study Finds - TIME

Self-Driving Cars Are More Accident-Prone, Study Finds

Posted: 03 Nov 2015 08:58 AM PST

Self-driving cars are getting into accidents at a higher rate than cars driven by humans, according to a new study. However, the new research comes with a laundry list of caveats that indicates that transportation experts are still struggling to ascertain just how safe self-driving cars actually are.
The study, by researchers Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, found that self-driving cars are in accidents at five times the rate of human-controlled cars. However, people often don’t report minor accidents to police. When controlling for that fact, self-driving cars are still twice as likely to get into accidents as regular cars.
The study aggregated data from the self-driving cars being operated by Google, Delphi and Volkswagen. Their vehicles have logged 1.2 million miles traveled, compared to the trillions of annual miles logged by regular cars, according to the study. With a larger data set, it’s possible that the accident rate could be substantially higher or lower.
Still, the data illustrates some early trends. Most of the self-driving vehicles involved in accidents were hit in the rear when they were traveling 5 miles per hour or slower. None were involved in very serious accidents, such as head-on collisions. Google has repeatedly said that the accidents its self-driving cars have been involved in were the result of human error. But self-driving cars’ inability to bend or break traffic laws, as human drivers regularly do, could make their driving habits surprising to others on the road, leading to crashes.

20 Ways to Manage Your Time Bette - Business Insider

20 Ways to Manage Your Time Bette

Posted: 11 Nov 2015 01:01 PM PST

When you’re just starting your career, you need all the help you can get managing your time. Even when you’re working hard, you could be wasting a tremendous amount of time either by trying to multitask or by focusing too much on minute details.

Montreal-based designer Étienne Garbugli has struggled with all of that. But as he’s gotten older, he’s learned how to manage his time and workload more effectively. Today, he’s a consultant and entrepreneur, and recently published his first book, Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want.

Last year, he collected some of his favorite lessons in the SlideShare presentation “26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I’d Known At 20.” In December, SlideShare named it the “Most Liked” presentation of 2013.

Below, we’ve explained some of Garbugli‘s best time-management tips everyone should learn in their 20s.

1. There’s always time. Time is priorities

You never “run out of time.” If you didn’t finish something by the time it was due, it’s because you didn’t consider it urgent or enjoyable enough to prioritize ahead of whatever else you were doing.

2. Days always fill up faster than you’d expect

Build in some buffer time. As the founder of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson said, “Only plan on four to five hours of real work per day.”

3. Work more when you’re in the zone. Relax when you’re not

Some days you’ll be off your game, and other times you’ll be able to maintain your focus for 12 hours straight. Take advantage of those days.

4. Stop multitasking. It kills your focus

There have been academic studies that found the brain expends energy as it readjusts its focus from one item to the next. If you’re spending your day multitasking, you’re exhausting your brain.

5. We’re always more focused and productive with limited time

Work always seems to find a way of filling the space allotted for it, so set shorter time limits for each task.

6. Work is the best way to get working. Start with small tasks to get the ball rolling

The business plan you need to finish may be intimidating at 8 in the morning. Get your mind on the right path with easy tasks, such as answering important work emails.

7. Work iteratively. Expectations to do things perfectly are stifling

Gen. George S. Patton once said, “A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

8. More work hours doesn’t mean more productivity. Use constraints as opportunities

Don’t kid yourself into thinking that sitting at your desk will somehow extract work from you. Do whatever you can to finish your current task by the end of regular work hours instead of working into the night.

9. Separate brainless and strategic tasks to become more productive

Ideally, you can brainstorm your ideas and then execute them. If you’re constantly stopping your flow of work to rethink something, you’re slowing yourself down.

10. Organize important meetings early in the day. Time leading up to an event is often wasted

If you have an important meeting scheduled for 4 p.m., it’s easy for anxiety to set in and keep that meeting at the front of your mind. Try to get them over with early so you can work without worrying about them.

11. Schedule meetings and communication by email or phone back-to-back to create blocks of uninterrupted work

You’ll disrupt your flow if you’re reaching out to people throughout the day.

12. Work around procrastination. Procrastinate between intense sprints of work

Try Francesco Cirillo’s Pomodoro Technique. “Pomodoro” is Italian for “tomato,” and it refers to the tomato-shaped cooking timer Cirillo used to break his work into 25-minute increments with 5-minute breaks in between. You can use the same idea with your own increments, as long as they inspire bursts of hard work.

13. Break down a massive task into manageable blocks

Alabama football coach Nick Saban follows a similar philosophy he calls the Process. Instead of having his players focus on winning the championship, he trains them to focus only on what is directly in front of them — each block, pass, and field goal.

14. No two tasks ever hold the same importance. Always prioritize. Be really careful with to-do lists

Daily to-do lists are effective ways of scheduling your day. Just do what you can to keep bullet points from making “clean desk” on par with “file taxes.”

15. Always know the one thing you really need to get done during the day

To help prioritize, determine what task in front of you is most important, and focus your energy into getting that done as soon as possible.

16. Delegate, and learn to make use of other people

To be truly efficient, get over the fear of handing work off to someone else. “If something can be done 80% as well by someone else, delegate!” says John C. Maxwell, author of How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.

17. Turn the page on yesterday. Only ever think about today and tomorrow

Don’t distract yourself with either the successes or failures of the past. Focus instead on what’s in front of you.

18. Set deadlines for everything. Don’t let tasks go on indefinitely

Spending too much time on a project or keeping it on the backburner for too long will lead to stagnation. Get things done and move on.

19. Always take notes

Don’t assume you’ll remember every good idea that comes into your head during the day. It doesn’t matter if it’s a notebook, whiteboard, or an app like Evernote — just write stuff down.

20. Write down any unrelated thoughts that pop up when you’re in the zone, so that they don’t linger as distractions

You’ll get them out of the way without losing them.

This article originally appeared on Business Insider