Service NSW surcharge scandal sends shudders across jurisdictions
Battle of the billionaires: How a small number of billionaires could swing the US election
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Ireland imposes $335 mn fine on LinkedIn for illegal data practices Bloomberg
A former financial planner who stole $3.3 million from his clients to fund his sports betting addiction has written to the prime minister from his prison cell, urging him to adopt the recommendations made by a parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm.
Latest Australian Taxation Office news stories and updates
Former U.S. President Donald Trump expressed support for bitcoin mining in a Tuesday night meeting with a number of bitcoin miners at Mar-a-Lago, according to a Bloomberg report.
Trump, who has recently taken an active pro-crypto position for the upcoming November election, reportedly told participants that he would advocate for bitcoin mining in the White House, saying that miners contribute to energy grid stability.
This week on the Chanticleer podcast, James and Anthony dive into the drama surrounding two billionaire founders – Richard White and Chris Ellison, interview Wall Street royalty, and poke about in some of Sydney’s primo office real estate.
Listen to the full conversation below, or download the podcast from Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of the Chanticleer podcast are available every Friday at 5pm AEDT.
James: Let’s unpack a huge week for corporate Australia, the ASX investors, and really, anyone with an interest in corporate governance. Two of our rock star founder CEOs, billionaire Rich Listers Richard White and Chris Ellison, have been under the pump all week for separate and quite different corporate scandals.
White – who is now the former CEO of WiseTech – stood down from the board and the CEO role after revelations about his private life and allegations of cultural problems within the WiseTech boardroom.
WiseTech’s Richard White ‘fix’ just creates another problem It’s hard not to suspect this fix provides the appearance of punishment, but shifts White into a role where his influence is just as great.
‘Money in Exchange for Silence’: Behind Neom’s Green Image, Western Firms Cash in on Saudi Commitment to Oil
PR and consulting agencies are being paid millions to focus the world’s attention on a promised “eco-city” — obscuring human rights abuses and Saudi Arabia’s long record of climate obstruction.
Are Russian Spy Agencies Trying to Stoke Anti-US Sentiment in Mexico? According to the FBI, They Are
“The time has come to show the United States that it is under threat from a country of 130 million inhabitants that is finally waking up.” Russia is trying to poison bilateral relations between the Mexico and the US by taking advantage of Mexico’s ruling party Morena’s innate anti-Americanism. That is the conclusion of an […]
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 19, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few.
On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness.
Four highlights from this week: US Government Recovered $4 Billion Worth of Fraud With AI; Deepfakes Can Fool Facial Recognition on Crypto Exchanges; FTC announces rule to make it easier to cancel subscriptions; There’s Never Been a Better Time to Delete Your 23andMe Data. Here’s How to Do It; and For Customs and Border Protection, AI has been a ‘game-changer’
From 1957, this is a drawing of the synergistic strategy of Walt Disney Productions, or what Todd Zenger of Harvard Business Review calls “a corporate theory of sustained growth”.
The boxes on the chart have changed, but since the appointment of Bob Iger as CEO, Disney has seemingly doubled down on Walt’s old strategy with their increased focus on franchises.
Disney’s dominance can be boiled down very simply to one word: franchises. Or rather, an “incessant focus on franchises” in the words of former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo.
“Everything we do is about brands and franchises,” Rasulo told a group of financial analysts last September. “Ten years ago we were more like other media companies, more broad-based, big movie slate, 20 something pictures, some franchise, some not franchise. If you look at our slate strategy now, our television strategy, almost every aspect of the company, we are oriented around brands and franchises.”
Franchises are well suited to extend across multiple parts of a big business like Disney, particularly because it’s a repeating virtuous cycle: movies drive merchandise sales and theme park visits, which in turn drives interest for sequels and spin-offs, rinse, repeat, reboot.
I wonder if more tech companies could be using this strategy more effectively. Apple does pretty well; their various hardware (iPhone, iPad, Mac), software (iOS, OS X), and services (iCloud, App Store, iTunes Store) work together effectively. Microsoft rode Office & Windows for quite awhile. Google seems a bit more all over the place — for instance, it’s unclear how their self-driving car helps their search business and Google+ largely failed to connect various offerings. Facebook seems to be headed in the right direction. Twitter? Not so much, but we’ll see how they do with new leadership. Or old leadership…I discovered Walt’s chart via interim Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
GAO report shows how US schools spent pandemic relief funds, including on better ventilation Center for Infectious Disease Researchj and Policy. “Of the schools visited and surveyed, nearly half (48.2%) said they used the federal relief funds to increase building ventilation. Another 51.7% used funds for physical distancing measures, and 67.1% said they used the funds to enhance cleaning and disinfection practices