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The 49ers' trade for Jimmy Garoppolo is looking more and more like a steal http://ift.tt/2pOs3ZB Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Since taking over as the starting quarterback in Week 13, Garoppolo has been a revelation. In four games, all wins, he's thrown for 1,250 yards, completing 68% of his passes, with four touchdowns, three interceptions, and a 96.2 passer rating. The stats are impressive for a player who had just two starts under his belt when the 49ers acquired him in a trade with the New England Patriots. The Patriots appear to have done right by Garoppolo. Bill Belichick reportedly refused to trade Garoppolo to the Cleveland Browns because he didn't think Garoppolo could flourish there. Instead, he sent him to the similarly quarterback-needy 49ers to work with Kyle Shanahan, who previously turned Matt Ryan into an MVP with the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots are also paying the price for dealing Garoppolo. The Patriots reportedly saw Garoppolo as a future franchise quarterback, but Tom Brady's insane longevity held up turning the team over to him. With an awkward timeline to juggle — and very little leverage, with Garoppolo hitting free agency in 2018 – the Patriots traded Garoppolo to the 49ers for a second-round pick. The Patriots have had success with second-round picks, but Garoppolo and the 49ers' winning ways keep diminishing the value of the pick. The 49ers were winless when they acquired Garoppolo, but they've now won five of their last six games, turning the second-round pick that goes to the Patriots into the 39th overall pick. Another win in Week 17 could push the pick down further. There's also the question of how much sand is left in Brady's hourglass. Brady hasn't shown any significant signs of slowing down, but at 40, he only has so many years left. The Patriots will certainly carefully look into future replacements, with the hope that that replacement can learn under Brady for several years, but it undoubtedly hurts to see their first planned replacement quarterback excelling elsewhere. Of course, four games is a small sample size, and the 49ers aren't playing for much. Defenses will adjust to Garoppolo, but thus far, he's shown qualities of being a franchise quarterback. In Week 16, Garoppolo helped the 49ers shred the Jacksonville Jaguars, the NFL's best defense, 44-33. The Jaguars had not conceded more than 30 points in a season, yet it was Garoppolo, who threw two touchdowns and dove for one himself, who exposed them. He's Brady-esque in the pocket but his mobility gives him more of a playground style than his former mentor. And as SB Nation's Geoff Schwartz noted, Garoppolo already excels at looking off the defense and then throwing the other way. Garoppolo will be expensive for the 49ers this offseason. They'll have the option to give him the franchise tag, but his strong play over the last four weeks only gives him more leverage in contract negotiations. However, with an offseason to further learn the offense, plus more help on both sides of the ball, there's reason to believe Garoppolo can improve. To land a franchise quarterback with a second-round pick has been worth it for the 49ers, and perhaps a tough pill for the Patriots to swallow. NOW WATCH: JIM ROSS: Hulk Hogan will make a huge comeback to the WWE in 2018 — here's why See Also:
SEE ALSO: The biggest NFL Draft busts of the last 15 years Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB December 28, 2017 at 01:18PM
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The IRS warns homeowners that prepaying property taxes this year could be a waste of time12/28/2017
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The IRS warns homeowners that prepaying property taxes this year could be a waste of time http://ift.tt/2E7xtlf Evan Vucci/AP
Only homeowners whose property taxes have been assessed in 2017 are allowed to prepay next year's taxes, the IRS said. Property tax assessments usually occur annually to determine the value of a person's property, which is then used to calculate how much that person will pay in taxes. State and local law determines whether and when a property is assessed, which is when a taxpayer becomes liable for the property tax. Municipalities around the US this week have seen a surge in homeowners prepaying their property taxes as they brace for a major change in deductions from the Republican tax law that will take effect Monday. The new law caps state and local tax deductions at $10,000. High-income individuals who itemize their deductions in mostly high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California will be affected. Currently, beneficiaries of the deduction enjoy no limit, but that will soon change. Homeowners whose property taxes are more than $10,000 — and not subject to the alternative minimum tax — could save money by paying next year's property tax bill by Sunday, the day before the new law takes effect, if their local government takes it. For those able to claim the deduction when filing their 2017 taxes, the savings will be worth the effort. But as homeowners rushed to cash in on the loophole in the days after President Donald Trump signed the GOP tax bill into law, confusion ensued. Fairfax County in Virginia, for example, collected nearly $16 million in tax prepayments on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. After the IRS announcement, officials in that county might now have to devise a reimbursement plan to return money that isn't eligible for early payment. "We don't know the full impact of that [IRS] statement yet," county spokesman Jeremy Lasich told The Post. "We're still studying that." NOW WATCH: Megyn Kelly: 'I regret a lot' of the controversial stuff I've said See Also:
SEE ALSO: Andrew Cuomo is waging an all-out assault on the GOP tax law DON'T MISS: Before you rush to prepay your property tax bill, make sure the IRS will allow the deduction Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB December 28, 2017 at 01:18PM The Toyota Prius is one of the most important cars of the past 20 years here's a look back12/28/2017
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The Toyota Prius is one of the most important cars of the past 20 years — here's a look back http://ift.tt/2zIqY56 Toyota
The Ford Model T — and the Toyota Prius. Sorry, Mustang. Sorry, Corvette. Sorry, Tesla Model S. The Ford Model T created the mass-market motorcar. And the Prius perfected it for the 20th century. The Prius is now 20 years old. It went on sale in Japan in December of 1997. And as Wards Auto pointed out:
That's impressive. And after two decades of dominance, the Prius might be heading for decline, as hybrids are surpassed by all-electric cars. Still, the Prius remains the Prius — homely, sincere, and an unlikely blockbuster. Here's a look back: The first-generation Prius wasn't much to look at. Years of high-development at Toyota yielded a tricked out Echo compact sedan with a new powerplant and an odd name.ToyotaBut consumers loved the thing. The gas-electric drivetrain posted awesome fuel economy and minimal emissions. A snazzier second-gen Prius arrived in 2003. At about $25,000, it was priced to move (even though Toyota lost thousands on each car).Wikimedia Commons2009 brought the third-generation — considered by the Prius-scenti to be the definitive example.ToyotaSee the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also:
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Using The Power Of Sports To Grow Your Brand And Business http://ift.tt/2Dt93Sn For those who don't know me, I am a sports fanatic. Literally. Live and breathe it and have since I was a wee little lad. I have always held the belief that the world of sports and business/brands share many traits and there is much to be learned from the world of sports when it comes to the world of marketing/business and so on. I've had the honor of interviewing some legendary sports figures including a Hall of Fame, Super-Bowl winning quarterback and a Hall of Fame, Super-Bowl winning wide receiver, who shared many lessons they learned between the lines that transcend into our world of marketing quite seamlessly. Not long ago I spoke with someone with a different perspective on the world of sports and marketing and how the two interact, Kelvin Joseph, the CMO of Steiner Sports — a company that specializes in helping companies from new startups to Fortune 500s use the power of sports to grow their business. They do this via many capabilities including talent procurement, turnkey event production, brand activation and promotion and more. As part of the Omnicom Group the core of Steiner Sports’ value proposition allows companies to leverage its expertise, existing relationships, and $25 million annual athlete procurement spend to create marketing efficiencies, and maximize limited marketing budgets. We covered a lot of ground during our chat including how much has changed since 1987, the year Steiner Sports was founded and how his own financial background helps in his role of CMO. Steve Olenski: When we spoke on the phone you told me of a change going on at the brand. Can you elaborate on what those changes are? Kelvin Joseph: Some CMOs want to avoid the word “rebranding.” When you are the world leader in a category it becomes your identity. That is not a bad thing. For example, Amazon.com was happy to be the place to buy books as they disrupted an entire industry in their infancy. Do you think of them as an online bookstore now? Did they rebrand? They leveraged what they were good at to expand and evolve. We did the exact same thing in sports. Steiner Sports is still the leading producer of authentic hand-signed sports memorabilia, but it’s not a stretch to believe Steiner Sports’ value proposition now allows companies to leverage its expertise, existing relationships, and $25 million annual athlete procurement spend to create marketing efficiencies, and maximize limited marketing budgets. Olenski: What was the impetus to make these changes? Joseph: We’re entering a new era of digital transformation where creating value for the customer and transforming the customer experience has become very important for growth. Change is unavoidable, so if you are not growing then you are shrinking! We realized that meeting a celebrity and getting a picture that could be shared on social media has a higher value and business use than an autograph. Many corporations are using tickets to live sporting events in their client entertainment, and making big bets on sponsorships as part of their marketing plans. Steiner Sports determines what sports marketing strategy will benefit the company the most, providing access to the right athletes and sports properties at the right time, negotiating contracts for the best deals, and measuring and analyzing results to ensure ROI.
Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://ift.tt/dTEDZf December 28, 2017 at 01:17PM
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A California Company Believes It Has Invented a Viable Marijuana Breathalyzer http://ift.tt/2lgp8nx While consumers, entrepreneurs and local governments welcome the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, it’s been something of a headache for law enforcement. One key issue is the lack of a standardized procedure to determine whether someone is driving under the influence of cannabis. It’s a complex problem to tackle. For example, having marijuana in the bloodstream doesn’t translate to being impaired, because marijuana stays in the bloodstream for days. And the “smell test” isn’t going to work, as marijuana smoke can linger for hours. Even scientists disagree on what constitutes impaired, and local laws are all over the place on the issue. Enter Hound Labs of Oakland, Calif. Related: The Year Ahead: Cannabis Legalization in 2018 Breath Test innovationThe Golden State will begin recreational marijuana sales on Jan. 1. It’s expected to become one of the world’s largest legal adult-use marijuana markets (at least until Canada makes it legal across the nation this summer, as expected). For law enforcement officials, there are understandable worries about what this will mean in terms of patrolling roads. Without a standardized test for marijuana DUI, officers will be handcuffed on what they can do, no matter what they might suspect. Hound Labs believes the answer is in the breath. The company has developed a breathalyzer than can detect levels of THC. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana that causes the “high” feeling. The company argues that THC levels in the breath are the best indication of impairment from marijuana. Hound Labs is testing the third and potentially final version of the machine now. “It’s a huge technological and scientific challenge that we had to overcome,” Hound Labs CEO Mike Lynn told NBC News. Related: Cannabis Advocates Want 'Unjust' Federal Tax Code Changed Potential Big BusinessThere’s a small – potentially large – business angle to the story, as well. Hound Labs hopes to have the final version of the breathalyzer on the market by the second quarter of 2018. The potential market includes not just law enforcement agencies, who Lynn said have been lighting up the company’s phones in recent weeks. Hound Labs also wants to market the product to marijuana consumers. That way, people can check their own level of impairment before getting behind the wheel. The cost is expected to be in the $500 to $1,000 range per unit. There’s already competition. Cannabix Technologies is currently working with the Yost Research Group at the University of Florida on a “cutting edge breath detection device” to determine levels of marijuana impairment. Of course, developing technology to determine THC levels is not the same as writing a law that states what level constitutes impairment. Lawmakers have their work cut out as research is mixed on the issue. In some cases, no correlation has even been found between marijuana use and an increased likelihood of causing an accident. To stay up to date on the latest marijuana related news make sure to like dispensaries.com on Facebook Related: Business via Entrepreneur: Latest Articles http://ift.tt/1V7CpeP December 28, 2017 at 01:14PM
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How Apple can rebuff Amazon’s growing Alexa threat in 2018 http://ift.tt/2C6P6EE ANALYSIS: When Amazon debuted Alexa back in 2014, it hardly looked like a threat to Apple’s established “personal digital assistant” Siri. Four years earlier, Apple bought Siri for $200 million, debuting the iPhone 4S in 2011 as the first phone with an AI assistant. Everyone expected Siri to improve over time. Instead, Siri’s cofounders left Apple, and Siri bounced from one Apple executive to another, and then another, stumbling forward as Alexa smoothly plowed ahead. To Apple’s partial credit, Siri hasn’t been standing still: it speaks more languages and reaches more countries than Alexa, while spanning five Apple platforms and various CarPlay vehicles. But as a user experience, Siri has a deservedly bad rep: it has continued to disappoint people for years, and long ago became a “joke” within the AI industry. Even frequent Siri users openly admit to its many shortcomings. Yesterday, I took a deep dive on how Amazon surpassed Siri by adding third-party Alexa Skills, varied Alexa device price points, and Alexa-direct Amazon ordering abilities. If you believe that AI assistants are key to the future of computing, it’s fair to conclude that Alexa poses an existential threat to both Apple and Microsoft, which have struggled to create AI services as strong as their hardware and software. Apple could turn things around in 2018 with a three-part approach to bolstering Siri: the price of entry, quality of services, and quantity of services. 1. Lowering the price of entry with more devicesFollowing the debut and abrupt discontinuation of iPod Hi-Fi a decade ago, no one asked Apple to release another $350 speaker. Apple once explained that it chose that price to rest above popular Bose and Altec Lansing speakers, but below poor-selling “audiophile” speakers from companies such as Klipsch. Yet the consumer electronics industry has known for a long time that $300 is a magic number for mass adoption, and that each $50 decrease brings lots more customers to the table. Putting aside Apple’s repeated claims about “reinventing home audio” with its speakers, the company needs products that appeal to the bulk of the market, not self-proclaimed audiophiles. And having forfeited 2016 and 2017 to Amazon, which isn’t standing still, Apple can’t wait several years to roll out additional devices. It needs to move quickly. Apple’s decision to stop making routers suggests that the company thinks it’s above using engineering and design resources on products that won’t contribute gigantic profits immediately to its bottom line, regardless of the number of customers they attract or retain. That sort of thinking has created big opportunities for volume- rather than profit-focused companies such as Amazon. If Apple — the world’s largest company — can’t spare the resources to make an affordable new Siri product, it could roll out the full version of Siri to its least expensive device, the $150 Apple TV. Or Apple could drop the price of an existing “full Siri” device, such as the iPod touch. But will that really work, particularly given how much Apple has downplayed these products in its lineup? The better option would be to create a brand new “full Siri” product to hit a lower price point, and for once, let insane margins be damned. It goes without saying that Apple could sell millions of units of a $100 Siri speaker roughly akin to the popular Echo Dot, or a $150 Siri alarm clock like the Echo Spot, even while each commands a solid premium over Amazon’s version. Just like the iPod shuffle, this sort of “inexpensive” product wouldn’t need to be Apple’s flagship — just something to get new customers in the door, and let existing customers have an affordable way to spread Apple products across their homes. 2. Improving the quality and depth of Siri servicesApple doesn’t have a choice on this one: if it doesn’t markedly improve Siri’s quality of services this year, even affordable new Siri devices won’t be able to compete with Alexa. Whether it’s due to Siri team departures, bad licensing deals, or other factors, it’s clear that bad things have been going on behind the scenes with Siri’s cloud-based “brain.” Far too often, the service is unable to respond reliably to certain requests, only in part because it’s misinterpreting words it previously understood. What’s the point of an AI assistant if you have to repeat yourself several times, then give up due to failure? Apple did a good job in 2017 of making Siri’s voices sound smoother, and it continues to lead the AI assistant world in multilingual support. But Siri continues to have problems processing common natural language requests. You might ask it to play a song by an artist, only to hear it dial a phone contact with a similar name. Or you might ask for directions to a restaurant, then see it display map or even web results for something completely unrelated. There are so many problems with the way Siri parses requests, it’s hard to know where to begin fixing them. The key areas that Apple needs to work on are properly directing requests for assistance to the right features, making smarter context-aware decisions about what someone likely means within an area of Siri expertise, and offering a full tree of actions a user can intuitively request at any time. When you ask Siri to read you an article from VentureBeat, it should know to go out on the web, search the site’s headlines (either through a search engine or the site itself), and offer you a chance to confirm which of several options you’d like to hear. Right now, “read me the latest article from VentureBeat” leads to the response, “Here are some tweets,” with permutations of the question leading to various comically wrong directions. It wouldn’t hurt for Siri to have a better personality, either. Apple needs to make an executive decision about who Siri is supposed to be — friendly, somewhat sassy, or downright sarcastic — and implement it. Right now, Siri’s rare sparks of humor sound like barbs tossed by an unhappy IT guy, and no one likes an unhappy IT guy. Alexa is similarly awkward when it tosses out lame jokes, but at least it doesn’t sound bitter. 3. Increasing the quantity and diversity of Siri servicesPart of Siri’s problem is correctly doing what it’s supposed to do; the other part is that it can’t handle so many things people would reasonably expect it to do. At one point, Siri seemed to be on the right track. If you asked it for historical, scientific, or math assistance, it pulled data — somewhat robotically, but generally accurately — from Wolfram Alpha. Today, Siri’s answer to the question, “who’s the President of the United States,” might come from a Google web search, a Wikipedia entry, or “Siri Knowledge.” On a positive note, Siri can point you to information from several sources. Unfortunately, Siri’s list of sources is short, and it frequently just points in another service’s direction, leaving you to find the information you want by yourself. This is particularly awful in a car, where you can’t read the screen. The key to fixing this issue is forming different kinds of partnerships. For primary sources — the ones Siri taps without requiring you to install third-party apps or hooks — imagine if Apple reached out to indie services to make Siri a cultural authority. For instance, Siri might tap Genius for insights into song lyrics, Vimeo for surfacing videos, Pinterest for decorating suggestions, or Uncrate for men’s shopping trends. This would go a long way towards humanizing Siri’s output. Second, Apple needs to get third-party developers signed up to create equivalent or superior versions of Alexa’s Skills, which already boast over 25,000 options. So far, Apple’s alternative SiriKit doesn’t appear to be off to a good start on the development side, and SiriKit for HomePod is now surprisingly limited as it requires sending HomePod requests to an iOS device for processing. On the user-facing side, Amazon makes adding Alexa Skills easier than Apple makes downloading iMessage stickers. That should be Apple’s goal for Siri, as well. That’s all nice, but what will Apple actually do?Apple apologists routinely suggest that mere mortals shouldn’t dare tell Apple what to do. Despite decades of naysaying, Apple’s now the world’s largest company and has insane profit margins. From that perspective, even if Siri is deeply flawed while Alexa’s increasingly impressive, Echo speaker sales seem unlikely to hurt Apple’s sales or hugely impede its path forward. But is that view wise for the long term? Apple once knocked industry giants IBM and Microsoft for misunderstanding the “personal” dimension in computing. They took decades to crumble in the public’s estimation, but crumble they did, making room for friendlier computers and apps created by Apple. Similarly, if Apple keeps dithering while voice-controlled, AI-assisted computing matures, while players like Amazon (and Google) keep winning over customers, the competitive landscape could soon look even worse for Siri than it does right now. I don’t expect Apple to sit on its hands this year. History suggests that HomePod will appear in a “close but still not quite right” form by the end of March 2018 — unless Apple opts to delay it again for strategic reasons, which isn’t impossible. I would expect to hear about major improvements to both Siri and SiriKit soon before HomePod’s release, with more announcements at WWDC in June 2018. It’s unclear whether Apple will fast-track a more affordable Siri speaker for release under its own label, or the Beats brand, by year’s end. I would love to see Apple parlay its iPod touch and Apple Watch expertise into a dedicated bedside clock like the Echo Spot, but that might be too to expect. Apple’s development teams typically require two or more years to take a product from concept to release, so if something wasn’t already well through development last year, it’s not coming this year. An affordable iPod touch could serve almost the same purpose without demanding design and engineering resources. The risk to Apple is straightforward: If Siri continues to lag behind Alexa in functionality and ubiquity around the home, Apple’s competitors will continue to expand their footprints with Apple users. If there isn’t a much more affordable Siri device on the market by the end of 2018, you can expect to see Amazon and Google dominating the holiday App Store charts next year, just as they did this year. Until then, I’ll be enjoying my Echo Spot, and slowly but surely becoming more invested in Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem. Business via VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com December 28, 2017 at 01:07PM
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10 Best Cars of the Year for the Smart and Discerning Entrepreneur http://ift.tt/2BPWkIU After a full year of testing cars and trucks, I've decided to look back at which vehicles (all 2018 models) impressed me the most and stood out from the pack. Each one of these picks involved a full week of testing to find out which features were the most compelling. 1. Alfa Romeo Giulia ($37,995)A fantastic sedan for your morning commute, the Giulia just feels "right" when you drive it--responsive, low to the ground, smooth around corners. I drove both the 505-horsepower Quadrifoglio version and the base model and both felt snappy and fun. 2. Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk ($43,295)A rip-roaring 707-horsepower engine means you can merge into traffic quickly on your commute. The Grand Cherokee Trackhawk has a dial you can use for traction control in mud or on snow. My favorite feature: It's the fastest SUV ever made and goes 0-60 in 4.3 seconds. 3. Audi A4 Allroad ($44,500)A wonderfully trim wagon, the A4 Allroad has a 252-horsepower turbocharged engine, a stunning display above the steering wheel that shows Google Earth maps, and enough space in the hatch on luggage rack for all of your gear if you decide to go off-road. 4. Chevy Bolt EV ($37,495)An all-electric for people who don't own a bank, the Bolt EV is surprisingly sporty, pushing your head back when you drop the accelerator from a full-stop. You can drive it 238 miles on one charge. The car will charge automatically at home based on the GPS coordinates when you park and hook-up. 5. Lexus LC ($92,000)This stylish and sporty coupe has a 471-horsepower V8 engine and looks stunning, angled from back to front for the sleekest drive. The LC has a hefty growl, the kind that turned heads during my week-long test. Inside, the hand-selected material is hand-stitched. 6. Volvo S90 ($48,100)Volvo's top model, the S90 has plenty of room for your whole team, especially in the back where there's more legroom than a BMW 5 Series. The tech is a showcase for modern automotive design, keeping you in the lane automatically and at a set speed. 7. Lincoln Continental ($45,160)Another business sedan, the Continental uses a twin-turbo engine, won't slip around on the road in winter thanks to an AWD power-train, and has a 400-horsepower engine. I liked the refinements and styling, but I really liked the comfortable seats for long drives. 8. VW Golf Alltrack ($25,850)The Golf Alltrack is a versatile wagon that gets a nice 32-miles-per-gallon on the highway. I tested one on a camping trip, packed to the gills. A handy new off-road gauge shows you the angle of the rocky terrain; the AWD gripped tightly on loose gravel and dirt. 9. Ford F-150 Raptor ($50,020)The redesigned F-150 is really nice, but the rugged Raptor version has something even more unique--a powerful 450-horsepower engine, a new design with huge block letters on the front grille, and enough torque to pull a tree stump out of the ground like butter. 10. Infiniti Q60 ($38.950)An amazingly sleek coupe, the Q60 has all of the tech perks you'd expect from Infiniti including automated steering and lane-keeping. Yet, it's sleek, low to the ground, and has a 400-horsepower twin-turbo engine for extra punch and an interior that's lush and streamlined. Business via Inc.com https://www.inc.com/ December 28, 2017 at 01:00PM
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NFL QB Power Rankings: Where all 32 starting QBs stand heading into the final week http://ift.tt/2zHs4y5 Jim Rogash/Getty Using a loose formula, we ranked all 32 NFL starting quarterbacks. Our formula is based on two advanced statistics: Football Outsiders' DYAR metric and ESPN's total QBR metric. We also considered other factors, including recent performance and job security. With a few teams resting their starters for Week 17, most quarterbacks gained at least a couple of places from the last installment of this list. Still, Jimmy Garoppolo and Joe Flacco got significant bumps, while Derek Carr and DeShone Kizer are down. Below, find out where the rest of the starters stand. 32. T.J. Yates, Houston TexansLogan Bowles/GettyRanking after Week 14: 31 Record as starter: 0-2 DYAR rank: N/A QBR rank: N/A One thing to know: This veteran has actually looked significantly worse than Tom Savage since taking over the Texans' starting job, but let's be honest: their season ended the minute Deshaun Watson tore his ACL ahead of Week 9. Yates has a 68.6 passer rating, and it would be even lower if not for a catch-of-the-year snag by DeAndre Hopkins on Christmas. 31. Paxton Lynch, Denver BroncosRobert Reiners/GettyRanking after Week 14: N/A (replacing Trevor Siemian, No. 30) Record as starter: 0-1 DYAR rank: N/A QBR rank: N/A One thing to know: Lynch is getting the start over Brock Osweiler, but neither quarterback is likely to figure into Denver's long-term plans at the position. Still, a good performance could put this Memphis product in line for second-string duty in 2018. After throwing for just 41 yards on 14 attempts in his only other appearance this season, there's nowhere to go but up. 30. Sean Mannion, Los Angeles RamsWesley Hitt/GettyRanking after Week 14: N/A (replacing Jared Goff, No. 9) Record as starter: N/A DYAR rank: N/A QBR rank: N/A One thing to know: With Jared Goff and the rest of the Rams stars resting up for the postseason, Mannion is set to make the first start of his NFL career. The third-year signal caller has thrown just 16 passes as a pro, but he had a great college career at Oregon State. See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB December 28, 2017 at 12:54PM
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SoftBank will buy at least 15% of Uber shares at a huge discount from the original $69 billion valuation http://ift.tt/2C5fLl9 Getty
The car-ride company was last privately valued at $69 billion, but SoftBank is offering to buy shares from investors and employees at a price that places the company's value at $48 billion, the company confirmed to Business Insider. "SoftBank offered to purchase shares from existing investors at an implied valuation of around $48 billion. As part of the overall transaction, were the tender offer to be successful, they will also invest purchase at least $1 billion of shares at our last round's valuation of approximately $69 billion," an Uber spokesman told Business Insider in a statement. The Wall Street Journal reports that Uber employees and investors are offering up as much as 20% of the company for sale, even at SoftBank's discounted price. However, the report indicates that SoftBank may only choose to buy up enough to gain a 15% stake in the company. Also, employees could choose not to sell before SoftBank's offer expires at noon Pacific Time on Thursday. With Uber's initial public offering not expected to come before 2019, many early Uber investors are eager to cash in some of their shares in what has become the world's most valuable privately held tech startup. However, as Recode recently reported, there was some discontent among Uber investors as to whether or not SoftBank's price was too low. The investment would mark the latest massive investment by SoftBank's $93 billion Vision Fund. It had been previously reported that any investment from SoftBank would also entail reforms to how Uber is governed and run — a hot-button issue after a year that saw a crisis of management at Uber that eventually led to the resignation of cofounder and CEO Travis Kalanick. It's not immediately clear if those reforms will be put in place following this deal. NOW WATCH: Uber created a fake 'city' to test out its self-driving cars See Also:
SEE ALSO: 'The most important Apple executive you've never heard of' is now also Apple's 2nd-best paid Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB December 28, 2017 at 12:54PM The Driver Of Innovation: Environment Or People? http://ift.tt/2BOnsbo Society loves to typecast people. It wants to stick you in a box and keep you there, especially true when it comes to careers. For most of my career, I’ve worked in business and worked as a writer simultaneously. Somedays, I feel more like a writer, other days I’m a business nut. But every day both are an inextricable part of my personality. I am not one or the other; I am both. Few people accept this reality; it’s like the mind can’t compute you could feasibly be both. My de facto introduction is either as a consultant or a writer, but never both. Atul Gawande is a better example. He is both a writer and a medical practitioner. He’s achieved more in writing than many full-time writers do in a lifetime. And yet, when he’s introduced, he’s more often introduced as a doctor who also happens to have this cute little side hobby as a writer. But that isn’t accurate either. He is a practicing surgeon, has written three books (nominated as a National Book Award finalist), and publishes regularly in The New Yorker. He has advised on health care policy, has served the World Health Organization, and has received multiple awards for his ongoing civic contributions to the state of Massachusetts, where he lives. And - because he apparently has more time - he also likes to read. Gawande’s accomplishments are intimidating. How could one person conceivable contribute so prolifically to such a broad range of areas? Where Do Good Ideas Comes From? I recently read Steven Johnson’s book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (Penguin Group, 2010). “Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.” Ideas, Johnson argues, depend on the right environment. Johnson offers seven environmental components that generate innovative ideas:
The best environment for these principles to go into effect, according to Johnson, is in a non-market / networked environment. In other words, an environment in which there are no immediate economic incentives and where ideas can easily collide. That though is only half of the equation. The other half, in my opinion, depends on people. The “T-Shaped” Man In business literature, there have been a number of theories on the characteristics of the ideal employee. A prevailing idea, estimated to have been developed by McKinsey in the 1980s, and then popularized by IDEO’s Tim Brown, is the notion of the “T-Shaped Man.” The T-Shaped Man is an employee who has a skill-set comprised of one area of expertise (represented by the tail of the ‘T’) coupled with a shallower knowledge of a great many other subjects areas (represented by the hat of the ‘T’) Such a schematic allow for optimal collaboration and innovation. The T-Shaped Man had evolved from an “I.” An “I” represented workers who offered specialization in only one silo-ed subject area. The T-Shaped Man moved away from hyper-specialized models of times past. As the economy evolved and technology accelerated change, the T-Shaped Man could pivot more easily from topic to topic. They would cross-pollinate ideas. The T-Shaped Man was the future. We are now in that future. And from what I’ve witnessed the T-Shaped Man has taken on an evolution of its own: today the T-Shaped Man has developed offspring in multiple different shapes and sizes. Most workers today fit into the mold of the T-Shaped Man, but their ‘Ts’ look very different. Some are tall and thin with very long stems and tiny hats; while others are mushroom-like, with short stems and heavy hats. I am a short and fat ‘T’. I have both knowledge and interest in a very broad range of topics. I also have depth in two topics, writing and business, which makes my stem a little fatter, but I’ve also only been in the game for about ten years, so it's a little shorter. I am a top-heavy, mushroom. I naturally gravitate to wanting to know a little about a lot of things rather than knowing a lot about a few things. For the first half of my working life, I tried to retrofit myself into the model of a skinny ‘T’. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t interested in developing a specific niche or expertise. My interest in a broad range of topics felt like a burden, or a nuisance rather, that distracted me from deepening my core knowledge. I had friends who loved to mine the depths of a particular topic, while I seemed plagued by an interest to accumulate a broader and seemingly disparate knowledge base. I deeply wanted to be a tall and thin ‘T’, but my fate seemed sealed as a stout one instead. For a long time I felt this was a shortcoming. Until I came across Atul Gawande. I finally felt I found someone who seemed to be of the same species. Nevermind that Gawande seems to be a specimen of inordinate achievement, he still provided a model I could recognize. For the first time I felt like I could relate to someone's seemingly disparate set of interests and accomplishments. Maybe there was a use-case for my skill-set after all. Different industries require different types of ‘Ts’. Consulting, venture capital, and writing are all examples of industries that favor one area of expertise applied to a very broad range of subjects. Industry, on the other hand, tends to over-index on deep experience and expertise. But to function optimally, all industries need both types of ‘Ts’. Corporations have a tendency to want to mold all their employees into the same shape and size, like a “Stepford Wives” factory. In my experience though, the most fruitful collisions are usually the ones that occur between opposites types of ‘Ts’. Innovation happens when a very wide ‘T’ bumps into a tall ‘T’. Wide ‘Ts’ are prone to collision, and left to their own devices will create organic collision with whoever is nearby. This can only occur if corporations keep a healthy roster of all types of ‘Ts’. Corporations that don't risk suffocating innovation. The ongoing tug-of-war between specialization and breadth extends beyond business. You see it in education, healthcare, and in media to name a few. How, as a society, do we value one over the other? The applications for specialization are usually more evident. Breadth is rewarded only when we can attribute it with results; Steve Jobs’s interest in computers and calligraphy is the oft-cited example. To operate optimally, and more importantly to innovate, an organization needs the right people over the right environment. People can overcome a bad environment, but this isn't true of the inverse. Corporations that function most effectively are ones that harbor people with both breadth and depth. Breadth and depth, though, are relative. The value of one is worthless without the other. Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://ift.tt/dTEDZf December 28, 2017 at 12:48PM |
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