Billionaires funding research into the issues that plague the world's poor is no longer a new phenomena; Bill Gates may be the best-known of the lot but he's hardly alone.

But even among the philanthropically-inclined, pledging 99% of your wealth to benefit the world's poor is impressive - and unprecedented, at least among the American billionaire circle.

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As COP21 opened in Paris today (30 November), Bill Gates announced the “Breakthrough energy coalition” uniting the efforts of two dozens of other billionaire philanthropists such as Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos to sponsor energy that doesn’t produce carbon.

Gates will be present in Paris together with US President Barack Obama, the White House reported to be familiar and supportive of the initiative.

Within the last decade a growing number of countries have adopted some form of “patent box” or “innovation box” into their tax codes. So named because they can take the form of a check box on a corporate tax form, these policy innovations generally give companies a significantly lower tax rate on profits generated through patents, research, innovation, or other creative activity.  Because the United States competes with these countries in a global market where capital and labor are increasingly mobile, it is important that lawmakers add an innovation box to U.S. corporate tax law. Otherwise, the United States will continue to lose global economic competitiveness, especially in innovation-based industries, and the jobs and economic activities that go with that.  And with the implementation of the OECD base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) package, other nations will likely insist on transfer of tangible economic activity from the United States in order to take advantage of their lower rates.  

In this day and age, you can easily share photos through Dropbox, notes in Evernote, or spreadsheets via Google Drive with anyone. But good luck helping two doctors at two different hospitals to see the same patient records online. Instead, when a patient goes to a medical center for the first time, they often have to repeat tests they've undergone before—such as a computerized tomography (CT) scan, which uses X-ray technology to produce cross-sectional images of the body.

More firms choosing buyouts over IPOs (Wall Street Journal)

An increasing number of firms are choosing to exit with a buyout instead of an IPO.

Firms are "deciding the safer way to cash out is to find an acquirer," the Wall Street Journal reports.

"US companies are dropping IPOs and selling themselves at the highest rate in three years, underscoring the gap between volatile financial markets and a booming merger business," The Journal says.

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Teenagers love to feign excitement over a gift and then rush to return it. In turn, they tend to get a lot of gift cards. But where's the fun in that? 

There's an ocean of cool gifts that teens are pining for, plus a few they don't even know they want.

Below, we've found 17 quality presents that adolescents might genuinely want. 

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On Monday, nearly 150 world leaders convened in Paris for the potentially landmark United Nations Climate Change Conference. For the first time since the the UN began its climate change talks, the conference will attempt to achieve a universal and legally binding agreement on how to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from every nation in the world. In conjunction with this historic conference, President Obama has announced the Mission Innovation climate change initiative, which will significantly accelerate clean energy research and development in the private and public sectors. The ambitious initiative is a perfect launching point for the even more ambitious global agreement on how to fight climate change. Here is everything you need to know about the Mission Innovation climate change initiative.

The most important asset of any business is its people. Innovative products and services may give a business a temporary competitive advantage, but an innovative workforce will sustain its success.

Increasingly, companies are recognising that innovation doesn’t only happen through investment in R&D — it also involves people across the company identifying and acting on innovation opportunities.

Today in Paris, President Obama and French President Hollande, along with a wide range of other top global leaders, will announce “Mission Innovation,” an initiative to dramatically accelerate public and private global clean energy innovation to address global climate change, provide affordable clean energy to consumers, including in the developing world, and create additional commercial opportunities in clean energy. 

Image: https://www.whitehouse.gov

According to the Small Business Administration, only about half of all new businesses will survive for five years. For those who do stick it out, dreams of getting rich quickly will be supplanted by the reality that sweat equity doesn’t translate to billions of dollars overnight. In fact, one study of 158,000 startups found that those businesses that did survive experienced plenty of growing pains as they became established.

Put this chart down for one that helps support that narrative that all millennials are losers that live in their parents' basement. 

Via Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk, we find that nearly 20% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 live at home. As a point of comparison, about 12% of women this age are living at home. 

It's unclear if these home-dwellers are living in the basement or not. 

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Financial technology — or fintech — is a boom area for investment at the moment, particularly in the UK.

The rise of cheap tech combined with smart people being laid off during the recession has led to a wave of startups trying to re-imagine everything from lending to wealth management, using technology to do things faster, better, and cheaper.

Antony Jenkins, the former CEO of Barclays, warned this week that financial services are heading for an "Uber"-style disruption at the hands of these leaner, meaner startups.

Like gasoline or carbohydrates, venture capital is the fuel that keeps the startup world humming.

2015 saw one of the most massive cash inflows to startups since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. For better or worse, the money has pushed the tech world into bubble territory, and fostered legions of unicorn companies now valued at $1 billion or more.

In 15 years as a venture capitalist, I’ve seen just about every market condition you can imagine. I started at Insight Venture Partners in 2000 at a time when the stock market was experiencing historic highs and tech companies were receiving massive private and public valuations. Capital markets were flush, startup burn rates were rampant, and the gold rush was on. Investors came out of every corner trying to get a piece of the pie.

Image: http://techcrunch.com

As the days get darker and colder in much of the northern hemisphere, it’s easy to indulge in gloom. For the next few months, you’ll be shivering. You’ll be battling foul weather. Thanks to daylight saving time there will be no chance to see the sun after work.

The gloom leads to a common question: What can I do to cope with the dark and cold?

If you truly want to be happy during winter, though, this is the wrong approach to the season. Changing your mindset can do more than distracting yourself from the weather.

Image: Photo: Flickr user Mark Robinson

People told me that I was making a reckless decision while leaving a settled job. And I never argued with them since that strong voice within me echoed really loud: “I will sail through this tough yet exciting journey of entrepreneurship.” And well I would say that’s not how this world functions. But the most important question is does it really matter to crazy entrepreneurs? No, it doesn’t when you sail through and yes, it does, when you don’t and your family and relatives do a chorus of ‘I told you so’.

Y Combinator president Sam Altman recently published a post arguing that much of what is plaguing startups these days, and causing some to raise eyebrows at valuations, is poor unit economics due to low margins.

What’s a low-margin business? Historically, you could argue that most tech-enabled businesses fall into this category — e-commerce, food delivery, vertical services, etc.

You may think your smart watch or activity tracker can help you keep tabs on your health, but don’t be shocked if your doctor is more skeptical.

Wearable producers such as Apple, Fitbit, and Pebble will ship more than 76 million of the devices by the end of the year, according to market research firm IDC. Some doctors and researchers, however, remain unimpressed, They question the value of the particular metrics tracked, as well as the validity of the deluge of data these gadgets produce.

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In The Outsiders, William Thorndike argues that the most essential skill for a manager is capital allocation. To prove his point, he profiles CEOs such as Henry Singleton of Teledyne and John Malone of TCI who, while not household names, achieved outsized returns by wisely deploying their firm’s resources.

No one wants to be the flavor of the month – except during that month.

That’s the danger for today’s healthcare startups and their leadership as they look to find the right investors and partners. Our prediction: Alternative investing paths such as venture philanthropy and corporate venture capital will become even more prominent than they are today (and that’s pretty big, considering the results of the survey Lake Whillans commissioned from MedCity News).